Verona, April 11th, 2014: Free Trieste’s expression of solidarity.
The Free Trieste Movement, representing the people of the Free Territory of Trieste, established in 1947 by the UN, of which is a Member State, expresses solidarity to all other people oppressed by antidemocratic actions of the Italian national State. Actions that consist also in absurd actions, including the reckless arrest of a group of rather harmless activists from Veneto. Even, the Italian authorities paint them as terrorist, in a farce that surprised and made laugh all the world.
Historically, Trieste was among the last to experiment, afte 1918 and then again after 1954, the hardship and vexations of a militaristic State, established not as a free federation of people, but with nationalistic ideologies, arms and violence, and an imperialistic mentality, destroying other, historically naturale States in the peninsula, plundering their wealth, and erasing their languages and cultures.
In 1915, the Italian national State cynically sent to death the people it had conquered only 50 years prior to take our lands and, especially, the free port of Trieste. They prevented us from developing our port, forbade us to speak our languages, Italianized by force our names, family names and toponyms. The same happened in Südtirol. This is how they falsified our historical memory and forced our people to bear a regime of violence and racism, which continued until the end of WWII.
In 1947, with the Treaty of Peace with Italy, the UN granted us the status of an independent State: the Free Territory of Trieste, with an international Free Port. Italian sovereignty over Trieste ended with art. 21 of that Treaty, recognized by the whole International Community.
That Treaty and the laws that enforce it are in force both in the international legal order and in Italian domestic law. However, the national Italian State breaches them, pretending to have gained sovereignty over the Free Territory. To do so, it takes advantage of the fact that since 1954 the Italian Government is sub-entrusted with the temporary civil administration of Trieste under an international, special trusteeship mandate. Administration does not mean sovereignty.
With this nationalistic deceit, which is against international law and is carried out with new material, economic, and cultural violences, the local Italian authorities have once again annihilated our international Free Port, plundered our economy, and impoverished with huge taxes. Taxes that, under the Treaty of Peace, are undue. This is how we fall into more misery, despite being one of the main European and Mediterranean ports, as well as a unique multicultural city, with more than half a millenium of Mitteleuropean history behind it.
We, the people of Trieste, said “enough”. This is why we stand for the international recognition of all of our rights as a State, for our jobs, and for our culture. This is why we consider it fair that also the people in the Italian peninsula seek and obtain the recognition of their rights, including that to democratically advocate them without being subject to retaliations or provocations.