"Silent massacre", this is how the phenomenon that has been registered in Italy in recent years among the personnel of the armed forces and police, or "inexplicable suicides" committed in service, is called in the military circles. Alarming figures that do not seem to concretely worry political and military leaders who, on the contrary, try in vain to cover up.
For a better understanding we found it useful to interview an expert, Dr. Cleto Iafrate, who has been involved in military rights for years.
How many suicides have been "in uniform" in the past two years?
For some years I have created a group on Facebook called "Suicide Observatory in Uniform" which welcomes the various reports of events of this type and any further useful information to shed light on the tragic phenomenon of Suicides among citizens in uniform.
Last year the Observatory registered about seventy suicides, this year it has already received thirty reports, and we are still in July.
But the actual numbers are certainly higher. Because family members, for various reasons, tend not to reveal the cause of death.
According to the observatory's data and information, what could be the link between all these suicides?
There is no single link connecting all these deaths. I can only say that the phenomenon is alarming and should be investigated further. Consider that before being hired in the armed forces and the police, citizens are subjected to severe psychic analyzes, the overcoming of which is not within everyone's reach. This demonstrates that the psychic problems, which often carry the extreme gesture, were not present before enrollment.
Therefore, we must consider the fact that it could be the military environment that has a negative impact on the mental balance of citizens in uniform. For example, military training techniques tend to repress the individual's personality and old and irrational military regulations often compress constitutional freedoms.
What they are doing the Defense Administration and the Italian government to find a possible solution to this phenomenon?
In some barracks, listening centers have been set up available to those who believe they have some psychological discomfort. But citizens in uniform are afraid to open up and confide in themselves, because they fear suspension from active service and the consequent reduction in salary.
How close is the Defense Administration to the needs of military personnel?
The Defense Administration is close in various ways to the needs of military personnel, but always starts from the assumption that the reasons for the discomfort are attributable exclusively to mere personal and family problems.
Although in many cases suicides do not occur in the home, but in the workplace. In the past, for example, in some barracks, suicide was preceded by a murder, the soldier shot his commander before taking his own life. In some cases, moreover, the families of the victims did not want the presence of colleagues and superiors at the funeral.
In the face of such evidence, it is wrong to believe that the blame is always on the wives.
How do you think this phenomenon can be addressed?
I am convinced that the phenomenon of suicides in uniform should be better investigated.
A parliamentary commission of inquiry should be established that has free access to all personal files and matriculation sheets of the victims of suicides and of all the soldiers who experience psychological problems after enrollment.
I would like to add that the attitude of military administrations towards culture often borders on hostility. The case of the lawyer Emanuele Scieri, the young man parried pushed down by a training tower and then left to die, is a clear example.
Do you think I knew very well a financier graduated in Economics and whose general culture for years has been evaluated with less value than that of his colleagues with the fifth grade. And this has weighed enormously on his career progression, preventing him from participating in the various internal competitions that required the evaluation of at least "above average". And it is not an isolated case!
Therefore, the military sector seems to behave, because of its order and its rules, even if not written, as a micro-state nestled within the democratic state.
A micro-state in which "the military is reduced to a mere tool of the war machine which transforms him into a docile executor of another's will, to which he is obliged to bend"1.
In peacetime, new rules and alternative forms of military education should be sought, based on shared logic.
In short, the military should not undergo order but share procedures.
1 Iafrate C. - Obedience, illegitimate order and military order, D&Q 2016, 16/2, p. 334
Photo: US Marine Corps / Department of Defense
