ABSTRACT: Amato remembers the time when, in December 1983, at the prison of Nuoro, there was the "first peaceful demonstration of the Red Brigades (2)". Marco Pannella (3) was there...; now, Amato underlines, after the years of "common university militancy in the UGI...we are together again". He then recalls Enzo Tortora (4), "the symbol of a civil battle..." and concludes "Who else will want to struggle for these memories and these hopes"?

(1994 - IL QUOTIDIANO RADICALE, 8 November 1993)

December 1983. Prison of Nuoro. First demonstration of peaceful protest of the Red Brigades.

Marco Pannella was there. And with him ideally if not physically present were all the radicals, many prisoners, especially political ones, and all those who would not surrender to the brutality of the situation of emergency.

Now we are together again after years of common militancy in the U.G.I., at the beginning of a difficult but rewarding reformist season.

To bring the culture of non-violence and dialogue to the prison, a place of violence and irreducible clash between prisons and guards.

To bring the respect of the rights in the place where those rights are denied. To bring life and hope in the dull and desperate place where freedom is seized.

I remember Enzo Tortora, the symbol of a civil campaign for a better justice system, capable of conciliating the safety of all with the freedom of each, and where the defense of one culprit is considered a service rendered to each innocent.

Who else will want to struggle for these memories and these hopes?

Translator's notes

(1) AMATO GIULIANO. (Turin 1938). Politician, expert in constitutional law. Extraparliamentary by formation, later joined the Socialist Party. Member of Parliament during several legislatures, under-secretary of the Presidency of the Council during the two Craxi governments. Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Treasury during the first Goria government.

(2) RED BRIGADES. (Known as BR). Clandestine terrorist organization of the extreme Left, born and operating in Italy as of 1969. By proclaiming the revolution of the working classes, the organization tried to open several fronts of armed revolt against the State and the political establishment, carrying out a series of attempts, wounding, kidnapping and assassinating politicians, journalists, magistrates and industrialists. Its leader was Renato Curcio. In 1978 the organization kidnapped and assassinated Aldo Moro.

(3) PANNELLA MARCO. Pannella Giacinto, known as Marco. (Teramo 1930). Currently President of the Radical Party's Federal Council, which he is one of the founders of. At twenty national university representative of the Liberal Party, at twenty-two President of the UGI, the union of lay university students, at twenty-three President of the UNURI, national union of Italian university students. At twenty-four he advocates, in the context of the students' movement and of the Liberal party, the foundation of the new radical party, which arises in 1954 following the confluence of prestigious intellectuals and minor democratic political groups. He is active in the party, except for a period (1960-1963) in which he is correspondent for "Il Giorno" in Paris, where he established contacts with the Algerian resistance. Back in Italy, he commits himself to the reconstruction of the radical Party, dissolved by its leadership following the advent of the centre-left. Under his indisputable leadership, the party succeeds in

promoting (and winning) relevant civil rights battles, working for the introduction of divorce, conscientious objection, important reforms of family law, etc, in Italy. He struggles for the abrogation of the Concordat between Church and State. Arrested in Sofia in 1968 as he is demonstrating in defence of Czechoslovakia, which has been invaded by Stalin. He opens the party to the newly-born homosexual organizations (FUORI), promotes the formation of the first environmentalist groups. The new radical party organizes difficult campaigns, proposing several referendums (about twenty throughout the years) for the moralization of the country and of politics, against public funds to the parties, against nuclear plants, etc., but in particular for a deep renewal of the administration of justice. Because of these battles, all carried out with strictly nonviolent methods according to the Gandhian model - but Pannella's Gandhi is neither a mystic nor an ideologue; rather, an intransigent and yet flexible politician - h

e has been through trials which he has for the most part won. As of 1976, year in which he first runs for Parliament, he is always elected at the Chamber of Deputies, twice at the Senate, twice at the European Parliament. Several times candidates and local councillor in Rome, Naples, Trieste, Catania, where he carried out exemplary and demonstrative campaigns and initiatives. Whenever necessary, he has resorted to the weapon of the hunger strike, not only in Italy but also in Europe, in particular during the major campaign against world hunger, for which he mobilized one hundred Nobel laureates and preeminent personalities in the fields of science and culture in order to obtain a radical change in the management of the funds allotted to developing countries. On 30 September 1981 he obtains at the European parliament the passage of a resolution in this sense, and after it several other similar laws in the Italian and Belgian Parliament. In January 1987 he runs for President of the European Parliament, obtaini

ng 61 votes. Currently, as the radical party has pledged to no longer compete with its own lists in national elections, he is striving for the creation of a "transnational" cross-party, in view of a federal development of the United States of Europe and with the objective of promoting civil rights throughout the world.

(4) TORTORA ENZO. (Genua 1928 - Milan 1988). Journalist and popular TV compere, arrested for alleged drug dealing. Elected member of the European Parliament (1984) on the Radical Party ticket, he underwent a trial during which he was convicted and later acquitted at the appeal. The occasion and the symbol of the most important radical campaign for the reform of the justice system.