Conosco chi istituì il Giorno del ricordo, e il primo firmatario, tale Roberto Menia della cosiddetta destra triestina e più tardi “responsabile” nell’avventura di Futuro e libertà per l’Italia con Fini. L’iniziativa fu partorita, dieci anni fa, da coloro che a Trieste ma non solo hanno sempre cercato il consenso soffiando sul fuoco della rivendicazione impossibile, dell’intolleranza nei confronti della minoranza slovena (peraltro autoctona a Trieste e in Friuli nella sua gran parte da almeno 800 anni), della cancellazione delle responsabilità italiane nei territori poi diventati Slovenia e Croazia.

Non ho mai letto sui libri di testo, a scuola, dei lager fascisti nell’attuale Croazia. Non sapevo che l’Italia fascista contasse più campi di concentramento della stessa Germania nazista, ignoravo che nel campo di Rab, in Croazia (dove sono morti migliaia di Sloveni, in gran parte deportati dai rastrellamenti di Ljubljana) la mortalità quotidiana superasse quella di Dachau (dove trovò la morte il fratello di mio nonno). Oggi lo so, ma non ho mai assistito alla celebrazione di quel ricordo, di quelle persone, all’ammissione di quelle colpe. Come ricordare in modo maturo e sereno le vittime delle foibe? Come non dire che quel naturale fenomeno carsico – una grotta verticale – venne utilizzato dagli stessi fascisti, che per primi lo utilizzarono nei territori di Istria e Dalmazia per uccidere e occultare corpi, dedicando alla foiba addirittura una canzone dove questa compare come musa ispiratrice? Come ritrovare un equilibrio nella memoria che rispetti i corpi di Basovizza e tutti gli altri, se tuttora vengono USATI per dei distinguo che, a oltre settant’anni da quei giorni, dovrebbero essere messi da parte per restituire a questo Paese e a quelle terre la verità storica che meritano.

L’unico studio portato avanti da una commissione di professori universitari italiani, sloveni e croati, che ovviamente restituì colpe a entrambe le parti, venne chiuso in un cassetto anche dall’Italia, perché dava fastidio a destra e a sinistra. Gli esuli, e quanti rimasero per continuare ad abitare la loro casa, furono vittime innanzitutto dell’odio che gli italiani avevano seminato in quelle terre. Il carteggio del responsabile di Mussolini per quelle terre con lo stesso Duce parla di “esigenza di pulizia etnica”. E così fecero: persone rastrellate mentre erano al lavoro nei campi, donne e bambini presi e divisi per sempre. Gente uccisa sul posto. I campi di concentramento dislocati anche sul territorio italiano li conoscono in pochi. Pochissimi sanno cosa accadde al loro interno.

Quando, anni fa, visitai il campo di concentramento dell’isola di Rab (Arbe), tra le lapidi non c’era anima viva. Eppure l’Isola era piena di turisti italiani, come ogni anno. All’ufficio informazioni turistiche mi dissero che mai nessuno domandava di quel cimitero della memoria, dove le persone assumevano le sembianze dei più noti ospiti di Auschwitz e morivano di fame, malattie, percosse. Poi, mentre stavo per lasciare quel luogo, un signore arrivò. Capii che era italiano. Scambiammo due parole, scoprendo che a portarci in quel posto era stato lo stesso libro, quel Italiani brava gente? di Del Boca (il più grande studioso del colonialismo italiano). Solo grazie a quella lettura, incontrata da adulti, non certo da ragazzi perché prevista da un programma ministeriale. Solitari ricercatori di una verità storica negata alle vittime come ai colpevoli.

Fu mio padre a consigliarmi la lettura di quel libro, che tutt’ora consiglio a quanti sentono l’esigenza di sapere. Mio padre me lo fece leggere perché sapessi, per poter capire meglio, per distribuire colpe, se mai fosse necessario per la mia generazione, in modo più rispettoso della verità che tanti morti aveva causato. Mio padre, che è nato a Montona d’Istria (oggi Croazia) nel 1942, che a meno di due anni lasciò la casa materna con tutta la famiglia. Mio padre, che sposò una ragazza della minoranza slovena di Trieste, che non cercò mai la verità nella ricomposizione strumentale di mezze verità. Ai morti e alle vittime di una guerra e delle sue conseguenze, prima di tutto, si deve l’amore per la verità. Coltivato poco e male in questo Paese, sempre parziale. Mai nella ricostruzione ufficiale della storia di quelle terre.

La necessità di difendere la memoria antifascista dal mito delle foibe

Foiba fobia

US regime-change operation in Ukraine exposed in leaked diplomatic phone call

By Patrick O’Connor 
7 February 2014

A leaked phone conversation between Victoria Nuland, assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, and Geoffrey Pyatt, the US ambassador to Ukraine, has exposed the anti-democratic and colonialist character of the Obama administration’s intervention in the former Soviet republic.

