Lettera aperta di Roberto Saviano dal Corriere. Si commenta da sola.
I RESPONSABILI hanno dei nomi. Hanno dei volti. Hanno persino un'anima. O forse no. Giuseppe Setola, Alessandro Cirillo, Oreste Spagnuolo, Giovanni Letizia, Emilio di Caterino, Pietro Vargas stanno portando avanti una strategia militare violentissima. Sono autorizzati dal boss latitante Michele Zagaria e si nascondono intorno a Lago Patria. Tra di loro si sentiranno combattenti solitari, guerrieri che cercano di farla pagare a tutti, ultimi vendicatori di una delle più sventurate e feroci terre d'Europa. Se la racconteranno così.
Ma Giuseppe Setola, Alessandro Cirillo, Oreste Spagnuolo, Giovanni Letizia, Emilio di Caterino e Pietro Vargas sono vigliacchi, in realtà: assassini senza alcun tipo di abilità military. To kill indiscriminately empty cartridge for loading to strafanno of cocaine and swell of Fernet Branca and vodka. They shot unarmed people, educated or taken suddenly from behind. They never compared with other armed men. Faced with this tremendous, and yet you feel strong and safe by killing unarmed, often elderly or young children. Deceiving them and taking them behind.
And I wonder, in your land, our land are now many months that a handful of killer hovers above undisturbed massacring innocent people. Five, six, always the same. How is it possible? I wonder, but this land as we see, as it represents se stessa, come si immagina? Come ve la immaginate voi la vostra terra, il vostro paese? Come vi sentite quando andate al lavoro, passeggiate, fate l'amore? Vi ponete il problema, o vi basta dire, "così è sempre stato e sempre sarà così"?
Davvero vi basta credere che nulla di ciò che accade dipende dal vostro impegno o dalla vostra indignazione? Che in fondo tutti hanno di che campare e quindi tanto vale vivere la propria vita quotidiana e nient'altro. Vi bastano queste risposte per farvi andare avanti? Vi basta dire "non faccio niente di male, sono una persona onesta" per farvi sentire innocenti? Lasciarvi passare le notizie sulla pelle e sull'anima. Tanto è sempre was so or not? Or delegate to associations, church activists, journalists and others to denounce makes you worry? A calm that makes you go to bed happy, but maybe not in peace? There really is enough?
This focus group has killed mostly innocent. In any other country in the freedom of action of such a bunch of murderers would have generated debates and political battles, reflections. But here it is only crimes inherent to an area considered one of the provinces of Italy asshole. And then the investigators, police officers and police, the four reporters who follow the events, they are alone. Even those in the rest of the country reads a newspaper knows that these killers are always using the same strategy: pretend to be policemen. They have a flashing blade, or the DIA said they had to do a check of documents. Employing a two-penny trick to kill more easily. And they live like animals: from buffalo farms, suburban homes, garage.
They killed sixteen people. The massacre began on May 2 at about six o'clock in the morning in a buffalo farm gate to Arnold. Kill the father of Domenico Bidognetti sorry, cousin and former loyalist
Cicciotto and 'midnight. Umberto Bidognetti was 69 years old and in general was also accompanied by the son of Mimi, who just that morning he could not pull himself out of bed to help his grandfather. On May 15, killing at Green Bay, a hamlet of Castel Volturno, the sixty-five Domenico Noviello, owner of a driving school. Domenico Noviello was opposed to the racket eight years earlier. He had been under guard, but then the protection cycle was over. He could not be targeted, not expecting this. The discharge on 20 shots while his Panda is going to make a stop at the bar before opening the driving school. His execution was also a message to the police that he was to celebrate his own festival in Casal di Principe, three days later, and even more of a clear statement: it can go almost a decade but do not forget the Casalesi.
Before that, May 13, with a fire destroyed the mattress factory of Peter Russell in Santa Maria Capua Vetere. It is the only one of their targets to have an escort. Why was the only one with Tano Grasso, tried to organize a united front against the racket on the ground Casale. Then, on May 30, to strike the belly Villaricca Francesca Carrino, a girl, twenty-five year-old nephew of Anna Carrino, the former wife of Francesco Bidognetti, sorry. He was at home with his mother and grandmother, but she had been to open the door to the killer posing as agents from the DIA.
not pass even a day in Casal di Principe, and after lunch is to go to the "Roxy bar", kill Michele Orsi, a businessman waste close to the clan who was arrested the year before, had begun to cooperate with the judiciary revealing the intrigues waste-political mafia. It is a murder that makes excellent stir, raise controversies, raise your voice does to representatives of the State. But it does not stop the killer.
