TRANSNATIONAL FAX N.29
Information bulletin on the campaigns of the Transnational Radical Party
Issue #29, 15 January, 1999
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* Editor's Office: Mihai Romanciuc, Via di Torre Argentina 76, 00186 Rome (IT)
Tel : +39-6-689.791
Fax : +39-6-6880.5396
E-Mail: radical.party@agora.stm.it
URL : http://www.radicalparty.org
Telnet: agora.stm.it
* Printing and Distribution: Alberto Novi (BE)
* Published in English, Italian, French, Russian, and Spanish.
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In this issue:
- 1999 A RADICAL YEAR
- MACEDONIA: AMNESTY ADOPTED FOR THE ALBANIAN POLITICIANS BY THE PARLIAMENT
- OPEN LETTER FROM XU JIN TO THE CHINESE GOVERNMENT
- KOSOVA: TRP URGES EU TO LEGITIMIZE KLA POLITICAL ROLE
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Dear friends,
1998 has been a historic year for the international rule of law and a very important moment for our transnational radical initiatives. Our campaigns launched in 1994 at the United Nations, on the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the abolition of the death penalty saw two important victories.
Last Summer 120 Member States of the UN voted in favor of the Statute of the first permanent ICC; as of December 28, 71 of them have already signed the ICC Rome Treaty (for the complete list www.radicalparty.org). For the second consecutive year the Commission on Human Rights in Geneva has adopted a document that considers the death penalty a violation of fundamental human rights and supports the idea of a moratorium of capital executions to be established by a UN General Assembly resolution.
Moreover, since the launch of the international appeal to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) to indict Slobodan Milosevic for the crimes committed in Kosova, over 100,000 citizens have signed our petition including 309 VIPs, 512 parliamentarians and 71 University professors, in support of our text, resolutions on the Milosevic incrimination were presented in various parliaments in Europe and at the U.S. Congress. A report on the violations of International Humanitarian Law in Kosova will be presented to the Prosecutor of the ICTY this Spring together with the signatures on the appeal.
In addition to this, our ad hoc campaigns to abolish the mandatory military draft in Russia and Italy were supported by thousands of citizens and will be presented before the Geneva Commission on Human Rights. 1999 will be the year to follow up to this international mobilization, but will also be the year of the Congress of the Transnational Radical Party, a congress in which all members can participate and vote, a congress that will mark the return to our statutary life after four years of special administration.
It is very important for us to hear from you, it is very important for us that you join the Radical Party and give us the necessary strength and resources to continue the difficult and challenging endeavor of the involvement of a non-governmental actor in international politics. We need your involvement, your time and contributions to develop and refine the way in which a transnational political group can be organized and act effectively.
Our 1999 membership campaign has started, fees are 1% of national GDPs (check www.radicalparty.org for the rates); if you have a credit card you can join online or via fax, otherwise, you can send your check payable to the Radical Party to one of our addresses listed below.
Start the new year radically, become a member!
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MACEDONIA: AMNESTY ADOPTED FOR THE ALBANIAN POLITICIANS BY THE PARLIAMENT.
At the end of December, the Macedonian Parliament adopted an amnesty for Mr. Demiri, Osmani, Dauti, Bekheti, the Albanian politicians members of local administrations and also members of the Radical Party. All politicians were sentenced to long prison terms last Spring for holding demonstrations in favor of the Albanian minority living in the Country. On 17 December 1998, under the initiative of the MEPs members of the Radical Party, the European Parliament adopted a resolution that was encouraging the new Macedonian Government to grant amnesties to the Albanian politicians. On the occasion of the parliamentary vote, TRP Secretary Olivier Dupuis congratulated the new Prime Minister for his courageous decision to keep his word and initiate an actual cooperation with the Albanian minority. Mr. Dupuis also expressed his appreciation for the new direction in which the new governmental majority is leading the Country, a direction that should make Macedonia apply for the EU membership as soon as possible.
