Information On The Votation In PACE

Dear Comrades,

Bellow you will find the official PACE Statement about the votation of the anti-Communist Draft Resolution and some information as reported by the KKE Newspaper Rizospastis.

Many thanks to all comrades and friends backing so actively the campaign against the anticommunist motion and for signing and asking support for the on-line petition http://red.kke.gr [more than 2300 signatures from 36 countries until the moment].

Our party will continue the struggle so that the anticommunist PACE document, “which, al ready is morally and practically massively rejected in Greece” and in other countries, will be not implemented.

Comradely,
Section for international relations

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PACE strongly condemns crimes of totalitarian communist regimes*

Strasbourg, 25.01.2006 – The Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) today strongly condemned the massive human rights violations committed by totalitarian communist regimes and expressed sympathy, understanding and recognition for the victims of these crimes.

The Assembly – which brings together parliamentarians from 46 European countries – said in a resolution that these violations included individual and collective assassinations and executions, death in concentration camps, starvation, deportations, torture, slave labour and other forms of mass physical terror.

The peoples of the former USSR by far outnumbered other peoples in terms of the number of victims, the parliamentarians said.

They also called on all communist or post-communist parties in Council of Europe member states which had not so far done so “to reassess the history of communism and their own past […] and condemn them without any ambiguity”.

“The Assembly believes that this clear position of the international community will pave the way to further reconciliation,” the parliamentarians added.

The Council of Europe was “well placed” for this debate, the Assembly pointed out, since all former European communist countries, with the exception of Belarus, are now its members and the protection of human rights and the rule of law are the basic values for which it stands.

A draft recommendation calling on Europe’s governments to adopt an official declaration of the international condemnation of crimes of totalitarian communist regimes did not receive the necessary two-thirds majority of the votes cast.

A draft recommendation called on Europe’s governments to adopt a similar declaration and to carry out legal investigations of individuals engaged in crimes committed under totalitarian communist regimes did not receive the necessary two-thirds majority of the votes cast.

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Rizospastis 26 January 2006

“In spite of the fact that the draft resolution was adopted with 85 vote in favor, 50 against and 11 abstentions this document has “more a historical relevance since by not receiving 2/3 of the 146 votes will not be forwarded to the representatives of the governments in order to be implemented” as reported by RIZOSPASTIS. In fact the outcome of voting puts the resolution on the level of “no recommendation”.

For the moment we don’t exactly what will be the “legal” and political repercussions of that outcome but is a fact that the reactionary forces have not achieved all the goals what they had. It’s interesting to note that the reactionary forces used all possible means in the Parliamentary Assembly in order to pass at any price the anticommunist document.

So the first speaker of the left group UEL appeared at the 21st place [Ziuganov], L.Kanelli of KKE 57th and the other 6 members of the left group only on the last 6 places of the speaker list.

So only few members of the left group had the chance to take the floor in the Assembly.

Interesting is also the fact that with exception of Mr. Lindblat no one of the MPs coming from West Europe, no matter the political and ideological position was in favor of the anticommunist resolution”.