June 29, 2024, 07:12
2 min of reading
PALERMO – “Fear? Of course I’m scared, but the desire to give a signal to the new generations is stronger. My generation will not be able to eradicate these people. Our children will succeed, but we must have set an example.”
No hesitation, neither now nor when the pizzo man showed up at the construction site. The decision to report him “was spontaneous”.
The worker’s words are direct. They should be printed and distributed in schools. A lesson in life, as well as commitment. Sweat and toil make one wise.
The colleague who made the same choice adds equally clear reasoning. Without frills or linguistic balancing acts: “We did it for our employer too. must pay what is right: the suppliers, the workers, not the mafiosi”.
The protection money man showed up at the construction site asking to speak to the employer. Either he paid or he had to dismantle the scaffolding. Things went differently: the work was completed and the tax collector was arrested and convicted.
For the first time, the workers have joined the civil proceedings. Alongside them at every stage was Addiopizzo with Daniele Marannano, one of the most active and historic animators of the committee, and the lawyer Salvatore Caradonna.
Twenty years ago the anti-racket committee plastered the city with stickers to denounce the unworthiness of a people who pay protection money. Today the workers constitute a civil party: a lot of ground has been travelled.
About three hundred economic operators in the last twenty years have denounced the racketeers thanks to Addiopizzo’s work. A number that must be multiplied many, too many times to have an exact picture of who in the city pays in silence.
“The trials, celebrated over the last two decades thanks to the work of magistrates and law enforcement agencies and with the help of truly operational associations – explains the president of Addiopizzo Raffaele Genova – they say that in Palermo hundreds of complaints have accrued from economic operators who opposed Cosa Nostra and who after this choice they were able to continue their economic activity under normal conditions”.
“However, there are still those who pay the extortion and do not report it because they seek, rather than suffer, ‘fixing’ – adds Marannano – in a context that is not one of intimidation and fear but of connivance and convenience. For these reasons, the analysis and narrative on the extortion phenomenon must be updated and above all on the circumstance that those who pay and do not report are not always victims”.
There is an ongoing trial with 31 shopkeepers under accusation because they have always denied, even in the face of evidence from some wiretaps, having paid or received a visit from the racketeers. They risk conviction. Their choice would not have been conditioned, always and only, by fear.
Published on
June 29, 2024, 07:12
