ABSTRACT: To the terrorist threats against Adelaide Aglietta we answer as always with nonviolence. If they come to assassinate us, they will find us defenceless. We will see what the people will think of it. The responsibility belongs to the RAI, which has censored Adelaide Aglietta's motivations in accepting the mandate. DC, PCI and Red Brigades all together fear the party "armed with nonviolence", the only party, in twenty years, to have won civil battles which have deeply upset the regime. This is not the first time the radicals risk life versus death. Month-long fasts and hunger strikes have left greater marks and consequences on our bodies than if we had been shot in the legs or in non-vital organs. To its credit, the Radical Party boasts not assassinations, but divorce, abortion and conscientious objection. If we were killed, if Adelaide Aglietta were killed, we would immediately organize other jurors, other judges, other lawyers, we would mobilize the families of the victims of terrorism. Beware: Gobe

tti (1) is no longer alone.

(PANORAMA, 21 March 1978)

(Adelaide Aglietta, secretary of the Radical Party, substitute member of the popular jury at the trial of Turin, has been threatened by the Red Brigades. Marco Pannella answers on behalf of the Radical Party. Panorama publishes this "challenge of nonviolence to terrorism")

We said so at once, at the very beginning of this story. If they have decided to shoot us, to kill us, they may do so. The executioners who think themselves revolutionaries will risk nothing. The victims will be defenceless, but the people will judge. We will not buy weapons to protect ourselves. We will not tolerate the unpunished assassination of Giorgiana Masi to cause public security agents or special agents to risk their lives to protect us. We will not change the course of of our lives and of our battles, not even in these days.

Otherwise, the simple threat of death would already have struck our lives and would suppress that for which the assassination has been decided. In other words, we will not accept the alternative of being murderers or murdered: because it cannot generate anything but death, a similar life is already lost for authentic revolutionaries, libertarians, socialists and humanists such as the nonviolent militants of the Radical Party are. And we are far from lost. Our force increases with every new day. We are always an essential and successful component of the socialist alternative. If the Red Brigades have decided to assassinate Adelaide Aglietta, we are fully aware of it, just as the journalists, the politicians and the administrators of the RAI who agree with this possible choice of the Red Brigades are aware and guilty of it, and for this reason have refused to remove the causes of Adelaide Aglietta's choice as prestigious victim of the day. If something happens, we will prove the extent to which these thieves o

f truth, these thugs and terrorists of the video do not simply assassinate, morally and daily, democracy and republican legality, but actively concur in destroying, also physically, every nonviolent and civil opposition. The extent to which they have already shot Adelaide Aglietta.

The RAI and the regime need "terrorists" and radicals in news reports and TV features; but they want the former to be the murderers and the latter the murdered. Alive we are dangerous, and we need to abrogated little by little every day though censorship and disparagement: as the referendums are. The government and its majority need to "represent" us too, they really want unanimity. Cossiga (2), who - supported by the Communist Party - commemorates Giorgiana Masi, accusing us of being morally responsible and the extremists of Autonomia Operaia (3) (which he had sent) of being materially responsible for her death, represent a perfectly emblematic moment of the Italian political life. DC, PCI and Red Brigades all together fear the "armed party" of nonviolence.

The only party, in twenty years, to have won democratic and civil battles which have deeply upset the regime. I am not at all sure that this time too, the "extremists" of the Red Brigades are really independent of national and international secret services. If they are, I am not sure that they wish and consider it fair to engage in a target-shooting against us. In any case, we will discover it very soon...

This is not the first time Adelaide Aglietta literally risks her life versus the morals of justice, of others, of us and of herself. We have always lived threatened and persecuted by the violence of the institutions and by the violence which ensues in society. We have always maintained that those who assassinate the legality prepare slaughters and massacres, that those who seize and plunder truth, democracy, honesty, legality and rights, whether they do so in the name of the Church, of the State, of the party, whether they are clerical, fascist or Stalinist, are at the root of disorder and catastrophes. We have always struggled against such people.

People should know that in our bodies and existences, starting with those of Adelaide Aglietta, because it's her we are talking about today, month-long fasts or thirst strikes have left greater marks and consequences than if we had been wounded in the legs or shot in non-vital organs. Every month of hunger strikes means years of life burnt away, compensated perhaps, this is true, by other years which are acquired with the love and hope practised. Science, doctors, documents of clinics in Italy and abroad prove it. But the infamous and vulgar hue and cry for which the defamation of the nonviolents and of their means of struggle has become a sort of national sport to discredit, in the eyes of the people, who are the first receivers of these civil messages, the "armed party" of nonviolence. To our credit we have not dozens of assassinations, but divorce, referendums, conscientious objection, achievement in terms of freedom and liberation, victories in battles which seemed impossible, the same blind hate of the

leaders of the parties responsible for the chaos, and everyone knows that the more we are isolated the more we are popular among the people.

The radicals will decide in the coming days. But we will not remain inactive, we will accept no blackmail, we will not allow threat, fear and assassination to become methods of political and social struggle. We never did so. If the trial of Turin has accumulated flaws of nullity or other flaws, it is obvious that it cannot and must not reach other conclusion than its end. But if this is not so, and if the terrorists continued to threaten and kill judges, jurors and lawyers in their existence and in their rights, there are no doubts that we will be capable of organizing other jurors, other judges and other lawyers. We will appeal to the democratic internationalist militant solidarity, we will mobilize the families of the victims of terrorism. They want to kill Gobetti once again? Beware: he is no longer alone.

Translator's notes

(1) Piero Gobetti (1901-1926). The ideologue of liberal socialism, he founded the magazine "La Rivoluzione liberale" (1922) where he advocated the formation of a political class conscious of the need to make the popular classes participate in the life of the State, and "Il Baretti" (1924); in 1926, persecuted by the fascists, he emigrated to France where he died shortly after. He analysed the relations between politics and culture: "La rivoluzione liberale" (1924), "Risorgimento senza eroi" (1926).

(2) Francesco Cossiga (1928): Italian politician. Minister of the Interior (1976-78) and Prime Minister (1979-80), currently President of the Republic.

(3) Autonomia Operaia: extreme Left political movement, active in Italy during the second half of the seventies. After reaching its peak in 1977, in 1979 it was accused of connivance with terrorism.

Some of its exponents were tried.