Archive pour la catégorie ‘Légalité en Italie’
Mafias.fr au « court-circuit café » de Nice
Le Court Circuit Café
(4 rue Vernier, Nice)
Accueille Fabrice Rizzoli pour une conférence débat
MAFIAS ET ACTION CITOYENNE
La réutilisation sociale des biens confisqués :
nouveau moyen de lutte contre les Mafias en Italie
Lundi 1er juillet à 20h
suivi d’une dégustation de vins bio italiens
et concert de Mamma Vendetta (Folk sicilien)
Fabrice Rizzoli est Docteur en science politique de l’université Paris I (Panthéon-Sorbonne) et spécialiste de la criminalité organisée et des mafias. Il est également représentant de l’ONG Flare en France et auteur du Petit dictionnaire énervé de la Mafia.
La vulgarisation médiatique du mot ‘mafia’ empêche l’approche scientifique d’un phénomène recouvrant des réalités très hétérogènes. La mafia est un sujet politique organisé qui s’adapte aux changements socio-économiques. Elle exerce une souveraineté sur un territoire donné, structure et perpétue un système fondé sur la violence et l’illégalité. La mafia anime un code culturel enraciné mais souple et jouit d’un relatif consensus social de la part de la population.
A partir de l’exemple de la mafia, paradigme de l’économie de prédation mais surtout des moyens de lutte contre celle-ci, des moyens très puissants en Italie, nous verrons comment l’économie solidaire est devenue le fer de lance de la lutte antimafia.
Corleone par exemple, n’est plus la ville de la mafia mais le symbole de l’antimafia grâce aux coopératives, en particulier agricoles: plus d’infos sur Recma (Revue internationale de l’économie sociale).
Le Réseau FLARE (Freedom Legality and Rights in Europe) milite pour la mise en place d’une loi, à l’échelle européenne, de réutilisation sociale des biens confisqués.
Mafias.fr dans la Croix
Silvio Berlusconi vient d’être condamné à sept ans de prison, assortis d’une interdiction à vie d’exercer un mandat public.
Elle est connue sous l’appellation d’« Ilda la rouge », soi-disant en raison de sa chevelure rouquine. Mais le surnom ne trompe personne. Il fait partie des insultes classiques de « communiste » ou « juge rouge » à l’encontre des magistrats italiens aussi jusqu’au-boutistes qu’incorruptibles, qui œuvrent au sein d’une justice réellement indépendante du pouvoir politique.
Ilda Boccassini, 63 ans dont 33 ans de carrière de procureur, est de cette veine-là. Ce qui lui vaut aussi d’être appelée « la dame de fer de la justice italienne ».
Silvio Berlusconi et la corruption
Depuis plus de deux ans, la magistrate près le tribunal de Milan poursuit Silvio Berlusconi pour abus de pouvoir et prostitution de mineure dans le cadre du procès Rubygate, du surnom de la mineure qui participait moyennant finances aux soirées « bunga-bunga » dans la villa du Cavaliere.
C’est elle qui a requis la peine de prison ferme (sept ans) assortie d’une interdiction à vie d’exercer toute fonction publique à l’encontre de Silvio Berlusconi – peine que la présidente du tribunal Giulia Turri a prononcée ce lundi 24 juin. Ces condamnations ne seront effectives qu’une fois toutes les voies de recours possibles auront été exercées, et à 76 ans, le Cavaliere pourrait échapper à la prison ferme du fait de son âge.
Mais Ilda Boccassini est surtout réputée pour sa lutte contre la corruption. Et à ce titre, depuis une vingtaine d’années, elle instruit les dossiers impliquant Silvio Berlusconi, ses proches collaborateurs et sa nébuleuse d’entreprises qui valurent nombre de condamnations au chef de la droite italienne – même si en raison des prescriptions et recours, aucune n’a été définitive. Pas étonnant donc que l’ancien président du conseil voie rouge quand on évoque le nom de la magistrate qui le traque depuis si longtemps.
En guerre contre les mafias
« Ilda Boccassini est l’ennemi juré de Silvio Berlusconi. Lorsqu’il était président du conseil en 2001, il s’était fait fort de lui supprimer l’escorte policière affectée aux magistrats exposés, pour faire des économies », rappelle Fabrice Rizzoli. Dans son Petit dictionnaire énervé de la mafia (1), ce politologue explique que si Silvio Berlusconi ne peut être qualifié de mafieux, il s’est bel et bien rendu complice d’organisations mafieuses. Son bras droit et créateur du parti Forza italia (devenu Peuple des libertés), Marcello Dell’Utri, fut d’ailleurs condamné pour « concours externe en association mafieuse ». la suite
Social redistribution of confiscated mafia assets in Italy
Social redistribution of confiscated mafia assets in Italy:
from mafia informal to civil formali
Niccolò Mignemiii and Fabrice Rizzoliiii
Original title: “La redistribution à des fins sociales des biens confisqués aux mafias en Italie:
de l’informel mafieux au formel citoyen”
Translated by Silvia Caccia [NOTE EN BAS DE PAGE: Silvia Caccia is secretary of the association Libera France. She would like to thank Michael Malloy for his thorough reading of the English version of this text.]