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OPEN LETTER FROM XU JIN TO THE CHINESE GOVERNMENT
What follows is a letter from Xu Jin, daughter of Xu Wenli, recently sentenced to 13 years in prison for trying to form a political party in China. Xu Jin is a student at Boston University. She, Wang Xizhe and several other Chinese people have staged a hunger strike in front of the UN headquarters in New York on December 27, after her father had been sentenced.
letter courtesy of Hong Kong Human Rights Monitor.
Open Letter to the Chinese Government
On Monday, November 30th, you jailed my father, Xu Wenli, yet again. This time you accuse him of "subverting the government." I grew up without him. In 1981, when I was eight years old, you imprisoned my non-violent father for twelve years because he advocated free speech. He was in solitary confinement for his entire term. For three of those years he was kept in a room not much wider or longer than a coffin and was allowed no visitors.
All he has done is to try to register a new political group, the Chinese Democratic Party. There is no law against forming a political party. If you don't want him to do this, you certainly have the power to stop him, you do not need to jail him.
Since his release in 1993 and for five years incessantly, you have had a team of police watching our house. Several stand near the front door while others sit in the apartment next door. We have no back door, just a window facing a schoolyard. Several police sit in the schoolyard and stare at the window. Every time my father left the house, he was followed by a car, motorcycle and men on foot. In April and July of this year, and again on Monday, your police raided the house. In these raids you have taken three fax machines, three computers, two photocopiers, one typewriter, a portable telephone, address books, my mother's personal journal, some novels, and any papers you could find.
I am in school here in Boston University because you won't allow me to attend college in China. I earned the money to buy those computers by washing dishes and waiting tables. Why are you afraid of my father and me?
My father has ideas about democracy and freedom but he has no soldiers and no secret police. He cannot hurt you. Let him go.
The newspapers here report that you recently signed the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Show the world, my mother, and myself that your signature means something. Xu Jin
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DUPUIS ASKS THE EU TO RECOGNIZE KLA POLITICAL ROLE IN KOSOVA.
Very critical of the Western approach to the war in Kosova, last week TRP Secretary Olivier Dupuis voiced his concerns on the occasion of the last police crackdown on ethnic Albanians living in the region. Remembering the dimensions of the Serbian offensive, which has provoked thousands of deaths and hundreds of thousands of refugees, villages destroyed and houses looted, Mr. Dupuis urged the European Union to recognize the political role of the Kosova Liberation Army (KLA) and its leadership in the struggle for the freedom of all Kosovars. While asking the international community to facilitate the creation of a radio station to inform the region of the criminal intentions of the nazi-communist regime of Milosevic, TRP Secretary also launched several appeals:
to the Prosecutor of the Yugoslav Tribunal to take into consideration the eventual incrimination of Slobodan Milosevic;
to NATO to activate itself against Yugoslav military positions;
to OSCE to withdraw its verifiers who are hostages of the Belgrade regime.
Any delay in acting against the Yugoslav regime will provoke more deaths, more refugees and more destruction Dupuis concluded.
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SUBSCRIPTION FEES 1999: The subscription fes vary from nation to nation, according to the criteria of 1% of the PIL. They follow the fees relative to the distibution of the bulletin in the nations where it is most diffuse. For the missing nations, please contact the editorial office.
Albania 5 USD - Austria 2.400 ATS - Azerbajian 3 USD - Belgium 7.000 BEF - Bulgaria 8 USD - Canada 285 CAD - Czech Republic 27 USD - Croatia 35 DEM - Denmark 1.800 DKK - France 1.300 FRF - Germany 460 DEM - Hungary 27 USD -Ireland 78 IEP - Italy 365.000 LIT - Netherlands 370 NLG - Poland 23 USD - Portugal 11.600 PTE - Rumania 12 USD - Russia 19 USD - Slovenia 85 DEM - Spain 17.600 ESB - Switzerland 500 CHF - Ukraine 13 USD - United Kingdom 129 GBP - United States 260 USD.
