[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 5]
[Senate]
[Page 6233]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        IN HONOR OF VACLAV HAVEL

  Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, 30 years ago, the Charter 77 movement was 
established with the simple goal of ensuring that the citizens of 
Czechoslovakia could ``live and work as free human beings.'' Today, as 
cochairman of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, I 
join with my colleagues in celebrating the founding of Charter 77 and 
honoring those men and women who, through their personal acts of 
courage, helped bring freedom to their country.
  When the Charter 77 manifesto was issued, three men were chosen to be 
the first spokespersons of this newly formed movement: a renowned 
European philosopher, Jan Patocka; Jiri Hajek, who had been 
Czechoslovakia's Foreign Minister during the Prague Spring; and the 
playwright, Vaclav Havel. They had the authority to speak for the 
movement and to issue documents on behalf of signatories.
  Tragically, Jan Patocka paid with his life for his act of bravery and 
courage. After signing the charter and meeting with Dutch Ambassador 
Max van der Stoel, he was subjected to prolonged interrogation by the 
secret police. It is widely believed this interrogation triggered a 
heart attack, resulting in his death on March 13, 1977.
  In spite of the chilling message from the regime, Jiri Hajek and 
Vaclav Havel continued to work with other chartists, at tremendous 
personal cost. Two-hundred and thirty signatories were called in for 
interrogation; 50 houses were subjected to searches. Many supporters 
lost their jobs or faced other forms of persecution; many were sent to 
prison. In fact, the harsh treatment of the Charter 77 signatories led 
to the creation of another human rights group, the Committee for the 
Defense of the Unjustly Persecuted, known by its Czech acronym, VONS. 
In October 1979, six VONS leaders including Vaclav Havel, were tried 
for subversion and sentenced to prison terms of up to 5 years.
  Perhaps the regime's harsh tactics reflected its knowledge that, 
ultimately, it could only retain control through force and coercion. 
Certainly, there was no perestroika or glasnost in Husak's 
Czechoslovakia, no goulash communism as in neighboring Hungary. And so, 
the regime was threatened by groups that might have seemed 
inconsequential elsewhere: by the psychedelic band, ``Plastic People of 
the Universe;'' by a musical appreciation group known as the Jazz 
Section; by environmentalists, historians, philosophers and, of course, 
playwrights.
  Mr. President, 1989 was an extraordinary year--a year in which the 
regime sought to control everything and, in the end, could control 
nothing. In May, Hungary opened its borders. In June, free elections 
were held for parliamentary seats in Poland for the first time in 
decades. By August, 5,000 East Germans were fleeing to Austria through 
Hungary every single week. Demonstrations in East Germany continued to 
rise, forcing Eric Honecker to resign in October. On November 9, the 
Berlin Wall was breached.
  But while Communist leaders in other countries saw the writing on the 
wall, authorities in Prague continued to believe they could somehow 
cling to power. Ironically, the regime's repressive tactics were part 
of its final undoing.
  On November 17, 1989, significant student demonstrations were held in 
Prague. Human rights groups released videotapes of police and militia 
viciously beating the demonstrators and these tapes were rapidly and 
widely circulated through the underground. Shortly thereafter, VONS 
received credible information that a student demonstrator had been 
beaten to death. The alleged death so outraged Czechoslovak society 
that it triggered massive demonstrations. Within days, Czechoslovakia's 
Communist regime collapsed like a house of cards.
  As it turned out, no one had actually been killed during the November 
17 protests; the story of the student death had been concocted by the 
secret police to discredit VONS but was all too believable. As 
concisely stated by Mary Battiata, a reporter for the Washington Post, 
``. . . a half-baked secret police plan to discredit a couple of 
dissidents apparently boomeranged and turned a sputtering student 
protest into a national rebellion.'' On December 29, Vaclav Havel--who 
had been in prison just a few months earlier--was elected President of 
Czechoslovakia by the Federal Parliament.
  Jan Patocka once wrote, ``The real test of a man is not how well he 
plays the role he has invented for himself but how well he plays the 
role that destiny assigned to him.'' It seems that destiny had a 
particular role for Vaclav Havel, not one that he invented or 
envisioned for himself, but one that he has played with courage and 
grace, with dignity and honor. Today, we honor Vaclav Havel and the 
Charter 77 movement he helped to found.

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