EDITORIAL
30 years since her murder.
She was defending Porto Selvaggio by Flavia Pankiewicz
T
he colors in the wild bay of Porto Selvaggio are never the same. A few days ago, in the late afternoon of a very clear day with the dry north wind, when the Ionian was calm and on the slopes down into the bay not a blade of grass was moving, the sea was teal colored. And the last rays of sun on the trunks of the pines made them literally glow. It is a magic place, Porto Selvaggio. And due to the profound civic conscience of a dear friend of mine I was reminded that if I could enjoy the enchanting nature of what today is a Regional Natural Park, one of the most beautiful not only in Salento and Puglia but also in Italy, it was thanks to a person who paid with her life in her battle to preserve that patch of land and sea still untouched by devastating building speculation: Renata Fonte, brutally murdered exactly thirty years ago, in 1984 on March 31, at the age of only 33.
Fonte, who was responsible for Culture in the Nardò Council area, was fighting desperately to prevent the subdivision and urban speculation of Porto Selvaggio and had uncovered environmental crimes and the first gangland methods starting to take root in Salento.
In 1984, on the night between March 31 and April 1, as she was returning home after a Council meeting, she was killed with three gun shots by two mafia killers. The actual perpetrators of the murder were quickly arrested, along with the person who had ordered it (but probably not the only one), the candidate next in line for a seat at the municipal elections, the one that the Porto Selvaggio speculators wanted to place on the Council to further their designs. The story also became the subject of a book by Carlo Bollino, La posta in gioco (The issue at stake), from which a film of the same title was made.
Last March 31, in Nardò, thirty years after the murder of the woman considered the first mafia victim in Salento, with Don Luigi Ciotti, president of “Libera”, association against all forms of mafia, and with the Nardò branch of Libera, Renata Fonte was remembered by the mayor, Marcello Risi and the Council administration, the bishop, Fernando Filograna, the student union and the whole community of Nardò, in the presence of Renata’s daughters, Sabrina and Viviana Matrangola, who are active members of Libera. Marches, conferences and a religious service “so as not to forget”.
But that is not all. Commemorating Renata Fonte today means repeating a heartfelt appeal for the defense of legality and it means not lowering our guard in the fight against all forms of mafia. The same commitment as that shown thirty years ago by this courageous, determined and incorruptible woman, to whom we must be grateful for having preserved “the great beauty” of the Porto Selvaggio Park.
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