Introduction
Media popularization of the word mafia obscures the scientific approach to a phenomenon concerning very heterogeneous realities. Indeed, in Italy, the mafia is a more complex entity than a simple “concealed octopus.” In Sicily, the mafia-type association is called Cosa Nostra; in Calabria, the ’Ndrangheta; in Campania, the Camorra; in Apulia, the Sacra Corona Unita. The four mafia-type organizations—usually termed, for the sake of simplicity, the mafia—are similar but not identical. Throughout the world, however, there exist other mafias that resemble the Italian phenomenon: the Japanese Boryokundans, the Chinese Triads, and some Russian and Albanian clans. The construction of a common paradigm of analysis is in progress, but there are few scientific resources outside of the Italian peninsula.
In Italy, the mafias constitute a vast subject of interdisciplinary study that deserves to be comprehended starting from the paradigm of complexity.iv The mafia is an organized political entity that adapts to social and economic changes. Often described as a transnational force, the mafia exerts in the first place a sovereignty on a given territory. Starting from this territorial seigniory,v it structures and reproduces a system of power and exploitation based on violence and illegality. It perpetuates a rooted but flexible cultural code and benefits from a relative social consensus of the population. The study of the mafia phenomenon shows that the mafia is based on a systemic violence opposed to the state, that produces covert powers and an accumulation model centered on an economy of illegal predation.
The mafia, consisting of about 24,000 affiliates,vi coordinates a vast and ramified network of connivance that forms a social body composed of the mafiosi and their accomplices. The latter do not belong to the organization, in that they did not undergo any affiliation rites, but without them the mafiosi would just form a criminal gang. The mafia power mechanism operates at the core of a system of accomplice relationships that form, for each of the three principal mafias, a network of one hundred thousand people belonging to the world of politics, enterprise, and liberal professions: “The system of relations of the mafia is made up of kinship, friendship, interests, contiguity and complicity. This network establishes itself in conditions of economic development as well as under-development. These relations build a hierarchical organized social body. Poorer social categories represent the workforce recruitment area for the mafias. The leaders of the organization are capable of signing a villainous pact with the highest levels of political and economic power, high society.”vii All this forms the above-mentioned social body, an elite that one of the greatest authorities on the mafia, the sociologist Umberto Santino, names the mafia bourgeoisie.viii The definition of the mafia phenomenon by the existence of a social body and not by a simple criminal organization is the only way to explain the perpetuity of the mafia, faced with the formal systems that followed one another: feudal/capitalistic system, democracy/authoritarianism, war and peace, etc.
In the past thirty years, by means of institutional tools, the state of right has proved very audacious in the recovering of the formal on the mafia informal. In 1982, the introduction of the crime of mafia-type association in the Criminal Code has revolutionized the struggle against this kind of associative criminality. In 1988, a reform of the Code of Criminal Procedure, reinforcing the independence of judges and the judicial police officers at their disposal, made possible the carrying of processes against mafia accomplice elites. Then, there was a change at the beginning of the 1990s. Since 1991, a national direction composed of antimafia judges successfully coordinates all inquiries. A law against the infiltration of the mafia in elected assemblies provoked the dismantling of 234 assemblies between 1991 and 2013. Since 1991, the law on collaborators of justice—wrongly called repentantsix—caused the exit of 3,000 mafiosi from their environment, and their integration into the state of right.
The accumulation of wealth is an essential component of the mafia system. As this illegally acquired capital “pollutes” the legal economic circuits, the attack on illicit possessions proves to be an indispensable tool of any antimafia strategy. From this viewpoint, the instrument that reversed the strength ratio between the mafia and the state is the practice of the confiscation of illicit possessions, since it weakens the economic power of the mafias. However, this efficacious instrument can sometimes feed the rivalry between two opposing powers—the state and the mafia—excluding the civil society. An Italian law of 1996 allows the “recycling” of confiscated assets, whereas they are usually resold or abandoned after the confiscation. This unique lawx makes it possible, for instance, the attribution of a villa—formerly belonging to a mafioso and obtained by the corruption of the formal system—to a social cooperative.
First of all, our analysis will focus on the mechanisms of confiscation and reuse of mafia assets; then, we will treat the example of the reuse of confiscated land by means of social agricultural cooperatives.
1. The reuse of confiscated assets: mechanisms and results
Before showing the examples of social redistribution of confiscated assets, we will prove the effectiveness of confiscation in the struggle against the informal.xi
1.1. The confiscation of products of the mafia informal
Confiscation consists, for the judiciary, in definitively expropriating a person of those assets acquired through a criminal infraction. In general, confiscation resting on a criminal condemnation of the owner of the assets exists in every state, but it is difficult to apply as the judge must show the link between the infraction and the property.xii In opposition to this general rule, Italy possesses a series of procedures that facilitate criminal confiscation, either because the latter is mandatory whereas it is optional elsewhere, or because the Italian judiciary does not have to find the accumulated funds, or because the confiscation of assets also applies to the accomplices of the condemned person, although under particular circumstances. Between 2010 and 2012, the different confiscation regimes allowed for the seizure of €11 billion worth of assets.xiii
In Italy, criminal confiscation is mandatory for a number of crimes, like those of mafia-type association, drug trafficking, usury, fraud against the European Union, corruption, etc. It is provided for by Article 240 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. Confiscation allows the judiciary to evidence those revenues derived from an infraction; it punishes the principal author, but also the accomplices. A second type of confiscation, called by equivalence (Article 322ter of the Criminal Code), proposes the evaluation of all gains obtained through the infraction, including those for which the judiciary would not be able to find their true origin. For instance, the judiciary may prove that an agricultural entrepreneur fraudulently perceived some European funds, because he has kept stocks of produce to sell them illicitly, declaring that they had been destroyed. The judiciary may thus seize some of his real or personal property, as a yacht for instance, whose value equals that of the European subvention fraudulently perceived. If this entrepreneur is not able to prove that he bought that property by means of legally acquired money, confiscation becomes irreversible. If the property formally belongs to one of the entrepreneur’s associates, friends, or relatives—his spouse, for instance—the charge of proof is partially inverted: it is now the duty of the owner, if he or she could not ignore the situation, to prove the origin of the funds. In this case, one speaks about enlarged confiscation. Confiscation by equivalence often punishes infractions against the morality of public life (unlawful acquisition of an interest or undue advantage, misuse of public resources, etc.). This type of confiscation is particularly interesting when studying the problem of the informal, because it applies to people from whom society awaits, as a result of their social position, an exemplary attitude, in particular by the respect of the formal.
