Information bulletin of antimilitarist actions
No. 10 * 14 February 1999
Edited by the Antimilitarist Radical Association (ARA),
an association of the Transnational Radical Party.
Russian and English editions.
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SPECIAL ISSUE
THE SECOND CONGRESS OF THE ARA (MOSCOW, JANUARY 16-17 199)
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REPORT OF NIKOLAI KHRAMOV, SECRETARY OF THE ARA
Dear friends, comrades, respected colleagues,
first of all, I would like to thank you all, everybody who came here today to take part in the work our Congress. I am very grateful to all our comrades, members of the Association and of the Radical Party (to begin with the Secretary of the Radical Party Olivier Dupuis; to be here with us he has made a longer way than anybody else). I am also grateful to the Deputies of the State Duma, who have not joined our Association or the Radical Party yet, nonetheless they do a lot to help us achieve our common objects.
I would also like to thank the staff of the Sakharov Museum and its director Jurii Samodurov. Their collaboration allowed us to carry out this Congress as well as the majority of the recent initiatives of the Russian radicals. Thank you very much!
In a year and a half, I had to make a detailed report on the activity of the ARA three times - at sittings of the General Council in September 1997, in May and in October 1998. Every time those sittings were something more important than an ordinary meeting of General Counsellors, elected by the First Congress. Every time many comrades and members of the ARA, i.d. those who actually carry out our initiatives, took part in these sittings. In fact, these were small Congresses, or at least the number and the composition of their participants made them so. Therefore, and also not to abuse of your attention, I shall try to tell you briefly about the main directions of our activity, about our rare victories and more often failures since the First Congress of the ARA in summer 1996. I beg your pardon in advance for I shall not mention in my report some important events and some important names.
THE STRUGGLE FOR THE ADOPTION OF THE ALTERNATIVE CIVILIAN SERVICE LAW
The First Congress of the ARA in its General Motion pointed out that the most important political goal of the ARA was the struggle for the adoption of the Alternative Civilian Service Law - a non-discriminatory, democratic, liberal law. Other documents of the ARA, including the Motions of its General Council, specified the demands we made and we still make to such a law: the future alternative service must be exclusively civilian (first of all, the work in the social field and in the public health service); it must not be punitive for those who conscientiously object; theoretically its term must be the same as the term of the military service; the procedure of applying for the alternative service must be as simple as possible or, rather, the conscientious objector should just notify the Conscription Commission about his choice.
Naturally, in the first line of the battle for the ASC law there were our comrades in the State Duma: the deputies who belong to different parliament groups and who did everything they could in order to make the present-day Duma, where the communist, national-chauvinist and militarist majority reigns, discuss the draft law that had been adopted in December 1994 by the previous Duma in the first reading and after that it had been buried for months and even for years. These deputies made as much as possible to prevent the draft law from emasculation by adding a number of amendments within the work group; the amendments that menaced to replace a conscientious objection law with a law against conscientious objectors. Later Valerii Vasil'evich Borshchev will tell you in details about this legislative struggle that he has been carrying out in the State Duma together with his colleagues from the benches of the Parliament.
As for me, I would like to point out some steps of our campaign that we have been carrying out outside the Duma, as members of a public association who supported the activity of their deputies for the good of millions of Russian citizens. The main goal of this campaign was to put pressure upon the deputies of the Parliament from below, form the ordinary electors.
First of all, I would like to speak about our initiative "Postal attack at the State Duma" that the ARA and the Radical Party began in February 1997. At the first stage of the campaign, by the end of 1995, we managed to collect on the whole national territory nearly 10.000 signatures under the petition to the State Duma calling to adopt the Alternative Civilian Service draft law as soon as possible. Now we have chosen another way. Instead of collecting signatures, we decided to put the Duma under the pressure of its electors by sending personal post cards to the President of the Duma. Nearly 1000 post card have been sent to the Duma by people from different Russian regions. Maybe 1000 post cards are not so many, but thanks to this initiative the alternative civilian service has become the most popular issue in the rating of people's appeals to the Parliament. I would also like to mention another positive result of this initiative, more important for our "internal" organisation: we received copies of
all post cards and registered them in our database. This helped us find a great number of new participants and adherents for our future initiatives. Later some of them joined the ARA as members or adherents.
In March 1998 we tried once again to appeal to the leaders of the Duma asking them to receive the delegation of the ARA before the discussion of the Alternative Civilian Service law. Alas, we did not get any reply, as it used to be many time before.
