List of author's articles, page 23
Kukan: Just hold the line
AT AGE 65, Foreign Minister Eduard Kukan is the oldest member of the Mikuláš Dzurinda cabinet. He has served as Slovakia's foreign minister for seven of the past 12 years, and has been active in politics for a decade.
SDKÚ-HZDS deal mooted
IN A POLIITICAL reversal unimaginable six years ago, senior members of the ruling coalition Slovak Democratic and Christian Union (SDKÚ) party have said they could accept a coalition with an opposition party that, under its leader Vladimír Mečiar, was shunned by the international community for authoritarian excesses in the 1990s.
Dzurinda: Slovakia will help Ukraine reform
WITH the Slovak government working flat out on preparations for the late-February summit between US President George W Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin, Slovak Prime Minister Mikuláš Dzurinda found time to tell The Slovak Spectator about how the summit arose, and how it fits with Slovakia's overall foreign policy.The Slovak Spectator (TSS): As Slovakia becomes ever more integrated with the European Union, to what extent will it be able to preserve its identity? To what extent is it important to preserve it?
Šátek: I was inconvenient for many people
A TOP POLICE investigator fired last week says the reasons given by Interior Minister Vladimír Palko for his dismissal are "absolutely untrue", and claims there is a parallel with his sacking over a politically explosive investigation 10 years ago.Jozef Šátek, who until January 18 was the head of the highly regarded Anti-Corruption Bureau at police headquarters, was accused by Palko of creating conflicts within the police corps through his "intrigues".
Daily brings reading back into vogue
PEOPLE who bought a copy of the daily SME at news-stands October 18 received a precious and improbable free gift: a hardcover Slovak translation of Umberto Eco's 1980 intellectual thriller, The Name of the Rose.The unusual giveaway - some 150,000 volumes were handed out, causing lineups at many news-stands - launched the daily's Svetová knižnica (World Library) programme, which plans to sell 40 classics of 20th century literature over the next nine months to Slovak readers more cheaply than in bookstores. The books will retail for Sk185 (€4.50) a copy.
Slovakia by foot and pedal: A tough old bones of a country
IT WAS not until the pannier rack at the rearof the bicycle simply fell off in the middle of a highway in northwestern Slovakia, spilling bags and toiletriesacross the asphalt, that I really began to regret leaving Bratislava.At the time, my wife and I had been climbing a tough hill into the village of Liešťany, near Prievidza, on the firstday of a two-week running and cycling trip across Slovakia. It was a scorching afternoon, July 26, and now wehad to dodge traffic to round up our clothes. Skvelé.
Linguist: Slovak surviving well under pressure from English
HOW TO protect the Slovak language has been a recurrent and controversial theme in domestic politics since the country's 1993 independence. But according to one of Slovakia's foremost linguists, the language has prospered from the experience of nationhood, and has emerged with neither its survival nor its purity threatened.Slavomír Ondrejovič, head of the Ľudovít Štúr Linguistics Institute of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, says that languages tend to borrow what they need from other tongues to meet new challenges of expression, and that the growing number of anglicisms in Slovak are enriching the vocabulary rather than polluting it.
Dollar falls below 40 crowns
THE US dollar fell to below 40 Slovak crowns at the turn of the new year as a weak US economy, fears of a war with Iraq, and news of North Korea's nuclear programme pushed the American currency to an almost four-year low against the firming crown.Domestic money market dealers said they expected the dollar to fall lower against the crown this year, a sign of both the dollar's weakness and the crown's growing strength."The American currency hasn't been helped by several years of economic problems," said Vladimír Gajdoš, a dealer at commercial bank Slovenská Sporiteľňa.
Town misses statehood party in endless winter of its discontent
VEĽKÝ KRTÍŠ - THE LOCALS have a saying about this town of 14,000: V Krtíši zdochol pes, or the dog died in Veľký Krtíš. It's a grim expression of their belief that prosperity has flown, never to return.You can't blame them, for this mining centre 200 kilometers east of Bratislava constantly reminds its residents of what they have lost, what they still lack.First on the list is money. With unemployment in the Veľký Krtíš district at 31.7 per cent in October 2002, the third-highest among Slovakia's 79 districts, Krtíš residents can afford only the essentials of life. Trying to break a Sk1,000 ($25) bank note can take until afternoon before shops and restaurants take in enough receipts to make change.
Čarnogurský: Fighting nihilism 'a great challenge'
A PRISONER of the communist regime, Ján Čarnogurský was literally whisked from jail to a political podium following the 1989 revolution. He served as prime minister from 1991-92, during which time he helped prepare the ground for Slovak independence, as well as justice minister from 1998 to 2002. Although never a favourite with voters, he was respected during the 1990s for his uncompromising views and his steady opposition to the authoritarian Vladimír Mečiar.Čarnogurský retired this fall from the Christian Democratic Movement (KDH), which he founded in 1990, to return to his law practice. The Slovak Spectator visited him on December 17.
The SIS: Neither secret nor a service to democracy
FILMMAKER Mario Homolka was shooting a documentary in early December when he got a nasty shock - a threatening call from a man claiming to be a former member of the Slovenská Informačná Služba (SIS), Slovakia's infamous secret service.In the call, a man calling himself Ľuboš K. demanded that Leitner not use footage he had shot of Ľuboš K.'s house for the documentary, mentioning details of the film maker's personal life and "ostentatiously" adding that he was "a professional".Leitner's film project - a reconstruction of the 1995 kidnapping of the former president's son, Michal Kováč Jr - spotlights one of the most formative events of the country's first decade of independence. The crime, according to the statements of witnesses and participants in the kidnapping, was carried out by a group of SIS officers that included Ľuboš K., and was part of an overall campaign to discredit democratic forces.
