Italy-China
LET US NOT FORGET TIEN AN MEN: RADICAL DEMONSTRATION
Rome, 2 June 1990. About sixty radicals, among which Italian and European parliamentarians, demonstrated in front of the Embassy of China to recall the tragic events of last year, when the great hopes born of the movement for democracy were brutally assasinated.
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Italy-Tibet
YES, IN ANY CASE, TO ARAFAT, NO TO TIBET. STATEMENT BY MARCO PANNELLA.
Rome, 2 June 1990. Yes to Arafat, in any case. Yes to the PLO, in any case. Yes even when it systematically murder other Palestinians, accusing them of collaborationism.
The Dalai Lama was received in Rome by the Pope but not by the President of the Republic, because of the government's negative opinion; he was not received by the Prime Minister, not by the Presidents of the Chambers, out of a base solidarity with the assassins of Tien An Men and of Tibet, or out of a blind, even more than cynical, realism.
It is necessary to denounce this attitude, which is a European attitude as well as an Italian one. Starting from the Chamber of Deputies and the European Parliament, as well as with political, democratic, anti-partisan and non-violent battles and initiatives.
==================================================================Italy
PIERLUIGI CONCUTELLI, FORMER MILITARY LEADER OF ORDINE NUOVO, AND MAGED EL MOLKY, PALESTINIAN, CONVICTED FOR THE SEIZURE OF THE "ACHILLE LAURO", BOTH DETAINED IN THE PENITENTIARY OF REBIBBIA-ROME, HAVE JOINED THE RADICAL PARTY.
Rome, 5 June 1990. Pierluigi Concutelli, former military leader of Ordine Nuovo, convicted to life sentence for the murder of Justice Occorsio, detained in the penitentiary of Rebibbia, joined the Radical Party. Togther with his application, the Radical party also received the application of Maged el Molky, Palestinian, convicted for the seizure of the "Achille Lauro", also detained in the penitentiary of Rebibbia.
We would like to recall that roughly one hundred prisoners have joined the Radical party, and among these about twenty persons convicted for acts of terrorism. The latter include Alberto Franceschini, founder of the Red Brigades, Sergio Segio and Nicola Solimano, leaders of Prima Linea, Luca Frassineti of the COLP, Rocco Martino of Azione Rivoluzionaria, and Livio Lai of the NAR. The prisoners asked the Radical Party to firmly defend the Gozzini Law against new laws that want to exlude certain categories of prisoners from the benefits provided for by the the new penal code.
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Italy
MEMBERSHIPS FROM THE PRISONS: STATEMENT BY SERGIO D'ELIA, FEDERAL COUNCILLOR OF THE RADICAL PARTY.
Rome, 5 June 1990. "The application request to the Radical Party - Sergio D'Elia, former member of Prima Linea, now federal councillor of the Radical Party stated - to the federalist and non-violent international, of Concutelli, Maged el Molky and many others accused or convicted for facts of political violence, is a signal of hope, coming from the prisons, for the life of the Radical Party, but is also a warning to all those who, in full freedom and responsibility, prove that they are incapable or unwilling to ensure themselves and our society the good and the work of the Radical Party. If in the days to come, from the prisoners and their families, we were to receive 1000 membership applications, then we would have a huge power, we would be a party (also) of prisoners, and we could organize ourselves in order to assert the civil and political rights of convicted people, to achieve, for example, the right to vote for prisoners".
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Italy
AFTER THE DEFEAT OF THE REFERENDUM AGAINST HUNTING AND PESTICIDES, IT IS NECESSARY TO FACE THE REAL PROBLEM, THAT OF TELEVISION INFORMATION. STATEMENT BY PEPPINO CALDERISI, RADICAL, PRESIDENT OF THE EUROPEAN FEDERALIST GROUP AT THE CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES.
Rome, 7 June 1990. After the defeat in the referendums on hunting and pesticides, due to the fact that the necessary 50% rate of electors was not reached, Peppino Calderisis, Radical, president of the European federalist group at the Chamber of Deputies, stated: "(...)