In April 1998 we carried out an urgent action for collecting signatures among Russian citizens under the appeal to the Defence Committee and to the Public Associations and Religious Organisations Committee of the Duma in order to support the amendments to the ACS law, presented by deputies Borshchev, Vorob'ev, Golov and Grushchak. These amendments aimed at neutralising the attempts to naught the sense and the meaning of the law by inserting into it the so-called Art.30 according to which during the "transitional period", i.d. till 2000, up to 50% of conscientious objectors could be sent to the Army to perform the military service as civil personnel. In two weeks we managed to collect about 2000 signatures that we passed to the leaders of these Duma Committees.
On May 15, 1998, the European Day of Conscientious Objector, while the Public Associations Committee was discussing the draft law, we carried out a manifestation at the State Duma in Okhotnyi Ryad for the immediate adoption of the Alternative Civilian Service Law and against the persecution of conscientious objectors in Russia and in Turkey (in fact, Russia and Turkey are the only European countries where the conscientious objectors run risks of criminal prosecution).
Certain steps were taken on the world arena or, if you prefer to call it this way, on the transnational scene. The official position of the Radical Party (the ARA is one of its association), an NGO with category I consultative status, allows it to participate in the work of many UN bodies, in particular, in the work of the UN Human Rights Commission. In March 1998 at a meeting of the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva the Radical Party presented a detailed report on Conscientious objection in the Russian Federation. This year the Party will continue to work in order to put the issue of conscientious objection in Russia on the agenda of the UN HR Commission. This time we are preparing an oral statement for a meeting of the Commission in Geneva, more important than a presentation of a written document.
Deputies of the European Parliament - members of the Radical Party who belong to the ERA (European Radical Alliance) - Olivier Dupuis and Gianfranco Dell'Alba continue their attempts to make the European Parliament adopt a resolution on conscientious objection in Russia.
On October 7, 1998 a special and a rather long stage in the struggle for the adoption of the ASC law in Russia was over, as well as a particular period in the life of our organisation, an Antimilitarist Radical Association. On October 7 the State Duma voted down the Alternative Civilian Service draft law in the second reading, after four years of discussions. In the legislative sense the we are back to January 1994, when the newly elected 5-th Duma began preparing the ASC draft law in the first reading.
We have to admit that we - everybody who has been fighting for the adoption of the law in the Duma, in the streets and in the squares, in the Court rooms, defending the right to conscientiously object - we are defeated.
It goes without saying that the Constitution still guarantees to the citizens the "right to substitute the military service for the alternative civilian service". And, what is more, the new Military Service law still states that the Enlistment Commissions should send the conscientious objectors to perform the alternative civilian service - thus, the Commissions have finally lost their pitiful juridical prop: the previous Military Service law and its application, the Resolution of the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Federation of May 19, 1993 on applying the law. However, that fact is that today the young citizens who conscientiously object and apply for the alternative civilian service, referring to the direct action of the Constitution, have to face the illegitimate actions of the Enlistment Commissions that continue to give them their call-up papers. When the conscientious objectors appeal to the Court, in most cases (in Moscow in 100%) they get a legal negative decision on their complaint against th
e actions of the Enlistment Commission. More and more frequent are the cases of the consequent criminal persecution of the conscientious objectors. We do no know any case of an executed verdict of the Court concerning the actual imprisonment of a conscientious objector, but the fact is that being a conscientious objector in Russia is a rather troublesome affair with a hardy predictable outcome - a choice of a few decisive and convinced people.
DIRECT ACTIONS: CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTION
After a really historical verdict, pronounced on May 13, 1996 in Noginsk by Judge Elena Ratskevich to Vadim Hesse, justified for the lack of corpus delicti; the verdict based on the direct action of the Constitution and the international human rights legislation, there have been several criminal trials (about 15, as far as we know) and several processes (less than 15) of conscientious objectors. I would like to mention the verdict of "non guilty" of October 24, 1996 to the member of the ARA Aleksandr Seregin, an adept of the Krishna Conscience, and the verdict "guilty", rescinded last July by the Regional Court of Krasnodar, to a Jehovah's Witness Vadim Nazarov, condemned in Sochi earlier last summer.
Now our comrades Aleksei Bykov (refused the amnesty, declares himself innocent), Vasilii Bazhenov and several other members and adherents of the ARA are under examination.