Besides this criminal tool, there exists a “pearl” at the service of the recovering of the formal on the informal: preventive antimafia confiscation. Since 1982, this administrative type of confiscation does not lie on an individual condemnation of the owner, but rather on the illicit character of the mechanisms of the acquisition of property. This property is then considered as dangerous, because it belongs to a person linked with the mafia.
As professional criminals assign their possessions to nominees (simple workers, lawyers, other associates, etc.), the idea consists in seizing the property of these accomplices, as well, even though they are not charged with any crime. Coupled with the crime of mafia-type association, this kind of confiscation proves to be particularly effective in the struggle against the mafia.
For instance, when inquiring about a clan, the judges discover a mafioso calling the Café de Paris in Rome everyday to ask the manager of one of the most beautiful cafes of the Italian capital for the total amount of receipts. The judges assign the inquiry to the Financial Guard, that discovers that the mafioso has been declared as cook helper and that the cafe belongs to a penniless barber from the Calabrian village of Cosoleto, 2,000 inhabitants including our mafioso.xiv As the inquirers demonstrate the link between the mafioso and the nominee, the latter has to prove that he legally acquired his cafe.
The prefect or the prosecutor and the judicial antimafia police, who dispose of important means of inquiry in order to determine the origin of the assets of the mafioso and his accomplices, may start the procedure. At the end of the inquiry, the administrative court—whose section dealing with conservative measures has an office in each appeals court (corte d’appello)—seizes the property (that is, it puts it under temporary administrative seizure, as a step towards confiscation). When all appeals are settled, confiscation becomes effective and the property enters public domain.
In 2004, the European Court for the Human Rights declared that the preventive judicial regime of confiscation respects the presumption of innocence, because it is a judicial procedure during which all defense rights are fully guaranteed. As it consists in an administrative decision, the person concerned may at all times provide the proof of the licit origin of the property, leading to its restitution or to compensation.
Experts agree in recognizing the effectiveness of this judicial regime against the mafias and that kind of organized crime whose characteristic is that of being an enterprise of collective predation, to which one has to respond with a collective confiscation of assets. From this point of view the Italian balance is very positive despite some difficulties. Until January 7, 2013, about 90,000 mafia assets had been seized but about 70% of them are definitely confiscated. Confiscation of assets has sensibly increased these last years. For instance, during 2007–2008, 11,871 assets were seized, whereas in 2009–2010 they were 21,039. During the five-year period 2007–2011, assets were predominantly located in Sicily (that is, 46%) , but in the past few years more and more assets have been seized in the North of Italy. Lombardy has now the fifth highest regional number of confiscations.
When confiscation is definitively decided, the National Agency for Administration and Destination of Assets Seized and Confiscated from Organized Crime, founded in 2010, decides on their attribution.xv
1.2. Public use of confiscated assets
When illegally acquired assets are confiscated, the question becomes their destination. They cannot be sold or rented out. Assets confiscated from the mafia cannot be sold at auction as would typically happen in other countries. Either the mafiosi and their accomplices would buy them back, or potential buyers would not dare to defy the power of the mafia by buying those assets. And if nobody buys them, those assets might encounter decay, showing the incapacity of the formal to give consistence to its idea of “reconquest” of the informal. To the eyes of the local community in the first place, the problem is of major interest: Is it better, for instance, that a parcel stays uncultivated or knowing that it is being exploited by a mafioso?
Three main categories of assets are subject to confiscation. Movables are mostly resold, because maintaining a yacht, for instance, is expensive. Only some vehicles are given to public forces (police, fire fighters, forest guard,xvi etc.). The two other categories are land properties and companies. Today, the agency for confiscated assets is responsible of 12,946 assets—11,238 land properties and 1,708 companies.xvii
In order to fight against the social consensus benefiting the mafioso, his property must not disappear, but has to be reused on the territory instead. It has to be a sort of compensation for a community that used to be subject to predation by the mafia. In 1995 Libera—a national network of antimafia associationsxviii—promoted a petition, signed by more than one million people. Then, in 1996, the government proposed a law whose purpose was to reintroduce in the legal system all of those confiscated assets that could have a socially useful function. Thanks to this law, each property can now be used either by institutions, or by regional authorities, or by cooperatives and associations having public interest.
Out of the 12,946 assets managed by the agency for confiscated assets, 5,859 land properties have been assigned to an entity having public interest. To this day, the agency has yet to find a destination for 3,995 assets. Only 11.4% of the 5,859 assigned assets benefit public forces (police, justice, fire fighters, harbor office). Most of the assets benefit civil society through cooperatives and associations. The majority of immovables (86.7%) are assigned to local authorities (almost all to town councils—that is, 4,961 out of 5,859) as property that cannot be disposed of freely; 33.3% of these assets are used with social purposes. For instance, 19.9% are assigned to associations and 14.7% to social centers for the rescue of disadvantaged population. On the other hand, when the property consists in a company, it can be rented out, sold or liquidated if the public interest is at stake—for instance, in order to compensate the victims of the mafia.
