ABSTRACT: Cracow, August 25, 1988. The International Conference for Human Rights organised by the dissolved independent Polish union Solidarnosc and by the pacificist and ecological Wolnosc i Pokoi. We are publishing the speech of Sergio Stanzani, the Radical Party Secretary, at the Conference: we must hasten the collapse of the totalitarian regimes but take care to prepare the "after liberation" if we want to fulfill our hopes . The liberation of Poland must claim its European dimension even before the conquest of its national sovereignty.

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

Friends and comrades, it is with deep gratitude and respect that I take part in this Convention in Cracow at a time which is again so dramatic for your country. One of the many, too many moments, in which it would be better for us to do something about human and civil rights and the values of democracy, justice and freedom, rather than limit ourselves to speaking.

The outcome of the struggles for liberation from the dictatorships in this and in other European countries, imposed on us by the imperial Soviet system, leaves no room for doubt. It is probably not a question of weeks or months, but - certainly - neither of new eras or decades. The dictatorships have shown yet again that they are incapable historically of assuring not only freedom and justice, but also economic, technological, scientific and civil progress. In this sense, their downfall is inevitable and necessary.

Today however what is urgently required is a more concrete contribution to these struggles for liberation by democrats all over the world, but in Europe first and foremost, to accelerate their downfall but also to prepare the new alternative - together. The democratic revolutions in which only the "No" is clear, risk being very short-lived. We Western democrats, must fight that "reason of State" for which the Western States today - as in the period of Nazism and Fascism - seem more anxious to assure the stability and tranquillity of the dictatorial regimes in the illusion of capturing their benevolence, friendship, and repleteness of power, than ensuring the international community and the peoples subject to the violence of these dictatorships, the conquest of their individual, human, civil and political rights. The democrats are aware that these rights must motivate their own countries' politics to focus on putting an end to the suicidal and not infrequently murderous complicity of their own governm

ents and yours. They must make a more direct contribution and take a greater part in the present and future struggles for liberation which are being fought, that you are fighting.

I am here, we are here as the Radical Party, a party which over the past years and months has been affirming its transnational, transparty character in the midst of a thousand problems. It has been supporting the Ghandian liberation of the oppressed Europe, of those who are weak and discriminated against within the democracies, of that enormous part of the world exterminated by misery, hunger, and wars imposed by the military-industrial complex incapable of providing an order of its own which is not merely democratic, but also livable.

If on the one hand this needs to be urgently achieved, on the other hand we think it is necessary to properly understand that the crises of dictatorships in Eastern Europe are also (I say "are also", but not marginally so) crises of the national States as such, of politics, and political and social forces which are motivated solely by "national" inspiration and participation. It is essential to reflect more intensely and more urgently then about the "after" liberation, if we want the prospect of liberation to be strengthened and not subsequently betrayed, and in order not to disappoint those who today are putting all their hopes and efforts into it.

This is why there is a pressing need for parties everywhere in the world even here, which are not merely "national", exacted by the new problems humanity must face if it is to achieve freedom and justice.

The liberation of these countries, like those too where democracies and States are in crises due to their uni-national dimensions, must thus assert its European nature, even before it gains independence and sovereignty, equivocal and dangerous values, politically, concretely European, for the United States of Europe, a Federal Community - The State of Rights and Freedom. Right here, where the problems of rights and freedom, of security and tolerance, of human and civil progress are justly recognised as principle fundamental human problems, it is imperative to be aware that it is now possible, indeed obligatory, to make a contribution to those in Western Europe who want this political Community immediately; and those who on the other hand want to keep it within the ambiguous boundaries of an economic community. We hope that in the demonstrations and in the documents of national, human, political and social liberation, in Europe and in Poland, the European flag will always be hoisted, together with t

he flags of the nations and those of the democratic movements. In such a case another difference also appears, essentially, historically and radically an alternative to the "status quo", and to national and military dictatorships within the imperial Soviet system and those which - throughout the world were tragically established in more than 120 countries, members of the UN. It is equally urgent to think about the "after". It is important to imagine that this "after" could be planned to harmonise with the evolution of the European democratic system. We ought also to remember that only proportionalistic, pluri-partite democratic regimes have had historical crises, which have maintained if not caused, Fascist as well as Communist dictatorships. The choice of the Anglo-Saxon model of democracy, tendentially biparty with very "weak" parties on the organisational level thus leaving great potential for associations and social forces to operate, cannot be taken into consideration. Otherwise there could

be a danger of the affirmation of factions, former resentment, and ideological feelings or paralysis in reconstruction . As First Secretary of a party, the Radical Party, whose militants for more than twenty years have organised demonstrations in your country, in all the countries within the Soviet empire and in many Fascist States in the name of freedom, justice, non-violence and human and political rights, this is what I feel it is right to propose to your attention, for your support, your help and your participation. At this very moment in Prague, twenty of our comrades have been expelled for life because of the demonstrations on San Wenceslas Square on the twentieth anniversary of the Soviet invasion. In Poland, Minister Urban, spokesman for the Government, has attacked us three times, describing us as the party of Ilona Staller, the pornostar "Cicciolina". I shall reply here publicly that our colleague Ilona Staller, democratically elected member, will not however be responsible for assassin

ations, torture, or violence. How many politicians, including Minister Urban, can say as much about their own past, present, or future?

