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A Plea for Justice

   The following is a letter sent from Ross Hedvicek, explaining the true state of human rights in the Czech Republic.  It is addressed to executives of the Central and East European Law Initiative at the American Bar Association.  For those who do not understand what KGB defector Golitsyn meant when he wrote of the false collapse of communism in Central and Eastern Europe, this missive explains the most basic facts.  Americans should not be fooled by superficial reports.  Communism in the former Warsaw Pact countries remains entrenched behind a series of false fronts.  The persecution of dissidents continues. The foreign language text of the letter can be read below (Cesky preklad vyseuvedeneho textu).  -- JRN

To: Mr. David Tolbert
executive director of the CEELI

To: Mr. Homer E. Moyer
chairman of the CEELI executive board

To: Mr. Al Manning, CEELI media contact

CEELI (Central and East European Law Initiative)
American Bar Association
740 15th Street, N.W.
Washington, DC 20005-1019

Gentlemen:

It was brought to my attention that the American Bar Association Central and East European Law Initiative on August 4, 2001 presented the Czech president, Vaclav Havel, with the 2001 CEELI Award for his alleged "significant steps to implement democratic reforms" .

I believe that giving president Havel any award for implementing democratic reforms is nothing but an unfortunate misunderstanding of the facts from his country.

Please give me a few minutes to present you with a different view of this alleged herald of democracy and consider some other information that is probably brand new to you.

President Havel was brought into his position, in then-Czechoslovakia, under unclear circumstances during the last days of 1989 (a few weeks after the so-called Velvet Revolution). He was never elected as president, but was nominated to his presidential position by people he supposedly helped to overthrow and was confirmed in his chair by the Czechoslovakian parliament (consisting ,again, exclusively of communists -- and not a single
democratically elected deputy) who themselves, after confirming Havel, were summarily dismissed from their posts with fat pensions.

As you may recall, Czechoslovakia before 1990 was a communist dictatorship on par with North Korea or Nazi Germany, having nothing to do with democracy. However, after Vaclav Havel was so conveniently brought to the presidential chair by the communist themselves, none of the countless crimes committed by the communists during the previous years were investigated, prosecuted or punished. President Vaclav Havel, not surprisingly, has seen to it. He can be held solely responsible for the fact that none of the previous communist ruler's crimes, including close to 300 political murders and tens of thousands who died in communist prisons, were ever punished. He became a guarantor to past tyrants, that they never will be held responsible for their murders and crimes against humanity, and he was instrumental in installing former communists back into government positions. Havel's former crony, then Prime Minister Vaclav Klaus (now chairman of Czech parliament), took care of keeping former communists in positions of power in the economic sphere. All this under the watchful
Havel's "democratic eye."

In the first few years of his presidency, Vaclav Havel distinguished himself by a rampant abuse of his presidential privilege by using clemency (or "presidential pardons").  In comparison with his, even Clinton's pardons look absolutely justified and as straight as an arrow. He customarily pardoned convicted murderers if they were children of his friends or celebrity sports figures. On several occasions he issued a "pardon" so quickly that the person was not yet charged with a crime and already was pardoned (in this specific case he pardoned people who physically attacked his political opponents).

During the re-election (in the Czech republic the president is elected by a vote in a parliament, not by popular vote) it was clear that he would be one one short, so Havel, or his cronies, arrested one opposing parliamentarian and held him in prison until the voting was over. Havel won the presidency by one vote.  Of course, Havel lacks any regard or respect for democratic traditions or principles, but CEELI does not know about that. In fact,  David Tolbert, the executive director of CEELI is quoted in a press release as saying, "I can think of
no better individual for the CEELI Rule of Law Award".  

Please!!!!

Havel's presidential style is closer to the style of Ferdinand Marcos or Manuel Noriega than to any truly democratic president (including, but not limited to, his flashy trophy wife and jet-setting life style, offensive to millions of his not-so-affluent citizens). He is fully responsible for keeping a level of democracy in Czechoslovakia and subsequently in the Czech Republic at an unnaturally low level.

I could continue describing various examples of anything, but not "Rule Of Law" in Havel's Czech Republic.  In order to be brief let me mention just one very fresh example -- the case of Vladimir Hucin, currently imprisoned in Prague. Vladimir Hucin was an anti-communist dissident before the Velvet Revolution, serving several years in a communist prison. After 1990 he was nominated by the Czech Federation of Political Prisoners to work in the BIS agency (a Czech equivalent of FBI). He was working there for 9 years. Some time ago Mr. Hucin discovered some clandestine operations being prepared by former communists, with relations to former communists in the current  Czech government and the people under Havel's "protective hand".

So Mr. Hucin was immediately arrested and has been held in prison for more than a half of a year without being charged, tried or sentenced!  The newest development is that Havel's government plans to put him "under psychiatric care," which was known to be misused by the dictators of Eastern Europe for decades. Their plan is to "treat him" (which most probably means to drug him senseless and incapacitate him indefinitely). Does this look like "democratic" Vaclav Havel or "Rule Of Law" to you?

Vaclav Havel was asked several times to get involved in Hucin's case, but he refused with reasoning that it was not "fully investigated yet" (investigation is not continuing but Hucin is still held behind bars). This is the same Vaclav Havel who in the past granted pardons to people who were not even charged yet; the same Vaclav Havel who does not mind that the
sadist/torturer communist Grebenicek is refusing to even show up at court because "he is old and it would upset him" and the son of the prominent Zelezny is refusing to start 5-years prison term for a rape (the poor rapist is "ill").  This all is just fine with Vaclav Havel, allegedly "one of the leading and moral voices in the world" (according to the CEELI press
release).

I believe and suggest that you should look into the matters I outlined much deeper.  If for no other reason than just for the need to avoid any such future potential embarrassment to your esteemed association by aligning yourselves with unsavory personalities such as Czech President Vaclav Havel. I would like to stress that while the Clinton administration had a very forgiving attitude toward Vaclav Havel and his less than perfect tenure as a Czechoslovak/Czech president, the latest events are suggesting that the Bush administration, and especially Secretary of State Colin Powell's State Department, is taking a much harder look at the very high proliferation of former communists in the Czech government along with the frequent and blatant violations of human rights in Czech Republic (latest being the case of Mr. Hucin and the exodus of Romani minorities to UK and Canada) to which Vaclav
Havel turns a blind eye.

I am assuming that once bestowed the award cannot be retracted.  So the damage was already done. So in such a case I am appealing to you to use your connections for investigating the poor human rights record of the Czech Republic and, unfortunately, it's unjustly awarded leader, Vaclav Havel.

I will be sending a copy of this letter to the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (Helsinki Commission) of the U.S. Congress and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence of the U.S. Congress with the same recommendation so they use their resources and influence to look into human rights violations and the lack of justice and democracy in the Czech Republic under the presidency of Vaclav Havel.

Havel deserves no award whatsoever! Let's make sure that east European kingpins like Vaclav Havel are not awarded, even by mistake, and that democracy and human rights in the Czech
Republic are the rule, not the exception.

Thank you.
I am looking forward to hearing from you.

Ross Hedvicek