GLORY TO OUR COMRADE ANTONIO CANEPA and to the partisans of the Volunteer Army for the Independence of Sicily!
NO to the hypocritical tricoloured Liberation Day and to the tainted May Day celebrations!
World War II (1939-1945). After the facts were cleaned out by the ideologies, our very own Memory was “purified”, what is left of the second WORLD WAR is a lethal confrontation between competing Powers, which turned into the division of the World in two parts, of a divided Europe, a divided Germany, a divided Berlin. And in the long-lasting withdrawal of the old colonialist European Empires, that had “won” the war, triggering India’s independence, and most of all the foundation of Mao’s People’s Republic of China.
In July 1943 – with Operation Husky – the “Allies” (supported by an efficient Resistance against Nazi-fascism) occupy Sicily. It was the beginning of the end of a Regime, but, as we will see, it was not what the Sicilian Partisans had fought for.
The 24th October 1943, beyond the temporary AMGOT (Allied Military Government for Occupied Territories), was also the birthdate of Washington’s “SICILY REGION 1” in the Mediterranean, which remains like an “unsaid” under this sky that is populated by foreign planes, assassin drones, dysfunctional saints and a G7 on a tourist trip.
This Sicily is a fought-over island, played like a geopolitical card by Rome, the real mafia capital, and its strategic relation with the AmeriKan friend. A treasure island reduced to Europe’s poorhouse, with its habitants being forced to emigrate. An island made HOSTAGE that is drifting off course in the tempests of the 21st Century.
In the crucial 1940s one of the very few intellectuals who lucidly understood, that the essence of the Sicilian question is the problem of the unresolved self-determination of a people, was an already famous young scholar, who was among others a professor of History of International Relations and Treaties at Catania University. He was a cultured and very methodical 30-years old polyglot: Antonio Canepa.
In those days’ Sicily that was revolting for its sacrosanct right to independence, the COMRADE ANTONIO CANEPA WAS A TRUE LEADER OF THE ANTI-FASCIST RESISTANCE MOVEMENT. First as the political-military leader of the murderous “Gruppo Etna”, and later as the “Comandante TOLU’ of Giustizia e Libertà” on a mission in the North. The COMRADE ANTONIO CANEPA WAS A TRUE LEADER OF THE SICILIAN ANTI-COLONIALIST RESISTANCE MOVEMENT (as the Comandante Mario Turri of the EVIS – the Army for the Independence of Sicily).
He was assassinated in an ambush in Randazzo. It was the 17th of June 1945. His corpse was concealed under State Secret for a decade. To this day his memory is object of taints and miss-information.
The concealed truth about Antonio Canepa is the most outrageous scandal in Sicily’s last 70 years. The EVIS was not an “army” thought to win a “war”. The EVIS was an “armed political party” fighting for a more just peace, on the path of Sicily’s socialist (R)evolution. The “military camp” of the EVIS in Cesarò, in Messina province, even had its own traffic sign set up!
The EVIS – beyond any reasonable doubt – IS THE CONTINUATION – also physical – of the ANTI-FASCIST RESISTANCE ON OUR ISLAND. THE REAL ONE. THE ONLY ONE that played a political-military role. Canepa’s partisan network was deeply rooted ´within Catania University… and also counted on the trotskyist group “SICILIA ROSSA”, that broke out of its clandestine existence on May Day 1945.
The EVIS – which was born and died with Canepa – never had any “relationship” with gangs and bandits. If anything, it clashed with organised crime. In one of those clashes the young Francesco Ilardi died. Ilardi was later buried at the Sanctuary of Catania, together with the Comandante and their comrades. The EVIS was predominantly formed by young students, artisans and farmers. They called themselves “comrades”. Period.
In the chaos that reigned in those years, other groupings such as the gang around Salvatore Giuliano and Salvatore Ferreri had completely different political references -> During the Viterbo trial, Gaspare Pisciotta, a member of Giuliani’s outlaw band, mentioned the name of Bernardo Mattarella (politician for the Christian Democrat party, and father of today’s Italian president Sergio Mattarella) as well as the OSS-CIA. He was later poisoned as part of OSS-CIA operation “GLADIO”.
