They are getting ready for the final assault. The institutionalized Italian Mafias won’t give up: they want to size control of the international Port of Trieste, starting with the Northern Free Port, renamed “old port” out of spite. They’d do anything to make it.
After the Port Authority confirmed that the regime of the Northern Free Port cannot be changed and the area shall remain a port, in compliance with the 1947 Treaty of Peace, the local establishment reacts with rage and fury: this means losing a great business opportunity.
The assault:
The leader of the assault to the Port is Trieste City Council, with Mayor Cosolini (PD – Italian Democratic Party, the same party as premier Renzi’s); he is supported by the Region (president Serracchiani, again PD), but also by other local administrations, all controlled by a centre-left junta, and all ready to sell off any piece of our Territory only to make more money, and certainly not for the sake of our community. A lesson that we can learn from the sad story of the Sistiana bay.
But, in facts, their support is across-the-board. How can we forget the interrogation of European parliamentarians of the PDL (Partito delle Libertà – Party of Freedoms, Berlusconi) urging the intervention of the European Parliament to deprive the Port of Trieste of its fiscal advantages established by the Treaty of Peace, only to impose a super-tax on it, for the sake of Italian ports? Or other PDL deputies who stood for the urbanization of the “old port” in a fatal embrace with their colleagues of the PD?
They want the Northern Free Port to become some luxurious citadel by the sea, a Balkan Monte Carlo. The business is worth billions, but it raises many questions: first of all, about the infiltration of mafia-like criminal cartels. In this case, the N’drangheta.
Dismissing an international Free Port and letting Italian criminal organizations spoil it for a building and housing speculation is not simple. Art. 34, Annex VI of the 1947 Treaty of Peace clearly establishes this port as a State corporation of the Free Territory of Trieste, a State under UN protection by virtue of UNSC Resolution S/RES/16 (1947).
A lawful defense:
And the people of Trieste themselves, claiming rights of citizens of the Free Territory, are defending with strength their port from this clear attack to the freedom of Trieste. Without its international Free Port, our city has no future and the people of Trieste know full well.
This is why, on 10 February 2014, hundreds of supporters of the Free Trieste Movement made a human barrier demanding the immediate reactivation of the Northern Free Port, suspended by the Commissioner of the Government. On that date, hundreds of people, under the rain, for 10 long hours guarded at breaches opened by the Italian authorities in the Northern Free Port’s walls. Breaches that represent the Italian criminality’s attack to international law.
The counterattack:
Twenty activists of the Movement are being investigated by the Italian judicial authority for their peaceful stand in defense of the Northern Free Port. However, no investigation is open for those who violate the Treaty of Peace and the very Italian Constitution: maybe only opposing to the Italian mafias is a crime worth law enforcement.
But the citizens won’t be intimidated: the Northern Free Port is like a Stalingrad of the Free Territory: the last defensive line. If it falls, the freedom of our State falls with it.
And Free Trieste’s defense of the Northern Free Port is positive indeed: the Port Authority moved its head office in the Northern Free Port. The area sentenced to dismissal has suddenly become attractive for worldwide investors, right inside storehouse 26. Yes, storehouse 26 is the core of Free Trieste’s demonstrations in the past 2 years. This place is more than a symbol for the ongoing revolution of legality.
The Port Authority’s decision has obviously got on the nerves of the fierce speculators willing to violate international law. They are the same gang that included the Northern Free Port to the the latest City Masterplan of the Municipality of Trieste, and they risk to be prosecuted for this crime, even on a personal level.
This is also how Ms. Marina Monassi, lady president of the Port Authority, was target with a crossed-fire of requests to resign, even on newspaper “Il Piccolo” (13 April 2014). This newspaper belongs to the local establishment, and obviously it supports the urbanization of the most important Port of the Mediterranean: curiously enough, it published the attack to Ms. Monassi on page 26 (!).
A coincidence or a signal?
Sure is, the Port Authority’s new headquarter is in Storehouse 26. And, as early as between yesterday and today, in what seems like a planned action, all along the junction opened by the Italian Authorities next to Storehouse 26, tires covered the concrete, abandoned and potentially dangerous. Is someone willing to cause car crashes? Is this a Mafia-style warning against someone who is trying to re-establishment of the rule of law in a forgotten port?
In the past three years, the risks arising from the abandonment of the Northern Free Port were often denounced by Free Trieste and by the courageous investigations of independent newspaper “La Voce di Trieste”.
Diverting the walls of the Northern Free Port, making it a street that connects the Port to the City only serves to pave the way to the illegal speculation that violates the legal status of the International Port, and apparently is has already caused a very dangerous situation.
In the end, the “old port” became the stage of the Italian local authorities to favor the dismissal of its precious Free Zone and unleash a housing speculation involving mafia-like criminals at the expenses of the whole international community. A small operation in a bigger plan, aiming at reducing the main port of the Adriatic to a fuel depot for the sake of Italian ports and of the EU.
And now, Italian Mafias try one last game to save the local establishment and its shady rule. A “game” that Trieste must be able to stop standing firm, defending its Port, and its future with it.
Translated from blog “Ambiente e Legalità” – “Environment and legality” by Roberto Giurastante