by BARRY MOODY

ROME_ The terrified·· rich of Nort~ern lta~y are· rushing to hire bodyguards and buy ~erocfous dogs and pocket tea.r ·gas cannisters in face of the biggest kidnapping wave in Italian -history·

While the ' rich cower be masterminded by a jnside their homes or pay vast, highly organised large sums of rn'.>ney for modern criminal army protection, the police are called '·Kidnaps Anony­coming. under increasing mous." :fire for not stopping the ext ra-Ordinary growth of Mafia what has been dubped 'the kidnap~,ing 'industry.' moved

There have been 82 kidnaps since 1970, but Police say the organis-

PLAN t he industry did not ation is backed by really start to spread Sicily's dreaded criminal vance planning, speed in until this year when society, the Mafia, much actually carrying out the there have been about 40 of which has literally grab and high intelligence · abductions. been . transplanted to in organising contacts

grabbing the children, and escaped by car, leav-ihg them behind. ·

The number is increas- northern Italy to take with the family, payment ing every day, especially in , acfvantage of the new of the ransom and re-the industrial north, crime. lease of · the victim. .

Next day the children were sent to Germany for their ~wn safety.

where there are plenty of : It is not . surprising that · In the s'o-calied "pro- Money rich businessmen and the Mafia has been drawn . fessional" kidnappings the 'd d' industrialist.s for the .to the attrnctions Of kid- police are left With very · amne kidnappers to pick. . napping which_ offers huge few leads. - There has been wide~

But it's not on~y the ~rofits for the financin~ The victim · probably d bl" t fabulQuSly · wealthy who · of its other · activities, .. never sees his jail'Jrs spreinsa t . thPU: k1~d 0 \1. cry

. . especially internatin.nal . excent hooded or masked, aga . . - ~ . '- i nazwmg~ . are · in danger. v • • and Pope · Paul went so Recent kidnappings drug smuggHng, which ~ . and the ·release of an far as £o 'pronounce kid- .

have involved much less ~lso . increasingly ~eing ·, unharmed hostage t~k-e~ a mon da n d wealthy families who'have concentrated in northern .. ·. plac.e · eJliciently: soon _ ~ ~i~aetjciily ~h: . ~wh9le · · had to scrape together' all Italy,_ .· . . a,f.ter payment of .the ,. of Criininalpol '- · the th · ·ngs to -g.et 'their .. "Kiclnappmg Anony- · ransom. . - . ,' . . ., . . . ,

. eJr sav1 , ' ·_,~mous"-· 1·s calcu•-te-d so far . . . ~rgamsatmn .. which c.o-loved ones back; . .... A ate rs di t th l Another worrying qe- : to have made 30,0UO , m U , . or. na es . . e po ice

m. u· 11·0 n lire (""A 37 mil. ,. . . b I · tlh ougho,ut Italy, hea~ed velopment is that the . "' · Ung e b Ital d t l kidna'l)pers are now ·in- lion), ·and the highest. · · · .-·. · · Y_ Y 8 . ~qu Y. po ~c~ creasillgly cho'osing young ransom in Italian history, ~ut tt:e well~pubb~ised chief Francesco L1 Donni children as their victims. paid for the 22-year-old boom m -~his highly -. has been, moved to

son of a· Brescia industri~ profitable cnme has at- Milan from R0me. Of the eight ·children alist' early la.st mont.h, tracted the "amateurs," The city's forces have

under tbe age of 14 was beiieYed to be at least and they are blamed for been s~rengthened with kidnapped since 1963, five S,OOO million lire ($A 6•2 ti:e da~gerous . bungled 550 special chosen officers. have been taken this , million). kidnappmgs which have The country's police ye~~st of the kidnappings, The opei·ations of Kid- taken place. , chief., Efisio Zanda Loi, .in northern Italy ·at least, naps Anom1mous are Two of these occurred has called for increased are believed by police to marked by detailed ad- in the Rome area re- penalties against k!dna~-

I., _ _ N_ew_sv_ie_w _.l-~---

IT' S WRONG It's hard to believe the federal executive

of the AustraHan labor Party is . serious in be­lieving more attention to public relations will solve the Government's problems.

