Honoured Society by Norman Lewis

Author:Norman Lewis [Norman Lewis]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781906011963
Publisher: Eland Publishing
Published: 2011-09-27T04:00:00+00:00

This trial marked the end of the period of postwar anarchy. By the end of 1946 order returned to five-sixths of Sicily. Only one band remained, but it was as active, as numerous and as apparently invulnerable as it had ever been. This was the band of Giuliano, and as the retired policemen publish their memoirs and the grains of evidence accumulate over the years, the fantastic reason why becomes plain.

Maresciallo Calandra in charge of the carabinieri of Montelepre tells us that he could have captured Giuliano at the beginning of the bandit’s career but was not allowed to. Giuliano, he says, always seemed to know in advance when any attack on his hiding-place was contemplated. Later we read from official Italian sources of Inspector-General Verdiani of the Public Security exchanging an affectionate correspondence with the bandit, and once joining him for an intimate little meal en famille, with sweet cakes and wine. Meanwhile, and at a time when carabinieri, public security agents and soldiers were dying in ambuscades staged by the Giuliano band, Pisciotta – Giulano’s second-in-command – was out shopping for silk shirts in Palermo, accompanied by a carabinieri captain. Pisciotta carried in his pocket two genuine police passes, one permitting him to move about freely, and the other to carry arms. One of these bore the signature, whether forged or not, of Mario Scelba, Minister of the Interior.

The fact is that there was no desire whatever to destroy the Giuliano band. On the contrary, the evidence is that it was kept in readiness; an instrument to be used in a final emergency for the performance of a grim task. On May 1st, 1947, Giuliano and his men, having at last received their orders, moved to the attack – not this time on the police, but on a great multitude of peasant holidaymakers. Italian politics have never recovered from the effect of the deed that was done that day.

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