*** European Parliament - Bulgaria
INTERROGATION ADDRESSED AT THE COMMISSION AND THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES ON THE DRAMATIC SITUATION OF BULGARIA
Brussels, 27 September 1990. Adelaide Aglietta, member of the European Parliament, president of the European Parliament's Commission for Bulgaria and member of the Radical Party, presented a written interrogation to the Commission and to the European Parliament's Council, requesting "part of the funds of the PHARE programme to be allotted to Bulgaria as humanitarian aid".
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*** Soviet Union
THE AUTHORITIES PROHIBIT THE ASSEMBLY IN FAVOUR OF AN ALTERNATIVE CIVIL SERVICE. THE RADICALS CONFIRM THEIR PRESENCE.
Moscow, 4 October 1990. The executive Committee of the Soviet of the deputies of the Kievskij region of Moscow prohibits the assembly announced by the Radical Party and by three independent Soviet organizations (the "Memorial" Association, the Mothers of Soldiers Committee and the anarchic-unionist confederation) had announced in the context of their campaign for the immediate adoption of an alternative civil service.
After the refusal was announced, radicals Alexander Kalinin (deputy of the Moscow Soviet), Alexander Pronozin and Nikolaij Khramov immediately confirmed that the assembly would be held in any case.
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*** Soviet Union
CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTION: IN SPITE OF THE BAN, 1000 PEOPLE TOOK PART IN THE DEMONSTRATION FOR CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTION AND ALTERNATIVE CIVIL SERVICE BEFORE THE DEFENCE MINISTRY, PROMOTED BY THE RADICAL PARTY, BY THE MOTHERS OF SOLDIERS COMMITTEE AND BY THE ANARCHISTS-UNIONISTS. THERE WERE NO ACCIDENTS.
Moscow, 7 October 1990 - The governmental ban did not prevent about one thousand people from gathering before the Defence Ministry of the Soviet Union in Arbatskaja Plosciady and from expressing their reasons in favour of the adoption of a law declaring conscientious objection legal and introducing a civil service in alternative to the military service. The demonstration had been announced in support of the draft bill presented at the Parliament of the Russian Republic. The draft bill was compiled by the Radical Party together with the Mothers of Soldiers Committee and with other pacifist organizations.
The following spoke during the demonstration:
Alexander Kalinin, deputy of the Moscow Soviet and radical activist, Sasha Pronozin, conscientious objector, radical, Stanislav Philimonov, deputy at the Moscow Soviet, Maria Kirbassova, President of the Mothers of soldiers Committee, Andrej Issaiev, of the anarchic-unionist Confederation and Dmitry Kuzmin of the Socialist Party.
------------------------------------------------------------------*** Soviet Union
DEMONSTRATION FOR THE RIGHT TO CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTION.
STATEMENT BY MARINO BUSDACHIN OF THE RADICAL PARTY'S FEDERAL COUNCIL.
Moscow, 5 October 1990. "Given the governmental "niet", we feared accidents or an intervention by the police, but the peaceful development of the demonstration, the non-violent method adopted by the thousand young people present, and the proper behaviour of the hundreds of soldiers guarding the Ministry enabled us to carry out this action of dialogue, which seemed a dream only a few months ago. An achievement of non-violence, a demonstration of the resolve to act of the Soviet Radicals and of the forces that fight with them in defence of human rights."
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*** Hungary
DRUGS-HUNGARY: HEROIN FOR A VALUE OF 12 MILLION FORINT SEIZED AT THE AIRPORT OF FERIHEGY. DRUGS ARE FLOWING IN HUNGARY MASSIVELY. WHAT ARE THE GOVERNMENT AND THE PARLIAMENT DOING? COMMUNIQUE' OF THE RADICAL PARTY.
Budapest, 7 October 1990. The news given by the MTI, of the arrest of a Yugoslavian citizen last week at the Ferihegy airport in possession of an amount of heroin worth 12 million forint is the last demonstration - if ever we needed it - of the massive penetration of drugs in Hungary.
If we consider that generally less than 5% of the drugs is intercepted by the customs and by the police of the countries "trained" for this type of job, we can be sure that the quantity of drugs that are entering and are being distributed and consumed in Hungary is really huge.
Apart from rare initiatives on the part of the Internal Affairs Ministry to adapt the Hungarian police and customs forces to the activity of interception (which, as we said, is always extremely marginal) as far as we know there is no initiative, neither on the part of the Parliament nor of the government to tackle, at a moment in which the situation is still not tragical, a phenomenon that is otherwise destined to grow exponentially.