The military authorities realise that according to the legislation and in accordance with the laws and the Constitution there is nothing they can do to the conscientious objectors. However, they are ready to violate the laws by threatening, menacing and in some cases by kidnapping the disobedient conscientious objectors. Many of us remember the epic attempt of kidnapping Aleksandr Yakovenko, a member of the ARA, in December 1996, that concluded with proceedings against the too zealous officers of the Military Registration and Enlistment Office; similar case of Nikolai Mozhzhukhin in the region of Yaroslavl'. In the case of Mozhzhukhin MP Valerii Borshchev presented a deputy's inquiry to the Prosecutor's Office, and on June, 31 1997 the ARA held a manifestation at the General Prosecutor's Office in Moscow.
I would like to mention the contribution of deputy Valerii Borshchev and those who help him, first of all of Lev Levinson, for defending personally the rights of conscientious objectors. Borshchev has presented dozens of inquiries to the Offices of the Prosecutor concerning the violation of the rights, the laws and of the Constitution by Military Registration and Enlistment Offices and Courts. In many cases (Petr Gusev, Aleksei Bykov and others) Borshchev personally defended the draftee in the Court at the appeal against the actions of the Enlistment Commission or during the hearing of the criminal cases as a public defence representative.
INFORMING THE CITIZENS ABOUT THE RIGHT TO CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTION, "CIVIL OBEDIENCE CAMPAIGN"
Everybody who comes closer to the question of Conscientious objection in Russia inevitably runs into problems concerning the general juridical illiteracy of too many Russian citizens and the absolute lack of information among young Russian citizens and their parents about the civil rights and duties in the field of conscription.
In fact, since the very first days of the ARA's work, one of the principal directions of our activity was informing the citizens about their constitutional right to conscientious objection. Since summer 1995 we have been holding in Moscow weekly seminars for conscripts - potential conscientious objectors. In certain periods, during the spring and autumn conscription campaigns, we held these seminars twice a week. Thus, in three years, we held about 200 seminars, visited by nearly 4.000 people (both conscripts and their parents).
The ARA militants and right-defendants in other cities carry out this activity in some other cities, e.g. in Obninsk, Ekaterinburg, Yaroslavl'.
The media could play a very important part in informing young Russian citizens about their constitutional rights. In practice, however, they do not always manage to achieve their objects. That is why all these years we have been trying to invent "informational occasions" in order to bring the problem of conscientious objection to newspapers, radio and TV news programmes. I mean meetings and manifestations timed to the beginning of enlistment campaigns (the most important meeting on March 30 in Arbat) and also some non ordinary actions as, for example, the appearance in the Red Square, in Moscow, of the Father Frost distributing the Constitution; many journalists saw him arrested by the militia.
In March 1997, in collaboration with the Quaker's Peace &Servive, we managed to publish a small advertisement in some regional supplements to the Argumenty i fakty weekly. After this advertisement hundreds of people from different Russian regions contacted us; we have sent them by post detailed instructions for conscientious objectors and the algorithm to follow in case of a trial.
In May 1997, together with the famous journalist Aleksandr Gordon (TV-6 Moscow Channel) we have launched an ambitious project - the Civil Obedience Campaign. This project provided that three times a week the programme "Chastnyi sluchai" ("Private case"), conducted by Gordon, informed about the constitutional right to conscientious objection and indicated the phone number of the ARA, so that every TV viewer could contact us and get a detailed consultation and a practical help in defending his right to conscientiously object.
At the same time, in spring-summer 1997, the militants of the ARA held regular street tables and pickets in Pushkin square in Moscow. They distributed leaflets with the information about the right to conscientious objection and our struggle for its realisation.
Unfortunately, the fact that Aleksandr Gordon has left the television made us modify considerably our initiative.
In March 1998 we have launched in Moscow the action "Sticker in the metro". In this period we managed to distribute in the metrocars more than 8.000 stickers with the text of the Constitution, Art. 59.3, and the phone number of the ARA for the people to want to know more about the realisation of the constitutional right to conscientious objection. This action goes on; now it is the only way we have to inform conscripts and their parents about the weekly consultation seminars of the ARA.
Since February 1997 the ARA also has its INTERNET homepage where one can find the information about the conscientious objection. More than 6.000 people have already visited it, however, its potential is still to be developed.
