AM Rivista della Società italiana di antropologia medica / 27-28, ottobre 2009, pp. 37-71 Biopolitics the Sicilian way Berardino Palumbo University of Messina In the dynamics of power, of absolute power, nothing exists other than what is concrete. Roberto Saviano (2007: 98). Hazy borders On the outskirts of Bagheria, just a few kilometres from Palermo, numer- ous town buses connect the main town of the island to Bagheria where the poet, story-teller and witness to a long gone civil ethos Ignazio Buttitta grew up. Some buses stop in front of a modern building, the people get off and quickly enter the hall of the building. In the 1990’s this building used to house the Hotel Zagara, then, in just a few months, after the municipal- ity of Bagheria conceded a change in zoning permits – it was transformed into a private clinic – “La clinica Villa Santa Teresa”, one of the most luxu- rious clinics on the island. On the other side of Bagheria, not too far away, there is a building which used to house just a few years ago what was called ICRE – Industria Chiodi e Reti (Nails and Wire Netting Industry). Despite the name, it was supposed to be a warehouse for building materials be- longing to Leonardo Greco, a member of the local mafia clan. In the world of Cosa Nostra that warehouse was known as the “Ferro” (Iron). This is how it was described by Nino Giuffré, one of the last “pentiti” (“penitent” ma- fiosi turned state witnesses), a top ranking Mafioso, during his interro- gation: «We would go to the “Ferro” in Bagheria in the morning. Provenzano was there. I remember that this warehouse for iron goods was one of the most important places where Provenzano used to meet people. And let us say that it was also the place where the Corleonese adversaries used to be exter- minated. That is to say that here appointments were given to people that were no longer considered trustworthy and once they got there they didn’t get back home. They were killed. It was like an extermination camp, one of Cosa Nostra’s extermination camps» (1). Obviously, in Bagheria, at the beginning of the new millennium, it was important not to get the wrong bus. In similar ironic vein, those of us who AM 27-28. 2009 04-Palumbo.pmd 37 02/11/2010, 16.53 38 Berardino Palumbo are more familiar with the Sicilian health system could, deep down, sustain that the island’s hospitals are also places from which one never returns. We would be doing Villa Santa Teresa an injustice, and would be simplifying things somewhat, particularly, the network of relations and meanings that link Cosa Nostra to a significant portion of the Island’s “civil society”. Villa Santa Teresa is a clinic, in fact, renowned for medical excellence in Sicily, where radiodiagnostic equipment, for example, is the best of its kind in the South of Italy. The owner of Villa Santa Teresa was the engineer Michele Aiello. He, too, was from Bagheria and in 2000 he was the major tax contrib- utor to the Sicilian Tax department. There seems to be nothing unusual up to this point. However, there is a rather curious point, and that is the fact that his name appears in one of the pieces of paper (called a pizzino) taken from Totò Riina – one of the Cosa Nostra bosses – when he was arrested in January 1993. When, in April 2003, the “stereotactic radio surgery” service was installed in Villa Santa Teresa, Michele Aiello had already served a few months in prison, accused by the magistrates court and by some “collabora- tori di giustizia” (state witnesses) of being a riservato (known, that is, only to a few heads) member of Cosa Nostra and of acting as a prestanome (“name- lender”) in the area of Health in the interests of Bernardo Provenzano, who was also at the head of Cosa Nostra for over twenty years (2). I am not really interested in the penal and legal implications of such a scenario. I am rather more interested, on the other hand, in the business- man, himself – one of the richest Sicilian contributors – elegant, middle class, who according to the declarations of the “pentiti” and in the conver- sations intercepted by law enforcers, appears as a kind of legal alter ego of the invisible, and for 40 years, elusive Bernardo Provenzano (3). What are his tastes, his passions, how does he discipline his body, he who had brought to Sicily the “total body stereotactic radio surgery” and who, at the same time, had represented on the public scene, the interests of the person who for decades had ordered the physical disintegration of many human bod- ies? And what can we say of his cousin, Aldo Carcione, associate professor of radiology at the University of Palermo, accused of having illegally bro- ken into the computer Registry of the Procura della Repubblica (Public Prosecutor’s Office) of Palermo, to extract information with regards to the enquiry into Aiello and other “Mafiosi” (4)? What embodied notion of the State does this university colleague of mine envisage? It is not easy, in the absence of a specific ethnography, to give answers to these questions. For the moment we can only further expound on the web of relationships that, confounding the borders between the legal public domain and illegal networks, between health and torture, between bio- AM 27-28. 