Visuals

Sound

TC

Palermo memorial mass

Choir music

1.00.00

v/o:  In one of the great baroque churches that are the glory of Palermo, a memorial mass is held each year in honour of judge Giovanni Falcone.

00.12

For decades, church and state and Cosa Nostra formed an unholy trinity that ruled over Sicily.

With the murder six years ago of its most celebrated enemy, the Mafia declared war on the state. And the state hit back.

But Falcone's successors fear that the public's enthusiasm for the anti- Mafia struggle is waning.

00.42

Principato

Super:

TERESA PRINCIPATO

Investigating Magistrate

Principato:   I think that today, unfortunately the situation has changed a lot and people's consciences have gone back to sleep.

00.49

Children in church

v/o:  Meanwhile, they say, the state and the Mafia may be quietly making peace once more.

01.10

Map Italy

Music

Castellamare del Golfo port

Every afternoon, as the boats return to the fishing port of Castellamare del Golfo, a man with a black Mercedes is waiting for them.

01.38

Man on port/prawns being unloaded

He's the owner, it seems, and he's not short of a bob or two.

But a few boxes of prawns, the whole day's catch from two trawlers, seem unlikely to be his only source of income.

01.56

It was back in the 1950s that fishing boats from Sicily started scooping up packets of morphine base, dropped by Turkish freighters. It was refined into heroin and smuggled on to America.

Black Mercedes

The Sicilian and American Mafias had done a deal. In the next 30 years it was to make the Sicilians unimaginably rich.

02.22

Holmes to camera

Super:

JONATHAN HOLMES

Holmes:  And with the money came greed. During the 1980s, this beautiful island was wracked by an extraordinary undeclared civil war, with the Mafia families forced to control the new wealth. In ten years there were an estimated ten thousand murders. That's three times as many violent deaths as occurred in Northern Ireland during the whole thirty years of the troubles there.

02.32

Among the victims were politicians and policemen, magistrates and priests. But by far the majority were ordinary Mafiosi soldiers, who crossed their bosses or whose bosses had been double-crossed by somebody still more powerful.

Palermo

For ten years, the city of Palermo became a killing field. There were secret torture chambers in the dockside tenement buildings, and the seabed of the Gulf filled up with bones.

03.08

Michela and Holmes in alley

Michela Buscema's brothers were among the humblest victims. They weren't heroin dealers or thugs, just out of work kids trying to make a living. But in this seedy alleyway, the Mafia killed them anyway.

03.25

Michela:  First they tortured them

and then strangled them. They wanted to dissolve them in acid but because the acid was poor quality they decided to throw them into the sea. Look here - until a short time ago, this was more open and you could see the death chamber better.

v/o:  The gruesome punishment that took place here was out of all proportion to the crime. The brothers had been selling smuggled cigarettes without permission from the local Mafia boss.

03.59

Michela

Michela:  Nobody remembers them because they weren't public servants or anything - just two young boys, two ordinary boys.

Michela and Holmes in alley

v/o:  There's a simple rule covering such events in Sicily. Hear nothing, see nothing and above all, say nothing.

04.21

Michela on farm

But Michela Buscema gave evidence in court against her brothers' killers, and paid the inevitable price. Her husband's bar in Palermo was bombed, then ostracised. They had to sell up and move out of town. Even Michela's own parents turned against her.

04.33

Michela

Michela:  They attacked me in the newspapers saying I was crazy, etcetera - and they left me, my husband and my children to the mercy of the Mafia.  In fact my mother said, she wished the Mafia would kill my children too, so that I could feel the same pain as her. As if I didn't understand the pain she felt.

Poor Palermo

Church bells

05.18

v/o:  Almost single-handedly in the early eighties, two men fought to strip off the blanket of silence that covered Sicily.

Photo of Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino

Investigating magistrates, Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino.

05.31

Mafia trial

In 1985, after years of work, in a famous mass trial in Palermo, they prosecuted hundreds of Mafiosi. The Mafiosi were openly contemptuous of the court. The worst most of them faced, or so they thought, was a few years in prison.

05.39

But Falcone and Borsellino had signed their own death warrants. And they knew it.

05.57

Driving along motorway

In May 1992, on the freeway from Palermo airport to the city, a massive bomb blast killed Judge Falcone, his wife Francesca and three police bodyguards.

Bomb blast and aftermath

FX:  Bomb

06.15

Music

06.21

At the time, Magistrate Teresa Principato was working with Judge Paolo Borsellino.

06.28

Principato

Principato:  When we asked him "What can we do?" - because of course we were dismayed - he said to us "We must carry on in the name of our beliefs and of their sacrifice." He knew very well that he was next in line - that they would kill him next.

06.37

Bomb and aftermath

v/o: Sure enough, three months later, Borsellino too was dead, killed by another huge bomb placed outside his mother's apartment.

07.03

Funeral

Applause

07.13

It seemed for a moment that the Mafia had triumphed utterly. But at Borsellino's funeral, the people of Palermo finally found their voice.

07.18

Chanting:  Mafia out!  Hands of the State!

