“The bulldozers have not only torn down the walls of our house, but also ourselves, our wives, our children.” Speaking are the two Stabile brothers, the workers of Casal di Principe, a village in the Aversano countryside, about thirty kilometers from the city of Naples, who in recent months have tried by all means to oppose the demolition of the illegal building twenty years ago, but in fact they lost the battle.
“Now we are homeless, guests of another brother of ours, who has a small motorcycle house and cannot manage the situation for long. The church has promised to help us, to find temporary accommodation for us; the town hall has guaranteed it will be close. But after what happened to us, after seeing the bulldozers tear down our only home, after hearing the police threaten us that if we didn’t leave home spontaneously, the social workers would entrust our children to public assistance structures. , we are completely emptied, and we no longer believe in anyone ».
To get to via Ancona, a dirt road on the outskirts of the Municipality of Casal di Principe, where there are now what are now only the rubble of the house of the Stabile brothers where they lived with their respective wives and both with two small children, it is necessary to lower the window of the ‘car and ask the locals for directions, as it was done in the old way. Because not even the satellite navigator recognizes it.
Here, among buildings still under construction, buildings not structurally complete but already inhabited, areas of uncultivated land and fenced at the least worst (some used for breeding small farmyard animals) and heaps of waste not collected yesterday the State materialized, represented by police men and women, carabinieri and financial police who accompanied the bulldozers that demolished a building consisting of two apartments.
And the operation, albeit carried out in full legality, has displeased everyone in the village of Aversano, including the anticamorra mayor, Renato Natale, in his second term, elected from the ranks of the Democratic Party. “Because the legality, in the case of the demolition of illegal properties, did not go in line with justice,” explained the mayor in a press conference, during which the mayor presented his resignation from the leadership of the administration.
«Mine is not an act of weakness, rather of struggle – said Natale, who then added – in the past years I have opposed every form of illegality, including that of the Camorra, that represented by organized crime. Today I find myself confronted with a state that does not listen to me. Today they didn’t just lose the Stabile brothers, it wasn’t just me. But those bulldozers in action in Casal di Principe made everyone lose, the whole of Italy lost ».
Over the past few weeks, Natale has asked the prosecutor of Santa Maria Capua Vetere several times for an exemption in the killing, of at least three months. In this period the municipal administration was able to complete the renovation of a villa that belonged to the bloody boss of the Camorra, Giuseppe Setola, confiscated and destined for social housing. Here he could have hosted the two destitute families who lived in the house demolished yesterday. “But from the prosecutor’s office, contact in several ways and on several occasions, I have not even had a single answer, not even negative, zero”, the mayor says bitterly.
But why the entire municipal administration has sided in favor of the derogation from the demolition of an illegal property, and the same Legambiente, which has made it one of its first flags of the fight against building abuse, came out with a press release in does it take part in favor of the requests of the resigning mayor of Casal di Principe? Because in the village of the Agro Aversano the property of the Stabile brothers is not the only one built in violation of laws and codes, on the contrary. Here one in three houses has not been built regularly, and we are talking about one thousand seven hundred apartments and villas, out of a total of just over five thousand.
«Many of these houses – says Marisa Diana – deputy mayor, are still rough, some built for building speculation, as second homes. Why not start with these? If the bulldozers had arrived for those who built on public property, in areas burdened by urban planning, landscape and similar conditions, we of the administration would have been happy only. If there are so many houses to be demolished, our question is: why start with those of poor families? Why by those who built without a license but still in building areas? Why start with houses inhabited by those who have no other accommodation? ».
From data in the possession of the Municipality, two hundred and fifty houses have already been entered in the demolition register for which no appeal or amnesty is possible anymore. Clearly the demolition order is secret, but the demolition costs are particularly high. «The demolition of the apartment in via Ancona will cost the taxpayers of Casal di Principe two hundred and fifty thousand euros – the deputy mayor said – to support these expenses we have taken out a loan. For the eleven previous demolitions we have made debts for one million nine hundred thousand euros. If all the irregular buildings in our city were to be demolished, 38 million euros would be needed, a monstrous figure that would not only send us into financial distress, but that would bring the whole Casal di Principe to its knees perhaps forever ».