“CANEPA MUST DIE!”. THIS DEMAND CAME FROM ROME. It came from within the “anti-fascist” CLN (National Liberation Committee). It was one of the many “showdowns” within the “partisan world”, but the bullets came from the newly-founded GLADIO. In the chaos that arised during the post-war period in Sicily, the massacre of Randazzo on 17 June 1945 was the most cynical and politically criminal act – and the most concealed.In the location “Contrada Murazzo Rutto” near Randazzo, at the foot of the Etna, on Sunday, the 17th June 1945, following the orders from the “anti-fascist” government in Rome, the following people were slaughtered in an ambush: comrade professor Antonio Canepa, founder of the Army for the Independence of Sicily, as well as the young EVIS-activists Carmelo Rosano and Giuseppe Lo Giudice. They were Sicilian partisans who had chosen to continue the battle for the liberation of the Sicilian people and its working class.
As for the executors, everything leads to the “reformed” SIM, the Italian secret intelligence service, which, following the Armistice of Cassibile on 8th September, had already incorporated nazi-fascist criminals such as Ettore Messana, already a “dirty war”-specialist in Slovenia, and other “patriots” from the Xa Mas (the 10th Assault Vehicle Flotilla) led by Junior Valerio Borghese. Borghese was on of the covert protagonists of Portella della Ginestra massacre, perpetrated against Sicilian civilians during May Day celebrations in 1947 in the town of Piana degli Albanesi. A COVER OPERATION carried out under the auspices of the OSS-CIA by the fake independentist flag of the Ferreri-Giualiano gang, who maybe did not even shoot on that tragic 1st of May 1947 (the ballistic report remains to be studied). Operation GLADIO was born!
The FAKE MYTHS against CANEPA and the EVIS are still being exhumed, like badly buried corpses without peace. The EVIS does have its MARTYRS. People like SALVATORE GIULIANO are certainly not part of it. During the post-war chaos the systematic Italian re-occupation of Sicily had to be legitimised, so the myth of the “War on Banditry” was born: the reputation of Sicilian independence activists had to be systematically destroyed by linking them to banditry – and of course – to the Mafia. A load of bullshit, reiterated for the last 70 years! A hypocritical and coarse way to taint their Memory.
Meanwhile, seemingly by force of habit: The deafening silence of the “institutions”, but also of the ANPI (the National Association of Italian Partisans); the CLN (the National Liberation Committe); and all of the italian “partisanism”, subjected and accomplice to a code of silence (it: omertà). The cowardice of the “academic world”, and the denigrating attitude against Sicilians, that unites both the leftist historiographical ignorance and the visceral hate of the right-wing literature. Last but not least, the hypocrisy of the tri-coloured trade unions, that offend the Truth by staging every 10 years their “political picnics” at Portella.
The conquer of this Truth is owed to the Sicilian People, and sees the (INDEPENDENTIST) SICILIAN LEFT on the front row since decades, thanks to the prophetic path of TerraeLiberazione, bio-political heir of the trotskyist independentist group “SICILIA ROSSA” of 1945.
This HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL TRUTH has to be reconquered and defended every day from the FOGS, the MARSH, and the MINE FIELDS of the COLONIALIST SPECTACLE staged by the italianized Sicily.
In July 1943 – during Operation Husky – the “Allies” (sustained by an efficient Resistance against nazi-fascism) occupied Sicily. It marks the end of a Regime, but, as we shall see, it was not what the sicilian partisans around Comandante Canepa had fought for.
During WWII – this huge slaughterhouse in which the “crisis of 1929” is resolved – the 24th October 1943, beyond the temporary AMGOT, Washington’s SICILY REGION 1 in the Mediterranean was born. It pervades like a “non-said”… under a sky populated by foreign airplanes, murderous drones, dysfunctional saints, and the G7 on a tourist trip.