The Government has more publicity people than any of its predecessors, and they are pretty efficient at "spreading the word".

The 'trouble is that right now it's the wrong word.

No amount of public relations will convince workers - and their wives - that inflation doesn 't exist, or that unemployment is a myth.

Much of the present · economic strife is beyond the direct control of the Government.

But it has been aggravated by Govern­ment decisions which were wrong - and which are being belatedly corrected.

Tariffs, taxes and Government spending · have all felt the impact ·of a _"second look".

Making the right decisions, and making sure they work, is the real · business of govern-ment. . .

Electors will iudge by results, nof on the success of a propaganda machine.

. cently. pers and a reduction m On November 11 tw'.> the granting of bail.

masked men t1ied to grab P'vlice also criticise t he pretty 16-year-old magistrates for authoris­daughter. of a Ro~e ing the suspension of construction. tycoon . m enquiries, as requested by broad

1 day1;ight · outside kidnarlJ.ers, while negoti­

her schvol m front of a ations with the families sturu;ied crowd who did of victims are going on, nothmg to hel~ her. and for taking to'.:> long

But the girl fought to deal with those kid­bravely and stopped the nappers who have been kidnappers loading. her arrested. · in to a car by bracing her legs against the bodywork. They panicked and· tled, Jeaving her on the [),ave- · merit.

Early last week four men armed with machine­guns and pistols tried to kidnap the 12-year-old daughter and eght-year­old son of Italy's best known living sculptor,

But police enquiries are made infinitely more dif­ficult by- the · intricate organisation of the kid­napping gangs.

These a.re d i v i d e d into c'0mpletely separate "cells", each unknown to the others and entrusted with clearly defined stages of the abductiOn.

Giacomo Manzo. Four , As their chaffeur drove them- out of the sculptor's groups .villa a~ Ar~ea, south, of R:ome, he was force·d to A' typical gang of about slow down by a ladder 20 people would be divided placed across his path. into: 'Jne group to steal

The four men leapt the getaway . car. One from hiding places and group, usually of four reckless~y opened fire men, to actually carry out when the chauffeur tried the kidnap. One to look to accelerate· away, nar- after the ::i,risoner. One rowly avoiding killing to neg'.:>tiate with the their potental hostages family and pick up the and serously wounding ransom, and one to free the driver in the throat. the vfotim, police sources

They too panicked after say.

J. Paul Getty, one of the world's richest men, was asked to pay a huge ransom when his ~randson, Paul Getty Ill was kidna~ped in Italy.

One of the most inter­esting aspects of -the recent sudden increase of abductions, after a - sh'0rt period of calm, is that ·it shQws the extraordinary ability of the ·modern Mafia to adjust to a major setback and reorganise its fvrces.

For only last May, Luciano Liggio, Italy's most wanted criminal, one of the most fe.ared of Mafia killers and the suspected head of Kidnaps Anonym10us, was picked up in a raid on .a luxury apartment on the out­skirts of Milan.

Liggio's arrest provided a definite link between the Mafia and kidnapping . .

The Sicilian had been on the run for three years after · a life sentence in 1970 for double murder, and was an ackn'vwledged boss ·of the brutal "New Ma.fia."-

He was detected by accident by investigating m a g ii t r a. t e Giuliano Turone, who was not in-:: volved in a direct anti­Mafia investigation at all.

Dr Turone was foll'0wing an investigation into Kid· naps Anonymous which had already led him to the accidental discovery of the hiding p,lace vf

kidnapped Martini ·heir, Count Luigi Rossi Di Montelera, who was held in an underground dun­geon for four months.

Dr Turone's investiga­ti',ms into the Montelera affair and other kidnap­pings had all pointed to a

. man known only as "Antonio" who turned out to be Liggio himself,

The arrest IJf Liggio and the breaking of vital organs of the Kidnaps Anonymous group seemed like a major blow against the gang.

