Article by Paolo G. Parovel. Originally published on La Voce di Trieste digital edition. Read the Italian on-line edition HERE.
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The Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs officially denies the legal existence, of the Free Territory of Trieste, of its international Free Port, and of its citizen’s rights. Free Trieste intensified International actions
[Links and unofficial translation: SV]
Trieste, October 7th, 2013. – The main news is that after a long, embarrassed silence, the Italian Government, through its Ministry of Foreign Affairs, has finally expressed an official position about the Question of the Free Territory of Trieste, which, under a special trusteeship mandate, is placed under its temporary civil administration since 1954.
The Government was ousted by a written question of Triestine M5S deputy Aris Prodani. On October 7th, Undersecretary to Foreign Affairs Marta Dassù has sent him an official answer dated October 2nd.
The Free Trieste Movement was especially eager to read such an answer, to see if the Italian Government was going to answer correctly, in accordance with international law, or would deceptively try to deny its special trusteeship by falsely claiming Italian sovereignty instead.
In the first-case scenario, the question could have been settled by a direct discussion with the Government. Instead, in the second-case scenario, the Government would have provided the first official evidence of non-compliance, thus allowing the Movement to perfection its international complains and lawsuits.
Rome choses arrogance and abuse once again
The other news is that the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has left the Italian Government vulnerable, and in the worst possible way: with an arrogant abuse.
This because it has stupidly adopted the most radical of the Italian nationalists’ pseudo-legal theses: the one according to which the Free Territory was never established, and the 1954 Memorandum of Understanding didn’t place Trieste under a provisional administration, but under Italian sovereignty.
And, therefore, it would have annihilated all provisions of the Treaty of Peace regarding the Free Territory of Trieste, including the annexes, one of which establishes the international Free Port of Trieste, and also all the Triestine’s rights: self-determination, government, jobs, taxation, free port, free zones, etc.
An abnormal thesis that can only be sold domestically, because internationally it stands no chance. The original Italian document is HERE. Its unofficial English translation is HERE: it’s worth giving it a look.
Especially considering that the thesis wasn’t Rome’s own initiative either: it results to have from from Trieste, where we have just seen it before the local Court, and to which we reacted with an appropriate complaint.
Long story short, in Trieste there are “experts” who, under the table, bend information and law on this and other subjects, as well as engaging in dirty business, and who are able to manipulate by their own ways even the Italian Government, or at least its Ministries, far enough that those officialize false international claims without verification. And, at least in a normal State, this would be one true, big national security problem.
Free Trieste has immediately answered that those claims are radically ungrounded and disproved by the Treaties themselves, that such theses go against international law, including the UN Charter, Chapter I, art. 1, No. 2, and the Vienna Convention on the law of treaties, arts. 61, paragraph 2, and 62. It is worth giving them a read, at the local library on online, to see it first hand.
The problem, at the expenses of the Italian Government but in Trieste’s favor, is that this false official position of its Ministry of Foreign Affairs does also constitute the first international case of complete spoliation of the rights of the administering people committed by a Government that exercises such mandate on behalf of the UN. After all the violations committed by the Fascist regime, Italy collects another (broken) medal.
Even more so, it seems that at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs they didn’t even notice that the sudden and suspicious political adoption of this gross thesis about the absolute expiring, since 1954, of all provisions of the Treaty of Peace with Italy regarding Trieste is disproved also be a series of documents, measures, and official claims released by the very Italian Government ever since 1954.
Including the one issued on July 18th, 2012 by Undersecretary Dassù herself (see: La Voce di Trieste No.10). Addressed by the Italian Senate’s Foreign Affairs Department, she officially confirmed in the name of the same Ministry, the international obligations in force regarding the management of the Trieste Free Port:
«In compliance with the limits set at Annex VIII of the 1947 Treaty of Peace» and «without contradicting the spirit and purposes of the Treaty of Peace and of the successive international instruments, and without exposing our Country to the grounded complaints of other Signatories of that Treaty».
Complaints and international actions
As early as in July 2013, the Free Trieste Movement activated an International “Act of complaint and notice of default” following UN procedures for the protection of citizens placed under a provisional administration. The act was addressed also to the Italian Government and to local authorities, which didn’t take it into account, while the UN procedure results to be set. However, at least the Italian authorities were silent to not expose themselves. But now they did expose themselves, and in a rather bad way.
This is why Free Trieste immediately announced to the press and the authorities that it is using this first, deceptive answer of the Italian Government to activate and accelerate with as much energy as possible all appropriate appeals and assurance procedures, as well as to seek the solidarity of all other European pro-legality movements.
So, let us compliment Undersecretary Dassù for her brilliant answer. But let us compliment also the Italian State’s security bodies, which mistake the people of Trieste’s democratic stand for freedom with a danger, yer, fail to see, or don’t punish (or even support?) the illegal powers that, across the board, divert and corrupt so deeply the politics and authorities of Italian democracy.
A self-defeating paradox
Not to mention the self-defeating paradox: the one in which the administering Italian Government doesn’t understand that, instead, it should exercise this role it has to do exactly the opposite. Namely, to activate itself and to the maximum this gol mine of production, trade, and finance that is Trieste’s Free Port and its Free Trade Zone, which can be open for all in the midst of an unprecedented economic crisis and without the slightest chance that Brussels prevents it, because it is all international rights established before the EU founding treaties.
But political and government acumen isn’t bought in stores. And, apparently, for good or for bad, it seems that Italy is out of stock since Giulio Andreaotti’s death. Who known how good of a laugh or a joke he would have had with this successors of his, which are increasingly goody and hysterical.