Legality has deep roots: great response of participation to the appeal of Cgil, Flai Cgil, Alpaa and Libera for the demonstration for legality and against all mafias in defense of the Nicola Nappo Agricultural Fund, object of vandalism and theft.
This morning, on the stage in Piazza Vittorio Veneto, Don Luigi Ciotti, president of Libera, Giovanni Mininni, general secretary of Flai Cgil, Maurizio Landini, general secretary of Cgil and the representatives of Anpi and Libera Campania took turns.
The continuous attacks by organized crime on the Nicola Nappo Agricultural Fund, a property confiscated and returned to the community, have had a strong and collective response. Demonstrators from all over Italy, from North to South, have arrived in Scafati.
The demonstration was organized to communicate solidarity and closeness to the Nappo Fund – the object of vandalism and theft – to demand a response from the State capable of guaranteeing higher levels of protection and support for the social reuse of confiscated assets.
Giuseppe Carotenuto of Flai Cgil who together with Libera manages the property confiscated from the Camorra, located in via Nuova San Marzano, called on stage the representatives of the associations and unions who attended in Scafati:
Don Luigi Ciotti of Libera, the secretary of the Cgil Maurizio Landini, the secretary of the Flai Cgil, Giovanni Mininni, the president of the Anpi section Bernardino Fienga, Alfonso Annunziata and the Libera Campania representative Mariano Di Palma.
"This is a Municipality that in the last 30 years has been dissolved twice for mafia infiltration - said Alfonso Annunziata of the Anpi -. The asset of the Nappo Fund is the asset of the Municipality of Scafati and vice versa. We firmly condemn the theft to the detriment of the Nappo Fund which is also a symbol of enormous importance in the fight against organized crime and which is also the asset confiscated from the Camorra of the entire Region.
The experience of the social gardens is the symbolic act of the restitution to more than one hundred of our citizens of those properties, which belonged to the powerful boss Pasquale Galasso. The four days of Naples began here. Today we say 'no' to the Camorra and its intimidations in defense of the Nappo fund and the city, we will always be ready to fight for the common good and for legality, at a time when we are 15 days away from the elections.
This municipality was dissolved in 2008 and 2016. The administrators and politicians who, with their actions and omissions, brought about the last dissolution should apologize to the city and step aside.
The historical and political judgment on those years is irreversible. No possibility of rebirth will be possible if the city's government is governed by those responsible for its degradation. And as Moro wrote about himself from his prison 'we will be an irreducible point of contestation and alternative'" concluded Annunziata.
Mariano Di Palma, representative of Libera Campania, launched a warning to politicians who fear the sale and privatization of confiscated assets: “Many have come from all over Italy to support a battle for the common good.
A broad battle that we as Libera and Cgil wanted to launch together – said Di Palma -. We will not leave the confiscated assets of Campania and Italy alone. We could not remain silent, answers must be given immediately, first of all with the resources of the Pnrr funds, but also with supervision and protection.
The security we demand is also social security. We know that behind desperation and inequality, the Camorra is growing stronger. But the problem isn't just physical attacks and vandalism; it's also political aggression, " Di Palma concluded.
To those who attack the prevention measures, to those who have dared to say like President De Luca that confiscated assets should be sold and privatized, we say that we think of a completely different message. Confiscated assets can become a driver of innovation, employment, welfare, especially in Southern Italy”.
Giovanni Mininni, general secretary of Flai Cgil national forcefully reiterated the need to fight the mafia, to defend confiscated assets and jobs: “We are a wonderful force that in just one week has managed to organize a large demonstration – he said -.
Spaces must also be defended physically, conquered, because this is how change is produced. This is a demonstration that speaks to Italy, it is the strong contrast to the mafia and the camorra, but also a call to the State. In three weeks three raids have devastated the equipment of the fund.
They have devastated a space of democracy, the money of the people who with the subscriptions have purchased the equipment. In these territories the Camorra oppresses the democratic spaces and those who pay the consequences are the citizens but also the workers.
