Italy cannot draft soldiers in the Free Territory of Trieste, protected by the UN and by NATO

Analysis by Paolo G. Parovel

Since 1989, Italy attempts to interfere politically and militarily in the destabilizing crisis both in the Balkans and in the Middle East, and it does it with operations and roles that are often ambiguous in respect to the Atlantic Alliance, mainly to divert the domestic political and economic tensions on matters of foreign policy.

Italy has always been an unreliable ally to all of its international partners, because it political-institutional system is corrupted by illegal interests that prevail on the legitimate interests of State, and this did often put Italy on the edge of failure.

This is why, between February and March 2016, the Italian Government attempted to divert domestic tensions on two destabilizing operations of foreign policy: one against Egypt, at the same time as the temporary military regime is restituting the legislative powers to the Parliament, another in the political and military chaos of Libya.

Both are disinformative operations typical of Italian politics; the first one consisting in constructing lots of false information against Egypt in regard to the death of a student in Cairo, the second one consisting in making it appear that the United States requested to Italy a military intervention in Libya, even premising to it the leading role in the international action.

The disinformative aggression against Egypt is going to end with the investigations on the murder, while American diplomacy has already denied the alleged request for military interventions. All that remains is a further evidence that the Italian political class has become so incapable, corrupted and cynical that, in order to save itself, it is willing to push the Country in senseless wars at any time.

If this were the case, the Government would have to reactivate compulsory military service, which in Italy involves all male citizens from 18 to 65 years, which was suspended in 2005, but an be reactivated in case of war or “serious international crisis”. This means Italian youth is still obliged to register in military draft lists when they turn 17.

This would immediately reopen also the problem of the illegal Italian military draft of the citizens of the present-day Free Territory of Trieste, which is a little sovereign State entrusted, since 1954, to the provisional administration of the Italian Government, therefore, it is not under the sovereignty of the State of Italy.

The Free Territory of Trieste is established by virtue of the 1947 Treaty of Peace with Italy, which declares it a neutral and demilitarized State (Annex VI, art. 2), admitting only the armed forces upon direction of the UN Security Council, forbidding that the FTT engages in paramilitary formation and exercises, as well as in the discussion of military arrangements and undertakings. The citizens of the Free Territory can only enlist in the armed forces of other States as volunteers.

For these reasons, all military forces that were introduced in the Free Territory of Trieste by the Governments of the USA and of the UK between 1947 and 1954, and then by the provisional Italian Government, are not there as national troops, rather, they operate in the FTT as troops of the UN and of the Atlantic Alliance [documents NATO PO/55/341, M(54)104, C-M(55)16, C-R(55)8, C-R(55)23].

However, since 1956, the Italian Government, in breach of its mandate of temporary civil administration, does illegally draft the citizens of Free Territory of Trieste, as if they were citizens of the Republic of Italy. This abuse was hidden by forcing the conscripts from Trieste to sign a blank paper, which would then be filled with a request for voluntary service without their awareness.

Furthermore, Italy omitted to recognize to its legitimate military forces that operated in Trieste the compensations for serving abroad on behalf of the UNO and of the NATO. Since 2014, the Free Trieste Movement opened an international class action to denounce all those abuses.

Italian military draft lists in the neutral and demilitarizes Free Territory of Trieste are therefore illegal, and both UNO and the NATO cannot allow that Rome continues to impose the illegal drafting of citizens of the Free Territory in Italian military forces.

Which does also mean that no more citizens of the Free Territory shall be forced to take part of the reckless and ambiguous military ventures of Italian politicians.

© 9 Marzo 2016