International Cronology of Transnational Radical Party: 1998


1 January
Italy: Rome - Antiprohibitionism

Italian Radicals dressed as Taliban hold a demonstration outside the offices of the Italian daily L'Unità to protest against the decision taken by the UNDCP (the UN agency responsible for drug control activities world-wide), headed by Pino Arlacchi (who had just had an article on this matter subject published in L'Unità), to allocate millions of dollars to the criminal Taliban regime in Afghanistan, in exchange for a promise to convert its opium crops, one of the main economic resources of the region. As was to be expected, this promise would not be maintained.


12 January
EP: Strasbourg - Antiprohibitionism

Olivier Dupuis, Gianfranco Dell'Alba and Ernesto Caccavale, among others, inaugurate a campaign to collect MEPs' signatures in support of the d'Ancona report on drug abuse. "This report adopts a practical approach to the problem of drugs and recommends, in particular, that we take into account what has already been achieved through introducing measures to decriminalise drug consumption and launching experimental programmes involving the distribution of hard drugs under medical supervision."

14 January

EP: Strasbourg - Antiprohibitionism

A delegation from "Mafia Incorporated" holds an ironical press conference during which Frank Dell'Albone (Gianfranco Dell'Alba) and Oliver Dups (Olivier Dupuis), dressed as gangsters, explain why they would vote "against" the d'Ancona report.

 

 

15 January
EP: Strasbourg - Death Penalty

The European Parliament approves with a large majority an amendment to the Souchet report, presented by the European Radical Alliance (ARE) group, calling on the United States to consider the abolition of the death penalty as an extension of the sphere of fundamental human rights, and therefore to abolish it definitively.

20 January
Italy: Rome - Cuba, Human Rights

On the occasion of Pope John Paul II's visit to Cuba, the Radical Party organises a torchlight vigil at the Colosseum, featuring an enormous hot-air balloon bearing the legend: "HOLY FATHER: FREEDOM FOR CUBA, WITHOUT CASTRO". Radical leaders and exponents take part in the protest, flanked by Cuban dissidents such as Miriam Acevedo, Laura Gonzales (Chairwoman of the Comitato Italiano per i Diritti Humani a Cuba - Italian Committee for Human Rights in Cuba), and Father Miguel Angel Loredo, a Franciscan priest who was imprisoned for 10 years in Cuba.

24 January
Italy: Verbania - Ernesto Rossi

A conference, organized by the Province of Verbano Cusio Ossola, the Ernesto Rossi Committee and the Radical Party, under the patronage of the President of Italy, is held at Palazzo Flaim in Verbania to celebrate Ernesto Rossi's centenary.

30 January
Italy: Rome - Gandhi

A conference commemorating the 50th anniversary of Gandhi's death takes place at the Italian headquarters of the Radical Party. Speakers include Marco Pannella, Emma Bonino, the Indian Ambassador to Italy Fabian, the Honorary President of the Radical Party Bruno Zevi, the Indian Consul Chattopadhaya, RP Secretary Olivier Dupuis, Gandhi scholars Giuliano Pontara and Gianni Sofri, the editor??? of Azione Nonviolenta Massimo Valpiana.

January - July
Russia: Moscow - Antiprohibitionism

The approval of an ultra-prohibitionist federal law "On Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances" (which, among other things, prohibits the personal use of drugs and provides for compulsory medical examinations and obligatory therapy for drug abusers) kicks off a series of nonviolent initiatives, including acts of civil disobedience and street surveys in which passers-by are asked to respond to a series of questions on antiprohibitionism. [ENG]
In July, a question concerning the constitutionality of the above law, signed by 95 Duma members from all parliamentary groups, is presented to the Constitutional Court. The first signatory of the question is the Hon. Valerij Borshchev, member of the Yabloko Group and of the Transnational Radical Party.

