Ustica and the conspiracy of the cards that aren’t there
There is a conspiracy mechanism that has fueled the mystery of Ustica for 43 years: every time reality disproves the theory and the demonization of those who read what is really there in the archives, the rhetoric of misdirection takes over. The comment by Gregory Alegi, historian and journalist, professor at Luiss
It thundered so much that it didn't rain. This is what I think as I head towards Palazzo Chigi for the meeting of the working group on the declassification of documents relating to the massacres , and in particular that of Ustica, which I have been studying for years. Two days ago, Giuliano Amato 's hearing at Copasir to clarify the meaning of the explosive declarations made a month ago to Repubblica on the alleged French responsibility for Ustica ended in a stalemate. Or at least that's what the absolute lack of indiscretions about his statements suggests, all the more strange considering that in the past entire pages came out of the Committee.
THE BASIC PROBLEMS OF THE REPUBBLICA VERSION
According to Repubblica , Copasir would have moved to find out whether classified papers still exist in the SISMI archives or whether the archives of foreign countries or NATO allies contain "crucial papers to be able to reconstruct what happened on the evening of 27 June 1980". Even if this were the case, it is difficult to understand why the answer should come from the former Italian Prime Minister. It therefore does not seem to be a coincidence that after its opening the article elegantly steers towards the hope of a correct understanding of documents already in the possession of the Italian investigators (who, moreover, decided not to summon Amato, evidently to save everyone is embarrassed to note the absolute absence of anything new).
The obsessive request for new cards with which to feed the Moloch of a non-existent air battle clashes with two basic problems. The first: the unlikelihood that an unpublished document could deny the enormous amount of material (between 1.75 and 2 million pages) collected by the ten-year investigation of the investigating judge Rosario Priore. The second: the impossibility that a sheet of paper can make radar traces never identified on the tapes appear or materialize war head splinters of a missile that have always been absent from the wreck. While the completeness of the documentation is obviously an acceptable goal, new words or old papers cannot overturn the electronic and physical evidence of what destroyed the DC-9 and killed the 81 people on board.
THE RHETORIC OF MISLEADING ON USTICA
But there's more. Postulating the existence of documents capable of invalidating tests and reports also means rejecting the non-existence of documents that deny the technical evidence. It is this conspiracy mechanism that has fueled the mystery of Ustica for 43 years, the rhetoric of misdirection every time reality disproves the theory and the demonization of those who read what is really there in the archives. Because in the papers already paid (but still uncomfortable to consult) there is a lot of material fully consistent with what the wreck still says today, from the Palestinian threats to the difference of views between SISMI and the embassy in Beirut up to the involvement of the admin. Fulvio Martini again in 1980 and the denunciation of misdirections to cover the origin of the attacks.
In other words, the appeal for new cards sounds like yet another rejection of what already exists, in the name of hunting for something that one would like to find but isn't there. This is nothing new: in 1999 the same Prior continued to investigate even after having filed the order for trial, collecting material that the Court of Assizes declared unusable in 2000 at the opening of the trial.
Soon I will be at Palazzo Chigi. Crossing the door, I will be reminded of the Polish joke that defined Marxism as looking for a bed in a dark room, Marxism-Leninism as looking in a dark room for a bed that isn't there and real socialism as looking for a bed in a dark room that isn't there and shout «Eureka! I found it!"
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/carte-ustica-nessun-complotto/ on Thu, 05 Oct 2023 05:30:52 +0000.