THE MISSILES OF COMISO
Vetri, Carmela
THE MISSILES COMISO A Sicilian town tries to cope with NATO's warheads BY CARMELA VETRI Carmelo Giannone tends to the espresso machine in the cafe on the main piazza of Comiso, a small town in...
...Outside a grocery store, a sign reads, English Spoken...
...Unlike the others, the "Vigna Verde" is populated exclusively by six young men from Comiso who are cultivating the land, planting trees, and living in a renovated garage...
...Tradition no longer governs Comiso...
...The promise of employment led the citizens of Comiso to reelect Catalano to a second term, according to Dutch peace activist Imco Brouwer, who works in Sicily with the Unitary Committee for Disarmament and Peace (CUDIP...
...From all points of view, the missiles bring harm," interjects another, cleanshaven and dressed in his Sunday best...
...We are with our backs against the wall, with our arms up, like Jesus Christ...
...The movement had lost its momentum...
...Peace campers and local farmers worry that the move was a first step toward further expropriation...
...But only 130 of 300 construction workers at the base are from the community...
...aurizio Cremasco, senior researcher at Rome's Institute of International Affairs, locates another reason for the relative political quiescence...
...They don't bring work...
...It is not in their way of life...
...it now stands at 23 per cent...
...He would like to see a single national organization along the lines of Britain's Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament or Holland's Inter-Church Peace Council...
...The Italian pacifist movement has organized neither church support nor the type of party support which was organized by parties of the Left in the 1940s and 1950s...
...The base "is conveniently placed for operations which are becoming more and more intense in the Mediterranean and, in particular, the Middle East...
...It is wary of disturbances, however, and in the summer months the police restrict movement around the base...
...And that, says Brouwer, helps explain why most citizens keep their opposition to the missiles to themselves: "People are reluctant to go into the streets for fear of not getting a job...
...But in the second-story Sports Club Diana, overlooking Comiso's main piazza, the men assert that the local Communist Party is manipulating the antinuclear issue...
...It brings delinquency, drugs, prostitution, mafia...
...Barefoot pacifists exchange friendly greetings with pas-sersby...
...The people of Comiso still believe the base will bring work," Brouwer says...
...That's why there is a lack of enthusiasm from Sicilians: They didn't create it...
...The missiles offend us, they do not defend us," the old man says...
...There is, in addition, a sense of resignation about the missiles...
...We want to have a national referendum to see if, like the Christian Democrats and Socialists, we are in favor," says Pietro Giudinella...
...inside, five young Americans purchase wine and fruit before catching the bus to the NATO base...
...I agree with the political objectives of the pacifists," says Maria Farruggio, an employee in a tax consultant's office...
...In the Piazza Fonte di Diana, which serves as the central gathering place for men, the mayor's decision is the subject of heated discussion...
...The government has already accepted them, therefore we cannot do anything," says one citizen...
...They are harmful to everyone," he concedes, "but if the Russians do not disarm, I am in favor of the missiles for my defense...
...Published figures indicate that thirty-eight Italians work in the NATO facility, along with 617 American soldiers, eighty-eight American officials, and nine American civilians...
...the matter...
...The referendum does not suit them," answers a friend, "because they will lose...
...Our destiny is no longer in our own hands, but in the hands of those who call to arms—those who want to convince us of something...
...But Costanzo says that when the organizers work hard, women respond...
...Now no one has the courage to invest here...
...The women of Comiso believe this is a struggle of men, and so they do not have the courage to involve themselves...
...It all comes down to local politics and twenty-five years of [past] administration by the Communist Party," says Giuseppe Gioncardi, an elementary schoolteacher and member of the right-wing Italian Social Movement...
...Catalano has rejected calls for an official referendum on Carmela Vetri is a free-lance writer in Washington, D.C...
...The women organizers have held neighborhood meetings, film screenings, silent protests, marches, and a women's conference...
...Even in the social life, the base brings evil...
...THE MISSILES COMISO A Sicilian town tries to cope with NATO's warheads BY CARMELA VETRI Carmelo Giannone tends to the espresso machine in the cafe on the main piazza of Comiso, a small town in southern Sicily...
...hundreds of thousands of Italians were expected to show...
...Some say former Communist Mayor Giacomo Cagnes, who now heads CUDIP, organized the peace committee to boost his political fortunes...
...Sweatt finds, nevertheless, that local citizens "recognize me instantly as doing something for peace...
...A younger man who attempts to enter this circle of elders and defend the base is silenced by a gray-haired man with sun-colored cheeks...
...Two weeks later, the missiles were in Comiso but the protesters were not...
...It "wasn't born from the initiative of Sicilian women, but from women of all countries...
...cruise missiles at an old military airport outside of town...
...Biaggio La Perna, a retired shoemaker, partially agrees...
...The first sixteen of Comiso's cruise missiles, for example, were to become operational last March 16...
...All types of work have been blocked," says a farmer, adding that the government rationalized the choice of Comiso by claiming the region is barren...
