Original article, in Italian: Paolo G. Parovel. “La Voce di Trieste” – May 4th, 2014: LINK
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TRIESTE: CONTINUES THE TRUE STORY OF THE POLITICIANS, MAFIAS, AND SERVICES AT THE PORT’S SIEGE
[Links and unofficial translation: SV]
We owe you a substantial, possibly even more interesting, follow-up to our April 21st [2014] article “AN ITALIAN STORY OF POLITICIANS, MAFIA, AND SERVICES IN TRIESTE. READ IT RIGHT AWAY AND CAREFULLY”.
Indeed, just as many of our thousands of readers have (expectably) guessed, be they regular citizens or specialized analysts, the story about a plot at Trieste’s expense summed up in that article was not only the draft of some anonymous novel.
It is a true story, because those are all illegal activities, and there already are lots of consolidated evidences, about the operations itself – not only in official deeds, but also in investigative articles and judicial investigations – but also about the means used to support and shield them be it passively (press censorship, silence, cover-ups by authorities) or actively (direct disinformation about the events, retaliations about those opposing to the aforementioned operations).
Indeed, none of this is new on La Voce because we have already published many investigations about the old and new hidden corruption networks that unite politicians, builders, mafias, and deviant services in Trieste and in the border area in general; we are duly investigating and denouncing it all to the public, because it is powers that are based first and foremost on our ignorance.
Our most attentive readers are also aware that it is networks rooted in tendering and building as well as housing speculations, and that they are both attempting to illegally take hold of the Northern Free Port and to seize “political” control of Trieste’s international Free Port, possibly to carry out also other illegal activities that, unfortunately, are not uncommon in most Italian ports.
Not that a thing like that would be easy in this city, forsaken to increasing poverty, which in turn is under the control of a local “system” more hidden than usual, behind a curtain of small politics and provincial journalism.
It follows that, for quite some time, technical observers were already rather alarmed, and they had plenty of reasons for that, since the political factions involved are eluding even documented anti-mafia questions, raised and brought to public opinion by La Voce.
Suddenly, in mid-April, the alarm increased. This is when, to the increasing political and media pretenses on the port, intelligence reports were added, addressing possible, parallel interventions by organized crime to “directly remove” the main obstacles to the aforementioned pretenses.
As addressed before, there are essentially three main obstacles, and they vary in nature and level:
– the legitimate, duly activities of the Port Authority’s President, as she works to develop Trieste’s international Free Port, unlike her predecessors who were accomplices of the aforementioned abnormal political operations;
– the director of independent investigative newspaper La Voce di Trieste’s denounces, by press and before Court. (By the way, that is me, is this article’s author);
– the international political and legal activities carried out by the President of the independent Free Trieste Movement.
The need to verify the risks of mafia-like terrorist activities was met by the appropriate authorities, however, as a precaution, the risk was also uncovered, starting to inform public opinion about it, as we wait for the outcomes of investigations that are in no way easy.
Furthermore, we didn’t expect the local “system” to react to the alarm, rather, we expected it to stay hidden as it always has, leaving all of our previous analyses and complaints unanswered.
Instead, this time the “system” came out into the open with a double, immediate reaction, as harsh as meaningful, and following two parallel paths, one against us, the other against the Port Authority.
When it comes to me, the director of La Voce, and to the President of the Free Trieste Movement, the “system” has unleashed against the two of us a very violent, technic disinformation campaign. We are being attacked and insulted on Facebook: the campaign’s goal is delegitimizing and denying our anti-mafia alerts, falsely portraying us as two psychos, delusional, conspiracy theory believers, despite both of us having decades of experiences in fighting criminal cartels, consolidated also in dedicated publications (which costed us serious threats in the past and, in my case, even assassination attempts).
To achieve its goal, the smearing campaign went as far as denying, even disputing Roberto Saviano’s reports, that in Trieste there have ever been criminal connections among mafia-like criminal organizations, builders, and deviant services.
The analysis of a total 1200 and more comments up until today (May 4th, 2014) confirms that the aggressive smearing campaign on Facebook is in facts directed by a small number of people, even using more aliases. Those people are external provokers, provokers from within the Movement, and other individuals dragged in the discussion due to their own credulity, political orientation, or particular interests.
