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X-Comment: The Transnational Radical Party List

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US: THE RADICAL PARTY AND AGORA ON THE FRONT PAGE

San Francisco Chronicle, Tuesday, November 2, 1993, front page:

Global, Online Political Party Takes Mission to UN Leaders", by John

Eckhouse.

Computer users of the world, uniteonline. Karl Marx's vision of an

International political party traversing national boundaries to pressure

the ruling class never came true, but then he did not know how to use

Internet.

Initially financed by the US government, the electronic superhighway is in

the vanguard of organizing the Transnational Radical Party, whose leaders

are scheduled to meet with UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali today

in New York.

This year, more than 40,000 people of 75 nationalities have joined the

party, which calls for members to lobby their legislators to adopt laws

that would help expand UN peacekeeping operations, abolish the death

penalty, protect the environment and decriminalize drug use.

Most people hear about the party through traditional means such as word of

mouth, handbills or newspaper articles. But when the party took out its

first US newspaper advertisement, it invited people who wanted more details

to send a message on Internet, which is used by about 20 million people.

"We received through Internet 150 requests for information and only 100 by

letter," said Emma Bonino, political secretary of the Transnational Radical

Party and deputy speaker of the Italian Chamber of Deputies. "This shows me

we are only beginning to find ways of using Internet." Through the network,

people with a computer and a modem attached to a telephone line can obtain

the party's political initiatives in six languages. Visitors also can chat,

exchange opinions or plot strategy on the party electronic bulletin boards

known as "agora", or "the square", located at its headquarters in Rome.

Internt may be of little use, however, in less developed nations where few

people have access to computers.

"To get connected in Georgia, Moldavia or Macedonia is, frankly speaking,

quite difficult," Bonino said. "But in the United States it is surely more

effective and will be far cheaper to organize this way than through a

full-page ad in your New York Times." Her delegation, mostly members of the

national parliaments in Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia, Egypt and Canada, met

yesterday with the presidents of the UN Security Council and General

Assembly. Today, they will present Boutros-Ghali with a petition signed by

30,000 people calling for the immediate establishment of an International

court to judge war crimes committed in the former Yugoslavia. Although

approved in May by the United Nations, the judicial body has not received

money to operate.

The Transnational Radical Party also wants the United Nations to lead an

International campaign to abolish the death penalty by the year 2000; to

renounce the 1988 Prague Convention, which called for criminalization of

drug use; and to send more peacekeeping forces to countries where human

rights are under attack.

The party consisted mostly of Italians until recently. But this year, it

has expanded into Eastern Europe, Latin America, Africa, and the United

States.

Annual dues are 1 per cent of the per capita gross national product of the

member's country. The 1993 membership fee for residents of the United

States is $255, which Marx might have thought a bit steep for the computer

proletariat.

"It's quite expensive, but politics are expensive," Bonino said. "As we

found in Italy, either you get your money through corruption, or you ash

the people for the money to make changes.":

For further information, send electronic mail to e.bonino@agora.stm.it.

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