Sure enough, for a few months the kidnappings decreased dramatically, Then, at the beginning of October, the policemen's nightmare began all over again, but this time with a vengance.

Investigators believe that Liggio is continuing to direct his operations from prison in . the way Mafia leaders always seem t'o find so easy.

Since the setback of Liggio's arrest, Kidnaps Anonymous has been re­organised to make ' it

· even more efficient. It ls believed to be led

in the field by Liggio's most trusted lieutenant, 43 .- year - old Salvat\.>re Riina, who, like his boss, is from the Mafia-dom,. inated · town of Corleone in western Sicily.

Riina jumped an order · for c'vm~.ulsory exile in

1969 and has not been seen since.

Perhaps the most ironic aspect of the whole affair is that the Mafia grafted a vast organisation into the north of Italy with the apparent help 'Jf the authorities themselves.

Italian judges, frust-1·ated by the difficulty of getting'witnesses to Mafia crimes to talk because of the tradition of silence known as "omerta," have traditionally sent Mafia suspects. into enf'Jrced exile, away from Sicily. ,

For a long period the · favourite places for en­. forced exile were in

northern Italy, apparent­ly far from the Mafiosi"s traditi'..>nal haunts.

But with the boom in northern drug smuggling and kidnapping the authorities' m e a. s u r ea; merely provided Mafia leaders like Liggio with a. ready-made criminal · army conviently en­trenched in the north of the country.

l;JtHUit• .. ~ .. li ... ~ ... I. ________ ~--------Co LL EG

by the one which oper-' E ated at the former Adult Educati'on Centre.

Sir - I agree with most Yet the cqllege, no of the praise given to doubt for financial and

·the Darwin Community other reasons, did not College by Mr Dick provide such facilities for Curran (News, December this year. 14) • · This created a big

By a strange co- problem, overc'0me only incidence, the · college by the determination of advertised in the same a group of mothers, who issue t'o announce its organised their own )nterest in establishing a chid-care facilities. creche on its campus. It's to be h'vped the

The advertisement em- college will operate its phasises one of the areas own creche next year, in which the college having ap,:J,arently recog­failed this year. Jnised the error of its

There was an obvlous earlier ways. n eed for a creche, proved . This is part of the way

8 - The NT- News, Tuesday, December 17~974

)

the college can justify the "community" in its title.

Another dould well be the sponsorship of some definitive histories of the NT - a subject on Which schoolchildren can learn Jittle because of the lack of. auth.oritative text­books.

G. KING Darwin

DANGER Sir - The Department

of Housing and Construc­tion is asking parents to keep children away from

trenches dug in many parts of Darwin (New!?, December 16).

No a.ouot it is a good thing to have the warn­ings, but the need for them is worrying.

One \)f the trenches is quite near our home, and is protected oy unstrain­ed fencing wire stuck on star pickets. This would not keep any child away, even if there weren't a number of openings· to allow vehicles through. ·

The strange thing js that' the trench has been dug, and p,ipes laid in it for many months. There seems no reason why it

should not be filled in and made safe.

If it must remain open and dangerous, it should be fenced much more securely,

L. GREEN Stuart Park

AIRPORT Sir - There is a real

point in the letter from J. Monk of Darwin (News, December 14), complain­ing about the lack of parking facilities at Dar­win airport.

By rebuilding the old terminal, at heavy ex-

pense, the Transport Department is acknowl­edging a big increase in the number of flights and passengers through Dar­win.

Each flight generates a lot of cars visiting the airport, and needing somewhere to park. And all the flights seem to c'0me at once instead of being spread through the day.

The airport de~ry.arately

needs more parking space, with enough time allowed for people to get to the airport when demanded

by the airlines, and to remain until flights leave.

K. PRICE Darwin

BUSES Sir - Mr J. Finney

(News, December 16) and many people like him ask for better transport be­tween Darwin and the northem suburbs.

But do they ever travel by bus, to encourage the Government to impr'vve the service and make it

, economic? L. HARDEN Nightcliff.

. '