ABSTRACT: An interview with Pannella in the offices of the Radicals at the European Parliament. [The interview appeared in the issue of the newspaper that came out out at the time of an important Perugia-Assisi March and is part of a three-page report on the theme of world famine, ed.] Pannella, who is undergoing a hunger strike has arrived from Strasbourg and is about to leave for New York...

What is the objective? Presently he is collecting signatures of the members of the European Parliament for the "resolution" presented to E.P. The results appear to be excellent, even better than the ones collected by Noble Prize winners for their appeal. The leftist deputies are signing, but so are the right wing. The only reticent ones seem to be the Italian Communist Party.

According to Pannella the problem is simple: it is a question of saving three million human lives for twelve months. All that is needed is for a Head of State to make the decision and it would be possible to set in motion the necessary procedures at once. For the rest it would be enough to "reinforce and co-ordinate operations already existing in the areas with the highest mortality rate"...

Question: "Where to choose the region for this operation?"

Reply: In the most disinherited "oases", in order to "attack the mortality rate" with operations aiming at "integrated aid" as was done, for example, in Cambodia - and all of this "by means of converted military structures". It is a matter of realising an emergency operation which can be the starting point of a "structural process".

If a similar process was put into effect "could the others remain inactive?" Or wouldn't a "new emulation" take place? Next Pannella examines the "main objections" to the project, from the "ideological prejudices" to the "diffidence" of the countries that are already practising aid but do not like what looks to them like a degeneration of aid into patronage, etc.

With regard to the "dangers of war", Pannella traces a hypothesis of politics practised by a Radical "government": from leaving the NATO military alliance to the denunciation of Soviet totalitarianism, to the launching of a non-violent defence policy starting with unilateral disarmament (which does not in the least mean "giving in"...). Pannella indicates, in conclusion, that he does not want to carry on this campaign "alone", because it would be an error that would not do.

(LOTTA CONTINUA (1), September 7, 1981)

(After a hunger strike of almost a month, with an objective of dizzying proportions: save three million people from death by starvation)

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Brussels, September 22

In order to meet Pannella and have him talk of the reasons for his struggle and what he hopes to obtain, I came to Brussels, to the offices of the European Parliament. Strange offices, these. The Radicals' rooms more or less resemble Radicals' rooms everywhere in the world. Then there are other rooms, a lot of them, with uncluttered tables, empty chairs, barren bookshelves, doors open wide, and the name plates of the deputies to whom they are assigned. One wonders if they have already left forever or if they are still about to arrive for the first time.

Pannella arrived today from Strasbourg; he is about to leave for New York with a rapid stop-over in Paris. Then back to Strasbourg and on Sunday he is counting on being in Perugia. To multiply his activities during a hunger strike is one of his rules. Some people think he exaggerates. He has lost weight - thirty pounds so far. He explained it to a French newspaper: "With regard to the mass media the question is clear: contrary to a pig which fetches a higher price if it is fat, a hunger-striker goes at a higher price the more he has lost weight. It is a law of the market..." He tells me about the resolution presented to the European Parliament which is well on the way to getting a spectacular majority of signatures. "They are signing, one by one, even though no party whip has decided to join in. And not only the leftist deputies. More than a third of the British conservatives have already signed who are a kind of Prussian section of the European Parliament. Tyndemans, Zaccagnini, Gonella have signed. Th

e Italian independent leftists have signed: Baduel, Glorioso, Carettoni, Ippolito, Squarcialupi. The only group that has been compact in not signing is that of the PCI".

What is the reason for this surprising result?

"Because when people run into the problem, they are ready to do something. If information circulates, the extermination is conquered, and this goes for politicians too, who often have no idea of the terms of the problem or how it is possible to confront it".

Even the appeal of the Nobel Prize winners had remarkable success. Fifty four signers.

"We would never have hoped for so much. First of all, collective documents of Nobel winners had never before reached as many as ten signatures. And there were a few, like Pauling, who wouldn't sign because they actually found that we had not emphasised the connection with disarmament enough! Furthermore there were some (less than you can count on the fingers of one hand) who wanted to condition their signing to a declaration for birth control, or, like one great old scientist, who said that it is truly terrible to see so many people die, but either they die or we all die..."

Why was the PCI so firmly against it?

"The egg of Columbus. Leave off allowing people to die today in the name of the need for future development".

Try to describe what can happen, in detail, as in a dream.