July 11, killing at Lido "The Flourishing" of Varcaturo Raffaele Granata, 70, manager of the bathhouse and the mayor's father of Calverley. He also pays for the first year have not yielded to the will of the clan. On August 4 massacre in Castel Volturno Ziber Dani Kazan and Arthur were sitting on the terrace of the "Bar Kuban" and probably Ramis Doda August 21, twenty-five years before the "Freedom Bar" San Marcellino. The victims were Albanians who rounded up the shop, but were allowed to stay and work on construction sites as masons and painters.
Then on Aug. 18 opened fire indiscriminately against the house of Teddy Egonwman, president of Nigerians in Campania, which has been fighting for years against the prostitution of his countrymen, seriously wounding him, his wife Alice and three other friends. They return to San Marcellino
September 12 to kill and Ernesto Antonio Ciardullo Fabozzi, killed while they were doing maintenance on truck transport firm which was the first holder. Although he had not obeyed, and those who stood by was killed because he witnessed.
Finally, on September 18, the first jig Celiento Antonio, owner of an amusement arcade in Green Bay, and a quarter of an hour after opening a fire of 130 rounds of Kalashnikov guns and against the Africans gathered in front of the workshop and "Ob Ob Exotic Fashion in Castel Volturno. Die Samuel Kwaku, 26, and Alaj Ababa, Togo, Christopher Adams Geemes and Alex, 28, Liberians, Kwame Julius Francis, 31, and Eric Yeboah, 25, Ghanaian, and is hospitalized with serious injuries Ayimbora Joseph, 34, also from Ghana. Only one or perhaps two of them had to do with drugs, others were there by chance, worked hard on building sites or where it happened, and also in tailoring.
Sixteen victims in less than six months. Any democratic country with such a situation would have faltered. Here, despite everything, he's not even mentioned. Neither was aware from Rome on this trail of blood and terror of this, who does not speak Arabic, which has five-pointed stars, but controls and rules without enforcement.
They kill anyone who opposes. They kill anyone who happens under fire, without regard for anyone. The list of dead could be longer, much longer. And for all these months, no one informed the public that turned this "fishing boat fire." Mediterranean fish, like the boats that go out to fish in the high seas. No one has revealed the names until they have made slaughter in Castel Volturno. But
are always the same, always use the same weapons, even if they try to adjust them to mislead the scientific, a sign that they have few available. Do not come in contact with families, are strictly between them. Each tanto qualcuno li intravede nei bar di qualche paesone, dove si fermano per riempirsi d'alcol. E da sei mesi nessuno riesce ad acciuffarli.
Castel Volturno, territorio dove è avvenuta la maggior parte dei delitti, non è un luogo qualsiasi. Non è un quartiere degradato, un ghetto per reietti e sfruttati come se ne possono trovare anche altrove, anche se ormai certe sue zone somigliano più alle hometown dell'Africa che al luogo di turismo balneare per il quale erano state costruite le sue villette. Castel Volturno è il luogo dove i Coppola edificarono la più grande cittadella abusiva del mondo, il celebre Villaggio Coppola.
Ottocentosessantatremila area occupied with concrete. Who illegally took the place of one of the largest pine forests in the Mediterranean Sea. Abuse the hospital, the police station abusive, illegal items. All abusive. We went to live the families of the NATO soldiers. When they left, the area fell more than total abandonment and became a fief by Francesco Bidognetti all at the same time the territory of the Nigerian mafia.
The Nigerians have a powerful Mafia with whom the defendant to Casalesi, their country has become a hub in the international trafficking of cocaine and Nigerian organizations are powerful, able to invest primarily in money transfer, the points through which all the world's immigrants send money home. Through these, the Nigerian money and control people. Castel Volturno African direct cocaine transit, especially in England. The congestion charges so that the clan requires not only the lace on the retail store, but agreements on a sort of joint venture. Now, however, Nigerians are powerful, powerful. So is the Albanian mafia, by which the Casalesi are in business.
And the clan is gaping, fear of not being recognized as one who commands the first and last in the area. And here are creeping in the indentations of men fishing boat. Albanians kill small fish such as demonstration projects, Africans are killing - and among these none is from Nigeria - strike the last links of the chain of ethnic hierarchies and criminals. Honest guys die, but as always, in this land, there must be a reason to die. It does not take much to be vilified.
