A fragile territory, an abandoned community, permanent militarization, and political responsibilities deflected. The landslide that recently struck Niscemi, forcing the evacuation of hundreds of people, cannot be reduced to a meteorological event or dismissed as a fatality. For years, Niscemi has been a litmus test of the fragilities that can characterize certain areas: progressive depopulation, land consumption, tree felling, lack of productive investment, non-existent or abandoned infrastructure, precarious transportation due to a non-existent rail network, a chronically at-risk road network, and the absence of public transportation. Added to this is the structural lack of serious land-use planning and comprehensive interventions to prevent hydrogeological instability. Piecemeal works, episodic maintenance, and emergency interventions have replaced any safety strategy for decades. It is significant that one of the provincial roads closed today due to a landslide had already been closed in the previous days due to a previous, rather large-scale landslide.
The disaster didn't happen overnight. It's the product of layered political choices, of a development model that considers certain areas to be expendable.
Within this overall framework, a structural and decisive element fits: the permanent militarization of the territory.
For many years, Niscemi has been a symbolic site of the US military occupation of Italian territory. It hosts one of the largest US military bases in the country, the US Navy's Naval Radio Transmitter Facility (NRTF), which houses the MUOS (Mobile User Objective System), a global US military telecommunications system for the exclusive use of the US Navy. This military complex, in size, is comparable to the entire Leonardo da Vinci International Airport in Fiumicino, located within and on the edge of a protected natural area, the Sughereta di Niscemi.
From the beginning, the No MUOS Movement has denounced the radical incompatibility between the geological and hydrogeological fragility of the territory, the environmental value of the area, and the presence of a military infrastructure of this size, basing its actions on studies, expert reports, technical observations, and public documentation.
The state has responded to these arguments not with prevention, independent monitoring, or protection policies, but with hundreds of complaints and legal proceedings against those who publicly reported the social, environmental, health, and hydrogeological risks associated with the presence of the NRTF base and MUOS. Today, as Niscemi faces yet another emergency, some activists have received a new notice of conclusion of preliminary investigations relating to a demonstration in August 2025, with charges that include violation of regulations, defacement, and-in a manner as imaginative as it is disturbing-even "incitement to crime."
Reporting a danger, denouncing a risk, and defending one's territory continues to be treated as a crime.
Today, that denied fragility manifests itself in the form of landslides: the concrete effect of a model that has imposed military construction in unsuitable areas, altered soil structure and drainage systems, encouraged haphazard building expansion, and systematically postponed structural safety interventions. Official communications on the emergency make no mention of the stability of the slopes inside and adjacent to the military base, of the effects of military construction on the overall geological landscape, or of independent assessments of the MUOS infrastructure.
It's as if two separate territories exist: the civilian, evacuable, and the military, removed from public discourse. But there is only one land.
Making the situation even more serious is an often-ignored fact: the US Navy is carrying out expansion work within the MUOS site and has announced further infrastructure interventions, specifically to secure the base, which is affected by potential landslides.
Once again, the territory is divided: the civilian, occupied, left to its own devices; the military, occupying, secured. Militarization also has a direct economic and social effect: it impedes any real development.
No serious economic entity would invest in a territory transformed into a "natural aircraft carrier in the center of the Mediterranean," a definition used for years by Italian militarist rhetoric.
Desertification, in the broadest sense, is both a consequence and a precondition of militarization.
For years, Niscemi has been living in a state of suspended sovereignty: decisions imposed, territory sacrificed, the population exposed to risks, dissent criminalized. Today's landslide is also the product of this history. Therefore, we demand:
- independent geological and hydrogeological assessments of the entire area, including the NRTF/MUOS base
- publication of data on earth movements, drainage works, and soil modifications related to military installations
- immediate suspension of ongoing and planned expansion work on the NRTF base
- an extraordinary plan to secure the territory
- a halt to new military infrastructure in vulnerable areas
- opening a public discussion on the very presence of the base and the MUOS in Niscemi.
The communities cannot continue to pay the price for strategic choices made elsewhere.
What is happening in Niscemi is not an accident. It is a political, environmental, and social warning. Our fullest solidarity with the people of Niscemi.
No MUOS Movement
https://umanitanova.org/frana-a-niscemi-non-e-una-coincidenza/
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(en) Italy, FAI, Umanita Nova #4-26 - Landslide in Niscemi: It's no coincidence (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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