"It is a realistic dream, with one's eyes wide open. The thing starts with a head of state and a government - let's imagine it to be Italy - that goes on TV and announces a declaration of war on hunger. They explain the terms simply and precisely. Objective: to save in twelve months the lives of three or four million people. Locales, procedures, tools, costs. At the same time the pertinent ministers are convened (Defence, Foreign Affairs, Health, Public Works) and the chiefs of staff. They are given a mandate to agree on an operational programme and a deadline. I propose, for example, that operations start on January 1, 1982. Meanwhile, Italy informs the other governments, by way of its diplomatic representatives and a special delegation to the United Nations which could be headed by the head of state himself, of its unilateral intention to increase its own aid quota to 1.4%. As in the case of war, emergency measures are requested. The heads of international organisations are invited to Rome whose co-op

eration is essential for the success of the plan: the Messrs Morse of the PNUD, the U.N. organisation for development programming, Saouma, the director of FAO [Food and Agricultural Organisation of the U.N.], Williams of the World Food Council, Pisani, the head of the European Commission, and also the directors of the World Health Organisation and of UNICEF. It would not be a conference of consultation, of the kind that puts things off until doomsday at best, as Minister Colombo has just proposed with some good intentions and total ambiguity. Rather it will be a working meeting for the application of the decisions to save, for a period of twelve months, three million human beings. Very simply, it would be a question of reinforcing and co-ordinating operations already existing in zones with the highest mortality rates, taking a census of the programmes authorised and never realised to begin with".

How would the region for this action be chosen?

"With the data on hand. The Third World is not so much a number of countries as it is a few oases, within various countries, surrounded by the Fourth World. In 1995 there will be in the Third World 35 megalopoli with more than 5 million inhabitants. Let us take the 6,500,000 who died in one year in Africa. With a "normal" mortality rate, which is always higher than in Europe, it ought to be 2,600,000. Furthermore one must take into account the more developed countries, like South Africa, in which the mortality rate is certainly far lower, and of local differences so that if on the whole the mortality rate in the Horn of Africa is 25 per thousand, which decreases to 14 per thousand in Addis Abeba, this means that at Ogaden it reaches 40-50 per thousand. To strike at the mortality rate is not hard. The experience in Cambodia speaks volumes: in 14 months there the rate dropped from 180 to 19 per thousand, and the explanation certainly cannot be reduced to the fact that Pol Pot 's atrocities ceased. In ma

ny cases the question is the brutally crude lack of available money. For example, the World Health Organisation declares that to do away with malaria one billion dollars would be sufficient. Or in the face of famine emergency aid measures are needed to provide food. If malaria were eliminated death from hunger and misery would continue. If one intervenes in a famine, malaria would still exist (and one can also die from certain foods as is well known). Co-ordination that would guarantee integrated aid is a decisive factor. It is obvious but incredibly rare".

Why do you refer to the use of military structures?

"Because today any efficient emergency operation is unthinkable without going through converted military structures. Just think of transport. Its costs mow down the aid and the time it takes destroys efficiency. An army that acts in the famine zone like invasion troops is the only one capable of constructing the indispensable infrastructures. It is the difference between aspiring to an asphalted road or deciding to open a path and move ahead. There are some kinds of aid whose effects are felt within a few days - medicines, food, medical care. Others begin to have their effect after months: seeds, utensils, etc. To guarantee duration, it becomes advisable or necessary to construct silos and warehouses. Here then is an example of the way in which from an emergency measure a structural process can be set in motion. All one has to do is build a bridgehead, nothing more, in order to guarantee life. Then one will see. And do take into account the ideological and psychological effects, not only the technical o

nes, that a task of this kind would have on the armies of the rich countries".

It seems almost too easy.

But it is. If you only knew the things that really count. For example, that the tins of butter oil should weigh ten kilos rather than twenty so that the women can go and fetch them on foot rather than depend on centralised transport. Or changing the width of the mesh in fishing nets, as has been done after centuries in Niger, which for the first time makes fishing economical on more than just the scale of survival".

Is it not natural to object that it is fine to save three million people, but what about the other 27?

"But that is just the point. Let there be those who commit themselves to saving a tenth of those condemned to death from starvation. Can the others look on idly? And isn't it important to stimulate a new emulation? So that the the Third World countries look with recognition on the role of the guiding country? Furthermore, Servan Schreiber is right when he says that among the reasons for the paralysis of immense riches, such as those of the OPEC countries, is the absence in our time of the "great things" capable of attracting and exalting and legitimating investments".

You put great emphasis on the legal character of your actions.

"There is all the more reason to do so in this field. Far more than in Nuremberg, a trial against genocide by starvation has an unexceptionable basis in law. In the resolutions of the U.N. the condition of the first and second worlds has already had its legitimacy completely annulled. Also because it is easier to vote on principles (including the right to nourishment) than to vote for money. This, however, becomes the most solid basis for any action that intends to force those who have reneged on their commitments - because of self-interest, bad faith, or stupidity - to put those commitments into effect".

What are the main objections to immediate intervention?

"Aside from ideological prejudices and constituted interests, a line such as this paradoxically excites more diffidence in countries like Holland and Denmark where and aid policy is more traditional, so that they fear assistance that may degenerate into patronage and make a myth of development, etc. Nevertheless a man such as Gunnar Myrdal many years ago sustained positions similar to our own. But he was quickly liquidated as being a humanitarian".

