The investigation by the prosecutor’s office in Bergamo on the management of Corona from the beginning of February to 8 March 2020 is still ongoing, and it is yet to be determined if any crimes have been committed and by whom.

However, there is a clear political fact emerging from the investigation that does not involve crimes but rather a political judgment.

The investigation highlights the heavy pressure exerted by some big entrepreneurs and their organizations to prioritize profit over health.

While it was already known that there were public statements by Bonomi and regional presidents of Confindustria in this regard, what emerged from the investigation is that these entrepreneurs were exerting their influence through direct and private messages and phone calls to political figures.

This is not a matter of errors, underestimations, or lack of preparedness; it was an ideological position that put profit ahead of health and life.

Their crusade continued even after March 8, with requests to include as many productive categories as possible in the so-called “essential” industries, until they obtained the derogation that only required self-certification to be defined as “essential.”

The political fact is that we had, and unfortunately still have, a largely irresponsible, foolish, and short-sighted entrepreneurial class that prioritizes profit over public health.

The only way to contain the economic damage caused by the pandemic was by containing the disease, and there was no real long-term advantage to sending people to work during the peak of the epidemic.

“The stock market is collapsing,” shouted the economic powers in those days. But 15 months later, it had already returned to pre-Covid levels. Meanwhile, none of the people who died to save the stock market had returned to their families after 15 months.

• Alessandro Gilioli

  Nato a Milano nel 1962, laureato in Filosofia alla Statale. Giornalista dai primi anni 80, ho iniziato a Rp da ragazzo poi ho girato per diversi decenni tra quotidiani, settimanali e mensili. Ho scritto alcuni libri di politica, reportage e condizioni di lavoro, per gli editori più diversi. Tornato felicemente a Radio Popolare dall'inizio del 2021.

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Lies, omissions, silence, and refusal to take responsibility. Piantedosi ‘s speech in Parliament yesterday was cowardly, despicable, and insincere, contradicted by data, documents, Frontex’s electronic records, nautical charts, sea bulletins, and everything else.
The only argument left that’s worth discussing, and which even Meloni used, is “no one can think we wanted a massacre”. And of course, no one believes that the over 70 deaths in Cutro were the result of a deliberate massacre.
That’s not the issue, that’s not the accusation. The victims died because of something else, something called indifference.
The same cold indifference that transferred the 60 survivors of the shipwreck to a dilapidated structure without beds, without heating, only one shared bathroom.
The same inhuman indifference that forces NGO ships to travel an extra four or five days to land migrants in northern ports and then bus them back to the south.
The same bureaucratic indifference that leaves foreign police offices understaffed, forcing asylum seekers to wait endlessly in freezing night queues, like in via Cagni in Milan.
The same cynical indifference that led Vittorio Feltri to write, “leaving is a bit like dying”. The same mocking indifference of Salvini when he calls migrants “gym buffs”.
From indifference to contempt and from contempt to massacre, as we’ve seen, the road is not that long.

Piantedosi, Salvini, Meloni, and their accomplices are guilty of this.

• Alessandro Gilioli

  Nato a Milano nel 1962, laureato in Filosofia alla Statale. Giornalista dai primi anni 80, ho iniziato a Rp da ragazzo poi ho girato per diversi decenni tra quotidiani, settimanali e mensili. Ho scritto alcuni libri di politica, reportage e condizioni di lavoro, per gli editori più diversi. Tornato felicemente a Radio Popolare dall'inizio del 2021.

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In the aftermath of the blame game for the Cutro tragedy, we’ve heard all sorts of excuses in the past week: parents who shouldn’t have “endangered” their children, sudden worsening weather conditions, a shallow seabed “unknown to smugglers,” and so on, blaming everything but the Interior Ministry for not sending out the Coast Guard. Let’s forget about the “irresponsible parents” – an accusation so monstrous that it’s not worth discussing – and focus on the other aspect, the marine technical side, starting with the “suddenly worsened” weather conditions and the seabed.
When Frontex’s plane spotted and photographed the Turkish dinghy sailing on Saturday evening, the situation was as follows, as shown by all the numerous nautical applications available: force 5 wind, about 20 knots, sea state 4 on the Douglas scale, meaning “very rough” with waves up to two meters.The Frontex plane photographing the dinghy spotted only one person outside on the deck, but the low waterline left no doubt that it was full inside. Moreover, that’s the area where dozens of migrant boats arrive, and there are many abandoned ones in the port of Crotone to prove it. It was therefore obvious and known to Italian authorities that a dinghy full of migrants was in the middle of the sea with waves as high as two meters and 40 miles from the coast.
This was five hours before the boat broke against the sandy seabed that slopes under the sea from Steccato di Cutro. For five hours and 40 miles, that dinghy loaded with human beings was allowed to sail towards Cutro in those conditions.
And mind you: at the time of the shipwreck, the sea was force 5, sea state 4 on the Douglas scale, so identical conditions to five hours earlier when the dinghy was spotted by Frontex. There was no “sudden worsening.”
As for the seabed, it’s not at fault, it’s not abnormal, with no rocks protruding just below the sea surface: it’s a completely normal sloping sandy seabed. It was therefore evident that the wave motion that night could only lead to a collision of the keel with the seabed and the breaking of the wooden hull. But the Coast Guard wasn’t ordered to go out and save those people. Now there’s an investigation by the Prosecutor’s Office, so all this will be thoroughly examined, as is right in a state governed by the rule of law. But these are the nautical data, and they’re public for everyone to see.

Foto | Ansa

• Alessandro Gilioli

  Nato a Milano nel 1962, laureato in Filosofia alla Statale. Giornalista dai primi anni 80, ho iniziato a Rp da ragazzo poi ho girato per diversi decenni tra quotidiani, settimanali e mensili. Ho scritto alcuni libri di politica, reportage e condizioni di lavoro, per gli editori più diversi. Tornato felicemente a Radio Popolare dall'inizio del 2021.

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