FBIS3-58477
"drweu010_j_94006"
FBIS-WEU-94-010
Document Type:Daily Report
14 Jan 1994
ITALY & VATICAN CITY
Fight Against Mafia Continues
94ES0216A Milan PANORAMA in Italian 7 Jan 94 pp 28-29
94ES0216A
Milan PANORAMA
Language: Italian
Article Type:CSO
[Interview with Anti-Mafia Commission President Luciano
Violante by Liana Milella; place and date not given: "The Mafia
May Strike Near Election Time."]
[Text] Organized Crime: The president of the
Anti-Mafia Commission speaks out. During 1993, there have been
some great successes in the war against Cosa Nostra, but the
next few months could hold some explosive surprises in store for
us.
One hundred sixty-one Mafia gangs under investigation, with
a
total of 2,813 members of Cosa Nostra, the Camorra, and the
'ndrangheta. The Sacred United Crown under observation; 580
informers; 236 major fugitives arrested, including Toto Riina,
the head of Cosa Nostra, and his deputy, Nitto Santapaola;
Rosetta Cutolo and Umberto Ammaturo from the Camorra; and
Pasquale Condello and Antonino Imerti, 'ndrangheta bosses. The
people who carried out the Capaci [Judge Falcone] massacre were
arrested, and there is a good chance that arrests will also be
made in connection with the Via D'Amelio [Judge Borsellino]
attack. In 1993, the war against crime reached levels never
before seen in Italy.The center of analysis and impetus was the
Anti-Mafia Parliamentary Commission. Together with the
commission's president, Luciano Violante, PANORAMA has
established what has been done and what remains to be done.
[Milella] Have we reached a Nuremburg for Cosa Nostra?
[Violante] Nuremburg came after the military defeat and
followed the political sanctioning of that defeat. Today, we are
only at the landing of the Allies in Normandy. We are at the
point where the state is beginning to invade the territories
dominated by the Mafia. The military victory may be near, but
that by itself is not enough. The financial and social fronts
must still be addressed. In 1993, Cosa Nostra killed the parish
priest of Brancaccio, Don Pino Puglisi. It was not a
neighborhood murder, rather the first attack against a man who
had chosen to work with the people against the Mafia.
[Milella] At the political crimes trial, Riina chose not to
speak in front of Tommaso Buscetta. Is it the beginning of the
end for the Mafia?
[Violante] All the organizations have suffered severe blows.
But Cosa Nostra's trafficking continues, and the Camorra and the
'ndrangheta are still underestimated. The 'ndrangheta is a very,
very dangerous organization because of its connections with
subversive elements on the right and the corrupt Masonic lodges.
The Camorra is dangerous because of its control over the
territory. In Sicily, there are some free zones, but not in
Campania. You have not won if you defeat only Cosa Nostra. We
risk winning in Sicily and losing in the rest of Italy.
[Milella] What effect have the arrests of the big bosses and
all the informers had?
[Violante] We have won many battles, but not the war. In the
end we will win that, too, but we will have to pay a different
price. Many more on our side will be killed. We have to isolate
the Mafia. The public has often lived with this phenomenon: the
doctors who fake certificates as favors; shop owners who launder
dirty money; the lawyers who act as counselors. All this must
stop. And, to a certain degree, it already is stopping.
[Milella] There are allegedly more shocking strikes being
prepared. What does the Mafia hope to obtain? Can it be stopped?
[Violante] Until now, we have had two types of attacks. One
kind is extermination, the elimination of a single enemy, like
the judges Gaetano Costa and Rocco Chinnici. The other kind is
one of dialogue: the bombs in the spring and summer protesting
the harsh prison conditions resulting from the modifications
made in July 1992 to Article 41bis of the prison regulations. We
have not yet had strikes aimed at obstructing, which have the
same function as the gunfire of a patrol in protecting behind
the front lines in earning time. In the future, this is the kind
we will have to deal with.
[Milella] Then why are they targeting individuals like you,
like prosecutor Giancarlo Caselli and the head of DIA, Gianni De
Gennaro?
[Violante] The fact that there are so many objectives proves
my theory. The murders of Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino,
just two months apart, already signaled the beginning of this
strategy. It is project of extermination targeting all the
strong points.
[Milella] Will the state have the strength to stand up to
it?
[Violante] Many massacres have already been avoided. Many
people are alive thanks to measures of prevention. Making an
attack more difficult is already a step ahead, as is arresting
the suspected perpetrators.
[Milella] After the bombings of Rome, Florence, and Milan,
there was talk of Mafia terrorism, of an alliance between the
Mafia, Masons, extremists on the right, and government secret
agents who have turned traitors. Is this still a valid theory?
