SHARP DIFFERENCES BETWEEN TWO ZONES

Press, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 26119, 23 May 1950, Page 4

SHARP DIFFERENCES BETWEEN TWO ZONES

TRIESTE AND HINTERLAND

[By the Trieste Correspondent of “The Times”] (Reprinted by Arrangement)

Trieste, May I.—Five years ago allied troops entered what was then the Italian irontier province of Venezia Giulia. They jailed to occupy Trieste before the arrival there of Jugoslav partisan forces, who had entered the city the previous day, and the post-war Trieste problem was born. To-day. after five years of diplomatic bargaining, shifting loyalties. and many violent street demonstrations, the problem remains unsolved, and has become a serious obstacle to the resumption of normal and friendly relations in the Adriatic. The “Morgan line,” which was drawn in a series of difficult negotiations between the British Commander General Sir William Morgan, and the Jugoslav Colonel Jovanovic, was meant as a temporary military measure to divide the occupation zones of the Anglo-American and the Jugoslav forces. Now this line has in many points become the permanent Italo-Jugoslav frontier, and its last remnant, the zonal boundary between the British-United Statics Zone (A) and the Jugoslav' Zone (B) of the Trieste Free Territory, is rapidly changing into a solid and impassable barrier. The Trieste Free Territory came officially into existence on September 15. 1947, when the Italian Peace Treaty was ratified. The territory was to be ruled by a Governor, but it became immediately apparent that a Governor would have an almost hopeless task in attempting to unify the territory's two component parts, the Jugoslav and the Anglo-American zones. At that time, after two years of occupation. the Jugoslavs had already consolidated their "popular” regime, and had radically changed the zone's legal, monetary, and economic system. The unification of both zones under a Governor in 1947 would have meant either the spreading of Communism and of “popular” rule into the AngloAmerican Zone, with its rich industrial prizes, or the forcible removal of the “popular" authorities in the Jugoslav Zone and the reintroduction (here of an administration based on the western concepts of democracy. Both alternatives were fraught with grave dangers, and the western and eastern Powers, which until the defection of Marshal Tito were equally represented in Trieste, remained content to preserve the status quo. Possible Solutions A compromise solution of the Free Territory problem was first advanced by Italian left-wing loaders. (The joint proposal of Marshal Tito and Signor Togliatti, the head of the Italian Communist party, to give Trieste to Italy and Gorizia to Jugoslavia was made before the Free Territory came into existence, and was rejected by Italian public opinion.) In the autumn of 1947. shortly after the ratification of the Italian Peace Treaty, the Italian Communist deputy, Signor Pajetta, went to Belgrade to discuss the possibility of a partition of the Free Territory along the zonal boundary lines. Signoi* Nenni, the Socialist leader and a former Italian Foreign Minister, in his electoral speeches in March. 1948, called for an eastern Locarno and for a direct Italo-Jugoslav agreement on Trieste. On March 20.'1948, the French. British. and United States Governments presented a proposal to return the entire Free Territory to Italy, as the peace treaty proved unworkable, mainly because of the sharp contrasts between the two zones. In April, 1948. the British Government sent a Note of protest to the Jugoslav Government, condemning the “popular’’ rule in the Jugoslav Zone of Trieste as contrary to international law, and a violation of the Italian Peace Treaty. None of these measures made the Jugoslav administration swerve from its avowed course of subjecting their zone to a strict Communist rule. As a result, many Italian residents of the Jugoslav Zone, unwilling to suffer the alien racial and social regime, abandoned their homes and sought refuge in Trieste, in Italy, or abroad. About 6000 Italians are estimated to have left ' Capodistria. and about 5000 went from Pirano. In Pirano out of four physicians only one remained for a population of 15.000, and elsewhere in the zone the professional classes disappeared almost completely. Italian peasants who did not agree with land reform or were opposed to collective farming were also forced to leave, and after the Cominform split Italian Communist workers joined the

steady flow of refugees. Most of the Italians were replaced by Slav immigrants or repatriated Jugoslav refugees irom pre-war Fascist persecution. These ethnical changes were accompanied by fundamental economic changes. Between 1945 and 1947 the Jugoslav Zone was part of Italian territories occupied by the Jugoslav forces, and separated from the rest of Allied-occupied Italy by a special currency, the Jugolira. After 1947 the Jugoslav Zone, because of this currency, which had no legal, value in Jugoslavia or in Trieste, became an isolated economic unit.

The Jugoslav Military Government repeatedly asked Italy to supply lire and foreign currency for the Jugoslav Zone's needs, pointing out that Italy furnished io Allied Military Government 19.304 m. lire in 1948, and 8371 m. lire in 1949. The Italian Government, however, was reluctant to meet these requests, partly because previous experience taught that Italian lire acquired by the sale of the zone’s produce | served tor Communist propaganda in Trieste and in Italy, and partly because the Jugoslav Military Government was i in no position to offer such saleguards I lor foreign exchange control as given by the Allied authorities in Trieste. | When in July, 1949, the Jugoslav Zone was threatened by a grave economic crisis, the Jugoslav Military Government replaced the Jugolira with the ordinary Jugoslav currency, the dinar, and in March this year completely integrated the zone into the Jugoslav economy. Economic Contrasts The difference between the present economic levels of the two Trieste zones can easily be seen by comparing their public spending. The Anglo-American Zone, which is a prevalently industrial area with a population of about 350.000. received in 1948 and 1949 a grant of 27,675,000.000 lire from the Italian treasury, and 22.600.000 dollars irom the Marshall Plan, a total aid equivalent to £25,000,000 sterling. Most of this money was used for investment purposes, and to-day the AngloAmerican Zone has a balanced ordinary budget, its industries arc flourishing. ana many new industries are being established with both Italian and foreign capital. In the Jugoslav Zone, which represents three-fiiths of the Free Territory, but has a population of only about 75.000. for the most part engaged in agriculture, a Belgrade loan □f 500.000,000 dinars, equivalent at the free rate to about £370.000 sterling, has been the only foreign aid received. This modest loan enabled the Jugoslav Military Government to launch a public works programme, the results of which are already i visible, but the general economic coni ditions remain grim, and are particuI larly difficult for those who do not beI long to the privileged classes of pubi lie employees and manual workers. An average worker’s wage is 160 dinars a day, which is about one-fifth of what an unskilled worker earns in the Anglo-American Zone, where shops are well stocked and everything freel5 r obtainable. No wonder that many, who would like to stay for family or patriotic reasons, are forced to leave the Jugoslav Zone because of the wretched economic conditions. The coastal towns of Istria. founded by the Venetians as their colonies and once entirely Italian, are to-day rap- , idly approaching the fate of their sisI ter towns in Dalmatia, which after i 1913 completely lost their former Italian character. Only a fraction of '.he original Italian population has remained in the Jugoslav Zone of i Trieste, and these live under an op- ' presisive economic system and a ruthI°ss police regime. On the other hard, i '.he Communist Slav immigrants who ; arrived in the zone during the last five years have taken root in their new homes and could be evicted only ! by violence. A solution of the Trieste problem is urgent, both because of the grievous plight of the Italians who remained in J r tria. and because the removal of this main obstacle to an rtalo-Jugoslav rapprochement is of European interest. However, any solution which ignored the deeply changed ethnical and economic structure of the Free Territory's two zones, and which was not based on a direct, i freely negotiated agreement between Rome and Belgrade, "duld be violently opposed and might have serious I conseauences.