In the night between 27 and 28 July 1993, three car bombs exploded almost simultaneously. The first in Milan, in via Palestro. He disintegrated the Contemporary Art Pavilion and killed five people, injuring twelve. The second, in Rome, damaged the Basilica of San Giovanni in Laterano and the adjacent buildings causing a dozen injuries. The last one struck, also in Rome, the basilica of San Giorgio al Velabro. It was the culmination of the strategy of attack on the State implemented by Cosa Nostra and which began in May 1992 with the attack on Giovanni Falcone and his escort. A strategy continued with the killing of Paolo Borsellino in July of the same year, with the failed attack on the journalist Maurizio Costanzo, with the massacre in via Georgofili in Florence in May 1993, in which five people lost their lives and the complex was seriously damaged of the Uffizi.
The mafia's objective was to bend the institutions, to force them into a sort of negotiation at a time when the state was weak due to the end of the First Republic, Tangentopoli and the crisis of the traditional parties. To do this they resorted to bombs, to the killings of symbolic figures (Falcone, Borsellino to which Don Pino Puglisi was added), to attacks on the Church and on the national artistic heritage, in the awareness that the work of art and the artistic heritage have an identity value, are the roots of every people.
It was, therefore, a real strategy of tension on the model of that implemented by the subversive right-wing groups in the 1970s, a complex strategy that the journalist Ferruccio Pinotti masterfully reconstructs in his investigative book "Attack to the State" ( Solferino, 2023, Euro 19.50, pp. 320. Also Ebook). In the book, Pinotti highlights how around the massacres of 1993, despite the thirty years that have passed and the numerous sentences that have reached the last instance of judgement, many mysteries and opacities still remain, so much so that investigations are still underway into "external competitors" for the location of the bombs that exploded in Florence, Milan and Rome.
In the historical and investigative frame, however, the undisputed mafia strategists of those dramatic events stand out. First of all, Matteo Messina Denaro, a long-time fugitive, symbol of an evolving mafia that will soon transform from Cosa Nostra into a "New Thing", made up of links with the "good salons" of entrepreneurship, of infiltrations into the world of high finance, of international projections and interests. In addition to him, figures emerge such as the brothers Filippo and Giuseppe Graviano, the bosses of Brancaccio. All three, Messina Denaro and the Gravianos, irreducible trusted men of boss Totò Riina. And custodians of unspeakable secrets.
Ferruccio Pinotti thus returns the vivid fresco of a murky criminal story, focusing on the relationships that Cosa Nostra has with entities outside its perimeter. It tells of the possible involvements at different levels, the ambiguous relationships between men of the institutions, secret services and mafia circles. Thus emerge, above all from the trial papers, the unconfessed and still unmentionable ties, many silences, many "they say".
Above all, it brings back the unpublished stories and testimonies of those who tried to stop those mobsters, of those who fell victim to them, of those who are still committed to tracking down the culprits. "Attack on the State", beyond its undoubted value as a journalistic investigation, is an invitation addressed to all of us never to consider "truth" and "justice" rhetorical or meaningless words. Despite the difficulties and the decades that have passed, continue to seek answers and possibly try to restore a minimum of justice - if truth seems too strong a word to us - it makes sense.The same goes for the proceedings against Nazi criminals and for their heinous deeds at the end of the Second World War: inhumanity coward of those who place bombs does not fall into the statute of limitations, nor can it be subject to oblivion.
