Albania
MARCO PANNELLA IN ALBANIA ON THE OCCASION OF THE FIRST DEMOCRATIC ELECTIONS
Tirana, 31 March-2 April 1991. Marco Pannella, President of the Radical Party's Federal Council, participated together with the delegation of the European Parliament to the supervision of the first democratic and multiparty elections of Albanian history. During his stay in the capital of Albania, Pannella met the leader of the Democratic Party, Dr. Sali Berisha, later elected member of the new Albanian Parliament, several officials of the Albanian Labour Party and representatives of the Republican Party. After having assisted at the voting as an observer in the constituency of Tirana, Pannella moved to Scutari with his Europarliamentarian colleagues to investigate the causes of the massacre that caused the death of 7 people on the day following the vote.
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Italy
GOVERNMENT CRISIS: SERGIO STANZANI TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC
Rome, 4 April 1991. Delegated by the Radical Party and by the parliamentary groups to take part alone in the consultation with the President of the Republic, Stanzani sent him a document which states: "To preserve traditions and habits, the heritage of the State and of Society, it is necessary to make them live by enriching them, updating them, changing them. But when every principle of the law, when written laws, starting with the Constitution and ending with the simplest traditions, are systematically abolished and destroyed, it is imperative not to renounce upholding any remaining fixed point. Today there is a priority, prejudicial reform to be carried out: the one relative to party behaviours which are destroying every rule, and which dominates without any limits. Otherwise, even civil and democratic dialogue becomes impossible. Otherwise, any institutional reform would be useless, because it would be immediately disrespected and betrayed, as has been the case of every law in these last decades. (...)."
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Italy
GOVERNMENT CRISIS: STATEMENT BY SERGIO STANZANI, SECRETARY OF THE RADICAL PARTY, AT THE CONCLUSION OF HIS MEETING WITH THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC.
Rome, 4 April 1991. "I have drawn the attention of the President of the Republic on our dissent and our serious reservations concerning both the new form given to these consultations and their institutional and political context. We would like to avoid the absence, in the very near future, of any whatsoever rule or tradition to be respected even at the highest levels of the State. As every man and woman of this country, we demand certainty of legality, not its total destruction. As for the Government, for the fourth time in this legislature we have expressed four priorities: Europe, Environment, Justice and Public Debt, and pointed to a seven-party coalition, that is, the five official parties plus the Greens and the Radicals, as the forces to be called to form the Government. And we have underlined that we do not deem it possible to summon new, useless elections, dissolving the Chambers without committing a major violation of institutional legality".
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Kurdistan-Iraq
THE GOVERNMENT SHOULD ENDORSE THE MITTERRAND PROPOSAL AND IMMEDIATELY ENSURE THE PRESENCE OF ITALIAN OBSERVERS IN NORTHERN IRAQ. STATEMENT BY GIOVANNI NEGRI, RADICAL, MEMBER OF THE ITALIAN PARLIAMENT.
Rome, 4 April 1991. "Despite the crisis, we ask Andreotti and De Michelis to intervene at once to prevent a holocaust of Kurds. Italy should immediately endorse the Mitterrand proposal. A timely resolution of the United Nations is needed, and the full affirmation of the concept of "humanitarian interference" on the basis of international law, both for the Kurds and for other populations that are victims of genocides.
Moreover, just as the French government sent its minister for humanitarian intervention to Northern Iraq, so the Italian government should immediately ensure the presence of its own observers and urge a similar representation on the part of the European Community. If the Government does not send observers at once, I will personally ask the Foreign Affairs Commission to send a mission of its own to fulfil a task which our country cannot fail to fulfil, especially after the Italian intervention in the Gulf".
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Italy
DEBATE ON INSTITUTIONAL REFORMS: OPEN LETTER BY PEPPINO CALDERISI, RADICAL, PRESIDENT OF THE CHAMBER EUROPEAN FEDERALIST GROUP, TO THE MEMBERS OF THE FEDERAL COUNCIL OF ITALIAN GREENS.
Rome, 5 April 1991. "The problem concerning the reforms that are necessary to overcome the serious institutional crisis of the Republic is above all to answer a fundamental question: whether we continue with a proportional system with many parties, many political formations, many parliamentary groups that are incapable of translating the relative requests into government choices, or whether it is necessary to pass to a majority and uninominal system in which issues such as the environmentalist one could determine (on the basis of precise government commitments assumed by the political formations) winning majorities and thus become true government choices".