The referendum is the means by which a share of citizens has the right to convoke all the electoral body to decide on a specific question. To truly guarantee this right, it is necessary for all the electoral body to take part in a dispute between the different theses. This has never occurred. The abstentionist propaganda has also been censored. If the television had aired direct confrontations between the abstention and participation fronts, citizens would have easily been able to make a truly aware choice, and most probably we would have obtained a different result. Unfortunately, not even the Greens understood this, in that they did not invite the advocates of abstention to a direct and explicit confrontation."
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Italy-Europe
EUROPEAN UNION:"NO TO A FRAUD UNION". MEETING BETWEEN THE SECRETARY OF THE RADICAL PARTY, SERGIO STANZANI, AND THE SECRETARY OF THE EUROPEAN FEDERALIST MOVEMENT, GIOVANNI VIGO.
Rome, 7 June 1990. Following their meeting on the problems of the European Union, the secretary of the Radical Party, Sergio Stanzani, and the secretary of the European Federalist Movement, Giovanni Vigo, delivered the following combined statement: "The next few months will be decisive for the future of Europe and its nations. The economic and monetary unification is already in progress. What still remains to be done is a choice relative to the kind of political Union we want to build. The Foreign Ministers of the Community took a step toward an unacceptable direction in Parknasilla, when they agreed on a Union founded not on a federal basis and on democracy, but on the strengthening of the European Council.
The Radical party and the European Federalist Movement stress the fact that this is an anti-democratic choice, because it excludes the European Parliament from the process of construction of Europe, that is, the legitimate representative of the European citizens, and that it is an uneffective option because, without a democratic government, the Community cannot give a strong social feature to the economic and monetary union, nor actively participate in the construction, already in progress, of the new European and global configuration.
The Radical Party and the European Federalist Movement believe:
a) that the institutional electoral system of the European Union should involve the transformation of the Commission into a true European government, with limited but real powers, to be responsible before the European Parliament; that the latter must be given legislative powers; that the Council of Ministers must gradually become a Chamber of the States;
b) that the only effective and legitimate way to achieve the European Union is that of giving the European Parliament a constituent mandate, as suggested by 88% of the Italian citizens in the 18 June 1989 referendum. They also believe that as far as the intergovernmental conference on the Political Union is concerned, the Italian government must obtain the respect of its formal reservations as regards any non-democratic project of European Union already in the coming Dublin summit, and resolve to keep the problem open until it has received a solution that is respectful of the principles of democracy.
==================================================================Soviet Union
76 DEPUTIES OF THE MOSCOW SOVIET SIGNED AN APPEAL FOR THE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTION. STATEMENT BY ALEXANDER KALININ, MEMBER OF THE RADICAL PARTY, DEPUTY OF THE MOSCOW SOVIET.
Moscow, 8 June 1990. "(...) It is necessary to remark that the deputies of the Mossoviet who signed the appeal consider the Congress of the popular deputies of the Russian Federation as the highest body of the power of sovereignty, and that it has the power to take decisions on whatever issue. (...) Other deputies, namely N.K. Nikolaev, believe it necessary to send the Appeal both to the Congress of the Deputies of the people of the Russian Federation, both to the Soviet Union's Supreme Soviet. (...) All the signers of the Mossoviet basically consider the right to refuse military service for reasons of conscience as an essential supplement of the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, and to the right to freedom of beliefs and free expression of these beliefs, whereas the alternative civil service is considered the necessary condition for the passage toward the constitution of a professional army.
The fact that at the moment of submitting the Appeal to the Congress of the Deputies of the Russian Federation, it was signed by 76 deputies of the Mossoviet, is the proof of the progressive demilitarization of the Soviet citizens' way of thinking, it proves their awareness as regards the organic inter-relation between the industrial-military complex and the compulsive administrative system, and points to a higher degree of criticism on the part of the society (at any rate, the politically aware part) as regards the exaggerated quantity of interpellations issued by the Military Conscription Committee. All these tendencies reflect, and at the same time create, a stimulus to carry out a large-scale transformation. Unless these changes do not become the object of obstructive tactics (a hypothesis which unfortunately cannot be discarded), it will be possible, in a short lapse of time, to reach the establishment of a new social awareness from the point of view of the quality, based on the absolute acknowledgemen
t of the dignity and the rights of the individual, thus making the compulsive administrative system become ethically unacceptable and repulsive."