More than fifteen years after this law was passed, effects are visible. For instance, houses formerly belonging to some mafiosi have been transformed into police stations or courts of law. Other houses have become cultural and learning centers, centers for the care of drug addicts or housing facilities for clandestine immigrants, those to whom the mafia sells drug, or that she exploits as cheap work force. But one of the most well-known examples today is that of confiscated agricultural land, converted to organic agriculture (wine, cereals, etc.) by social cooperatives that take part in the Libera Terra project.
2. Agricultural cooperatives: a paradigm of social reuse
Agricultural land occupies a special place among confiscated assets, as shown by data. According to the report of the agency for confiscated assets, in 2011 agricultural land represented 19.7% of definitively confiscated assets (that is, 2,062 assets out of 10,438), and 16.9% of all assets managed directly by the agency.xix Proportions rise to 23.1% and 19.6% respectively if one counts land with rural buildings.
Agricultural land is central because it represents about a quarter (23.7%) of effectively assigned assets, of which 33.3% are specifically destined for social reuse and about 40% to larger social purposes (social or health services, schools, associations, etc.).xx If one admits that agricultural land is usually destined for social purposes,xxi this category alone consists of more than two thirds of reused assets (71.2%, and 83.3% if one counts rural buildings). How to explain this peculiar position?
Three practical arguments make agricultural land an “experimental outpost” for social reuse. Firstly, the exploitation of land is easier. Of course, recovering a piece of land or a vineyard after years of abandonment requires important investments, but it does not compare to the resources that are necessary for the reactivation of a company. Secondly, land produces economically measurable results and ensures the perpetuity of the project, or even its development, more quickly. Thirdly, the exploitation of confiscated land has a strong symbolic power. As far as agricultural land is concerned, the virtues and the success of social reuse are incarnated in food products destined for the market of responsible buyers, and a quality label propagates their message as largely as possible.
Confiscated agricultural land cannot be sold; it is thus transferred to local councils, which cannot dispose of it freely, and usually assigned through an administrative concession formalized by a gratuitous bailment contract lasting fifteen to thirty years. However, one must find a person that agrees on exploiting an estate formerly belonging to a mafioso, without the possibility of accessing to its full property, in addition. Here, associations and cooperatives—that is, two kinds of actors that accept the entrepreneurial mindset together with the principles of social reuse, which imply strong constraintsxxii—play a key role.
The Libera Terra project was born and continues to develop with this spirit. Nonetheless, coherence and long-term vision were not part of the project at the beginning. They actually formed through the years and through experience. Capable of reinventing itself starting from an initiative of local nature, Libera Terra has become a major example in the Italian social agriculture.xxiii The path of the project represents a paradigm that shows the opportunities and the critical aspects of social reuse.
The genesis of Libera Terra occurred in 2000–2001, when several town councils of the Alto Belice Corleonese, in the inner land of the province of Palermo, grouped into a consortium with the purpose of federating the efforts in the exploitation of the confiscated assets that the state had assigned them—153 hectares of agricultural land with some rural buildings.
Encouraged by the prefect of Palermo, they also benefited from European funds destined for the development of the Mezzogiorno, and also from the accompanying of the association Libera and of the national federations of cooperatives. Although all the experiments launched since the 1996 law on social reuse had never worked out, this time the favorable conditions were present: an economic, social and political project; a favorable legislative framework; and resources.
Some preexisting cooperatives took part in the project, but on territories conditioned by clientelism it was necessary to imagine alternative and innovative practices. The promoters then opted for the establishment of new structures constituted especially for this purpose; here, company formalization follows and serves a social object that precedes it. Selected through a competitive examination that defines the professional profiles necessary for the needs of the company, young, jobless people are formed and followed in the creation of social cooperatives of type B—an Italian status, similar to French Scop—having the professional insertion of underprivileged groups of people (handicapped people, drug addicts, convicts, etc.) as a goal.xxiv
The first one of these cooperatives is founded in November 2001 in San Giuseppe Jato, a Sicilian village known for its mafia and antimafia. It is called Placido Rizzotto, in the honor of the trade union leader from Corleone killed in 1948 because of his commitment in favor of the poorest farmers.xxv As in the other cooperatives that followed it, the reference to the memory of the victims of mafia violence shows the will to fit into a heritage of social struggles.xxvi
Having become in less than a decade a synonym of ethical, social, and economic quality, the Libera Terra label reunites today eleven cooperatives in four regions of the Mezzogiorno. A cooperative is established in Apulia, another one north of Naples, two in Calabria and seven in Sicily, of which four in the province of Palermo. All cooperatives belong to a consortium, Libera Terra Mediterraneo, that ensures the enhancement of their products (transformation, distribution, commercialization, etc.). After being the cradle of the project, the Alto Belice Corleonese, part of the Sicilian antimafia tradition,xxvii is now called to reinvent the experience by following its growth strategies.
Other texts have presented the history of Libera Terra.xxviii What we are interested in is showing the ability of this experience to give concrete form to the process of reformalization of the informal, by means of the collective. In order to show this feature, the pioneer case of the Placido Rizzotto cooperative provides us with a field of study that has to be observed from three viewpoints: work, relation with the territory, and mechanisms of wealth production.
