4-13-06, 8:39 am
Interview with Radim Gonda, vice-chair of the Communist Youth Union (KSM) of the Czech Republic about recent developments in the struggle of the KSM for legal existence.
Question: In December last year the Ministry of Interior of the Czech Republic sent a warning letter to the Communist Youth Union (KSM) threatening the KSM with banning this youth civic organization. The ultimatum demanding the youth group abandon its political behavior and communist program gave a deadline of March 4, 2006. How has the Ministry behaved since that date?
Answer: The representatives of the KSM had a meeting with vice-minister of Interior on March 1, 2006 where we repeated our position and gave him our response to the ultimatum. He said that the Ministry of Interior would respond in 2 – 3 weeks. But as of today we have not received any reply from the Ministry of Interior, although the time of the Ministry’s promised response has passed. They take their time, and we use it in our favor for the development of our counter-campaign. The Ministry of Interior may do anything they decide at any time they decide in connection with the illegalization of the KSM. The media has asked the spokesperson for the Ministry of Interior about its decision many times. She always replied that the Ministry is still pondering the case and has not made a final decision.
Question: What is the KSM doing against the Ministry of Interior’s attack, and which solidarity activities and events have happened recently?
Answer: We continue our very successful and wide campaign, and we want to force the Ministry to announce its decision. We have communicated with our comrades and friends abroad who support our struggle. The most important thing is that the struggle continues!
The campaign of solidarity with the struggle of the KSM was incredibly strong and wide. An enormous wave of international solidarity, protests and demonstrations of political parties, youth and student organizations, civic associations, trade unions, significant personalities of political, social, scientific and artistic life, including for example the Nobel prize laureate Dario Fo or singer Bono from U2 as well as a large number of individuals, was a determined response to the anti-Communist and anti-democratic attack. The World Federation of Democratic Youth (WFDY) organized an international day of action in solidarity with the KSM on February 27, 2006. Protests were organized in many countries that day, for example in Germany, Greece, Portugal, Belgium, Russia, Turkey and Austria. In Mexico, the Communist Youth Union of Mexico held a protest and Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos also supported the struggle of the KSM. A number of important petitions were organized internationally.
We were also informed that there was a demonstration in favor of the KSM in Trento, Italy during a visit of the Czech president Vaclav Klaus. Klaus was interviewed by La Republica newspaper. He tried to downplay the KSM question by claiming that the KSM is a small group of 5 or 10 or 30 people and that it has few friends abroad. If we consider just Italy, it is really funny to hear from the president of the Czech Republic about us having only few friends abroad. The number of signatures on the Italian petition shows something absolutely different. The Italian petition was signed by all the most important personalities of Italian political left, for example, by the whole leadership of the Communist Refoundation Party, its members of the national parliament, senators and members of European parliament. I may mention also a representative of the Young Communists Francesco Maringio, the International Secretary of the Party of Italian Communists Oliviero Diliberto and its members of parliament, founders of the daily newspaper Il Manifesto like Rossana Rossanda, representatives of Rete dei Communisti, trade unionist leaders, journalists including those from RAI-TV, members of parliament representing the Greens Mauro Bulgarelli and Paolo Cento, a number of university teachers, representatives of sciences and culture, of anti-war and anti-globalization movement but also Catholic priests and theologians. The Italian petition was also signed by Pietro Ingrao, former president of the Italian parliament, Giuliana Sgrena, famous journalist of Il Manifesto taken hostage in Baghdad not long time ago, Giovanni Pesce, famous guerrilla commander and hero of anti-fascist resistance struggle and the aforementioned Nobel prize laureate Dario Fo.
And I am mentioning only Italy where Klaus made these untrue claims. The intention of Klaus obviously was to pretend that the cause of the KSM is irrelevant. Together with chairman of the KSM, Milan Krajca, I wrote an open letter to Vaclav Klaus in which we pointed out at his deliberately false claims. We confronted him with facts. Our open letter has been published in the media. The attack against the KSM has been discussed in the Parliament of the Czech Republic, on the ground of the European parliament, it became a matter of debate with the president of the Czech Republic. It has also been discussed on international level. There have also been a number of other very important activities in favor of the KSM. The member of European parliament from the Communist Party of Greece, comrade Manolakou, raised the question of the KSM on the floor of the European parliament and collected signatures of 22 European parliament members. The petition organized by the KSM in the Czech Republic has been signed by several thousand people. And the activities of the KSM continue. On March 19, we co-organized a demonstration against the war in Prague. Our part of the demonstration was the core of the demonstration. We were the most important, most visible, the strongest part of the anti-war demonstration. It was obviously also a demonstration of the presence of the KSM, of our determination to be here and to struggle.
From Communist Youth Union (KSM)