OTHER ANTIMILITARIST INITIATIVES AND ACTIONS
I shall limit myself to mentioning the most important initiatives and actions we have been carrying out in last two years and a half.
The traditional action at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Aleksandrovskii Garden on February, 13 1997. Together with the splendid governmental wreaths there was a modest garland with the words "To the victims of the militarism", laid by the militants of the ARA to symbolise that we never forget all the victims of soviet and Russian militarism: both the soldiers sacrificed during the W.W.II by Zhukov to win the cities by the national holidays and the young boys in Groznyi, who died, according to a general-bastard, "with a smile".
The petition Five Conditions of the Civil Confidence, addressed in spring 1998 to the newly nominated government of the young reformers, led by Sergei Kirienko. We have collected more than 2.000 signatures under this petition calling to take decisive steps for the realisation of the military reform, for cutting the was expenses and for executing the Decree 722 on the transition to the professional army (now abrogated) and have sent the petition to the Moscow White House.
The public campaign in July 1997 addressed to the Procurator-General's Office, aimed at putting on trial the now late general Rokhlin for public appeals to a military revolt. Nearly 2.000 declarations and telegrams were sent to the Procurator-General Yurii Skuratov.
Actions of protest against the enormous burden of the military expenses during the discussion of the budget at the State Duma, on October 8, 1997. It seems to me that our action was a success: a dozen of radicals marched from Trubnaya square to the Duma building in Okhotnyi Ryad, bent under the "heavy" "wooden" crosses with the inscription "military expenses". You may still see one of the crosses in our office, in Pechatnikov pereulok.
And, last but not least, I would like to mention the participation of the ARA in the international initiative "Stop Milosevic with a signature", launched by the Radical Party last summer-autumn. It is a campaign of collecting signatures to be presented at the Hague Tribunal for the ex-Yugoslavia for an official incrimination of the main responsible for the Balkan tragedy - the Serb president Milosevic - accused of the organisation of war crimes and the crimes against the humanity. On October 16, 1998 the militants of the ARA and of the Radical Party held a manifestation at the State Duma with the slogans "Freedom for Kosovo, democracy for Serbia", "Defend Serb brothers from the nationalist-Bolshevist regime of Milosevic", calling the Duma deputies to join this international initiative. The General Council of the ARA declared its solidarity with the initiative in a special motion, adopted at its sitting on October, 23 1998.
PARTICIPATION IN THE ELECTION CAMPAIGN TO THE MOSCOW CITY DUMA
1997 was a very important year for the radicals of Moscow for one more reason: in December the militants of the ARA participated in the election campaign to the Moscow City Duma.
The Charter of the Antimilitarist Radical Association (or, if you prefer, an Antimilitarist Association of the Radical Party), as well as the Charter of the Radical Party, does not allow it to take part in elections, present official candidates or lists of candidates for, as well as the Radical Party, it is a transparty political organisation. By the way, the ARA has no official registration and, therefore, cannot act as an electoral association.
Nonetheless, according to the decision of the General Council of the ARA of September 1997, the Association supported me personally as a candidate in the electoral district 25 (municipal regions Akademicheskii, Lomonosovskii, Gagarinskii). Several dozens of the ARA militants played an important part in the collection of the signatures and the electoral campaign. This campaign - for the first time the radicals and the ARA militants took an active part in an electoral campaign - urged us to do our best and mobilise all our resources. On the other hand, it allowed us to use the electoral tribune to "visualise" our activity and our proposals, those concerning antimilitarism as well, and gave us a precious political and organisational experience.
This experience was one of the factors that urged us to establish in June 1998 a new public political organisation "Club Khramov - an association for the libertarian reforms", created with an active participation of the militants of the ARA.
CONTACTS AND CO-OPERATION WITH MEMBERS AND ADHERENTS OF THE ARA
Unfortunately and quite traditionally for the radicals in Russia, one of the loose knots of our activity concerns everyday contacts and co-operation with members and adherents of the Association, especially those who do not live in Moscow.
In 1996-1997 the Antimilitarist bulletin played the part of the informational and organisational instrument. Since June 1996 till October 1997 we have published 7 numbers of the bulletin (4-8 pages format A4, about 1000 copies for each number). We distributed the Antimilitarist by post to all members and adherents of the Association, members of the Radical Party and all our friends who participated in antimilitarist initiatives. Unfortunately, by the end of 1997, for the lack of financing we had to stop publishing the bulletin.
