Left-Extremist Endeavours

Network of international
contacts
Co-operation at the European
level
Solidarity activities for
Cuba
plicability of the five per cent clause for parliamentary representation,
that it won local council mandates 140) .
2.5 International Connections
As stated by the PDS itself, it has, since 1990, built up a widespread
network of bilateral and multilateral co-operation with a
large number of parties and organizations 141) .
An essential element of the Party’s internationalism work is its
contact with Communist Parties. The PDS Executive Committee
periodically reports on meetings and talks with functionaries and
on the participation in party conventions and press parties of
Communist parties 142) . The PDS maintains particularly close
contacts with the "French Communist Party" (FCP). Apart from
co-operation in the field of trade-union politics, the two parties
provide mutual support for election campaigns 143) .
The whole range of their contacts was demonstrated by the PDS
- for the first time after three years - at its Party Convention in
January 1999. The 68 international guests from 52 parties and
organizations from 40 countries included representatives of the
Communist Parties of Armenia, Belarus, Bohemia and Moravia
(Czech Republic), China, Colombia, Cuba, France, India, Iraq,
Italy, Japan, Lebanon, Luxembourg, Portugal, Russia, and South
Africa; the Communist Parties of Finland, Nepal, (North) Korea,
Slovakia, Syria and the Ukraine had sent messages of greeting
144) .
At the European level, in particular, the PDS endeavours to consolidate
its existing contacts and also to make use of existing
international structures.
Thus, it is a member of the "New European Left Forum" (NELF),
an association of 17 reformist-Communist, left-Socialist and
green-left parties from Europe.
An important subject of PDS activities in 1999 was support for
Cuba which continues to adhere to Socialism. Thus, as reported
by the party newspaper "Granma" of the "Cuban Communist
Party" (PCC), the party chairman of the PDS, Lothar BISKY,
pledged his Party’s "solidarity and support for the Cuban Revolution"
on the occasion of the ceremonies for the 40 th anniversary
of the Cuban Revolution, which he attended in Cuba in January
145) . A significant part of solidarity activities is carried out by the
working panel "Cuba Sí" within the party executive committee of
the PDS 146) .
Together with the left-extremist daily "junge Welt", this working
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