Originally posted by Sonny:
I thought we were supposed to wait until you translate the article.....I'm interested in that info, and I don't know who Provenzano is....
I will appreciate any extra info....
Ok, Sonny, a very big read about the Cupola and Provenzano:
Bernardo Provenzano chose a fine day to go on the run. He vanished into hills baked brown and hard, perfect for hiking, with a breeze to cool the sun. There was the occasional shepherd to break the loneliness among citrus trees and olive groves. It was September 18 1963.
Dozens of people were being shot, bludgeoned, strangled, sliced and drowned in the mafia war ravaging Sicily. In Corleone the graveyard was smack in the centre of town, and Provenzano did his bit to fill it. Wherever he passed, people were cut down - so they called him the Tractor.
"He shoots like an angel but has the brains of a chicken," said his boss, and Provenzano seemed to fit the bill: a peasant's son who had left school aged 10, he was chunky, taciturn and slow. Some said he killed too many, others that he killed not enough. Either way, there were enough enemies made and left alive to threaten Provenzano, so he fled.
To survive on the run required cunning, as betrayal came with a smile. Many Corleone fugitives never returned from the hills. Their bones would turn up, if at all, years later under a plough. It seemed only a matter of time before Provenzano's corpse became a footnote in the history of Cosa Nostra. But now, 37 years later, the police are still looking for him.
In the meantime, Bernardo Provenzano has come far. While eluding an army of pursuers, Italy's most wanted man has climbed to the top of the Cosa Nostra. He is still in the hills, which now bristle with electronic listening equipment, roadblocks and spies. Helicopters, dawn raids of farmhouses, reward money: the state has tried them all, and failed.
Beneath the concrete arches at the entrance to Palermo's justice ministry lounge Carabinieri police officers. Submachine guns dangle from shoulders, eyes swivel at newcomers passing through electronic scanners. From this fortress, magistrates have battled the mafia for decades. In theory, they are safe here from assassins' bombs and bullets.
By 9pm corridors are deserted, but behind oak doors some magistrates remain, hunched over documents and computers, murmuring into phones and filling ashtrays. They feel close to success. They think the near-mythical godfather, the strategist who rescued the mafia from catastrophe and rebuilt it in his image, is near capture.
One by one, Provenzano's lieutenants have been snared in recent months and Pier Luigi Vigna, Italy's national anti-mafia prosecutor, is bullish: "We are close to the capture of Provenzano."
The country hopes so. Under Provenzano, now 68, the mafia has become leaner, fitter and slyer, returning to its roots while innovating new crimes. Belatedly, the penny has dropped: the Tractor is highly intelligent, shrewd and calculating. He has a new nickname - il Ragioniere - the Accountant.
The last-known photo was taken in 1959: a serious youth with brilliantined hair wearing a suit for a saint's festival. Today, say informers, he is frail and bald, save for white tufts above his ears. They say his skin is the colour of milk from consecutive months in boltholes.
"Provenzano is extremely powerful and extremely dangerous. He is in contact with all the clans and calls the shots," says Giuseppe Cipriani, the mayor of Corleone. Police believe he spends most of his time in western and central Sicily, flitting to safe houses in an endless game of cat and mouse.
From some snow-capped peaks, ferries can be seen trailing foam from the capital, Palermo. Provenzano - known as Binnu to friends - shuns telephones and faxes as too risky. His empire is run through cryptic, handwritten notes transported by key aides. There are occasional visits and very occasional summits with clan leaders, but otherwise the godfather is a hermit. Or a ghost. So low did he lie that for years investigators thought he was dead.
The one fixed reference point is his family. After several years abroad, thought to be Germany or Switzerland, his wife, Saveria, and sons Angelo, 25, and Paolo, 20, moved back to Corleone in April 1992.
Four letters to the godfather were intercepted by police in January, yielding gossip about business, health, relationships and advice to wash socks in cold water. "My beloved sweetheart," Saveria called him. She also promised to send a fleece jacket and snow trousers. Cue a police stampede to the frozen slopes of Mount Cammarata. No Binnu.
Ever since it gave its name to
Mario Puzo's fictional godfather, fact and fiction have collided in the cobbled alleys of Corleone. Perched high, 60km south of Palermo, it is from here that the Cosa Nostra spread mayhem and bloodlust across Sicily.