While you insist on the fact of a connection between the fight against hunger and opposition to armaments, yet you attribute a moral priority to the former.

"It would be more correct to say political, if not in the sense that respect for life comes prior to any politics, and the respect for the lives of others, because of its sacred character in a lay sense, is the condition for respect of oneself. Death accepted outside oneself has already been accepted inside. And in any case, even in the most strictly political sense, what can you expect with regard to pensions or unemployment from those who accept passive coexistence with death from starvation? As far as the connection with anti-militarist fight goes, it is very strict - one almost would like to use the despised word "dialectical". What we do know is that one must never place one's bet on fear - Fascism is what exploits fear. However the superpowers and their satellites could even continue, strictly according to the figures, to play at raising the armaments stakes for a few years and still find the way of letting thirty million people survive, as the Carter Commission explicitly stated".

What is your position today on the threat of war?

"I can tell you what a Radical government would do. It would leave NATO while remaining in the Atlantic Pact. It would never tire of repeating, like Cato, that Soviet totalitarianism "delendum est" [must be destroyed,ed.] - as were Nazism and Fascism in the Thirties, like the regimes that carry war in their womb structurally, inevitably, as a vocation. For years and years we have been treating the USSR with the policy of Munich with the illusion of taming the monster. Let us return to our government: it would announce total disarmament within ten years and would define the progressive stages. It would be ready to react to any aggressive moves of the adversary with an increased non-violent campaign of truth. It would employ the positive efficacy of propaganda which is more frightening than aggression. If a part, even a reduced part, of military expenditures were used to produce, strengthen and employ the infinite range of information technology; if the acts of aggression were opposed by bombardmen

ts of truth in the thousand ways possible today, do you thing one would obtain a lesser effect on the people of the "enemy" country?

"Those who believe in the arms race as the basis of negotiations are proposing a mad game of upping the stakes. The results of this line are right before our eyes. Those who believe that unilateral disarmament means giving in might reflect better, even in purely military terms, on experiences like Iran where the fortified bastion of the West collapsed into ruin. And does not what happened in Iran run the risk of happening elsewhere? And if one girds oneself to go ahead after having experienced such military collapses, why couldn't one unilaterally decide to authorise a country to disarm, setting off a chain reaction? Why, when Romania indicated its readiness, was the opportunity wasted?

"We are against the new missiles, against new military installations, against the nuclear bomb. But we also know that in a society where by far the greatest investments are made for military research, it is a senseless illusion to think of limiting the technological level of the armies".

Some people are saying that after Ireland, either one does not go on a hunger strike or one must die.

"Along with two other European deputies I made an appeal for electing Bobby Sands (2) as a deputy. The conservative English press accused us of actually being responsible for his success. Quite another thing is the necrophile vocation of the IRA's officers. As far as the obligation to die goes, Montanelli (3) has already expressed it in his inimitable way: "Either Pannella will die or he will disgrace himself".

Isn't it an exaggerated kind of arrogance on your part to take on the burden of millions of people?

"First of all, I am not alone. On the contrary, we have rarely collaborated so much as in the course of this struggle. Not arrogance, I don't think it is. I think a lot about it. I have known, and not just recently, but ever since 1953 when it happened that I became president of the UGI (4) - which was not the cumbersome vehicle for politicians on the make that it has since become - I have known that there is one thing that depends entirely on myself, and it is not a good thing. The good and important things that a politician like me, and which I claim to be wholly, can hope to accomplish depends on many factors, and also on the quality and the mediocrity of other politicians. In my favour I have this, certainly, which is the long duration of my hopes and my love".

If a boy telephoned you today and said he was in complete agreement with you and also wanted to go on an unlimited hunger strike, what would you say to him?

"To drop the idea, that there is no need for suicides. The meaning of a hunger strike like this depends on its history and its cultural background. Our struggle is a way of living, not a particular activity nor a way of dying. I would tell that boy to write a letter to the newspapers every day, and if he felt up to it to write ten instead of suddenly having recourse to the strength and the weakness of an unlimited hunger strike".

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TRANSLATOR'S NOTES

1) Lotta Continua - One of the most wide-spread and important far-left political movements, established in 1969 in Turin. In 1971 it founded the newspaper bearing the same name which immediately had wide distribution. It detached the extra-parliamentary left from its exclusive connection with the workers and penetrated the spheres of the youth, of students, of military conscripts and prisons, etc. The most prominent of its leaders was the journalist and writer Adriano Sofri.

2) Bobby Sands - An Irish Republican Army member captured by the British and convicted of terrorist crimes.

3) Montanelli, Indro - (Fucecchio 1909) - Italian journalist and writer. Famous for his letters from Hungary in 1956. After many years working with »Il Corriere della Sera he disagreed with its policies and left in 1974 to found »Il Giornale Nuovo whose respected managing editor he has been ever since. Has written successful books.

4) UGI - Unione Goliardico Italiano - An Italian university students organisation active in the Fifties, now defunct.