WORLD WORLDWIDE ITALY SICILIA PALERMO News Journal Update - (en) Italy, Sicilia Libertaria: Palermo, FIRE BLACKMAIL (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 Finally it is as if the circle had been squared. Only he was missing: on

August 15th the southern slope of Monte Pellegrino caught fire, having
already escaped, thanks also to the commitment of the Nature Reserve,
the disasters of July 24th and 25th which involved the outskirts of the
city. They will remain memorable days, or rather almost memorable
because if on the one hand what happened is serious, on the other there
is some doubt about an effective collective awareness based on the
analysis of the exceptional nature. It almost seems that a cloak of
modesty, of stale respectability has remained over Palermo which in this
case could be useful to those interested in making people forget the
more direct effects of the fire. ---- Misled by climate change which
dangerously deviates from the meteorological average, we no longer seem
to want to listen to people, to experts, to interpret satellite maps of
the fires: fires so vast in north-western Sicily, they affected Palermo
and little else.

Of course, last July there were fires in Monte Bonifato in Alcamo, in
Capaci (extended from Palermo) and in the countryside of Cinisi (where
two people died), the latter arriving straight at Falcone Borsellino
airport, closed for several hours to amplify the inconveniences of the
Fontanarossa in Catania, closed by the fire that broke out in the
structure in mid-July. We forgot Bellolampo, a current and future
problem created by the respectable company that once decided to start
throwing mountains of waste onto the city's heads in the land of
bandits, wolves (the last one, entirely Sicilian, was killed a century
ago precisely in those hills ), where the Celona stream flowed, a cool
game played by the boys of Passo di Rigano who had more than one stream
and who today all end up buried, like memory.

The fires in Palermo so maliciously (we hope there is no doubt about
this term, except for the "shards of glass" reported by Bellolampo ...)
set, have demonstrated a formidable, yet unprecedented, capacity to
penetrate the urban fabric. Yet even in the most elaborate comments that
followed the desperation of those who lost everything (even the ancient
church of Santa Maria di Gesù) the thought that someone may have wanted
to scare the city barely transpires. In the newspapers and among the
frightened victims, terrorism has been shouted at, but it almost seems
like an indefinable, negligent terrorism, without will; we forget that
if this were the case it would no longer be terrorism, lacking a
premeditated genesis. So, let's try to reflect on this point.

In just over 48 hours, almost all the suburbs of Palermo were reached by
the flames, from Ciaculli to Sferracavallo except Monte Pellegrino,
which was then hit by the "luminous rocket" on 15 August. Villas of rich
people and houses with fences made of mattresses were destroyed.
Agricultural tools, machines and animals went up in smoke, businesses
were destroyed, thousands of trees were killed, motorways were engulfed,
gas cylinders exploded, even a funeral wake was quickly abandoned,
leaving loved ones at the mercy of the flames. People woke up with smoke
in their homes, reportedly due to a sudden change in the wind, but this
only happened in Palermo and its airport. The city, which has been hit
by continuous blackouts for days, reported the death of a person who was
stuck in the elevator. Even the smoke from Bellolampo which, with its
load of dioxin and who knows what other poisons, reached and passed
Monte Pellegrino, making a large part of the former Conca d'Oro covered
by a surreal and oppressive rosella gray cloud.

Finally, but only in chronological order, the death after three weeks of
agony of a forestry worker; he had been seriously burned in the fire
that affected the areas surrounding Monreale on 24 July. And what
happens? Are we angry with climate change or with the almost certain
lack of prevention? Arsonists who seem to have gone mad throughout the
Palermo area, leaving the areas east of the Eleuterio river and, west of
the city, in the Carini area virtually intact. In fact, a red-hot
pincer, or rather almost a perfect circle with Palermo at the centre, if
we consider the fire in Monte Pellegrino in August. Lastly, the fire in
the English Garden (incredible, but it happened) was blamed on
cigarettes. Will there be further developments? And of what, then?

If there was terrorism it must have a head and a motive. It can be
blackmail like a bill of exchange to be cashed or a field of action to
be claimed, but there must be something.

Reinforcements from the Forestry Carabinieri arrived from Rome were
called to operate on what happened and, with the experience gained in
the civil police of the State Forestry Corps, then tout court catapulted
into the military police of the Carabinieri, will be able to identify
the trigger points and evolution caught in the fire, trying to decipher
what may have happened. And speaking of Foresters it is worth saying a
few words. Both the Forestry Carabinieri and the regional Foresters are
characterized by a shortage of personnel which now seems destined to
last for a long time. The Sicilian ones, for example, are now just a few
hundred and mostly headed towards retirement even though two years ago
the Sicilian Region, after decades of failed competitions, announced the
procedures for the hiring of 46 Agents... It is therefore a question of
police forces are less perceived than in the past and perhaps also for
this reason forgotten in the appeals of people terrified by the fires
who now call on only one thing for help: the army.

Then there is the investigation opened by the Public Prosecutor's
Office. Okay, let's give everyone trust in the hope of understanding
more, for example if there was a head that decided to scare.

Was it the mafia? Power games? The survivors who returned? Who knows,
experience teaches us that we start from the mafia and end up who knows
where, if we get there. In this case, however, it is even more
difficult: we should start backwards because the mafiosi seem to have
disappeared again, at least from the specific topic which, however,
cannot fail to be linked to that of territorial control. Something
appears in the bowels of the well-known a-social to which we have
relegated our outbursts with harmless jolts. Among murderous arsonists
and inefficient politicians there are those who highlight the small
thefts which, judging from the city's own news, are under the control of
the mafia. Can anyone who sets a fire of such proportions be defined as
an arsonist who needs to be treated?

If we no longer have an awareness of what is around us, we also lose the
ability to make an overall assessment as in the case of the ever present
lack of prevention. Giuseppe Barbera, former full professor of Arboreal
Crops at the University of Palermo, particularly attentive to the
problems of territorial defense, comments on the forest management plan
adopted in the areas of Monte Pellegrino under municipal jurisdiction:
"But not all the woods of Monte Pellegrino are municipal property. Some
are regional: precisely those near the Utveggio castle[Editor's note.
the fire broke out on its slopes]which are not the subject of the
management plan and which perhaps, among the millions spent on the
restoration of the Castle (for unknown purposes), could have been made
safe with a few hundred thousand euros".

In summary, due to ignorance or will, not taking into consideration what
Nature is, solutions that could be simple are not considered. It thus
escapes that the fires could have created another weapon ready to
explode on the cement metastasis that has devoured the Palermo plain. A
sneaky, time-delayed weapon. These are the lands surrounding the city,
made bare by fires. They will be exposed to erosive action, primarily
from autumn rains. Let's hope for drought...

Giovanni Guadagna

https://www.sicilialibertaria.it/
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