For Generations

(JHB/SCT)
Italy and the Mafia- an almost endless history of entanglement between politics and organized crime.

It is not just since yesterday that the Italian courts have been trying to prosecute the countless Mafia families on Sicily who have spread like a serious illness all over the world.

After the senseless murder of the Mafia hunter Falcone in 1992, interest in the families seemed to be waning in other parts of Italy as well.

The Mafía, though always different, stays a miserable parasite in all its actions. Brutal, dangerous and rigorous in asserting one's own interests still today and back then 1980.

Bologna 1980

Anni di piombo

Was it the Mafia who wanted to distract from a bloody war in the South of Italy, which gave the assassins of Bologna the opportunity to commit this attack at all?

Back then, there had already been interweaving between the Mafia and right-wing paramilitaries, including links to the alleged stay-behind network of an organization called Gladio.

The revelations of former Prime Minister Andreotti, which he made 1990, after the collapse of the Warsaw Pact, sound still today almost unbelievable in this context. Whether the underground organization had used the Mafia was never officially mentioned. It was always suspected. But today there is evidence.

A significant role in the days played the Masonic Lodge P2, which had been infiltrated by the Mafia, and the head of military intelligence service of Italy, General Giuseppe Santovitos, SISMI. The Masonic Lodge P2 had very interesting members such as Silvio Berlusconi
There were dislocations between all the groups involved. Persons were attributed to the Sicilian families who were in the Masonic Lodge and equally in the Military Intelligence. The SISMI was placed under the direct order of Gladio's operations in Europe whilst the Cold War

Absurdly, two SISMI officials were sentenced in 1995 for obstructing the investigation into the Strage di Bologna.

The year 1980 started very bad for Italy. The President of the Regional Chamber of Sicily, Piersanti Mattarella, was killed in an attack of the Cosa Nostra or 'Ndrangetha.

Connection to Spain

Even today, former mafiosi who live on Tenerife are speaking with awe of the connections of Cosa Nostra, 'Ndrangetha at the time- and again and again, it is the Banda della Magliana was funded by the SISMI. Old mafiosi on Tenerife explain that the protagonist, Franco Giuseppucci, who was a member of the Nuclei Armati Rivoluzionari received direct orders before he was killed - after he installed a network of criminals in Italy.

Today the 'Ndrangetha is mainly active in drugs and human trafficking on the Canary Islands. In addition, many millions in dubious construction projects on the Island washed profits of illegal business.

A self funding group who could be used for any job to terminate Italy in the early days of 1980 was the plan of Gladio. The organisation feared the takeover of Communists in Italy. The Mafia would have been in a very tricky situation, crime wouldn't be possible any longer. So Mafia and Gladio had common goals. Even today, the circles of the ex mafiosi are talking about why the Italian Republic did not want the perpetrators caught.

Too short before, the murder of Aldo Moro had happened. Recently, as an ageing Mafioso admitted, thanks to his contacts into the underworld, the Campanian and the Calabrian mafia, who provided the terrorists (Brigate Rosse) with weapons and money, it was possible for the terrorists to commit this heinous act on the unforgotten Prime Minister of Italy.

Raffaele Cutolo explained that the Brigate Rosse, a left-wing, equally dangerous terrorist organization, committed the murder.

But many intellectuals commented on the events surrounding Aldo Moro's kidnapping and murder and many of them sought out the Prime Minister's cowardly murderers in the right corner, in the same line with Gladio.

The perpetrators were never investigated and the grisly crime could not be resolved until today, almost 39 years later.

Was Aldo Moro, with his ideas, to conclude a historic compromise with the Communists of Enrico Berlinguer, in the way of P2's intentions?

On Tenerife one speaks of the connections of the secret P2 and the countless actions, which ran under "white flag".

One man was the symbolic place holder for the key events that were related to this attack in Bologna, Licio Gelli

Gelli was, according to investigations, the linchpin between the 'Ndrangetha and the right-wing terrorist movement of Ordine Nuovo, which was to maintain the internal tension in Italy. That was the goal of the Gladio strategy.

Gelli used in every situation his connection to the Mafia and even fled to Latin America, after a coup attempt in 1970 failed in Italy.

The link between the bombers of Bologna and the Mafia, in the end as well the link to Gladio.

Strage di Bologna

(Bombing at Bologna: August 2nd 1980 Beppe Briguglio, Patrizia Pulga, Medardo Pedrini, Marco Vaccari)

The attack killed 85 people from different nations and injured more than 200 people after the explosion of a bomb placed in a suitcase in the station of Bologna.

Thanks to the fearless citizens of Bologna, Italy's brave civil society, many of the victims survived. The honour will always remain connected with the citizens of the city and its history.

Although the Italian police endeavoured to portray the cowardly plot in the period after the incident  as an accident, the track quickly led to neo-fascists of Ordine Nuovo,(Nuclei Armati Rivoluzionari (NAR)) banned since 1973.

These Nazi group had committed numerous attacks since 1969, including the bomb on the Night express train Rome-Munich, 1974.

According to the investigation of the prosecutor also accomplices of Carlos, an internationally wanted terrorist in Bologna, at the time of the assassination.

It was never proofed Carlos or his "terror siblings" were involved in the attack in Bologna.

In years after in Italy it was possible to buy the own truth. PM Cossiga pointed the finger of suspicion at the far left "Red Brigades"

The most realistic traces led to former Nazis in Spain, to which one of the later main accused had contact.
Francesca Mambro und Giusva Fioravanti were sentenced after 15 years to life in prison.

Parts of the mafia structures emigrated from Sicily to Tenerife in the 1970s and in the 1980s. From there the exiled Mafioso took intensive contact to the Francoists.

