TRANSNATIONAL FAX #33
Information bulletin on the campaigns of the Transnational Radical Party
Issue 33, May 24, 1999
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* Editor's Office: Mihai Romanciuc, Via di Torre Argentina 76, 00186 Rome (IT)
Tel :+39-06-689.791
Fax :+39-06-6880.5396
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:
- the EP for the moratorioum on death penalty
- the EP adopts a resolution on the ICC
- Kosovo: the resignation of the Prosecutor ARBOUR
- Kosovo: declarations of Rugova
- Gypsies: the decisions of Italian Parliament
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THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT PRONOUNCES ITSELF FOR AN EU INITIATIVE IN FAVOUR OF
THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A UNIVERSAL MORATORIUM ON CAPITAL EXECUTIONS AT THE NEXT
UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY.
Strasbourg. The resolution adopted unanimously on 7 May 1999, by the EP emphasises
that the approval for three consecutive years of a resolution advocating the
abolition of the death penalty by the United Nations Commission on Human Rights
as well as its sponsorship of an ever increasing number of countries, constitutes
the premises for the establishment of a principle of international law which
should be now affirmed by the UN General Assembly.
On this, Olivier Dupuis, Secretary General of the Radical Party and MEP has
declared: "Through this resolution, the Parliament indicates to the Council
that the time has come to carry out this autumn the battle in favour of the
establishment of a universal moratorium on capital executions at the UNGA.
The increased number of abolitionist countries - more than 100 today - as
well as the success obtained at the United Nations Commission on Human Rights
in the last 3 years, do not actually leave any doubt about the result of a
vote at the General Assembly. We hope that the Council will be able to transform
the will constantly reiterated by the Parliament and by numerous European
citizens in favour of the establishment of this new princliple of international
law into a concrete political initiative."
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EP: RESOLUTION ON THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT
At the initiative of the radical deputies Dupuis, Secretary of the TRP, and
Dell'Alba, Segretary of No Peace Without Justice, last week the European Parliament
adopted a resolution on the ratification of the Statute of the International
Criminal Court. The document invites the Commission, the Council and EU Member
States to promote early ratification of the Statute by each of the applicant
states; moreover it requests the Council and the Commission to make signing
and/or ratification of the Statute of the ICC an essential negotiating point
in concluding future agreements with third countries. Furthermore, the document
recommends to the Member States not to make use of the 'opt out' (Article
124) whereby they may exclude war crimes from the jurisdiction of the Court
for an interim period of seven years.
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KOSOVO/ICTY: THE INCREASINGLY LIKELY RESIGNATION OF PROSECUTOR ARBOUR SHOULD
NOT TURN INTO A PEARL HARBOUR FOR THE TRIBUNAL. THE WAR IN KOSOVO DEMANDS
THAT CONTINUITY AND THE STRENGTHENING OF THE TRIBUNAL BE SECURED BY NOMINATING
THE CURRENT DEPUTY PROSECUTOR, GRAHAM BLEWITT.
The increasing rumours on the imminent nomination of Louise Arbour to the
Canadian Supreme Court, and her resignation from the post of Chief Prosecutor
of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, as well
as the credible reports that the main task of Yugoslav negotiators is to ensure
that any peace agreement will include an immunity clause for President Milosevic
with respect to the atrocities committed by his forces in Kosovo, demand that
the international community, and in particular the UN Security Council, do
not spare any effort to ensure the continuity and the strengthening of the
capacity of the International Tribunal. The experience and the role played
by Mr. Graham Blewitt, the current deputy-prosecutor, make him the best candidate
available today.
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KOSOVO: SERIOUS CONCERNS ON STATEMENTS BY LDK PRESIDENT RUGOVA
Statement by Olivier Dupuis, Secretary of the TRP and MEP
Brussels - Rome, 19 May 1999. Ibrahim Rugova, President of the LDK, in a
statement reported in the German newspaper 'Die Woche', has openly renounced
the so-called "Rambouillet-bis" agreement, that he had signed. The agreement
provided for an interim government for Kosovo, with the participation of the
three major Kosovar political bodies: the LDB of Rexhepi Qosja, the UCK and
the LDK, with at the UCK at the presidency of the interim Government. By
renouncing the agreement, Rugova achieves nothing but making more difficult
the dramatic efforts of resistance of all the Kosovar people. The insistence
by Mr. Rugova in identifying in Milosevic a necessary interlocutor for peace
agreement is at the very least "inappropriate" while thousands of Kosovars
everyday are victims of a criminal policy of the Milosevic regime - used as
human shields, massacred, tortured, raped - while a million Kosovars have
already been deported from their homes."
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SCANDAL IN THE ITALIAN SENATE ON THE LINGUISTIC MINORITIES: ONE OF THE MOST
ANCIENT IDENTITIES OF THE PENINULA EXCLUDED, THE GYPSIES.
The Commissions of Constitutional Affairs and Public Instruction of the Senate
have started in their joint session a discussion of a Draft Law on linguistic
minorities, already approved by the Chamber. In this context Paolo Pietrosanti,
Member of General Council of the TRP, has declared that from the discussion
"have dissappeared the Gypsies. In one of the initial versions of the Draft
Law on the linguistic minorities, the list of those minorities has contained
also the one of Gypsies, which has later dissappeared. And the Law on the
linguistic minorities, which reaches the Senate, does not contain even one
word on a population which has been in Italy for centuries, which mostly is
not nomad, and which is consituted by Italian citizens. The Gypsies, the Roma,
and the Sikhs have been cancelled. More than 100.000 Italian citizens are
burried in this way, for the only reason of being Gypsies, rather than included
with other nationalities. Those who speak about Gypsies loose votes.
