Hunger strikes, sit-ins in front of Montecitorio, letters and phone calls to the ministries. The chronicle of the last weeks tells of the protests, also symbolic, by the associations that are spokesmen of the families of the military and civil defense sector of the exposed and the victims of asbestos. An amendment tabled by the Hon. Gian Piero Scanu, president of the parliamentary commission of depleted uranium investigation, and included in the 2018 Budget Law which established "Provisions concerning the insurance protection for accidents and illnesses of personnel in the security and defense sector". Wednesday, in the evening, the Hon. Scanu announces through a press note that the Government has deemed it appropriate not to approve the proposal "for alleged reasons of financial coverage", despite having expressed a positive opinion all the ministries involved: Defense, Interior, Labor, Justice.
Two days ago, the Government did not approve your amendment included in the Budget Law that transferred the skills related to Accidents of Work and health issues of the Security and Defense Sub-Fund at Inail.
The amendment would have allowed us to intervene on the prevention and protection of health, expanding the conditions of access for the institutes of protection to Inail in order to offer an option more than they can have today. We have tried to highlight the great gaps in the system with the aim of restoring a dignity that the denial of defense and the weakness of politics have not, however, recognized to the families of the victims. Unfortunately, politics continues to be too weak, invertebrate compared to very well structured and very strong worlds such as defense.
The proposal was rather debated and challenged by the military world ...
This could be, for them, a land to be conquered. A reform of this kind that looks with great attention to the widow, the orphan, the military who suffers a disability, is worth much more than a contract renewal. On the proposal there was a favorable opinion of all the Ministries of competence: Defense, Internal, Labor, Justice, but contrary opinion of the Economy, as the reform was burdensome. This is the confirmation that the military was intended to give a regulatory framework richer and wider, like all other workers. A soldier who suffers a disability due to service to date is struggling to apply, while with our proposal the start of the procedure would have been by default. We would know every morning how many injuries happen, as it is in the whole business world.
What are the main critical issues that emerged during the activities carried out by the Commission in this legislature?
The greatest criticality is the lack of political attention to a problem so vast as to require immediate answers, which, however, were not there. So much so that this is the fourth commission and will not be the last, although we were given the goal from the beginning to be able to clear all the work in such a way as to not be necessary the presence of a commission. There is a world, the military, which escapes the secular control of institutions because it is so self-referential and sketched on itself to exclude any possibility of verification that can be useful for the safety of the military. I define it as 'domestic jurisdiction': they do what they want with regard to job security and personnel protection. But, since the military are workers like all the others and since the protections must be guaranteed to them, without necessarily disturbing the article 3 of the Constitution, we as commission of inquiry have tried to undermine this suffocating system to lay it down. Unfortunately we did not succeed. We managed, however, to obtain excellent results with a rule contained in the stability law.
Do you want to explain to us what it is?
It is a rule that establishes that in all areas of training of shooting ranges you can carry out an action to control all activities that are carried out by doing light, then, in an opaque sector.
Why 'opaque'?
A sector in which that domestic jurisdiction, to which I referred to it a little while ago, encompassed all kinds of activities. With this law, for the first time, the institutions have the opportunity to work within the military to regulate its proper functioning.
Regarding the relations with politics, what about the collaboration with the ministries, in particular with the Minister of Defense?
I believe that the president of a commission of inquiry should ask himself from the very beginning the need to be totally secular. A commission of inquiry must, by definition, search for the truth. And this can only happen if one gets rid of the tunic of belonging and sets himself out in search of the truth. My relationship with the institutions was very direct, often very rough, whenever in my opinion it was necessary that it was.
And about relations with the military representation? Was there a collaboration with the Cocer?
I make an "apolitical" affirmation: this commission has been defined as a Commission 'devoted to antimilitarism' by people in bad faith or superficial, for the mere fact of having dug to seek the truth even in the military world. The truth is that there is nothing more direct to the interests of the military of work done by this commission. This Commission has always been concerned about the health of the military and every shadow of doubt has been created to condition the work of the Commission. All the Cocers have also been audited formally. They were careful, but they were not by our side.
You have often resorted to witness testimony during the course of the investigations.
The testimonial exams take place in the judgment of the magistracy's powers. Therefore, in the moment in which a witness test takes place, the person examined must be understood as a person informed on the facts, in the same way as what happens in a courtroom when a witness is questioned. We have made very widespread use of testimonial examinations because we thought it was necessary to leave no stone unturned in the search for truth.
Do you think it was positive?
I think it was very positive because the healthy conditioning of those who know they have to answer even in the criminal court of what he says has dissolved some language linked and opened some information tap remained closed.
The legislature draws to a close, but how do you expect the Commission's investigation activity to continue in the future?
Meanwhile in January there will be the approval of the final report. We have already prepared two interim reports and the third would give the witness to the Parliament, rigorously defining the connotations of the problem and giving suggestions on what the Parliament and the Government that will come should do.
