ABSTRACT: On June 24, a document formulated by the Radical Party against extermination by hunger and signed by dozens of Nobel Prizewinners, was distributed in the major western capitals. It was the answer of men of science to the indifference of governments, the mass media and individuals, to the grim figures announcing the certain death of millions of people from starvation in the southern hemisphere.

The Manifesto indicated precisely what to do to put an end to the holocaust of our day.

Achieving the objectives of the Manifesto and saving the greatest possible number of people from death through starvation, became the Radical Party's top priority.

("Single issue" booklet for the XXXV Congress of The Radical Party - Budapest 22-26 april 1989)

We the undersigned, men and women of science, of letters, of peace, with different religions, histories, and cultures, prizewinners because we search for honour and celebrate truths in life and life in truth, so that our works may be a universal testimony to dialogue, brotherhood, and of the common civilisation of peace and progress; we the undersigned address an appeal to all men and women of good will, to the powerful and the humble, in their various responsibilities, so that dozens of millions of those who are suffering from starvation and underdevelopment, victims of the international political and economic disorder so widespread today, may be restored to life.

An unprecedented holocaust, whose horror includes in a single year all the horror of the exterminations which our generations saw in the first half of the century, is still happening today and continuing to widen, every moment that passes, the perimeter of barbarities and death in the world, no less than in our consciences.

All those who have taken stock of the holocaust, who are publicising it and fighting it, are unanimous in defining politics first and foremost as the cause of this tragedy.

A new political will and a new specific organisation of this will, which would be directly and obviously directed with topmost priority to overcome the causes of this tragedy and to avert its causes.

A method is necessary and an adequate procedure, among all those imaginable or which already exist, which should be immediately chosen or worked out and put into action. A system of projects is required, to converge with and to correspond to the many different forces, responsibilities, and consciences, to substantiate them. Maximum international authority is required, and it is essential for the States and the peoples too often kept in the dark as to the full possibilities of realising a policy of life and salvation as some of the greatest spiritual authorities on earth are already requesting, to work together, or to unite their operations with punctual, steady and adequate objectives to combat and to overcome death in all its in its different strongholds. For death is spreading, chasing and condemning a large part of humanity.

We need to rebel against the false realism which induces people to resign themselves as though it were fatal, to what instead belongs to the responsibility of politics and the "established disorder".

We need to fight realistically so that the possible is done and not consumed, perhaps for ever. We need to convert that "do good" aid which above all is a cheap way to buy a good conscience but which does not save those who rely on it, into something positive, both those cruel and infertile utopias which sacrifice men today in the name of a project for men, and today's society in the name of a project for society.

The citizens and politicians responsible must choose and vote, at their respective levels, electoral or parliamentary, governmental or international, new laws, new budgets, new projects and new initiatives that can be immediately directed at saving thousands of millions of men from malnutrition and underdevelopment, and hundreds of millions, in each generation, from death by starvation.

It is necessary for everybody and each individual to give legal value to the saving of human lives, to not killing, to not exterminating, not even through laziness, omission or indifference.

If world powers are responsible, they are not the only ones. If the unarmed would not resign themselves to being inert, if they would be more numerous in declaring non-obedience to other laws than this basic law of the rights of men and people, that in the first place is Justice, and the right to life; if the unarmed would go and organise themselves using their few but long lasting weapons political democracy and the great non-violent "Gandhian" non-violent actions, fixing themselves and imposing the choice of objectives form time to time limited and adequate; if this would happen, it would be certain, just as today it is certainly possible, that our times would not be catastrophic.

Our knowledge cannot consist in the inert and irresponsible contemplation of the horrible incumbent end.

Our knowledge, which tells us that the whole of humanity is itself in more and more danger of death, cannot but be the science of hope and salvation, the substance of all we believe and hope for.

If the means of information, if the powers that have wanted to honour us as a recognition for which we have been decorated, would like to listen and make others listen on this occasion also to our voice and our work and to all those who in these weeks are working in the world in the same direction, if the men and women, if people knew, would be informed, we do not doubt that the future could be different from what is looming and seems destined for everybody and the whole world.

But only in this case.

It is necessary to choose immediately, to act, to create, to live and make people live.

