Armed forces from all over the world, including the United States, are engaged in war games and exercises at the Capo Teulada military range. Simulated combat: shooting, missile launches, landings and more. A large deployment of men and equipment. The advantage for the activities of the historic center of Teulada, a few kilometers from the base? null. "They haven't bought a single sandwich," say the town's commercial and artisan business owners. Neither a sandwich, nor any other supplies. Yet for a month about three thousand men - according to official statements - have been encamped on the twenty kilometers of coast fenced off since 1950. But there is no economic return for the country. And it is also one of the arguments of the electoral campaign of these days: at the end of the month, four mayor candidates will compete for seats in the Town Hall.
The procedure
Long before the arrival of the military at the Teulada base, the national and international military commands made requests for information on the place of destination, since upon arrival in Lower Sulcis they needed supplies of all kinds, energy, food, logistics and so on. saying. These are standard and ordinary information procedures. «And yet we - explain Antonio Piras, 86, and Francesco Montisci, 73, owners of two markets in the town - have not received any request for an estimate for purchase or supply or only the willingness to participate in tenders for the incoming departments: the military supplies are supplied everywhere except in Teulada».
The reactions
The owner of the oldest bakery in Teulada, Paola Virdis, born in 1953, and Pasquale Brancasi, born in 1978, of the Niko's bakery, follow the same line: «We have no economic return from the presence of three thousand NATO soldiers in Teulada for so long» . It's just barely better for the owner of the Rosa e Cadira restaurant, Efisio Albai, 49 years old: «Four-five soldiers a day show up at our tables, they are from the foreign armed forces». The same almost insignificant turnout also from Carlo Etzi, 37, of the Ex Centrale restaurant. It is a chorus that arouses social alarm. «The promises of integration between military and civilians - continue the owners of the Teuladine activities - do not match the facts, in fact not even one euro is spent in the expropriated municipality. When will there be the rebalancing, the economic return? The speeches are the well-known ones, the usual clichés». The request is to be included in the lists of companies that supply the soldiers shooting at Teulada. A river of money that evidently goes elsewhere. «The town - continue Paola Virdis and Pasquale Brancasi - is ignored and avoided, many do not know its existence and leave convinced that Teulada is only the place where people shoot. Why does this happen?” .
The accusation
Under accusation, not too covertly, the insufficient relationship of collaboration between the municipal administrations that follow one another and the governing bodies of the Army: there is an evident contradiction between the good relations that the country has with the personnel of the base and the total absence of relapses, the famous and unknown induced, expected by the military presence. Entrepreneurs don't get excited, but they wonder where the economic obstruction that has been going on for too long is coming from. The bewilderment reveals itself for what it really is: the heartfelt request that an undeclared war between the shooting range and the administration be put to an end and that we start talking again, perhaps starting from the premises that remained unanswered, posed by the first council of mayor Gianni Albai: « Teulada has the right to have an established status of privileged partnership with the Ministry of Defence". Instead today we reason among the commercial ruins of Teulada.
Salvatore Loi
