299. Berlusconi and the Mafia

The celebrated Cafè in Via Veneto from the Dolce Vita era. 

I am starting a series of blogs on Silvio Berlusconi in answer to tweets sent to me by Twitter @gibrayl International relations and diplomatic affairs (Middle East, US, Africa, Latin America, Europe) - International Communication and Cultural Studies- https://twitter.com/#!/gibrayl 

I shall be answering one tweet at a time starting with the one on the Mafia which was:

Tweet  1:

“he has "friends" convicted for mafia collusion and some of them are in the party of #Berlusconi to gain parliamentary immunity.”

1.  Mafia is infiltrated not only in all political parties in Southern Italy but in the Army, Police Force (Carabinieri), Management, banks, schools, hospitals and at all levels where power is concerned from collecting rubbish in Naples to the highest government tax office in Italy- I say Italy, because the Mafia at times manages to infiltrate some of the government offices in the North too.  However to prove that he has “friends” convicted for Mafia Collusion, you first need to provide the names before I can give any credit to that statement.  Often the Mafia make out to be friends with Berlusconi, but Berlusconi may not in the least be friends with them.  Mind you they said the same thing about Giulio Andreotti, didn’t they?

Neither can I take it for good that some of them are in the PDL (Berlusconi’s party) in order to gain parliamentary immunity.   Parliamentary immunity is obtained by a parliamentary vote on each case.  If you remember at the end of last year a vote was taken on two members of parliament, one from the right wing and the other from the left.  The left wing member of parliament was given parliamentary immunity the right wing member was sent behind bars- so it is clear it does not pay to join Berlusconi’s party if you wish to obtain parliamentary immunity.

Also it has to be remembered, and you can check the records on this, the Berlusconian era put in jail hundreds of bosses, confiscated their lands, buildings, goods and money, converting them for public use or as compensation to victims.  One of the biggest raids upon the Mafia was made on 23 July 2009 when the Carabinieri confiscated The celebrated Cafè in Via Veneto from the Dolce Vita era.

You can read more on this here:  http://evaulian-thebestoftheworst.blogspot.com/2009/07/163-italy-from-times-ladies-page-point.html