[Violante] The Mafia does not act alone. The criminal
elements from Sicily, Campania, and Calabria have always had
ties with the extremists on the right. It happened in the past
with the massacre of train 904. Today, we have a former member
of the New Order movement and of the Mafia, Pietro Rampulla,
arrested for the Capaci ambush. Rosario Cattafi from Messina is
involved in the traffic of arms. There is Domenico Papalia, a
'ndrangheta boss who, thanks to a unique appeal, was able to
have his murder trial overturned. Papalia was the first name
mentioned by Antonino Gioe, the Mafioso who killed himself in
prison.
[Milella] That alliance was not just a theoretical
assumption?
[Violante] There exists a system of subversive forces, each
with its own history and its own goals, which sometimes happen
to act together. Just think of the corrupt Masonic lodges that
were key elements in the relationships. Members of the
Calabrian, Sicilian, Mafias, etc., belong to the same lodge.
What we are seeing is the Mafia making use of the Masonic system.
[Milella] In 1993, political men who were thought to be
untouchable, like Giulio Andreotti and Antonio Gava, found
themselves under investigation. What is changing in the
relationship between the Mafia and politics? Who are the Mafia's
new contacts?
[Violante] I do not know if Senator Andreotti and Senator
Gava are criminally responsible. Very likely, the top levels of
the Mafia leadership are now waiting to see what will happen. If
a separatist political proposition--under whatever name or
guise--were to go ahead, it would be an incredible opportunity
for them. The Mafia, which makes investments in its
relationships with politics, is now waiting to see. It could be
that it is waiting to ally itself with the future winner.
Everyone must keep their eyes open.
[Milella] Is the Mafias also trying to sabatoge the
investigations by influencing the informers?
[Violante] There could be a strategy of infiltration aimed
for the most part, not at getting false testimony or stopping
the trials, but at finding out where the former Mafiosi are
being held, how they are being guarded, and what kind of control
there is of their family members, so they can kill them. It is a
question of predominance: They have to show that they are
stronger than we are. As for the informers, it is about time a
code of professional ethics were passed for the magistrates,
which would establish the regulations of the relationships with
the state's witnesses and would determine the scheduling and
format of the confessions.
[Milella] Elections are approaching. Should we be expecting
demonstrations like the bombings in May and July?
[Violante] Nothing can be excluded by anyone. The 5 April
1992 elections were preceded by the assassination of Salvo Lima
and followed by the massacres of Capaci and Via D'Amelio. It is
likely that the strikes of obstruction will take place before
Parliament is dissolved and after the elections, like in 1992.
We have the means to prevent the attacks, but some cannot be
avoided.
[Box, p 29]
Embargo
"We are still lagging behind in the hunt for Mafia money. A
meaningful comparison would be to say that today on the
financial front in the fight against crime we find ourselves in
the same situation in which we were at the end of the 1970's
with regard to the criminal front." In 1994, Luciano Violante's
principle objective and the one on which he will be
concentrating all his energies, is the battle to stop the dirty
money of the Cosa Nostra and the other criminal organizations.
The president of the Anti-Mafia Commission explains: "Back
then, we followed the individual crimes committed by the Mafia,
and we did not attack the organization as such. The big
difference with judges like Rocco Chinnici, Gaetano Costa,
Giovanni Falcone, and Paolo Borsellino was precisely that they
went from concentrating on the individual responsibilities for
the murders to attacking the Mafia organization in and of itself
as a crime in order to then discover the ones who were really
guilty of the assassinations. On the financial front, this
change has not yet taken place. Today, we are following the
individual cases of money laundering--with positive results
statistically--but we are not yet in a position to attack the
complex organization of money laundering. The result is that
single channels of money laundering are discovered while all the
rest continues."
What is Violante's proposal? "There should be at least one
magistrate in each district attorney general's office to handle
Mafia finances. We also need to review the laws controlling
criminal assets, because the present ones are totally
inadequate. Only 7 percent of the assets seized are confiscated
and 11 percent are given back. All the rest remains blocked.
Then we need to periodically hold joint meetings of the special
police forces (DIA [Anti-Mafia Investigative Directorate], ROS
[Special Operations Section], SCO [Central Operations Service],
and GICO [Organized Crime Investigative Group]) and the ordinary
police, who handle financial matters--but without getting into
our heads the idea that we need another specialized
organization. Finally, international collaboration is
indispensable, because a problem like money laundering cannot be
confronted on the level of a single country. In the future, some
forms of embargo will have to be considered for countries and
banks that welcome Mafia funds."