They seemed to be speaking for a nation that has at last grown sick of living with organized crime. In Milan, 40,000 university students demonstrated last week against a political system that they blame for the mob’s continuing control of government and business. The system, they shouted, was made up of “idiots, cowards and murderers.” Meanwhile, in Rome, the nation’s Parliament, galvanized into action by the assassination and its aftermath, elected a new president of the republic-something it had been unable to accomplish during 10 days of political horse trading. Leaders from every political party were suddenly denouncing the Sicilian Mafia and its sister societies, saying that the mob’s brazen thuggery-it routinely levies a “tax” called a pizzo on legitimate business people-threatens the stability and stature of their otherwise progressive nation.
Falcone’s murder only added fuel to a growing anti-Mafia movement. In recent months Italians have risked a departure from omerta, the traditional code of silence inspired by an old Sicilian proverb: “He who is blind, deaf and dumb will live 100 years in peace.” And the myth that the Mafia has a benevolent side–helping to bring order and discipline to the economy-is all but dead; the evidence to the contrary is just too overwhelming. Anti-Mafia activists have staged marches in mob-controlled neighborhoods of Palermo; labor-union leaders have publicly denounced organized crime, and even the Roman Catholic Church– long accused of being soft on gangsterism and of accepting donations from mob-controlled politicians–has become involved in the battle. In April a new and staunchly anti-Mafia political party, La Rete (The Network), captured nearly 2 percent of the national vote in the parliamentary elections. Parliament has approved a government fund to reimburse shopkeepers whose stores are damaged or destroyed in Mafia attacks. “Basta,” Italians finally seem to be saying. Enough.
What gave the anti-Mafia movement its initial boost was the murder nine months ago of Libero Grassi, a Palermo textile manufacturer who was shot for refusing to pay the pizzo. Grassi believed that if everyone stood up and publicly refused to cooperate with the Mafia, justice would triumph. But few stood up with him, and he was killed. The slaying inspired small businessmen and women throughout Italy to form anti-extortion associations. “Grassi’s death was probably meant to intimidate people,” says Gabriella Sicuro, who joined such a group after a warehouse rented by her family was nearly gutted by arson. “Instead, it made people see that we’ve really hit bottom.”
Some observers say that the Mafia, in effect, ruined a good thing by becoming increasingly amoral and outrageous. Years ago there was some honor among thieves: mobsters prided themselves on respecting women, children and the church-and the public adopted a rather romantic view of the criminals who flourished among them. Today, however, anything goes. The Mafia oversees the drug trade, intimidates clergymen–and has been known to rape and kill female relatives of its enemies. A young Neapolitan woman alleges that in March three men sexually assaulted and disfigured her in front of her young children. The purported reason: one of her relatives, police say, belonged to a rival clan. The Mafia’s numerous henchmen, some recruited at the age of 10, have given Italy the highest murder rate in the European Community. They were responsible for 718 killings last year alone.
The Mafia’s stranglehold on Italy’s political system makes all the rest of its crimes possible. By some estimates the mob has gained control over many hundreds of elected officials and other political figures; it gets out the vote and then threatens to expose its own involvement in their careers. With the law looking the other way, the Mafia and its lesser-known imitators, the Neapolitan Camorra and the Calabrian ‘Ndrangheta, can go about their numerous businesses-construction seams, drugs, extortion, robberies, illegal betting, fraud and contraband-with impunity. According to most estimates, the Italian Mafia probably earned enough last year to cover Italy’s 1991 $125 billion national deficit.
Lately the organization that Italians call La Piovra (the Octopus) has been stretching its tentacles even further. The Sicilian Mafia has long had ties with North and South American crime families in the international drug market. Now it is boldly setting up operations-black marketing, contraband, arms trafficking, money laundering and narcotics-in northern Europe, Turkey and the former Soviet bloc. “The Mafia has no borders,” says Italian sociologist Pino Arlacchi, an expert on the Mafia. “They’re way ahead of us.”