The radical party has been trying for months to attract the attention of the press, of the citizens and of the police forces on the terrible risks - in consideration also of the extremely difficult economic and social situation of the country - that are involved in dealing with such phenomenon with the weapons of prohibition.
Only a resolutely antiprohibitionist policy would be capable, by destroying the reasons of this profitable activity at the roots, of preventing a catastrophe. Only a regulation of drugs could prevent drugs from becoming THE instrument to make easy and fast profits (huge profits). Only a regulation could prevent young people, the unemployed, from being forced to become delinquents. Only a regulation could prevent the spread of overdoses, diseases, especially AIDS, as well as of free drugs, as they are now.
When will the government and the parliament give the matter some thought?
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*** European Parliament - Rumania
URGENT RESOLUTION PROPOSAL ON THE "ORPHANAGES OF RUMANIA"
Brussels, 8 October 1990. In her urgent resolution proposal, Adelaide Aglietta, member of the European Parliament, president of the European Parliament's Commission for Rumania and member of the Radical Party, requests the European Community's Commission: "having ascertained that the situation of the children living in the Rumanian orphanages, and especially in the centres for so-called "irrecoverable" children, still represents a terrible violation of children's rights", to "immediately "enforce the emergency programme requested in the Resolution of 17.5.90" (European Parliament), (programme) that is aimed at reinstating the conditions for the orphanages to work (especially for that which concerns the heating) before the winter, in order to prevent the death of thousands of children (...)".
------------------------------------------------------------------*** Poland
ABORTION: DEMONSTRATIONS IN DEFENCE OF THE RIGHT TO ABORTION. APPEAL BY EMMA BONINO, PRESIDENT OF THE RADICAL PARTY, MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT, AMONG THE LEADERS, IN THE SIXTIES, OF THE BATTLE FOR THE RIGHT TO ABORTION IN ITALY.
Rome, 9 October 1990. "The approval on the part of the Polish Senate of a new law on abortion - and the expected confirmation on the part of the Diet of such law - means, in other words, the pure
and simple abrogation of a fundamental right for Polish women. With this law abortion is "authorized" only in two cases: if the woman has been the victim of a rape and when there are risks for the mother's life. It must be said that during the debate at the Senate an amendment that authorized abortion "in cases of a risk for the mother's health" was also rejected, and its supporters were accused of being anti-patriotic and anti-religious.
With our presence before the Polish embassies we want to support all the Polish women, inviting them not to give up, but to organize themselves in order to re-conquer this fundamental right, and also to invite the Polish legislators to tolerance, and to a conception of the State enabling all women to assume motherhood consciously and responsibly".
------------------------------------------------------------------*** Tibet - Italy
INTERPELLATION BY THE EUROPEAN FEDERALIST GROUP OF THE ITALIAN PARLIAMENT
Rome, 10 October 1990. In an interpellation addressed to the Minister for foreign affairs, the radicals, members of the European federalist group, after having among other things recalled that:
- "The People's Republic of China has condemned the use of force against Kuwait on the part of Iraq, and has adhered and supported the resolutions determining political sanctions and an embargo against Saddam Hussein at the United Nations Security Council, while it continues to inflict the most savage repression on the Tibetan people and on the Chinese dissidents" (...);
- the People's Republic of China is one of the last communist countries that insists in hampering the democratic evolution of its institutions and the fulfilment of one of the most elementary civil and political rights;
- "Amnesty International" organization continues to denounce the use of torture, arrest and condemnation in the absence of any legal guaranties on the part of the Chinese authorities";
have asked the Foreign Ministry if the Italian government intends to confirm the sanctions decided after the massacre of Tien An Men Square against the People's Republic of China, subjecting any possible reduction of these provisions to the adoption of measures significant for the democratization of China, for the full respect of the human being and for the acknowledgement of the Tibetan identity.
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*** Poland
DEMONSTRATIONS BEFORE THE POLISH EMBASSIES OF MOSCOW, BRUSSELS, PRAGUE, BUDAPEST AND ROME FOR THE RIGHT TO ABORTION IN POLAND
Budapest, 10 October 1990. "No to the return of clandestine abortion", "Freedom of conscience for the Polish women", "No to prohibition of abortion", "The Polish women must be able to decide according to their conscience", "A clericalism must not replace another one", "For a lay and European Poland"! These were some of the slogans pronounced by the radicals at the demonstrations that took place yesterday in Moscow, Rome, Prague, Budapest and Brussels for the right to abortion in Poland.
