Although NATO has in recent years has attacked the former Yugoslavia, invaded and occupied Afghanistan and Iraq, and is now doing the same in Libya, the so-called “defensive” alliance’s first victim was a small sovereign country long since forgotten, In fact, there are probably not many people who have ever heard of the Kingdom of Tavolara, a small island off the north coast of Sardinia.
Flag of the Kingdom of Tavolara, invaded, depopulated, and occupied by NATO.
Tavolara was an sovereign kingdom until 1962 when NATO depopulated most of the island for a U.S. Navy very low frequency (VLF) submarine communication station and a National Security Agency/U.S. Navy high-frequency direction finding (HFDF) radio-goniometric station, part of the CLASSIC BULLSEYE system. The Tavolara base was built in concert with the construction of the nearby U.S. nuclear submarine base at La Maddalena on Sardinia.
Tavolara’s independence is still recognized by the United Kingdom, a recognition conveyed by Queen Victoria. Queen Victoria even placed a portrait of the Tavolara royal family in Buckingham Palace, a painting which still hangs in the palace to this day.
Tavolara’s independence can be traced back to 1767, nine years before the American colonies declared independence from Great Britain. In 1836, the Sardinian monarchy acknowledged the independence of Tavolara under King Giuseppe Bertoleoni. From 1996 to around 1895, Tavolara was a republic. In 1903, Italian King Victor Emmanuel III recognized Tavolara’s independence under the restored monarchy, led by King Carlo I. King Paolo II succeeded to the throne in 1928 and he continued to claim Tavolaran independence until his death in 1962, the year that NATO decided to move in and take over the island.
Italy never formally annexed Tavolara but the conquest of one of the world’s smallest countries by NATO spelled its doom. The Italian prime minister who gave the island to NATO, which was a violation of international law, was Amintore Fanfani, a Christian Democratic champion of the European Economic Community (EEC), the forerunner of the present-day European Union. Fanfani was a leading ideologist for Benito Mussolini’s fascist party and in one Italian fascist publication he wrote, “the European continent will be organized into a vast supranational area guided by Italy and Germany. Those areas will take authoritarian governments and synchronize their constitutions with Fascist principles.” The European Union has, in effect, morphed into the dream-come-true of both Mussolini and his German Axis partner, Adolf Hitler, a supranational European state ruled politically from Brussels and financially from Frankfurt, with Brussels-headquartered NATO acting as its military enforcement arm.
Flag of the Chagos Islands: Another early victim of NATO’s “Drang nach osten.”
Tavolara would not be the only small island swallowed up by NATO. In 1965, in what would be the first major move in NATO’s Nazi-like “drang nach osten” (thrust toward the East), Britain purchased the Indian Ocean archipelago of the Chagos Islands from its colony of Mauritius. The British established a territorial contrivance known as the British Indian Ocean Territory to cement its claims on the islands. In 1966, the United Kingdom signed an agreement with the United States that permitted the U.S. military to establish bases on any of the Chagos Islands for 50 years. In 1971, the U.S. Navy moved on to the island of Diego Garcia to begin construction of a naval and air base.
The native coconut plantation workers on Diego Garcia were moved to other Chagos islands, Mauritius, and Seychelles. In 1972, the dislocated islanders residing on the other Chagos isles were moved to Seychelles and Mauritius. The Chagossians were placed into slum-like dwellings on Mauritius, where some 8000 Chagossians now live, unable to return to their homeland. Mauritius claims the Chagos Islands as its territory, a move opposed by Britain and the United States.
The history of NATO is that of not a defensive organization but a brutal offensive “evil alliance” that has transformed itself from a Cold War entity to a neo-colonialist enforcement grouping that has extended its tentacles into the states of the Gulf Cooperation Council, North Africa, sub-Saharan Africa, and beyond. NATO’s offensive moves into the Middle East, the Caucasus, and North Africa practically mirror the plans of Hitler’s General Staff.
With NATO military forces in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and possibly soon in Syria, Somalia, and South Sudan, it should be recalled that NATO’s first victim was the tiny, defenseless kingdom of Tavolara. The name should serve as a rallying cause for those who want to see the total abolition of NATO.
Previously published in the Wayne Madsen Report.
Copyright © 2011 WayneMadenReport.com
Wayne Madsen is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist and nationally-distributed columnist. He is the editor and publisher of the Wayne Madsen Report (subscription required).
