Funeral for the seven police and military officers that were killed while trying to defuse the car bomb in Ciaculli.

The Ciaculli Massacre on 30 June 1963 was caused by a car bomb that exploded in Ciaculli, an outlying suburb of Palermo, killing seven police and military officers sent to defuse it after an anonymous phone call. The bomb was intended for Salvatore “Chichiteddu” Greco head of the Sicilian Mafia Commission. Ciaculli is an outlying suburb of Palermo, Sicily in Italy. ... Nickname: Palermu Motto: Official website: http://www. ...

The Ciaculli Massacre is the culmination point of a bloody Mafia war between rival clans in Palermo in the early 1960s – now known as the First Mafia War, a second started in the early 1980s –, for the control of the profitable opportunities brought about by rapid urban growth and the illicit heroin trade to North America. The ferocity of the struggle was unprecedented, reaping 68 victims from 1961 to 1963. The Mafia, also referred to in Italian as Cosa Nostra, which is generally translated our thing in the Italian language, is an organized criminal secret society which evolved in mid-19th century Sicily. ...

In the 1950s the Mafia had developed interests in urban property, land speculation, public sector construction, commercial transportation and the wholesale fruit, vegetable, meat and fish markets that served the burgeoning city of Palermo, whose population rose by 100,000 between 1951 and 1961.

A relationship developed between mafiosi and a new generation of politicians of the Christian Democratic Party (Democrazia Cristiana) such as Salvo Lima and Vito Ciancimino. The period 1958-1964, when Lima was mayor of Palermo and Ciancimino was assessor for public works, was later referred to as the “sack of Palermo”. Christian Democracy, (Democrazia Cristiana), the christian democratic party of Italy, commonly called the democristiani or DC, dominated government for nearly half a century until its demise amid a welter of corruption allegations in 1992-94. ... Salvatore Lima (died March 12, 1992) was an Italian politician from Sicily who was murdered by the Mafia, with whom he was alleged to have ties with. ... This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ...

The construction boom led to the destruction of the city's green belt, and villas that gave it architectural grace, to make way for characterless apartment blocks. In five years, 4,000 building licences were signed, more than half of them in the names of three pensioners who had no connection with construction at all. Lima was connected to Angelo La Barbara, Tommaso Buscetta and the leading construction entrepreneur Francesco Vassallo. Tommaso Buscetta (in sunglasses) is lead into court at the Maxi Trial, circa 1986 Tommaso Buscetta (July 13, 1928 - April 4, 2000) was a Sicilian mafioso, and later repented. ...

The Mafia war was sparked by a quarrel over a lost heroin shipment and the murder of Calcedonio Di Pisa – an ally of the Greco’s – in December 1962. The Greco’s suspected the brothers Angelo and Salvatore La Barbera of the attack.

The Ciaculli Massacre changed the Mafia war into a war against the Mafia. It prompted the first concerted anti-mafia efforts by the state in post-war Italy. Within a period of ten weeks 1,200 mafiosi were arrested, many of whom would be kept out of circulation for five of six years. The Sicilian Mafia Commission was dissolved and of those mafiosi who had escaped arrest – among them Tommaso Buscetta – many went to the United States, Canada, Argentina, Brazil and Venezuela. Salvatore “Chichiteddu” Greco fled to Caracas in Venezuela. Tommaso Buscetta (in sunglasses) is lead into court at the Maxi Trial, circa 1986 Tommaso Buscetta (July 13, 1928 - April 4, 2000) was a Sicilian mafioso, and later repented. ...

The atrocity galvanized Parliament into implementing a law passed in December 1962 for the constitution of an Antimafia Commission which met for the first time on 6 July 1963. Its final report was submitted in 1976.

According to Tommaso Buscetta – after he became a cooperating witness in 1984 – it was Michele Cavataio, the boss of the Acquasanta quarter of Palermo, who was responsible for the Ciaculli bomb. Cavataio had lost out to the Greco’s in a war of the wholesale market in the mid 1950s. Cavataio killed Di Pisa in the knowledge that the La Barbera’s would be blamed by the Greco’s and a war would be the result. He kept fuelling the war through other bomb attacks and killings.

Cavataio was backed by other Mafia families who resented the growing power of the Mafia Commission to the detriment of individual Mafia families.Cavataio was killed on 10 December 1969 in the Viale Lazio in Palermo as retaliation for the events in 1963.

References

Excellent Cadavers (1995) Alexander Stille, Vintage ISBN 0099594919 Alexander Stille is an American author and journalist. ... The International Standard Book Number, or ISBN (sometimes pronounced is-ben), is a unique identifier for books, intended to be used commercially. ...

The Antimafia (2000) Alison Jamieson, MacMillan Press Ltd ISBN 033380158 The International Standard Book Number, or ISBN (sometimes pronounced is-ben), is a unique identifier for books, intended to be used commercially. ...

Cosa Nostra (2004) John Dickie, Coronet, ISBN 0340824352 The International Standard Book Number, or ISBN (sometimes pronounced is-ben), is a unique identifier for books, intended to be used commercially. ...