https://www.corrieredellacalabria.i...la-fase-di-stallo-e-il-grande-paradosso/don't call it an emergency
The 'Ndrangheta, the "stalemate" and "the great paradox"
As Attorney Paci emphasizes: "Our country doesn't want to hear about the mafia because it's something that bothers people."
Published: 09/15/2024 – 7:00
REGGIO EMILIA «The first high-profile mafia murder occurred in Turin, not in Palermo or Reggio Calabria». The speaker is Gaetano Calogero Paci, head of the Reggio Emilia prosecutor's office and former deputy prosecutor of Reggio Calabria. The occasion to discuss the mafia is the Festa dell'Unità of the Democratic Party that dedicates a panel to "Mafia and anti-mafia: What social policies, prevention and judicial tools to combat it". « The mafia in our country is not an emergency », begins the prosecutor who adds: «as the national anti-mafia prosecutor Gianni Melillo recently said, it is a structural element of our system ».
The 'Ndrangheta in “Aemilia”
The investigation codenamed Aemilia and the subsequent trial represent for the prosecutor the certification " of the transition and transformation of the 'ndrangheta from a military entity to an entity that is interested in legal economic activities in the territory ". The statements made by the prosecutor , during a recent hearing in the Parliamentary Anti-Mafia Commission, also report the example of a wiretap considered significant in describing the process of transformation of Calabrian organised crime. The interception is illuminating, the words spoken are attributed to a member of the Bellocco clan who, after serving his sentence, does not return to Calabria but goes to Granarolo and tells his children "you go down to Calabria and take care of the rubbish, you instead have to stay here and be an entrepreneur".
The contrast systems
The mafias, therefore, are in all respects a systemic problem and to combat them " we need a comprehensive strategy, which leverages judicial repression, but which also takes into account the aspects of prevention : particularly important to the extent that they try to create barriers to the possibility that mafia activities contaminate, influence and dominate various sectors". It is obviously necessary to develop antibodies capable of keeping the appetites of the underworld at bay. " We also need to create barriers so that in the new generations the system of values ??leads to repudiating the mafia as a way of life ". According to Paci, at the moment " we find ourselves in a stalemate , we only see people talking about the mafia on the occasion of commemorations, when it comes to remembering members of the institutions, journalists, priests or ordinary citizens who died at the hands of the mafia".
The great paradox
The prosecutor's speech continues, and Pace outlines the contours of what he defines as a great paradox. " Our country does not want to hear about the mafia because it is something that bothers us . When we talk or should talk seriously about the mafia, then we should question, for example, the legitimacy of an economic system, I am speaking on a global level, that has accepted the mafia." Paci continues: "Talking about the mafia in these sectors becomes complicated. Indeed, you even risk being seen as Martians, as happened to me in this province (Reggio Emilia, ed. ). The prosecutor argues for the need to make a choice. "We have been fighting this phenomenon for a very long time now. For better or for worse, thanks to the judiciary, we have prevented our democracy from becoming the expression of an oppressive, violent power, such as that of the mafia, which made no secret of resorting to bombs and massacres in order to assert itself as an interlocutor of the overall system." The mistake, Paci concludes, is "to think that the mafia is an emergency, when in reality in its daily evolution it has largely influenced many sectors". (f.benincasa@corrierecal.it)
