Free Trieste

Italian Tax Revenue Office

INSPECTIONS, SANCTIONS AND CLOSURE OF THE BUSINESS THAT HOST THE PUBLIC MEETINGS OF THE FREE TRIESTE MOVEMENT: ITALIAN AUTHORITIES THINK LIKE A MAFIA

The request of re-establishment of rule of law of the citizens of Trieste who identify with the Free Trieste Movement represents a problem for a State like Italy, which tramples on the rights of the oppressed people of the Free Territory since sixty long years.

Since they have no idea about how to get out of a situation that is clearly defined by international law, which establishes that Trieste and its international Free Port are, to this day, under the temporary civil administration of the Italian Government, absolutely outside the jurisdiction of Italy as a State, since that has no sovereignty over it – having lost it on September 15th, 1947 at the coming into force of the Treaty of Peace, Italy tries to scare the citizens who claim respect for their rights.

And this is how, facing the legitimate requests of the people of Trieste who raise the question of the Free Territory of Trieste, Italian authorities reply with charged of “tax evasion”. Of course this charge is a mere excuse, but the representative of Italy support it fiercely. And, in order to intimidate the citizens of the present-day FTT who support and appreciate the Free Trieste Movement, they have no second thoughts when it comes to using brutal means worth that Fascist regime that has left deep scars in this area of the World.

First of all, it is important explaining that the citizens who act in the name of the legal status of the Free Territory are no tax evaders – and they are not even out of mind. Tax evasions means, by the mean of deception, avoiding to pay taxes and duties. But in Trieste, it happens that the citizens are willing to pay the right taxes, the taxes established by the law. And this is not a crime. The time is forcing the citizens to pay taxes that cannot be levies in the Free Territory of Trieste as a consequence of bounding treaties that Italy, as a State, committed to comply with.

The international legal status of Trieste and of its territory – including the international Free Port – forbids to anyone to subject them to the payment of the Italian public debt (art. 5 of Annex X of the Treaty of Peace of 1947, which is also an Italian law). This obligation extends also to the current temporary civil administration entrusted to the Italian Government, in which the Republic of Italy (like any other State) is nothing but a third Country.

However, in breach of the international obligations it has accepted signing the 1954 Memorandum of Understanding regarding the Free Territory of Trieste, the Italian Government allowed the State of Italy to simulate its sovereignty over what then was “zone A” of the FTT, preventing the citizens from exercising their rights, including the payment of their own public debt, a violation that does not legitimize the repeated abuses of Italian authorities, in breach of international law, cancelling legality itself, in an attempt to establish a rule of negative law, based on the lack of legal existence of its own decisions.

The citizens of Trieste are mere victims of this distorted system and they have a big tax credit with the State of Italy, we are talking of hundreds of billions Euro, made of Italian national, regional and local, direct and indirect taxes, all undue in the Free Territory by virtue of the same international Treaties the Italy has undersigned.

Because in the Free Territory of Trieste all laws had to and has to be extended and adapted by the provisional Government with a Decree or with a Decree of its legitimate representative in Trieste, the Government’s Commissioner General, under penalty of nullity and voidness. But this does not happen since a long time, and it is done on purpose by Italian administrative authorities to support the simulation of Italian sovereignty and, consequently, the spoliation of both the city and the international Free Port.

Also, this makes it easy understanding why the institutions are upset by the awakening of the citizens of the FTT after decades of repression. Instead of just ending this spoliation of the territory entrusted to its Government, sinking Italy reacts intensifying it, trying to “annihilate” the people of Trieste who are not willing to stand any longer this criminality worth a State ruled by the Mafias.

Time for repression, at the expenses of the people who exercise their rights. In the past months the Free Trieste Movement had to undergo an aggression by the media that kept worsening to the point that both the organization and its members were described as “subversive” for inciting tax evasion.

Even judicial authorities, helpless when facing the appeals of the people of Trieste who raise the exception of the absolute lack of jurisdiction of Italian judges who are outside the State of Italy, with the support of local press – attacked “Free Trieste” requesting the police to repress them during the judicial proceedings in which are involved representatives of the Movement. And this is how trials for the FTT were patrolled by police and Carabinieri allover the Courthouse, including the Courtrooms: it gives the feeling of Chile in 1973.

Such behaviors of the illegitimate institutions of the State of Italy have not only the purpose of intimidating and defeating the people of Trieste who stand for legality, but also – and hopefully for them – to trigger reactions. All just to justify their consequent actions to restore their own rule, in spite of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that should be the very base of the existence of the Republic of Italy.

As part of this systematic suppression of civil rights, there are also those that we can call “punitive expeditions” of Italian authorities at the expenses of the members and supporters of the Free Trieste Movement. They target the owners of the places where the Movement organizes public meetings to explain to the people of Trieste the existence of their long denied rights and how to exercise them.

It is precious information to raise the awareness of a folk that, for decades, was paralyzed by the means of the propaganda of Italian nationalism. It is a revolution of legality that scares those who have many crimes to hide. And this is why the Italic system of power cannot stand it.

The “followers” (often regarded to with the derogative name of “adepts” by some undersold local journalists) of the Movement that stands for legality and justice are followed to the public meetings by police, Carabinieri and Financial Police in disguise, hidden between regular citizens. And their meeting places, usually cafés, are interested by the “attention” of the guarantors of constituted disorder and illegality.

Recently, a Pizza restaurant that hosted some meetings of the FTM was sieged by no less than 13 Carabinieri with their full uniforms for a check-up during working hours. Results? One week of suspension of all working activities and a huge fee for an alleged irregularity in the contract of some workers.

Another time, the Italian Tax Revenue Office, with a task-force, payed a visit to two stores of a member of the FTM at the same time, for tax verification. It all happened while the stores were open, they lasted for a long time, by means worth a police state.

And then there is the Financial Police. The owner of a café that supports the FTM received a EUR 1,000 fee for not making a receipt for a coffee to a customer. The receipt was actually issued, but the customer had crown it away right after, so he could not show it to the police that was waiting for him outside the café.

One more time, thousand Euro fee of the Financial Police strikes a family business, another café. The crime? A relative had substituted the owner since she could not be at work that day. Rather than keeping the café closed – being it their only source of income – this seemed like the best solution, due to necessity and thanks to family love. But the Financial Police stood its ground: dura lex, sed lex.

The substitute could not stay there, not even for a few hours. This is what the newest Italian laws say. The laws with which a State connected with organised criminality is destroying what remains of the dying economy of Italian business. And now we have one more family that might be broke.

This is only a sampling, unfortunately. We could tell many more stories. The machinery of Italian repression if working hard in Trieste. A bureaucracy inherited by Fascism keeps using the same methods of that time to bring back in line the folk of what it considers a mere colony.

But it is this very reaction that makes it even more clear how right is the way that thousand of people are following now, secure of their rights and standing to the end in the name of freedom: we cannot give up, we must not give up, we wont give up.

Translated from blog “Ambiente e Legalità” – “Environment and Legality” by Roberto Giurastante

A Decree of the Royal Governor Office in Venezia Giulia:

“We Rule: public speeches, meetings, rallies, etc. that were not previously authorized by this Governo Officer forbidden.The troops and the agent in charge of maintaining public order shall, with much needed energy, prevent any breach to this order. Trieste, November 24th, 1918. The Governor, General-Liutenwant C. Pettitti di Roreto.”