Principato:  This time after the killings was when the community came together most powerfully - almost the whole city was involved.

07.37

Principato

There seemed to be this common feeling of revulsion.

San Giuseppe Jato

Music

07.54

v/o:  The revolution spread even to the secret hill towns where the Mafia had ruled for decades. In 1993, the town of San Giuseppe Jato elected an anti- Mafia mayor.

08.06

Maniscalco interview

What's more, it re-elected Maria Maniscalco as recently as December last year.

08.22

Maniscalco:  The Mafia is certainly weaker here but this is not because of my four years of administration.  It is generally because... it doesn't have the popular support it used to have.

08.27

Holmes:  Was there one particular crime that helped to turn public opinion in San Giuseppe?

08.41

Maniscalco:  Yes, the killing of Falcone and Borsellino -- and the ferocious way in which those magistrates were murdered - shocked people deeply.  But here on a local level people were most upset by the tragic end of the little Di Matteo boy.

Following police car

v/o:  To find out about the little Di Matteo boy, we followed San Giuseppe's lone policeman, Constable Orobello, through the town and out into the vineyards and early summer hayfields.

09.11

Music

Holmes and Police officer walking towards house

We had to cover the last few hundred metres on foot.

09.27

Holmes:  And it was just right in the bottom of the house here, was it?

v/o: In 1994, this shabby, secluded little house was rented by one Giovanni Brusca, the nephew of the town's Mafia boss.

Brusca was the man who set off the bomb that killed Judge Falcone.

09.44

But the house was the scene of a darker and more secret crime.

Around back of house

When one of Brusca's fellow assassins, a man called Santino Di Matteo, was arrested, Brusca was determined to stop him from talking. So he kidnapped Di Matteo's 11 year old son, and hid him here in this house.

09.59

A complex hydraulic system raised and lowered the ground floor.

10.19

Dungeon

Beneath it was a pitch dark dungeon, where young Giuseppe was kept prisoner for two years.

Giovanni Brusca reportedly got the idea from the comic books he loved to read.

10.29

Holmes to camera

Holmes:  But even though he knew that his son was a captive of the Brusca family, Santino Di Matteo didn't stop talking. Eventually he told the authorities that it was Giovanni Brusca who'd actually pushed the plunger on the bomb that had killed Judge Falcone. When Brusca heard of this ultimate betrayal he was furious and he ordered the young boy killed. His killers were later captured and they told the authorities that they'd strangled him, and as was customary, put his body in a bath of acid.

10.37

The boy didn't put up much resistance, they said. After all, he'd been in a hole for two years and he didn't have many muscles left.

11.07

Brusca arrest

That was in 1996. A few months ago, Giovanni Brusca and his equally vicious brother were finally captured.

11.16

It was an event stage managed by the police for maximum publicity. But the hatred that the press and the public felt for the Bruscas was genuine enough.

11.30

Sirens

11.42

The Bruscas were just two of dozens of Mafia bosses arrested in the past five years by triumphant police undercover squads.

11.46

The public revolt forced the Italian state, for the first time, to lend its full support to the prosecutors and police of Sicily. And they got results.

11.57

Drive through countryside

You can drive around Sicily today with no fear that you'll stumble on a bloody corpse by the roadside. But less dramatic, more insidious crimes are everywhere.

12.11

Construction site

Across the valley from San Giuseppe Jato, a small construction firm has been given the contract to repair a mountain road. The council accepted the lowest tender. But the firm is from out of town, and obviously hasn't bought the right protection.

12.25

Two nights ago, two of the contractor's excavators were deliberately set on fire.

12.43

Holmes and contractor

Ask questions, and all you'll get is the traditional Sicilian answer.

Holmes:  And do you know who did it or why they did it?

12.54

Contractor:  No, I've no idea. It was okay when I left it, and in the morning it was like that.

of San Giuseppe Jato

But the mayor of San Giuseppe Jato has no doubt at all who's responsible.

13.03

Maniscalco:  This intimidation of business enterprises has never stopped.

13.08

Maniscalco

Unfortunately, this tell us that the Mafia is still strong - it's not defeated, and it hasn't given up. It's still controlling illegal activities as if nothing has changed at all.

Market

v/o:  But that's not the way most people see it in Palermo.

13.34

It's the sixth anniversary of Giovanni Falcone's death - but the sun is shining, the markets are open, the killings have stopped and most people don't want to think about the Mafia any more.

13.50

Rally/ Judge Caselli

Applause

14.02

There are of course some who do. Surrounded by his bodyguards, the head of the anti- Mafia pool of magistrates, Judge Caselli, leads his entire team out from the Palace of Justice to meet his supporters.

14.06

Applause

For days, posters and TV ads have calling on Palermitans to rally in support of the anti-Mafia pool.

14.22

Caselli addresses rally

Caselli:  I'd like to thank you all from the bottom of my heart.  You're numerous, supportive, enthusiastic, determined...

14.29

v/o:  Enthusiastic they may be, but numerous they're not. Six years ago a whole city took to the streets to defy the Mafia. Today, only a few hundred have turned out. Teresa Principato knows all too well what's happening.

