REPORT YUGOSLAV MISTREATMENT OF ITALIAN OPTANTS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80-00809A000600390403-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: R
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 19, 2011
• Sequence Number: 403
• Publication Date: May 18, 1951
• Content Type: REPORT

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/10/19: CIA-RDP80-00809A000600390403-1
1
CLASSIFICATION RESTRICTED
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY REPORT
INFORMATION FROM
FOREIGN DOCUMENTS OR RADIO BROADCASTS 'CD NO.
COUNTRY Yugoslavia
SUBJECT Political - Optants
HOW
PUBLISHED Daily newspaper
WHERE
PUBLISHED Trieste
DATE
PUBLISHED 17. 22 Feb. 1951
LANGUAGE Italian
ITHS DOCUMENT CONTAINS INFORMATION AFFECTING THt RATIONAL DEFENSE
or' THE UNITLO STATES WITHIN THE NEARING OF ESFIONARS ACT E0
U. S. C.. SI AND S[. AS ANEROID. ITS MANSMISSION OR THE REVELATION
PERSON
a ANY HARRIS TO AN HIE ITS DCONTENTS I R[FRODUCTION OF THIS FORM 0111 FROHISI D. IS PRO-
BY LAW.
DATE OF
INFORMATION 195=
DATE DIST. /'' May 1951
NO. OF PAGES 2
SUPPLEMENT TO
REPORT NO.
THIS IS UNEVALUATED INFORMATION
REPORT YUGOSLAV MISTREATMENT OF ITALIAN OPTANTS
REPORT EXTORTION FROM ISTRIAN OPTANTS -- Trieste, Messaggero Veneto, 17 Feb 51
Word has been received of serious abuses committed by the Yugoslav authorities
against departing Istrian optants. These optants had exercised their right 50
choose repatriation to Itai 7 as far back as 1948, and have just been able to ob-
tain citizenship papers and leave for Italy,
All the optants, to obtain the Ministry of the Interior's visa of departure
on their consular passports, must show a certificate attesting that they have paid
their taxes and made payments for all public services from which they have benefited.
This certificate is then released by the committee in whose jurisdiction the optant
resides, and serves to attest that the departing Italian has no further debts to
the State,
In Paracin some optants, after ge-.ting this attestation, were required to
pay money for a certificate of settlement of taxes, which were increased retroact-
tively. A typical case is that of Natale Paoletti, who had paid the sum of 15,000-
16,000 dinars in taxes on his few hectares of land for the whole of 1950. Before
he could depart, a d:.atrict official informed him that, on the basis of a new
assessment, his income was 298,000 dinars, for which he was to be taxed 152,00n
dinars, or over 50 percent. Paoletti reconciled himself to paying the.money, which
he had; however, this money was not income from his land, but came from the sale
of most of his personal property. Otherwise, as he was informed by the Yugoslavs,
his visa of departure would have been revoked, and he might have been obliged to
stay in Paracin indefinitely.
Paoletti still has a certificate of tax payment dated prior to his payment
of the 152,000 dinars, The payment was, credited to an ordinary current account;
hence, it is not clear to what kind of tax the payment applies.
Not only the optants in Paracin but the peasants in general have been sub-
ject to this levy. Often they receive new tax notices, without ever learning
the reason for them. In Yugoslavia, taxation is not imposed by means of a calcu-
lation poli political bungling and on the requirementsnofiseparateiagencies. but rather
on
` 11L11 1 IIIY 1 Eli
CLASSIFICATION RESTRICTED
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Release 2011/10/19-: CIA-R6P80-00809A000600390403-1
Messaggero Veneto,.
 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/10/19: CIA-RDP80-00809A000600390403-1
Other ,erious abuses were committed recently in Labin, all at the expense
of the optants. Money that departing oi.tants had turned over to the Yugoslav
People's Bank, in accordance with the Italo-Yugoslav agreements of August 1948,
we3 arbitrarily held back. The withholding rate increased with the size of the
deposit. One optant who had 200,000 dinars was obliged to turn over 96,000
to the district finance section, whereas for others, who turned over smaller
sums, the withholding amount came to between 10 and 20 percent. The withholding
rate is supposed to be one per 1,000.
OPTANT BEATEN -- Trieste, Messaggero Veneto, 22 Feb 51
Word was received yesterday of an assault on Vittorio Tonelli, an Istrian
farmer who had hope,. to return to Italy. A few hours after having been threatened
by the People's Committee with 6 months of forced labor in the Arsia mine if he
did not change his position, while returning home, he was assaulted by three
masked men, They beat him mercilessly, threatened him wiU death, and accused him-
of being a propagandist against the People's authority and of having exercised
the right of option. The man was setiously wounded. He will be required to leave
for "voluntary labor" on the Lupoglav-Stake railroad line.
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Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/10/19: CIA-RDP80-00809A000600390403-1