Authors: Clare Longrigg
‘After the arrest of Vito Vitale,’ said Giuffré, ‘Provenzano, Benedetto Spera and I had the field to ourselves. Provenzano set out to get Cosa Nostra under his control and make up for lost time.’
A
FTER TOTÒ RINA’S
arrest Bernardo Provenzano was the unifying force that brought Cosa Nostra back from the brink of disaster. His followers within the organization bewailed the mistakes of the recent past, the policy of violence which had caused so much damage. ‘Our toy is broken!’ wailed Pino Lipari, Provenzano’s long-term friend and business strategist.
The ‘toy’had to be fixed. After taking over sole leadership Provenzano made his mission statement: ‘We must do business’.
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Anything that threatened the profit-making activities of Cosa Nostra had to be avoided. Provenzano set about halting arrests, restoring links in politics and business and reviving a culture of Cosa Nostra which had been lost.
His is an extraordinary achievement, based on his personal charisma and tactical skill, from which business leaders worldwide could learn much. The fact that he wrote his reforms by letter, means that we have what amounts to a manual of how to run a criminal organization, a steadily accumulating constitution.
‘Whatever the provocation, in the light of the current political situation we can’t risk any armed conflict, we have to let it go. And if you hold your fire, in five, or maybe seven years’ time the benefits will be felt by all our friends, we’ll be able to do business again and overcome our present economic difficulties.’
In the mid-1990s Provenzano held a meeting at which he told his capos that if they followed his directives, their profits would eventually
be restored. It could take years, he told them – no small matter for an organization accustomed to easy money. Provenzano gave his orders –
non fare scruscio
: ‘make no noise’.
He took the organization below the radar of public security, ordering his men to avoid any kind of publicity, which meant no acts of violence. The policy of blowing up representatives of the state had caused so much collateral damage that Provenzano had to make urgent repairs. He wrote to Ilardo: ‘We have many enemies who assail us, from outside and from within, but we must try to recover what we can.’
‘We instigated a period of submersion, whose aim was to make Cosa Nostra invisible, giving us time to regroup’, his lieutenant Nino Giuffré recalls.
From now on, before any act of violence could be carried out, there had to be a thorough appraisal of its usefulness. ‘As far as Provenzano was concerned,’ Giuffré said, ‘it was essential to weigh up whether a person could do more damage dead or alive.’ A magistrate investigating Cosa Nostra might do more harm as an ‘excellent cadaver’ than if he were allowed to do his job.
Cosa Nostra has historically used long periods of ‘submersion’ to secure its interests and stop a run of arrests. Unless Provenzano brought about radical change, there would not be a politician or businessman left who would be prepared to risk working with them. But his ambitions exceeded the Mafia’s previous dealings with industry.
‘The philosophy of submersion had the very clear aim of helping the organization cross over into running businesses’, said assistant prosecutor Nino Di Matteo. ‘The lines between Cosa Nostra’s profit-making activities and legitimate business had to be blurred, or erased. It would no longer be forcing businesses to pay kickbacks; it would be running those businesses itself.’
In politics, the Mafia must not be seen to support candidates openly, or they risked ruining their chances. They were to approach apparently clean politicians and manipulate them from behind the scenes.
‘Provenzano said that if a politician was seen to be supported by men of honour of a certain rank,’ Giuffré explained, ‘within twenty-four hours he’d be destroyed. That politician, our experience had taught us, would immediately be attacked by the opposition.’
Discipline was needed among the capos, who had been used to solving problems by sending in the boys to damage building sites and greenhouses if anyone refused to pay. Giuffré was responsible for putting the new policy into practice: ‘We might have a problem with one of the businesses: even then we were absolutely forbidden to cause trouble. If one firm was a bit stubborn, and didn’t want to pay, we had to find a solution without causing a row, without setting fires or smashing the place up.’
‘This policy of submersion was particularly dangerous for us,’ said Pietro Grasso, formerly Palermo’s chief prosecutor, ‘because it’s more difficult to grasp what Cosa Nostra is doing if there is no violent crime. There was a danger that Cosa Nostra would drop out of our sights.’
‘I beg you to be calm, true and correct, correct and consistent, know how to turn any negative experiences to account, don’t dismiss everything people tell you or believe everything you’re told, always try to discover the truth before you speak, and remember that it’s never enough to have just one source of information to make your judgement. To be certain, you need three sources to confirm it; you need to be fair, honest, and consistent.’
This letter was sent to Gino Ilardo, capo of Caltanissetta, who was seeking advice on how to resolve the problem of a large sum of money going missing, amid a storm of rumours and disinformation. Assistant prosecutor Michele Prestipino describes it as ‘a manifesto of Cosa Nostra under Bernardo Provenzano, for whom mediation was the rule (although violence and terrorism were not ruled out if they became necessary)’.
‘This letter gives us a snapshot of Provenzano the Mafia boss, at the height of his power’, says Nino Di Matteo. ‘What strikes me about this letter is his careful approach to directing the organization: he never takes a major step unless he is absolutely certain that it needs to be taken.’
Provenzano will go down in history as the ‘guarantor of the pax mafioso’. He stopped the Mafia’s war on the state and insisted on peaceful methods, instructing his men in the art of negotiation and the importance of dialogue.
Provenzano’s lengthy and often difficult negotiations with Riina taught him a great deal about the essential skills of mediation: policy had to be thrashed out at the table, not at the end of a gun.
Provenzano was decisive and on occasions demanded swift and direct answers to his questions, but when it served him, he could come across as a ditherer. He was circumspect, added to which, the system of
pizzini
meant that he could choose whether and when to reply, sometimes remaining guarded even with his closest allies.
