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."