THE 1989 DIVIDE IS GROWING

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 BRATISLAVA 000466

SIPDIS

STATE FOR EUR/CE

E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/4/2019
TAGS: PGOV PHUM LO
SUBJECT: THE 1989 DIVIDE IS GROWING

REF: BRATISLAVA 298

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CLASSIFIED BY: Keith A. Eddins, Charge d'Affaires, a.i., State.

REASON: 1.4 (b),(d)

1. (C) Summary. Divisions between the Slovak protagonists of
the Velvet Revolution and the current leadership are growing
sharper as 20th anniversary commemorations approach. A flood of
retrospectives are giving rise to reflections about the past,
but also on the extent to which the aspirations of 1989 have --
or have not -- been fulfilled. Disappointed critics accuse the
government of undermining democracy and draw sharp and
unflattering contrasts between the heroes of the fight, e.g.,
Vaclav Havel, Fedor Gal and Jan Langos, and today's political
elite -- many of whom are former communists.




2. (C) For its part, the government is blithely ignoring the
criticism. After months of anticipation as to how or even if
the government would mark the day, we recently learned that
Parliament Speaker Paska will co-host a November 17 gala event
with his Czech counterpart at the same time the leading
opposition parties stage their own commemoration. Remarkably,
Prime Minister Fico will spend the eve of the anniversary in
Moscow with Vladimir Putin, but after a stop in London to give a
speech addressing the events of 1989 will return for Paska's
celebration. The planned events will not unify Slovaks around a
shared achievement, but will likely deepen the divide between
those, such as PM Fico, who famously claimed not to have noticed
the events of November 1989, and those who took part in, or were
inspired by them. The divisions also reflect the ambivalence
of the Slovak public: a recent Pew survey shows that while 80
percent of Slovaks favor democratic government, only 29 percent
say they are more content today than under socialism. End
Summary.





The Langos Awards and a Tale of Two Visits

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3. (U) The recent Jan Langos awards, honoring the Dalai Lama
and Slovak dissident and Velvet Revolution protagonist Fedor
Gal, gave the opposition a high-profile platform from which to
reflect on Slovakia's path since 1989. (Note: Langos, who died
in 2006, was a leading Slovak anti-communist figure who, as the
first Interior Minister of the newly-democratic Czechoslovak
Republic, purged the StB. He later founded the Nation's Memory
Institute, which houses the records of the communist and
fascist-era secret services.) In addition to the awards
ceremony, the Dalai Lama participated in a series of events
during his two-day visit to Bratislava. Although the trip had
been long planned, he was not received by any member of the
government. In an unprecedented step, parliament's protocol
chief sent a letter to MPs requesting that they not meet with
the Dalai Lama, in light of Slovakia's ties with China.
Despite (or perhaps because of) the injunction, opposition
figures clamored for an audience with the Dalai Lama and 5,000
Slovaks turned out to hear him speak.




4. (C) The presence of the Dalai Lama in Bratislava was widely
covered by the media, and commentators could not resist
contrasting his welcome to that of Chinese Defense
Minister/Deputy PM Liang, who arrived in Bratislava a few days
earlier. The reactions of the Slovak political class to the
two high-profile guests were like a rorschach test. Liang's
visit was shrouded in secrecy until after the fact. The
spokesman for the Defense Ministry explained that this
unorthodox step had been taken to ensure that the visit was `not
politicized' by rabble-rousers, as had been the case with the
June visit of President Hu (reftel). Despite the sotto voce
profile of the visit, the GOS rolled out the red carpet for
Liang, who met with a number of senior GOS officials.





