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International chronology of the Radical Party: 1989 July - December |
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14 JULY - Italy: Rome - Death penalty, Paula Cooper At a press conference the organization Thou Shalt Not Kill announces that the Supreme Court of the State of Indiana has commuted Paula Cooper’s death sentence to 60 years imprisonment. In a live broadcast Paula Cooper’s lawyer, William Touchette, stresses that the international mobilization, and particularly that of Italy, was crucial. 16 JULY - Italy: Rome - I CoRA Congress Giancarlo Arnao is elected President, Luigi Del Gatto Secretary, and Maurizio Turco Treasurer of CoRA (Radical Antiprohibitionist Organization). The motion calls for, among other things: "the federation of CoRA with the International Antiprohibitionist League, in the common belief that prohibitionism, like crime linked to drug-trafficking, can only be eliminated by a large-scale, transnational campaign". 18 JULY - U.S.S.R. - RP Federal Council Worried by delays caused by red tape which may again prevent Federal Councillor Eugenia Debrianskaya and other Soviet guests from taking part in the Radical FC (from 26-31 July, in Strasbourg,), Sergio Stanzani and Marco Pannella send several letters to Gorbachev informing him of the matter. A number of MEPs do likewise. 21 JULY - Italy: Rome - RP Federal Council Marco Pannella, President of the Federal Council and of the Radical Party, announces that the session will be postponed until September due to the fact that visas have not yet been issued to the seven Soviet citizens who were to take part. In an appeal "To Russia with Love" Pannella once again expresses his confidence in the new Soviet democratization process, but also announces that nonviolent protests will take place if the Soviets are prevented from attending the September session. 31 JULY-2 AUGUST - Italy: Rome (Residence Ripetta) - Transnational Seminar The Secretariat, elected organs and members participate in the Seminar at which the decision taken at the Budapest Congress, the activities of the transnational party and the dire economic and financial situation, are analysed and discussed. AUGUST - Czechoslovakia: Prague - Meetings Pietrosanti and Ottoni meet with Jana Petrova, President of Carta 77, and other dissidents, to organize a protest meeting. 11 AUGUST - Italy: Rome - RP Federal Council, Visas for Soviets A press conference is held to present the upcoming RP Federal Council session, during which difficulties in obtaining visas for the Soviet guests are again reported. Thus, the initiative of letters, telegrams and appeals - completely disregarded so far - to bring the Soviets to Italy, is repeated. 11 AUGUST - U.S.S.R.: Moscow - RP Federal Council, Visas for Soviets FC Secretary Antonio Stango and Federal Councillor Marino Busdachin go to Moscow to settle the question of the seven Soviet citizens invited to participate in the FC session. The normal procedure is finally waived to grant them visas. 17 AUGUST - U.S.S.R.: Moscow - Assembly At an assembly, in which Stango and Busdachin of the FC Secretariat, and Soviet Radicals take part, the association Freedom and Peace is constituted. The final document denounces the end of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact and the need to create a United States of Europe, founded on a federal and democratic basis, and on the respect for human rights rather than borders. There are now more than 70 Soviet Radicals. 20 AUGUST - Italy: Rome - RP Federal Council, Nonviolence As the Soviets are still being prevented from participating in the Federal Council, Marco Pannella begins a hunger strike, declaring: "it is my duty, as I practise nonviolence, to take suitable action that will enable the Soviet authorities, or President Gorbachev himself - if necessary - to remove the obstacles that are preventing our comrades from attending the Federal Council". 