13 SEPTEMBER - Italy: Rome - Human Rights, China, Tibet
Demonstration for the defence of human rights in China and Tibet, on occasion of Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti’s visit to China.
19-22 SEPTEMBER - Italy: Rome - RP Federal Council
First Session of the Federal Council.
The greater part of the Secretary’s report is dedicated to the "project" (three issues of the newspaper Il Partito Nuovo (The New Party) had already been published in fifteen languages).
"It is still to early to gauge the results – writes Stanzani – above all in the light of the dramatic political events affecting a number of European countries (the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Albania); the summer parliamentary recess in almost all the countries; and the fact that the newspaper may not have reached all addressees (300,000 copies of each issue, over 40,000 of which were sent to parliamentarians in four continents). The important thing was to respect our mandate and our firm belief that the project has no alternative, politically speaking, if it is true, and it is, that no problem can be solved at the national level as it must, necessarily, be solved at the international or at least the continental level.
Some initiatives, like the one to abolish the death penalty, have been able to achieve supranational unity, but the realization of our project depends on responsibility being shared, above all in other countries, and assumed with new comrades who must become part of the transnational movement to make the ‘great hope’ a reality".
Marco Pannella announces a nonviolent hunger strike for the recognition of the independence of the Republics and autonomous regions of the Former Yugoslavia - requested by those peoples with democratic processes - and the guarantee of effective democracy throughout the territory, which also means for the Serbs, as well as the respect of the rights of the individual and of ethnic minorities, everywhere.
This is the objective laid down in the approved motion, which will later be presented in the European Parliament and in Parliaments where Radicals are present.
The above declaration results in a decision being made to hold the Second Session of the Federal Council in Zagreb, where the RP had attempted to hold its XXXV Congress, without success, finally settling for Budapest.
6 OCTOBER - Czechoslovakia: Nachod - Ethnic Minorities, Rom
Paolo Pietrosanti and Richard Stockar participate in the Meeting for Understanding and Tolerance between Nations, organized by the ROI (Rom Civic Initiative).
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2 October. Croatia. Dubrovnik is bombed.
7 October. Croatia. Yugoslavian missile attack launched on Zagreb.
7 OCTOBER - Italy: Rome - Nonviolence
Marco Pannella resumes his hunger strike indefinitely "for the recognition of the independence of Croatia and Slovenia, for the rights of the Albanian peoples in Kosovo, and against a European Community and Italian politics that are characterized, once again, by cowardice".
8 OCTOBER - Italy: Rome - Former Yugoslavia
Demonstration outside the Yugoslavian Embassy:
- to denounce the illegitimate presence of a Yugoslavian Ambassador in Rome, representing federal institutions that no longer have any juridical or constitutional foundations;
- to protest against the occupation and destruction of territories and cities in the Republic of Croatia.
20 OCTOBER - Croatia: Zagreb - Nonviolence, Former Yugoslavia
Dozens of young Croatians, refugees from Dubrovnik, begin a hunger strike following Pannella’s nonviolent initiative. Citizens in various other European countries join them.
Radicals support and collect signatures on nine referendums:
- three drawn up by the Segni committee: modification of the electoral system of the Senate and of the Municipalities to a majority system;
- three drawn up by the Giannini committee: concerning the restriction of the influence of political parties during state intervention in Italian affairs;
- two promoted by the RP (public financing and law on drugs);
- one promoted by "Amici della Terra" (Friends of the Earth), on environmental controls entrusted to the USL (local health offices).
- The RP has also collected signatures on a bill to extend to the Chamber of Deputies the electoral norms that will be enforced in the Senate (it is a question of introducing a "first past the post" system, like the British system, adapted to Italian standards with one quarter of the representatives elected according to the proportional system).
31 OCTOBER-3 NOVEMBER - Croatia: Zagreb - RP Federal Council
Second Session of the Federal Council.
The Radical meeting is held in the Croatian capital while there is curfew and the air raid sirens are wailing. The motion observes that "...the project of creating a great transnational, transparty Radical Party seems to be well and truly underway".
Thanks also to the fact that in a few weeks many people have joined the RP: "dozens and dozens of men of government and parliamentarians, starting with the Croatian Prime Minister Franjo Greguric, Vice-President Zdravko Tomac, and ministers Drazen Budisa and Vlado Veselika, and the President of the Kosovo Parliament, in exile, Sulejman Uglianin, European Commissioner Carlo Ripa de Meana, Italian minister Carlo Tognoli, as well as parliamentarians from Russia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Latvia, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Italy, the European Parliament, and democratic, nonviolent political leaders from 20 countries, and Nobel Prizewinners Mairead Corrigan Maguire and George Wald."
8 NOVEMBER - Italy - Rome - Eastern Europe - Former Yugoslavia
Demonstration held outside the embassy of the Former Yugoslavia.
Protest for the recognition of Croatia and Slovenia.
27 NOVEMBER - EP: Strasbourg - Antiprohibitionism
The EP Commission of Inquiry into Organized Crime linked to Drug Trafficking approves a resolution that establishes the basis for sweeping reform on drugs policy supported, so far, by all the national parliaments of EC members. This was achieved mainly because of the efforts of the anitprohibitionists - and above all Marco Taradash - in the European Parliament.
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10 December. Holland. The Council of Europe decides to adopt a single currency.