Since February 1998 instead of a paper bulletin we have Antimilitarist on-line, distributed by e-mail and also available on the homepage of the ARA. We have issued 8 numbers of the Antimilitarist on-line, the last one, number 8, distributed in January, two weeks before the Congress. This edition has a great advantage - actually it does not cost anything (we pay only the translation of the English edition). However, in our country the INTERNET is not yet as popular as it is in Europe and in the USA, therefore, this electronic edition cannot be considered as adequate means of communication and collaboration with the majority of the members and the adherents to the ARA.
OUR PRESENCE IN THE REGIONS
We have to come to the conclusion that the attempts to create in different Russian regions local ARA groups, according to the decisions of the First Congress, failed. By summer 1997, a year after the First Congress, only one group was organised - "Murmansk and Severomorsk", but in 1998 it closed. A series of meetings in Obninsk, Kaluga, Yaroslavl', Sankt-Peterburg held in spring 1997 did not result in establishing real ARA groups or groups of militants, capable of co-operating among them. By way of exception I would like to mention Obninsk and to thank Tat'yana Kotlyar for her help. However, even in Obninsk an ARA group has not been established. In this situation in September 1997 the General Council of the ARA decided to concentrate our efforts at the Moscow front and try to achieve some results in terms of number or members and adherents in the capital. Now the ARA is presented outside Moscow by single members and adherents in several Russian cities.
STATE REGISTRATION OF THE ARA
The last problem I would like to speak about in the first part of my report and before we pass to the discussion of our perspectives, concerns the state registration of the ARA. We have already talked a lot about it, in particular, at the three sittings of the General Council after the First Congress.
Today the ARA has no state registration yet. According to the Public Associations federal law, each public association may be registered by the state power bodies or carry out its activity without state registration, in accordance with its Charter. In this case it has all the rights of a public association and also all its duties, with the exception of the rights and the duties of a juridical person (the right to open a bank account, participate in the trials as civil plaintiff and respondent, pay taxes and fees to the extra budget funds, ecc.). It goes without saying that a public association without state registration cannot have the rights of an electoral association, but for the ARA it is not that urgent.
The attempts to register the ARA at the Direction of Justice of the Moscow Government failed. The stumbling rock consisted in a number of serious obstacles. First of all, it seems impossible to register as public association a body that has the word "assotsiatsiya" in its name because, according to the interpretation of the relevant law, an association is a union of juridical persons. Second, it would oblige us to set the 18-years age limit for those who want to join the ARA. There are also some other difficult problems concerning a serious modification of the Charter of the ARA. On the other hand, we cannot change the name of the Association. People already know it and "recognise" it.
For these reasons I, as Secretary of the ARA, and Anna Zaitseva, the acting Treasurer, decided to suspend the registration, discuss this problem at the Congress and leave it to the new leaders of the Association.
PERSPECTIVES OF THE ARA
No doubt, the fact that the Congress of the ARA has not united for two years and a half (according to the Charter of the ARA it should be held every year) is a formal violation of the rules of the Charter. However, I as a Secretary had some valid reasons while assuming the responsibility for not having united the Congress for such a long time. This responsibility, in fact, is to be divided by all members of the ARA - they have never used the possibility provided by the Charter to collect the signatures of 1/3 of the members of the Association and to hold an extraordinary Congress. I would like to thank you for having assumed this responsibility with me. The most important reason of the delay concerns the conditions for holding a Congress, first and foremost the political ones.
Now, after the voting of the Duma (October 7) we find ourselves in a new situation (new from both psychological, juridical and political point of view); the situation of 1993. That is why we can no longer follow the General Motion of the First Congress establishing the political priority of the struggle for the Alternative Civilian Service law. The internal situation, the situation among radicals, in the radical sphere, has changed as well. On the one hand, more and more people "here" (not only our comrades from the Committee of the Mothers of Soldiers) and "there', outside this hall, declare that they are against any, even "the most democratic" alternative service law. On the other hand, in August 1998 the Radical Party has launched in Italy "Leva la leva" campaign ("Abolish the conscription!") against any compulsory service, both military and civilian. It goes without saying that the Italian radicals won the battle for the rights of conscientious objectors and for the alternative civilian service i
n the seventies and since that time the alternative civilian service has become a monstrous parasite on the social body of Italy. The situation in Russia is quite different, we have not won our first battle yet, but I suppose that the experience and the example of our Italian comrades should make us re-value our political strategy and tactics.
