How did US police get rid of the mafia in 50s and 60s?
*** this really different:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mafia
American Cosa Nostra The Sicilian and Italian Mafia continues to dominate
organized crime in the U.S., despite aggressive FBI investigations in the 1970s
and 1980s. It uses this status to maintain control over much of both Chicago's
and New York City's organized criminal activity, as well as criminal activity
in other cities in the Northeast and across the country, such as Philadelphia,
Las Vegas, New Orleans, and many others. The Mafia and its reputation have
become entrenched in American popular culture, being portrayed in movies, TV
shows, commercial advertising and even video games.
The American Mafia, specifically the Five Families of New York, has its roots
in the Sicilian Mafia, but has been a separate organization in the United
States for many years. Today, American Cosa Nostra cooperates in various
criminal activities with the different Italian organized crime groups, such as
Camorra, which are headquartered in Italy. It is wrongly known as the "original
Mafia", although it was neither the oldest criminal organization, nor the first
to act in the U.S. In 1986, according to government reports, it was estimated
that there are 1,700 members of "La Cosa Nostra" and thousands of associate
members. Reports also are said to include the Italian-American Mafia as the
largest organized crime group in the United States and continues to hold
dominance over the National Crime Syndicate, despite the increasing numbers of
street gangs and other organizations of neither Italian nor Sicilian ethnicity.
American Cosa Nostra is most active in the New York
metropolitan area, Philadelphia, New England (see the Patriarca crime family),
Detroit, and Chicago, but there are actually a total of 26 La Cosa Nostra
family cities around the United States[2]. Canada also has its mafia families.
The Martiello family, headed by an ailing Domenico Martiello, rules the Toronto
area while the Bracaglia family, ruled by a very violent father/son combo of
Angelo and Mike Bracaglia are in control of Vancouver. These two families seem
to be the most powerful in the country.
Umesh
Chan Mahanta <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>Who is to blame for this -- the politicians and media, or the middle
class?
*** Where have we heard this before?
cm
( Highlighting mine)
The Real Fake Encounter
Not the middle-class, but political parties and the media have always distanced
themselves from this ugly reality of law and order.
RAJINDER PURI
The alleged fake encounter perpetrated by the Gujarat police is horrendous.
Sympathizers of the Gujarat government dwell on the reputation of the victim,
Sohrabuddin Sheikh, allegedly a criminal with possible links to terrorists.
Does this unproven fact justify cold-blooded murder? That politicians justify
police excess by questioning the nature of the victim is nothing new. Decades
ago the police paraded Maya Tyagi naked through the streets of a UP town for
alleged misdemeanor. Indira Gandhi as Prime Minister justified the police
action by describing Maya Tyagi as a woman of dubious character. So much for a
woman PM defending the rights of women! In the current fake encounter case, two
women witnesses to the murder, not described as criminals, were allegedly
killed by the police to ensure their silence. More cases of fake encounters by
the same police officers are surfacing.
Is it too cynical to suggest that the revelations in Gujarat have surfaced only
because of a silent power struggle within the BJP? The Hindu wrongly attributed
a police report related to the Gujarat fake encounter to one officer. The
Gujarat government rebutted the news. The Hindu conceded that the report had
not been officially submitted but was in its preparatory stage. Significantly,
The Hindu editor claimed that the report had been leaked by a senior BJP
leader. BJP leaders maintained a diplomatic silence over the editor's claim.
The current buzz against police fake encounters lends hope that it will lead
eventually to a systemic reform. To ensure that any such effort is not derailed
one must recognize reality. The hard reality is that police excess in India has
decades-old origins. It was allowed to flourish under criminalized politicians
and a subservient media. Political parties and the media have always distanced
themselves from this ugly reality of law and order.
Last week, the leading columnist of a national daily commented that India
could not claim to be a democracy if it "countenances rogue police officers
playing God". The leading columnist of another national daily, while deploring
the police excess in Gujarat, suggested that the ultimate responsibility lay
with India's middle class which condoned police crimes. Was the distinguished
columnist including media as part of the middle class?
Politicians across the country are pulling out old fake encounter cases from
closets to score points against political rivals. Fake encounters have become
the current drawing room conversation topic. Whatever the motives of
politicians in digging out old dirt, the effect is positive. Whether the
muckraking arises from infighting or from a belated sense of responsibility,
the result is welcome. It could initiate a long delayed cleanup of the police
system.
