Memória Virtual

Queda do Muro de Berlim – 20 anos (IV)

9 Novembro, 2009 at 11:35 am Deixe um comentário

When Gorbachev first spoke of “new thinking” in foreign policy, many in the West — especially in the U.S. — doubted his sincerity. The real test was whether Gorbachev would end the policy at the heart of the cold war: the subjugation of Eastern Europe. At the end of last year, in a speech at the United Nations, Gorbachev declared that he would. “Freedom of choice is a universal principle,” he said. Yet the doubts lingered. They always seemed to come down to the question: Is Gorbachev for real?

There can be only one answer now: yes, emphatically yes. Earlier this year, after Poland’s Communists lost the most open elections since World War II but tried nevertheless to thwart Solidarity’s effort to form a government, Gorbachev spoke by phone to the Communist Party leader, who subsequently backed down. Gorbachev has also provided public approval to the Hungarian reformers. In summing up a Warsaw Pact meeting in Bucharest last July, he pronounced: “Each people determines the future of its own country and chooses its own form of society. There must be no interference from outside, no matter what the pretext.”

(Time, edição datada de 06.11.1989 – publicada a 31.10.1989)

Entry filed under: Internacional, Sociedade. Tags: Berlim.