22 AUGUST - Czechoslovakia: Prague - Democracy Emma Bonino, Maria Teresa Di Lascia, Roberto Cicciomessere, Sandro Ottoni and Cristina V., take part in the mass demonstrations organized by Carta 77 and other dissident groups. Carlo Romeo, Radical and Tele Roma 56 journalist, is attacked and beaten while he tries to film the protest in St. Wenceslas Square. Dozens of people are arrested, including Tamas Deutsch, the leader of the Hungarian movement Fidesz. Yet again, the Czech Government accuses the Radical Party of instigating the protest. Stanzani finds the accusation ludicrous: a deliberate attempt at mystification to hide the real importance of the mass demonstration. 23 AUGUST - U.S.S.R.: Moscow, Leningrad, Riga - Molotov-Ribbentrop Demonstrations Demonstrations organized by Peace and Freedom, the Radical association in the U.S.S.R. on the anniversary of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, are harshly put down by the police. Defying a police ban, about 2000 citizens gathered in Pushkin Square in Moscow. Seventy-five people were arrested and beaten, including Antonio Stango, Eugenia Debrianskaya and Alexander Rubjenco, Secretary of Peace and Freedom. In Leningrad, the demonstration was held in front of the Cathedral of Our Lady of Kazan, and the police arrested about thirty Radical activists. In Riga, the protest was held without incident. 26 AUGST - U.S.S.R.: Moscow - Leningrad - Molotov-Ribbentrop Demonstrations Antonio Stango, released the day after his arrest because he was a foreigner, deliberately chooses to stay in Moscow with Marino Busdachin, despite the fact that their visas have expired, to follow what is happening to the other Radicals. He reports that those who were arrested, 160 in all, have received fines and sentences of up to 15 days imprisonment. In Leningrad, Ekaterina Podolzeva, a member of the RP who was invited to attend the FC session in Rome, is sentenced to 15 days, making it impossible for her to participate in the upcoming Radical meeting. Valerij Terehov, economist, political activist of Democratic Union and Radical, was sentenced to 15 days imprisonment and spent the first 2 in hospital because of the blows he had received. In Moscow the 15-day sentence handed down to Eugenia Debrianskaya was commuted to a fine, as she is a mother with two children to look after. The fine was 1,000 rubles, equal to about 2 million lira, which means several months’ pay for the average Soviet worker. The Radical Party sets up a fund for Debrianskaya and other prisoners, asking people to contribute. 26 AUGUST - U.S.S.R.: Moscow - Molotov-Ribbentrop Demonstrations The communist newspaper Moskovskaija Pravda publishes an ironical report on the demonstration organized by soviet Radicals and the Democratic Union. It describes the transnational Radical Party "...as asking people to embark on a crusade not only against the government, but against the persecution of prostitutes, drug addicts and homosexuals. Freedom at all costs!" (...) "The presence of an Italian citizen, one Antonio Stango, amongst our "transradicals" was probably not fortuitous. He was holding a placard in Russian that his Moscow - colleagues - had very kindly given him: "I don’t want to live in a totalitarian State". A - real - Italian took part in the demonstration and he probably didn’t know what he was holding and why". 28 AUGUST - U.S.S.R.: Leningrad - Molotov-Ribbentrop Demonstrations, Nonviolence The Radical Secretariat gives out the news that Radical Ekaterina Podolzeva, arrested and sentenced to 15 days in prison, began a hunger strike on the day of her arrest. Ekaterina stands on Art. 50 of the Soviet Constitution which guarantees the right to freedom of speech, and claims that she was arrested on false charges. 28 AUGUST - U.S.S.R.: Moscow - Expulsion Detectives arrest Antonio Stango and Marino Busdachin at their hotel and take them to the airport. Stango is immediately put on the first plane to Italy; whereas Busdachin is held for 20 hours in a customs’ area and then at a hotel for tourists in transit, without being given any explanation or being able to contact anyone. He is finally flown home on 29 August. 29 AUGUST - Italy: Rome/U.S.S.R.: Moscow - Visas for Federal Council, Demonstrations Sit-in outside the Soviet Embassy in Rome to obtain visas for the Soviet members of the Radical Party and guests who have been invited to attend the FC session. At the same time, a demonstration is held in Moscow, outside the OVIR, the office of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs responsible for issuing visas. 