Moreover, during the 1980s investigation in Italy, it emerged that the principal connections of the then Italian fascists led to the simultaneous running Operation Condor in Latin America.
The Operation Condor was the same strategy of tension like Gladio, made by the CIA.

The Chinese ambassador to Israel, Du Wei, has been found dead in his residence in Herzliya near Tel Aviv. According to Haaretz, he was found dead in his bed. Du Wei may have died of heart failure.

 Right-wing radicals courted

As the SPIEGEL reports in its latest issue and its cover story today, the so-called cyber-bunker in Traben-Trarbach operated by the Dutch  Sven Olaf Kamphuis was an "El Dorado" for the right-wing extremist groups. 

Right-wing radicals were particularly favoured and courted here. Countless discounts were granted for the right-wing members of the Identitarian Movement.

 
Apparently, Nazi groups felt at home in the concrete walls and accessed the services of the Dutch.

The question now is, did the right-wing rabble finance itself through the countless crimes committed through the cyber-bunker in Traben-Trarbach? Was the cyber-bunker just a hoster or the cooking pot of the digital and political underground?

Traben-Trarbach by Steffen Zahn/flickr

The subculture that formed in the cyber-bunker over time became more and more threatening. The actual background of the bunker has not been clarified until today. Countless drug deals, which ran via so-called marketplaces, similar to eBay or Amazon, have been handled by the Darknet hoster. One of the Dutch operators, Hermann Xennt, denied that he had child porn, weapons and terror on his servers. This fact has already been refuted. It was the proverbial paradise for the illegal shop operators, who for many years did not have to fear any state evil. 
 

The question may be allowed whether the right-wing rabble financed itself from the crimes that thus found their basis in the cyber-bunker, or whether even illegal party financing was sponsored by the services offered by the cyber-bunker from narcotics shops and human trafficking.

 
This gap in the market was certainly of interest to the right-wing. It was an exciting offer for the Identitarian Movement, as they could supply themselves with false papers and countless other illegal gadgets offered in the Darknet shops.  Reality is passing by Hermann Xennt, the operator of the bunker, who denies the fact and who, according to NDR, describes his sheltershelter only as a kind of "safe deposit box" where the employees would have assessed the data.   

And the head of the entire operation - Sven Olaf Kamphuis?

He and his comrades-in-arms dilute the police findings to legal action and compare their hosting activities with the work of Wikileaks. In doing so, they don't tire of spreading trivialising conspiracy theories, allegedly they only came into the sights of the authorities because they once hosted data from Wikileaks. 

The original bunker once stood in Zeeland. After a fire in a rented part of the bunker in 2002, a drug lab was found. The Dutch bunker was then shut down.  

There is also increasing evidence of other such installations in Germany. 

The amount of data from the Traben-Trarbach bunker does not yet seem to have been evaluated enough to give the right-wing scene the ideological "ping of death".

Update May 28, 2020

Twitter and Trump

With the social network Twitter, Trump had a friendship that seemed unbreakable. He was able to slander, lie and hate political opponents as he was pleased. 

While the number of Corona victims in the USA rose to over 100,000, Trump pondered the November election. He is preparing for the inevitable defeat. Nothing else interests the dubious despot in Washington. Thus, in his own Trump cosmos, he found that postal voting can be put on a par with electoral fraud. Trump did not care that there had again been deadly riots against black people in the USA. In Corona, he is not interested in, this money-hungry shopkeeper's soul from the White House is fixated on retaining power at all costs. 

Twitter let Trump's effusion this time with a fact check on the timeline. With the result that Trump was found to be lying. That was right and proper. 

Trump immediately started rumbling and announced that he wanted to regulate Twitter or close it down completely. Then this morning, word came down that he was going to issue a "something" order. A presidential order was being prepared, the White House said. 

Because the exposure of his propaganda lies during the election campaign could be his end. It is assumed that Trump will have Twitter censored in the future or close it down completely. 

With abstruse conspiracy theories on the dubious election victory 

The Americans do not have it easy at the moment. They are not to be envied. The USA is ruled by a president who obviously does not seem to be at the height of his intellectual power. Trump reveals that the US $ means more to him than life. As with any demagogue, it shows that the foundation on which Trump stands is fragile and porous.

For those who have not yet noticed, Donald Trump is becoming increasingly inventive as the election date in the United States approaches. He's a greedy president who puts his profit before the people's. Based on determining questions, he shows his absolute incompetence or dissolves the press conference. 

For months, Donald Trump has been knitting together the legend that the Chinese cultivated a virus in a laboratory that would have caused far fewer deaths in the United States than the experts had predicted.

Trump is opening the economy, a decision that may open the door to thousands of more deaths. Trump wants to make it possible.  In the spirit of "America First"...

Trump, who has proven that human life means nothing to him, is now telling stories about the virus that originated in China. It no longer has anything to do with reality, which he brings in "fake facts". 

According to agency reports, he no longer wants to talk to China's leaders. He had previously called Xi his friend, like so many whom he had perceived as his inner circle of world politics. Trump lies and cheats the American people out of more lives, which he is happy to accept for another election victory. Now he wants the figures for the Corona crisis to be manipulated downwards. He doesn't want the dead to hurt Trump in his campaign. Like any dictator, Trump speaks in superlatives he is not ashamed to name. 

Anyone who observes Donald Trump will, unfortunately, note: Trump has not grasped the virus either intellectually or in its dimension and is now looking for a pleasing scapegoat, which this time he cannot search for in the Democrats, but only in China. His lectures become more and more abstract and stammered as the days go by. Meanwhile, Trump is pawing at the toady lickers of his system, firing critics, pondering the punishment of all those who think differently. Trump escalates the violence against members of society who are unsuitable for him. He has succeeded in turning the USA into a dictatorship tailored to his needs. 

That and the death of thousands are the achievements of the US President and his miserable claqueur.