2009 04-Palumbo.pmd 38 02/11/2010, 16.53 Biopolitics the Sicilian way 39 powers and the powers upon «bare life» (AGAMBEN G. 2005), which seems to begin to outline a peculiar Sicilian declination of modernity. On first sight in fact it seems clear that Villa Santa Teresa, a flagship health clinic in Sicily (“private”, but paid by the “public”), and the “extermination camp” of Cosa Nostra are connected by very profound and surprising links. In some cases such links are metonymic – during some of the inspections car- ried out after Aiello’s arrest, the subterranean quarters of the clinic revealed further secrets. Tunnels that lead externally, a series of rooms equipped to receive fugitives – a tip-off had indicated the presence of Provenzano in those secret hide-outs. Other “pentiti” had referred that the boss would get around the city of Palermo by travelling in an ambulance. When they looked for him in the underground quarters of Villa Santa Teresa he had already escaped outside. In other cases the relationship is metaphoric. Many secret rooms in fact are hidden in the underground of the so-called “civil society” of Sicily. The engineer Aiello boasted a complex network of friends and acquaintances. For example, his personal secretary, Maria Masi had a broth- er (Francesco) and a sister (Paola) both condemned for aiding and abetting Matteo Messina Denaro’s, a Cosa Nostra boss from Trapani, being on the run. Furthermore, while Paola Mesi is indicated as the boss’s companion, both her brother and sister work in a company owned by Carlo Guttadauro, the brother of Giuseppe, whom we shall shortly encounter, an entrepreneur also from Bagheria, was condemned for mafia association. However, the friends and acquaintances of the owner of Villa Santa Teresa are not only Mafiosi. Giorgio Riolo, the Marshal of the ROS (“Reparto Op- erativo Speciale”) of the Carabinieri and the Marshal of the Guardia di Finanza, Giuseppe Ciuro, assigned to the DIA (“Direzione Investigativa Antimafia”) are trusted friends and collaborators. According to the judges of the Procura (Public Prosecutor’s Office) of Palermo, with whom the two marshals had been collaborating for a while and working together on del- icate mafia investigations with some of those judges, both were passing on reserved information to the engineer, information that concerned investi- gations and wiretapping carried out by the judges in his regard. Further- more, Riolo, who had been given the task by the judges of the Procura of installing the wire taps, was also employed by Aiello to set up and debug the computerised security system and video surveillance at Villa Santa Ter- esa. The judges and the colleagues (the uncorrupted ones) of the two mar- shals are able to record their conversations and in November 2003 they are both arrested together with Aiello with the accusation of external sup- port in mafia association (5). Another marshal of the Carabinieri, Antonio Borzacchelli, is among the circle of acquaintances of Michele Aiello. The AM 27-28. 2009 04-Palumbo.pmd 39 02/11/2010, 16.53 40 Berardino Palumbo two know each other and have been in frequent contact, but after 2001 their relationship intensifies, after Borzacchelli is elected regional parlia- mentarian in the Biancofiore, a list associated with that of the UDC (“Un- ione Democratici Cristiani”- Democratic Christians Union) party. In the course of the regional legislature, Borzacchelli is an outspoken advocate during the legislative assembly of the interests of the private health sector, more than once, intervening in the debate concerning the elaboration of a fees list regarding the professional health services carried out by private health groups. In truth, the “honourable-marshal” entertains even more cordial relations with Salvatore (Totò) Cuffaro, the former Governor of the Sicilian Region who was forced to hand in his resignation after being con- demned to 5 years imprisonment for having passed on reserved informa- tion to people linked to Cosa Nostra (January 2008), but was re-elected in April of the same year to the Senate of the Italian Republic. On admission of the Governor, relations between the two political men are close and frequent – they meet on a daily basis, even before the election of the former marshal to the regional parliament.