...We all want peace, of course," he says...
...Can they...
...The agent of such control will be the mafia, he believes...
...NATO marked off a fifty-meter rim around the base and prohibited farming and construction in the designated area...
...Still, the failure to keep the missiles out of Comiso—it happened while the U.S...
...We prefer that the name of our town remain unknown, rather than reveling in this equivocal notoriety...
...The local government, formed by a coalition of parties, welcomes deployment, but a recent opinion poll found 70 per cent of the town's 28,000 citizens in opposition...
...Three miles outside Comiso, along roads lined with housing projects and farms, the NATO base lies quiet...
...Their latest effort was to turn out support for twelve women arrested last year for blocking a road to the base...
...A women's peace camp, "La Ragna-tela," is not perceived by the residents of Comiso as an act of Italian women for Italian women, according to Linda Sweatt, an American living at the camp...
...He predicts the "complete militarization" of all Sicily—which, in turn, will require "powers of control over Sicilian society that are both intensive and continuing...
...Umberto Santino, president of the Sicilian Documentation Center "Impas-tato," which monitors the growth of the mafia and militarism, believes the peace movement should be politically autonomous...
...Almost three years after NATO picked Comiso to house the nuclear-tipped weapons, the community does not speak with a single voice...
...Back in town, along the Viale della Re-sistenza, the main thoroughfare, Americans take their evening meals and purchase household goods...
...media were watching antinuclear protests in Britain and West Germany—does not mean "the movement registers a defeat in every way," argues Santino...
...In fact, the unemployment rate in Comiso has gone up rather than down in the past year...
...We feel people should take a personal responsibility to realize that what each of us does contributes to the situation," Sweatt says...
...Santino, like proponents of the base, suggests that the missiles are aimed not only at the Soviet Union but at Middle Eastern countries and Libya...
...We must be consistent with the Italian political line...
...Our defense is work and liberty," explains a fourth man as a crowd gathers to hear the informal debate...
...We have seen that they do want our presence...
...Our work is very difficult because we are never sure the women will follow us," says Giovanna Costanzo...
...To mark the event, various peace organizations and political parties planned three days of demonstrations in Comiso...
...In a community where women are rarely found in positions of political leadership, a handful of women at the CUDIP are mobilizing other women to participate...
...Outside the compound are four peace camps, cooperatives run by activists from throughout Italy, Europe, and the United States...
...Another factor is Comiso itself, a rural town that values its traditions and tends to regard outsiders, including peace demonstrators, as intruders...
...But Comisani are not used to demonstrating outside, in the piazza...
...But as they are against only American missiles, we cannot go with them...
...Passivity is just as much supporting it...
...Socialist Mayor Salvatore Catalano insists that the NATO compound will "better conditions of this country, both socially and economically, including our rapport with other countries...
...Nonetheless, the Communists' presence in the peace movement—along with other left-wing parties—has been a difficult stigma to overcome...
...they do not want to be abandoned...
...The society—called a "peasant civilization" by the town's prize-winning novelist, Gesualdo Buffalino—is undergoing rapid transformation, and the missiles have stepped up the pace of change...
...But Defense Minister Giovanni Spadolini postponed the emplacement, and the demonstrations were canceled...
...The surrounding countryside is one of the richest agricultural areas in Sicily...
...A petition against the base attracted one million signatures in Sicily, including 13,000 from Comiso...
...Comisani find themselves in the piazza, forced to listen to those contradictory voices," Buffalino observes...
...Italy's mass movements, he points out, have always been tied to a political party or to the Catholic Church...
...Santino cautions against "the logic of dates"—tying activities to significant days...
...It is thus more fragmented and less vocal than other movements in Europe or the United States...
...The Communists do, in fact, advocate Soviet as well as American disarmament, and they reversed their call for Italian withdrawal from NATO because the "need for international equilibrium doesn't permit it," says one Party official...
...I am not in favor [of the missiles], but there is nothing to do about it," he says...
...Construction, craftsmanship, and agriculture are all paralyzed...
...We are against the missiles," he continues, "but if the Communist Party would fight against all missiles, both East and West, then we would join them in demonstrations and camps...
...They are sympathetic to what we're doing, although they feel that we can't accomplish anything...
...But it must be the Italian government which says 'no' to the missiles...
...If the Italian Communist Party were to put all its weight and entire organization into promoting the pacifist argument," says Cremasco, "the movement would develop further...
...Many residents are flatly opposed to the base, while others regard the missiles as a necessary evil, though they resent being stepped on by Washington and Rome...
...The task has simply shifted to "fight the missiles at home...
...The movement might grow with the commitment of a large party, however...
...Giannone, preparing for the Sunday rush of coffee drinkers, adds that the "day of guilt" occurred when Italian leaders approved the installation of 112 U.S...
...Why don't they [government officials] want to have one...
...They have "no intention of leaving," says one...
Vol. 48 • October 1984 • No. 10