The African boys were killed immediately all "traffickers" as were "Camorra" Reversal Giuseppe and Vincenzo Natale, killed in Villa Literno September 23, 2003 because they had stopped to get a beer near Frank Gallop, a member of the clan Bidognetti. They too were soon baptized as criminals.
is not the first time that takes place in those parts una mattanza di immigrati. Nel 1990 Augusto La Torre, boss di Mondragone, partì con i suoi fedelissimi alla volta di un bar che, pur gestito da italiani, era diventato un punto di incontro per lo spaccio degli africani. Tutto avveniva sempre lungo la statale Domitiana, a Pescopagano, pochi chilometri a nord di Castel Volturno, però già in territorio mondragonese. Uccisero sei persone, fra cui il gestore, e ne ferirono molte altre. Anche quello era stato il culmine di una serie di azioni contro gli stranieri, ma i Casalesi che pure approvavano le intimidazioni non gradirono la strage. La Torre dovette incassare critiche pesanti da parte di Francesco "Sandokan" Schiavone. Ma ora i tempi sono cambiati e permettono di lasciar esercitare una violenza indiscriminata a group of armed cocaine.
I call back to my land that has self-image. I ask this in all those groups of men and women who work here in the great silence and are committed. In those few politicians who manage to remain credible, resisting the temptations of collusion or of the withdrawal of combat power of the clan. To all those who are doing their job, to all those who seek to live honestly, as in any other part of the world. To all these people. Which are more and more, but they are increasingly alone.
How do you imagine this land? If it is true, as said by Danilo Dolci, each grows only if you wanted to see, you like them there dreaming of these places? There's never been so much focus on your lands and all that has happened and will happen. Yet it seems to have changed much. The two bosses who rule continue to operate and to be free. Antonio Iovine and Michele Zagaria. Twelve years on the run. Even they know where they are. The first is in San Cipriano d'Aversa, the second Casapesenna. In an area as big as a piece of land, may not be able to find them?
ancient history is that of the wanted fugitives in the world and then found their own home. But it is new story that I have now spoken again and again newspapers and TV, that politicians of all stripes have promised that they will stop. Meanwhile time passes and nothing happens. And are there. Walk, talk, meet people.
I saw that in my country have appeared written against me. Saviano shit. Saviano worm. And a huge coffin with my name. And then insults, constant denigration from the most common and banal: "What has been done the money." With my job as a writer and now I live, fortunately, pay for my lawyers. What about them? That control their business empires and are building houses pharaonic in countries where there are not even paved roads? They
that disposal of toxic wastes are managed in a single operation to collect up to 500 million euro and have filled our land with poisons to the point of pushing up to 24% certain cancers, birth defects and up to 84% for percent? Real money they generate, according to the Observatory epidemiological Campania, an average of 7172.5 cancer deaths a year in Campania. And to get rich on the misfortunes of this land would be me with my words, or the police and prosecutors, reporters and all others with books or movies or in any other manner continues to complain? How can you create such a reversal of perspectives? How is it possible that even honest people to join this chorus? Although I know my ground in front of all this I am still in disbelief and shock and hurt to the point that even I struggle to find my voice. Why
leads to mute the pain, because the hostility leads to not know who to talk to. So who should I talk to, what I say? How do I say to my country to stop being crushed between the arrogance of the strong and the cowardice of the weak? Today here in this room where the guest of those who protect me, is my birthday. I think of all the birthdays in the past as well, since I cover a little 'nervous, a bit' sad and above only.
I think I can never pass a normal in my land, that I will never set foot. I regret as a sick man without hope all birthdays neglected, snubbed because it's just any date, and another year there will be an equal. It has now opened a chasm in time and space, a wound that will never heal. And I think as well, and especially those who live in my own condition and did not like me the privilege to write and speak to many.
I think some other friends in the Commons, Raffaele, Rosa, Lirio, Tano, I think of Carmelina, the teacher of Mondragone who had denounced the killer of a Camorra and has since lived under police protection, far away, alone. Left by her boyfriend who was to marry, judged by the friends who feel oppressed by their courage and their mediocrity. Because there was no sympathy for his gesture, indeed, there has been criticism and abandonment. She has just followed a call of his conscience and had to get by with the meager salary that gives the state. What did
Carmelina, what did others like her to have life uprooted and destroyed, while the boss at large continue to be able to live protected and respected in their lands? And I call on my land, what we have left? Tell me. Float? Pretend nothing happened? Trampling scales of cooperative hospitals washed by cleaning them in the tanks to receive the gasoline dispensed from pumps their gas station? Live in houses built by them, drinking coffee brand from their sets (each brand of coffee to be sold in bars must have permission of the clan), cooking in their pots (the clan Tablet managed production and sale of top brands pots)?
eat their bread, their cheese, their vegetables? They can vote for politicians who, like the repentant state, you get to the highest national? Working in their shopping malls, built to create jobs and due subjection to the workplace, but in the meantime there is no loss, because most of the shops are they? Are you proud to live in territorio con i più grandi centri commerciali del mondo e insieme uno dei più alti tassi di povertà? Passare il tempo nei locali gestiti o autorizzati da loro? Sedervi al bar vicino ai loro figli, i figli dei loro avvocati, dei loro colletti bianchi? E trovarli simpatici e innocenti, tutto sommato persone gradevoli, perché loro in fondo sono solo ragazzi, che colpa hanno dei loro padri.