In support of the Polish women, and in the hope that the Polish Diet will not confirm, with its vote, the draft bill passed by the Polish Senate, the Radical Party joined the initiative of the various Hungarian feminist groups, and together with them demonstrated before the Polish embassy of Budapest. Moreover, it announced similar autonomous initiatives before the Polish embassies of Moscow, Prague, Rome and Brussels. Many people took part in the initiative. Twenty five thousand radical militants in Moscow, together with several newspapers and Soviet and Polish televisions. About forty in Budapest, between feminists and radicals, and several press organs. By pure chance a party was being given at the Polish embassy in Prague in the honour of Nobel Prize for Literature Milosz and at the presence of Mrs. Havel contemporarily to the radical demonstration. Coming out of the embassy, Milosz congratulated the radical activists at the presence of the media, thanking them and stating that he was "on their side" and
ready to support the battle in Poland. About ten radical militants demonstrated in Brussels, while in Rome there were about twenty five of them, among which many "historical" feminists. As is usual in these two capitals of "real democracy" the press organs were completely absent.
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*** Soviet Union
DEMONSTRATION FOR THE CIVIL RIGHTS OF PROSTITUTES
Moscow, 10 October 1990. Evgenija Debrjanskaja, exponent of the Libertarian Party and member of the Radical Party's Federal Council, organized a demonstration for the civil rights of prostitutes and especially for their sanitary rights and for their free and guarantied access to contraceptives at the National Hotel in the centre of Moscow.
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*** Italy
PRISON REFORM: SPEECH BY ENZO CUCCO, RADICAL, ANTIPROHIBITIONIST REGIONAL COUNCILLOR FOR PIEDMONT
Turin, 11 October 1990. A letter was sent to the General Director of the Italian Institutions for Prevention and Punishment, Nicolò Amato, in order to denounce the attempts made by certain milieus to attribute to the reform of the prisons the responsibility of the increase of crime and of the persistence of serious problems in the administration of justice. Considering that much of the alarmism frequent in this period are based on questionable and certainly not official figures and facts, Cucco asked to cease these speculations making the official figures on the reform of prisons and its consequences known to the public opinion.
------------------------------------------------------------------*** Europe - Yugoslavia
THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT PASSES A RESOLUTION ON KOSOVO
Strasburg, 11 October 1990. In a resolution promoted by all the political groups, the European Parliament, after having among other things denounced: "the extremely serious situation of human rights in Kosovo, where there continue to be violent clashes between the republican police and the local population, causing the death of many persons, and leading to indiscriminate arrests and serious violations of human rights (...)"; the dissolution of the assembly of the autonomous region on the part of the Serbian authorities, the censorship on the sources of information (...); "the toughening of the special, civil and military units"; (...)
The European Parliament asks the Serbian authorities:
"to withdraw the military forces from Kosovo; to release all political prisoners arrested from 1981 to now; to cease any form of murder, torture, indiscriminate arrest of political prisoners of Albanian nationality (...); the reinstatement of the assembly organs dissolved by force and the reopening of the newspapers and regional television broadcasting stations (...);
to ensure that the coming elections will take place with all the guaranties of freedom and democracy (...); a special effort on the part of the Serbian authorities and of the forces representative of the Albanian population of Kosovo in order to reach a cease-fire enabling to start a dialogue and the quest for a reasonable compromise on the problems concerning the autonomy of the region and on those concerning the right and the guaranties for the populations that coexist in the region".
The European Parliament decides:
"to send the delegation for the relations with Yugoslavia to Kosovo, and for this purpose asks the authorities of this country to guarantee the latter the possibility of moving about and of establishing the appropriate contacts in complete freedom" (...);
The European Parliament asks the Commission of the European Communities
"to fully subordinate its negotiations concerning the financial protocol between Yugoslavia and the EEC to an honest observance of human rights in Kosovo and to the Final Helsinki Act" (...).
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*** Czechoslovakia
THE TORCHLIGHT PROCESSION ORGANIZED BY THE RADICALS FOR THE ADHESION OF CZECHOSLOVAKIA TO THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITY PROVES A GREAT SUCCESS
Prague, 12 October 1990. 600 to 700 people were present at the Charles bridge, the meeting place established by the transnational Radical Party and by the radical Association for the United States of Europe. At 6pm the procession began moving and progressively increased in number of participants, to the point that about 1000 demonstrators finally reached the Castle. Awaiting the procession was prince Charles von Schwarzenberg, personally representing President Havel. The demonstrators gave him the big blue flag of Europe that lead the procession during the whole of the demonstration: a gift and a hope for the future of the country and of the entire continent.
