[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 4]
[Senate]
[Pages 5713-5714]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        IN HONOR OF VACLAV HAVEL

  Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, today I wish to join my colleagues from 
the Helsinki Commission in commemorating the founding of the Charter 77 
movement 30 years ago, and praising Vaclav Havel, one of Charter 77's 
first spokesmen and the first post-Communist President of 
Czechoslovakia.
  Many aspects of Vaclav Havel's biography are well known. His advanced 
formal education was limited by the Communist regime because of his 
family's pre-World War II cultural and economic status. By the 1960s, 
he was working in theater and writing plays. But by 1969, the Communist 
regime had deemed him ``subversive,'' and his passport was confiscated.
  In 1977, he took the daring step of joining two others--Jan Patocka 
and Jiri Hajek--in becoming the first spokesmen for the newly 
established ``Charter 77'' movement. This group sought to compel the 
Czechoslovak Government to abide by the international human rights 
commitments it had freely undertaken, including the Helsinki Final Act.
  In the 1970s and 1980s, Vaclav Havel was repeatedly imprisoned 
because of his human rights work. His longest period of imprisonment 
was 4\1/2\ years, 1979-1983, for subversion. After this, Havel was 
given the opportunity to emigrate but, courageously, he chose to stay 
in Czechoslovakia. By February 1989, Havel had come to symbolize a 
growing human rights and democratic movement in Czechoslovakia and, 
that year, the Helsinki Commission nominated him for the Nobel Peace 
Prize.
  Remarkably, in November 1989, the repressive machinery of the 
Communist regime--a regime that for five decades had persecuted and 
even murdered its own citizens--collapsed in what has come to be known 
as the ``Velvet Revolution.''
  To understand just how repressive the former regime was--and 
therefore

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how stunning its seemingly sudden demise was--it may be instructive to 
recall the first measures of the post-Communist leadership, introduced 
in the heady days of late 1989 and early 1990. First and foremost, all 
known political prisoners were released. Marxism-Leninism was removed 
as a required course from all school curricula. Borders were opened for 
thousands of people who had previously been prohibited from traveling 
freely. Control over the People's Militia was transferred from the 
party to the Government. The Federal Assembly passed a resolution 
condemning the 1968 Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia. 
Approximately 40 Ambassadors representing the Czechoslovak Communist 
regime were recalled. Newly appointed Foreign Minister Jiri Dienstbier 
announced that the ``temporary'' 1968 agreement allowing Soviet troops 
to remain in Czechoslovakia was invalid because it was agreed to under 
duress and that Soviet troops would withdraw from the country. The 
Politburo announced it would end the nomenklatura system of reserving 
certain jobs for party functionaries. The secret police was abolished. 
Alexander Dubcek, leader of the 1968 Prague Spring, was elected 
Chairman of the Federal Assembly on December 28 and, a day later, 
Vaclav Havel was voted to replace Gustav Husak. In February 1990, 
Vaclav Havel addressed a joint session of Congress.
  Charter 77 paved the way for all of these things, and more: for 
Czechoslovakia's first free and fair elections since 1946, for the 
normalization of trade relations between our two countries, and for the 
Czech Republic's accession to NATO. Not surprisingly, the work of 
Charter 77 continues to inspire, as is evidenced by the adoption of the 
name ``Charter 97'' by human rights activists in Belarus, who are still 
working to bring to their own country a measure of democracy and 
respect for human rights that Czechs have now enjoyed for some years.
  I am therefore pleased to recognize the 30th anniversary of the 
Charter 77 movement and to join others in honoring Vaclav Havel who 
remains, to this day, the conscience of the global community.

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