Bruce Konviser's Notebook:

Remembering the Velvet Revolution and its fairy-tale ending

PRAGUE – It was 20 years ago today that a student rally, which began peacefully, ended with police-wielding batons and barking attack dogs. The police crackdown was intended to send a message to would-be protesters: stay home or get hurt. But the message sent was not the one that was received. Instead of retreating into fear, a normally passive society had reached a breaking point. They were was incensed by the police's violent response.

(And there was also the bizarre rumor that one student had been killed. Bizarre because the rumor came complete with a full-name — Martin Smid, along with other personal details; bizarre because it turned out that not only was the young Smid not dead, but if he was beaten at all it was not severe enough to even go to a hospital; bizarre because the woman who made the public claim did so in excruciating detail — a torrent of kicks and truncheon blows that were supposed to have left the young man lifeless; bizarre because the woman who made the claim seems to have mysteriously disappeared. The speculation is that the police made up the grisly death story to further dissuade would-be protesters. Of course that has never been proven, and one cannot rule out that the Gothic tale was a student concoction, with the hopes of generating public outrage. Regardless of who was behind the rumor, public outrage won the day.)

Twenty-one years after Warsaw-Pact troops swooped into Czechoslovakia to crush a reform movement known as the Prague Spring a new generation of students had no firsthand knowledge of Soviet tanks rumbling through their city streets. But the students knew enough to be wary — and smart. They were fed up with the Marxist-Leninist ideology being forced upon them at the university and they were fed up with the government's seeming indifference to the deteriorating plight of their society. But the students were smart enough to know that they couldn't just hold a protest without official permission. And they knew, of course, that they would never get permission to hold a demonstration if their stated aim was to protest the government. So they picked an important date from history — a 50th anniversary to be precise. On Nov. 17, 1939, the occupying Nazis carried out a brutal crackdown against students, killing several and shutting down the universities. The first student to die, Jan Opletal, was killed during a previous protest, which begot further demonstrations. Nine years later, when the communists swept into power, Opletal became a martyr.

Fast forward half-a-century, and the communist regime was in a pickle. Hungary had taken down its barbed-wire border blockades with Austria and East Germans were walking out of the Soviet-block. Other East Germans were pouring into Prague, discarding their smoke-belching
Trabants, and walking into the West German Embassy. Then, of course, the Berlin Wall collapsed. All the while the silence from Moscow was deafening. Kremlin leader Mikhail Gorbachev had implemented 'Glastnost' (openess) and Perestroika (reform) in the mid-1980s.

This was not 1968, there would be no "brotherly assistance" as the the Soviets had dubbed the invasion. Despite the warning signs all around them, the Czechoslovak regime could not simply deny students an opportunity to commemorate a man murdered by the Nazis.

And so the students marched. There were no chants of "down with the government" or "freedom now"; instead the students called on their fellow citizens to join them in their march. Along the way more and more Czechs joined in — and others expressed their solidarity from their living-room windows.

The confrontation with police came when a large group of protesters sought to break-off from the prescribed route and walk toward Wenceslas Square — the main square in the city center.

All of the dissidents who resisted the oppressive measures imposed by an all-powerful government deserve the admiration of hose who value human freedom over all else. But I have to say that I find the Czech dissidents especially admirable. In Poland Lech Walesa stood atop a
Solidarity movement that was 1 million strong. In Czechoslovakia the dissidents numbered mere hundreds, maybe thousands. In Poland Walesa and his cohorts knew the had the backing of The Vatican and Washington. And they realized at some point — I can't say just when — that if they pushed long enough and hard enough, that the communist regime would eventually crumble. The Czech and Slovak dissidents had no such notions, but they kept doing what they did simply because they believed it was the right thing to do.

Jan Urban, a leading Czech dissident, tells a marvelous story of how he stood atop Wenceslas Square in the summer of 1989 with Adam Michnik, a leading figure in Poland's solidarity movement. As they looked out across the night-time square, decked out in the communist's red stars, Michnik said to Urban, "Imagine some day these will all be gone." Urban looked at him incredulously, and said. "No, you don't understand..." Michnik cut him off and said, "No, you don't understand."

Despite their best efforts the Czech dissidents were so isolated, that they really couldn't grasp the bigger picture. But when the time came to act — they were ready. The dissidents quickly joined forces with the students, and the students were ready to let the dissidents lead.

During the ensuing days the protests grew — hundreds-of-thousands, some say a million, filled a park at Letna, dangled their key chains and chanted, “Havel to the Castle,” among other things.

Not only was there no military assistance coming from Moscow but the Kremlin wasn't even offering the Czechoslovak government moral support. The Czech communists were on their own. They could do a Tiananmen Square, and send in the tanks. But with Poland having already held quasi-free elections earlier that year — in which pro-democracy advocates won a majority; with Hungary having thrown open its border with Austria and with the fall of the Berlin Wall — sending in tanks to fire on their own citizens had to look pretty unpalatable, and so the communists negotiated. They sought a power-sharing agreement. But Havel and his dissident supporters rejected that. The communists would have to give up power, the dissidents insisted. And on Dec. 10 the communists did just that.

Havel, a dissident playwright who had been languishing in a state-prison earlier that year moved into Prague Castle on Dec. 29, as president of a democratic Czechoslovakia.

And the Velvet Revolution — with a fairy-tale ending — was born.

