VALLETTA (MALTA) (ITALPRESS/MNA) – The anti-mafia group Fondazione Falcone opened its first branch outside of Italy in an official ceremony under the patronage of the President of Malta Myriam Spiteri Debono.
The Fondazionès new Malta premises are in Siggiewi, and are being dedicated to the memory of Falcone, Borsellino and Daphne Caruana Galizia, as well as all other victims of organised crime.
The Fondazione Falcone was launched by Maria Falcone, sister of Sicilian anti-mafia judge Giovanni Falcone in the wake of his assassination 32 years ago.
Its Maltese representative Robert Aquilina pledged that the foundation would help create a culture “in which what happened to the Maltese investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia cannot ever happen again”.
The President of Malta said that Daphnès assassination hit Malta hard. “It was a clarion call for civilians to wake up. The tools of democracy were set in motion. However, if their recommendations are not implemented, they are a dead letter.”
She expressed her hope that the opening of the foundation’s new Malta office would help nurture a deep consciousness “of one basic all-pervading entitlement; the right to a just society based on the implementation and constant exercise of democratic and humanistic standards.” There is no short cut to this, the road is arduous, never ending with no final destination. This is a constant struggle, requiring maintenance at every juncture,” the president added.
She stressed that Falcone, Borsellino, Daphne and all other victims of organised crime “deserve our commitment to keep their memory vibrant by working towards the enhancement of just principles for all”.
She highlighted that Falcone, Borsellino and Daphne all paid the ultimate price, and recalled the last words penned by Daphne on her blog, minutes before her death: “the situation is desperate; there are crooks everywhere”, She interpreted these words as a call for Maltese society to take action.
At the inauguration, Maria Falcone recounted that her brother’s killing completely transformed her life “as a sister and as an Italian citizen. I could have kept my pain and cry in silence”, she said. “But when it comes to my pain as a citizen, I had to bring it out”.
Falcone recalled that her brother and Borsellino were far from the first notable anti-mafia figures to have been murdered, highlighting the murder of the head of Sicily’s regional government Piersanti Mattarella – brother of Italian president Sergio Mattarella – in 1980, the assassination of Carabinieri general Carlo Alberto dalla Chiesa two years later, various members of the judiciary and journalists who “were killed like Daphne was”.
Aquilina expressed similar sentiments in his own address, recounting how he and other activists had recognised in the wake of Daphnès death that they could not let the shock they felt overcome them. “We began a process, we began a journey – often an uphill one – to find the truth, to obtain justice and so that Malta could be cured of the disease that led to the killing of a journalist”, he said.
Aquilina recounted that his subsequent contacts with the Fondazione Falcone helped him understand that many “many of the challenges we are facing in Malta had been previously faced by them in Italy… that many challenges faced by Daphne were very similar to those faced by Giovanni Falcone, Paolo Borsellino, their colleagues, journalists, activists, politicians and Italian citizens who chose right over wrong”.
– Photo xf3/Italpress –
(ITALPRESS).