6 February
Senegal: Dakar - Death Penalty

The African Conference to establish the International Criminal Court in 1998, is organized by the Radical association "No Peace Without Justice" and the Radical Party. It is attended by delegates from all African countries, and eminent speakers include European Commissioner Emma Bonino and the American financier George Soros.
The final document recognises the importance of the Court for Africa and the entire world.

19 February
EP: Strasbourg - Afghanistan

A resolution [presented by the ARE group] wholeheartedly condemning the agreement brokered by Pino Arlacchi, on behalf of the UNDCP, with the intolerant, fanatical Taliban regime, is adopted unanimously. The European Parliament calls upon the Commission and Member States to closely examine the various ways in which the agreement will be enforced, and requests that all forms of co-operation, apart from humanitarian aid, be suspended until the Afghan Administration respects men's and women's rights.

8 March
Rome, Brussels, Moscow - Afghanistan, Human Rights

On Women's Day the Radical Party, on the initiative of Emma Bonino, organises simultaneously in Rome, Brussels and Moscow, a series of events entitled "Un fiore per le donne di Kabul" ("A Flower for the Women of Kabul"), in support of Afghan women, calling upon the UN and its Member States to refuse to recognise the Taliban regime until it ceases to practise sexual discrimination.
The event is supported by Nobel Prize-winner Rita Levi Montalcini, Minister of Social Affairs Livia Turco, Education Under-Secretary Carla Rocchi, Tullia Zevi, and Italian MPs Giovanna Melandri, Cristina Matranga and Alessandra Mussolini.

12 March
EP: Strasbourg - International Criminal Court

The European Parliament unanimously approves a resolution for the establishment of the permanent International Criminal Court, presented by all political groups on the initiative of the ARE group and of the leader of the Liberal Group De Vries.
The resolution calls on the European Union to adhere to the following fundamental principles during negotiations to establish the Court:
- that an independent Prosecutor be appointed to the Court;
- that the Court's jurisdiction be extended to all capital crimes, genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity;
- that the Court be able to operate without being conditioned by the actions of the UN Security Council;
- that ratification by States Parties be speeded up by the positive outcome of the Diplomatic Conference, ie, its completing the Statute of the Court in Rome by 17 July 1998.

16 March - 24 April
UN: Geneva - Human Rights

At the 54th Session of the UN Commission on Human Rights, the Radical Party makes its voice heard on, among other things, the issue of conscientious objection to military service in the Russian Federation; "Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance" (asking for a special report on racial discrimination against Gypsies); on the abolition of the death penalty (through Sister Helen Prejean); on the violation of human rights in Cuba.
Apropos of the latter, Cuban diplomats censure the Radical Party delegates, accusing them of being in the pay of the Cuban mafia in Miami, the Sicilian Mafia, and the secret service in various countries.

17 March
UN: Vienna - Antiprohibitionism

The Radical Party takes the floor at the UN commission charged with preparing the special General Assembly session on the revision of the international Conventions on drugs. The party representative points out that even the official documents and reports produced by the UN (the latest being the "World Report") estimate that drug trafficking accounts for 8% of world trade, which is in itself a testimony to the disastrous results of the current prohibitionist policies.

28 March
England: London - Antiprohibitionism

The Radical Party sends a delegation to the London antiprohibitionist March from Hyde Park to Trafalgar Square, launched by the Independent on Sunday newspaper. Marco Pannella, Olivier Dupuis and Gianfranco Dell'Alba participate in the closing meeting.

 

 

30 March - 2 April
UNESCO: Stockholm - Esperanto

The Associazione Radicale Esperantista (Radical Esperantist Association) takes part in the UNESCO Intergovermental Conference on Cultural Policies for Development, in Stockholm, obtaining a formal commitment from the Director General of UNESCO to set up a World Observatory on linguistic policies.
The Director General is presented with over 5,000 signatures (including those of dozens of Italian and European parliamentarians) collected by the Association on a petition promoting Esperanto, distributed in 30 countries.