==================================================================Bulgaria
ELECTIONS: THE PRESENCE OF ADELAIDE AGLIETTA, RADICAL, MEMBER OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT FOR THE GREEN GROUP
Sophia, 10 June 1990. Adelaide Aglietta, president of the European Parliament-Rumania Commission and of the European Parliament-Bulgaria Commission, attended the Bulgarian elections as an international observer.
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Rumania-European Parliament
INTERVENTION OF ADELAIDE AGLIETTA, RADICAL MEMBER OF THE GREEN GROUP
Strasburg, 13 June 1990. As soon as the news coming from Bucarest arrived, according to which the students of the University Square had been evacuated with force, brutally beaten up and prevented from transmitting a communiqué on the Rumanian television, Adelaide Aglietta, president of the European parliament-Rumania delegation, intervened in Parliament, asking the immediate suspension of the commercial agreements that had been signed a few weeks previously with Rumania. Given that the regulation does not allow the discussion of a theme that is not on the day's agenda, Aglietta asked this official stance of the European parliament to be expressed through its president. On the following day, the executive Commission of the European Commission announced the suspension of the commercial agreements. During the July session, Aglietta will present an urgent resolution on behalf of the green group of the European Parliament, asking to confirm the decision of suspending the agreements until these tragical events wil
l have been fully explained, and until the Rumanian government will have given guarantees that there will be no further acts of violence.
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Italy
EUROPEAN CONSTRUCTION: A LETTER BY PEPPINO CALDERISI, PRESIDENT OF THE EUROPEAN FEDERALIST PARLIAMENTARY GROUP TO NILDE IOTTI, PRESIDENT OF THE ITALIAN CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES.
Rome, 14 June 1990. "(the lack of debate in the Italian parliament is) so much more serious if we consider that the thesis is prevailing not of a federal type of union, with the attribution of effective powers to the European Parliament - as the Italian Parliament and the electoral body have long since suggested with the 18 June 1989 referendum - but of a confederate and intergovernmental type of union, a Europe of homelands.
The question is not that of taking more or less small steps, the question is in what direction, because we are confronted with completely different policies."
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Italy
THE RADICALS OF THE CORA (RADICAL ANTI-PROHIBITIONIST COORDINATION) OFFER THE PREFECT OF ROME, ALESSANDRO VOCI, A PACKET OF CAMOMILE.
Rome, 14 June 1990. To support the prefect of Rome in the impossible task of applying the new antiprohibitionist laws, passed by the Italian parliament, the Radical Anti-prohibitionist Coordination offered him a sizeable bag of camomile.
==================================================================Italy-Parliament
TO REDUCE AND CANCEL THE SANTIONS AGAINST SOUTH AFRICA. MOTION SIGNED BY CHRISTIAN-DEMOCRATS, SOCIAL-DEMOCRATS, REPUBLICANS, RADICALS DEPOSITED AT THE CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES. STATEMENT BY GIOVANNI NEGRI, RADICAL, SOCIAL-DEMOCRAT DEPUTY.
Rome, 15 June 1990. "It is not a lack of respect for Mandela, nor an abstraction. It is a serious and up-to-date proposal, which goes against any form of demagogy. I am very glad that the Christian Democrat Party, the Republican Party, the Social Democrat Party and the Radical Party are asking, with a motion, to lift the sanctions against South Africa.
