The wind turbines, in what was once the land of shadows, don't knock. They don't even ask for permission. They break right through your front door. Here the time of closures, on the slopes of Monte Linas, never seems to pass. The wind in Villacidro is now blowing heavily, the storm has the green color of registered mail which in these hours is robbing hundreds of farming families in the area of sleep. In that fertile and irrigated valley, from Santu Miali to Pranu sa Cantissa, maps are numbers, but those lands are also stories, families, inheritances, luxuriant orchards, sown fields. Yet, as if the Piedmontese had removed the ancient deeds of rebellion of this country, the bag snatching takes place in the shadow of mid-August, like any cowardly act towards a distracted and defenseless community.
Mummìa's revolt
Giuseppe Dessì, the enlightened writer of “Paese d'ombre”, could never have imagined that fifty-one years later that novel of his would have turned into an ominous modern chronicle. An affront to the story of «Pantaleo Mummìa, the shepherd who had been one of the leaders of the revolt against the Law of the closures of 1820; law, as we know, the result of Savoy reformism, aimed at introducing the bourgeois principle of perfect property to the island». The comings and goings to the post office of the capital town of Medio Campidano has been incessant for days. Entire families come and go, brothers and sisters, hundreds of recipients of that "registered letter of closures" which out of the blue, without any warning, takes away land and property rights, like when the people of Teulada and Quirra were loaded “manu militari” on army trucks to clear the grasslands and snatched hills for war games.
Wind farm closing
Times have changed. This time to sign the "wind closure" is none other than the Sardinian Region, as an act of unconditional surrender to the Piedmontese, those of Cuneo, who have come to this poor land to impose yet another "fan" of blades and money. The proceedings are a sudden flash of lightning, just when throughout the island the reaction to the wind invasion is armed with bands and banners, awareness raising and legal appeals. The notification is a sentence, almost without appeal: from now on, if you don't appeal within sixty days, your lands are ours. By "ours" we mean the company "Das Villacidro", which has nothing in common with the municipality of Monte Linas, except those monsters that they are about to place in the agricultural lands between Pimpisu and the village of San Michele.
From the Alps to Monte Linas
The fiscal residence of these new air slicers in someone else's land is in Cava, a small village on the slopes of the Maritime Alps, between Cuneo and Nice, in Piedmont that is more Ligurian than French. Needless to wonder who the owners are, one ends up entering a tortuous maze of trusts and financial funds, related companies and seemingly insignificant names. Certainly the modesta srl cannot boast large capitals, given that the partners, two composite companies of Camerana, also in the province of Cuneo, participate in the Villacidro check with just five thousand euros for each.
Escalated from ten thousand euros
A climb of just ten thousand euros which served, however, to win the most obvious act of regional subjection, the decree of public interest sanctioned by the regional department of Industry, confirmed with the expropriation decree, complete with the occupation of urgency, penned by the councilorship of viale Trieste which deals with Local Authorities and Urban Planning. With this double act, the Sardinian Region has therefore effectively "given" to the "Piedmontese del Vento" a declaration that, in reality, has nothing to do with public utility, if anything more with the very private affairs of these "anonymous" companies. company catapulted from the Alps to Monte Linas.
Bizarre region
What is most dismaying is the timing of this emergency occupation notified in the middle of August. It is simply surprising that these acts bear the signature of the Sardinian Region which, in theory, would have the duty and the task of protecting Sardinian citizens, without allowing anyone, starting from the lords of the wind who came from Piedmont, to put farmers against the wall and farmers of Campidano.
Public utility for a few
The formula of the decree is a confession without appeal: "the declaration of public utility is implicitly contained in the single authorization of the regional councilorship for Industry issued on April 16, 2020 and integrated with one dated January 25, 2022". As if to demean the agricultural value of those lands, the regional councilorship of town planning writes: «the areas affected by this provision can be classified as non-buildable areas». As if to say, do with agricultural areas what you want.
Homemade expropriation
The final provision of the measure is at the same time sentence and condemnation: «the present emergency occupation measure is issued in favor of the company "Das Villacidro srl", promoter and beneficiary of the enslavement and expropriation to the expropriation and temporary occupation of the properties". Signed by the Sardinian Region. If the Regional Administrative Court of Sardinia, the only deputy to stop this wind havoc, will not be called into question by appeals and oppositions from the Municipality and farmers, the Piedmontese , those of Das Villacidro, will once again be masters in the lands of Monte Linas.The expulsion narrated in the Land of Shadows, at that point, will be only a sad and useless reminder of the past.
