«We chose to come here precisely following the umpteenth time free elections were not held in this municipality. We chose to do it inside the barracks named after Brigadier Tripodi for which I thank the Carabinieri. But we also and above all did it because San Luca is still the “mother” of the ‘ndrangheta, because as “mother” she followed up on so much criminal colonization. From here, from Dia’s report, what emerges more and more is that many local groups have started, many ‘ndrine have arrived all over Italy and even all over the world and from here we want to say, especially to the younger ones, you can change direction, you can change towards and also aimed at this city.”
Thus the president of the Anti-Mafia Commission Chiara Colosimo explained the reasons for the Commission’s visit to San Luca. In the municipality there was no vote in the local elections in recent weeks because no candidacy for mayor was presented. Bruno Bartolo, outgoing mayor, in office since 2019, elected after a period of administration of the institution due to failed elections due to the absence of candidates, has in fact decided not to stand again. «Common prisoner of clashes between clans? It is not just a problem of this municipality – added Colosimo – it is a problem of the whole territory which we can include within the mandate of this area. We know that the ‘ndrangheta has a very rigid top-down structure but also a very important local autonomy and we must insert ourselves, also by talking about and making the alternative. We are here to listen but above all, tomorrow, to propose more to fight this cancer of our nation.”
“The children and women of San Luca must understand that change can be achieved” continued the president of the anti-mafia parliamentary commission, Chiara Colosimo. The hearings with the provincial institutions became necessary after a new commissionership of the Municipality of San Luca due to the failure to present the lists for the renewal of the municipal council. “The commission – said Colosimo – felt the need to incorporate the requests coming from the local institutions to give a signal to the honest citizens of San Luca who do not want to look the other way and to the children and women of this let’s say that with their help things can change.
Colosimo: “Viminale ok for access commission to San Luca”
The Ministry of the Interior has given the Prefect of Reggio Calabria the possibility of setting up the access commission to San Luca. Thus the president of the parliamentary anti-mafia commission Chiara Colosimo after today’s hearings, “since it is now established news”. The management of the municipal administration, Colosimo explained, was at the center of the first part of the hearing of magistrates and police forces. order of Reggio Calabria and Locri, and what emerged, he said, was «a total inertia in all the salient and important facts of the public administration, from the sewerage network to the water system up to lighting up to quite surreal events that concern the Mercatale area in front of the sanctuary of the Madonna di Polsi. I cannot believe that no one noticed anything or that this was fine. So, surely, there is a need to develop the so-called civil sense.”
Ferro: “The State does not give up on difficult challenges”
«The presence of the Parliamentary Anti-Mafia Commission in San Luca is testimony to a State that does not give up in the face of difficult challenges and does not abandon communities to a fate that seems sealed. For this I thank the president Chiara Colosimo, who, thanks to a busy calendar of hearings with representatives of the institutions, the judiciary and the police, wanted to define a clear picture of the territory, of its criminal dynamics, and of the commitment to be made field to ensure conditions of legality and, above all, the restoration of democratic life. I hope that the appointment of the Prefectural Commissioner, since no candidacies for mayor have been proposed, can help to build a situation of normality, and above all to stimulate the commitment and responsibility of the citizens, of the many respectable people of San Luca, of its well-trained young people , capable and willing, so that they courageously take the future of their country into their own hands, looking towards the realization of the common good, knowing that they will always have the State at their side”. This is what the Undersecretary of the Interior Wanda Ferro (FDI) stated on the sidelines of the hearing in the Anti-Mafia Commission in San Luca.