SLOVAKIA POLITICAL ROUNDUP FEBRUARY 17, 2005

UNCLAS BRATISLAVA 000135 SIPDIS SENSITIVE E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PREL PHUM IZ CU LO NATO SUBJECT: SLOVAKIA POLITICAL ROUNDUP FEBRUARY 17, 2005 REF: (A) Bratislava 17 (B) Prague 174 SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED -- PROTECT ACCORDINGLY NTM-I Contribution -------------- ¶1. (SBU) Parliament approved a new, additional mandate February 10 for Slovakia's participation in the NATO Training Mission - Iraq (NTM-I). The GOS will initially send two MOD trainers to Iraq and an additional three at the first troop rotation. The MOD sent the first trainers to Italy to prepare for this mission the week before the parliamentary vote. No one considered the proposal controversial, and parliament approved the mandate easily. The contribution was not reported in the Slovak press. The MOD and MFA agreed to a modest proposal of five trainers after the Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) mandate of 110 soldiers had gone partially fulfilled with 105 soldiers for months. The GOS lacks soldiers with certain specialized skills to fulfill the 110-soldier OIF mandate, although the NTM-I mandate does not change the OIF mandate (Ref A). Cuba: Meetings with Dissidents Only Informal -------------- - ¶2. (U) Immediately following the January 31 GAERC meeting, FM Eduard Kukan announced the GOS will follow the Czech proposal on Cuba policy. Kukan argued that Cuba cannot divide the EU. The EU consensus lifts sanctions but allows individual states to determine whether they will invite dissidents to official receptions. Kukan said the GOS will no longer invite Cuban dissidents to official receptions, but Slovak diplomats are obligated to promote human rights in all meetings with the GOC. The GOS will continue to meet with dissidents informally. The Czechs, Slovaks, Poles, Danes, and Germans will try this policy for six months; if the GOC does not improve its human rights record, the EU can re-impose sanctions (Ref B). Penal Code Revision Withdrawn -------------- ¶3. (U) Parliament voted February 9 on over 300 provisions in the penal code individually and made 175 changes. Justice Minister Daniel Lipsic withdrew the revised law from final consideration, since he objected to the parliament's changes. Most notably, the revised draft law would: -- keep communist-era laws that allow jail time for criticism of public officials. Lipsic has spoken out against this provision months earlier, although he did not remove the provision from the draft he submitted to parliament; -- remove the criminalization of denying the Holocaust and other hate speech on freedom of speech grounds; and -- remove the criminalization of supporting organized crime and terrorist groups. SDKU and HZDS argued supporting a terrorist or organized criminal group should not be illegal, because this law is duplicative (i.e. murder is a crime) and it is vague enough to be exploited. Lipsic stated he removed the new penal code from consideration, because it watered down anti-terrorism and anti-mafia initiatives. Most expect the penal code to be considered again in May 2005. Second Batch of Secret Police Files Released -------------- ¶4. (U) The Institute for the Memory of the Nation published the Banska Bystrica (Central Slovakia) batch of files of the communist-era secret police (StB). The Institute only releases names of individuals who agreed to collaborate with the StB and had the written approval of the head of department, head of the secret police administration or the Interior Minister for the person to be entered into the register of consciously collaborating secret collaborator. These conditions apply to only the most active collaborators with the secret police. ¶5. (U) The Banska Bystrica batch includes one MP, Gabriel Karlin (HZDS) and Education Minister Martin Fronc. Fronc is a controversial figure, who has advanced the post-communist education reform of initiating modest university tuition fees. Fronc is recorded as "an examined person," which the KDH Spokesperson has said means he was followed but never cooperated with the secret police. Archbishop of Trnava and Bratislava, Jan Sokol, was labeled a collaborator. Bishop Rudolf Balaz was labeled "an enemy of the [communist] regime." Poll: Slovak Support for NATO Membership -------------- ¶6. (U) More than 58 percent of citizens support Slovakia's NATO membership, according to public opinion poll carried out by the Mayer/McCann-Erickson agency for the Ministry of Defense. Almost 55 percent of those polled were in favor of Slovakia's participation in collective defense under NATO's umbrella. Over 83 percent of Slovaks said NATO should be the guarantor of security in the world. The poll had a representative sample of 1,091 respondents. MINIMIZE CONSIDERED THAYER NNNN