Henry Padovani
"U.S. Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs has the following information on this incident:
1. Owners of the aircraft: René Enjabal and Lucien Don Carlini.
2. Vientiane opium dealers: Roger Lasen, Maurice Lecore, Ao Thien Hing (Chinese resident of Laos), and Thao Shu Luang Prasot (Chinese resident of Laos).
3. Waiting for the opium on the ground in Ban Me Thuot were: Charles Merelle (French), Padovani (French Corsican) and Phan Dao Thuan (Vietnamese). "
Alfred McCoy,
The Politics of Heroin in South East Asia.
Sting (of Newcastle),
Henry Padovani (of the Corsican Padovanis) and
Stewart Copeland (of the CIA),
London, 1977
"He couldn't speak much English but he'd picked up some musicians' slang and he used to say 'Where can I put my homp(amplifier)? or 'where do I put my rope (lead)?'. He knew a few chords and he was really enthusiastic and when he'd had his hair cut and stuff he really looked the part. I mean, he could play guitar better than I could and I could play guitar better than Joe Strummer... well, in those days. So I reckoned he'd be OK but I didn't figure Sting would see it that way..."
- Stewart Copeland,
Son of Miles Copeland of the CIA
Treatment - Rock'n Roll of Corse
TreatmentLondon 1976: The punk movement came to life at a time when social protest was at its height, a time when the rebellious youth sought a different future than the prevailing sterile artistic and cultural context would have dictated. The movement involved all imaginable forms of rebellion, but music quickly became its chief manifestation. It was against this social backdrop that the young Corsican Henry Padovani first arrived in England. His two-week vacation turned into a seven-year sojourn as the novice musician discovered an entirely new world, whose fresh philosophy he quickly and instinctively adopted. This important era of musical and social history became, for Padovani, a formative period of friendship with those who are today known as the undisputed stars of pop and rock. Sting and The Police, Mick Jones and The Clash, Kim Wilde, Jeff Beck and The Stranglers, all became part of his life. Yet Padovani distanced himself from the spotlight, focusing his life instead on human values. To the big names of rock, Padovani was not simply a musical partner, but also - and above all - a friend; the type who stocked Sting's fridge when The Police were still obscure and broke. And it is precisely through his dedication to friendship, solidarity, and joie-de-vivre that Henry Padovani became an ideal witness of this social-artistic gestation. Thanks to his personality, values, and demonstrated loyalty, Padovani remains the one to whom nothing is denied, the constant observer of these complicated years.
It is this element of human adventure contained in the story of rock during the late 1970s and early '80s that we will try to reproduce in "Rock'n'Roll…Of Corse!" Through interviews and meetings in London and Corsica, we will try to capture the essence of the amazing adventure in order to make sense of the rock'n'roll movement. The descent into hell of Topper Headon (The Clash), the IRS label adventure alongside Miles Copeland (REM, The Bangles, Lord of the New Church etc.), friendship, solidarity, drugs, women and music all belong in this incredible story. From concerts in the historic clubs of the punk/rock London, to unpremeditated reunions and improvised discussions, Henry Padovani's voice will guide us through the maze of this unique period.
We will witness the truth when Henry Padovani - thirty years after the break-up of The Police's original line-up - joins Sting, Stewart Copeland and Andy Summers on the stage of the Stade de France, to play in front of a crowd of 80,000 people.
The film will focus on the elements of Padovani's lifestyle. Whether as a young student or a rock'n'roller, we will follow the details of his life as faithfully as possible. We will meet his family, his friends, and others who knew of the dreams of the young Henry. We will visit his hometown, where it all began, where he realized that music would become his way of life.
At the same time, it seems essential for this type of narration to leave as much as possible to the viewer's own imagination; to uncover the story, and to self-identify with an exceptional life recounted as simply as it was lived. We believe it is important to emphasize both the human aspect that binds all these musicians, as well as the socio-political context in which they evolved. Their music is a "soundtrack" of sorts of those years. We will be considering the idea of life and accomplishment, passion for music in general and rock in particular, social rejection, and openness to others...
We will use original images in which, for example, Sting testifies his deep bond with Henry Padovani, while trying to understand what was happening in this "bubbling" London by walking through the Camden district or through archive footage showing the originality and specificity of those years.
These images (of concerts, etc…) will be a musical and visual testimony and an inexhaustible source of context and perspective that will illustrate the uniqueness of the time. Through exclusive images as the reformation of his band "The Flying Padovanis" in Japan (Fuji Rock Festival) or in Hyde Park (Hard Rock Calling), we will notice that history continues and that music is forever a part of their lives. To them, rock is not simply a phenomenon but an entire lifestyle, a common purpose, an incessant questioning, far beyond dreams.
We will sail back and forth between yesterday and today, between art and society, music and human adventure, memories and historical realities. As both a player and an observer, Henry Padovani is a witness from within, and his hoarse voice will carry us. The memorable melodies of The Clash, The Who, The Pretenders, The Police or The Stranglers will allow us to (re)live, even if for a few moments, a time that has changed the way we listen to music forever.
I quote The Enemy :
Gang de la Brise de Mer
Founded : 1970s
Founding location : Corsica
Years active : 1970s-present
Territory France (as well Corsica, Marseille and Paris), North Africa, and Argentina
Ethnicity People of Corsican and Italian descent
Membership 100 c.