Czech president not pleased over signing Lisbon Treaty

Czech President Vaclav Klaus is openly hostile to European Union integration, and resisted signing the reform package known as the Lisbon Treaty for months. But today, after the Constitutional Court rejected an appeal by Klausian supporters from the Czech Senate, the prickly president capitulated and signed the treaty. His disgust at having to sign the treaty — which he said would be the end of the Czech Republic as a soveriegn nation — can be seen clearly in this photo.

Klaus signs the Lisbon Treaty

After months of delay, Czech President Vaclav Klaus signed the Lisbon Treaty today, not long after the country's Constitutional Court ruled that the treaty was not at odds with the Czech Constitution. Klaus' signature means the ratification process is now complete, and the treaty's implentation will go ahead.

Czech court gives Lisbon Treaty the go-ahead

The Czech Constitutional Court has ruled that the Lisbon Treaty is not at odds with the Czech Constitution, or with national sovereignty. The ruling clears the way for Czech President Vaclav Klaus to sign the treaty, which would streamline European Union bureaucracy and politics. Of course, whether Klaus — who is notoriously hostile toward all things EU — will actually sign it remains to be seen. But both Czech Prime Minister Jan Fischer and current EU President Fredrik Reinfeldt said today they believed Klaus would sign. The two men, along with Jose Manuel Barroso, the European Commision's chief, have all praised the court's ruling today. So far the Castle (where the Czech President lives and works) has been silent.

The Lisbon Treaty has been ratified by 26 of the 27 EU member states. And the treaty has also been passed by both houses of Czech parliament. The only thing it needs to become fully, and finally, approved is Klaus's signature. So will he sign? As reported yesterday, Prime Minister Jan Fischer believes the president will sign, as does the EU's current president. Klaus himself has hinted that his signature is inevitable — saying that the Lisbon Treaty has come so far that it cannot be stopped now. Still, there is no word of when he will sign.

Lisbon Treaty hurtles toward final hurdle

The future of Europe now lies in the hands of 15 men in Moravia.

Moravia is the eastern half of the Czech Republic, and in the regional capital of Brno the country's Constitutional Court is considering whether a European Union reform treaty is at odds with the Czech Constitution. The pivotal ruling is expected on Tuesday.

The 15-member court already rejected a similar appeal during the past year, which has created a sense that this week's ruling will yield the same result, though that is by no means assured.

At stake is nothing less than the future of Europe. If the court rules that the so-called Lisbon Treaty is at odds with the country's constitution, then a multi-year effort to reform the way the EU operates will go up in smoke. And the ramifications of that are hard to gauge.

But if the court rules the treaty is not at odds with the country's constitution then all eyes will shift to Prague Castle — home of the prickly President Vaclav Klaus.

Of the EU's 27 member states only the Czechs have failed to ratify the treaty. Both houses of the Czech parliament approved the treaty earlier this year but it needs the president's signature to be final.

For months Klaus — who openly disdains the EU — said he would, nonetheless, sign the treaty if Irish voters passed it in their own national referendum. The Irish voters passed it overwhelmingly but still Klaus balked, announcing he wanted an opt-out clause for his country from the treaty's charter of fundamental rights.

In particular, Klaus said he feared the charter could open a path for a World War II-era German minority to make restitution claims on property they lost after the war when they were forced to leave the country under the so-called Benes Decrees.

Virtually all independent legal experts say Klaus's claim is without merit, and some have ridiculed it as absurd. Still, EU leaders, desperate to resolve the crisis, reluctantly agreed to Klaus's demands last week at a gathering of all of the EU's heads-of-state.

Now Klaus says he is waiting for the court's ruling. But will he really sign if the Constitutional Court rules against the plaintiffs (Klaus's fellow conservatives from the Czech Senate)?

Prime Minister Jan Fischer tells GlobalPost, in an exclusive interview, that he believes Klaus will sign.

“I'm pretty sure he is ready to sign,” he said, based on his conversations with Klaus.

Fischer added that the Swedish government, which currently holds the EU's rotating presidency, shares his belief that the Czech president will sign as long as the court clears the way.

“I know the Swedish Prime Minister Frederic Fredrik Reinfeldt came to the same conclusion after his phone call with our head of state,” Fischer said. “Reinfeldt came to the conclusion ... that our president will be ready to sign.”

Perhaps, but until the cantankerous president actually signs the treaty, no one can say with 100 percent certainty what he will do. (The president's office did not respond to multiple requests for comment.) What is certain, however, is that Klaus has seemingly infuriated just about everyone — except a sizable portion of Czech society.

Politicians in Brussels and across the EU aren't the only ones angered by Klaus' theatrics. Few dare criticize him here at home, where he enjoys relatively strong public support, at about 60 percent. But the only political party that shares Klaus' hostility toward the EU is the unreformed Communist Party, although a hard-right segment of the Civic Democratic Party (ODS) also opposes greater EU integration.

Even though Klaus effectively founded the Civic Democrats in the aftermath of the 1989 Velvet Revolution, he has fallen out with the current leadership. He was honorary party chairman until he formally broke his ties with the party last December. ODS rejects Klaus's claims that the Lisbon Treaty threatens Czech sovereignty, or leaves the country vulnerable to possible restitution claims from the post-war era.

ODS spokesman Martin Kupka laughed when asked if the president's grandstanding was little more than a lusting for power and attention. He then demured, saying, “All of us knew his opinion about the EU. His latest steps are in line with this politician. The steps are for making visible his attitude, which isn't positive.”
 

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