Léo Matarasso
in Lelio Basso – Il risveglio dei popoli, Lega internazionale per i diritti e la liberazione dei popoli, Milano, 1980
Since the end of the Second World War, Lelio Basso has been passionate about the cause of the liberation of peoples. He first became interested in the peoples of the former Italian colonies: Libya, Somalia, Eritrea; then came the fierce struggle for Algeria and Vietnam.
He responded enthusiastically to Bertrand Russell’s call for the creation of a tribunal against American war crimes in Vietnam. He was appointed, during the two sessions of this Tribunal, the first held in Stockholm, the second in Copenhagen, as rapporteur of the two final reports that preceded the verdict: these two reports remain exemplary models.
The Russell Tribunal on Vietnam was dissolved with the decision that it would not deal with any other issue as long as the war in that country continued. A few years later, at the end of the war, Lelio Basso, invited to Chile by President Allende, met with Brazilian exiles of different political tendencies who asked him to organize a Russell Tribunal on Brazil. He obtained permission from the Russell Foundation to give this name to the new tribunal which, after the military dictatorship took power in Chile, would become the Russell Tribunal II on Latin America.
At the end of the third and final session of this Tribunal, which had a considerable impact, particularly in Latin America, Lelio Basso decided that this work could not be ignored. He then created, at the same time, the Foundation for the Rights and Liberation of Peoples and the International League for the Rights and Liberation of Peoples. There is a slight difference in the names of the two organizations: one deals with law, the other with rights; this difference corresponds to the difference in objectives. The Foundation is primarily devoted to study and research, while the League is an activist organization.
Shortly after its creation, the Foundation, on the initiative of Lelio Basso, convened an international conference in Algiers which, on 4 July 1976, the 200th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America, proclaimed the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Peoples. Although this was a private initiative and the concept of “peoples’ rights” was already present in a number of international documents, it was the first attempt to formulate them in a single document. It can be said today that, together with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Charter of the United Nations, in reality a charter of relations between States, the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Peoples is now a text that many international lawyers consider to be a fundamental document. Peoples, subjects of history, are becoming subjects of law.
Lelio Basso died while working on an even more ambitious project: a Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal. We have joined forces to continue the project of our great friend.
In June 1979, in Bologna, this Tribunal was set up, which has registered many cases to be examined and has already given two verdicts: one on the Sahara, the other on Argentina. This tribunal of public opinion, which has no official character and no power of sanction, has the claim, and has already demonstrated it, to work with as much, if not more rigour than any official tribunal.
I have essentially talked about Lelio Basso’s work from the Russell Tribunal on US war crimes in Vietnam to the creation of the Peoples’ Tribunal, because I know him best, having participated in it.
But the indefatigable Lelio Basso (it should not be forgotten that in the meantime he was writing his fundamental work, Socialism and Revolution, which was published after his death) did everything he could to support the liberation struggles of the peoples of the whole world, as can be seen from the many writings included in this book and concerning the most diverse regions. He always attached particular importance to the Palestinian cause.
But Lelio Basso was not only passionate about the cause of the peoples, he also wanted to understand. It was not enough for him to denounce crimes against peoples, it was not enough for him to express his militant solidarity with oppressed peoples and liberation fighters: he also wanted to understand and make people understand the deep causes of these crimes and the real reasons for these struggles.
At a time when Marxism was often expressed in a dogmatic way, the profound Marxist that Lelio Basso was has always dedicated himself to the deep and relevant study of imperialism as the essential cause of the enslavement of peoples.
Nothing can testify to this better than the writings collected here: let him speak. Matarasso, Léo