Černák's release end of the beginning for Slovakia's organised crime fight
A MAN once billed by police as the head of Slovakia's criminal underworld was released at the end of November having served less than five years of a 8.5-year sentence for extortion. Mikuláš Černák's "good behaviour" while in jail, said the Trenčín region court, entitled him to the same parole conditions as any other prisoner, no matter what his behaviour had been while at large in the 1990s.Coming as it did one month before the 10-year anniversary of Slovakia's independence, the case illustrates much of what has gone wrong in the state's battle against organised crime in the past decade. Police work that was at times shoddy and irresolute, suspect court decisions, spectacular violence against witnesses and an apathetic public combined to allow Černák, originally sentenced to 15 years for murder, to walk free while still a relatively young man.With Černák now in hiding and promising to lead an honest life, Justice Minister Daniel Lipšic was left with no better option following the November 29 verdict than to shut the stable door by laying a complaint with the Supreme Court.
Communists lose ideology war but win decade of Slovak peace
WHO Burns for Truth was the hymn chosen to end the November meeting of the Political Prisoners' Association. The bold melody was supported with difficulty by the singers, mostly old men in frayed collars and dated suits, as if the quest for truth regarding Slovakia's communist past had itself proven long, hard and unrewarding."Many of these people feel betrayed," said the association's president, Ladislav Pittner, as the singers left the meeting room. "[Communist persecution] was a painful experience for us, and the worst is that the people who caused us this pain today have enormous wealth and are still laughing in our faces."Laughing or not, former communists and secret service agents do hold vast political and economic power in modern Slovakia, even 13 years after the revolution that ostensibly toppled the communist regime. The power nexus they form has been blamed for holding back political and economic change, and perhaps more damagingly, has prevented Slovak society from coming to terms morally with the country's communist past.
The coupon experiment gone wrong
VEN CASUAL Slovakia watchers are familiar with the country's most infamous direct-sale privatisation scandals - the case of gas storage firm Nafta Gbely, sold in 1996 for one-seventh its market value, or of the Piešťany spa, given away the same year for less than one-fifth of its worth.But hardly anyone besides economic historians knows the related story of coupon privatisation - the well-intentioned plan to put billions of crowns in public property in private hands that went horribly awry.The reasons the coupon plan remains obscure may be several: the strategy, while simple, is less readily grasped than the naked fraud of direct sales; the economic and social results, while clear, are less easily gauged than those of outright privatisation theft; and the inheritors of the wealth are still active, even leading, members of the Slovak business community.
Slovakia's revolution songs
It's known in Slovak as the nežná revolúcia (gentle revolution), as distinct from the povstanie, or uprising, that occurred at the end of the Second World War.
Society recovering from stress of independence
WHILE STRESS, insecurity and fatigue have been major underlying themes in Slovakia's first decade of independence, signs of recovery have begun to appear in society, say experts, particularly among the young and the better educated."This year it has become clear that an ever greater number of people have survived the stresses of the last 10 years," said sociologist Ján Bunčák of the Slovak Academy of Sciences.Among general stress factors, the sociologist cited the sweeping political and economic changes made as Slovakia moved from communism to capitalism, as well as new technology and culture imported from the West.
Chief Justice not likely to go quietly
JUDGING from his weekend television encounter with the new Justice Minister, Supreme Court chief justice Štefan Harabin, 45, isn't growing any mellower with age."The minister is grossly misleading [the public] and lying," said Harabin, after Justice Minister Daniel Lipšic accused him of ignoring a law on how cases are assigned.But neither is the Justice Ministry giving ground in its ongoing showdown with Harabin, whom it regards as a throwback to the communist era.
From boardroom to prison cell: The career of Jozef Majský
HE GETS UP at 5:45, just like all the other prisoners, eats breakfast and then cleans his cell. Visits from his family are limited to one half-hour a month in the presence of a police investigator. His mail is read by prison staff before it is passed on. Jozef Majský, for years considered Slovakia's richest man, is awaiting trial in jail, his wealth and influence for once beyond reach.It's an ignominious fate for the fast-talking Majský, who since emerging in the early 1990s as a shrewd trader has boasted of bribing state officials and bankrolling political parties, but who until this year has never been officially challenged.Given the seriousness of the latest charges, however, Majský's many political friends may not want to be seen influencing the outcome of his trial, even if they could.
From cheerleader to referee: The state and Slovak arms exports, 1993-2002
IN THE VIEW of weapons dealer Štefan Žiak, Slovak arms traders remain handicapped against foreign competition by the lack of political support for their business at home."The former [1998-2002] government offered only a minimal amount of [political] backing to the defense industry," said Žiak, president of arms exporter DMD Trade and former arms trade coordinator for import-export firm Kerametal."I got the feeling they were afraid to get engaged in the weapons trade... Our politicians should take their priorities from us as to where they should get involved. Where they should visit and which PM they should privately inform what is available, and under what conditions."
The lie as working method
HALF WAY THROUGH a televised debate October 13, opposition leader Vladimír Mečiar disputed a claim that his HZDS party had been rejected politically following last month's elections, saying the HZDS had actually held talks with the Smer party on forming a government.Smer boss Robert Fico, one of three other guests on the show, reacted as if stung. "That's a lie. I don't know where he gets that stuff," Fico said.Fico's charge is one Mečiar has heard many times during his 13-year career at the fore of Slovak politics, first from colleagues and contemporaries, later increasingly from political opponents and analysts. His ability to lie convincingly - to appear to believe everything he says even when it directly contradicts known facts or his own previous statements - has even been called the secret to Mečiar's enduring popularity and to his three terms as the nation's prime minister.
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