| Table of contents no. 3/2005 |
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| A phenomenon called mafia - Cosa Nostra |
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Answers by: Roberto CENTARO, Emanuele MACALUSO, Lino JANNUZZI, Alfio CARUSO, Francesco LA LICATA, Fabrizio FEO
“Cosa Nostra” represents the instrument used to identify and understand also other types of mafia. Its organizational model is the “litmus paper” which gives the mafia stamp to certain forms of illicit behaviour. Sensitivity, acquired over a long time, permits the comprehension at the social and legislative levels. The now consolidated and diffused knowledge of the phenomenon, permits us, thanks to the contribution of qualified experts in the field, to explore, with targeted interrogatives, some possible evolving ‘scenarios’ of a still very present reality. We do not wish to propose a ‘history’ of the Cosa Nostra, but want to try to explore the present and the future of it.
(Photo www.esercito.difesa.it) |
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| Essays and articles |
|  | In the 70’s, when the Red Brigades appeared on the Italian political scene, they tried to explain their revolutionary projects in documents which were defined by almost the entire mass media as ’raving’. This approach by journalists and political experts was not only wrong but was also an omen of a dangerous underestimation of the Red Brigades and of their capacity to influence certain areas of our society which were ready to follow rebellious shortcuts proposed by terrorism. The analysis which Prof. Marconi offers regarding the Red Brigades’ texts of those years, demonstrates that the Brigades’ political thought was not, in the least, unreal. The decision to attack the heart of the State with criminal instruments, such as kidnapping and murder, had a planning coherence quite the opposite of ‘raving’. The same analysis of the characters of the “Imperialist State of the Multinationals” can be considered anything but superficial, if it is true that it foresees certain situations following the problems deriving from globalization. By killing Aldo Moro, the Red Brigades not only committed a crime, but they managed to dangerously upset (and that is what they wanted) the basic equilibrium of the complex political, social and economic relations which were attempting to guide our country out of the internal and international tensions of those years. If the Red Brigades have been defeated, we owe it also to those who avoided superficial readings of the terrorist messages and organized serious, coherent political, social and operative solutions.
(photo ansa) | | | |
|  | Much has been said and written on the international connections of Italian terrorism, and particularly, of the Red Brigades. Here, we would like to present the results of an analysis elaborated by our Intelligence Service at the beginning of the 1980’s already de-classified, by the middle of the 1990’s, on the request of the Magistracy.The analysis, compiled from three different information channels, (information sources, foreign intelligence services and declarations from the first ‘reformed’ terrorists), has found significant confirmation in the testimonies given by some leaders of the Red Brigade organization during trial.
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|  | Two journalists, experts on Islamic questions, raise important questions on the conditions of the Moslem woman. Anna Barducci faces the theme in an historical key and suggests the wives of Mohammed as examples of autonomous and enterprising women, quite opposite to the stereotype accredited to the collective imagination. Farian Sabahi, on the contrary, concentrates on the current situation and finds in the Islamic feminist movement, with its peculiarities, not only an instrument to reconcile the Koran and the patriarchal customs, but also a means of accelerating the process of social and cultural integration with the West. Two different analyses, therefore, poised between the past and the present, both sharing, though, the awareness of the centrality of the female figure also for the future of the Islamic world.(photo ansa) | | | |
|  | The diffusion of the informatics multimedia systems and of Internet, in particular, has produced a real revolution in the traditional schemes of social communications, increasing, in an exponential way, its potentiality. The web, for its characteristics of openness, and freedom from territorial conditions, permits access to an almost unlimited audience, at ridiculously low costs, guaranteeing an ample margin of privacy and practically non-existent personal exposure risks. It is a ‘scenario’ in continuous and rapid evolution, which has opened important prospects and development opportunities, but lends itself, like all instruments marked to amplify and guarantee the maximum liberty of expression and movement, to ‘illicit’ or ‘inopportune’ utilization. The web has become the principal instrument of diffusion and propagation of the ‘antagonistic message’ when it is not, actually, ‘subversive’. In place of the old party section or of the political community where actions where decided, today, it is in the web where battle slogans are circulated, where subversive campaigns are planned, where advice is given on how to legally defend oneself in case of arrest or instructions are made available on how to make explosive devices.