He wrote to Giuffré: ‘You ask if I’ve got some advice to give you about this matter. I’m going to ask you the same thing, if you can advise me.’
On occasion he heard both sides of an argument, delayed matters by asking for more information and then gave each side contradictory instructions. He wrote to Giuffré: ‘We must be patient, and hear the other side of the story, after which we’ll see what we have to do.’
In a series of letters to Ilardo, who was trying to solve the disappearance of 500 million lire of protection money paid by a Catania industrial plant, Provenzano keeps the issue at bay, feigning ignorance of the issues. ‘I’m not absolutely sure I know what you’re referring to here’, he writes. ‘You want to clarify the matter, but what’s to clarify? As I explained, I know nothing about this.’
Provenzano insisted that nothing was to be gained by falling out with each other. ‘My wish is to make peace wherever possible, and keep everything clear between us, so as to maintain respect for each other.’
Differences had to be resolved, but because the organization was under intense scrutiny, top-level summits were out of the question. Provenzano urged his members to sort out their problems and revealed a steely impatience if there was any delay.
‘You want me to give you instructions, or advice, but what can I tell you when there are two versions of the facts which contradict each other? You are the ones who can say, which is the correct version, not me.
‘You must find a way to understand each other’s point of view.’
Giuffré, watchful for signs of treachery, wrote to Provenzano expressing concern that his own trusted postmen had allowed more than one letter to get wet and become illegible
en route
to its destination. Scrupulously, he brought it to the Boss’s attention, and was reassured by the reply: ‘With his usual wisdom and diplomacy, Provenzano said: “Before we say anything, let’s try and ascertain the facts, shall we? These things can happen, when they go through so many hands.”’
All the time he was counselling moderation and straight dealing between warring factions, Provenzano was careful to keep himself out of the frame. It was one of his principles to stay out of relationships between families. ‘It’s between you. See if you can find a way to get everyone in agreement, all pulling in the same direction.’
‘The estate owner wants to give the administrator’s job to one of our people. She can’t get on with the current incumbent and wants him out of there’, Provenzano wrote to Ilardo. ‘We need to sort out a replacement. Let me know when you are able to give me a reply for this lady. Do forgive me for bothering you with these recommendations, but as you know, my aim is to serve.’
‘We don’t know whether the lady was making the request, or whether the Mafia got involved of its own initiative’, observes Di Matteo. ‘But it is extraordinary that today, on a big estate, they turn to Provenzano to let them know whom they can hire as a manager.’
Provenzano’s letter makes clear, in his self-effacing way, that any requests for help, advice or recommendations from ordinary people must be treated as a priority.
One key step in the organization’s recovery was recapturing the popular consensus, after Riina’s bombing strategy alienated the population at large. The Mafia has always relied on the silent consent of the community, as an essential part of its social control. His ability to survive on the run depended on the full support of the communities in which he lived.
Provenzano was clear: the Mafia must appear a positive element of life, a mutual benefit for all. The Boss had to appear as a beneficent figure, an uncle whose advice and consent were sought on all matters – business and personal. Cosa Nostra has always portrayed itself as holder of the moral standard. Uncle Binnu accepted requests for assistance or advice from every level of society. Managers, landowners, employers, knew they could get a reliable recommendation from the Boss. Fathers whose daughters were getting married could discover if the young man in question had honourable intentions.
‘Bernardo Provenzano, in these
pizzini
, replies to requests for help, advice and decisions’, explains Prestipino: ‘who gets permission to marry his girlfriend, who gets let off military service . . . he has a close and dynamic relationship with the community. He oversees everything, controls everything – his influence on people’s private lives is pervasive. It’s important for them to have his judgement on who marries whom, who they vote for, what to think, what to do. It’s the basis of social control, and far more effective than military oppression.’
Investigators couldn’t find Provenzano, but people who needed a favour knew how to get their request to him. Those who wanted to, knew his local representatives and turned to them with their requests for recommendations.
Parents of students appealed to the Godfather to make sure they passed their exams. This was a good deal more effective than dedicating an
ex voto
to Santa Maria: if the commission was accepted, a mafioso would speak to the professor and persuade him to give the boy a good grade.
‘I’m sending you a copy of the response from your godson, and the Professor. So I’m pleased to say that the Prof did his duty and the boy did well in his exams . . .’
The aim is to penetrate social and economic relationships to such an extent that if a person wishes to exercise their rights, they can do so only through the Mafia. Cosa Nostra replaced the state, not battling against it but taking over from the inside.
Answering people’s requests for help or advice brings them into a structure that they then implicitly support; this is the power of
Provenzano’s system, the method by which the Mafia historically exerted social control. If you know about people’s emotional lives, you have a hold on them. And if you help a businessman with connections, or recommendations, you have his complicity in the system. That ordinary people were once again turning to the Boss for help and favours in their daily lives was a sign that Provenzano’s policies were succeeding.
The need for popular consensus also required a tactical change in the manner of extorting protection money. Instead of demanding ever-increasing slices of the profits until they drove companies out of business, Provenzano’s watchword was ‘everybody pays less, but everybody pays’. By demanding a figure businesses could afford, he restored the sense that it was on the whole much less trouble for companies to pay up quietly, month after month. His pragmatic approach made it advantageous for companies to deal with the Mafia.
In a letter to one of the Palermo capos Provenzano explains that paying protection is not an imposition but an opportunity: ‘Let me know whatever they need, they must expect nothing but good from us.’