We will finally have a serious parliamentary debate on the major issues concerning racial cohabitation, starvation, under-development and immigration, because to talk about South Africa means to talk about all this". "In this occasion - Giovanni Negri continued - I would like to give a contribution to the debate on South Africa, recalling that:
1) Millions of coloured people have migrated to South Africa to live and work. They did so knowing that South Africa is the African country with the highest standard of living, even among the coloured population.
2) The so-called Soweto ghetto is more civilized than many peripheries of our Italian cities. And it is heaven compared to the bidonvilles of so many African capitals, ruled by dictatorial and fierce regimes (with which the Italian government happily "cooperates"), which condemn their own citizens to starvation, under-development and the complete negation of civil and human rights.
3) The South African perestrojka can give a first example, in a short period of time, of a fully democratic and developed multi-ethnic society, the necessary step toward the development of a country which is ever more deeply concerned by under-development.
4) The sanctions have not caused any damage to the South African economy, and underline the new, patent contradictions of a country such as Italy.
Italy is introducing immigration restrictions, whereas South Africa isn't. We "cooperate" with the various Mobutu and Siad Barre, whose regimes are denounced by Amnesty International and whose opponents "disappear".
We ignore tens of thousands of people who are starved to death, for whom there is no "anti-aparhteid committee", whereas in actual fact an apartheid is developing in our own cities.
Therefore, precisely because we have fought for Mandela's liberation, we now say that the time of sanctions is past. And that the new, tragical problems of our societies require us to talk some truth about South Africa - Bothersome, perhaps, but truth nonetheless.
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Italy-Tibet
WELCOME BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC AND THE PRIME MINISTER: YES TO ARAFAT AND MANDELA, NO TO THE DALAI LALA, WHY? STATEMENT BY EMILIO VESCE, RADICAL, DEPUTY OF THE VERDE ARCOBALENO GROUP.
Rome, 15 June 1990."With all the respect I have for Mandela, and the battle he conducted, it is really difficult to understand the reasons which lead the President of the Republic Cossiga and the Prime Minister Andreotti to receive him with all the possible honours, as if he were a head of state - just like they received Jasser Arafat - whereas they didn't bother to receive or even talk to the Dalai Lama, Nobel Prize for Peace 1989. We acknowledge the fact that, without a word of explanation, the two leaders who advocated the armed battle (and everyone is free to judge this as he wants to) were received with all the possible honours, whereas the highest political witnesses and protagonists of non-violent battles are treated as outsiders by the Quirinale and by Palazzo Chigi. It seems to us only legitimate to ask for an explanation for this behaviour."
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Italy-Rumania
DEMONSTRATION OF THE RADICAL PARTY IN FRONT OF THE EMBASSY OF RUMANIA, WITH THE PARTICIPATION OF SEVERAL RUMANIAN CITIZENS.
Rome, 16 June 1990. 300 people, among whom many Rumanian citizens, took part in a demonstration organized by the Radical Party in front of the Rumanian embassy. The radicals showed a large banner reading: "Rumania: freedom, democracy, non-violence". There were also many banners carried by demonstrators condemning the violences occurred in Bucharest in these days, and especially denouncing the responsibility of Rumanian President Iliescu. The demonstrators met with the chargé d'affaires of the embassy, who came out of the embassy into the street and answered the questions posed by the Rumanian citizens and the journalists, expressing his disagreement with the use of violence in these days in his country."
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DEMONSTRATION OF THE RADICAL PARTY IN FRONT OF THE RUMANIAN EMBASSY.
Prague, 18 June 1990. About 100 Radicals, among whom the European deputies Pannella, Aglietta, Taradash, the Italian deputies Calderisi, Negri, Cicciomessere, senator Strick-Lievers, as well as Soviet, Lithuanian, Yugoslavian, Belgian, French, Rumanian and Hungarian radical activists, demonstrated in front of the Rumanian embassy of Prague to denounce the intolerable acts of violence which the new authorities of this country are responsible for.