29 AUGUST - U.S.S.R.: Moscow - Visas for Federal Council In an open letter to Marco Pannella, Vladimir Vanin, a journalist with the Soviet agency Novosti, maintains that his hunger strike has achieved its goal in that visas for a number of personalities invited to the Federal Council (dissidents Timofeev and Grigoriants, deputies Afanasev and Korotich) are now ready. Pannella replies immediately, stressing that the principal aim of the hunger strike was to obtain visas for Eugenia Debrianskaya, member of the FC, and Ekaterina Podolzeva, member of the RP, who would represent their Leningrad comrades, and for Nikolaj Kramov, Radical delegate in Moscow. 29 AUGUST - Czechoslovakia: Prague - Deutsch Trial The RP monitors the trial of Tamas Deutsch, one of the leaders of the Hungarian Democratic Youth Federation and Gyorgy Kerenyi of Hungarian Workers’ Solidarity, jailed following the Prague demonstrations on 22 August. They are fined and expelled, but this is not a sign that the State is adopting a more tolerant attitude: the same day Czech dissident Stanislav Devaty is sentenced to 20 months imprisonment. 30 AUGST - Italy: Rome - Visas for the Federal Council Antonio Stango announces that "...a passport has been granted to Eugenia Debrianskaya and she can collect it in the next few hours... Timofeev and Grigoriants have already received theirs... we have no positive news about passports for Ekaterina Podolzeva - still on a hunger strike in prison - and Nikolaj Khramov". The telecommunications system Agorà is inaugurated. 1-5 SEPTEMBER - Italy: Rome/Hotel Ergife - RP Federal Council Guests included:
Party Organs: Emma Bonino is elected President of the Party; Bruno Zevi, Honorary President. 19-27 SEPTEMBER - Italy - Death Penalty Various initiatives are undertaken by the organization Thou Shalt Not Kill to mark the world week against the death penalty. Sit-ins are held daily outside the embassies of countries where the death penalty is most widely inflicted (China, Iran, Iraq, South Africa, U.S.S.R., U.S.A.) Paula Cooper also urges Italians to participate in the big torchlight procession on 27 September to obtain from the Italian Government a commitment to launch an initiative for a three-year universal moratorium on executions, and to abolish the death penalty from Italy’s Military Code. Thousands of citizens participate in the silent procession, many of them wearing white as a sign of mourning. 23 SEPTEMBER - Spain: Madrid - Antiprohibitionism Official presentation of the Antiprohibicionistas sobre Droga - contra la criminalidad politica y comun list for the Spanish general election on 29 October, with MEPs Marco Pannella and Marco Taradash and - head of the list - Jose Manuel Sanchez Garcia, police officer and head of foreign relations of the police union. The list is supported by Fernando Savater, philosopher and political expert; writer Ferdinando Arrabal; jurist Antonio Escohotado; and Enrique De Castro, a priest. 28 SEPTEMBER - Yugoslavia: Zagreb - Democracy, Oppositions An Organizing Committee is set up by members of Croatian opposition movements, and Councillors Vitomir Cesmadziski and Sandro Ottoni of the RUSED (Radical Association for a United States of Europe), Zeljko Rosko and Zoran Ostric. The final document affirms the use of nonviolence, and the movements’ unanimous commitment to campaign for Yugoslavia’s entry into the EEC. 29 SEPTEMBER - France: Versailles - ACP-EEC Following the election of Italian Christian Democrat Giovanni Bersani as Honorary President for Life of the ACP-EEC Joint Assembly, Marco Pannella quits the proceedings, denouncing the anti-juridical and anti-democratic appointment of Bersani, and the increasing ineptitude of the international body. 2 OCTOBER - Yugoslavia: Ljubljana - Democracy, Elections Marino Busdachin and Eros Bicic of the RP Federal Council participate in the Round Table held by communist and socialist groups and the new democratic opposition movements, prior to the first democratic elections to be held the following spring in Slovenia. 