3 April
UN: Geneva - Death Penalty

Following a campaign organized by the Radical Party and the Radical league Hands Off Cain, the UN Commission on Human Rights in Geneva approves with an absolute majority (16 for, 13 against, 12 abstentions and 2 absentees) a resolution for a moratorium on executions.

19 April
Italy: Rome - China, Human Rights

Chinese dissident Wei Jingsheng - imprisoned for 18 years in Chinese jails and recently expelled from China - arrives in Rome, as a guest of the Radical Party. He holds a public conference at the Party's headquarters, meeting with, among others, the Mayor of Rome Francesco Rutelli; the Secretary of the Democratic Left Massimo D'Alema; Achille Occhetto, and Foreign Minister Antonio Martino. He was not received by any representative of the government in office, however.

2 May
USA: New York - Antiprohibitionism

The Radical Party joins the "Marijuana March" in New York, to stop the war against marijuana users that the United States has been waging for at least 15 years. During the protest, the Radicals distribute flyers for the legalisation of all drugs.

15 May
EP: Strasbourg - China

The European Parliament condemns, with a large majority (EPP, ARE, Greens, Liberals and UPE "for"; PES and GUE "against") the sale of organs harvested from condemned prisoners by the army of the People's Republic of China and asks the Council and the Commission to undertake all the initiatives necessary for the United Nations to set up an international commission of inquiry without delay.

18 May
Italy - Marco Pannella

Marco Pannella undergoes heart surgery. He makes a swift recovery, but has to have another operation on 15 June, suffering serious postoperative complications (which make further surgery necessary) that force him to interrupt his political activities for over a year.

2 June
China: Beijing - Human Rights

On behalf of the Radical Party, MEP Gianfranco Dell'Alba and the General Secretary of the Radical Group at the European Parliament, Olivia Ratti, lay nine red roses in Tienanmen Square, to commemorate the massacre carried out there on 4 June 1989.

5-7 June
France: Paris - Antiprohibitionism

CORA holds its Congress in Paris. The final motion identifies the primary need to "create an organized political force, capable of imposing as a priority, at the national and international level, the reform of drug policies and laws".

9 June
UN: New York - Antiprohibitionism

The Radical Party takes the floor at the UN Conference on Drugs and, in open conflict with the UNDCP headed by Pino Arlacchi, denounces the fact that all the UN international drug conventions have failed in their attempt to curb the ever-increasing, widespread use of drugs.

11 June
Italy: Rome - International Criminal Court

An International Conference is organized by "No Peace Without Justice", the Transnational Radical Party and the International Coalition of NGOs for the International Criminal Court. Leading experts and advocates of the international criminal court meet beneath an enormous poster featuring a symbolic YES smeared with blood, created by Italian photographer Oliviero Toscani. Speakers include the Mayor of Rome, Francesco Rutelli, ministers Lamberto Dini and Giovanni Maria Flick, Giovanni Conso (President of the Diplomatic Conference), the French senator and former Justice Minister Robert Badinter, the Deputy Speaker of the Senate Domenico Contestabile, Marco Pannella and UN representative Staffan De Mistura.

15 June
UN: Rome - International Criminal Court

The Diplomatic Conference to establish the International Criminal Court opens at the FAO headquarters. The entire debate is broadcast live on Radio Radicale 2 and on the Internet site: old.radicalparty.org .

18 June
EP: Strasbourg - Kosovo

An emergency resolution, promoted by the ARE (European Radical Alliance) group is presented at the European Parliament. The resolution wholeheartedly condemns the persistent and increasing violation of fundamental human rights, the ethnic cleansing and the extremely violent aggressions inflicted on the population of Kosovo by the Serb secret police, by divisions of the army and by paramilitary forces.

19 June
EP: Strasbourg - Death Penalty

The European Parliament adopts with a very large majority a resolution proposing that the question of a universal moratorium on executions be placed on the agenda of the next session of the UN General Assembly, and that a resolution requesting the introduction of such a moratorium be presented there.

