ABSTRACT: In denouncing those who offend the image of Aldo Moro (1), ascribing to him an a subordinate behaviour toward his torturers of the Red Brigades (2), Pannella (3) states that "if Moro writes, it is because he wants and chooses to do so; if he writes not a few broken sentences, but pages and pages, with rigour and passion [...] instead of choosing silence, instead of opposing silence to his warders of the Red Brigades and to his external torturers, all this enhances and prompts in us esteem and trust, not only in Moro as a man, but also as a politician, as president of the DC". Moro is not insane, when he asks the statutory bodies of the DC to meet, in conformity with the statute, and who he asks to entrust the discussion and the decision of his case to them, rather than to the uncontrolled power of the leadership. Pannella reiterates the request that the Chambers discuss his case, provide guidelines to the Government, and discuss all that has been done in these 44 days.

"As they await for the Red Brigades to assassinate him, the regime and its zealots lynch and torture Aldo Moro in the worst of manners. His image has been offended, deformed and besmirched by the media: it almost seems the president of the Christian Democratic Party has become a radical.

Everyone knows Moro is kept prisoner; everyone can judge the consequences of this condition. We, who have always struggled against the inhumanity and the barbarity of the prisons (special or ordinary) in the name of the dignity of the Republic and of the fundamental human rights, can fully estimate the gravity of the physical, but also moral and psychological constraint of Moro's reclusion.

However, Moro writes. Those who think that Aldo Moro is incapable, if he wants to, to say 'no' to his aggressors, is patently lying, and offending his moral and human stature. 'No' to talking, 'no' - even - to life, if he judged that in such way that he could better uphold (better than he does by writing and intervening in the Italian politics and by writing to his family) the essence of the things he hoped and loved, himself and society.

In even worse conditions, in every time and every place, humble people, with the sole burden of responsibility of their individual existence and of their ideas, have been capable of resisting and refusing to cooperate with their torturers or their warders. One can fail to agree with what Moro believes, thinks and tries, yesterday as today. But one cannot torture him to such extent, offend him, deprive him not only of the freedom of movement, but even of the right to his own image, to his own thought, to his own words. To do this, it takes the ferocity of a coward, of a servant of treacherous and frustrated clerics. In the best of hypotheses, those who speak in the name of yesterday's Moro vs. today's are committing a hideous crime of arrogance: they are reifying, reducing the life of the person they proclaim to defend to their own property, and disposing of it without mercy and without hope.

We say that if Moro writes, it is because he wants to do so and he chooses to do so; if he writes more than a few broken lines, but pages and pages with rigour and passion, without despair almost, trying to create a dialogue with his friends and with the mass of people who were preparing to appoint him President of the Republic, if he writes this much and these things, if he refuses to choose silence and refuses to answer with silence to his warders of the Red Brigades and to his external torturers, all this enhances and prompts in esteem and trust in him, not only as a human being, but as politician, as president of the DC.

The exponent of a political party who asks (in democracy, in conformity with the statute, with the principles of democracy and humanity) the statutory bodies of the same party to meet, and to entrust the discussion and decision on a very serious problem for the State, for the party, for himself, to them rather than to the uncontrolled powers of the leadership, is neither a fool nor a prisoner. Similarly, the member of Parliament who urges, in these conditions, the respect of the Constitution, who asks the Chamber he is part of to fulfil its duties, to provide its guidelines, to exert the control of the executive - as it should - is neither a fool nor a prisoner of irresponsible utopias. Instead, the statute of the DC, no less than the rules of the Chamber and the Italian Constitution, are today placed in default by those who until yesterday carried out the indications of Aldo Moro, accepted them passively, instead of paying him the homage of dutiful oppositions, and are torturing the living Moro, the Moro wh

o is still alive, and who wants to know whether he can still live and perhaps make others live from now on. In his letter to "Il Messaggero", the president of the DC no doubt spoke in the name of democracy, of the Christian democrats. Without claiming to represent him, but in the belief that the member of Parliament Moro cannot but agree on this point, as a member of Parliament I ask the Chamber to meet in order to discuss his case, provide guidelines to the Government, discuss all that has been done in these 44 days. This is what the radicals have been doing every day, censored by everyone. But if a signal came from Moro in this sense, if the colleague Moro requested this explicitly, we believe we would no longer be isolated in this request, and in any case, we would no longer tolerate the fact that democracy and the Constitution, along with the entire Parliament, are being offended also on this matter.