Today it is time to think over and to re-value the road we travelled in the last two years and take a sober view of our today's situation. I make no secret of the fact that to me our situation seems dramatic.
Four years ago, in summer 1995, we have establish an Antimilitarist Radical Association as a political organisation of Russian radicals. Its main goal was to struggle for determined political reforms in this country, for a liberal military reform, first of all, for the adoption of an Alternative Civilian Service law and, in the future, for the abolition of conscription, of both military and civilian service. However, with time our activity quite inevitably, following certain, internal or external, logic began to resemble to other hundreds and thousands of the so-called "right-defence", "non-commercial" associations and groups; the organisations that exist, in poverty or in comfort, in every city, every town. To provide their existence they only need a regular financing - small or big, private or state. Their activity is of a clearly "non-political", "apolitical" and sometimes antipolitical nature. They make their quite and insignificant (although, sometimes it is of certain importance) business and
do not need forces, passion and means of its members, adherents and militants.
Last year the activity of the ARA , as a matter of fact, limited itself to holding consultation seminars for conscripts in this Hall. No doubt, this work is very important. The fact that the number of conscientious objectors in Russia from 675 during the spring 1997 enlistment campaign reached 1061 in autumn of the same year, also thanks to titanic efforts made by a few militants of the ARA, may be considered as a success. However, the function of informing the conscripts about their rights and defending them in Court may be performed well enough by the Committee of the Mothers of Soldiers, by dozens of right-defence groups all around Russia, many advocates and new-born juridical offices, and also by single right-defenders, such as our comrades Sergei Sorokin and Tat'yana Kotlyar. To do this there is no need of an association pretending to be public, political and all-Russian.
Today we no longer have what we had two years ago at the First Congress: instead of nearly 700 members and adherents in a half of Russian regions, able to collect in two months nearly 10.000 signatures under the petition for the adoption of the ACS law, now , in 1998 we have 66 members and 172 adherents, in 1999 only 8 members and 19 adherernts have joined the ARA.
Look, how many of us are there today in this hall? Have a look at the agenda: the report of the Inspection Commission is missing, although, according to the Charter of the ARA, it should accompany the Report of the Treasurer. The reason is simple: all the three members of the Inspection Commission have left the ARA, one after another, and refused to remain members of the Association. Of the 20 members of the General Council, elected two years ago by the First Congress, only 5 are still with us. In her report the Treasurer Anna Zaitseva will tell you about the dramatic financial situation of the ARA.
The voting at the Duma of October 7 has only pointed out and emphasised an evident fact: we, as an Antimilitarist Radical Association, are fully defeated - in political and organisational fields.
What can we do in this situation?
If we want to be honest - politically and personally - to tell the truth, I cannot find any way out: in the present-day situation we have to admit the inevitable - the ARA must stop its activity, take a formal decision on its dissolution and elect a liquidation commission to solve the problem of paying our debts (several hundred dollars). At least, no one of us needs an organisation-phantom, and, I am sure, the citizens of this country do not need it either.
Certainly, the Duma is also to blame (if we can use the work "blame" in this context) for the present-day situation; as well as one may blame the government, the electors and, generally speaking, the political and cultural mentality of the country that did not get into the civil political tradition.
As far as my personal responsibility as a Secretary is concerned, I will not try to evade it. To justify myself I can only say that I have done everything I could to bring the ARA to this Congress, to hold it and to be able to resign my commission tomorrow in accordance with the Charter.
Yes, we still have a chance, a small chance. maybe one per 1000. The chance that today we turn over this page of the history of the ARA and at our Congress - today and tomorrow - we manage to work out a new formula of re-creating the ARA, its re-birthing, establishing, in fact, of a really new association. The chance that everybody in this hall, we all together, in these two days manage to set new objectives of the ARA and convert our conviction into facts.
The ARA is dead, long live the ARA? I don't know, but I cannot exclude it. As for me, in these hours I'll do my best, but only you, members and adherents of the ARA, are to find an answer. Today you will take the final decision; everything depends on you, on your forces, on the fact if you are ready to act and to sacrifice, even, in some way, to sacrifice yourselves.
I hope that in this hall there are people ready to take the responsibility for the fate of the ARA. As for me, taken into consideration the present-day situation, I do not mean to nominate myself for election as a Secretary.
Thank you for your attention and let me wish our Congress a success!
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