In those areas marked by unemployment—especially among young people—and by irregular work—in particular in the agricultural sector—the cooperative is an opportunity and an “outpost” of legality on the workplace. Since the mid 2000s, the Placido Rizzotto cooperative has hired 30–40 people each year, of which about 15 associates that have a permanent contract and take care of the ordinary management, whereas agricultural work, because of its seasonality, is often assigned to a temporary external workforce. Although at the beginning the fear of working for “those of the antimafia” kept workers at distance, today many of them would like to sign up for the lists of the cooperative. According to some evidence, even farm managing mafiosi appear to be forced to sign work contracts not to lose their workforce.
The question of the relation to the territory is more complex. In rural Sicily, the landowner still maintains a very strong symbolic power. Cultivating a wild field having belonged to a mafioso means not only reaffirming the sovereignty of the state, but truly unmasking the exploitation mechanisms of criminal organizations. Replanting local varieties of vine on an abandoned vineyard, cultivating wheat on a former wild field does not consist in introducing new actors in old piling mechanisms. In fact, the predatory mindset itself is challenged. Illegally acquired resources are now at disposal of the community, again.
The cooperative not only manages its land in a different way, but furthermore it tries to “contaminate” the rest of the territory with its virtuous practices,xxix for instance opening to local producers the possibility of subscribing a chart of values giving access to the advantages of the Libera Terra label. The wealth production and distribution system is undermined by the choice of organic, as well as ethical, quality. This “will for normality” represents a break with the traditional image of the underdeveloped Mezzogiorno incapable of innovation. From this point of view, social reuse of agricultural land has first of all an exemplary value and a pedagogical function, but it shall not stay locked in a moral stance. This new articulation between public powers, “traditional” companies, and actors of the social and fair economy constitutes a lasting, advantageous option, actually profitable for the subjects directly concerned, as well as for the territory as a whole.xxx
Conclusion
Today, after the enthusiasm and the natural growth of the initial phase, confiscation as a tool for the struggle against the mafias has to face the challenges of ordinary management and the mechanisms that limit its effectiveness. A first critical point comes from the fact that the Italian State apparently manages to confiscate only 10% of the assets belonging to the mafias. The second follows from the comparison of three numbers: out of 82,654 seized assets, only 12,946 are actually at the disposal of the agency for confiscated assets, of which 5,859 have been attributed to the general interest. Only 15% of confiscated assets are really exploited and, since 2001, less than a half of these assets have found an effective destination, because of bureaucratic issues. Moreover, when a decision is made, these assets are often in ruins because they have been abandoned for long or destroyed by the mafia families that sometimes occupy them despite the decisions of the judiciary. Vast amounts of money become necessary to restore them or save them from closure, with firing as a consequence in the case of companies—whereas banks and clients, out of complicity or fear of reprisals, stop financing their activities. Finally, beyond all formal aspects, the inability of the state in the domain of confiscations risks reinforcing the power of clans. Especially where economic difficulties and unemployment are stronger, the mafioso will be able to go around and tell his fellow townspeople, “See, before there was a hotel that employed many of you, now it has gone wild, the state mocks you. I’m the power.”xxxi
However, these are criticisms due to a system that has to be improved. In fact, the Italian State starts playing its role although the resources it can invest are meager compared to the needs. It is, however, not responsible for the absence of identical legislation in other countries, not to mention the banks that claim mortgage credits that they had given “in good faith” to the mafiosi now in prison, or the fiscal paradises that feed the financial circuits by laundering the money of criminal organizations.
Indisputably, restitution of seized assets to the community through reuse allows the progressive attack on the social capital of the mafia. The symbolic, pedagogical, and cultural value of the social use of confiscated assets breaks the consensus that benefits the mafioso. As with collaborators of justice, confiscation confers the state its authority among the population, and the latter reacquires the property lost by pillage and intimidation.
As a matter of fact the mafiosi suffer from confiscation much more than from prison, because their prestige is here under discussion, on their territory and in front of their accomplices, in addition. Agricultural cooperatives are paradigmatic of the success of this strategy, since they bring back into cultivation wild fields and land conquered from the mafia’s territorial seigniory. They manage to compete in a substantial manner with the mechanisms of reproduction of the informal system, to which they oppose a new economic model based on a different relation to work, territories, quality, and the distribution of created wealth.
These “freed products” are sold shops of the organic and fair trade circuits, in supermarkets linked with the Legacoop federation, and even abroad. These products can be tasted in Paris, at the Ethicando concept store (6 rue de la Grange aux Belles, 10e arrondissement). But, in front of globalized mafias—as evidenced by the Duisburg killing in 2007, when six Calabrians were shot—in order to make these tools really effective and reinforce this project, confiscation and social reuse must now be spread out of the Italian national borders, by the adoption—in all countries of the European Union—of a text similar to the above-mentioned Italian law. In fact, a European parliamentary commission is already working on this idea.xxxii
The mafias, major actors of the integrated global economy, are a structural and systemic phenomenon of the globalization. The Italian antimafia redistribution is thus an example to follow and develop in other countries.xxxiii Some examples along this path start to show up, as in the case of Serbia, which equipped itself with the same tool in 2008—the authors are however not capable of exposing the details at the moment.
In France, the confiscation procedure has been rationalized by the creation of the AGRASC in 2011, but there is no law allowing for the social reuse of the several assets existing in the country (of which citizens have not yet been provided with evidence). However, in Argenteuil, in the Val-d’Oise province, the villa of a drug dealer could become a school of the second chance and the kebab shop that was formerly an operation of money laundering could become a learning center. In Aix-en-Provence, the cafes belonging to nominees of organized crime could become cultural laboratories, and the assets of African dictators in Paris could become shelters for migrants. Socio-cultural reuse of confiscated assets must also become a model of restoration of the state of right in the case of other forms of criminality. Money coming from the “commissions” of the Taiwan frigates could finance the management of these assets in the townships. Takieddine’s villa could become an observatory on the phenomenon of economic and financial crime. In France, like elsewhere in Europe, there is no reason that these assets should not be returned, in a visible manner, to general interest and civil society.