Criminal activities: Racketeering, drug trafficking, skimming, gambling, loan sharking, money laundering, pimping, extortion, robbery, bribery, fraud, management of hotels, night clubs and casinos
Allies : American, Sicilian, Calabrian and Russian mafias, and Colombian drug cartels
Rivals: Petit Bar gang, National Liberation Front of Corsica
"The gang de la Brise de Mer is one of the most powerful Corsican criminal organizations. Based in Northern Corsica, the gang controls various activities (racketeering, slots machines traffic, laundering, night clubs, gambling clubs, casinos, etc.) in Corsica, but also in the South of France, in Paris, in Italy, in Occidental African countries (Gabon, Mali, Cameroon, etc.), and in Latin American countries.
The gang's moniker came from a Bastia cafe called "La Brise de Mer" (the sea breeze) where they held meetings throughout the 1970s.
The gang is well known for its spectacular, violent armed robberies in Corsica, France and the rest of Europe. The robbery of the UBS bank in Geneva, Switzerland in 1990; the attack of a Securipost's trunk in 1991 and the robbery of Air France Mercure in 1992 are probably the most important robberies of the gang.
The "Brise de Mer" is also suspected of involvement in the murders in 2001 of members of Armata Corsa, a separatist Corsican armed group.
Around ten families or clans constitute the "Brise de Mer" organization. Its capital is estimated to be between 120 and 150 million Euro. This money is invested in Corsica (in illegal activities like racketeering etc. but also legal activities like tourism and construction business) and the rest of France, through the running of night clubs, bars and illegal slots machines (principally in the Southern France cities like Marseille, Aix en Provence, Toulon…) and gambling clubs in Paris. Other investments are casino activities in Africa, Latin America and Italy.
In 2001, several gangsters escaped from a prison near Bastia by sending fake fax from a judge ordering their release.
Since 2008, several important suspected members of the gang (Richard Casanova, Daniel Vittini, Francis Mariani, Pierre-Marie Santucci...) have been killed during violent conflicts between the various Corsican gangs.
"But unfortunately for Francisci's public relations, one of his pilots was arrested in 1962 and Air Laos Commerciale's opium smuggling was given international publicity. The abortive mission was piloted by Rene Enjabal, the retired air force officer who had founded Babal Air Force. In October 1962 Enjabal and his mechanic took off from Vientiane's Wattay Airport and flew south to Savannakhet where they picked up twenty-nine watertight tin crates, each packed with twenty kilos of raw opium and wrapped in a buoyant life belt. Enjabal flew south over Cambodia and dropped the six hundred kilos to a small fishing boat waiting at a prearranged point in mid-ocean. On the return flight to Vientiane, Enjabal fell asleep at the controls of his plane, drifted over Thailand, and was forced to land at a Thai air force base by two Thai T-28 fighters. When his "military charter" orders from the Lao government failed to convince Thai authorities he was not a spy, Enjabal confessed that he had been on an opium run to the Gulf of Siam. Relieved that it was nothing more serious, his captors allowed him to return to Vientiane after serving a nominal six-week jail sentence. While Enjabal was being browbeaten by the Thai, the opium boat moved undisturbed across the Gulf of Siam and delivered its cargo to smugglers waiting on the east coast of the Malayan peninsula. Although Enjabal had earned a paltry fifteen dollars an hour for his trouble, Francisci may have grossed up to twenty thousand dollars for his role in this nautical adventure.
While this unfortunate incident cost Francisci most of his legitimate business, it in no way hampered his opium smuggling. Even though Enjabal's downfall was the subject of a feature article in Life magazine, Francisci continued to operate with the same brash self-confidence. And with good reason. For not only was he protected by South Vietnam's most powerful politician, Ngo Dinh Nhu, he was allied with the allpowerful Guerini syndicate of Marseille. During the period these Corsican airlines operated in Laos, the Guerini brothers were the unchallenged masters of the French underworld, and lords of a criminal empire that stretched across the globe. All of Francisci's competitors suffered mysterious accidents and sudden arrests, but he operated with absolute impunity.
These political connections gave him a decisive advantage over his competitors, and he became Indochina's premier opium smuggler. Like the Guerini brothers in Marseille, Francisci despised competition and used everything from plastique explosives to the South Vietnamese police to systematically eliminate all his rivals.
Francisci's first victim was none other than the catnapping Rene Enjabal. On November 19, 1959, Vietnamese police raided a remote dirt runway near Ban Me Thuot in the Central Highlands shortly after a twin-engine Beechcraft belonging to Rene Enjabal landed carrying 293 kilos of Laotian opium. After arresting the pilot and three henchmen waiting at the airstrip, the Vietnamese impounded the aircraft. (43) With the loss of his plane, Enjabal had no alternative. Within several months he was flying for the man who in all Probability was the architect of his downfall-Bonaventure "Rock" Francisci.
The Vietnamese took no legal action against Enjabal and released the pilot, Desclerts, after a relatively short jail term. Desclerts returned to France and, according to a late 1971 report, is working with Corsican syndicates to ship bulk quantities of heroin to the United States.
(43) U.S. Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs has the following information on this incident:
1. Owners of the aircraft: René Enjabal and Lucien Don Carlini.
2. Vientiane opium dealers: Roger Lasen, Maurice Lecore, Ao Thien Hing (Chinese resident of Laos), and
Thao Shu Luang Prasot (Chinese resident of Laos).
3. Waiting for the opium on the ground in Ban Me Thuot were: Charles Merelle (French), Padovani
(French Corsican) and Phan Dao Thuan (Vietnamese).
4. Opium was destined for two Chinese distributors in Cholon: Ky Van Chan and Ky Mu.
5. Also believed to be involved as financiers: Roger Zoile and Francois Mittard
(telephone interview with an agent, U.S. Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, Washington, D.C.,
December 20, 1971).
No comments:
Post a Comment