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Federal Republic of Germany - European Community
EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT'S CULTURE COMMITTEE ADOPTS TARADASH REPORT URGING METHADONE THERAPY PROGRAMS, SYRINGE-EXCHANGE SCHEMES AND CONDOM DISTRIBUTION.
Lipsia, 5 April 1991. The European Parliament's Committee for Youth, Culture, Education, Media and Sports, met in Lipsia (former Democratic Republic), adopted a report developed by Marco Taradash (member of the Radical Party) in the context of the program "Europe against AIDS".The Executive Committee's original program, while identifying the need to defeat such disease as its chief goal, limited itself to urging the reinforcement of information to the public, the coordination of previously started initiatives and the diffusion of the results of such initiatives.
In his report, Taradash instead recalls that never in history has a disease been defeated with information alone, and, considering the current absence of a vaccine, proposes to concentrate efforts on prevention rather than on research on such vaccine. "Schemes for the distribution of clean, disposable needles in exchange for dirty ones by means of urban mobile units represent an effective means to prevent the spread of the HIV virus and of other diseases among drug-addicts, and also represent an excellent means to divulge information, promote an education and orientation toward the social or medical services that are necessary for the drug addicts' recovery and social rehabilitation".
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Kurdistan-Iraq
PRESS CONFERENCE ON THE ATTITUDE OF THE ITALIAN GOVERNMENT FACED TO THE HOLOCAUST OF THE KURDS.
Rome, 5 April 1991. Members of Parliament Cicciomessere and Negri, members of the Radical Party, together with Ata Kazaz, representative of Iraq's Kurdish Democratic Party, Cornelia Gaet, representative of Iran's Kurdish Democratic Party, and Mirella Galletti, journalist, author of "Kurds in history", illustrated during a press conference their requests to the Italian government. They especially urged a firm endorsement of Mitterrand's proposal, and the creation of a protected area for the refugees and the presence of Italian observers. Moreover, they gave further information and testimonies on the extermination under way in Iraq.
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Soviet Union-Russia
FOUNDATION OF THE MUSCOVITE INTER-UNIVERSITY ASSOCIATION OF THE "DEMOCRATIC RUSSIA" MOVEMENT.
Moscow, 6 April 1991. At the conclusion of the constitutive meeting of the Muscovite inter-university Association, 83 delegates representing 20 institutes of higher education and universities of the Soviet capital were elected. Among them Andrej Krymov, member of the Radical Party and of "Democratic Russia", representing the students of Moscow's Aviation School. Among the priorities of this new organization, the participation in the Radical Party's campaign for the institution of an alternative civil service.
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Peru
ANTIDRUG CONFERENCE OF ANDEAN JURISTS IN LIMA. LIMA-BASED DAILY "EL ESPECTADOR" APPRECIATES THE SPEECH DELIVERED BY EURO-MP MARCO TARADASH.
Lima, 9 April 1991. "Marco Taradash, member of the European Parliament, in one of the most brilliant speeches of the conference, said that opposition is growing in Europe to the U.S. anti-drug campaign. According to Taradash's statements, the only effects of prohibition are an increase in consumption, the passage to the use of more dangerous drugs and the birth of new types of criminal activities".
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Italy
GOVERNMENT CRISIS. "WE ARE HEADING BACK TO THE SUBVERSIVE PLANS OF 1975/81". STATEMENT BY MARCO PANNELLA.
Rome, 11 April 1991. (...) "Anticipated elections and the dissolution of the Chambers today lead us back, as a hypothesis and in concrete facts, to the need for an all-out defence of legality and nonviolence. I hope that wisdom will once prevail in places where it should manifest itself more than in any other place. The irresponsibility and frenzy dullness of mind of a few oligarchs cannot reside in the highest hill of the Republic (the Palace of the President of the Republic, editor's note).
It is also urgent to denounce the actions of many, especially the State TV, the Fininvest group (private television network) and the parliamentary Committee of Inspection on Information (the basest ever). (...)".
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United States of America
PUBLIC DEBATE ON "CLEAN NEEDLES, AIDS AND DRUGS".
