TIME EUROPE
August 21, 2000, Vol. 156 No. 8
Island of Beauty and Death
Killings in Corsica
By NICHOLAS LE QUESNE Paris
Saturday Aug. 5. Dawn is breaking over Bastia in northern Corsica. It's closing time at U Fanale, a bar near the old harbor. Two men burst in and open fire with .38 specials. As the intruders slip away in the morning sun, four men lie in a pool of blood, dead or mortally wounded.
Monday Aug. 7. It's 8.45 a.m. in L'Ile-Rousse, some 30 km west of Bastia. Jean-Michel Rossi and Jean-Claude Fratacci are sitting on the terrace of the bar La Piscine. Two groups of men walk over and open up with machine pistols, automatic rifles and shotguns. Fratacci is hit by 25 bullets and doesn't have time to draw his Beretta 9-mm automatic. Rossi is lying on the pavement riddled with buckshot when the men pump five bullets into his head.
The French call Corsica the Island of Beauty. It is also an island of guns and death. Police believe the Bastia killings arose out of a quarrel earlier that night. Two men were arrested. The execution of Rossi and Fratacci looks more complex: Rossi, 44, was a well-known nationalist leader who this year co-authored a book in which he dished dirt on his former comrades and rejected an independent Corsica as unrealistic.
Corsica has been on edge since the French government concluded negotiations with Corsican representatives last month. The resulting "Matignon proposals" include devolving legislative powers to the Corsican Assembly, tax breaks and teaching the Corsican dialect in public schools. Nationalist leader and Assembly member Jean-Guy Talamoni — who negotiated the Matignon agreement — has declared that "if there hadn't been political violence in Corsica for the past 30 years ... there wouldn't be any peace process today." But as last week's killings show, the dividing line between political violence and lethal thuggery in Corsica is a fine one.
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August 21, 2000
INSIDE SYDNEY
Hitting Its Stride
As the greatest show on earth heads to town, Sydney, with its natural wonders, casual elegance and cultural diversity, is perfectly poised to welcome the world
EUROPE
More Pain in Spain
A new wave of ETA violence leaves the nation pessimistic on Basque terrorism
Island of Beauty and Death
Killings in Corsica
AFRICA
View from the Veranda
Zimbabwe's farmers wait for clarity on land resettlement programs
RELIGION
Heresy and Holocaust
An 80-year-old rabbi causes outrage by suggesting that the 6 million victims deserved their fates
BUSINESS
The Wages of Success
Europe's Internet service providers have learned that flat-rate access can become too popular
ARTS
A Tale of Two Stories
Audiences see double as one cast performs two plays simultaneously in interconnected theaters
DEPARTMENTS
Olympic Monitor
On Your Own Time
World Watch
WHAT DO YOU THINK?
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