The Destruction of the nation of Rose Island, additionally, the nation of Seborgia

www.imperial-collection.net...
In 1964, Italian engineer Giorgio Rosa built the 400-meter-square platform, supported by nine strong pylons on the seabed. Reportedly, this platform eventually housed a restaurant, a bar, a night club, a souvenir shop, a post office, and perhaps a radio station.
The Italian government's response was swift and heavy-handed; a group of four police and tax inspectors landed on Rose Island and assumed control. Rosa's Council of Government is said to have sent a telegram to the Italian government, to protest the "violation of its sovereignty and the injury inflicted on local tourism by the military occupation", but this was ignored.

The nation was utterly destroyed by the invading army.
external image
stamps depicting the destruction

Italy has had other micro-nations appear within it. Such as the Principality of Seborga.



The town of Seborga, originally the roman Castrum Sepulcri apparently, voted for secession from the Republic of Italy in 1995, installing this man as Prince Giorgio Carbone the First, all hail.


I can't help but find it interesting that his name is Carbone, and there used to be a radical liberal secret society in italy called the carbonari. However Carbone is a rather common name.

www.seborga.info...
www.seborga.org...

www.crwflags.com...

the mayor, Franco Fogliarini, democratically elected by the citizens of the municipality of Seborga on 13th May 2001, is openly against the independence of Mr. Carbone's "Principality",

The country also mints its own coins and issues stamps too. The currency is called a Luigino, and apparently nearby Italian towns accept Luiginos too.

the only part about this that i find hard to believe is that one luigino is worth 6 US dollars. have we sunk that far in the world market?

You might be interested to know that the UK has one of these 'micro-states' just outside of our national waters.

IIRC it was the focus of some arguement back in the 1960's - 70's and at one stage the Royal Marines were threatened to go and remove the family that had set up their little tax-free haven (I don't think it's their personal tax-free status that bothers anyone, it's the way they attempt to exploit and complicate tax rules for big business and the banks etc etc that bugs governments).

Anyhoo it is called 'Sealand' and is one of the old gun platforms that were built to help fight off invasion (some date back to Napoleon and some are WW1 & 2 things).
I don't think too many are left standing now due to their being a hazzard to shipping.

news.bbc.co.uk...

[edit on 10-1-2006 by sminkeypinkey]

snafu, I think that its merely that they are minting these coins and setting the rate at that. I don't think it has anything to do with the actual economy. Changes from that set rate would be due to economics, but the intial rate would just be made up.

SP, insteresting, thanks for the info. Very interesting that they are (at least claiming) that its for unregulated data hosting.

[edit on 10-1-2006 by Nygdan]

Interesting stuff.
I've only heard of the little fake countries that people create on line that have actually had people requesting amnesty to them.

I did a google search on micro-nation and found a site listing coins of both Seborgia and Sealand.

coins of micro-nations

They have a few others listed there.

Originally posted by Nygdan
Very interesting that they are (at least claiming) that its for unregulated data hosting.

- It's a sign of the times (and a populist imagination?) more than anything I think Nygdan; today it's a claim to be standing out for freedom in data hosting a while back it was a claim about regulation-free financial services etc etc.

As usual these are all things that, superficially at least, it may be hard to argue against.

......until people give a moment's thought to criminal gangs, mafias and terrorist groups using an unregulated financial service or, say, sex-criminals using a regulation-free data hosting service.