2 OCTOBER - Hungary: Budapest - Radical Office A Radical office for the coordination of activities in Eastern Europe is inaugurated, at Tanacs Krt 11. It is the first Eastern European Radical headquarters The office will be run by Andrea Tuza, Ferenc Parcz, Dupuis, Lensi and Ottoni. 6 OCTOBER - Italy: Rome - The Right to Information, Pannella Resigns In a letter to the President of the Chamber of Deputies, Jotti, Marco Pannella announces that he is resigning as deputy, and denounces "the prevalence of unmistakably Fascist impulses, overtones and violations at the institutional and social level", and also in the mass media and, more particularly, State-owned television. "What is happening during the local government elections in Rome would no longer be tolerated in Eastern Europe, not even in the U.S.S.R., where Yeltsin would never have been recognized as a candidate had the elections been conducted as they are here. I will not be a party to it". 6-9 OCTOBER - Hungary: Budapest - Democracy, POSU Congress Represented by Secretary Stanzani and Anna Losonczy, the RP is the only non-Hungarian party present at the Congress of the Socialist Workers’ Party. According to Stanzani, Hungary faces two serious dangers as it starts along the road to democracy: the reintroduction of proportional representation and "non-alignment". 6 OCTOBER - EP: Brussels - Romania, Doina Cornea On the initiative of MEP Adelaide Aglietta, the Green Group at the European Parliament presents Doina Cornea, a Romanian dissident who has been systematically and brutally persecuted by the regime for her denouncements at the international level, as a candidate for the Sacharov prize. 8 OCTOBER - Yugoslavia: Otocec - Democracy, Opposition Movements Convention held by various democratic opposition movements from Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia and Bosnia. Thanks to RP representatives the final platform affirms the need to "...immediately implement all the measures and acts necessary for Yugoslavia’s entry into the Common Market". 13 OCTOBER - EP: Strasbourg - Conscientious Objection The RP successfully petitions the European Parliament to adopt the Schmidbauer Report, presented four years previously by over 25,000 young Europeans, to bring into line the norms governing conscientious objection. The Radicals and other MEPs abstain the vote because the text reveals that the EP has reneged on its position with respect to the Macciocchi Report of ’83. More particularly, many amendments sanctioning the right to equal treatment with regard to civilian and military service have been rejected. 18 OCTOBER - Italy: Rome - Tibet Giovanni Negri, member of the RP Secretariat, meets with Gyaltsen Gyaltag, the Dalai Lama’s European Representative, with a view to constituting, a parliamentary intergroup for Tibet in Italy as soon as possible, on the lines of those already formed in the British, French and Swiss Parliaments. 20 OCTOBER - Italy: Spain - The Right to Information, Nonviolence To protest against the constant withholding of information, particularly with regard to Radical antiprohibitionist initiatives, Marco Pannella, Giovanni Negri, Luigi Del Gatto, Police Inspector Jose Manuel Sanchez Garcia and journalist Victoria Sendon (antiprohibitionist candidates in Spain); journalists Yolanda Alba and Nino Olmeda, chemist Consuelo Ruiz-Jarabo, economist Joaquin Arce Meteos, and lawyers Pedro Gonzales Zerolo and Juan Vasquez Arango, begin a hunger strike for an indefinite period, for the restoration of legality and for uncensored information. 20 OCTOBER - Europe: Various Capitals - The Right to Information, Nonviolence Demonstrations are held outside the Italian and Spanish Embassies in Moscow, Warsaw, Budapest and Prague. Radicals of various nationalities deliver to their respective Italian and Spanish Ambassadors a letter in which they denounce "the growing threat constituted by the media in the world - and age - of communication". In Madrid, at 1.00pm, dozens of people, including Jose Manuel Sanchez Garcia, Victoria Sendon, Marco Pannella, Emma Bonino, Marco Taradash and Anthony Henmann, demonstrate at the main entrance of the Torrespana building - the headquarters of RTVE (Radio Television