[letter received in Radical Party NY office from Chong-Yeong LEE, president of Universala Esperanto-Asocio]

8 Feb. 1996

Dear Mr Busdachin,

Thank you so much for your fax message, dated 5 February. I have been away for a few days and have read your fax message today.

Regarding "Alvoko" (the petition) which you mentioned in your letter, I myself collected many copies of the petition signed by Korean esperantists, when I was the president of Korean Esperanto-Asocio last year, and sent them to ERA. I have recently received acknowledgement of it from ERA. ERA wished to have addresses of KEA members, and I have suggested KEA to communicate with ERA on this matter.

I myself fully support in principle for such "petition", and I believe many esperantists also support the idea. However, since Universala Esperanto Asocio is a transnational institution, and therefore if UEA is officially to participate in such petitioning campaign, I would like to see the content of the petition be revised to suit the international nature of UEA.

Considering the present political situation in the international community, if any intergovernmental organization is to adopt Esperanto as a common auxiliary language, it would be the European Union. In that sense, Europe is the strategic region for our movement. With such basic views in mind, I support your idea of launching a large-scale campaign and holding a large-scale meeting in the European Parliament Building. In fact, we have informally discussed among us an idea of holding our annual World Esperanto Congress in Strasbourg or in Brussels in a near future. (We have even talked about a technical problem of the traditional World Congress period, which is the last week of July, which conflicts with holiday seasons of many EU parliament members).

As a prelude to such campaign, I would like to invite Ms Bonino, yourself and other non-Esperanto speaking members of your party to participate in the 81st World Esperanto Congress, 20-27 July, Prague, Czech, to observe how Esperanto works in practice. Also I would like to ask a high-ranking representative of the Transnational Radical Party to participate in the Nitobe symposium of the International Organizations on the Language for Peace and Democracy, to be held in the Congress Hall, from 21-23 July 1996, and deliver a speech on the language issue. We have given you some information on the symposium when we met you last time, but we would be happy to provide you with more information, if requested.

Ms Bonino has sent us written reply to our request for an interview. The contents of Ms Bonino's reply is very significant, and we will publish it in the February issue of our official organ, ESPERANTO. [...]

Our basic stand is that we will actively work with the Transnational Radical Party for campaigning to introduce Esperanto as the international common auxiliary language of intergovernmental organizations, such as the UN and EU. Of course UEA will work also with other organizations which share the same goal with us regarding the world language problem.

Universala Esperanto-Asocio will hold its regular board meeting at its Rotterdam Office from 30-31 March. If your representative wishes to come to our Central Office to discuss with me and other members of our board on the issues of our common interests, we will make necessary arrangements.

Sincerely yours,

LEE Chong-Yeong

President

Universala Esperanto-Asocio