Consider the case of Punjab. An Akali-BJP combine now rules the state. The
consequent desire of the Punjab government to even the score against the
Congress after the Gujarat exposure is self-evident. Media reports revealed
that several alleged terrorists "killed" by the police, for which policemen
duly collected rewards, are still alive. This was sufficient ground for the
Punjab government to order "a fact-finding inquiry" by a team under a senior
police official. The probe will cover the fake killings involving the state
police during the height of the militancy two decades ago when the Congress
governed Punjab.
Should one laugh or cry over the antics of these politicians and over our
hand-wringing media pundits? What new facts will any inquiry reveal? It may be
instructive, though, to recall the past.This should among other things set the
record straight for the benefit of the distinguished newspaper columnist who
condemned the middle class for allowing excesses by the police.
Reports of police excesses against innocents in the name of fighting militancy
had circulated in Punjab for a considerable time. Many youths had disappeared.
In 1995 Jaswant Singh Khalra, who headed the human rights wing of the Akali
Dal, issued a press note alleging thousands of police custodial deaths. Khalra
claimed that the victims were secretly cremated. In the police records they
were listed as "unidentified". The Punjab Director General of Punjab police at
the time, KPS Gill, rebutted Khalra's claim. He said: "Thousands of Sikh youth
who had left for foreign countries under fake names and documents were claiming
to be missing persons killed by security forces in encounters." He added, "They
are missing with the consent of their parents." It is possible some youths
might have disappeared in this manner. But to offer this as adequate
explanation for the disappearance of all the missing youth betrayed careless,
callous thinking.
The Punjab media picked up the report. After this, Khalra was whisked away by
the police. He too disappeared. It was presumed he was killed. Middle class
citizens (newspaper columnists please note) belonging to human rights bodies
formed an apex body, the Committee for Coordination on Disappearances in Punjab
(CCDP). It was funded solely by local donors. CCDP took Khalra's case to the
Supreme Court. Ensuing investigation proved that Khalra had been killed. Nine
police officials were indicted. The Supreme Court then ordered the CBI to
investigate Khalra's charges of secret police mass cremations.
The CBI confirmed that the police had illegally cremated 2097 victims of
custodial death or fake encounters in Amritsar district alone. The remaining 16
districts of Punjab were not investigated. Of these victims the CBI identified
582 who were all non-terrorists. The CCDP identified over 1700 victims and
their families. It chronicled the torture, harassment and extortion inflicted
by the police on the victims and their families. Many among them were
unconnected to terrorism, and killed in cold blood by the police. A leading
CCDP activist, Ram Narayan Kumar, wrote a meticulously researched book, Reduced
to Ashes, which laid bare the whole truth of this gruesome carnage.
After the CBI report the Supreme Court in 1997 designated the National Human
Rights Commission (NHRC) to deal with the case. It vested NHRC with full powers
of the Supreme Court. Apart from awarding paltry compensation to the families
of victims, the NHRC did precious little. In 2002 LK Advani and Amarinder Singh
pleaded amnesty for all the tainted policemen. KPS Gill continued to trash
human rights activists on TV. The national media virtually ignored the 2097
police custodial deaths that had been verified by the CBI and the Supreme Court.
Recall -- Pinochet of Chile was held personally responsible for 3000
innocents killed; and Milosevic of Serbia, personally, for the death of 2000
innocents. Both were reviled as international war criminals. But for 2097
deaths in only one district of Punjab nobody has been held accountable. Who is
to blame for this -- the politicians and media, or the middle class?
_______________________________________________
assam mailing list
[email protected]
http://assamnet.org/mailman/listinfo/assam_assamnet.org
Umesh Sharma
Washington D.C.
1-202-215-4328 [Cell]
Ed.M. - International Education Policy
Harvard Graduate School of Education,
Harvard University,
Class of 2005
http://www.uknow.gse.harvard.edu/index.html
http://hbswk.hbs.edu/
http://jaipurschool.bihu.in/
---------------------------------
Yahoo! Mail is the world's favourite email. Don't settle for less, sign up for
your freeaccount today._______________________________________________
assam mailing list
[email protected]
http://assamnet.org/mailman/listinfo/assam_assamnet.org