Espanola). In Moscow, the Radical activists arrested during the protest outside the Spanish Embassy are immediately tried, and given fines. Those arrested - all members of the RP - are Dimitri Ruvinski, Stanislav Tomienko, Stanislav Pronosin, Nikolaj Khramov, Arpion Babienkov, Eugenia Debrianskaya, Tyarkina Lena. In Prague, about twenty Czechoslovakians are stopped by the police outside the Spanish Embassy, after holding a demonstration outside the Italian one. Three Radical militants, Jiri Machacek, John Bok and Alexander Blasek are bundled into a car and taken to police headquarters. FC Secretary Olivier Dupuis witnesses the arrest of the three men, who were released the next day. Hungarian Ferenc Parcz, Italian Massimo Lensi and Croatian Vito Cezmadiski, all members of the Radical FC, are among the people who took part in the Budapest protest. In Warsaw, a dozen people stage a protest, including Federal Councillors Anna Niedzwiescka, Marek Krukowski and Sandro Ottoni. 20 OCTOBER - Hungary: Budapest - Democracy, MDF Congress FC Secretary Olivier Dupuis welcomes congresspersons of the Magyar Democratak Forum. The Radicals maintain that a European federation is the answer to overcoming national and ethnic conflicts. 20-22 OCTOBER - Hungary: Budapest - Democracy, FIDSEZ Congress A Radical delegation composed of Ferenc Parcz, Olivier Dupuis, Sandro Ottoni, Vito Cesmadziski, and Massimo Lensi, participates in the FIDESZ (Federation of Young Democrats) Congress. Dupuis condemns national paths that have led to "real democracy" and proportionalism, stressing the need for an interdependent European Government. 25 OCTOBER - Czechoslovakia: Prague - The Right to Information The Italian Ambassador in Prague receives two Czechoslovakian Radical exponents, John Bok and Alexander Blazik, and discusses with them at length the reasons for the demonstration on 20 October. 27 OCTOBER - Hungary: Budapest - SDS Congress Anne Losonczy speaks at the SDS (Free Democrats) Congress, both as a member of the SDS and a Radical Federal Councillor. She proposes that Hungary join the European Community with a view to creating a United States of Europe. The Congress rejects her proposal. 28 OCTOBER - Spain: Madrid - Antiprohibitionism, Elections Inspector Sanchez Garcia, one of the chiefs of the Spanish police union, is a strong candidate on the Antiprohibitionist List. He is suspended - as a precautionary measure - by the police for this very reason, and deprived of this identity card and regulation pistol. 30 OCTOBER - Italy: Rome - The Right to Information, Nonviolence Following the unsatisfactory results achieved by the Antiprohibitionist List in the Roman elections (1.8% - one town councillor elected) and in Spain (3,300 votes in Madrid, no one elected), Pannella, Negri and Luigi Del Gatto announce that they will stop their hunger strike: "In a ‘real democracy’ (the Western equivalent of ‘real socialism’, Ed.) democracy itself becomes weaker and weaker. In not a few countries it does not constitute a democratic reality but takes the form of profoundly unjust, oligarchic regimes that engage in party-politics, and exclude the great majority of citizens from the legislative process, from the effective running of the institutions; in short, from the democratic machinery and its laws and rules... ‘under such conditions’ citizens have been denied the real possibility of knowing, which would allow them to choose and deliberate". It is decided that more information and thought is required to prepare a suitable nonviolent initiative. 30 OCTOBER - U.S.S.R.: Baku - Human Rights, Political Prisoners On the day traditionally reserved for Soviet political prisoners, Radicals in Baku, Azerbaijan, gather at the Radical Association for Peace and Freedom, and denounce in an appeal that political prisoners in the U.S.S.R. continue to be confined to psychiatric wards and labour camps, and that conscientious objectors are still persecuted. OCTOBER - Yugoslavia - Legal Recognition of the RP Radical exponents Marino Busdachin and Vitomir Cesmadziski meet with representatives of the Federal Socialist Alliance and with the Presidency of the Socialist Youth of Yugoslavia, concerning the political activities of the RP and the legal recognition of the Party in Yugoslavia. 