There is ground to confirm that the identified members of the external provokers’ group are mostly people who did already have different connections with circles of the Italian services, and/or particular backgrounds in extremist political groups, sometimes resulting in convictions.
On the other side, the group of provokers from within the Movement mostly consist of a small, vocal minority, which, since December 2013, is also under an internal investigation for past administrative activities prior to the current Statute’s approval and new presidentship, and of certain elements of the former internal security system, already dismissed because of actions incompatible with that role.
In facts, both internal and external provokers use, together, the aggressive smearing campaign also as to sabotage the Movement’s actions and cause a split in it (preventing the upcoming exposure of the internal dissidents’ administrative wrongdoings) and to incite against the Movement’s President and La Voce’s director some of the Movement’s internal dissidents who are known to be violent.
To obtain all of this, the aforementioned aggressive campaign unleashed on Facebook does systematically rely, in breach of the law, on an abnormal quantity of fake news, defamation, vulgar insults, hate speech, and threats against persons. It is equally abnormal that those who are civilly and criminally liable for these comments aren’t canceling any, as if they were certain that no prosecuted or punished by law enforcement (they should also imagine that we have already recorded all of it and saved it in our archives).
Additionally, this abnormal smearing campaign on Facebook was accompanied by attacks against Free Trieste’s websites and information systems, and all of this was amplified by local monopolistic newspapers “Il Piccolo” (the Italian language newspaper) and “Primorski dnevnik” (the Slovenian language newspaper). Both newspapers enjoy substantial public funding, and are controlled by the political circles involved in the reported illegal operations (and also of abuses against the assets of Trieste’s Slovenian community, as just denounced on the Movement’s monthly paper, “Trieste Libera news”, on sale since May 1st).
So, essentially, the public, aggressive campaign on Facebook and in the press against La Voce’s director and Free Trieste’s President was directed by people of doubtable independence, aiming to dismiss at any cost the existence of the reported mafia-like threats, substituting it with threats from internal, violent dissidents (including previous offenders).
At the same time, and in parallel with that, the “system” unleashed a very violent public attack against the President of the Port Authority, using the same two newspapers and the same politicians who are claiming control over the Free Port and refuse to answer (even with a simple denial) to the public anti-mafia questions that La Voce di Trieste has publicly asked them about this operation.
Those politicians and the two newspapers, which were already attacking the Port’s President unleashing ongoing political-press campaigns made of disinformation and fake accusations against her, are now exacerbating that by calling for her immediate removal and substitution with a commissioner (despite her mandate being due on January 2015).
The fake accusations consist in claiming that the port is managed poorly, and that the President “doesn’t cooperate” with the political representatives of other local authorities. Instead, the truth is that the Port’s traffics and revenues are constantly increasing, while those politicians are attempting to illegally interfere with the Port Authority’s powers.
The abnormal increase in aggression by politicians and media is also another attempt to sabotage the Port Authority’s public call for tenders, which aims at granting new, legitimate concessions within the Northern Free Port at the end of June, thus preventing the housing speculations under anti-mafia questions.
In short, it is legitimate to say that, facing a real anti-mafia alarm connected with illegal operations against Trieste’s port, the local “system” reacted immediately, coming out in the open as never before, unleashing two, parallel and violent operations: one to delegitimate and ultimately silence those who sounded the alarm itself, and the other to force a political seizure of the port as soon as possible.
Furthermore, if any of this happened in Sicily, Campania, or Apulia, among the authorities, the media, and the people many would have taken a public stand to support those who are courageous enough to expose criminality and defend the rule of law.
However, in Trieste we must fend for ourselves, even in the face of public, shameful, and unpunished lynching. Yet, this is in and of itself the best evidence of the seriousness of things in Trieste, which must be solved by joint efforts.
As for the critiques that some have about Free Trieste’s cooperation with Italian authorities against mafia-like and other criminal organizations, it is obvious that mafias and criminality are universal concerns for law and order, which escape strict international law matters.
Paolo G. Parovel