ABSTRACT: There are places on this planet where the principles on which co-existence between peoples should be based are violated, where existence is denied to individuals or entire peoples. In the case of Tibet, the world is witnessing true genocide.

The UN does not go beyond resolutions, which remain at the stage of good intentions because they conflict with the principle that governs human co-existence: the unlimited sovereignty of each State. If the UN acted as a federation, with a legislative assembly, a government, a supreme court, and its own force of dissuasion, preferably merely a policing rather than a military force, then it would be possible to achieve the affirmation of justice in the world. To fight for a reform of the United Nations Organization, considering how long such a project would take, may seem to be a Utopia. But some Utopias are reasonable, and the Radical Party believes that this is one of them.

(The Party New, n.4, September 1991)

With increasing frequency the UN is called upon to intervene in controversies and armed conflicts which, wherever they take place, involve the whole of the planet. Often, however, due to the fact that it lacks binding powers, the UN does not go beyond resolutions that remain at the level of good intentions.

For this reason a reform of the UN, although difficult, is urgently needed, and should be carried out in view of the final aim: that of a world federation, the final stage of a union of "regional" federations. Although the UN is undoubtedly more than the Society of Nations - a simple alliance of a number of severeign States which assumed the right to decide the fate of the world at the end of the Second World War - it is nevertheless true that as long as the principle which governs human co-existence is the unlimited sovereignty of each individual State, then it will be difficult to take concrete steps forward. It would be different, however, if the UN acted as a federation, with a legislative assembly, a government, a supreme court, and its own force of dissuasion, preferably merely a policing rather than a military force. We are aware that it would take an enormous amount of time to realize this great project, that it is nearer to a Utopia than to reason, so that solutions for the near future are required.

These include: the recognition of countries which have recently regained freedom; the expulsion of countries which are now ruled by dictatorships or which violate the rights of the individual, of minorities, and of religious groups; the extension of the power of policing, based on the principle of the right of interference for cases of genocide or for the defence of oppressed minorities (the intolerable situation in Tibet is described on this page); the extension and the re-organization of the Security Council, which should be opened up to countries that have evolved considerably in the fifty years of the Organization's existence, especially in Asia and Africa; the assumption of binding powers by certain specialized agencies, existing or yet to be created, especially for those sectors which, by virtue of their nature or their dimensions, involve whole regions or even the entire world: the environment, energy, health, the traffic of drugs, underdevelopment, and famine.

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Genocide in Tibet

ABSTRACT: On 10 March 1959, after decades of violent occupation by Chinese forces, the first revolt of the Tibetan population was suppressed amidst horrific bloodshed. Thousands of people died and tens of thousands more were imprisoned.

(The Party New, n.4, September 1991)

After more than thirty years the Tibetans are still asking for respect for their culture, their language, their lives.

The women are forced to have abortions or are sterilized under the effect of anesthetic; six thousand temples have been destroyed; eighty per cent of the forests have been razed to the ground to obtain wood for exportation; China has set up nuclear arms factories and deposits of waste materials in the area; Amnesty International reports mass arrests, torture, indiscriminate use of the death penalty, and killings without trial.

This violence and barbarity is countered by the nonviolent voice of the spiritual authority of the Tibetan people. Since 1960 the Dalai Lama has been living in Dharamsala, a village in the Indian Himalayas. In 1989 he addressed an appeal to the European European Parliament for freedom and peace in Tibet and for the establishment of an agreement with China.

"For more than a thousand years," he said, "we Tibetans have been inspired by spiritual and environmental values, with the purpose of maintaining the delicate ecological balance on our earth. Inspired by the Buddhist message of nonviolence and compassion, and protected by our mountains, we have decided to respect all forms of life and not to turn to war as an instrument of international politics.

More than a million Tibetans have died as a result of the Chinese occupation. A whole generation has grown up without education, economic opportunities, and a sense of their own national identity.

I have always urged my people not to turn to violence in their efforts to escape from suffering. Unfortunately the demonstrations in Tibet have been suppressed violently by the Chinese police and army. I will continue to counsel nonviolence."

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To love Israel is to love the religion of freedom

ABSTRACT: The State of Israel gave profound recognition to the nonviolent identity of the Radical Party at the beginning of July 1991. During the course of a ceremony at the seat of the Jewish Community of Rome, a wood was dedicated to Marco Pannella and the Radical Party. Those present included Piero Abbina, of the "Keren Kaymeth Leisrael", Mordechrai Drory, Iraeli ambassor to Italy at the time, Sergio Frassineti, President of the Jewish Community of Rome, Angelo Pezzana, President of the Federation of Italy-Israel Associations, Elio Toaff, Chief Rabbi of Rome, Bruno Zevi, Honorary President of the Radical Party, and Tullia Zevi, President of the Union of Jewish Communities in Italy.

Following is the speech given by Marco Pannella on the occasion.

(The Party New, n.4, September 1991)

Love for Zionism. Zionism is Socialist, liberal Humanism, not the Utopia of fanatics which leads to cruelty and generates death; it is the Utopia of trees, of the earth, of the culture of the earth. In the face of the risk and the reality of the desertification of the world, for years Israel has been carrying out a reforestation project to bring the desert back to life. This human and moral undertaking, which is an epic deed of Humanism, is a powerful, human, dramatic return to the earth, against a mean earth which can, at times, seem cruel.

Those who read about this idea of a wood dedicated to the Radical Party will certainly need to reflect further, they will for a while move away from us, for anti-Zionism is an involuntary cultural reflex.

I belong to a political body which does not allow, which does not even admit a failure to intervene in the face of violations of legality: it is difficult in today's world to be nonviolent and Ghandian and not to commit the crime of connivance with violence, day after day, through failure to intervene. The symbol of the Radical Party represents the face of a good man; a man who suffers, perhaps with an element of cruelty in his suffering. Ghandi had a serious fault -- that he did not understand the greatness of Zionism and the nature of the history of Judaism and the Jews; that this emblem is honoured this evening is reason for consolation, because it means that as a tribute to that which is great in the religion of freedom and nonviolence, something which should have been pardoned has been pardoned from within the Jewish and Israeli world. I have sometimes said that if I had been a member of the Knesset I would have said and done very different things in defence of the civil and democratic rights of my soci

ety and my State, of its secularity, of the certainty of justice, of respect for those who are different and for minorities; in all my demonstrations of love, to the extent that I am suspected of a subconscious bias towards Israel, there is a conscious, difficult, dramatic, and convinced expression of love for each and every Palestinian woman and man. It is not a matter of choice, as far as we are concerned, between Israel, the Palestinians, and all the others. I should stress that the current tragedy is clearly expressed by the fact that in the choice of war - with all that it necessarily involves in terms of the impoverishment of both sides, and very often of the reinforcement of that which is worse - there is the conviction that in the errors, in the wickedness of both sides lies the highest level of decorum and dignity that the citizens of the Middle East manage to obtain from their States. This is the reality that we have to face. And this is why we are opposed to a conference which brings together tyra

nts of the right, the left, and the centre round the same table -- tyrants all, though some of them may have a greater dose of liberalism than others, for whom the life of women, in particular, but also of men, is not that of citizens, but of subjects and, very often, of lambs to the slaughter.