This is why a trade union organization also deals with managing assets confiscated from the Camorra. Our union is a street union, a union of proximity, the fight against gangmastering against exploitation is the same battle for democracy and freedom that we want to affirm in our country.
We will not retreat a millimeter, we have already bought the tractor with subscriptions twice and we will buy it again. Today with this demonstration we have won once again.
Nobody touches the Nappo Fund and nobody touches the assets confiscated from the mafia and the Camorra with neoliberal policies that tend to privatize collective assets. These assets are compensation to citizens, to the people. It is a long battle but we will win it”.
Don Luigi Ciotti's speech from the stage in Scafati touched on the themes that Libera has carried forward with tenacity and strength in recent years and it is a battle that continues. He began his speech by remembering Marcello Torre, the mayor of Pagani killed by the Camorra, the trade unionist Tonino Esposito Ferraioli and the innocent victim Nicola Nappo, to whom the Fund is dedicated:
“The change we dream and desire is possible and necessary – said Don Luigi Ciotti -. Possible comes from power, meaning it can be done, and this change is not the work of solitary navigators. It is only by joining our forces that it can be done. Libera represents 1600 realities in our country.
We need to get out of the 'I' to organize the 'We' more. Our country Italy is in a civil emergency, it is experiencing a deep hemorrhage of humanity and it is enough to see how we treat migrants, it is enough to see how we are at the bottom of the list for educational poverty, school dropouts, thousands of people looking for work, adults who have lost it.
Beyond this square there must be an awareness at this moment, that our commitments can no longer stand the test of time, we have done beautiful, important, decisive things, but they are insufficient, we must find answers, common actions.
We have been talking about mafias for 150 years, today the difference is made by indifference, we have gone from mafia organized crime to legalized crime. If politics does not fight injustice, politics becomes criminogenic because it favors all of this. We defend the institutions because they are sacred”.
The demonstration in Scafati was concluded by the secretary of the Cgil Maurizio Landini who reiterated the need for unity in the world of work, recalling the origins of the fight against the mafia and Pio La Torre and his escort on the anniversary of his death.
The leader of the Cgil thanked the migrants of Gioia Tauro, present at the demonstration 'who give an even stronger meaning to the unity of the world of work and the unity of those who believe in justice.
Confiscated assets are one of the most significant forms of the fight against organized crime – Landini reiterated -. Today there are some who want to resell the assets confiscated from the mafia, put them back on the market, that is, put them back in their hands. This is not possible.
This is a day in which we want to make the fight against the mafia national again. We think it is time to strengthen the agency for the management of confiscated assets, with the aim of restoring work, sociality, life to the territories.
The attacks on the Nappo fund also have a meaning: they want to show that they are still the ones in charge, that the State, the collective initiative is not useful to change the condition. They want to scare us, resign us but they do not scare us and we will not stop at anything.
I think it is necessary to reiterate some things in meetings and discussions with the Government: it is necessary that actions are taken to not leave alone those who are managing the confiscated assets. There is a need to strengthen the anti-mafia code.
The real fight against the Mafia, the final goal that we must realize and achieve, is affirmed when every person is truly free and can fulfill themselves through dignified work. It is work that allows people not to have to submit to blackmail from anyone.
Liberalizing contracts with the logic of cascading subcontracting means opening the way to organized crime, it means favoring the mafia. The fight against organized crime for rights at work, for rights in the economy, becomes a battle for the true growth of our country".
“We believe – the leader of the CGIL specified – that it is our duty to be here together to send a very strong message of unity but also of strength, of those who are not afraid, of those who do not bow, of those who look ahead, in this sense transforming confiscated assets into an opportunity to reconquer democracy and work is doubly important.
I think there is a need – concluded Landini – not to limit ourselves to Scafati but to send a more general, national message that asks the institutions and the government to do everything necessary to ensure that these experiences can produce. Because the real defeat of organized crime is to let the strength of the State, of citizens, of democracy prevail”.
Photo service by Alessandro Memoli
