The
following is the blog by Francesca Barberi , daughter of Franco Barberi, one of
the indicted Italian scientist in the L’Aquila earthquake trial. She asked me to share it with you
On October,
22nd 2012, my father was condemned, together with the other
scientists members of the Commissione Grandi Rischi, to six years of jail plus
the payment of huge indemnity, a sum of money that no normal family could ever
think to afford, not even involving their future generations.
The
accusation is of multiple manslaughter and serious damages to the population,
referred to the 2009 tragic L’Aquila earthquake.
This court
decision aroused a scandal all around the world and generated the outraged
reaction of the world scientific community. For the first time a team of
scientists, who were asked to provide a technical opinion, have been charged
for the death of the citizens perished during the earthquake.
Every time
the idea of “failed prediction” as motivation for the sentence is suggested,
there’s somebody who reacts violently by objecting that this is not the point,
they were sentenced for having been too reassuring to the population.
What exactly
have they been charged for?
I’ll try to
go back with my mind to that period.
There had
been a seismic swarm for some weeks, with a certain number of daily small
earthquakes, that were regularly monitored and recorded by the institutes of
seismology. (there are some places in Italy, Greece, Japan, and other areas
where this kind of phenomena last for years, without never ending up in a major
earthquake)
There was a
lab technician, Giuliani, who suddenly announced to have discovered an
infallible method to foresee earthquakes and predicted that a strong one would
have struck Sulmona, a city at about 100 km from L’Aquila. (Luckily his alarm
wasn’t listened, otherwise, if the whole population of Sulmona had moved to
L’Aquila, the number of deaths would have been much larger).
There were
moments of deep tension. The population was worried and asked for a precise
answer, they wanted to be told what to do. But who could give them the
instructions they expected? The Department of Civil Protection had to do
something to contain the growing panic, after the declarations of Giuliani.
There was no scientific evidence to believe that a major earthquake would have
occurred, not according to the available methods of study based on statistical
models, behaviour patterns and historical comparisons, that represent the main approach
to seismic phenomena.
The head of
Civil Protection Dept, Bertolaso, probably under the weight of a great
pressure, decides to organize a meeting of the main seismic experts: the
members of the Commissione Grandi Rischi, a governmental consulting committee.
The meeting takes place in L’Aquila on march 31st, with the aim to
provide an opinion about the recent facts and probably to show the population
that the situation was under control. And so far the whole situation appears to
be within a human and understandable profile. The experts of the Committee were
already closely observing the phenomena and studying them, even before Bertolaso’s
decision to gather that extraordinary meeting, but they were not able to
formulate predictions.
Not having
arranged any emergency evacuation plan, the Civil Protection decides to spread
a message through the population, in order to mitigate the growing fear. During
a press conference the responsible of the Civil Protection and some local Governors
declare, without having probably even read the verbal of the Commission’s
meeting, that according to the experts’ declaration “there are no valid reasons
to believe that a major earthquake will occur in a short time”. That was
exactly the only thing the scientists were able to express with the available
data and knowledge, and it’s probably the same kind of opinion that all the
world experts would express today, if they had to face a similar situation.
The media,
as it often happens, manipulates the message and the final message becomes
“Don’t worry, the experts said there’s no danger.
Then fate
takes the lead of events, nobody could expect that the fatal terrible
earthquake would have struck L’Aquila just a few days later, on the night of
April 6th. The houses collapse, the whole center of the city is
destroyed, many people die. Atrocious,
heartbreaking images that nobody would never want to see, but that
unfortunately we have already seen many times in our highly seismic country,
even recently in the case of Emilia-Romagna earthquake.
After the
terrible shock and a very questionable organization of the help and support
operations, all the sudden the necessity to find a responsible, to blame
somebody, emerges. I don’t know exactly who started that court procedure,
probably some relatives of the victims who, overwhelmed by their huge and
totally understandable grief and dissatisfied for the lack of support by the
Government, realized that the Scientific Committee was the weakest ring of the
system. So, pushed forward by an angry local prosecutor, the trial started.
The
Scientific Committee was a governmental organization and therefore they could
be charged for the government’s responsibility and also asked to pay for the
reimbursement the population expected from the Government.