------------------------------------------------------------------*** Czechoslovakia
DEMONSTRATION FOR THE ADHESION TO THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITY
Prague, 12 October 1990. At the conclusion of the demonstration, Paolo Pietrosanti (the radical party's federal councillor) and Richard Stockar (Treasurer of the radical Association for the United States of Europe) judged the demonstration to be: "A major success, which is an ultimate proof of how strongly Czechoslovakia yearns for Europe. Not a generic, but a truly federalist aspiration, which passes through the adhesion of Czechoslovakia to the European Community, as soon as possible. We hope that the flag we gave President Havel may fly on the Castle of Prague.
It our belief that a demonstration attended by 1000 persons, summoned in the simplest and most genuinely "radical" way (no more than 1500 leaflets, but a strong echo) will not remain an end in itself: it will leave a mark also in the political class.
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*** Soviet Union
MEETING BETWEEN THE RADICAL PARTY AND THE SOVIET UNION'S COMMUNIST PARTY.
Moscow, 12 October 1990. In view of the coming complete legalization of political parties in the USSR, Marino Busdachin of the radical party's federal Council and Irina Podlesova, vice-treasurer for USSR, were received at the Central Committee of the PCUS by the deputy of the Soviet and PCUS executive Viaceslav Pcenitcnikov, to present the radical activity and its political initiatives in the USSR.
Busdachin illustrated the radical goals for the constitution of the United States of Europe, its transnational and transpartisan features and the political and organizational problems that the over 400 members of the party encounter in the USSR.
The Communist exponent took time to explain the difference of the PCUS's role compared to the past, after the Communists' renunciation to a leading role, and the appearance of a new, multipartite reality. He announced that the law that regulates the activity of the parties in the USSR will be approved in January and that in this sense he views the presence of the Radical Party as positive fact, especially for its non-violent, democratic, federalist and anti-nationalist character.
Radicals and Communists agreed to meet again in November to prepare a summit between the Radical Party and the PCUS.
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*** Soviet Union
THE STATE TELEVISION AIRS A REPORTAGE ON THE RADICAL DEMONSTRATION FOR CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTION.
Moscow, 14 October 1990. The reportage, called "The transnational Radical Party for alternative civil service" and in which the Radical Party is presented as one of the chief organizers of the demonstration of October 7, was included in a weekly TV program called "serving the country". A program that deals with the problems of the Soviet armed forces. In the course of the service interviews to radicals Kalinin and Pronozin were also shown. The former explained the risk of a mass evasion of military service if nothing is changed in the military service. The latter explained the reasons for which two years ago he decided to refuse to carry out his military service.
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*** Hungary
FOREIGN MINISTER JEZENSKY TO DISLIKE RADICAL PRESS
Budapest, 15 October 1990. Following a phone call by the Cabinet of the Foreign Minister, requesting to cease sending the Radical Letter to Minister Jezensky, the Radical Party read a communiqué in which it asked if this initiative was a consequence of the demonstration in support of the Polish women and of the right to abortion in Poland, and was therefore to be considered as a ban on the part of a well known "champion of Christianity", or if it was simply the consequence of an excess of zeal on the part of a member of his entourage.
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*** Italy
PARTIES ON THE DECLINE, BIRTH OF A DEMOCRATIC FORUM
Rome, 17 October 1990. In a letter addressed to the colleagues senators and deputies, inviting them to take part in the founding assembly of Democratic Forum, Alfredo Biondi, liberal member of parliament, and Giovanni Negri, social-democrat member of parliament, wrote: "We believe that it is not only our right, but also our duty to tackle the serious malaise affecting politics, which is the centre of the Italian crisis. We cannot go on ignoring facts. The decline of the party system and the need for a reform of politics, which are evident everywhere, directly concern the members of parliament, who must be involved as such, regardless of which party they belong to. Facing thse who would too often want to see our role reduced to a ratification of decisions taken elsewhere, it seems to us that the appointment of Democratic Forum, which will also be attended by non-politicians and by some of the most authoritative observers and commentators, represents a precious occasion for a mutual confrontation and a common
initiative".
------------------------------------------------------------------*** Czechoslovakia
"AGENTUR RASTR" CREATED IN PRAGUE
Prague, 17 October 1990. The "Agentur Rastr" has been created. It is an initiative intended to ensure the radicals living and operating in Czechoslovakia with a structure and a juridically effective instrument for the diffusion of the informative material of and on the Transnational Radical Party, and for the external promotion of its activities. The word Rastr (which means net, network in Czech language) comes from RAdikalni STRana.