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IN THE OCCASION OF THE RUMANIA-ARGENTINA MATCH, APPEAL BY THE RADICALS AND THE ITALIAN HELSINKI COMMITTEE TO THE ITALIAN SUPPORTERS AND TO THE ROMANIAN AND ARGENTINIAN TEAMS. ONE MINUTE OF SILENCE IN WORLD VISION TO SAY ENOUGH TO BLOOD AND VIOLENCE.
Rome, 18 June 1990- "It was important, said Violeta Barascu, a Rumanian member of the Radical Party, and Mariateresa Di Lascia, federal councillor of the Radical Party, to make an act of tangible solidarity with the Rumanian people, first oppressed by Ceaucescu and today by Iliescu. One minute of silence is simply an emblematic and possible act, which can be more significant than a speech, and can give courage to a people who feels so much more isolated and prey to violence and folly".
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FOUR OR FIVE MAJOR FEDERAL STATES TO PREPARE THE NEW DEVELOPMENT OF DEMOCRACY FOR THE WHOLE PLANET.
Prague, 18 June 1990.In the context of the Radical party's "New Europe" seminar held in Prague from the 17th to the 18th of June, Marco Pannella was interviewed by Zemedelske Noviny.
(...) Q: What are the ideas of the Radical Party as regards the future of Europe?
A: We have always been European federalists: not only we do not believe in socialism in just one single country, but we do not even believe in democracy in one single country. We think that in the entire world there should be four of five major federal states which can prepare the new development toward democracy for the whole planet. I find the illusions that it is possible to return to the democracies of 1918-1919 or 1945 extremely dangerous. The democrats who wanted democracy and independence for their country have been overthrown first by the fascists and then by the communists.
Q: Europe is experiencing a process of democratization, but also of consolidation of the nationalist and seperatist tendencies. How do you judge these?
A: They are the consequence of the existence of national states. In 150 years time, Britain has not managed to solve the Irish problem, just like Spain hasn't solved the Basque problem. It is not possible to ensure freedom and rights to all citizens, to all countries and to all minorities neither in a national democracy nor in a communist democracy: in the United States of Europe these problems would cease to exist. We need a European federal State, not small European states.
==================================================================Soviet Union
USSR: THE BIRTH OF A LIBERTARIAN PARTY: A COMMENT BY THE RADICAL PARTY.
Rome, 20 June 1990. "We have been informed that, during the convention of the transnational Radical Party in Prague, attended by radical representatives of different countries of Central and Eastern Europe, Russians included, the same Party would supposedly have summoned a convention on different topics in Moscow. At the same meeting, it is not clear of whom and attended by whom, it was supposedly decided to found a "Libertarian Party". While wishing this new political formation much luck, the Radical Party wishes to specify, if it were necessary, that it has nothing to do with this episode and that it is bears absolutely no relation to this new party.
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CONSTITUTIONAL MEETING OF THE EUROPEAN MOVEMENT
Zagreb, 23 June 1990. Vito Cesmadiszki, secretary of the Radical Association for the United States of Europe, took part in the constitutional meeting of the Croatian Council of the European Movement.
==================================================================Demnark
INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION OF AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL ON HUMAN RIGHTS AND CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTION: AN INTERVENTION BY NIKOLAJ KHRAMOV FROM MOSCOW FOR THE RADICAL PARTY.
Copenhagen, 27 June 1990. The Radical Party delegated Nikolaj Khramov, a radical member from Moscow, actively engaged in the USSR in non-violent battles for peace and disarmament, to attend the assizes of Amnesty International. In his intervention, Khramov also presented the document in favour of conscientious objection promoted by Radical Kalinin and signed by 76 deputies of the Supreme Soviet of Moscow. Further information will be provided in the next issue of the Radical Letter.
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RAOUL VALLENBERG SYMPOSIUM ON HUMAN RIGHTS
Moscow, 29 June 1990. The Raoul Vallenberg fund organized a symposium in Moscow on human rights in the Soviet Union in the era of reforms. The symposium was attended by Radicals Irina Podlessova, Alexander Pronozin, Assia Lachtchiver and Dmitri Korolkov. Assia Lachtchiver intervened on the theme of freedom of press.