Unfortunately
neither these people, that I can understand because were emotionally destroyed
and dominated by an uncontrollable rage, sense of impotence and probably need
of revenge, nor the prosecutors who developed the case, considered that
accusing the scientists to be directly responsible of the death of so many
people, is something very serious and heavy.
Listening
to the prosecutors and the judge read the endless list of dead people’s names,
every time the charge was mentioned, was something that appeared to be
intentionally instrumental and extremely unjust.
Nobody
denies the tragic taste of such events but every earthquake has unfortunately a
certain number of victims, the seismic history of our country reports hundreds
of victims in Irpinia, in Friuli, In Emilia Romagna, in Sicilia, ecc…
At this
point, I need to focus my reflection to one of the members of the Commissione
Grandi Rischi, that I know quite well, Franco Barberi, my father. I don’t know
the other scientists personally, therefore I can’t express an opinion on the
single cases, about their career. But I’ve known my father since I was born, I
know the moral principles with which he educated us, the human values he
transmitted to us. I know very well how important his job has always been for
him, a sort of mission to which he dedicated himself completely, often
neglecting other important sides of his life, like his family, kids, etc.. It’s
because we all understood his passion and its importance in his life, that we
always admired, respected and supported him, we have always been so proud of
him, even if I must admit that sometimes we would have liked to have a
different father, a more present one.
For us and
for many other people: his students, collaborators, colleagues, the volunteers
who in his working life got in touch with him, my father has always represented
an example of moral integrity, a spiritual guide, one of those characters who
have the power to stimulate other people’s energy and enthusiasm, just because
they get deeply involved in what they do and fight passionately for their
ideas.
This is
exactly the spirit with which he accepted to take the lead of the national
Department of Civil Protection (from 1995 to 2004), even if he was never a man
of politics. According to him such a role should have been taken by somebody
with technical experience, able to act impartially, as for the civil protection
the rights of all citizens should be equal.
The basic
idea was to put his scientific experience at the service of the country, lay
the foundations for something good to be developed in the future, the basis of
a better system, in line with the most advanced prevention rules adopted by the
governments of the seismic countries all around the world.
A program
that included, besides the efficiency improvement of the civil protection operative
structure, also the development of specific plans for each single local reality,
detailed maps of the areas at risk, able to point out the weakest spots,
suggesting prevention actions, plans for the management of emergencies, the
creation of a new law system aimed at the reinforcement of the buildings and
the reduction of risk… etc
This is
what he firmly believed in, since his very first day at the Civil Protection
and he never abandoned this position, even in the most difficult periods.
All those
who know Franco Barberi know exactly what I’m talking about.
Soon after
his nomination as Head of Civil Protection department, the terrible Umbria
earthquake occurred. A situation of severe emergency, that even today I often
hear, by those who worked or were somehow involved, defined as “masterfully
carried out”. The emergency shelters for the population were organized in a
very short time, a list of the damages was immediately prepared, together with
a list of the most urgent cases to solve. People received the funds to restore
their damaged houses within a few years.
Nothing
resounding or striking like the project of the New Cities (those suburban prefabricated
blocks of houses, placed in remote mountain areas, that Berlusconi was so proud
of and advertised so widely on his tv channels and that now, only a few years
later are falling apart), just a concrete plan to bring people back to their
own houses as soon as possible, to help the municipalities to improve the state
of the buildings, according to the anti-seismic laws.
A
completely different philosophy from that adopted by Bertolaso and his
government. But I don’t mean to criticize it, I don’t possess the necessary
knowledge and this isn’t the reason why I’m now writing these pages.
What I feel
I need to mention once again, like Iacono did last night in his tv show on
Raitre, is the famous so-called Barberi Report, a detailed study of the
vulnerability of all buildings in the seismic areas in Italy, classified
according to the level of seismic risk of each specific zone, that the Civil
Protection realized in 1999. A huge file that was distributed to every city hall
all over Italy and that contained suggestions for the set up of prevention
plans in the seismic areas and that so far no mayor decided to take into
consideration and use to promote some kind consolidating actions, maybe because,
as Bertolaso himself declared years later “this is not the kind of actions that
bring votes to the politicians in Italy”
What struck
me more than everything in the scenes that I saw last night on tv, filmed in
the court hall, was the atmosphere, so heavy and terrible, in which every court
hearing took place. A thick wall of people, the relatives of the victims, with the
pictures of their beloved dead in their hands. Signs of anger, hatred,
bitterness on their faces, a threatening atmosphere, fed by a merciless
prosecutor (and by his creepy assistant), so resentful and aggressive, who used
his great power to accentuate emotions and despair in an already shattered and
upset audience, pointing his angry finger toward a culprit to unmask, torture
and destroy.