June
Azerbaijan; Armenia - Death Penalty

After a meeting with the EP delegation for relations with the Transcaucasian Republics, Azerbaijan President, Geidar Aliev, willingly complies with Radical Party Secretary and MEP Olivier Dupuis' request that Azerbaijan support at the next UN General Assembly a resolution for the introduction of a global moratorium on executions.
A few days later, during the EP delegation's visit to Armenia, Dupuis succeeds in obtaining a similar commitment from the President of the Armenian Republic, Robert Kotcharian, and his Foreign Minister Oskyanyan.

July
UN: Death Penalty

Ecuador, Uruguay, Venezuela, Slovakia, Malta, San Marino and Paraguay are among the first countries to support the proposal to include the question of a global moratorium on the agenda of the next UN General Assembly; and, subsequently, to cosponsor a resolution for the introduction of such a moratorium. This proposal was made by the Radical Party to over 60 countries that sponsored the resolution adopted by the UN Commission on Human Rights, and received the backing of forty-eight of them.

July
UN: Rome - International Criminal Court

Given the slow pace at which the work of the Diplomatic Conference to establish the International Criminal Court is proceeding, the association "No Peace Without Justice" presents an appeal to the Italian government and all the other governments participating in the Conference, asking them to take all the political and diplomatic actions necessary to accelerate the work and to find the solutions required to establish an independent, fair and effective Court by 17 July.
Signatories of the appeal include: Rita Levi Montalcini, Nilde Iotti, Emma Bonino, Giovanni Leone, Silvio Berlusconi, Massimo D'Alema, Vincenzo Caianiello, Francesco Paolo Casavola, Furio Colombo, Aldo Corasaniti, Athos De Luca, Gianfranco Dell'Alba, Staffan De Mistura, Olivier Dupuis, Niccolò Figà Talamanca, Luigi Manconi, Filippo Mancuso, Antonio Martino.
On 8 July, hundreds of citizens start a hunger strike in relays to achieve the same goals.

14 July
Italy: Rome - International Criminal Court

A torchlight procession, from Piazza del Campidoglio to the FAO headquarters, is held for the immediate creation of the International Criminal Court.
Participants include: Romano Prodi (Prime Minister), Emma Bonino (European Commissioner), Francesco Rutelli (Mayor of Rome), Alfredo Biondi (Deputy Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies), Achille Occhetto (Chairman of the Committee for Foreign Affairs at the Chamber of Deputies), Olivier Dupuis (Secretary of the Radical Party), Sergio Stanzani (President of "No Peace Without Justice", Bosnia and Herzegovina's Ambassador to the UN Mohammed Sacirbey.
At the FAO headquarters, members of the procession presented the appeal "NO EXCUSES, NO ALIBIS" to the President of the Diplomatic Conference, Giovanni Conso.
On 16 July, a speech marathon and vigil begins outside the FAO building.

17 July
EP: Strasbourg - Vietnam

For the first time, the European Parliament approves a resolution, presented by the European Radical Alliance group, condemning the gross violations of human rights in Vietnam, and calls on the Vietnamese authorities to rapidly establish the rule of law and proceed with reforms.

18 July
UN: Rome - International Criminal Court

The Diplomatic Conference establishes the International Criminal Court by approving the Statute.
As far as the Radical Party is concerned "it may not be a perfect document, but the permanent Court is a real step forward in the reform of international law and international institutions. (...) Another important Radical achievement is the exclusion of the death penalty from the Statute".