For the Sicilian People it’s another PAST that does not pass. A past that cannot be understood by disregarding the TRUTH about CANEPA: the sicilian PARTISAN, the GREAT PROFESSOR of History of International Relations and Treaties, the geopolitical analyst who – despite the ongoing fascist Regime – studied Trotsky’s works with method, and tried to apply them in Sicily in the most resounding fashion: the THEORY-PROGRAMME of the PERMANENT REVOLUTION within the historic- social conditions of an Island Nation that is being exploited and oppressed by a neocolonialist State.
The EVIS was the armed political party that legitimised – in the continuity of anti-fascist Resistance – the future of an INDEPENDENSTIST SICILIAN LEFT: independent on every ideological, policy, organisational and operational level.
Certainly, with his 100 young people, the guerilla-professor “Mario Turri” did not want to “wage war against Italy”, he was not a fool. The EVIS was also not the armed force of the MIS (the Independence Movement of Sicily), whom Canepa knew very well. If anything, Canepa-Mario Turri offered an alternative to the defenseless MIS and had good relations with the League of Young Separatists (it: LGS, Lega Giovanile Separatista) led by Guglielmo Carcaci. The LGS was a practical channel for the LEGITIMATE DEFENSE of the INDEPENDENTIST YOUTH, that was persecuted and tormented by the beastly Italian police force of Salvatore Aldisio, Rome’s High Commissioner for Sicily. It should also be noted, that the post-war state apparatus – in Sicily more than anywhere else – remained manned by the same individuals who had been part of the fascist regime.
To sum it up: The ambush at Murazzo Rutto in Randazzo on 17th June 1945 -> looks like a STATE-SANCTIONED POLITICAL MASSACRE – ordered by the “shareholders” of the Roman CLN and realized by the operation “GLADIO” that was formed within the post-war chaos. It was perpetrated with a “preventive counter-revolutionary” logic.
As the “Cold War” was marching in, the illusions of partisanism were disappearing, and the same MENTAL FORCES – that by now had become structured – hit the 1947 MAY DAY Celebrations at Portella delle Ginestra. This history of Sicilian and socialist blood shed, is treated as a “non-said”, ferociously hidden by the colonialist Spectacle of italianised Sicily.
As for the myth of the separatist bandit, it is nothing but a well constructed mediatic invention of the AmeriKan secret services. It was incorporated as the Vulgate of the colonial tricoloured Left, as Europe’s partition between the USA and UdSSR unfolded within the paradoxes of the Cold War.
It has to be said, that in the mountains surrounding the little town of Montelepre (Salvatore Giuliano’s birthplace) – in the most complete political irrelevance and quite identifiable at every moment – there was a little group of young men who became trapped in a story that was larger than them. They remained excluded from the Amnesty that was given by the CLN government even to some of most known fascist criminals.
That colonialist bullshit about the “criminal and mafia-run Sicilian Separatism” acts like a “non-said”, it has a background that has been ferociously hidden by the Colonial Spectacle of italianised Sicily: the MASSACRE OF RANDAZZO on 17th June 1945.
This badmouthing continues to this day: The next episode will be staged by the State-run RAI: “Il Primo Maggio” (1st of May) -> Live from the colonialist-trade unionist Theatre of italianised Sicily! On the occasion of the 70th Anniversary of the anti-sicilian massacre in Portella della Ginestra!
“The dominating ideology is always the ideology of the dominating class” (Karl Marx). And the (R)evolution of Sicily will not be a political picnic, nor a gala dinner.
HONOR TO THE COMRADE CANEPA! THE GUERILLA-PROFESSOR, THE SOCIAL INTELLECTUAL WHO UNDERSTOOD THE WORLD AND WHO KNEW ITS LANGUAGES, THE MILITARY CHIEF AND IDEOLOGIST OF THE TRUE SICILIAN RESISTANCE.
