ABSTRACT: An interview with Marco Pannella, published by the Slovenian daily DELO, on the radical Party's campaign in favour of the recognition of the Republics of Slovenia and Croatia.

The interview was reported by DELO Rome correspondent Mojca Drcar Murko.

(DELO, 21 October 1991)

Rome, 20 October - Marco Pannella, a long-time supporter of Gandhian nonviolence, and his Radical Party are the only Italian political force to have sided with the victims from the beginning of the war in Yugoslavia, and to have accused the European policy, which, by placing the two parts on the same level, is encouraging the aggressor. In the war against "party power", also called "real democracy" (taken from the term "real socialism"), Pannella uses different methods, which range from individual and collective protests to activities in Parliament.

We talked with Pannella on the thirteenth day of his fast for the recognition of Slovenia and Croatia and of all the peoples of ex Yugoslavia.

Your activity originates from the Gandhian nonviolent culture, even if it seems "out of fashion" in today's world. What do you hope to obtain?

This is not a personal act of protest. It is an initiative conducted together with the Party, which has chosen Gandhi also as its symbol. We have always maintained that violence is the chief problem of the world and of the political democracy which allows it. If if believed in the effectiveness of weapons - speaking from a practical, not a moral standpoint - I would take up weapons, as it occurred in the Spanish civil war. We are nonviolent militants, not pacifists, and when we realize that freedom is endangered, we side with the victim. We are convinced that the weapons of nonviolence are more effective than the weapons of violence, and even in situations of "peace" we fight against the structures of violence.

Let's talk about effectiveness

This is a serious political problem. We have proved that it is possible to achieve major objectives by combining political nonviolence and parliamentary action.

In the seventies, for example, we succeeded in blocking the laws on the state of emergency which had been passed with the pretext of fighting terrorism. We upheld the principles of the rule of law. I don't know if we will achieve such important changes also on a European scale.

But how can a fast addressed to a great many interlocutors who do not speak among each other be effective? Also, don't you think you are endangering your health?

Many of our anti-fascist predecessors, who fought in Spain, endangered their lives and their health, and many died. Yes, this fast will be harmful for my health. This is also why I'm saying that nonviolence is no easier that violence.

Your activity is all the more atypical in that you are the only party which has called the war in Croatia by its true name. It is not a civil war, where everyone commits the same mistakes and shares the same responsibilities. This is an aggression, and it gives the Croatians the right to defend themselves with all available means.

Since a few months, ex Yugoslavia represents the mirror of truth for Italy and Europe at large. The mirror which reflects the ghastly, putrid, cynical and almost demonic face of those who dominate it; the arrogance and brutality of Milosevic, who rules in the same way as the dictator Franco did during the Spanish civil war. By keeping a neutral position between the assailants and the victims, Europe enables the war and the violence to continue.

What is the reason for this position on the part of Europe and the U.S.?

The Serbian lobby is extremely powerful in Europe, thanks also to the relations with the military-industrial complex. With the office he held in the past, Milosevic had many contacts and still keeps them; they supported him, as they would have supported the coupmongers in Moscow, had there not been T.V. which broadcast the image of Yeltsin on the tank throughout the world. Communism was a short-term system, which was fine for the West provided it didn't threaten it directly. Now this order is gone, there is but disorder and the quest for a new guard. We have organized a political movement against the various Münich treaties and, since many years in Yugoslavia, we have supported those forces that wanted to change the rules of the new order. Remember the slogan "Europe now"?

Is it possible, considering the gradual growth in pressure, also on the part of the Christian Democratic Party, to expect a change of position vis-à-vis the Balkans on the part of the European governments?

I must say the Radicals' positions very often correspond to the positions of other forces and parties, though we never agree with them on domestic policy. We are federalists, anti-nationalists, even if from the beginning we realized that the Yugoslav federation was over for good. We do not resent other hypotheses, provided there is the resolve to join Europe. And if this happens, everything will change. Look at Andreotti: after an eleven-day trip (and in the meanwhile they have almost torn down his government) on his return to Rome the first thing he did was meet with the representatives of Slovenia, Croatia and Kosovo. He talked with them for one and a half hour; these are things that count, and this is the way the Radical party operates. This is how the E.C. and the Italian government changed their positions: following our internal, parliamentary and nonviolent pressure. I would like to point out how important it is, on this occasion too, that our party has members who operate in the different Parliaments

of Europe. However, we need help, especially in Slovenia and Croatia, we need new members, we need a transnational network for the Party. Look at your case: in the days of the struggle against totalitarianism I had many friends, Greens, nonviolent militants, representatives of the parties. Now they are all for "Party power", they talk about the need for the existence of the army ...

But the events have somehow corrected the ideas of that time. If Slovenia had lacked an embryo of its own army, all would have been lost.

Not necessarily, I believe. If Slovenia had decided to disarm itself unilaterally, and had expressed the intention of having no army at all, it would have become a legend. And if the world had seen pictures of tanks being stopped by the unarmed population, the international public opinion would have mobilized at once.

But this did not happen in Croatia. And yet the tanks are shooting on the defenceless population, and the Western public opinion keeps calling it a "civil" war, without a political background.

I must say I had no problems when I sided with Slovenia and Croatia. This is what I did, but let us look at the future. As I say, I am no pacifist, and I believe nonviolence should be organized as a force in order to oppose violence successfully.

(Translation from Slovenian by Tamara Jadrejcic)