Il August 2th it is a tragic anniversary in the history of Italy. In 1980, an explosive device placed in a suitcase in the second class waiting room devastated an entire west wing of the Bologna station provoking 85 dead and over 200 injured and disabled. The commemoration of that event has become a moral obligation for the city and its institutions. Every year, after the meeting, reserved for the authorities, a event who punctually arrives in the station square a few minutes before the heartbreaking sound of a siren at 10,25 precisely (the time the bomb exploded) starts the speeches. Usually the mayor, the government representative and the now historic president of the Association of Victims' Relatives, Paolo Bolognesi, speak.
For some years now, the government representative (usually a minister, even if this year someone took the trouble to point out the absence of Giorgia Meloni) intervenes only in the ceremony in the city council to avoid disputes. Today the government is represented by the head of internal affairs, Matteo Piantedosi, who has a good relationship with the city and its institutions, having held the position of Prefect.
The Bologna massacre of 2 August: the judicial truth
For the Bologna massacre of 2 August 1980 there is the judicial truth that sees the former Nar Valerio Fioravanti and Francesca Mambro, definitively convicted in 1995, as executors. Then Luigi Ciavardini (a minor at the time of the events) convicted in 2007 and Gilberto Cavallini, convicted in the first degree in 2022 All four claim to be innocent. Public opinion is still divided. Rumor has it that the new majority would like to form one Parliamentary commission investigation that sheds light on the massacre beyond the sentences that have become definitive. That would be an error, both in general terms and with reference to the specific case. The idea of establishing a Commission on the management of the health emergency from Covid 19 is already aberrant, which rather than ascertaining the facts, would end up justifying the denial of the leaders and parties that won the elections today.
A mistake to set up a new parliamentary investigation commission into the massacre
As for the Bologna massacre, setting up an investigative commission now, many years later, would lead to nothing, then on a political level it would give the impression that FdI and the MSI have felt involved in the accusation of ''fascist massacre'' and intend to disprove this narrative. In reality, in the events of black terrorism, the distinction between the parliamentary right and subversive extremism has always been clear, in correspondence with what happened on the left, between the PCI and the Red Brigades.
It is unwise to try to clarify a criminal event in which you are not directly involved. Then, of course, the sentences of Bologna are not entirely convincing, they give the impression that for political reasons and obstinately they have followed theon the trail of black extremism. Several leftist intellectuals immediately questioned the actual guilt of the former Nars. How can we forget Luigi Cipriani, exponent of Democrazia Proletaria, who immediately said that they shouldn't have written "fascist massacre". But, on the left, it was not an isolated case. For example, there was Ersilia Salvato of Rifondazione Comunista and Luigi Manconi who joined the famous committee "...what if they were innocent?", made up mostly of people radically opposed to the right. There were several leftist journalists such as Sandro Curzi, at the time director of Liberation or Andrea Colombo, del The Manifest.
The Bogna massacre of 2 August: the Palestinian trail
As far as I'm concerned, the reactions of the Association of Victims' Families have always surprised me, when hypotheses about the perpetrators and instigators of the massacre were hypothesized. It is the case of Palestinian/Libyan track. I remember that he also talked about it in the days following the massacre. But I have never understood why this lead was rejected, just when very substantial circumstantial elements emerged. It was later proved that on the night between 1 and 2 August a German terrorist bomber, Thomas Kram, stayed overnight in a Bologna hotel, who together with Margot Christa Froelic, also under investigation, was part of the Revolutionary Cells, an armed group responsible of dozens of attacks between 1973 and 1995. On the morning of August 2, Kram took the bus to Florence. Yet that presence in Bologna, on the evening before the attack, was defined in the order by the investigators as "incomprehensible" and "unjustified" such as to fuel "a lump of suspicion". Yet according to the Prosecutor's Office, his involvement in the massacre was not proven. Does that mean they didn't see him put the suitcase with the bomb in the second class waiting room? But Giusva Fioravanti and Mambro were not seen either, nor was it proved that the two and their accomplices were in Bologna on the night of 1 August and the following morning (except for the belated recognition of Cavallini's ex-wife).
A book by Rosario Priore tries to shed some light
Yet the judiciary usually likes theorems. That of the Palestinian trail would be a perfect theorem. In fact, this is the thesis put down in black and white in the essay ''The secrets of Bologna. The truth about the most serious terrorist act in Italian history'', written by Rosario Priore with Valerio Cutonilli and published by Chiarelettere (2018). Rosario Priore was one of the most engaged magistrates in the investigations into the most serious episodes of terrorism: from Ustica, to the Moro case, to the attack on Pope John Paul II. Priore, in the essay, reconstructed the background and the scenario of the massacre of August 2, 1980 at the Bologna station, attributing - in words – the responsibility to Palestinian extremism, and accrediting the version of events (that lead) that had been shelved.
Rosario Priore also recalled (revealing another possible motive) that on the same morning of 2 August 1980, while an entire wing of the Bologna station was blown up, the undersecretary for foreign affairs of the Cossiga government, Giuseppe Zamberletti, signed a treaty in Malta hostile from Gaddafi's Libya. For the writer, after that reading, the doubts became even more justified and legitimate: a former magistrate of Priore's competence, experience and seriousness (who, in order to ascertain the facts, even obtained the recovery - from deep seabeds – of the wreckage of the plane that exploded/fallen/shot down into the sea at Ustica) would not have put his face on the detailed and documented complaint of a probable misdirection in the opposite direction to that of the official investigations. The essay started from the so-called Moro award, according to which Italy became a free zone for Palestinian terrorists on condition that they avoid committing attacks by us. But something went wrong. One of their ringleaders on the highway was arrested with a missile in his car. The terrorist was convicted and the request for release presented by his lawyers was rejected at the end of May 1980. Hence the retaliation.
The misdirection of reports on the Bologna massacre of 2 August
The ingredients were all there: the secret negotiation, the misdirection of services (could they possibly reveal an unholy pact?), the principals. But all this was not considered sufficient, not even to continue the investigation. It was even claimed that the Moro award - which is also discussed in all the Sports bars of the Peninsula - did not exist as evidence, as if such an agreement could be deposited in copy by the notary. Then it's easy to blame the dead. In fact, they were accused of the massacre in Bologna – while dead – Licio Gelli, Venerable Master of Masonic Lodge P2 e Umberto Ortolani as principals-financiers; the former head of the Interior Ministry's Reserved Affairs office Federico Umberto D'Amato indicated as principal-organizer; Mario Tedeschi, director of the magazine "Il Borghese" and former senator of the MSI considered the organizer for having assisted D'Amato in the media management - preparatory and subsequent - of the massacre as well as in the misdirection of the investigations.