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My God, they're everywhere. Agent Dostoyevsky
was apparently not the only member of the former secret
police to find work in the Castle Guard. A comrade from
the old days had also been exposed and dismissed last year.
The person responsible for the Castle detail, another loyal
servant of the former regime, insists the reason he didn't
do a more thorough check of his personnel was because the
law didn't demand it. In the meantime, he plans to stay
right where he is. Just as disturbing as the security breakdown
has been the overall silence from President Havel. Not so
much for what he hasn't said about it today, but why he
failed to say anything about it when the case first unfolded
nearly a year ago. Nor has the former dissident had much
to say about the revelation that two dissident-baiting prosecutors
from the Communist era are still at their desks today. Both
men have declared they have clean consciences, with one
employing a bit of Stalinist rhetoric by saying, "I
was just a cog in the machine." Of course, his statement
was no more absurd than the one coming from the justice
minister, who oversaw their appointments. "I didn't
have a crystal ball to look into their pasts," was
his excuse. Fortunately a crystal ball isn't required in
the case of Alois Grebenicek, who took part in the infamous
electric shock torture of political prisoners during the
1950s. What is required is a judge a little less keen on
being a cog in the machine. His day in court has dragged
on for five years, supposedly due to his poor health, and
the judge has just given him another stay. No conclusions
should be drawn just because the judge is a former Communist
and Grebenicek happens to be the father of the current leader
of the Communist Party. It's all one big family here. Nothing
illustrates this better than the continuing controversy
surrounding President Benes and his decrees. In spite of
overwhelming public support for the decrees, the government
is worried that the German point of view is getting too
much sympathetic coverage in this country. That was meant
as a swipe at two of the largest Czech dailies, both of
which are owned by German media concerns. To counteract
this so-called germanization of national opinion, the government
plans to issue a textbook with the real story behind the
decrees. When the leading historians were asked about their
participation in the project, their reply was more or less,
"What textbook?" The Premier, who started the
whole mess with a couple of uncouth remarks, has taken to
strong-arming every leader he meets and have him come out
on the Czech side. It was only inevitable that the president,
still revered more abroad than at home, would have to say
something about it sooner or later. In an op-ed piece for
several European newspapers, he tried to paint a portrait
of Edvard Benes as a grand European statesman undermined
by his allies at Munich in 1938. It shouldn't be held against
him for capitulating first to the Capitalists, then to the
Nazis, finally to the Communists, and somewhere in between
this mess expelling the largest minority from the country.
The two largest political parties also see nothing wrong
with such a legacy and had even hoped to heap further honors
on him. The Castle declined, saying Benes already had every
honor he deserved. They had to settle instead for a resolution
by Parliament declaring the decrees to be "untouchable".
The resolution was passed unanimously, with some of the
MPs, from the left and the right, showing up for the vote
decked out in nationalist slogans that were short on taste
and long on childishness. Another resolution, whether to
work an extra Saturday in order to finish the legislative
session, was received with much less enthusiasm. All this
talk about the war and its aftermath has precipitated a
state of siege in Prague, and so when the Wall Street Journal
ran a front-page article about Easter in the Czech Republic,
that was the last straw. The article asked whether the Czechs
were barbarians on account of the fact that they beat their
women as an Easter tradition. Instead of simply taking pride
in the country's pagan past, one newspaper counterattacked
by declaring that Americans were themselves barbarians for
letting their children dress up and scare one another on
Halloween. In other words, "Screw you!" The new
nationalism could all be a pretense for the campaign season,
and lest Europe forget, the Czechs put their own Le Pen
out to pasture during the last election. But the resurgence
of the real Le Pen might make the European Union less willing
to put up with the nationalist comeuppance of party bosses
like Klaus. When the invitation to join the Union finally
comes and Klaus replies with one of his insufferable monologues,
Brussels might choose to look over his shoulder and say,
"Next?"
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