6 August
Incrimination of Milosevic

The Radical Party launches an international campaign to collect signatures on a petition addressed to the President and the Prosecutor of the International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, asking that Serb President Slobodan Milosevic be charged with genocide and crimes against humanity.
"We must bring down the National Communist regime in Belgrade. We must stop the Belgrade regime's aggression in Kosovo. We must give Serbs a chance to rebuild democracy and to reinstate the rule of law in their country. Therefore, we must stop President Milosevic."
In just a few months the petition is signed by more than 51,000 citizens of different nationalities, including hundreds of parliamentarians, men of government, university dons and personalities. Among the most well-known are: Michel Rocard, Leo Tindemans, Otto Von Habsburg, Achille Occhetto, David Martin, Wilfried Martens, Antoinette Spaak, Adem Demaci, André Glucksman, Bianca Jagger, Ismail Kadare, Isabelle Adjani, Antonino Zichichi, Marie-Claire Mendes-France, John Polanyi.

8 August
Italy: Rome - Burma (now Myanmar)

On the 10th anniversary of the violent repression of the civil population of Rangoon by the police force of the Burmese military junta (SLORC), the Radical Party demonstrates outside the Burmese Embassy in Rome.
Slogans: "Free the Burmese people"; "Free Aung San Suu Kyi"; "Stand by the 1990 election results"; "Boycott the Rangoon regime".

 

August
Italy: Rome - National Service

A press conference is held at the Radical Party's Rome headquarters to launch the campaign "LEVA LA LEVA" ("ABOLISH NATIONAL SERVICE"), organized by the Né Giusta, Né Utile (Neither Fair, Nor Useful) Committee and the Radical Party, to abolish compulsory national and civilian service. The text of a popular petition, on which signatures are about to be collected, is read during the Conference. The aim of this petition is "to radically question Italy's costly, inefficient military service structure and that of a bureaucratic, civilian service network rife with favouritism."

9 September
EP: Strasbourg - Kosovo

The ARE (European Radical Alliance) group and about a dozen MEPs from other groups present their candidate for the 1999 Sakharov Prize for "freedom of thought": Professor Ukshin Hoti, Professor of Political Science at the University of Pristina, who spent 8 years in prison for crimes of opinion as a result of his militancy in favour of a nonviolent, negotiated solution to the Kosovo situation.
His candidacy is seconded by many politicians and intellectuals, including Adem Demaci (1991 Sakharov Prize-winner and a leading figure on the Kosovar political scene); Bujar Dugolli, President of the Student's Union at the University of Pristina; and the Albanian writer Ismail Kadare.

 

6 October
EP: Strasbourg - Antiprohibitionism

The European Parliament approves the d'Ancona report on drugs, but only after it has been revised and amended several times, following a compromise between the Socialist and Popular groups. Despite the fact that the report takes up the most advanced "harm reduction" policies and recommends their widespread application, antiprohibitionist MEPs Olivier Dupuis and Gianfranco Dell'Alba vote against it, finding it impossible to "support a text that makes a moralistic appeal for a 'society without drugs' instead of fighting a prohibitionist system (with an annual turnover of 400 billion dollars, amounting to 8% of annual world trade) and its terrible consequences in terms of the destruction of the rule of law, legal economies, and the judiciary, political, police and journalistic structures in producer as well as consumer countries".

8 October
EP: Strasbourg - Kosovo

After a heated debate, the European Parliament adopts a resolution calling on the Council of Member States of the European Union to do everything in its power to have President Milosevic incriminated for crimes against humanity and warcrimes, by the Tribunal in The Hague.

10 October
Italy : Rome - Incrimination of Milosevic

On the eve of NATO military intervention in Kosovo, the Radical Party holds a demonstration to have Serb President Milosevic incriminated by the Tribunal in The Hague. An enormous papier-mâché missile on the side of which is written "Incriminate Milosevic" indicates that this would be the most effective way for the international community and the Member States of NATO to stop the tragedy in Kosovo.

