Which part of Italy witnessed 'The Second Mafia War'?
The Second Mafia War was a conflict waged by the Sicilian Mafia, mostly taking place from the late 1970s to the early 1990s and involved over hundreds of homicides. Sometimes referred to as The Great Mafia War or the 'Mattanza' (Italian for The Slaughter), it involved the entire Mafia and radically altered the power balance within the organization. In addition to the violence within the Mafia itself, there was violence against the state, including a campaign of deliberate assassinations of judges, prosecutors, and politicians. In turn, the war resulted in a major crackdown against the Mafia, helped by the pentiti, Mafiosi who collaborated with the authorities after losing so many friends and relatives to the fighting. In effect, the conflict helped end the secrecy of the Mafia.
The instigators of the Second Mafia War were the Corleonesi, the Mafia Family from the town of Corleone, Sicily, although they were helped by a number of other Mafia Families. Hailing as they did from a small rural town, the Corleonesi were often referred to as "the peasants" – 'i viddani' in Sicilian – by other Mafia Families, especially by the powerful urbanized bosses in the capital of Palermo. Things began to change in the 1960s as the Corleonesi grew in power and prestige under the leadership of the brutal and ambitious Luciano Leggio, who had become the Mafia boss of Corleone via the crude but effective method of simply shooting the old one, Michele Navarra.
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