New York, 13 April 1991. In addition to Emma Bonino and Marco Taradash, the debate was attended by Rod Sorge from ACT-UP (a homosexual self-help organization, a dozen members of which were arrested in March on charges of illegally distributing sterile syringes), Russel Newcombe, director of the Inspection Unit on AIDS and drugs (Great Britain), Holly Hagan, epidemiologist of the Health Department of Tacoma, David Purchase, founder of "Defiance Needle Exchange", William Kunstler and John Soroko, the lawyers defending Emma Bonino and Marco Taradash, Jill Harris and Michael Spiegel, lawyers who defend the defendants of ACT-UP. After having illustrated the gravity of the situation in New York City concerning AIDS, the different speakers examined the trials under way and the possible initiatives to organize around them.
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United States of America
TRIAL AGAINST EMMA BONINO AND MARCO TARADASH FOR ILLEGAL DISTRIBUTION OF SYRINGES.
New York, 15 April 1991. Bonino and Taradash were arrested in front of New York City Hall on 5 November 1990, as they were trying to present a package of sterile syringes to Mayor Dinkins and City Health Commissioner Myers as their symbolic contribution to the battle against the spread of AIDS among drug-addicts. The city's anti-drug laws prohibit the possession of needles without a medical prescription. According to the city's health authorities, the number of heroin addicts in New York exceeds 250.000, and 70 per cent of them is HIV-positive. The judge of the criminal court accepted the request to dismiss the charges presented by the prosecution, closing the trial and thus preventing a debate which would have given space to the testimonies of several highly qualified experts coming from European and U.S. cities where authorities promote and finance health programs for information and free distribution of needles and condoms to check the spread of the epidemic.
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Rumania
ORGANIZATIONAL MEETING OF BUCHAREST RADICALS.
Bucharest, 15 April 1991. About a dozen radicals met in Bucharest with the purpose of solving a number of organizational problems. Among these problems, the legal recognition of a radical association for the United States of Europe, the organization of a campaign for the collection of signatures for the Anglo-Saxon electoral system, the diffusion of information on the Radical Party. The meeting was attended also by university professors Mircea Stoica and Ilie Puia, both signers of the appeal for the Anglo-Saxon electoral system.
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EMMA BONINO AND MARCO TARADASH ARRESTED ONCE MORE FOR ILLEGAL DISTRIBUTION OF NEEDLES.
New York, 15 April 1991. Emma Bonino, member of Parliament and President of the Radical Party, and Marco Taradash, member of the European parliament and secretary of the Radical Antiprohibitionist Coordination, were arrested for the second time on charges of distributing needles without an authorization.
As they had announced after the sentence with which the Court dismissal the trial, Bonino and Taradash resumed the distribution of needles, entering the Health Department of New York City Hall and presenting a package of sterile syringes to the policeman on duty. They then returned to City Hall, where they were approached by policemen who arrested them. With this new act of civil disobedience, Bonino and Taradash wanted to draw attention also on the case of ten exponents of Act-Up (a homosexual self-help group against AIDS) who are waiting to be tried for the same offence and who risk a conviction.
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Italy
MARCO PANNELLA DENIED RECEPTION BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC AND EXPELLED FROM THE PRESIDENTIAL PALACE. STATEMENT BY SERGIO STANZANI, FIRST SECRETARY OF THE RADICAL PARTY.
Rome, 16 April 1991. "Already on the occasion of the first, peculiar series of consultations of the President of the Republic, we had expressed our reservations concerning the procedures chosen and for the unacceptable timing which had been adopted and imposed. (...). This time, the Radical Party had charged Marco Pannella, President of the Radical Party's Federal Council, with re-expressing our dissent and non-availability. The recent events convince us that we made a mistake: without a minimum of certainty on the respect of democratic rules, of protocol, of traditions, and also of institutional prudence, it is unwise to accept the institutional pattern or any other one".
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Italy
EXPULSION FROM THE QUIRINALE: STATEMENT BY MARCO PANNELLA.
Rome, 16 April 1991. "To the official informing me of the need to wait because President Cossiga had not been able to respect the timing of the consultations, and who informed me of a series of blitz-meetings, I said in the elevator that in the end one has the impression this is a "call-summoning". (...). I offended no one. I firmly criticized the destruction of a heritage of traditions, customs, protocol, institutional courtesy, written or practical reference points carried out by the President of the Republic. This heritage is a public value, not a personal or private belonging of this or that President. A substantial part of this heritage is represented by the gravity and even the slowness of the protocol, the fact of not mistaking urgency and rashness, the respect of democratic duties and procedures in the formation of the will of the parties (...)".