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Borzaga, Carlo. “Les coopératives sociales en Italie.” Recma 258 (1995): 47–55.
———. “L’évolution récente de la coopération sociale en Italie: Aspects quantitatifs et qualitatifs.” Recma 266 (1997): 55–63.
Di Iacovo, Francesco, ed. Agricoltura sociale: quando le campagne coltivano valori; Un manuale per conoscere e progettare. Milan: Franco Angeli, 2008.
Dolci, Danilo. Spreco: Documenti e inchieste su alcuni aspetti dello spreco nella Sicilia occidentale. Turin: Einaudi, 1960. Translated by R. Munroe as Waste: an Eye-Witness Report on Some Aspects of Waste in Western Sicily (London: MacGibbon & Kee, 1963).
Fazzi, Luca. “Social Co-Operatives and Social Farming in Italy.” Sociologia Ruralis 51, no. 2 (2011): 119–136.
Fondazione Libera Informazione. Beni confiscati alle mafie: il potere dei segni; Viaggio nel paese reale tra riutilizzo sociale, impegno e responsabilità. Milan: Agenzia per le ONLUS, 2010.
La Torre, Pio. Comunisti e movimento contadino in Sicilia. Rome: Editori Riuniti, 1980.
Mignemi, Niccolò. “Coopératives et réutilisation sociale des biens confisqués à la mafia: Le projet Libera Terra en Sicile.” Recma 328 (2013): 33–47.
Ministero della giustizia, Dipartimento per gli Affari di Giustizia, Direzione generale della Giustizia penale, Ufficio I—Reparto Dati Statistici e Monitoraggio. Consistenza, destinazione ed utilizzo dei beni sequestrati o confiscati—Stato dei procedimenti di sequestro o confisca—Relazione al Parlamento ex L. 7 marzo 1996, n. 109—Febbraio 2012. http://www.giustizia.it/giustizia/it/mg_1_12_1.wp?previsiousPage=mg_1_12&contentId=SPS748053#r9.
Mosca, Michele, and Salvatore Villani. “L’impresa sociale ed il riutilizzo a fini sociali dei beni confiscati: verso un nuovo modello di sviluppo del Mezzogiorno fondato sul capitale sociale e sul ‘territorio.’” Impresa Sociale 79, no. 3 (2010): 33–50.
Paternostro, Dino. L’antimafia sconosciuta: Corleone 1893–1993. Palermo: La Zisa, 1994,
– Le stelle in un pugno: Il sogno di Placido Rizzotto e dei contadini di Corleone. Palermo: La Zisa, 2008.
Rizzoli, Fabrice. “Des armes à l’italienne contre le crime organisé: et plus, si affinité…” J’essaime… pour une autre justice 23 (September 2012): 48–53.
– Petit dictionnaire énervé de la mafia. De A comme “Accumulation du capital” à Z comme “Zoomafia,” 152 définitions mafieuses. Paris: Les Éditions de l’Opportun, 2012.
– “Pouvoirs et mafias italiennes: Contrôle du territoire contre État de droit.” Pouvoirs 132 (2010): 41–55.
Click : POWERS AND THE ITALIAN MAFIAS
The hold of the mafia on the world of politics
Sabbatini, Massimo. Agricoltura non profit: Percorsi strategici dell’impresa sociale e potenzialità multifunzionali per l’azienda agricola. Milan: Franco Angeli, 2008.
Santino, Umberto. L’alleanza e il compromesso: Mafia e politica dai tempi di Lima e d’Andreotti ai giorni nostri. Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino Editore, 1997.
– La borghesia mafiosa: Materiali di un percorso d’analisi. Palermo: Centro siciliano di documentazione Giuseppe Impastato, 1994.
– Dalla mafia alle mafie: Scienze sociali e crimine organizzato. Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino Editore, 2006.
– Storia del movimento antimafia: Dalla lotta di classe all’impegno civile. 2nd ed. Rome: Editori Riuniti, 2009.
Service d’information, de renseignement et d’analyse stratégique sur la criminalité organisée (sirasco). Rapport sur la criminalité organisée en France (2010–2011). Limited distribution (confidential).
Zandonai, Flaviano. “La coopération sociale en Italie, entre consolidation et transformation.” Recma 286 (2002): 36–46.
iAlthough they remain the only responsible for mistakes and inaccuracies, the authors would like to thank Silvia Caccia, Anne Crenier, and Mario Vaudano for their patient and meticulous revision, as well as for their remarks, criticisms, and suggestions.
iiNiccolò Mignemi holds a PhD of the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS). In 2012, he defended his thesis in History and Civilizations, “Coopérer pour travailler la terre, coopérer pour exploiter la terre: itinéraires comparés des coopératives agricoles en Italie dans la première moitié du vingtième siècle.”
iiiFabrice Rizzoli holds a PhD of the Université Paris I–Panthéon-Sorbonne. In 2009, he defended his thesis in Political Sciences, “Italian mafias and international relationships
ivSantino, Dalla mafia alle mafie.
vIbid.
viAn estimate of the Direzione d’investigazione antimafia (DIA), which has published a biannual report available on the Internet since 1993.
