The bishop of Locri-Gerace in Calabria in Southern Italy, Giancarlo Maria Bregantini, has excommunicated members of organized crime rackets in the region for having perpetrated a series of attacks on the cooperatives promoted by the diocese. He has sent a letter to all the parish priests of the diocese excommunicating the perpetrators of such acts, “not to condemn but to prompt reflection”. The reason? The latest in a series of intimidatory attacks occurred last Saturday, 8 April, in the form of an arson attack on a warehouse annexed to the soft fruit glasshouses of a local cooperative ( Frutti del Sole /Fruits of the Earth), at Casignana, a subsidiary of the Cooperative “Valle del Bonamico” and part of the Policoro Project of the Italian Bishops’ Conference. The glasshouses damaged by the fire are the same that were destroyed by persons unknown only a few weeks ago with the introduction into the irrigation system of a toxic substance that destroyed 12,000 raspberry plants. The “Goel” consortium, which re-groups the social cooperatives of the area, issued a document (“The attacks continue”), in which it urged that “light be shed on what has happened, that the instigators and possible strategists be identified, and that no stone be left unturned to investigate the attacks: we need to be helped to understand what is happening to us”. The document also warns of the “obscure and indirect plotters who are far more concerned to stop our local and regional movement than cripple a single cooperative”. “We have the impression – says the document – that we are faced by an escalation. It seems “there are those who want to oppose a contemptuous sign of insolence to the great manifestation of solidarity and cooperation expressed in Calabria and in the rest of Italy. A strong intervention of the State can be delayed no longer: let it assume its responsibility to prevent any tragic epilogues that might unfortunately take place”.