E infatti non si tratta di stabilire colpe, ma di smettere di accettare e di subire sempre, smettere di pensare che almeno c'è ordine, che almeno c'è lavoro, e che basta non grattare, non alzare il velo, continuare ad andare avanti per la propria strada. Che basta fare questo e nella nostra land is already in the best of all possible worlds, or maybe not, but certainly possible in the one world.
How much more should we expect? As yet we see the best and resigned to emigrate to stay? Are you really sure that is fine? That the evenings you spend in court, laughing, arguing, cursing the stench of waste heat, to chat, be enough? You want a simple life, plain, made of small things, while all around you there is a real war, while those who undergo a complaint and talk and lose everything. How did we become so blind? So subservient and resigned, so bent? How possible that only the last of the last, the Africans in Castel Volturno who suffer from exploitation and violence of the Italian mafia and other Africans have been able to pull out once more anger than fear and resignation? I can not believe that South is so rich in talent and strength can only truly be satisfied with that.
Calabria has the lowest GDP of Italy but "something new", that is? Ndrangheta, invoice and more as a whole Italian financial maneuver. Alitalia is in crisis, but Grazzanise, in a territory marked by the Camorra, is to build the largest Italian airport, the largest in the Mediterranean. A land ordered to be circulated enormi capitali senza avere uno straccio di sviluppo vero, e invece ha danaro, profitto, cemento che ha il sapore del saccheggio, non della crescita.
Non posso credere che riescano a resistere soltanto pochi individui eccezionali. Che la denuncia sia ormai solo il compito dei pochi singoli, preti, maestri, medici, i pochi politici onesti e gruppi che interpretano il ruolo della società civile. E il resto? Gli altri se ne stanno buoni e zitti, tramortiti dalla paura? La paura. L'alibi maggiore. Fa sentire tutti a posto perché è in suo nome che si tutelano la famiglia, gli affetti, la propria vita innocente, il proprio sacrosanto diritto a viverla e costruirla.
But no longer afraid it would not be difficult. It would be enough to act, but not by yourself. The fear goes hand in hand with isolation. Every time someone pulls back creates more fear, that creates even more fear, that exponential growth in fixed assets, eroding, slowly ruining.
"You can build the happiness of the world on the shoulders of one abused child?", He asks his brother Ivan Karamazov Aljo? A. But you do not want a perfect world, you just want a quiet and simple life, an everyday acceptable, the warmth of a family. Be content to think that this puts you away from anxieties and pain. And maybe you can, successful find a dimension where you will find serenity. But at what price?
If your children were born sick or ill, if you should again turn to a politician in return for his vote will give you a job without which even your little dreams and projects end up in the air, when we will struggle to get mortgage on your home while the directors of the banks themselves will always be available to those in power, when you see this maybe you will realize that there is no shelter, that there is no protected area, and that the attitude and think realistically wisely disenchanted there has polluted the soul of resentment and bitterness that takes away your every taste life.
Because if this is the sad thing is even more sad is the habit. Getting used that there is nothing else to do but to resign, or make do go away. I call upon my land if I can still imagine to choose from. I ask if you can at least make that first gesture of freedom lies in being able to think differently, to think freely. Do not resign to accept as a natural destiny what is the work of men.
Those men can tear you to your land and your past, take away the serenity, to finding a home, write insults on the walls of your home country, possono fare il deserto intorno a te. Ma non possono estirpare quel che resta una certezza e, per questo, rimane pure una speranza. Che non è giusto, non è per niente naturale, far sottostare un territorio al dominio della violenza e dello sfruttamento senza limiti. E che non deve andare avanti così perché così è sempre stato. Anche perché non è vero che tutto è sempre uguale, ma è sempre peggio.
Perché la devastazione cresce proporzionalmente con i loro affari, perché è irreversibile come la terra una volta per tutte appestata, perché non conosce limiti. Perché là fuori si aggirano sei killer abbrutiti e strafatti, con licenza di uccidere and do not mandate, that does not stop in front of anyone. Because they are the image and likeness of that which prevails today in this land and what awaits them tomorrow, tomorrow, in the future. We must find the strength to change. Now or never.
Copyright 2008 by Roberto Saviano
Published by arrangement
of Roberto Santachiara Literary Agency
( September 22, 2008 )
