[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 101 (Wednesday, July 16, 1997)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1433]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                DEMOCRATIC REFORM DEALT BLOW IN SLOVAKIA

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. STENY H. HOYER

                              of maryland

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, July 16, 1997

  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I recently had the opportunity to meet with 
the Speaker of the Slovak National Council, Ivan Gasparovic, during his 
visit to Washington in early June. In fact, this was my second meeting 
with the chairman of Slovakia's legislature, whom I had also met in 
late 1994. I welcomed this opportunity to renew my contact with this 
important leader and am grateful to Mr. Hyde, who organized this 
meeting.
  Unfortunately, since my meeting with Speaker Gasparovic in 1994, some 
of the most significant accomplishments of the post-Communist and 
independent Slovak state have come under threat, as sadly illustrated 
by two recent events.
  Last November, when Slovak legislator Frantisek Gaulieder renounced 
his membership in the Prime Minister's party, he was also stripped of 
his deputy's mandate on the basis of a letter of parliamentary 
resignation which he says he never penned. Not to put too fine a point 
on the message he was being sent, a bomb went off on Mr. Gaulieder's 
porch a few days later. Unfortunately, Mr. Gasparovic had no real 
response to the concerns I expressed regarding this matter except to 
say that Mr. Gaulieder's case is still pending before the Slovak 
Constitutional Court.
  Although the Slovak Constitution Court has earned international 
respect as one of the leading post-Communist courts in Central Europe, 
it, too, is sadly under siege. On May 23, the Slovak Ministry of 
Interior flagrantly violated orders of the court by willfully 
manipulating the administration of a referendum on NATO and the direct 
election of the president. In particular, the Ministry of Interior 
blocked one of four referendum questions scheduled for presentation to 
the Slovak voters and, in so doing, provoked a boycott of the entire 
referendum.
  The disrespect shown by the Ministry of Interior for the 
constitutional court is nothing less than shocking. More to the point, 
the government's disregard for the rule of law--coming on the heels of 
the extraordinary means by which Frantisek Gaulieder was stripped of 
his parliamentary mandate last November--suggests an escalation in the 
tactics of the ruling coalition. It was not surprising that Slovakia's 
own Foreign Minister resigned after this fiasco, stating that he was 
unable to perform his job under such circumstances. Certainly, Mr. 
Gasparovic's reassurance that the Gaulieder case is pending before the 
constitutional court--the very court his Ministry of Interior had just 
defied--does little to reassure me that democracy is being effectively 
safeguarded in Slovakia.
  In light of my concerns, I welcomed the opportunity to discuss these 
matters with four other Slovak parliamentarians at the OSCE 
Parliamentary Assembly in Warsaw last week: Jan Cuper, Dusan Slobodnik, 
Jan Carnogursky, and Peter Magvasi. I was joined in that meeting by 
Representatives /Slaughter, Danner, and King.
  In that meeting, I reiterated my concern regarding the Gaulieder case 
and the Interior Ministry's disrespect for constitutional order. In 
addition, I flagged concern regarding the continued exclusion of 
opposition members from key oversight operations, such as the State 
board for radio and television, the parliamentary committee which deals 
with security, and the National Property Fund which oversees 
privatization. Finally, I expressed my concern that the Ministry of 
Education had issued a patently anti-Semitic textbook in April. While 
Prime Minister Meciar has just announced that the book would be 
withdrawn from school use, the Ministry of Education continues to 
defend this text, revealing a serious streak of anti-Semitism in the 
current ruling coalition.
  Throughout all this, the Slovak Government has continued to assert 
that Slovakia is interested in joining NATO. But the Slovak Government 
has simply failed to implement the kind of human rights and 
democratization reforms that would make consideration of Slovakia for 
NATO accession realistic at this point. And as Slovakia's human rights 
record diminishes, so does its prospects for integration into trans-
Atlantic institutions.
  Mr. Slobodnik did his best to convince me that Slovakia's record is 
really no worse--and, indeed, he asserted, probably much better--than 
the records of many other post-Communist countries in Central Europe. 
But the facts speak more clearly than Mr. Slobodnik's words. In short, 
the process of democratic reform in Slovakia has simply failed to keep 
pace with the reform process in other post-Communist countries in the 
region. The Baltic States, which were brutally occupied by the Soviets 
for 50 years, have made peace with the Soviet-era immigrants to their 
countries and have shown their strong commitment to their international 
human rights obligations; Romania, which had one of the most repressive 
regimes of the Communist era, has elected a pro-reform government that 
emphasizes tolerance and reconciliation in its political platform; 
Bulgarian voters, too, recently signaled that their future lies in the 
west, and not in the east.
  During my meeting in Warsaw, I suggested to my Slovak colleagues that 
our discussion should be viewed not as a confrontation among enemies--
the way such discussions might have rightly been viewed during the cold 
war--but as a conversation among potential partners. I believe that 
bringing Slovakia into the NATO family will contribute not only to 
Slovakia's security, but to the security of the entire NATO community. 
Each time I hear that Slovakia remains interested in joining NATO, I am 
heartened. Ultimately, I believe that if the people of Slovakia want 
that goal, they will be able to implement the changes necessary to make 
it happen.

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