Slovenians condemn desecration of Italian foibe victim memorial
Ljubljana, 9 February - The political party of the Slovenian minority in Italy and an anti-Fascist association have joined the condemnation of the desecration of a memorial site in Italy's Basovizza dedicated to the Italian victims of summary post-war executions.
On Friday night, unknown individuals scrawled the slogans "Trieste is Ours" and "Death to Fascism, Freedom to the People" in Slovenian at the entrance to the monument.
The act occurred ahead of Italy's annual Day of Remembrance on 10 February, which honours the victims of the foibe executions and the post-WWII exodus of Italians from Istria, Rijeka, and Dalmatia.
The graffiti also included the number 161, interpreted by the local media as a coded reference to AFA - an abbreviation for an antifascist group.
Italian politicians have condemned the defacement, and today they have been joined by the Slovenian Community (SSk) party and TIGR Primorske, an association fostering memory of the anti-Fascist underground, based in Ajdovščina.
"It is apparently an attempt to rekindle disputes and hatred between nations in our area, encouraged by those who build their political existence precisely on the wounds and tragedies of the past," the SSk said.
The party said that the act originates from those who in 2022, when Basovizza was visited jointly by Slovenian President Borut Pahor and his Italian counterpart Sergio Mattarella, "welcomed the Slovenian delegation with the word 'traitors'".
"The Slovenian minority rejects such acts, as it well remembers similar cases when its monuments to the resistance were desecrated," it added.
Located some three kilometres away from the border with Slovenia, Basovizza is also the location of the monument in memory of four Slovenian victims of fascism executed in 1930. It has been desecrated by Italian neo-fascists multiple times.
TIGR Primorska said that this "repugnant act sows discord between all peaceful residents on both sides of the border" at the time when the two neighbouring cities, Nova Gorica and Gorizia, have assumed the European Capital of Culture title.
The association believes that one the goals of the perpetrators was to cast a shadow on this important cultural event and to divert the attention from much more important events that express the friendship between the two neighbouring nations.