The EVIS – without any reasonable doubt – is the (physical) Continuation of the anti-fascist Resistance of our Island. THE TRUE RESISTANCE! The elimination of Canepa was certainly due to his radical political and cultural choices, but also due the fame that eventually would have protected him in the first decades of the First Republic. In some way Canepa was a “cumbersome” figure: “CANEPA MUST DIE!”
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In July 1943 the first phase of Operation Husky was an utter disaster. The “landing” in Sicily – which marks the turning point in WWII – risked to sink into the sea due to the heavy storm that welcomed the “liberating” Allies. But it became the most gigantic air-naval operation in the history of military until then. A new era began: the one that sees Humans taking the Skies and chasing away the Gods.
The Sicilian situation is well known to the “Allies”: The Regime of “Il Duce” – as per his own admission – does not have any true “consent”. And the partisan Resistance – directed by an elusive professor – has carried out a series of actions that were anything else than just symbolic.
The contested Island is briefly described with abnormal niceness in “Soldier’s Guide to Sicily”, an English-language guidebook that was distributed by the Allies command with 450,000 copies in preparation to Operation Husky: “Invaders and dominators have followed one another in all epochs… eventually the Italians have dominated the island.”
“Sicily is the largest island in the Mediterranean – it is more or less the size of Wales. But its importance depends from its (geographical) position… and from dozens of aviation camps… two-three hours away from Rome, four hours away from Milan… closer than we could ever get…”
“The Headquarter of the (German Luftwaffe) field marshal (Albert) Kesselring is located exactly in Sicily… Furthermore, (Sicily) offers to our fleet the bases of Syracuse, Augusta, Catania, Palermo, Trapani and Marsala…”
And: “Sicily is crucial: until now we had to sail around the entire Africa. We had to take our ships 12,000 miles around the Cape of Good Hope.”
Thousands of Sicilian-Americans participated in the Operation Husky – and now appear pathetic, as much for the denial as for the overestimation of Cosa Nostra’s role, an “ethnic armed party” born within the Sicilian Diaspora in the USA. Those who don’t understand American society, and blindly animate historiographic “tifoserie”, will never understand anything. Period.
Irrespective of that, Sicily is in a cyclical Revolt for its sacrosanct Independence.
1860 it was annexed by London for the little wannabe-reign of Piedmont, among the false garibaldinian Unity flag. Sicily is an exploited Colony, oppressed and repressed in all its attempts of economic and civil emancipation. Its social ascension is managed by the submissive function towards ROMafia, the corrupted Italian capital. Everything from careers to privileges for a restricted tri-coloured bourgeoisie, to the systematic repression towards the population by means of compulsory military service and mass-emigration, that function as regulators for the social metabolism.
The “fascist reformism” doesn’t go beyond a faint and tardive attempt at landed reorganisation, with a (somehow in its own “sicilianist”) rhetoric of an Island, “centre of the Empire”. Meanwhile the “Empire” was combing through the mountainous villages on its much trumpeted “fight against the mafia”.
By its own admission, the Regime never gained the consent of the Sicilians. its opposition was never the “backward, feudal, irredeemable” Sicily, (which by the way never existed), that was later also adopted in the tri-coloured Leftist and colonialist rhetoric, always subordinated and blind; selling itself to the “state capitalism” while constantly raving on about the “fight on feudalism” up until the 1970s!
The future belongs to those who manage to raise a critical and solidary look on the things of life and on the world. That world to which comrade Canepa looked at with extraordinary scientific ability, living his Life like a battle, and his Death like an adventure.
“Tomorrow’s Sicily will be what we want it to be: pacific, laborious, rich, happy, without tyrants nor exploiters.”
The Sicily that we want will know how to defend its own interest with firmness, building fraternal relations with all the people of the world. We are “Independentists”, not “Separatists”; it’s todays colonialised Sicily which is alienated from the world. Independence will make it “united” within the ranks of the free nations. But “woe betide anyone who betrays: The Past will be forgotten, not the Future.” (Canepa, “La Sicilia ai Siciliani”, Catania 1942)
@La Comunità Siciliana “TerraeLiberAzione” www.terraeliberazione.wordpress.com
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