14.43

Principato:  Unfortunately this is a town that forgets. There's a rejection of he so-called "culture of emergency."

15.00

Principato

It's very convenient for some people to say that the Mafia is finished.

v/o:  But as one of the elite team of Mafia prosecutors, Principato is convinced the Cosa Nostra has simply changed its tactics.

15.14

Principato:  After having attacked the military arm of Cosa Nostra we still have to deal with its policy arm which is trying to re-establish Cosa Nostra as a political and social power at every level - so I believe this quietness is due to a return to this mentality - much more dangerous because it's more subtle ... more snakelike.

Election campaign

v/o:  It's provincial election time in Palermo, and the politicians are out on the hustings.

15.57

The anti-Mafia movement is rooting for this man, the squeaky clean candidate of the centre left.

16.06

But it's a sign of how times have changed that the polls are pointing to victory for the right wing candidate, Francesco Musotto.

Musotto campaigning

He's been President of the province of Palermo before, but he was forced to stand down two years ago, accused by the magistrates of colluding with the Mafia.

16.24

Musotto is a criminal lawyer who's defended many a Mafia boss in his time and got them acquitted. Now he's been acquitted himself, although is brother is serving five years for collusion.

16.36

His party, Forza Italia, has been campaigning vigorously - not against the Mafia, but against the emergency powers that Italian magistrates use to fight it.

16.52

Musotto

Musotto:  When one is operating in a state of emergency judicial errors are more likely. We hope to eradicate this Mafia phenomenon and eliminate the possibility of so many innocent people being the victims of unjust judicial accusations.

17.02

Principato

Principato:  No, I don't want to make any comment on anything Musotto has said.  What I'd like to point out instead is this - the anti-Mafia magistrates are being attacked by a good majority of the representatives of certain political parties who portray these frontline magistrates as the enemy. This is really intolerable - really, it's too harsh.

17.24

TV News crews

v/o:  On the day after the election, as the votes are counted, the big boys from the national networks are in town.

18.08

If the Forza Italia candidate gets up, despite the allegations that are still hanging over him, it will be a national story, especially for the television networks owned by his leader, Silvio Berlusconi.

18.17

But they won't be drawing the same conclusions as Mayor Maria Maniscalco.

18.31

Maniscalco

Maniscalco:  There's no doubt that a victory for Musotto would be a very, very negative sign because it would mean the people can still be hoodwinked - and that they don't really want to change.

18.36

Musotto at press conference

Applause

v/o:  But Mayor Maniscalco was to be disappointed. Francesco Musotto, and Forza Italia, won convincingly.

18.54

Applause

v/o:  At his victory press conference, the new President-elect of the Province of Palermo made it clear, politely but firmly, that he expected the magistrates to lay off.

19.11

Musotto:  I have a great respect for the magistracy and the courts.  I would like the same respect accorded to politician elected by the people.

I believe that the democratic judgement of the people should be considered the most important of all.

Ambulance

Ambulance siren

v/o:  For a few brief years, the people, the politicians, the police and the magistrates of Palermo were united against the Mafia.

19.47

But tonight, as the anti-Mafia elite of the city gather to honour the memory of Giovanni Falcone, that sense of unity has gone.

19.58

The police, and the carabinieri, and the guardia di finanza are out in force. So were the tough young plain clothes men with guns, and the tough young women, too.

20.10

But for the frontline magistrates of the anti-Mafia pool, the guns and bombs of the Mafia hit men are no longer a threat they feel.

20.24

The enemy, as he has been so often in the past, is back within the gates.

20.32

Principato:  The magistrates are under attack - this is very like the times that Giovanni Falcone lived through.  In fact, I saw him destroyed by this type of attitude.

20.39

Man at podium

Man:   The Mafia is not an emergency but a constant threat which must be fought with strength - with efficiency.

20.58

v/o:  The Mafia is patient, and persistent. It knows how to survive setbacks and keep coming back.

21.07

Applause

Blue wash scenes from the funeral

v/o:  But so do its opponents. Not all of those who rebelled six years ago have retreated into apathy.

21.17

Like Giovanni Falcone himself, they're in it for the long haul.

21.24

Principato:  It's love for your country that forces you to continue --

21.31

Principato

to prevent the imposition once again of this sort of oppression, this sort of cloak - silent, but everywhere and all embracing.

Archive footage/Maniscalco

Maniscalco:  I hate violence and oppression and injustice - and I think that the defeat of the Mafia is essential to develop this land and free its people.

21.51

Archive footage/Michela

Michela:  We've been going backwards in the fight against the Mafia.  We've gone back to the days before Falcone.  But I am optimistic.  I believe one day we will defeat the Mafia.  Otherwise there's no point in continuing to fight.

Applause

22.30

Ends 22.44

Credits

Reporter            JONATHAN HOLMES

Camera GEOFF CLEGG

Sound                SCOTT TAYLOR

Editor                GARTH THOMAS

Research           FABIO SERMONTI

Producer           IVO BURUM

An ABC Australia Production