‘War is madness’

The life of Italian engineer Vito Alfieri Fontana changed forever when his son asked him, “Dad, are you a murderer then?” The question still cuts to the heart today. And although many years have passed since that moment, it is not easy for this 72-year-old engineer from Bari, Italy, who has lived two lives: first as a designer and producer of lethal anti-personnel mines as head of Tecnovar, a financially successful family business. And then the second and diametrically opposed: as a head deminer in the Balkans, a territory devastated by wars and infested by these insidious and deadly weapons, landmines. Vito recounted this dramatic, painful, yet at the same time courageous and hopeful, story in a book written with journalist Antonio Sanfrancesco of the Italian weekly magazine, “Famiglia Cristiana”. The book, available in Italian, has the ...