Marco Berti

ABSTRACT: The summons in Sofia of the Assembly of radical MPs and of the General Council (15-18 July 1993) represents the starting point of the radical party's transnational challenge. The need to build a new international order, to enhance the role of the United Nations and to democratize its structures and decision-making procedures. The radical party's first political campaigns: creating the international tribunal for the crimes committed in ex-Yugoslavia, abolishing the death penalty by the Year 2000, setting up a parliamentary assembly of the United Nations.

(IL MESSAGGERO, Ed. Abruzzo, 16 July 1993)

Sofia - The radical party's future begins in Sofia. It is here, in the capital of Bulgaria, that the operative lines along which the radical party will operate will be traced. The premise is that international policy is experiencing a crisis. This crisis is further exacerbated by what the radicals call the "confusional state" of the United States' foreign policy because of Clinton's choices, and of Russia because of its domestic problems. Since yesterday and through Sunday, Sofia will host the general council and the assembly of the 400 radical parliamentarians from over fifty countries. The newly-elected secretary, Emma Bonino, at her first major meeting since February, will illustrate the proposals of the transnational party.

Q: Mrs Bonino, the time has finally come to make the 30,000 Italians who contributed to rescuing the radical party understand whether or not they have spent their money well.

BONINO - I don't like the way the question is placed. I think we have done a lot in these months, and that the new 37,000 members know that perfectly well. The results confirm that. The fact of organizing the Sofia Assembly is already a major success: 400 MPs from over 30 countries, as well as over 60 representatives elected by the February congress to the party's general council are attending here in Sofia to discuss subjects of great interest. It is an extraordinary event.

Q: Why did you choose Sofia as the seat of the general council?

BONINO - Sofia is one of the geographic and political centres of the Balkans. Here, a few kilometres away from countries that are still totalitarian, such as Serbia, or post-totalitarian, we will discuss Yugoslavia and the crisis of the United Nations but also the project of abolishing the death penalty by the year 2000...We believe it is extremely important for the public opinion of the Balkan countries to follow the proceedings of this assembly "in real time". In East European countries, the West is identified with privatizations and market, the luxury of the car industries, the scandals, slightly less (and sometimes rightly so) with the democracy of justice, of freedom, of responsibility and humanism".

Q: You say that a new world order could reproduce the same suffering and injustice of the past. Don't you think the challenge is rather too big for the "small" radical party?

BONINO - It would be too big for any party. But we accepted it. A few days ago Occhetto (2) rushed off to the congress of the French socialists with the purpose of overriding the Socialist Party and gaining a place in the sun in the socialist International. He is doing this at a time when the International counts just about nothing. We are here in Sofia with projects that favour precisely the international order. Think of the "Danube Project", for instance. We will propose an international Treaty or Covenant for the economic, environmental and cultural administration of the waterway complex based on the Danube and the Rhine, and which affects a variety of European countries, including Italy. It is a huge project, with considerable democratic as well as economic contents.

Q: Your symbol today is the effigy of Gandhi, the prophet of non-violence. Don't you think this is a feeble weapon compared to what is going on in the former Yugoslavia, for instance?

BONINO - You are committing the mistake of not distinguishing between Gandhian non-violence and the old pacifism. It is pacifism that has been defeated during the Gulf War, and also in Yugoslavia, and it survives only thanks to a handful of commendable "humanitarian" initiatives. Our proposals have a strong political value: to keep to the example of the Balkans, we are working hard at the international isolation of Serbia and Milosevic, and at defending Kosovo and Macedonia from possible attacks and invasions. If the 400 parliamentarians present will operate sensibly...

Q: Which are the first radical initiatives after Sofia?

BONINO: The Assembly will decide the priorities. In addition to te question of the Danube and of ex-Yugoslavia, we aim to enhance the role of the United Nations to uphold peace throughout the world. The UN will need to have its own military and civil force, in order to subtract it from the influence of the States (as in Somalia, for instance). Also, we advocate the creation of an Assembly formed by parliamentarians of the Member States, capable of making the organization and its policy more democratic. We will insist on the creation of a permanent tribunal for crimes committed against humanity and of the Tribunal for crimes committed in the former Yugoslavia. Then come the questions of the abolition of the death penalty by the year 2000, of AIDS and even the proposal of making Esperanto into a "neutral", "non-hegemonic" international language.

Q: The "Hands off Cain" campaign for the abolition of the death penalty by the year 2000 is highly impressive. Don't you think it is utopian?

BONINO - If it is a utopia, then it very well-grounded indeed. We "abolitionists" have already obtained a major result. In approving the state of the international tribunal for the crimes committed in the former Yugoslavia, the United Nations General Council has accepted the Italian and radical proposal of excluding the use of the death penalty regardless of the gravity of the crimes committed. Now we aim to achieve a UN Resolution establishing the time by which the death penalty must be scrapped from national legislations.

Translator's notes

(1) BONINO EMMA. (Bra 1948). President of the Radical Party, former member of the European Parliament, as of 1976 member of the Italian Parliament. Among the promoters of the CISA (Information Centre on Sterilization and Abortion) and active militant in the campaign against clandestine abortion. She was tried and acquitted in Florence. Participated in the conduction, on a national and international scale, of the campaign on World Hunger. Among the founding members of "Food and Disarmament International", promoted the circulation of the Manifesto of Nobel Laureates.

(2) OCCHETTO ACHILLE. (Turin 1936). Italian politician. At first exponent of Ingrao's group, he then shifted to Berlinguer's centre. He became secretary of the Italian Communist Party (PCI) in 1988, succeeding Alessandro Natta. After launching the idea of a major "Constituent" of the left with all reformist forces, he then decided to change only the name of the party ("Democratic Party of the Left").