Falcone’s assassination provides an example of how arrogant the Mafia has grown with its new power. The prosecutor and his family were granted elaborate security protection by the government. Falcone and his wife arrived in Palermo in an unmarked secret-service plane and left the airport with police escort cars ahead of and behind them. The attack was carried out with cool precision and efficiency. The explosives that killed the magistrate had been planted in a storm drain under the road and surrounded with mattresses to increase the upward force of the blast. A remote-control device was used to ignite the TNT-a blast so powerful it lifted the lead car of the convoy into an olive grove 200 meters away. Falcone died on his way to the hospital; his wife, five hours later.
By killing Falcone, the Mafia seemed to be making a statement about being willing and able to eliminate anyone who stood in its way. The 53-year-old magistrate first came to prominence in 1982, when he was appointed to head an anti-Mafia task force charged with investigating the murder of Gen. Carlo Alberto dalla Chiesa, the Palermo prefect. In that capacity, he dug up damning testimony from suspected mafiosi who were offered immunity in return for their cooperation. His efforts helped the government stage a highly publicized 1986 “maxi-trial” of the Italian Mafia in a specially built $19 million courthouse. It succeeded in sentencing 338 alleged mobsters-including Michele Greco, the reputed godfather of the Sicilian Mafia-to a combined total of 2,700 years in prison.
The trial turned Falcone into a national hero. But much of what he accomplished there has been undone. Many of those convicted have since managed to have their sentences shortened or their convictions overturned. Today only 50 are still behind bars. Meanwhile, Falcone’s popularity bred professional jealousy. In 1990 he was passed over for the job of chief prosecutor in Palermo. Last year he moved to Rome to take a senior post at the Justice Ministry.
At the time of his death Falcone was considered the leading candidate for the top job at the Anti-Mafia Investigation Department (known by its Italian acronym DIA), which was set up last year by the central government. Patterned partly after the American FBI, the DIA is designed to combine Italy’s secret services, police units and even army detachments into a single efficient force against organized crime. It has already produced some promising initial results. The agency’s creation follows in the steps of grass-roots anti-Mafia organizations that are already flourishing from Palermo to Naples to Milan. Toll-free antiracket hot lines have been set up all over Italy, and they’re not going unused. Politicians took note when 30 percent of respondents in a recent poll said they would favor the death penalty for people convicted of serious Mafia crimes-a significant statement in a country that dropped capital punishment 45 years ago.
The Catholic Church’s change of attitude seems even more striking. While the church has always officially condemned Mafia violence, it hasn’t spoken out against collusion between politicians and mobsters until relatively recently. “Ten years ago no one dared talk about the Mafia,” says the Rev. Paolo Turturro, whose parish is in the heart of Palermo’s crumbling Borgo Vecchio quarter. “Times are changing.” Yes, but for both better and worse. Not long ago, Father Turturro burned drug paraphernalia and what he said was heroin in a noisy public bonfire designed to intimidate the local dealers. Just before that he had received an anonymous phone call from someone saying, “Lay off or we’ll kill you.” The priest says he doesn’t intend to quit, though. “People in the neighborhood,” he says, “are no longer afraid.”
Progress will ultimately come down to many individual acts of courage in the tradition of Grassi and Falcone. The Neapolitan woman who says she was raped by the three men surprised many people when she chose to identify her alleged assailants and press charges. A few years ago such boldness, especially on the part of a woman, would be unheard of. (The alleged attackers are now awaiting trial.) And Sicuro just said no when the Mafia assessed her family’s machine-tool business a pizzo of $166,000. The attempt to torch the warehouse failed, and threats against her life weren’t carried out-but she did find that many people in her hometown of Catania, Sicily’s second largest city, were afraid to associate with her after she took a stand. They feared for their own lives, she says, even more so since Sicuro joined the anti-Mafia merchants’ organization, which provides moral support and carries insurance for the members’ shops and factories. But Sicuro says she isn’t worried: “They can’t kill us all if we stick together and say, ‘No, we’ve got to act’.” Others have said the same thing and have been cut down in their tracks. But with each murder, the Mafia seems to hasten its own destruction.