(Photo www.inventati.org) | | | |
|  | We have already dedicated various articles to the theme of the fight against international terrorism, beginnig with a detailed study on privacy and security, followed by the legislative strategy adopted by the United States, to the latest contribution from Stefano Dambruoso on the judicial instruments considered most suitable for an adequate response to this threat of international terrorism.This present article on the same problem is handled with a prevalently philosophical-political approach, realizing that the State-Nation concept has been surpassed and therefore, the security problems cannot be territorially circumscribed. It is hoped that a solution centred on the globalization of the contrasting politics and the Intelligence Activities can be found. | | | |
|  | What was the ‘Reconquista’? What is the significance to be attributed to this term in the Spanish historical context? The question is very controversial indeed. The Reconquista has been seen and described in tones of true epic poetry, as if it had been a great national endeavour directed towards the ousting of the Mohammedan invaders. In this long and relentless war, the Christian People ‘fought until the eventual expulsion of the enemies of Christianity was finally obtained’ – as if it had been a crusade on Spanish territories. It has also been maintained that, during the course of this period, a true and genuine fusion of the three cultures had been achieved. Something which did not impeded, however, the diffusion of religious tensions, hatred and distrust among the different groups. It should not seem strange to us that these kinds of romanticized manifestations are based on historic facts, when you consider the inadequacy of means and lack of scientific rigor, which, until around the middle of the 20th century, had characterized the historiography; even less can we be surprised over such romanticized versions, if we consider how much romanticism prevailed in the work of historical construction in Spain in the 18th and 19th centuries, thanks to the work of people like Washington Irving, for example, a phenomenon that has contributed much in creating a romantic image of the history of Spain.
(Photo www.educared.net) | | | |
|  | Tabligh Eddawa is a world-wide itinerant missionary network, devoted to the door-to-door diffusion of the Islamic faith considered to be the more authentic for the conversion of non-believers or the ‘re-conversion’ of ‘bad’ Moslems, above all, among the emigrated population in the West. This movement, hostile to any political perspective of a revolutionary kind, assumes rather more, the character of a sect, with the continual brain washing of its members, regarding the necessity of adopting a rigorous self discipline and a code of prayer useful to preserve the Islamic identity from non- Islamic temptations. Such extreme rigour, however, could cause, in the weaker subjects, a negative attitude towards any kind of integration with the West and offer its ‘flank’ to speculations by Islamic extremist groups interested in recruiting’ cannon fodder’ for the Qaeda front, as demonstrated, among others, in the story of Johnny “the Taliban” or that of Richard Reid. This article intends to analyse this problem without prejudice.(Photo www.altmuslim.com) | | | |
|  | How can a terrorist operation like that of the 11th of September, be financed? Which are the channels used by Bin Laden’s ‘multinational’ of terror to subsidize the peripheral offices (the cells), which guarantee the supply of (arms, explosives, counterfeited documents) and maintain the high level of specialization of its members (terrorist training)? The answers furnished in this article might hold some surprises.
(Photo www.shearman.com/enterprise/bcci) | | | |
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| Surveys |
ALL-ITALIAN STORIES  | |  | The Review proposes a reading in a Sicilian ‘mafioso’ context, of a fantasized story in which the personal experiences of a ‘reformed mafioso’, which cover the story of ‘Cosa Nostra’ with all its hopes and contradictions, are compared with those of the official who arrested him; a man trained in special investigations, which were experimented in the struggle against terrorism and which, now, are being adapted to the fight against the Mafia. Theirs is a silent meeting. It is the “glance”, the true subject of the story, which is not only mutual observation, but is, in fact, a “recognizing of themselves” on the common horizon of an intimate Sicily, a twisted branch which flowers in the depths of the spirit and follows with silent beauty the wish to rise above the heavens in a timeless, Sicilian Eden.