The discussion between the two officials includes a detailed review of which right-wing opposition figures Washington is working to install in office, and how it is using the United Nations to rubber-stamp the operation. While Germany and other European powers have worked closely with the Obama administration in promoting the violent protests against President Viktor Yanukovych, the leaked phone call reveals tensions between the imperialist powers. At one point Nuland tells Pyatt, “Fuck the EU.”

The discussion, posted anonymously on YouTube, underscores the thoroughly cynical character of Washington’s public diplomacy. The Obama administration’s rhetoric about “democracy” and the Ukrainian people’s right to determine their own future is a charade, concocted for public consumption. Behind the scenes, government officials speak frankly with one another about the real agenda—advancing Washington’s geo-strategic and economic interests in Eastern Europe by installing pro-US and anti-Russian puppet figures in the Ukrainian capital.

The phone conversation between Assistant Secretary of State Nuland and Ambassador Pyatt apparently took place late last month, after President Viktor Yanukovych offered the posts of prime minister and deputy prime minister to opposition leaders Arseniy Yatsenyuk and Vitali Klitschko, respectively.

Referring to Klitschko, head of the UDAR (Strike) party, which has close financial ties with Germany’s ruling conservative party, Nuland tells the ambassador: “I don’t think Klitsch should go into the government. I don’t think it’s necessary, I don’t think it’s a good idea.” Pyatt agrees, saying, “let him stay out and do his political homework.”

Nuland continues: “Yats [Yatsenyuk] is the guy that who’s got the economic experience, the governing experience.” Pyatt later warns Nuland that “Klitschko has been the top dog” within the opposition, and that she will need to “move fast on all this stuff” and speak with the UDAR leader as part of their “personality management” of the opposition leadership.

The utter criminality of Washington’s drive to install a pliant regime in Kiev sharply emerges in Nuland and Pyatt’s discussion of Oleh Tyahnybok, the leader of the neo-fascist All-Ukrainian Union (Svoboda) party. Nuland describes Tyahnybok as one of the “big three” within the opposition leadership. The State Department operative goes on to tell Pyatt that “what [Yatsenyuk] needs [after he is installed in office] is Klitsch and Tyahnybok on the outside—he needs to be talking to them four times a week.”

These remarks confirm that there is no confusion whatsoever within the Obama administration that it is working in partnership with fascist movements in Ukraine.

Tyahnybok is the leader of the Svoboda party, which was initially called the Social-National Party of Ukraine and featured a neo-Nazi logo. In 2004, Tyahnybok praised right-wing Ukrainian partisans in World War II, who, he declared, “did not fear, but took up their automatic rifles, going into the woods to fight Muscovites, Germans, Jewry and other filth.”

He added that Ukraine still had to be liberated from a “Moscow-Jewish mafia.” In 2005, Tyahnybok signed an open letter to Ukrainian leaders demanding a halt to the “criminal activities” of “organised Jewry,” which, he declared, was attempting to commit “genocide” against the Ukrainian people.

This is one of the “big three” figures with whom the Obama administration is working to install a client regime in Ukraine. Yesterday, Nuland met with several opposition figures, among them Oleh Tyahnybok. No details of the discussion have been made public, but Ambassador Pyatt released via Twitter a photo of a smiling Nuland posing next to the pro-Nazi leader and his colleagues.

Yesterday’s meeting between Nuland and Tyahnybok was not the first. The two also held a closed-doors discussion when she was previously in Ukraine, last December. After that meeting, Nuland staged a photo opportunity in the Kiev central square that has served as the headquarters for the anti-government protests organised by the right-wing opposition, handing out bread to the demonstrators in a show of US support.

In her telephone conversation with Pyatt, Nuland praises UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon for deploying a special envoy, Robert Serry, to Ukraine. This, she explains, will “be great, I think, to help glue this thing [i.e., a new government].” These remarks underscore the role played by the UN as an instrument of imperialism, working with the US and its allies to cover up or endorse their predatory operations around the world.

Immediately after praising the UN, Nuland declares, “Fuck the EU,” in apparent frustration that the European powers were not doing more to back the regime-change operation. According to the Kyiv Post, another leaked phone conversation, in German, between EU official Helga Schmid and EU Ambassador to Ukraine Jan Tombinski includes a discussion between the two figures over how the US regards the EU as being “soft” on Ukraine.

In the Nuland-Pyatt discussion, the US ambassador expresses his agreement on the need for the UN to be involved, saying, “we’ve got to do something to make it stick together, because you can be pretty sure that if it does start to gain altitude that the Russians will be working behind the scenes to try to torpedo it.” He adds that “we want to try to get somebody with an international personality to come out here and help to midwife this thing.”

Washington is engaged in a ruthless struggle to undermine any obstacle posed by Moscow to its drive to dominate the geo-strategically crucial Eurasia region, the vast land mass stretching from Eastern Europe, extending over the oil-rich Middle East and Central Asia, and reaching to China’s western borders. US imperialism is promoting fascist movements in Ukraine and fuelling the flames of a nascent civil war as a means of advancing its interests and ratcheting up the pressure on the Russian government.