They tried
all possible ways until they found one that finally convinced the judge about
the guilt of the scientists. They tried to prosecute Science, by criticizing
the work of the scientists (this easily revealed the predictable scientific
incompetence of the prosecutor, whose accusations were easily dismantled by the
many international scientists appeared as witnesses, who confirmed that with
such kind of data no other kind of prediction could have been made)
Then they
tried to accuse them to have given reassuring information to the citizens by
suggesting them to stay at home as there was not risk of earthquake. Also this
accusation didn’t hold, as it was impossible to prove it: in the verbal of the
famous meeting, signed by all members, there was no evidence of reassuring
attitude, and the press release wasn’t written by the scientists but by the
Governors and the men of the Civil Protection Department.
Finally,
they presented a recorded phone conversation in which Bertolaso informed one of
the Governors of Abruzzo that he was going to organize a meeting of the experts
to calm down the population. So the scientists were accused to be part of a
charade to fool the population.
Bertolaso
himself declared that what he told the media was what he had understood from
the words of the scientists: that there was no danger.
It’s not
clear what happened to Bertolaso later. Why isn’t his name among these of the
condemned people? How did the prosecutors and the judge considered his
responsibility as Head of the National Civil Protection? In the end he joined
the prosecutor by accusing the Scientific Committee to have made a big mistake
and gave them all the responsibility, including that of his own errors.
And how
were the other degrees of responsibilities assessed, that of the Governors, of the
Prefect? Wasn’t it their job to evaluate the situation and make the decisions
for the citizens’ sake? This is not the kind of actions that a scientific
committee which is asked to express an opinion is expected to take.
Without
considering the fact that an eventual decision to evacuate a city and move
thousands of people would have been extremely difficult and expensive and could
have easily ended up in another court case for fake alert and waste of public
money, as it happened in 1985 to the Minister of Civil protection Zamberletti
who was prosecuted for evacuating some cities in northern Tuscany for the risk
of a strong earthquake that never occurred.
In last
night tv program they didn’t comment the judge decision to sentence the
scientists to six years of jail, instead of four, as suggested by the
prosecutors. This is another shameful, unusual fact, that deserves a reflection
about the degree of guilt that the judge must have recognized in the behaviour
of the Scientific Committee.
The answer
to this mystery must be hidden somewhere among the 950 pages of justifications
presented by the judge, three months after the sentence was pronounced. My very
first thought was … it must have been difficult to justify that sentence!
I haven’t
read that file and I don think I’ll ever do. The lawyers will read it and work
at the motivations for the Appeal.
It may
sound trivial or foregone but I ask myself… Is there any better way to spend
time and money, a way that could really help these poor people so hardly hit by
the catastrophe, to reconstruct what is left of their lives, to move on with
dignity, instead of using them as instruments of revenge in a theatrical court
piece that smells vaguely of the Spanish Inquisition? Instead of keeping them
inside a court hall for months, soaked in their own grief?
I also
believe (but this is surely the statement of somebody who is emotionally
involved and suffers seeing her father defeated, discouraged and humiliated,
treated like a cynical murderer), that is deeply unjust that these people have
the power to destroy so easily the life, career and reputation of a man who
dedicated his whole life to research, to help the people and his own country,
without compromises, without favours. Without ever sitting on the benches of
political power, without receiving super privileges or super salaries, just
doing his job seriously.
But it’s
clear that honesty in this country is something disturbing that needs to be
punished.
And things
like ignorance, arrogance, easy judgements and the way people forget about good
past actions and is ready to mindlessly attack and condemn whoever is taken to
court, even without a reason or a true motivation…are what really scares me,
more that everything.
I’ll end
this long spontaneous outburst by quoting something that my father told me one
day and that since then often bounces in my mind.
“If there’s
something that I’ve learnt in this life and that I feel I have to say is that
playing with politics when you’re not a politician is a very dangerous game”
Francesca Barberi