Portella Della Ginestra Massacre
As more separatist leaders were arrested, his funds became limited and he was forced to find new sources of supply. He eventually alienated himself from the peasants and became a tool of the landowners and conservatives. In this role he was manipulated to slaughter innocent peasants in the name of halting Communism in May 1947. In 1947, with his group steadily shrinking, he turned to kidnapping for ransom and turned regular profits. Also in that year there were more elections, following a limited victory for socialist-communist groups.
After receiving a mysterious letter from an unknown source, Giuliano led his remaining men on a raid to the mountain pass Portella della Ginestra on May 1, intending to capture Sicily's most prominent communist, Girolamo Li Causi. However, the event turned into a massacre. Fourteen civilians, including a woman and three children, were killed and more than 30 wounded. Giuliano himself (who fired no shots) stated he ordered his band to fire above the heads of the crowd hoping they would disperse. Some sources accuse the Mafia of infiltrating it and claim mafiosi instead shot at the crowd causing the massacre.
The incident created a national scandal, which ended in 1956 with the conviction of the remaining members of the band. It still remains a highly controversial topic, especially with regard to the contents of the letter Giuliano received before it; the finger of blame has been pointed at numerous sources, including the Italian government, which had long sought to destroy the famous bandit. Leftists who were the victims of the attack have blamed the landed barons and the Mafia; significantly, the memorial plaque erected by them makes no mention of Giuliano or his band:
On May 1, 1947, here on the rock of Barbato, celebrating the working class festival people of Piana degli Albanesi, San Giuseppe Jato and San Cipirello fell under the ferocious barbarity of the bullets of the Mafia and the landed barons
—Portella della Ginestra memorial plaque
Read more about this topic: Salvatore Giuliano
Famous quotes containing the word massacre:
“It is hard, I submit, to loathe bloodshed, including war, more than I do, but it is still harder to exceed my loathing of the very nature of totalitarian states in which massacre is only an administrative detail.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)