ABSTRACT: Introductory report of the international congress of the "Hands Off Cain" campaign, held on 9 and 10 December, to obtain the abolition of the death penalty. The author underlines that the aim of an international campaign is to organize demonstrations capable of sending a message to the greatest possible number of people in the world. President Clinton's initiative of sending a videocassette to the Pope on Christmas, where he recognizes the Pope's commitment for the promotion of democracy and the defense of human rights, prompted the idea of addressing a petition to the Pope, asking him to urge the heads of State where the death penalty is in effect to apply a moratorium of all announced executions. While the death penalty is strictly excluded from the statute of the tribunal on crimes committed in the former Yugoslavia, it is a contradiction to apply it for far less serious crimes. The petition will be given to the Pope complete with thousands of signatures from Nobel Prize winners, personalities o

f the political, religious and cultural world, international organizations, human rights militants and ordinary citizens. On the 3rd of April in Rome an Easter March will take place ending in St.Peter's Square, where the Pope will deliver his traditional Easter speech, which is broadcast world-wide.

("HANDS OFF CAIN", February 1st 1994)

The first international congress of the Hands Off Cain campaign, held from 9 to 10 December, has yielded good results. We wish to thank the European Parliament's Green Group - and especially its president Adelaide Aglietta - and the transnational radical party for contributing to making it a success.

One hundred and fifty among parliamentarians, jurists, representatives of elective institutions and international organizations, coming from 36 countries of all continents, first gathered on an abolitionist project whose aims pertain to international and domestic law, to be pursued by the end of this millenium. The first objective of an international campaign is to organize demonstrations capable of sending a message to the highest possible number of people in the world. Owing to a happy coincidence, we have the opportunity of immediately carrying out most of the commitments taken during the Congress, and to answer most of the suggestions and proposals advanced during the speeches.

In the Christmas period, President Clinton sent the Pope a videocassette with a message in which he recognizes the role he has carried out in the world in favour of the promotion of democracy and of human rights.

On the basis of this acknowledgment and of the prestige the Pope enjoys at the international level, and not just in the Catholic world, we want to send a petition asking him to urge President Clinton and the heads of States that apply the death penalty to adopt a moratorium of all announced executions. The moratorium is the most appropriate means to allow the promotion, in due political time, of that supranational law that is already handed down in the statute of the tribunal on war crimes in the former Yugoslavia, which clearly states that the death penalty is excluded in all cases.

The moratorium is also an adequate means to allow the nations that apply the death penalty and which have approved that statute, to solve - without carrying out other "legal" executions - the contradiction between the fact of maintaining penal codes that envision the death penalty for crimes that are far less serious than the ones committed in ex-Yugoslavia. The ad hoc tribunal could pave the way for a permanent court for crimes against humanity: the Transnational Radical Party is carrying out a world-wide parliamentary campaign to that end. The Easter appeal will also contain this proposal: we hope it will be favourably accepted.

The Pope will be presented with a petition bearing thousands of signatures from Nobel Prize winners, personalities of the political, religious and cultural field, international organizations, human rights activists and ordinary citizens.

Each of us may join the appeal to participate in an Easter March ending in St.Peter's Square, where the Pope will deliver his traditional Easter speech that is broadcast world-wide.

Our hope, and in fact our objective, is that the delegations of the participant countries be received by the Pope.

The representative institutions that have founded the Hands Off Campaign and that are actively pursuing the adoption - according to the suggestions of the Brussels motion - of a country that maintains the death penalty, can pass motions to participate in the Easter March with their banners; to post the manifesto of the march in their city, to provide for transportation and, above all, to accommodation for the delegation of the adopted country.

Each of us is actively working on this program. It is especially important to operate for the success of an event in which we could address the United States with strong pressure on the public opinion before the June elections. Now that the decision of introducing restrictions on the sales of weapons is emerging for the first time in the U.S. as a way of confronting the criminal emergency in ways other than the death penalty, the moratorium appeal, endorsed by the People, could receive strong consent. A success in that direction could have important repercussions also on other countries that carry out death penalties.

In the states of the former Soviet Union, the moratorium can even be considered a dutiful act, considering that those countries are still discussing the new constitutional texts, and must yet decide whether the fact that the State cannot dispose of its citizens' lives should or should not be a fundamental individual right.

In many countries where there is strong pressure to reintroduce capital punishment, one of the arguments used by its advocates is that even the New Catechism of the Catholic Church has supposedly endorsed it. This has already happened in the Philippines, for instance, where the death penalty has just been reintroduced. It could happen in Brazil very soon. An explicit message on the part of the Pope would avert this possibility, rectifying an interpretation of the Catholic text which has already been excluded by the most authoritative commentators.

The petition to the Pope is attached to this paper, published in French, English, Russian and sent to 50,0000 people in the world. Please photocopy it, have others sign it and send it back to us as soon as possible.

Please note that the "Hands Off Cain" campaign is self-financed, and that the chances of success are based above all on the militant participation and on the contributions in money of each of us. Through this newspaper you may also join the radical party for 1994: we hope many will join.