BLACK HAND UNQUELLED

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 400, 14 July 1928, Page 10

BLACK HAND UNQUELLED

MAFIA DEFIES MUSSOLINI

UNCRUSHED BY

FASCISTS

COML time ago, writes the Marseilles correspondent of the A "Daily Chronicle,” the Fascists “told the world” that the .Mafia, that ancient and extraordinary secret society of Sicily, had been completely wiped out.

Signor Mussolini had (they said) devised a big and cunning campaign against it. Signor Cesare Mori, his skilful police lieutenant, had carried it out —with complete success, we were j told. Articles appeared in the Italian : newspapers describing how Mori and | his little army of policemen had attacked and captured the Mafia strongholds, and rooted up the whole evil \ growth of anarchy and terrorism. j Much praise was bestowed upon “II Duce” and his “chief of staff,” and j the feat was proudly hailed as “one of | the most conspicuous achievements of | the Fascist regime.” But it now appears the much- j vaunted campaign of extermination ; was a failure, and the vainglorious i news “fed to” the world’s newspapers! by Signor Mussolini’s clever Press ! agents was untrue. The Mafia still lives and flourishes j exceedingly. Stronger Than Before Indeed, the recent assault upon it has strengthened its hold upon Sicily, and the Fascist Government admits the failure in that it announces another and sterner attempt to annihilate the organisation. Hundreds and hundreds of people were arrested in course of the first effort. Most of them were thrown into prison without being charged; they were condensed without a trial, and Anally sent to the numerous arid, unhealthy little “Devil’s Islands” off the coast of Sicily. It is a thankless task, of course, to dispose of a legend. Most people believe that the Mafia is a wonderful secret society, with squads of romantic highwaymen—clashing Robin Tloods and picturesque Dick Turpins—an amazing organisation which, flouting all established authority, is a law unto itself. Nothing could be farther from the truth. There is little that is romantic about the Mafia. The members of this society and the people for whom it stands are, in fact, among the most wretched and oppressed beings in all Europe. Sicily has for centuries been the prey of conquerors; on the highway of Mediterranean raiders and traders, it had constantly been plundered, and no one, from the Phoenicians to the Fascists, has been concerned to set up a regime of justice, order, and decent economic conditions. Who are the people on whose wrongs and miseries the mysterious Mafia has been built? First of all. they are the peasants, living in conditions of squalor which almost surpass belief. Their homes are hovels; they are worked brutally hard all the hours of light. The estates on which they labour belong the absentee landlords, who let out the land to agents only concerned with squeezing the last lira out of land and worker. It is doubtful if there is a more miserable agricultural community in the world than the farm labourers of Sicily. Laws for Themselves Worse, perhaps, is the lot of the workers—large numbers of whom are mere children—in the sulphur mines of the island. They are abjectly poor; their pay is a mere pittance, and the work is done in vilely unhealthy conditions. It is mainly this frightful economic state of affairs, coupled with an ageold lack of ordinary elementary justice, that has bred the Mafia organisation. As justice is denied the people by the ruling authorities, the Mafiois administer it themselves and after their own crude and violent fashion. Sentences, as often as not, take the form of assassinations; fines and taxes are collected by force from the privileged. Naturally, this has bred widespread lawlessness —murder,. arson and robbery—throughout Sicily, but the poorer people do believe —and with some reason—that they are thus defended and that “justice” is administered to their oppressors. The Mafiosi, well organised in every part of the island, hold their courts and make their decisions in secret. Ages of this mystery have created a stern Malia “honour” among

them and among the people in general. To turn informer is to be guilty of the worst possible treason, and to court early and violent death. A word a sign from a Mafia chieftain, and the whole island obeys. Silence Magistrates and judges often find it impossible to extract as much as a word from a single witness in a case. The Mafia has decreed silence. Mussolini used to value the Mafiosi as political allies. As recently as 1924, their rifles, revolvers and daggers helped him to win political victories for Fascism. An organisation like the Black Shirts of early days rather appealed to the Black Hands of Sicily. It was possible to be Mafiosi and Fascists too. "II Duce,” therefore, was able to win many over to his side. When, however, the Mafiosi saw that Mussolini was using them merely for his own political ends, that they had to submit—they, the lawless and the free!—to the orders of Rome, and that without question, and that no effort was being made to right the wrongs and cure the economic miseries of Sicily, they deserted wholesale from the Fascist ranks. Thereupon Mussolini decreed their extermination—that Is to say, he ordered a campaign against them because they were his political enemies, not because they were Mafiosi First of all, in 1926, he issued a special ukase to be applied only to Sicily. It decreed that those persons who were “suspected by public opinion”—which is only Fascist opinion, naturally—of being lawbreakers were to be arrested and banished. Even the formality of a trial was to be dispensed with. Caesar Came and Saw Police-Prefect Cesare Mori, a man of 60 and a former artilleryman, was given the task of carrying out this decree. It was an excellent choice, from the Fascist point of view. Mori is a good type of the brutal sort of sergeant-major. He knows the Mafiosi, because, when he held a police post in Sicily m pre-Fascist days, one of his official duties was to bribe the Mafiosi inorder to secure the return of any Government Parliamentary candidate whom the Government ordered him to see was returned. Nearly all Italian Governments have used the Mafia for such a purpose. For their co-operation Mori not merely provided them with ample cash rewards, but secured official protection for them. He was, therefore, almost “one of tnem, so that when the Black Shirts came into power he preferred his Mafia friends to the. Fascist newcomers. For a while his attitude did not mat--IL I 1? new lords of Haly, concerned with bigger things, did not worry about the opinions of a police prefect in far-away Sicily. tt But soon he had to choose, and he “ratted” to the Fascists in order to ietain his position. He became, like all other Italian police chiefs, merely a paid agent of Fascism. Autocrat of Hills and Vales Mori carried on his campaign for months, arresting many hundreds of persons, net because they were Mafiosi, but because they refused to bow the knee to Mussolini. He was not merely a police prefect; he was judge and jury as well. His word was law; there was no appeal from it. Once a person was arrested, that person was, without further ado, shipped off to Ustica or to one of the sun-scorched islands of the Lipari group, there to eke out a miserable existence on 2s a day in most squalid and unhealthy conditions. The Mafia will never be w-iped out by such brutal means. ' It would, of course, be a very good thing if it could be suppressed, with all the crime and hatred connected with it, but the methods of Mussolini and Mori will simply make it more widespread and more brutal. What Might Have Been It will only vanish when the causes that brought it to life have gone, when justice in Sicily inspires the respect of the people, when local government is no longer a farce, and when, especially, the frightful economic condition of the islanders is definitely bettered. Then It would disappear speedily. Such would not be a tremendous task for Fascism, but to any of these reforms the Black Shirt regime has given no sign of turning its hand. The Mafiosi, therefore, will continue to be the real masters of Sicily. They have, faced with a stern struggle, become stronger than ever, and they are well provided not merely with funds, but also with arms, for their struggle against Mori’s forces.