Disappointment and Growing Concern

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5. (U) Like his co-awardee, Fedor Gal's life was also shaped
by the greatest tragedies of the 20th century. He was born in
the Terezin concentration camp. He became a leading dissident

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and one of the few Slovaks who played a meaningful role in the
Velvet Revolution. Gal was persecuted during the Meciar era for
having opposed the break-up of Czechoslovakia and is a fierce
critic of the current Slovak Administration. In his brief
acceptance remarks, Gal asked if, twenty years after the Velvet
Revolution, all citizens feel at home in Slovakia. `Do Roma and
Hungarians feel at home, too? Can we be proud of our
politicians today? Don't the hearts of these people hide a
revived sentiment for two terrible totalitarian regimes -
fascism and communism?' Gal urged the audience -- as had Langos
during his lifetime -- not to forget the past, particularly now
that the country is led by `recent communists and extreme
nationalists.'




6. (U) Remarks by others who played crucial roles in 1989 and
again in the 1998 campaign against the authoritarian rule of
Vladimir Meciar, e.g., former Ambassador to the U.S. Martin
Butora -- although not as sharp as Gal's -- also conveyed
concern about the current political culture. Butora spoke
movingly about the courage of Langos and others two decades ago,
but described the present as `a time when feelings of
helplessness and skepticism are spreading dangerously, in a
situation where the norms of basic decency decline and
primitivism are on the rise~when skeptics whisper ominously
about the irrelevance of the small ones and the need to conform
to the stronger ones.'





`An Island of Positive Deviation'

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7. (C) After Gal and Butora's somber interventions, the Dalai
Lama's speech visibly lifted the crowd. When the ceremony
ended, a tumble of people poured onto the street. It seemed as
if all of Slovakia's intellectual elite were gathered in front
of the theater, and were in no hurry to disperse. As
acquaintances greeted one another, we heard one woman comment
that it was unfortunate that those (referring to members of the
government) who should have heard the Dalai Lama's message of
tolerance hadn't been in attendance. In fact, we saw only one
representative of the government at the event, a mid-level
official from the cabinet office's human rights department.
Another attendee said the gathering reminded him of the
so-called `islands of positive deviation,' a term coined by
Martin Butora to describe the diverse groups of civic activists
that united against Meciar in the late 1990's.



Planned Commemorations

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8. (U) The official gala event co-hosted by Parliament Speaker
Paska and his Czech counterpart will be held at the new Slovak
National Theater on November 17. At the old National Theater,
the leading opposition parties, SDKU, SMK and KDH will host a
separate celebration on the same evening. Although the
opposition, unlike the government, can claim some genuine
dissidents in its ranks, many of the leading protagonists in the
1989 events have told us that they prefer to avoid these
`partisan' activities, and commemorate the anniversary more
informally -- or in Prague. The Embassy is supporting several
November 17-related activities and will participate in
conferences and roundtables marking the anniversary.



Comment and Conclusion

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9. (C) If the speeches at the Langos event marked the opening
round in what will be an ever sharper debate for the hearts and
minds of the Slovak electorate, PM Fico's speech on the Velvet
Revolution, to be delivered in London in November 17, will
represent the government's first salvo. We imagine it will
extol the virtues of European-style `social democracy,' note the
strides Slovakia has made in past the 20 years (particularly

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during his government),and argue that that recent events,
including the economic crisis, prove that there were elements of
socialism worth retrieving. Fico knows his voters: while a new
Pew poll shows that 81 percent of Slovaks favor a democratic
government, it also shows that only 29 percent feel they are
better off today.




10. (C) Fico's political opponents are flummoxed by his
steadfast popularity and the public's tolerance for rampant
government corruption and the return of communist officials, StB
collaborators and Meciar-era thugs to key positions of
influence. The reflexive ease with which Fico criticizes the
U.S. and his clear affinity for Moscow unnerves many, in
particular Gal and his Velvet Revolution compatriots. For this
cohort, most of whom are no longer politically active, the
concern is not so much Fico's electoral success, but rather the
potential negative effects of another four years of a Fico-led
government on both the country's internal direction and outward
orientation. The dueling events of November 17 should be
interesting, indeed.
EDDINS