9-10 DECEMBER - Holland: Maastricht / France: Strasbourg - Former Yugoslavia
On the occasion of the European Summit the RP organizes two demonstrations: one for the end of the war in Croatia and a second for the recognition of the Republics and the rights of the citizens of the Former Yugoslavia, in line with the initiatives undertaken in Brussels, Budapest, Moscow, Prague, Rome and Zagreb and Pannella’s hunger strike.
The demonstrations denounce the blind, cowardly attitude of the European Community that, in keeping its distance, puts the aggressors and the victims on the same plane. They also call for the immediate recognition of Croatia and Slovenia, and of the Government and Parliament of Kosovo as the legitimate representatives of the people of Kosovo; the admission to the Hague Conference of the country’s legal representative; the withdrawal from Belgrade of ambassadors to the Former Yugoslavia.
Maastricht
References:
16 December. The EEC announces that it will recognize the republics of the Former Yugoslavia on 15 January 1992.
Emma Bonino is a member of the delegation from the Italian Parliament that visits Togo after the coup.
References:
21 December. USSR - Alma-Ata. Eleven republics signal the break-up of the Soviet Union and the creation of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).
27 DECEMBER - Croatia: Osijek - Nonviolence
Nonviolent action is undertaken by Radical activists in Croatia in the last week of the year. On the one hand, this is intended, in the face of the cynical, indifferent attitude of European Governments, to stress the urgent need to stop the fierce aggression of Milosevic’s usurping army and, on the other hand, to predispose forms of international solidarity and defence that eschew the use of weapons. The Radicals also send a message advocating dialogue, in the name of democracy, to the soldiers of the former Federal Army, and to the Serbs in particular, who are the first victims of oppression and hatred.
The nonviolent action, which entailed a Radical presence at the front for more than ten days, was mounted by Marco Pannella, Roberto Cicciomessere, Lorenzo Strik Lievers, Olivier Dupuis, Lucio Berte, Sandro Ottoni, Josip Pibnezic, Renato Fiorelli. Pannella and Dupuis, wearing Croatian uniforms and unarmed, spent New Year’s Eve with the defending Croatian army.
Motion approved by the Federal Council (Second Session) in Zagreb
"...The project to create a great transnational, transparty Radical Party seems positively underway and this makes it possible, as well as necessary, for the Federal Council and its members to make a large, specific contribution, especially those who are democratically elected representatives in the various countries or in the European Parliament. This extension of the leadership in the creation of a new, great Radical Party is necessary for two reasons:
a) because of the dramatic and tragic conditions in the world, and in European and Western society itself (with the worsening of the chaos and violence in the heart of Europe, while an infinite area of the world, starting with China, is oppressed by dictatorial regimes), which confirm the need for a transnational, transparty political instrument that is capable of predisposing and helping to build a new democratic, tolerant order in every single country of the world;
b) because of the initial results of the mailing to over 50,000 parliamentarians of the first two issues of the newspaper Il Partito Nuovo (The New Party) and of the activities in the field of human and political rights undertaken simultaneously by the RP, which in a matter of weeks have brought in dozens and dozens of new members from governments and parliaments, starting with Croatian Prime Minister Franjo Greguric, Vice-President Zdravko Tomac and ministers Drazen Budisa and Vlado Veselika, the President of the Kosovo Parliament, in exile, Sulejman Uglianin, European Commissioner Carlo Ripa de Meana, Italian minister Carlo Tognoli, as well as parliamentarians from Russia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Latvia, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Italy, the European Parliament, and democratic, nonviolent political leaders from 20 countries, and Nobel Prizewinners Mairead Corrigan Maguire and George Wald.
The Federal Council of the Radical Party:
- approves and adopts the report and the budget/balance sheet, presented by First Secretary Sergio Stanzani and Treasurer Paolo Vigevano respectively, jointly with the President of the Party, Emma Bonino, and President of the Federal Council, Marco Pannella;
- stresses the extremely urgent need to augment the political and parliamentary power of the Party, with regard to its specific and general objectives, and the launch of the 1992 membership campaign to obtain 50,000 new members throughout the world; members who are essential to the continuity and reinforcement of our campaigns for the right to life and a life of rights - attacked from all sides -, and of our freedom, peace, environmental and demographic initiatives;
- therefore engages the Party organs and all Radical activists, and the members of the Federal Council themselves, to obtain as many new members as possible, in the next few days, among parliamentarians and personalities from the world of politics and of culture, so that democratic parliamentarians throughout the world, who have already accepted the offer of creating together a transnational and transparty political instrument, might become familiar with Gandhian nonviolence and civil, human and political rights, as the foundations on which to build a new democratic world order for the peoples of the Earth;
- confirms the central role of the RP in the struggle for democracy, against the Italian partyist regime, despite ostracism, misinformation, the uncertainty of law, and rampant corruption and violence, made possible by the strength and unstinting determination of just over 3,000 members to which the Radical Party, in the main, owes its existence and activities in all the other countries;
- welcomes the relaunch of the nonviolent initiative in support of the democratic and institutional campaigns, particularly that undertaken with our Russian comrades from the Mossoviet on the initiative of our friend Aleksandr Kalinin, and also that of Marco Pannella, convergent with the Radical campaign to uphold the law and rights of individuals and peoples of the former Yugoslavia;
- commits every activist, every member of the Federal Council and the entire Party, to support the hunger strike that comrades in many parliaments have announced that they intend to carry out for the affirmation of democracy, freedom and peace, and in defence of the democratic republics of the Former Yugoslavia, particularly Croatia, tortured by the aggression of the usurping army and racist politics of the Serb Government, by the blind, cowardly political attitude of Europe which only talks about fine values of freedom and tolerance."