Italy: Cruel Tyrants

For centuries the roving bandit gangs of Sardinia terrorized the island's people into a grim, submissive silence known as omerta. The impoverished citizenry never dared to speak out against the outlaws, who robbed, kidnaped, blackmailed and murdered virtually without fear of punishment. Lately, the bandits have been pushing the Sardinians a bit harder than usual. They began robbing middle-class citizens as well as the wealthier islanders. They grew more vicious, asking outrageous ransoms and even killing some of their kidnap victims. As a result, the Sardinians have finally rebelled against the tyranny; they are not only breaking their long silence but are taking up arms against the bandits.

Breathless Accounts. Young people have organized into associations to combat the briganti, have tacked up posters denouncing their terrorism and sought to expose townspeople who collaborate with them. From their pulpits, the island's Roman Catholic priests have declared a moral war on the bandits. The mayor of the northern town of Nuoro has demanded their punishment, crying, in Sardinia's Latinate dialect, "Zustissia cherimm!" (We want justice!). Nearly 1,000 shepherds and hunters have joined carabinieri and police dogs in searching for the bandits' mountain hideouts in the island's northwest. In recent weeks, they have combed through almost 800 sq. mi. of rocky terrain honeycombed with gorges and grottoes.

The major success of the antibandit drive to date has been the capture of the most celebrated bandit of them all, Graziano Mesina, 26. The darkly handsome Mesina, an idol to many Sardinian women and youth, surrendered without a fight last month when stopped at a police roadblock. But thousands of his cohorts have managed to elude their pursuers and blithely continue to collect their ransoms. Feeding the specter of fear, they have sent their kidnap victims back home with breathless accounts of their cruelty. "They talked in an atmosphere of bestial excitement," reported wealthy Cattleman Giovanni Campus, 32, whose family paid the bandits $48,000 for his release. "I was imprisoned for 19 days. My nervous system was shattered. Each click of their gun cartridges struck against my brain so that I had to keep myself from crying out in desperation."

Feet Dragging. Last week the bandits released the son of an automobile dealer whose family had ignited the campaign against them. Once again, they claimed a victory. While the relatives of Nino Petretto, 37, had originally refused to ransom him, in the end they decided that it was wiser to pay the bandits' $8,000 rather than risk his death or mutilation. Many islanders are still anxious to fight the bandits, but they know that they will need outside help to do it. The Italian government has dragged its feet even on appointing a commission that was approved by the Chamber of Deputies in Rome last November to look into the causes of banditry. Italian Interior Minister Paolo Taviani, who paid a hurried visit to the island this month, reported that the only cure for banditry is "massive industrialization" and "a radical transformation of the island's pastoral mentality." If that is so, it may take the Sardinians at least another generation to rid their island of the terror.