It was a year ago last August 21st that our President, Comrade Nino Pasti, died. For us and for others who had the chance to know him, this man's story was tied to the struggle against the plans for nuclear war, and later to the conflict over general political issues which grew into the Movement for Peace and Socialism.
A year after his death, the NINO PASTI INTERNATIONAL FOUNDATION FOR PEACE AND INDEPENDENCE OF THE PEOPLES is being founded. Chairing the Foundation is Falco Accame, who struggled alongside Pasti in Italy, and who still takes part in many battles for peace and solidarity among the peoples. The Secretary of the Foundation is comrade Paolo Pioppi, who is a member of the leadership of the Movement for Peace and Socialism.
In addition to the positions of Chairman and Secretary, a International Committee has been established.
In the course of preparing this initiative, we have made clear, especially to our friends and comrades abroad, the motives which led us to promote the effort.
Our objective, as comrades of the MPS, was not only to continue the work begun by Nino Pasti, but also to focus on and to reformulate a strategy for the new epoch which would preserve the substance of the battles undertaken in the 1980's under radically different conditions.
The new element presented by the overall situation is no longer that of a global clash between two fronts, the imperialist camp and the camp of peace and liberation struggles - the condition under which we had fought up through 1989 - but rather a planetary domination on the part of the imperialist power of the USA and its regional allies in Europe, Asia and the Middle East.
As is plain for all to see, our forces have suffered frightening setbacks, opening the way for a rapid rise in the number of imperialist interventions and local wars. The disintegration of the USSR has led to a new phase of "hot wars", especially in the regions of Central Asia; the demise of Yugoslavia has produced the consequences of which we are all aware; Somalia is once again a territory up for conquest; Iraq has been subjected to one of the most terrifying wargames ever waged under the technology of death, etc..
Afghanistan, Angola, Nicaragua and Kurdistan have suffered from the renewed aggressiveness generated by the changes in the balance of power; the embargoes against Cuba, Libya and Iraq are the outward signs of the new world order.
The genuine "Empire of Evil" is now able to develop its projects to their full extent, making anything planned by Hitler's Germany or by Japan at the time of the Second World War seem like child's play. Indeed, as regards the comparison with the Nazis, it should be pointed out that many of Hitler's wishes for Eastern Europe are now being fulfilled. Czechoslovakia is a typical example. The division of the country and the return of the Czech Republic to German control has set the pieces in place without the need for a dramatic episode such as the Munich Treaty. What was judged to be a crime in the fourties can now be perpetrated without scandalizing anyone.
Within this dramatic context - which strikes us dumb, leaving us powerless to respond - there are also examples of the "pacification", of the mediation of conflicts, as if the new world order was meant to function as a hall of justice. But these apparent concessions merely represent a different approach to ratifying the defeat of the weak, as in the case of Palestine, Mozambique and El Salvador. In terms of the overall situation, the picture remains unchanged.
Even more scandalous is the fact that the UN has become the business-affairs committee of the USA and its closest allies. The American High Command plans the wars, and the UN uses its flag to cover the resulting expeditions, whose core contingents consist of American troops. The Security Council has been successfully tamed, with Russia serving as America's sidekick while China "conveniently" avoids getting itself involved in a conflict with the Americans for the sake of free trade.
The obvious question is what objective does this new worldwide imperialist structure pursue, and why have such frightening forms of domination come into being at the close of the XXth century?
With the end of the conflict between East and West, to the grim satisfaction of those who had always underestimated the deterrent represented by the progressive, anti-imperialist forces, the winners of the competition immediately set their new strategic objectives, before the dust from the Berlin Wall had even settled.
Any people or movement which tries to free itself from the mechanism of imperialist oppression, or which attempts to develop processes of social transformation conflicting with imperialist interests, finds itself face to face with a war machine designed to block its efforts. In light of this situation, one must draw the obvious consequences. It is no longer possible to move forward in random order, under the illusion that individual action can be effective against a similar structure. Nor is it enough to presume, as was done in the past, that the efforts of the solidarity movement on behalf of this or that specific cause can modify the overall situation. The former success of strong solidarity movements in affecting the existing balances of power was due to the existance of an organized camp of forces which made it possible to reach certain objectives. Now this camp no longer exists, leaving each group faced with the enormous imbalance between its own capacity for struggle and the worldwide imperialist organization led by the USA.
Confronting this situation means reconstructing a strategic force capable of placing the new world order and its objectives in difficulty.
At certain points during this century - such as the period following the First World War, or the rise of fascism in Europe and Japan, or the processes of decolonization which occurred during the 1960's, or the so-called Cold War and the threat of nuclear conflict - hundreds of millions of people throughout the world became aware of the need to face a common enemy.
Today, we find ourselves in the same situation. It is necessary that people throughout the world become aware of the mortal danger threatening mankind and stifling opportunities for new life and change leading to a better future (for many peoples, the aim is simply to achieve an acceptable future). A great union of forces is needed to defeat this enemy and to modify our present prospects for the future.
But significant results can not be achieved through diplomatic approaches, or tortured syllogisms or simple protests. The story of the wolf and the lamb is repeating itself. There is no way to reason with such a brutal opponent.
Only the creation of a strong, well-organized worldwide movement against the new barbarians led by the imperialist forces of the United States can once again open up to the peoples of the world the path towards a better, brighter future.
There are hundreds of millions of people suffering from wars, underdevelopment and oppression, even inside the citadels of imperialism. The liberation of these millions and millions of human beings implies the defeat of imperialism and the spread of a mass awareness that this enemy must be struck hard and, most importantly, in a common effort, despite any differences of opinion or divergences in short-term objectives.