2-5 NOVEMBER - U.S.A.: Washington - Antiprohibitionism International Conference on "Drug Policy Reform" organized by the Drug Policy Foundation. Speakers include Marie Andree Bertrand, Peter Cohen, Luigi Del Gatto, Marco Taradash, Derek O’Connell, Marco Pannella, Arnold S. Trebach, Kevin Zeese, Lester Grinspoon, Kurt L. Schmoke. 3 NOVEMBER - Yugoslavia: Portoroz - ZSMS Congress A Radical delegation takes part in the Congress of the Socialist Youth Alliance of Slovenia (ZSMS), bringing greetings from Marco Pannella, and honorary member of the ZSMS. The organization will be transformed into an independent, liberal democratic party to take part in the next Slovenian elections. The Congress establishes, with a statutory norm, the "transparty" nature of the new political body. 7 NOVEMBER - Italy: Rome - World Hunger Emma Bonino and Francesco Rutelli hold a press conference to denounce the deterioration of the Italian policy of Cooperation and the fight against death from starvation in the world. The Italian Government is eliminating the budgets for non-governmental organizations and UN agencies, and is about to do another "about-face", in the commercial sense, regarding its North-South policy. 9 NOVEMBER - Czechoslovakia: Prague - Human Rights, Political Prisoners Demonstration outside the Ministry of the Interior to mark the Day for Political Prisoners instituted by the opposition organizations in favour of the many political prisoners in Czechoslovakian jails; and for the right to associate and to print newspapers and other publications. Forty demonstrators, who had the names of political prisoners written on their placards, are stopped by the police. Prague Radical leader John Bok is among them. The demonstrators are held for a few hours, and released in the evening. 15 NOVEMBER - Italy: Rome - Chamber of Deputies - European Union The Chamber unanimously passes a motion - promoted by Radical deputies - engaging the Government to considerably speed up the process of European unity by convening the General States of the European peoples; in other words, by summoning a large Assembly promoted by the European Parliament with the participation of parliamentarians from all member states and, as observers, delegations from the parliaments of the Eastern European countries that participate in the Assembly of the European Council. The Chamber also approved two resolutions engaging the Government to request, at the next European summit, in keeping with the referendum held in Italy on 18 June, that the European Parliament immediately be given a mandate to draw up the new Treaty for the European Union or the United States of Europe; and to organize a series of environmental initiatives. 15 NOVEMBER - Europe: Various Capitals - Human Rights, Romania, Brasov On the anniversary of the Brasov riots, two years after they were harshly put down by the Ceausescu regime whose violation of human rights is becoming more and more outrageous, Radical activists stage protests outside the Romanian embassies in Moscow, Rome, Budapest, Brussels, Prague, Madrid, Warsaw and Lisbon. The eight protests are covered by the media, particularly in Moscow, Budapest, Prague and Warsaw. In Moscow, fifteen out of the hundred - mostly Radical - demonstrators are arrested, and the demonstration is broken up. They are sent for trial immediately and, while Elena Clemenko and Nicolaj Stromberger are sentenced to a week in prison, the remaining thirteen are given stiff fines. In Budapest, 2000 people from many Hungarian organizations take part in the candlelight vigil in front of the Romanian Embassy, organized by the Radicals. After a meeting, a tent is pitched in which five Romanian exiles begin an eight-day hunger strike to denounce the re-election of Nicolae Ceausescu and the continuation of a regime imposed by Stalin. The protest makes front page news in the Hungarian newspapers which also carry photos of the demonstrators. In Prague, 100 people carrying torches demonstrate and unfurl a large banner reading: "Ceausescu makes Stalin happy!", watched by the police who do not intervene. In Warsaw, about forty