27 October
Italy: Rome - Pedophilia

A Conference entitled "Pedophilia and the Internet" is organized in Rome by the Radical Party and Radio Radicale. The Conference to fiercely questions the new law against the sexual exploitation of minors (which it is feared "may be used as a pretext to restrict individual liberties and to justify the ever-increasing methods of controlling society") and the "political, journalistic and legal crusade" against the Internet, which is accused of welcoming pedophiles.
Among the personalities who speak at the Conference are the Head of the CENSIS (Centro Studi Investimenti Sociali) Giuseppe De Rita, Italian MP Marco Taradash, the writer Barbara Alberti, the President of the Italian Association of Internet Providers Marco Barbuti, the psychoanalyst Aldo Carotentuo and RP Secretary Olivier Dupuis.

30 October
Albania: Tirana - Incrimination of Milosevic

Olivier Dupuis meets with incoming Albanian Prime Minister Pandeli Majko, who has been a member of the Radical Party for 6 years, and Sali Berisha, President of the Albanian Democratic Party and former President of the Republic of Albania. They discuss, among other things, the campaign to incriminate Milosevic at the Tribunal in The Hague, which Majko was not only to second but also promote.
[FOTO DI MAJKO]

November
EP: Strasbourg - Kosovo

MEPs Olivier Dupuis and Gianfranco Dell'Alba present a resolution on behalf of the ARE group, asking that two political representatives of the Albanian minority in Macedonia be freed: Alajdin Demiri, Mayor of Tetovo, and Rufi Osmani, Mayor of Gostivar, both of whom were sentenced in 1997 to several years in prison for having demonstrated against the ban on raising the Albanian flag in a public place. The Macedonian Parliament would grant amnesty to both men at the end of December.

 

 

 

2 November
Italy: Turin - Incrimination of Milosevic

The Turin City Council approves with a large majority an agenda (opposed by the Refounded Communists and the Italian Communists), presented by Greens councillor Silvio Viale (member of the Radical Party), on the situation in Kosovo and for the incrimination of the President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia Slobodan Milosevic by the International Tribunal in The Hague.
Turin is the first major European city to back the indictment of Milosevic.

November
Russia: Moscow

Galina Starovojtova is murdered in Moscow. A member of the Duma and of the Associazione Radicale Antimilitarista, she fought untiringly in many Radical Party battles, from the campaign to indict Slobodan Milosevic to antiprohibitionism and the defence of human rights in China.

November
Italy : Rome - Congo, Human Rights

During the Rome visit of the President of the Congo Laurent-Désiré Kabila, strongly suspected of ordering massacres on a unimaginable scale, a Radical activist, Alexandre De Perlinghi, is attacked by Kabila's bodyguards for having shouted at the President : "Murderer! Murderer! You should be standing trial!"
Two days later Radical militants demonstrate in Piazza del Quirinale while Kabila meets with the then President Oscar Luigi Scalfaro.
Slogans: "Kabila should be in court, not at the Quirinal Palace, "Democracy in Africa".

10 December
Italy: Rome - International Criminal Court

On the 50th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Radical Party organises a torchlight vigil in Piazza Montecitorio to ask the Italian Parliament to approve immediately the Law of Ratification of the Statute for the establishment of the permanent International Criminal Court; to request that the Government undertake all the initiatives necessary for the International Tribunal for crimes committed in the Former Yugoslavia to operate freely in Kosovo; and to ensure that EU policy in the region focuses on the re-establishment of democracy in Serbia and of freedom in Kosovo.

December
Italy: Rome - Iraq

Radicals demonstrate outside the American Embassy in Rome as a gesture of solidarity towards Clinton and Blair during the Anglo-American military intervention in Iraq, aimed at restoring international legality. Militants from the right-leaning Italian MSI party (Movimento Sociale Italiano) attack the Radicals.
The next day, a similar demonstration is held in front of the seat of the Italian Government.

December
Italy: Rome - Death Penalty

A Christmas March from Campo de' Fiori to St. Peter's is organised by the Radical association Hands Off Cain and the Radical Party, with a view to obtaining a global moratorium on executions. Marchers include over 100 mayors and representatives of regions and provinces, representatives of many political parties, and leading figures from various voluntary associations and international organisations. The Pope declares in his Christmas message that he is against capital punishment.