The town ‘The Godfather’ put on the map

Press, 6 November 1984, Page 49

The town ‘The Godfather’ put on the map

NZPA-AP Corleone Corleone, a rural town founded in the Middle Ages and put on the. map by the celebrated American film, “The Godfather,” has been accused of being the source of Italy’s top-ranking mod-ern-day Mana gangsters. Corleone lies in the middle of the sparsely populated Sicilian countryside, where the Mafia planted its deep roots, extorting private businesses, running laundries, restaurants, and even small hospitals where their wounded are treated after gangland warfare. Italians solemnly pronounce the nickname for the Mafia and its mighty tentacles that first took hold in towns like this: “La Piovra" — the octopus. It was the name of a recent hit series on the State-run television.

Corleone’s winding cobblestone streets twist up and down hills between the low-set, cramped, ageing houses whose inhabitants warily eye strangers for minutes at a time. Barefoot Franciscan monks, spreading a message of “peace and good will,”

come down from their monastery perched 100 metres high on the top of a giant rock at the edge of town. The local government is dominated by Christian Democrats, the political party that for years has been accused of being too soft on the Mafia. Construction of a new aqueduct has forced dozens of people to temporarily draw their household water from outdoor pumps and lug it home in plastic containers. Legend has it that Mafia bosses in Corleone once were buried in a special cemetery where the tombstones had no names, but the residents of this town of 11,000 flatly deny that “This is the town that, within Mafia circles, people look at with respect,’’ said Salvatore Marabeti, aged 30, the Corleone secretary of the Communist-dominated C.G.I.L. labour union. “Corleone got its international fame only because of the Mafia.” For decades, investigators have said that numerous

mafiosi have come from Corleone. Now, an imprisoned mobster, Tommaso Buscetta, in a dramatic confession to investigators, placed his rivals, the “Corleonesi,” at the head of the modern-day Mafia ranks, calling them “the most bloody and ruthless.” In an assassination that stunned Italy, “Corleonesi” organised the bloody September, 1982, shooting of top-ranking mafia fighter, General Carlo Alberto Dalia Chiesa, and his wife, according to Buscetta. Luciano Liggio, the “King of Corleone,” is reportedly the leader. He has been directing his vast network of killers, extortionists, and thugs from prison for the last 10 years, according to Buscetta. Liggio has denied that he remains a Mafia power. Corleone also is the birthplace of Vito Ciancimino, the powerful Palermo politician who was sent into temporary internal exile after Buscetta’s confessions. The union leader, Mr Marabeti, like many others

in Corleone, said he is annoyed by the town’s notoriety, which he says ignores the positive aspects of life here. Said the mayor, Michele la Torre: “Sure, many (mafiosi) were born here and many have relatives who still live here.” But, he said, Corleone in that sense was like many other Sicilian ■ and even American towns and cities where the Mafia also existed. For him, the 1972 film, “The Godfather,” is the main cause for the town’s reputation. The Academy Awardwinning film, starring Mar- ; lon Brando, tells the story of the Mafia empire built by Don Vito Corleone, who fled from Corleone as a young boy to escape a bloody Mafia vendetta and then * took the city’s name as his surname when he entered the United States to escape underworld gunmen. “This worldwide fame has “ come from the film The ■ Godfather’,” Mr la Torre * said. “It (the film) is just a romanticised story.”