The Manifesto Appeal was signed by the following Nobel Prizewinners:

Vicente Aleixandre Literature, 1977

Hannes Alfven Physics, 1970

American Friends Service Committee Peace, 1947

Philip Anderson Physics, 1977

Christian Anfinsen Chemistry, 1972

Kenneth Arrow Economics, 1972

Julius Axelrod Medecine, 1970

David Baltimore Medecine, 1975

Samuel Beckett Literature, 1969

J. Georg Bednorz Physics, 1987

Saul Bellow Literature, 1976

Baruj Benacerraf Medecine, 1980

Gerd Binning Physics, 1986

Baruch S. Blumberg Medecine, 1976

Heinrich Boll Literature, 1972

Norman E. Borlaug Peace, 1970

Daniel Bovet Medecine 1957

Willy Brandt Peace, 1971

Joseph Brodsky Literature, 1987

Bureaux International de la Paix Peace 1970

Elias Canetti Literature, 1981

Owen Chamberlain Physics, 1959

Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar Physics, 1983

Stanley Cohen Medecine 1986

Mairead Corrigan Peace 1976

André Cournand Medecine, 1956

Jean Dausset Medecine, 1980

Gérard Debreu Economics, 1983

John Carew Eccles Medecine 1963

Odysseus Elytis Literature, 1979

Ernst Otto Fischer Chemistry, 1973

Paul John Flory Chemistry 1974

William A. Fowler Physics 1983

Alfonso G. Robles Peace 1982

Sheldon L. Glashow Physics 1979

William Golding Literature, 1983

Ragnar Granit Medecine, 1967

Roger Guillemin Medecine, 1977

Haldan Keffer Physics, 1964

Hartline Medecine, 1967

Odd Hassel Chemistry, 1969

Dudley Herschbach Chemistry 1986

Gerhard Herzberg Chemistry 1971

Dorothy Hodgkin Physics 1979

Robert Hogfsadter Chemistry;, 1964

David Hubel Medecine 1981

Franois Jacob Medecine , 1965

Brian Josephson Physics, 1973

Alfred Kastler Physics, 1966

Lawrence R. Klein Economics, 1980

Georges Kohler Medecine, 1984

Polykarp Kush Physics 1955

Yuan Tseh Lee Chemistry, 1986

Jean Marie Lehn Chemistry, L987

Rita Levi Montalcini Medecine 1986

Wassily Leontieff Economics, 1973

Salvador Luria Medecine 1969

André Lwoff Medecine 1965

Sean McBride Peace 1974

Cweslaw Milosz Literature, 1980

César Milstein Medecine 1984

Franco Modigliani Economics, 1985

Eugenio Montale Literature, 1975

Rudolf Massbauer Physics, 1961

Nevill Mott Physics, 1977

Gunnar Myrdal Economics, 1974

Daniel Nathans Medecine 1978

Louis Neel Physics, 1970

Marshall Nirenberg Medecine 1968

Philip NoelBaker Peace 1959

Severo Ochoa Medecine 1959

Linhus Pauling Chemistry 1954 and Peace 1962

Arno Penzias Physics 1978

Adolfo P. Esquivel Peace 1980

John Polyani Chemistry 1986

Rodney R. Porter Medecine 1972

Ilya Prigogine Chemistry, 1977

Quaker Peace and Service Peace, 1947

Isidor Isaac Rabi Physics 1944

Tadeus Reichstein Medecine, 1950

Burton Richter Physics, 1976

Heini Rohrer Physics 1986

Carlo Rubbia Physics, 1984

Martin Ryle Physics 1974

Anwar L. Sadat Peace 1978

Andrei D. Sacharov Peace 1975

Abdus Salam Physics 1979

Frederik Sanger Chemistry 1958 and 1980

Arthur Schawlow Physics, 1981

Jaroslav Seifert Literature, 1984

Kai Siegbahn Physics, 1981

Claude Simon Literature, 1985

Robert M. Solow Economics, 1987

Albet Szent Gyorgy Medecine 1937

Henry Taube Cemistry 1983

Hugo Theorell Medecine 1955

Jan Tinbergen Economics 1969

Nikolaas Tinbergen Medecine 1973

Sir Alexander Todd Chemistry 1957

Susumu Tonegawa Medecine 1987

Charles Hard Townes Physics 1964

Desmond Tutu Peace 1984

Simon Van Der Meer Physics 1984

Ulf von Euler Medecine 1970

George Wald Medecine 1967

Lech Walesa Peace 1983

Ernest Walton Physics 1951

James Dewey Watson Medecine 1962

Patrick White Literature 1973

Elie Wiesel Peace 1986

Torsten Wiesel Medecine 1981

Maurice Wilkins Medecine 19962

Betty Williams Peace 1976