ABSTRACT: For several years the revelations concerning the Mafia "have fallen on fertile ground", demonstrating the truth of what Sciascia had written after the assassination of General Dalla Chiesa, (3) which is that before long we would see the myth of the Mafia "crumble into dust", it having apparently lost its head "feeling itself discarded by the state and abandoned by the judges". Even the centuries-old wall of "omertà" (4) has begun to cave in. The recent capture of "papa" Michele Greco also contributes to "demythologising" the Mafia. One symptom is that the only shelter this most powerful man could find was a "shepherd's hut". Another indication is that for some time it was known that he was being systematically hunted, but Michele Greco was not warned in time... Something is changing...

(CORRIERE DELLA SERA, March 1, 1986)

Some years ago, after the assassination of General Dalla Chiesa, I wrote in this newspaper that, as we had seen the myth of the Red Brigades' efficiency and immunity to capture collapse, so too we would see, if perhaps a bit more slowly, the myth of the Mafia crumble into dust. And a sign of this also seemed to me to be the assassination of the general in the chain of what the newspapers called "great assassinations" which had begun and were continuing. A sign, I called it, that the Mafia, feeling how its political connections were trying to detach and defend themselves - connections which, since the end of the war until the end of the Sixties, had granted it prosperity and impunity - and feeling itself discarded by the state and abandoned by judges of good will, had lost its head and gotten involved in subversive actions against that state which had before covered it with an "impenetrable shield" (the phrase comes from Don Pietro Ulloa, the King's procurator in Trapani in 1838).

Some scatterbrains - who may also be in bad faith - have rebuked me for this opinion, as if I were intending to provide an alibi for those politicians most responsible, up to that time, for the Mafia's prosperity and impunity, whereas, in fact, I was merely reflecting on the facts, adding up two and two and getting four. It would take the most brazen kind of bad faith to state that what has happened since then has proven me wrong. The subversive and counter-productive actions of the Mafia have continued and seem to have stopped either because they have become aware of the worsening effects they produced or because of a return to the old rules on the eve of this great trial. But they have stopped a little too late, when the damage provoked by these brainstorms was irreparable. And then the centuries-old wall of "omertà" began to crumble. And it is not as if in past years there had not been some indication; except that those who attempted to make revelations about the Mafia were considered mad. And one ca

n say that they were mad indeed if they had not taken into consideration the risk - quite a high and predictable risk - that they would be considered mad.

All things are worthwhile when they occur at the right time: and it is only in the last few years that revelations about the Mafia fall on fertile ground - at time too fertile from the standpoint of imagination, invention, of the vast ramifications of beliefs and hypotheses.

Today with the capture of Michele Greco, if one thinks about it for a moment, two elements are added to the demythologising of the Mafia: if Michele Greco, called "papa" (or as is otherwise suggested, "the pope" - and it is incredible that one cannot manage to pin down this philological detail), truly merits such a nickname. The first of them is that this rich, powerful, respected and feared man with his vast number of friends, some of them in very high places, with his international connections, could find no better hide-out than a shepherd's hut in a zone so traditionally dense with Mafiosi that it was constantly under police surveillance and the most careful patrolling.

The State's Attorney Paino is convinced that, according to the rules, a Mafia chieftain cannot abandon the territory under his control, cannot abandon "the family" - almost like the captain of a sinking ship. I am not at all sure of that. And that he would not or could not risk taking refuge in a zone where he felt less protected, more inimical, offers in any case food for thought.

In comparison to (Licio) Gelli's power, Greco's in these circumstances appears to be much more precarious, uncertain, labile.

The second element is this: the newspapers had gotten wind early enough, however vaguely, that the Carabinieri were out to get him. How is it that Michele Greco was not forewarned as quickly if the Mafia is as omnipotent and omnipresent as is generally believed?

Something is changing, something has already changed - if those who do not want to believe it, or who would prefer that it were not true, will permit me to say so. And this they do not from complicity or self-interest, but for the fun of continuing to speak about and inveigh against it. Thus someone shouted to Robespierre who was speaking against the enemies of the revolution - I do not recall whether in an assembly or at a street rally - "But you'd be sorry if there weren't any around!"

-----------------------------------------------------------------

TRANSLATOR'S NOTES

1) Greco, Michele - Mafia boss. Became chief of the Sicilian Mafia after the assassination of Giuseppe Di Cristina (1978).

2) Gelli, Licio - (1919) - Head of the "P2" Masonic lodge ("Propaganda 2") which secretly enrolled prominent Italian political and government figures to whom is attributed the responsibility for many shady affairs connected with the "strategy of tension" adopted during the "leaden years" (a journalistic phrase referring to the period of terrorist activities). Embroiled in a big scandal in 1981 he fled Italy and was subsequently arrested and extradited in 1982. At present on provisional liberty while awaiting trial, he is still in possession of many secrets and some of his power.

3) Dalla Chiesa, Carlo Alberto - (Saluzzo 1920 - Palermo 1982) - Carabinieri general, co-ordinator of the investigations on the »Red Brigades from 1978. He turned out to have been enrolled in Licio Gelli's Masonic Lodge "P2" but affirmed that he joined it only to keep check on its activities. Named "super" Police Chief of Palermo for the fight against the Mafia, he was killed together with his wife in Palermo on September 3.

4) omertà - The traditional conspiracy of silence regarding Mafia affairs.