Nuland’s nomination as assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs in May last year clearly formed part of the Obama administration’s aggressive strategy. She previously served as a deputy national security adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney and is married to the prominent “neoconservative” commentator and historian Robert Kagan.

Yesterday, Sergei Glazyev, a senior aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin, claimed that the US was spending $20 million a week sponsoring Ukrainian opposition groups, including supplying them with arms.

Responding to questions about the leaked phone conversation, state department spokesperson Jen Psaki admitted that it was genuine and said that Nuland had apologised to EU figures, before absurdly declaring the incident marked “a new low in Russian tradecraft.”

Psaki said that while the Obama administration had no evidence that the Russian government was responsible for intercepting and leaking the phone conversation, “this is something they have been actively promoting, posting on, tweeting about, and certainly we feel that represents a new low.”

The Obama administration was revealed by National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden to have erected a vast surveillance network to eavesdrop on the telephone and Internet communications of the world’s population, including heads of state and government. It is in no position to lecture anybody about “new lows.” Its hypocritical protests nevertheless point to concerns that the leaked conversation could prove damaging to its ongoing campaign against Moscow and the Yanukovych government.

'Nuland apologized, but didn't mention US plans to midwife a new govt in Ukraine'

So long as the US and the EU are united in efforts to replace the government in Kiev, they will tolerate internal spats, Nebojsa Malic, foreign policy expert, told RT.

RT: The EU is one of the most powerful political bloc's in the world. Are we likely to see thestatementsattributed to Nuland damaging relations with Washington?

Nebojsa Malic: Honestly, if I were the EU official, I would demand an apology but considering that they are on the same page with the US government, considering setting up a client regime in Ukraine, I’m inclined to believe that Brussels and various officials there, including commissars including Baroness Catherine Ashton, would tend to gloss over it. Again it’s not necessarily what is done but who does it to whom. And so long as they are united in efforts to replace the government in Kiev with somebody more obedient, they'll tolerate internal spats. Honesty, even the US wiretapping of the EU officials hasn’t done really much to damage relations despite obvious problems with it. I would hold my breath to see the Europeans cleave away from the US on this. On the other hand, it’s very ironic that the US efforts are being effectively undone by the wiretapped phone conversation.

RT: Nuland apologized to her European counterparts, before the State Department tried to laugh it off. Do you think it goes a little deeper than that?

NM: She has apologized for a comment that she is not admitting she made, which is itself a conformation that the comment was indeed made. But what she hasn’t apologized for is the plans to midwife a new government in Ukraine. In other words, she is apologizing for cussing out the EU but she is not apologizing for trying to overthrow the government in Kiev, calling it popular democracy. Obviously there is more to it than that. I don't think anyone in the US establishment feels sorry for what they are trying to do, I think they are very proud of it and they are going to pursue it.

RT: Where do you think the recording came from?

NM: That I honestly don’t know. I’m as stumped as you are. I think it’s most ironic that the US which is collecting everybody’s phone conversations and has been for years had the tables turned in such a fashion, but how the phone conversation came to light I have no idea.

RT: The US accused Russia of hitting a 'new low' for the release of the conversation, given America's own global spying program that's a little rich isn't it?

NM: Well, it’s hypocrisy at its finest. “We are entitled to wiretap the world but Lord forbid somebody else who does it.” Yet, another confirmation that I have been maintaining for several years now is the ultimate hypocrisy of Western policy. Again, it’s not what is being done but who does it to whom. When the US spies on the world that’s fine and good, when the world spies on the US it is obviously horrible and won’t be tolerated. When the US purports to capture a phone intercept somewhere and doesn’t authenticate it and treats it as fact, that’s fine, when somebody else uses the phone receptors of US officials talking, that’s obviously an outrage and won’t be tolerated. Again and again and again, it’s not what has been done but who does it.

RT: This talking about the different opposition leaders, who is going where, is more like a chess game. What power do they really have there?

NM: Consider who is funding these rebels and protesters, where logistics are coming from. They say“OK, we need an international personality to visit” and there is an international personality. They say “We need a high government official identified by name to bless it” and he does exactly that. There is obvious evidence confirming what is actually going on there. Considering that there have been pamphlets found among the rioters, there are exact replicas that have been used previously in Serbia and in Egypt, offered by the people who are on the pay roll of the US government through various US non-governmental institutions and institutes. Again, it’s not very difficult to piece the picture together.

RT:In the alleged call, Nuland wanted to, in slightly different language, freeze out the EU and Klitschko. How are such comments going to be greeted in Ukraine?

NM: If I were Klitschko, I’d be really upset. If I were the other two leaders of the rebels, I’d be upset too. Here we have the situation when a high ranking official of the US government, who has even been to Kiev distributing cookies to demonstrators back to when they were still relatively peaceful, is referring to these guys as "Klitch," "Yatsy" and "Tiny Bock." I would seriously be upset. I would consider this an insult.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.