On a hot and still Sunday night in August 1997, a nameless ship silently beached at this town's sandy marina. The captain and crew slipped off the vessel and disappeared into the darkness. Next, some 446 mostly young people climbed out of the ship's hull and stepped onto the beach here.

Many of the newly arrived wondered if they had reached Germany or Sweden. No, they had landed on the doorstep of Gerardo Mannello, the communist mayor of Badolato, a small seaside town along the wild and empty eastern coast of Calabria, the southern tip of Italy.