The silence is full of significance.
In this “glance” the protagonists stand nude before each other, reaching out far beyond their own experiences and the busy ‘scenario’ of a ‘bored’, but nevertheless, watchful Palermo. The ‘reformed mafioso’ is the eye on his world of yesterday, observed with painful disenchantment – and yet the pragmatism of the glance ties in with the complex emotions of an anti-mafia gripped by mourning, idealistic momentum and poisonous contradictions. An invisible intricate web is spun over the story, hope of a more coherent anti-mafia resistance, memories of men who devoted their lives to a dream. A free Sicily.
(Photo digilander.libero.it//immagini) | | | |
| FROM THE ARCHIVES TO HISTORY | |  | The history of “cosa nostra” has been romanticized and immortalized in the United States in film masterpieces such as the saga of the “Godfather” by Francis Ford Coppola or “The Untouchables” by Brian De Palma. In these days, the Italian television is broadcasting a publicity spot for a famous car make which parodies one of America’s most successful television series of all time; the one dedicated to the new Italo- American mafia, the “Soprano” family. However, the article which we propose in this edition, is not the product of a clever Hollywood screen-writer, but is documented by FBI analysts who, in 1958, dedicated a voluminous monograph to the history of the mafia in Italy and in the United States. The extract we have chosen to publish from this document deals with that part relative to the “relocation” of the mafia to the United States at the end of the 1800’s and to their criminal activities during the first quarter of the 1900’s. The crimes of “The Black Hand” (Mano Nera), the murder of Joe Petrosino, the ascent of Al Capone and the Saint Valentine’s Day slaughter are some of the subjects dealt with by the American analysts, reconstructing the principal evolutionary stages of the overseas mafia clans. It recounts violent, cruel and bloody stories, told, however, in the dry and pragmatic style of ‘unshockable’ people who are used to everything; even the bakers who use the shop ovens to dispose of the bodies of their victims. The document also reports little-known historical incidents, like the lynching of eleven Italians accused of the murder of the New Orleans Chief of Police in 1891, which lead to a brief interruption in diplomatic relations between Italy and the United States. It is clear, from the analysis, that during the first years of activity in Kansas City, New York and Chicago, the mafia clans operated mainly within the Italian communities where their intimidation methods were known and feared. With great intellectual honesty, the “federals” admit that it was, the very fact of ‘prohibition’ which offered the mafia an extraordinary launching board for expansion in other areas, creating the premise for its modernization. | | | |
| BOOK REVIEW | | | The allied secret services and the Italian Campaign return to great topical interest with the recent publication of two books: “Operation Sunrise” and “The Other Resistance”. The first is an updated version, with new important documents, of the 1979 publication on the negotiations for the surrender of the German troops in Italy.
The second book is part of the memoires of the OSS Agent, Peter Tompkins. In both of the books emerge the contradictions, the internal conflicts and the unscrupulous ways of the American OSS, as well as of the British SOE, bent on concluding the Italian Campaign at the lowest possible cost, so as to go on to face the cold war…… | | | |
| CHRONOLOGY OF TERRORISM | | | It is understood that an act of terrorism is a violent action, politically motivated, intended to strike objectives of symbolic value and destined also to intimidate a ‘targeted audience’ socially or politically connected to the primary objective.
The act of terrorism, unlike that of ‘political violence’ (carried out by individuals or groups acting ‘in the open’)and that of the ‘guerrilla ’(carried out with instruments and paramilitary logistics) is usually performed by individuals or groups who operate in secrecy or undercover, or in any event, under disguised conditions within the threatened societies”. | | | |
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| BI-ANNUAL REPORT
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By the CESIS General Secretariat |
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