viiSantino, Dalla mafia alle mafie, translated in Rizzoli, Petit dictionnaire, 41.
viiiOn the formulation of the concept of mafia bourgeoisie, see: Santino, Borghesia mafiosa; Santino, Alleanza e compromesso; Rizzoli, “Pouvoirs et mafias italiennes.”
ixRizzoli, Petit dictionnaire, 52–55.
xIn fact, a similar law was passed in Serbia in 2008.
xiAbout the use of the term informal in this text, see the entry “Économie du crime” in Rizzoli, Petit dictionnaire, 79–80.
xiiSIRASCO, Rapport, 29.
xiiiMinistero della giustizia, Stato dei procedimenti.
xivSeized in 2009, the Café de Paris was definitely confiscated in 2011 and, thanks to the new management direction, one can now find the products of antimafia cooperatives exposed in its windows.
xvThe Agenzia nazionale per l’amministrazione e la destinazione dei beni sequestrati e confiscati alla criminalità organizzata (ANBSC) was created by the decree of February 4, 2010, then law of March 31, 2010, n. 50.
xviAn institution that accomplishes great criminal inquiries against the “ecomafias,” those activities that alter the environment.
xviiSee ANBSC, “Situazione dei beni.”
xviiiThe complete name is Libera: Associazioni, nomi e numeri contro le mafie, see the official website Libera.it.
xixThat is, 569 assets out of 3,364. See ANBSC, 2a Relazione, 52.
xxIbid., 51.
xxiAscione and Scornaienghi, “Agricoltura legale.”
xxiiOn these issues see: Mosca and Villani, “Impresa sociale”; Baldascino and Mosca, “Gestione dei beni confiscati.”
xxiiiOn social agriculture in Italy see: Di Iacovo, Agricoltura sociale; Sabbatini, Agricoltura non profit; Fazzi, “Social Co-Operatives.”
xxivOn Italian social cooperatives see: Borzaga, “Coopératives sociales”; Borzaga, “Évolution récente”; Zandonai, “Coopération sociale.”
xxvSee Paternostro, Stelle in un pugno, but also the testimony of Placido Rizzotto’s father in Dolci, Spreco.
xxviLa Torre, Comunisti e movimento contadino; Paternostro, Antimafia sconosciuta.
xxviiSantino, Storia del movimento antimafia.
xxviiiMignemi, “Coopératives et réutilisation sociale.”
xxixFazzi, “Social Co-Operatives,” 134.
xxxFondazione Libera Informazione, Beni confiscati.
xxxiRizzoli, Petit dictionnaire, 194.
xxxiiIt is the CRIM (Organised Crime, Corruption and Money Laundering ) Special Committee of the European Parliament.
xxxiiiRizzoli, “Armes à l’italienne.”
Tribune Atlantico : contre la mafia en Corse, des moyens antimafias
La radio suisse donne la parole au spécialiste français de la negociation « Etat-mafia »
La radio Suisse et son programme FORUM, : « En Sicile, en Italie, un procès sans précédent s’est ouvert cette semaine. Sur le banc des accusés, on retrouve autant de politiciens ou d’officiers que membres de la mafia, la fameuse Cosa Nostra des années nonante. Quels sont les enjeux de ce procès?
L’interview de Fabrice Rizzoli, docteur en sciences politiques (cf. Mafias italiennes et relations internationales et auteur du « Petit dictionnaire énervé de la mafia », aux Editions de l’Opportun.
Il a écrit depuis longtemps sur les négociations Etat-Mafia (cf. Le terrorisme mafieux dans la crise du système politique italien et. 12 janvier 2002, un étudiant et un colloque sur les attentats de 1992-1993
Le 24 juin 2012, le parquet de Palerme sous la direction Antonio Ingroia, dans le cadre des enquête sur la négociation Etat-mafia a renvoyé devant la cour d’assise de Palerme 12 personnes pour « concours externe en association mafieuse et violence sur des membre du corps politique de l’Eat.
Parmi les accusés : les chefs mafieux Salvatore Riina, Giovanni Brusca, Leoluca Bagarella, Antonino Cinà et Bernardo Provenzano, mais aussi les politiciens Calogero Mannino, Marcello Dell’Utri, les Carabiniers Mario Mori et Giuseppe De Donno, et le collaborateur de justice Massimo Ciancimino pour diffamation
A noter le jugement en même temps de l’ex ministre de l’intérieur de 1992 à 1994 Nicola Mancino mais uniquement pour faux témoignage.
Retrouvez l’ ITV de Fabrice Rizzoli
Revue internationale de l’économie sociale
Numero de revue : 328 Année de publication : 2013
Auteurs : Niccolò Mignemi (cf. 1er mai 1947 : Portella della Ginestra, 11 morts)
Une loi de 1996 introduit en Italie le principe de la réutilisation sociale des biens confisqués aux mafias par leur concession en faveur de coopératives ou d’autres associations. L’étude s’intéresse au cas des coopératives sociales siciliennes du projet Libera Terra, et en particulier à l’exemple pionnier de la Placido Rizzotto, créée en 2001 dans l’arrière-pays de la province de Palerme. L’analyse du microcosme qui entoure cette genèse permettra d’approfondir les aspects économiques, sociaux et institutionnels de l’initiative, surtout dans une perspective de développement local. Avec un regard tourné vers les dynamiques de plus longue durée, cette expérience est l’occasion d’interroger le rapport entre instrument coopératif en agriculture et caractéristiques du terroir, sous la triple déclinaison de l’histoire héritée, des contraintes imposées par le contexte et des opportunités offertes par les ressources disponibles.