people take part in the demonstration that attracted an inordinate number of photographers and journalists from different newspapers, while the police did nothing to stop them. 17 NOVEMBER - Czechoslovakia: Prague - Democracy During a mass demonstration by tens of thousands of Czech citizens in Prague, Radical member John Bok is arrested along with dozens of other people. He is accused of having assaulted a police officer. If truth be told, Bok was the victim, like so many others, of a completely unjustified, indiscriminate and extremely violent act of repression by the police, whose sole intent was to prevent the - authorized - demonstration from being conducted peaceably. 23 NOVEMBER - Europe: Various Capitals - Democracy, Czechoslovakia Protests outside the Czechoslovakian embassies in Budapest, Lisbon, Madrid, Warsaw and Rome, for the release of political prisoners, particularly Petr Uhl and Jana Petrova, leaders of the Civic Forum, arrested a few days previously. Meanwhile, John Bok has been set free. 29 NOVEMBER - Italy: Rome - Democracy, U.S.S.R. Demonstration - "100 Candles for Gorbachev" - organized by the Radical association Peace and Freedom and the Comitato Italiano Helsinki, to denounce the unresolved aspects of perestroika (restructuring) on occasion of Gorbachev’s visit to Italy. 28-30 NOVEMBER - Columbia: Bogotà - RP Federal Council Marco Pannella and Emma Bonino meet with political leaders and journalists, also to weigh the pros and cons of holding the Radical Federal Council and a meeting of the International Antiprohibitionist League in Bogotà, at the beginning of January. Colombian parliamentarians are contacted directly and the parliamentary mailing lists of several Latin American countries obtained. It was not however possible to hold the meetings, because of financial reasons and lack of time. 7 DECEMBER - Hungary: Budapest - Assembly Informative meeting on the Radical Party, arranged by the Rakpart Klub, attended by about twenty people. After introductory speeches by Ferenc Parcz, Andras Nagy, Massimo Lensi and Olivier Dupuis there was an extremely interesting and lively debate which focussed mainly on European Union and the need for Hungary to swiftly join the Common Market. 11 DECEMBER - Yugoslavia: Osijek - Assembly The II Congress of CoRA (Radical Antiprohibitionist Organization) decides, among other things, to present Antiprohibitionist Lists at the upcoming local government elections. 12 DECEMBER - Yugoslavia: Osijek - Assembly A meeting to present the Radical party is organized in the student center by Vlastmir Kusik, professor of art history and member of the RP. He was one of the speakers, along with Vitomir Cesmadziski, Zeljko Rosko and Sandro Ottoni. 15 DECEMBER - PE: Strasbourg - Romania Unanimous approval for a resolution, presented by Adelaide Aglietta, asking the European Community to intervene to restore democracy in Romania, and condemning the Romanian policy of forced settlement in state villages and the persecution of Doina Cornea. 19 DECEMBER - Italy: Rome - Romania, Demonstration Demonstration for democracy in Romania, organized by the Radical Party, Romanian refugees and the Committee for Human Rights in Romania, outside the Romanian Embassy. It is the first initiative after the events in Timisoara and Arad. 21 DECEMBER - Yugoslavia: Zagreb - Radical Association Over 100 people are present at the founding of the Radical Association for a United States of Europe at the Writer’s Club in Zagreb. The Association’s principal aim is to achieve, through nonviolent, democratic methods, the creation of a United States of Europe and Yugoslavia’s accession to the European Community. Elected organs: Secretary - Vitomir Cesmadziski, a Macedonian graphic designer; Vice-Secretary -Zeljko Rosko, journalist; Treasurer, Zoran Juricin. 23 DECEMBER - Italy: Rome - Romania, Candlelight Vigil In front of Trajan’s Column, symbol of the Romanian civilization, a candlelight vigil was held for the victims of repression in Romania, and to launch an appeal asking the European Community and the countries that ratified the Helsinki Final Act to withdraw their ambassadors.
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