The Pasti Foundation was created in response to the needs outlined in the introduction. Its objective is to develop international ties and initiatives which can contribute to the development of a broader-based anti-imperialist front, of a massive force in favor of peace and the liberation of the world's peoples.
This force does not imply the reconstruction of opposing blocs, but rather opposing fronts. The choice is between the imperialist logic underlying the new world order and the front dedicated to pursuing liberation from the restrictions imposed by this order. Within this group of forces, the broadest possible unity must be achieved, i.e. a capacity for union based on a number of essential points:
Efforts must point in the direction of these three major objectives, in order to move from the present crisis to hopes for new and positive transformations on an epoch-making scale. By now, it is clear to everyone that the new world order which arose following the fall of the socialist regimes of Eastern Europe and in the wake of the Gulf War has led mankind into a period of darkness which must be overcome as quickly as possible.
The development of this need is a momentous event, one of the turning points in the history of mankind, on which prospects for generalized development depend.
It becomes apparent that the in-depth development of this need involves the growth of a mass consciousness based on unassailable objective premises, as well as needs which the peoples of the world realize can no longer be denied.
We do not know how much time it will take before conditions are ripe for such a development, but we feel that this is the direction in which our energies must be directed, and this will be the goal of the Pasti Foundation on an international level.
Together with its Rome headquarters, the Pasti Foundation has established a centre in Prague, in collaboration with Czech comrades.
The Prague centre will play a special role in developing relations with the countries of Eastern Europe, which are experiencing, within the context of the new world situation, an extremely dramatic phase.
This involves the economic crisis and the imperialist expansion favored by the new "compradora" bourgeoisie; the repression of the forces of the left (the Czech Republic is one of the centers of this repression); the ethnic wars and deep splits between peoples who have lived together in peace for centuries: all these factors underly the work of the Prague center as it searches to formulate a countermeasure to the processes of disintegration, the strategy of underdevelopment and the drift towards war which has been set off in this part of the world.
We realize that it is not easy, in a period such as the present, to modify the trends which have been set in motion, but it is unthinkable that the "black hole" currently represented by Eastern Europe and the republics of the former USSR not be included in plans for the revival of a movement for peace and the liberation of the peoples of the world.
The decline towards barbarism to which we are fast becoming accustomed, thanks to events such as those taking place in the former country of Yugoslavia, or in the wars of Central Asia, or the demise of the Czech Republic, or the third-world level of poverty into which hundreds of millions of people have been thrust, has become a significant part of the tragedy of this era, and certainly not by chance.
The hand of imperialism, the force of the new world order, the role of the new "compradora" bourgeoisie are plain to see. The euphoria and the illusions which followed the fall of the socialist regimes sputtered out quickly. Ethnic rivalries, skillfully maneuvered by those who stand to benefit from the creation of new powers, by those who mean to use warfare as a means of penetration, have become a powerful weapon for disrupting the old balances and constructing new areas of influence. In a short period of time, imperialism has regained the vast margin for maneuver which it had lost following decades of social transformation and struggles for liberation. To take the initiative once again, precisely where imperialism has achieved its greatest success - to overcome existing rivalries, as well as forced underdevelopment and the new forms of repression - this strikes us as an important task in the framework of the effort which the Pasti Foundation plans to carry forward on an international level.
Within the new international situation, Western Europe (the EEC) finds itself in a contradictory position.
On the one hand, it plays a major role in the international "new order". It is active militarily in a series of areas (from Yugoslavia to Somalia to the Persian Gulf), not to mention its significant contribution to the economic penetration of Eastern Europe (in particular Germany).
On the other hand, Europe is experiencing a number of marked internal contradictions, both social and political, though these have not yet managed to generate or to release energies capable of overturning the situation in favor of the forces of peace and anti-imperialism.
Indeed, these very contradictions have led to a reinforcement of rightest leanings in terms of mass movements, and of authoritarian tendencies on an institutional level, making the role of Western Europe in the international sphere an extremely dangerous one. New and urgent tasks must, therefore, be taken on - within the framework of a global battle - by the European movements and political forces opposed to the imperialism of the "European Fortress".
Up to now, however, these forces have acted in the majority of cases within an overly narrow, exclusively national context, and have been plagued by a number of unresolved doubts. In particular:
Analyzing the root causes of these uncertainties and weaknesses in order to return to a strategy of struggle which meets the demands of the times, and is worthy of the historic role that Europe has always played in internationalist battles, this is the specific task which we must carry out. And this is why the activities of the Pasti Foundation call for the establishment of a Permanent forum for discussion and initiatives open to all the anti-imperialist and progressive forces of Europe interested in joining in a common struggle against the new world order, in opposition to the role played within that order by the European Fortress.
The key issues unifying these forces are their negative opinion of the institutions of the European Community, their rejection of the use of armed forces abroad and their will to struggle against the social, political and racial conditions which characterize the EEC.
Europe is an important link in the chain of the imperialist world. Though there is a certain degree of antagonism with the USA and Japan, Europe exercises significant influence within the framework of a "dialectical" inter-imperialist alliance.
Unfortunately, the forces opposed to this Holy Alliance in the various European countries have proven too weak, being incapable of sending off a strong signal on a continental level.
Too many misunderstandings, weaknesses and subservient positions have been offered in the face of an increasingly dangerous, threatening enemy.
We feel that the creation of a permanent forum for discussions and initiatives can contribute to the success of this uphill effort. And this is the goal towards which the Pasti Foundation intends to work.