Cliquez La suite
Impastato, paradigme antimafia, à Paris mardi 21 mai chez Ethicando. Peppino animateur d’une radio libre se serait enflammé pour le cinéma itinérant antimafia
Mardi 21 mai 20h40
6 rue de la Grange aux Belles 75010 Paris
Métro Jacques Bonsergent
Soirée en français 🙂
Peppino Impastato est mort il y a 35 ans pour s’être opposé à la mafia avec l’arme de la parole et de l’action sociale. Nous commémorerons sa mémoire avec son frère Giovanni, Maria Chia Prodi de Libera France
Un appel est aussi lancé pour que la maison dans laquelle il fut assassiné devient un lieu de mémoire, cliquez sur 20h : Apéritif anti-impunité avec le vin Cento passi de la coopérative Placido Rizzotto
21h : projection de « Munnizza », un court métrage de 18 minutes en italien sous-titré en français
21h 30 : débat avec Giovanni Impastato entouré de Maria Chiara Prodi de Libera France et Fabrice Rizzoli auteur du Petit dictionnaire énervé de la mafia
Peppino Impastato, animateur de radio libre aurait dit :
« financez la venue du cinéma antimafia en France »
avant le 21 mai 2013
Pour venir à Paris mais aussi à Marseille et à Duisbourg, Cinemovel a besoin de 5 000 euros.
Vous pouvez contribuer à l’aide de la plateforme KissKissBankBank.
En échange d’un service :
– 5 euros et votre nom sera cité sur le site internet
– 15 euros : la carte postale
– 25 euros l’affiche
– 35 euros : le DVD de la campagne…
Vous avez jusqu’au 21 mai. Après cette date, si Cinemovel n’a pas récolté 5 000 euros, l’argent sera rendu aux contributeurs.
Cliquez : Cinéma antimafia
Arrêté à cause de son accent napolitain!
Mardi 14 mai 2013, la police italienne aux frontières a arrêté un napolitain de 53 ans. Il s’agit d’un trafiquant de drogue basé à Nice (cf. Présences mafieuses en France) et en Espagne (cf. Cosca del sol 2...) pour le compte de la Camorra (cf. TV5 monde : 7 jours sur la planète). Déjà arrêté au même endroit par la même brigande en 2008, il était recherché par la justice française depuis mars 2012 pour commerce de stupéfiants. Il devrait être extradé rapidement vers la France (cf. L’importance de l’harmonisation des lois antimafias)
Au moment de son arrestation, le trafiquant se trouvait à Vintimille dans le train en provenance de France. Il était en possession de faux papiers français. totalement indétectables. Et pour cause, sa carte d’identité était fait avec des vraies matériaux… Les Napolitains sont les rois de la contrefaçon… en raison de leur savoir faire (cf. Gomorra, le livre). Mais alors pourquoi notre trafiquant a-t-il été arrêté?
Et bien parce que le policier a été surpris par son fort accent napolitain peu en adéquation avec une carte d’identité française…
Un article pour tous les policiers sur le terrain que l’on ne remplacera jamais par des machines… à Stephan-Serpico et à tous les autres
Un article pour tous les Napolitains et leur accent…
Avant le 21 mai : 5 euros pour le cinéma antimafia à Paris?
Et financez la venue du cinéma antimafia en France
avant le 21 mai 2013
Pour venir à Paris mais aussi à Marseille et à Duisbourg, Cinemovel a besoin de 5 000 euros.
Vous pouvez contribuer à l’aide de la plateforme KissKissBankBank.
En échange d’un service :
– 5 euros et votre nom sera cité sur le site internet
– 15 euros : la carte postale
– 25 euros l’affiche
– 35 euros : le DVD de la campagne…
Vous avez jusqu’au 21 mai. Après cette date, si Cinemovel n’a pas récolté 5 000 euros, l’argent sera rendu aux contributeurs.
Cliquez : Cinéma antimafia
Les derniers mots de Falcone et Borsellino : « financez le cinéma itinérant antimafia »
Recueil d’interventions, interviews et analyses de Falcone et Borsellino, cet ouvrage témoigne des nombreuses difficultés rencontrées dans la lutte contre la mafia, entravée non seulement par le crime organisé, mais surtout par les collègues des deux juges et les représentants du monde politique.
Ce livre marque un retour fondamental aux sources directes, à ce qu’ils ont vraiment dit et écrit, dans la tentative de pénétrer les raisons (et les raisons d’État) qui ont amené à l’assassinat de ces deux juges-amis.
Intervenants : Anna Rizzello Maison d’Edition LaContre– Allée, (traductrice).
Maria Chiara Prodi, représentante de Libera Francia.
Super Mario Vaudano
Fabrice Rizzoli, auteur de “Petit dictionnaire énervé de la mafia”.
Falcone et Borsellino auraient voulu le cinéma Antimafia à Paris
Alors financez la venue du cinéma antimafia en France
avant le 21 mai 2013
Pour venir à Paris mais aussi à Marseille et à Duisbourg, Cinemovel a besoin de 5 000 euros.
Vous pouvez contribuer à l’aide de la plateforme KissKissBankBank.
En échange d’un service :
– 5 euros et votre nom sera cité sur le site internet
– 15 euros : l’affiche
– 35 euros : le DVD de la campagne…
Vous avez jusqu’au 21 mai. Après cette date, si Cinemovel n’a pas récolté 5 000 euros, l’argent sera rendu aux contributeurs.
Cliquez : Cinéma antimafia