In 1992, two crimes committed at a distance of two months from each other reminded a stunned world of the horrors of organised crime.
On May 23, 1992, a bomb was placed on the A29 motorway between Palermo’s International Airport and the city, just before the junction leading to the town of Capaci. Giovanni Brusca detonated the explosives; the explosion was so fierce that it registered on local earthquake monitors.
The main target of this bomb was Giovanni Falcone, a leading prosecuting magistrate in the 1986-87 anti-Mafia Maxi trials. He was killed together with his wife Francesca and his three bodyguards. Delivering the eulogy at the funeral of the victims of the Capaci bombing was another judge and prosecuting magistrate: Paolo Borsellino.
Borsellino and Falcone were born in the same Palermo neighbourhood of Kalsa, and they studied together at the University of Palermo. Their politics differed; Borsellino was more inclined towards the neo-fascist Movimento Sociale Italiano, while Falcone drifted into the communist orbit. Paradoxically, these two opposing ideologies shared a stance on one fundamental issue – the Mafia.
The Partito Comunista Italiano in Sicily, under the leadership of Girolamo Li Causi, regularly denounced the Mafia. Li Causi lobbied for a parliamentary commission to investigate the Mafia and served for nine years as the vice-president of the Anti-mafia Commission. On the other hand, the neo-fascists could boast of the track record of fascism in eradicating the Mafia. The campaign led by the Prefetto di Ferro Cesare Mori led to a virtual annihilation of the criminal organisation in the 1930s.
The efforts of Falcone and Borsellino almost succeeded in dealing the final death blow to the resurgent Mafia. Alas, this was not to be the case. After the funeral of Falcone, Borsellino would often refer to himself as a ‘walking corpse’. The Mafia succeeded in killing him on July 19, 1992, just outside his mother’s home. The bomb also claimed the lives of five policemen.
The deaths of Falcone, Borsellino and their security detail are rightly remembered as dark moments in the history of the fight against organised crime. These murders were a result of their success in the fight against the Mafia. The Maxi trials of 1986 and 1987 broke new ground.
They proved that the Mafia is an actual organisation rather than individuals sharing a similar mind frame. A total 474 Mafia members were charged and 360 were convicted of serious crimes. This figure also includes 119 Mafiosi who were convicted in absentia. This is no mean feat, particularly when one considers the Mafia’s modus operandi.
The way organised crime is viewed and portrayed in popular culture can mask some of the horrors of these organisations
At the heart of the Mafia is a so-called ‘code of honour’. Turning State’s evidence means becoming dishonourable. It implies turning one’s back on family, friends, colleagues and acquaintances and it involves coming to terms with a life of crime and murder. The value of omertà – a code of silence which forbids ‘men of honour’ from speaking to the police – is vital to the continued operations of the Mafia.
Falcone and Borsellino were also heroic in the fact that they operated from within institutions which, at times, colluded and collaborated with the Mafia. One famous Mafioso once used the following analogy: “We are one body: bandits, police and Mafia – like the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.” It is a frightening analogy, but one which sheds light on the wider nature of organised crime. It tells us that the criminal world views itself as a god-like structure; omnipotent and omnipresent with three distinct branches of one substance.
It also reveals a glaring reality which is often ignored because of its uncomfortable implications – serious organised crime exists and thrives because of collusion with corrupt governments, crooked officials and dishonest politics.
Organised crime has no preferred ideology – it holds no specific value save that of opportunism. The Mafia supported politicians from both left and right, and in the post-war period, it lent its support to members belonging to a myriad of political movements. Its political allegiances are fluid and ever-changing.
John Dickie, a leading authority on the history of the Mafia in Sicily, points to some of the characteristics of the links between organised crime and politics.
Firstly, the more credibility a politician has, the greater is his use to organised crime: “If credibility has to be bought with thundering speeches against crime, or with learned diagnoses of the state of law and order in Sicily, then so be it.”
Secondly, criminal elements thrive on small favours: “News of government contracts or land sales leaked, overzealous investigators made to pursue their careers away from the island, (and) jobs in local government given to friends.”
Thirdly, while the Mafia and other criminal organisations use patronage, clientelism and corruption, the presence of these three elements does not necessarily produce Mafia-like structures: “The Mafia does not grow naturally from a mulch of sleaze... nor does the patronage factor in politics mean that the big issues like economics, democracy and foreign policy count for nothing.” The government still has a role in extinguishing such organisations.
Alas, these organisations are still thriving off the earnings of organised crime, chief among which one finds human trafficking, drug trafficking and money laundering.
The way organised crime is viewed and portrayed in popular culture can mask some of the horrors of these organisations. There is often a romantic element to these stories – an element which builds on the values of loyalty, honour, family, the sense of community and belonging and, perversely, justice. Alas, to indulge in such fantasies is to aid the narrative of these criminals.
There is nothing romantic about dissolving the body of a 13-year-old boy who happened to be the son of a State witness. There is nothing vaguely heroic or just about the massacre of judges and magistrates and innocent bystanders. There can be no community if institutions are corrupted and skewed by criminals. The deaths which took place a quarter of a century ago remind us of the horrors of the mafia and similar structures.
André DeBattista is an independent researcher in politics and international relations.
andre.deb@gmail.com