| 12 December, 2006 |
||
| No peace for Naples The Italian PM decides against sending military troops to quell organized crime in Naples, while the police wrestle for control of the southern city. Commentary by Eric J. Lyman in Rome for ISN Security Watch (12/12/06) In November, Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi mulled what was likely the most important military decision of his tenure up to this point - and it had almost nothing to do with Iraq. Naples, the ancient and picturesque metropolis just 90 minutes by train south of the Italian capital, had burst into violence. Some 75 people had been murdered in the city's streets in the previous months, cars had been set on fire, and stores had been looted. The city's 13,000-strong police force was wrestling for control of the city as the Camorra - Naples' version of the Sicilian Mafia - seemed to do as it pleased. Upon taking office in May, Prodi announced he would bring all but a handful of Italy's troops in Iraq home in time for the holidays. By November, these battle-hardened troops - the best and brightest of Italy's military - were returning to Italy in droves. Would Prodi send them to Naples to help quell the violence? Prodi visited the smoldering city to assess the situation, and in the end, he decided against deploying troops domestically. It would not have been a precedent, however, had he chosen to send troops to Naples. Italian troops had been stationed in Sicily after anti-Mafia prosecutors Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino were killed within two months of each other in 1992. Over the weeks since Prodi’s decision, the violence has calmed, the Camorra-related stories have moved off the front pages of the nation's newspapers and government priorities have shifted. But the citizens of Naples - Italy's third largest city - remain the victims of organized crime, and the city continues to appear ungoverned, and perhaps ungovernable. Most Italians view the problem of the Camorra and its sister organizations in Sicily (the Mafia) and in Calabria (the 'Ndrangheta) as regional worries that do not affect the northern two-thirds of the country. But the problem is without a doubt a national one: It slows Italy's economic growth, drains national resources, hurts the country's image and creates a growing feeling of hopelessness among the fifth of the country's population that lives under the thumb of organized crime bosses. By some estimates, organized crime does some €160 billion (US$211 billion) in business each year - an astonishing 10 percent of the country's gross domestic product. Add that to Italy's official economy and the Europe's fourth biggest economy leaps over the UK and France into second place. Both the Italian government and the EU pour billions into the underdeveloped Italian south, but much of it ends up in the pockets of crime families that control everything from transportation firms and waste disposal companies to construction operations and small businesses. So far, most of the anti-Camorra efforts have focused on arresting wrongdoers and patrolling the streets to stem violence. But that strategy has its limits: Even if Prodi had sent the army to Naples it would have been a temporary solution. And even if police had arrested hundreds of "Camorristi" (which they did not) it would have had a limited effect: A cost-saving amnesty over the summer released some 7,800 inmates from Naples' prisons, a controversial move many blame for the crime and violence spree earlier this year. In the end, history shows that the solution may require the kind of political capital Prodi is unwilling to expend. Over the last century, the Sicilian Mafia has been brought to its knees twice: once by fascism in the 1930s - though it was propped up again during World War II by the US military, which needed help to gain a foothold on the island for the invasion of mainland Italy - and again in the 1990s, after the back-to-back assassinations of Falcone and Borsellino. Since then, the organization has been a shadow of its former self. Organized crime in the Italian south is not part of the region's DNA as many Italian might argue, but experience shows that it takes a sustained, expensive, serious and tenacious effort to improve the situation. To be sure, that effort will focus in part on stopping street crime. But it must also include increased accountability for local officials - many of whom are thought to be on the payroll of organized crime - better efforts to limit crime families' cash flow, and the promise of creating opportunities for southern Italian youths who often turn to organized crime simply because there is no alternative. "We can keep arresting these people," says Naples police chief Antonio de Jesu. "But others will always take their place. As long as we fail to create jobs in this area, the Camorra will thrive." What remains to be seen is whether during a time when nearly-as-difficult issues such tax, pension and labor law reforms remain on the government agenda, Prodi and his fragile coalition will be willing to focus on the organized crime issue for longer than it would take to visit a wounded city and decide that the country's military needs a rest more than Naples needs peace. Eric J. Lyman is ISN Security Watch's senior correspondent in Rome. The views and opinions expressed herein are those of the author only, not the International Relations and Security Network (ISN). |