FBIS3-38466 "drweu023_j_94007"
FBIS-WEU-94-023 Document Type:Daily Report 3 Feb 1994
ITALY & Vatican City

Ciampi Presents Report on Secret Service

BR0202142994 Rome LA REPUBBLICA in Italian 1 Feb 94 p 12 BR0202142994 Rome LA REPUBBLICA Language: Italian Article Type:BFN [Umberto Rosso report: "Alarm Over Subversion; Ciampi: `Now There Are Mercenaries Too'"] [Text] Rome -- A war against the secret organizations, the subversive structures threatening the institutions. This is point number one on the report that [Prime Minister] Ciampi submitted to parliament yesterday: The semi-annual report on the secret services, which reviews the security situation through the second half of last year, sounds another alarm over destabilizing activity. Within this disturbing scenario there is also emerging "another subversive phenomenon, not yet well-defined." In this Italy racked by conspiracies, "mercenary elements" and people "prepared to engage in violent initiatives -- probably in the service of secret instigators -- are emerging." The soldiers of fortune sent in to mount the extraordinary attack on the RAI [Italian State Broadcasting Company] building at Saxa Rubra made the headlines. The threat from mercenaries now seems to be more serious than on that occasion. The prime minister also denied the reports of [League Secretary] Bossi's home being bugged, of an espionage operation that the League claims Sismi carried out against the League. [League lower house floor leader] Maroni yesterday reiterated his suspicions ("It was confirmed to me by a couple of people who said they were former agents for the service and have evidence") and asked Ciampi and [Interior Minister] Mancino for a "political reply" within 24 hours. The government note states that the prime minister received from the security service chiefs "an assurance that they have never organized infiltration and interception activities or unconstitutional activities" with respect to the political parties. It stresses that any abuses would entail "the immediate dismissal of the persons concerned." With regard to the report on secret service activities, which has also focused on the Mafia, the activities of left-wing and right-wing extremists, and channels of illegal immigration, which also serve for movements of weapons, drugs, and dangerous individuals, a request has been made to include the Mafia's infiltration of the major financial circles on the agenda for the G-7 summit to be held in Naples. But above all the government reaffirmed that activity to counter "any and every clandestine organization" is "still relevant and a priority." And there are structures "even outside the familiar ideological and criminal frameworks" that are aiming to "pursue, by means of various kinds of action (acts of aggression, intimidation, misinformation, and so forth) a strategy to subvert the institutions, undermine the democratic dialectic, and in any case influence the process of the country's growth and evolution." In particular, the report states that "it is impossible not to take account of the possibility of the emerging links" between organized crime and these unspecified subversive organizations. On the "external" front, attention is being focused on the former Yugoslavia: A number of nuclear reactors are very much at risk, "having been identified by the warring factions as potential targets for terrorist attacks." The government's report to parliament stresses that organized crime in Italy "has become all the more dangerous inasmuch as it has shown itself capable of exploiting for its own ends even situations outside the national context, such as those of the eastern European countries, where conditions have made it relatively easy to acquire explosives and logistical support." In Italy the strategy of terror can be traced through the attacks in Rome and Milan, and apart from the car bombs "there has been a series of mysterious events, some characterized by explicit violence, whose common denominator -- leaving aside the evidence currently being examined -- has proved to be a strategy designed to undermine the credibility of the state and its resilience. These events have caused disorientation and perhaps alarm, which have sometimes resulted in negative repercussions on the country's international image": attacks and poisonings, bloodshed and suspicion, gunmen and palace conspiracies. With regard to the danger of links between subversive phenomena and large-scale crime, the report talks in terms of "a web of mysterious vested interests." A key role in this web is assigned to the Mafia. The Mafia has resolutely opted for the terrorist path, and since the Capaci and via D'Amelio atrocities the strategy has acquired a "destabilizing character." The government report states that within the Mafia "the conceptual and organizational center could prove to be separate from the operational nucleus and composed of elements of differing extractions." In other words, we are back to the web, the interconnections, the collusion between various different criminal organizations for subversive ends. As for the activities of the far left, the report mentions "a special commitment to the use of on-line resources, together with other groups abroad, as part of a broad plan designed to identify common objectives." The subversive right "still retains its familiar extremely dangerous character, by virtue of the frequently stated possibility of its reestablishing itself at the clandestine level." However, the report states, a renewal is under way within Sisde, entailing a "considerable reduction of personnel," as envisaged by the reform. Ciampi wishes to leave the Chigi Palace [prime minister's residence] having "cleaned up" the secret services, since "the government's task and my own personal task have come to an end." The prime minister will not be running for reelection. He also denied another rumor, that of the assignment of an official role to Fininvest: "Nobody in the government has ever considered such a step or has ever suggested it. Ask the newspapers how they acquired such information."