It is not difficult to find Saveria, now in her late 50s. She lives in a four-storey block above a car dealer's shop. Below the bell, in small black letters: Provenzano. Beside the bell: an entryphone. There is a long pause before the adult female voice answers. "You want a chat?" I ask. Laughter. "No, no, nothing to say. Bye bye." Another three rings elicit only silence.
Less than a mile away, in Piazza Santa Maria, is the family's latest enterprise: a launderette named Splend-Or. The last two letters are in gold, a pun since or is Italian for gold. Fiddling the switches of a giant red washer-drier is a tubby, handsome man wearing rimless glasses, jeans, jumper and check shirt: Angelo. He looks astonished to be asked for an interview, but recovers swiftly. "Thanks but no thanks, I'm not interested." Pressed, he repeats the formula three times.
In one of the intercepted letters, he complained of the laundry business being slack. According to a group of teenage girls, that was because he charged twice that of his only rival, Pinguini. "A pity, he's very cute," said one.
Provenzano's rise is encrusted with myth, but some things are known. Born to peasants, he and his friend Toto Riina became assassins for a rising boss, Luciano Liggio. Pumping 112 bullets into the black Fiat containing, Michele Navarra, a rival in Corleone, established them as the trinity of terror by 1958. They then moved down the valley to take on the Palermo clans, unleashing a war of extermination in which Provenzano was convicted in absentia of multiple murders.
By the 80s, Riina was the undisputed boss of bosses, with Provenzano as his deputy. It was a path to dictatorship paved with 800 corpses, and very much a double-act, says Roberto Scarpinato, a leading anti-mafia magistrate. "Riina was the military boss, Provenzano the businessman."
A skilled mediator, Provenzano persuaded clans to restructure, ditching a pyramidal hierarchy for a cell-type system where no one was to know more than two other mobsters. When someone was arrested, or turned informer, the damage could be contained. "Binnu was the tugboat who towed us to safety," one informer reportedly said.
Strategy was changed. Cosa Nostra melted back into the shadows, resolving internal disputes peacefully, where possible, and no longer challenging the state. It concentrated on infiltrating public-work contracts, racketeering and smuggling. The result was quiet, lucrative days for the mafia, said the former mayor of Palermo, Leoluca Orlando.
The Accountant has approved forays into electronic and internet fraud. Profits are recycled into legitimate ventures, especially construction, waste-disposal and retailing. But according to Lucio Violante, speaker of the senate, the biggest scam is yet to come. "In the next six years there will be L16,600bn (£5.3bn) invested in the Sicilian region. Do we want a Sicily in which the economic power ends up in the hands of Cosa Nostra?"
Hundreds of police, sometimes thousands, comb an area no bigger than 200sq miles. They cannot pass through the smallest hamlet without being noted by a Provenzano spy. Sting after sting has failed, for their prey is said to have the instincts of a wild animal. "He can smell danger," said one detective.
The godfather sends lieutenants to appointments and drops in on colleagues when not expected. His self-discipline is said to be awesome. "He can stay in a room for six months without poking his nose out," said the detective.
Botched operations have been blamed on squabbling between law-enforcement agencies. Some suspect Provenzano has an informer of his own. Generations of police officers have come and gone, predicting his imminent capture. But his time may be running out. Jailed bosses, desperate to improve harsh conditions, are negotiating with prosecutors. Handing over Binnu could be an ace.
Provenzano has become dispensable, a liability even. Under his command, a new generation of university-educated, sophisticated bosses have emerged. Power is devolved. "Provenzano is no dictator; he is a mediator. He builds consensus, but he doesn't control everything," says Scarpinato.
Thanks to Provenzano's reforms, Cosa Nostra is flexible and versatile. Though he is still the boss, the organisation's future is no longer entwined with his. Were he to be caught tonight, it would sail on, say magistrates.
Italy's fascination with the Accountant, and the government's decision to stake credibility on catching him, risks pushing the mafia back into the limelight. His arrest would suit everyone. The odds are turning against him, and now we will find out just how smart is Bernardo Provenzano.
Source: The Guardian
[ December 17, 2001: Message edited by: Don_Michel ]