And even in our countries, how many of those who excited Puritan or moralistic reactions against Ilona Staller and against us are less dangerous than she, or more capable of making a civil, human, honest and clean contribution to the life of society? Minister Urban well knows that Ilona Staller's election was the price we wanted to pay for democracy and tolerance in the eyes of the voters; The Minister knows or ought to know that the Radical Party has been a political minority for twenty-five years in Italy, and that by means of non-violence, the promotion of popular referendums and its presence in the national and European Parliaments, it has been able to create a political issue allowing the social majorities who otherwise lacked a political voice to vent their opinions. This is how it has procured the reforms of laws concerning such matters as conscientious objection, divorce, civil rights, and "no" to nuclear energy.

Together with over a hundred Nobel prize winners (including, if I am not mistaken, Lech Walesa) we are the party which suggested putting the struggle for that first most basic of human rights at the top of our countries' political agenda: life, negated every year by the holocaust of hunger of forty million human beings. At least by the sin of omission, our States, in the West and the East, share responsibility for this. From our awareness that the greatest problems of our times - the indivisibility of peace, the protection of human rights and the great options for energy and defence, economic and ecological - cannot be seriously faced nor solved within a single national framework, has emerged our present option, our challenge: the attempt to found a transnational party. The transnational party has no intention of competing with other Western European parties in the electoral race, nor is it a political rival to any political movement in the Eastern European countries, but an additional value, one m

ore option for the commitment of each individual. A transnational party in order that new transnational institutions may be born, where the right to life and the life of rights may be affirmed or at least may find room for political confrontation. Therefore, from this moment, as I said earlier, the commitment to give life to the United States of Europe, understood neither as a mere space for a free economic market, nor as a political entity limited to the present 12 member countries of the EEC, but as the nucleus of democracy and supranational right, open to the membership of peoples who mean to recognise themselves in such a project. It is necessary to counter the risk that in the years to come only a "business Europe" will be formed, instead of a "political Europe".

I believe our logic is more appropriate here in Poland today, because for us it is the true great terrain for the battle for human rights, the true test of possible change, and verification of the real existence of a liberalisation and democratisation process. And I am referring to Solidarnosc. I feel that a European dimension of political struggle that is not only national is what a movement like Solidarnosc truly needs, with its wealth of experience in non-violence and because it deserves to be more - both for us and for international public opinion - than a phenomenon created and remembered only through the mass media during strikes, or in moments of serious internal tension in Poland. Just for this reason, by humbly proposing our ideas, we are here to ask you for yours and to listen to your analyses and suggestions.

For the immediate future, we propose three ideas guidelines which I hope will meet with your approval:

1. The connection between human rights and economic co-operation between our States. As regards these, it is necessary for a clear statement to be pronounced by all the movements for human and civil rights. I am convinced that the credit facilities provided by the West in recent years have not been useful to the Polish people, but instead have been most useful to General Jaruzelski. This is only an example, but I believe it is necessary to fight so that a sum is not lavished or a contract is not signed without a precise guarantee of the adoption of measures for the democratisation of the regime. Outside such a line, any denouncements of violations of human rights frankly becomes an alibi, the cover for a policy of complicity de facto, which should be exposed and for which responsibility should be taken. Continuing with the Polish example, it would probably be useful to cultivate the idea of a great plan for co-operation, based on the model of the Marshal plan, on condition that it would include and consider

precise stages of a democratisation process.

2. The choice of the European Parliament as the speaker and forum for the movements engaged in the struggle for human rights. I am convinced that an intergroup could be set up within the European Parliament, of representatives of all the parties and different nationalities, which would have the role for example of technical speaker for Solidarnosc, where without any political intervention or control, whatever your organisation and the entire Polish opposition feels opportune could be transferred to that European institutional forum, literally by nominating their own representatives to the European Parliament.

3. The need for federal pacts for the exchange of memberships within the respective organisations. Henceforth a permanent institutional link is necessary between those who are employed daily in the non-violent battle for the affirmation and defence of human rights. A pact of federation which obviously should not prejudice in any way or for any reason the autonomy of the different entities which decide to adopt a stable link, but one which allows for the growth of common exchanges of opinion and common initiatives.

And I hope that there may be a common discussion and debate on these three ideas and suggestions; the conviction I want to stress here is that Poland is the test-case today, the test of new relationships, not only between the States but between the European peoples, and thus a test, par excellence, of the affirmation and defence of human, civil union and political rights.