Translator's notes

(1) MORO ALDO. (Maglie 1916 - Rome 1978). Italian politician. Secretary of the Christian Democratic Party (1959-65), mastermind of the Centre-Left policy. Several times minister as of 1956, Prime Minister (1963-68, 1974-76) president of the Christian Democratic Party as of 1956, he favoured the participation of the Communist Party (PCI) in the government, outlining the hypothesis of a so-called "third stage" (after those of "centrism" and "centre-left") of the political system. He was kidnapped by the Red Brigades on 16 March 1978 in Rome and found dead on 9 May of the same year.

(2) RED BRIGADES. (Known as BR). Clandestine terrorist organization of the extreme Left, born and operating in Italy as of 1969. By proclaiming the revolution of the working classes, the organization tried to open several fronts of armed revolt against the State and the political establishment, carrying out a series of attempts, wounding, kidnapping and assassinationg politicians, journalists, magistrates and industrial executives. Its leader was Renato Curcio. In 1978 the organization kidnapped and assassinated Aldo Moro.

(3) PANNELLA MARCO. Pannella Giacinto, known as Marco. (Teramo 1930). Currently President of the Radical Party's Federal Council, which he is one of the founders of. At twenty national university representative of the Liberal Party, at twenty-two President of the UGI, the union of lay university students, at twenty-three President of the UNURI, national union of Italian university students. At twenty-four he advocates, in the context of the students' movement and of the Liberal party, the foundation of the new radical party, which arises in 1954 following the confluence of prestigious intellectuals and minor democratic political groups. He is active in the party, except for a period (1960-1963) in which he is correspondent for "Il Giorno" in Paris, where he established contacts with the Algerian resistance. Back in Italy, he commits himself to the reconstruction of the radical Party, dissolved by its leadership following the advent of the centre-left. Under his indisputable leadership, the party succeeds in

promoting (and winning) relevant civil rights battles, working for the introduction of divorce, conscientious objection, important reforms of family law, etc, in Italy. He struggles for the abrogation of the Concordat between Church and State. Arrested in Sofia in 1968 as he is demonstrating in defence of Czechoslovakia, which has been invaded by Stalin. He opens the party to the newly-born homosexual organizations (FUORI), promotes the formation of the first environmentalist groups. The new radical party organizes difficult campaigns, proposing several referendums (about twenty throughout the years) for the moralization of the country and of politics, against public funds to the parties, against nuclear plants, etc., but in particular for a deep renewal of the administration of justice. Because of these battles, all carried out with strictly nonviolent methods according to the Gandhian model - but Pannella's Gandhi is neither a mystic nor an ideologue; rather, an intransigent and yet flexible politician - h

e has been through trials which he has for the most part won. As of 1976, year in which he first runs for Parliament, he is always elected at the Chamber of Deputies, twice at the Senate, twice at the European Parliament. Several times candidates and local councillor in Rome, Naples, Trieste, Catania, where he carried out exemplary and demonstrative campaigns and initiatives. Whenever necessary, he has resorted to the weapon of the hunger strike, not only in Italy but also in Europe, in particular during the major campaign against world hunger, for which he mobilized one hundred Nobel laureates and preeminent personalities in the fields of science and culture in order to obtain a radical change in the management of the funds allotted to developing countries. On 30 September 1981 he obtains at the European parliament the passage of a resolution in this sense, and after it several other similar laws in the Italian and Belgian Parliament. In January 1987 he runs for President of the European Parliament, obtaini

ng 61 votes. Currently, as the radical party has pledged to no longer compete with its own lists in national elections, he is striving for the creation of a "transnational" cross-party, in view of a federal development of the United States of Europe and with the objective of promoting civil rights throughout the world.