ABSTRACT: In his speech at the International Conference on Human Rights, the author, in consideration of Radical Party's thirty-year theory and praxis, analyses the link between democracy and rights of the individual and of the minorities. In the countries of Eastern and Central Europe he identifies the "propelling place" for a "major rights-offensive", for the overcoming of the principle of non-interference. In fact Lievers believes that "those who know what it means to be abandoned to dictatorship in the name of non-interference are those who now have the possibility of guiding the battle to assert the equal rights of all".

(International Conference on Human Rights, Leningrad, 1-4 September 1990)

Dear Friends,

Allow me to say that a conference such as this, held here in the Soviet Union, appears as a precious sign of the times if we read the present in the light of a past that lasted until just yesterday and which is perhaps not yet entirely closed. It is all the more precious for us of the Transnational Radical Party, so let me express my gratitude and esteem to mayor Anatoly Sobdak and the other deputies who made it possible. All the more precious, I say, because it almost seems a symbol of the reasons for the proposal and the hope that we are trying to realise in our desire to become a transnational party. This is because in itself this conference testifies to the idea that the fundamental rights of man do not and must not have national boundaries; that they must everywhere be defended equally and in every way without distinctions between nation and nation; that they must not hypocritically come to a halt in the face of "special cases" or some sort of national independence used as a screen behind which the

rights of individuals are massacred.

The extraordinary transformations that have taken place here in the East - and this conference is a sign of them - show how right we were in our thirty years as a party of civil rights and non-violence in Italy. During those years we rejected the idea that so many professed openly or de facto - the idea that "Western" criteria were not valid for the Soviet Union or other Communist countries since these countries were "different", since they had made "different" choices which it was our obligation to respect. And we were right when we rejected the idea that we could not demand respect of the same rights for their citizens as we did for our own because of the special cases these countries represented, because of their national independence and because of the principle of non-interference in their internal affairs.

For our part, we have always believed in and - in as far as we possibly could - have always practised not only the right but also the duty of interference. In Italy, for thirty years, we have been a minority group - doubtlessly. But with the power of non-violence, with popular referendums, with a presence in the Italian and the European Parliaments that have allowed us to manifest social majorities that have changed the face of Italy in regard to civil rights - from the law instituting divorce to the recognition of conscientious objectors, to the battles regarding justice and prisons. In short - many of you surely will remember it - even when it was unfashionable in the West, many Radical leaders and militants repeatedly demonstrated in various parts of Europe allowing themselves to be arrested and expelled. Above all they did this in Communist countries where human rights were trodden down and violated. And for many long years we gave substance to our conception of the duty to interfere in the name of

legality. We made it a priority, also in Italy, to fight against the starvation of millions upon millions in the Third World, or against the radical denial of the first right, fundamental to all others: the right to life.

On this ground grew our decision to transform profoundly our party's nature and way of being. The determining factor was just this idea of the indivisibility of human rights and with it the awareness that many of the biggest and most important problems of the world today - from the salvation of the environment to the governing of the world macroeconomy up to the problems of peace - cannot be confronted seriously within the framework of single national states or on the scale of individual nations, but require institutions of law and democracy as well as tools of political action that are supranational and transnational. Thus to begin answering what we consider to be the vital needs of today's world, the Radical Party has transformed itself - has undertaken its own transformation - into a transnational party. This means that it is no longer a competing political force with national parties, even in elections, in any country of the world including Italy. It presents itself instead as a Gandhian type of non

-violent international in which citizens of all countries, whether or not they belong to national parties, can join in creating and fighting for a transnational political party for democracy and supranational rights. In this new form we are already present in many countries and the Soviet Union in particular.

As is evident, the possibly decisive factor for our political bet will be the fate of the democratic transformation and the creation of a State of law in the countries that are throwing off Communist totalitarianism, beginning with the Soviet Union. Precisely because democracy is being born here under strong tensions and the tension of ideas, and it has not become something routine which in many aspects has degenerated into the negation of its own principles as frequently occurs in the West, it is at the same time rich in extraordinary potential and exposed to very serious risks.

It is no paradox to state that just here, in these countries, is the capital of democracy, understood as the propelling place, in the world today. It has been the revolution occurring in this area that has put the values and ideals of democracy and of law back into the spotlight in a way that had not happened for decades. For this reason the fate of democracy in the world will depend in great part on the direction that the current process takes.

In the Soviet Union as in Yugoslavia, but elsewhere as well, the very problem of the relationship of the democratic transformation and that of the liberation of oppressed ethnic nationalities delineates the framework of an extraordinary opportunity that can be seized or of an obscure danger that will otherwise progress. The danger is above all that the sacrosanct liberation movements of liberation from such a long, ruthless oppression of the right to national identity will precipitate into inter-ethnic conflicts that could overrun the democracy being born.

The opportunity, on the other hand, is to become aware that the very difficulties of the intricate national questions suggest the royal road to the creation of supranational federal institutions and that these would be the supreme guarantors of the rights of everyone, and so of national, regional and ethnic identity and independence as well. This is the perspective for which we propose to European democrats, in the East as in the West, to unite in the struggle for a United States of Europe, understood as a federal union of European democracies for the mutual and reciprocal safeguarding of the rights of all. Here at last is the instrument adequate to allow the citizens of Europe to participate democratically in the government of a world in respect to which the dimension of the national state is impotent.

It is just this current process here in Eastern Europe that can generate the decisive impulse to open this radically new page in the history of the struggle for human rights. It would be a new tragedy if this opportunity were allowed to disperse and the hopes for democracy and law were to be enclosed again in the narrow limits of national states, giving the priority once again to the principle of absolute national sovereignty at the cost of the principle of interdependence in the protection of rights. For this reason as Radicals we propose and ask for coordination, common initiatives in the parliaments as in the streets of all parts of Europe.

The same issue - that of the superiority of human rights and their protection in contrast to the barriers raised in the name of national sovereignty - is the one central to the great question that will probably dominate future history: that of the relationship between North and South in the world, whose explosive danger is as emblematic as that which is occurring in the Persian Gulf. After the breaking up of the 40 year old equilibrium based on the reciprocal deterence between the two superpowers, the new menace now is the adding up of a great number of controlled, regional conflicts, even among powerfully armed countries, as well as the growing chances of conflict between the industrialized and the Third World. The only alternative possible is a new equilibrium at world level relying on the entente among the major powers, but in such terms that this very entente does not outline itself as an alliance of the North against the South.

If this is the goal, the right thing to do is perhaps to start a big offensive of rights by means of a non-violent approach, with the view to founding a system of international rights on top of the basic international rights , beginning with the human and civil rights, the right of life and of a decent existence for everyone.

Only in this way, by putting into work this prospective of

the economic and technologic potentials of the post-industrial societies, it will be possible to propose legal instances of international order without this leading to an operation favourizing the rich and powerful.

In the name of the human rights, as well as of economic development, we should and could then defy the numerous dictatorships throughout the third world which are trampling on the rights of their citizens while hiding behind a facade of non-interference, sovereignty and national independence.

Salvation lies in asserting the principle that human rights are valid all over the world and are to be defended anyway and anywhere.

Moreover, it is obvious which is to be the decisive rôle of the up and coming democracies of central and Eastern Europa.

Those who know what it means to be abandoned to dictatorships in the name of non-interference, now have the opportunity to guide the battle for the affirmation of equal human rights for everyone.

I appeal to you, also in the name of the Transnational Radical Party, to work together at this proposal for peace and for an international defense of everybody's rights.