ABSTRACT: The text of the motion presented in January 1980 by Radical deputies for assuring that the Italian government respect the U.N.'s commitments for development aid and provide emergency funds against extermination from hunger.

The Chamber,

considering:

that at the beginning of this year UNICEF notified the governments of the rich countries that during 1979, proclaimed by the U.N. the year of the child, 17 million children under the age of five would die of starvation;

that during the same period, authoritative international sources announced that about 50 million people would die of causes directly or indirectly due to malnutrition;

that in order to return to the sender this monstrous message of death, members of Parliament, politicians, intellectuals, and simple citizens have created numerous initiatives and constituted the Committee for Life, Peace and Disarmament, holding debates in various places on the problem and instigating the convoking the Parliament;

that as a consequence of this initiative the Italian government declared it was prepared to modify significantly the quality and quantity of public development aid, advancing towards that 1% of the gross national income which the U.N. named as its goal, and substituting for the old philanthropic concept of aid, a new concept of development co-operation;

that at the same time, the government had assumed a solemn and formal commitment to work out immediately a detailed emergency project to seize from the grip of death some human beings who would otherwise be condemned and to realise an exemplary project capable of breaking the deadly "routine" and to awaken the drowsy consciences of the Western world by indicating new paths to be beaten;

that the declared commitments and intentions of the Italian government have been reinforced repeatedly with statements by authoritative national (President Pertini) and international (the Pope of the Roman Church) figures who have lost no occasion for underlining the seriousness of the problem and the need to fight against hunger and guarantee the development of the poor countries as the conditions for maintain a solid and durable world peace;

that despite all these commitments, declarations, assurances and manifestations of good intentions, until now nothing has been done by anyone to save a single human life from the tragic destiny foreseen;

commits the government

to set aside 2% of the GNP to be destined by March 31, 1980 in the form of a one-time-only payment as emergency aid to the developing countries with the collaboration of specialised international organisations, first among which the FAO [Food and Agriculture Organisation] and the World Food Council

(6-00013) "Pannella".

The Chamber,

having ascertained that the number of those who died from starvation in 1979 was tragically higher than the most pessimistic predictions, so as to transform the year of the children into the year of Herod's massacre of the children; and believing that this terrible holocaust which the industrialised countries would have desired to avoid should be brought to public attention with a dutiful act of commiseration; considering that in the absence of such an act of commiseration there could be no other civilly justified or morally tolerable reason for flying republican flags at half mast, least of all for the deaths of those powerful figures who are mainly responsible for the extermination;

commits the government

to propose in the month of January 1980 ten days of national mourning as an act of commiseration for the deaths of at least 17 million children exterminated in the year which the U.N. had solemnly proclaimed the year of the children

(6-00014) "Pinto".

The Chamber,

having ascertained that the number of people exterminated by starvation in 1979 was far greater than the most pessimistic predictions;

considering that this extermination took place in a year that saw military expenditures increase from 450 to 500 billion dollars at a rate that, should it continue, would rise within the next three years to 750 billion dollars;

seeing that no state and no international organisation is appears to preparing to mobilise its political, institutional, economic, military or even its civil and moral resources in order to save the tens of millions of human beings threatened with extermination from starvation;

having ascertained that in the past the U.N. has seen fit to effect interventions, even military ones, to confine belligerent or potentially belligerent situations affecting tens of thousands of people, whereas it has never authorised similar actions for the war against hunger that every year snuffs out tens of millions of human lives;

commits the government to asking the Security Council of the U.N. for organic and immediate emergency measures to guarantee the availability of food in those places where lack of it is about to cause millions of deaths

(6-00015) "Mellini".

The Chamber,

having ascertained that at the beginning of 1979 UNICEF notified the governments and peoples of the rich countries that during 1979, proclaimed by the U.N. the year of the child, 17 million children under the age of five would die directly or indirectly, because of hunger and undernourishment;

having constituted that at the beginning of 1980 the number of deaths were as many or more than those foreseen by UNICEF in what was a tragic year of the child, the celebration of which took on in retrospect all the characteristics of a tragic ritual;

considering that this terrible holocaust took place without the public being informed of the true scope of the problems connected with it;

believing that the participation of Italian and international public opinion is indispensable for conducting a successful fight against hunger and malnutrition and to guarantee available food in the world which is most tragically lacking;

commits the government

to call for the beginning of February a week of of permanent assemblies in all scholastic institutions at all levels for the purpose of discussing and studying the aspects and the possible types of intervention for confronting a tragedy that wipes out every claim to the sacredness of each and every life

(6-00016) "Tessari Alessandro".

The Chamber,

having ascertained that the massive extermination of 17 million children, foreseen by UNICEF at the beginning of 1979, the year of the child, has taken place to the degree and probably in a greater degree than predicted, with the lack of interest and inertia of the powerful leaders of the earth and sometimes with the acquiescence or the downright complicity of governing groups

of the euphemistically named developing countries;

considering that the mass communication media in all industrialised countries, and Italy in particular, deliberately keep the people in the dark on the true scope and causes of this extermination, as well as on the concrete possibilities of ending it, constantly more often utilising the issue of hunger for political speculation and thus making themselves accomplices of the extermination;

commits the government

to ask the RAI-TV [Italian state radio/tv] to program during the second half of a week of information and debate, preferably during the period of national mourning, so that at least one of the major radio and television networks will dedicate in prime time a part of their broadcasts to debates on concrete proposals and possible solutions for saving the maximum number of human lives in 1980.

(6-00017) "Aglietta Maria Adelaide, Crivellini"

The Chamber,

considering that the extermination of tens of millions of human lives each year cannot be stopped, nor the fight against hunger, malnutrition, and exploitation be completely won if a process is not begun of disarmament and the conversion of military expenditures into those for peace and development;

believing that the use of unarmed forces under the control and management of the U.N., or some other international agency, represents a first significant step towards such a conversion even while involving dangers and difficulties of realisation;

considering that only unarmed and demilitarised forces can provide at once food and sanitary aid and support the actuation and the realisation of the infrastructures necessary to assure their regular distribution and thus guarantee the unification of the two stages (aid to the dying and to development) which is also a cause of the massacre;

commits the government

to make available an unarmed and demilitarised army to be used in emergency actions under the control of the U.N. and other international organisations, asking in the opportune places that other industrialised countries take analogous measures for the sake of setting off the conversion of military expenditure for peaceful goals and of investing the relative resources on the front where the threat and the presence of massacres are accelerating dramatically and exterminating entire populations.

(6-00018) "Cicciomessere".

The Chamber,

considering that in recent days Italy has begun its six month term presiding over the EEC's Council of Ministers,

commits the government

to reporting to the Chamber within 15 days concerning the policy lines that will be taken by Italy during the term in which it presides with regard to the problem of extermination from hunger throughout the world.

(6-00020) "Roccella, Teodori".