BIG BROTHER IN A SMALL COUNTRY: THE SUBVERSION OF THE RULE OF LAW IN

CONTEMPORARY SLOVAKIA

Chandler Rosenberger

On the morning of August :31, 1995, Michal Kov~ic", Jr., son of the Slovak President, was driving from his hometown of Svaty Jur to the capital, Bratislava, when he was pulled over by two cars with Slovak plates. Eight men dragged Kov~i~' from his car, threatened him with a gun, blindfolded and handcuffed him, and forced him to drink a bottle of whiskey. Kov~i~ was then bundled back into his car, which was now driven by one of his captors. The car and an assembled escort swept across the nearby Austrian-Slovak border to Hainbur D where Kov~ was abandoned to his fate. Shortly after he gained conscious- ness the Austrian police, acting on anonymous tip, arrested Kov~( for possible extradition to Germany where he was wanted on charges of fraud.

When news of Kov~i~'s kidnapping broke, Slovak journalists and opposition politicians immediately suspected that Prime Minister Vladimir Me~iar had once again turned to his henchmen in the secret services to do a political favor. Me~"iar, after all, had long sought any means possible to discredit the Slovak President, Michal Kov~', Sr. And the darker elements of Slovak society not only knew how to provoke: they were greatly indebted to Me~iar. The moment he had led Slovakia out of the Czechoslovak federation three years earlier, Me~'iar had suspended the "lustration," or "cleansing," laws that had threat- ened to remove collaborators of the old Communist regime from power. 1

Because Me~:iar lost the elections in October 1998, we now know that the Slovak Intelligence Service (SIS) was in fact deeply involved in Kov,~( Jr.'s kid- napping. Official documents reveal that not only had the chief of the SIS, Ivan Lexa, planned the operation, but that he had coordinated the strike by radio from a secret service safe house near the border. The cars in the escorting con- voy were dispatched from the SIS's counterintelligence unit, and were driven by government operatives. 2 The documents also show that Me~iar had relied heavily on agents from the former regime to do his bidding--not only in the Kov~i~ operation, but also in the surveillance of hundreds of journalists, politi- cians, and ordinary citizens who opposed Me~ziar's policies.

34

Rosenberger 35

The case of Me(ziar's Slovakia offers strong support in favor of the lustration laws that many Central European nations adopted immediately after the fall of Communism. Western human rights organizations had criticized such mea- sures, arguing that attempts to remove an entire class of former officials was a form of collective guilt that would hinder attempts to establish the principle of individual accountability. Surely Slovakia shows that failing to remove such officials is an even greater threat to democracy. In Slovakia an entire class of men and women used to manipulating the state for personal ends had stayed in office.There, as a result, the state entered into the post-communist era tangled in the networks of the former regime.

Lustration may well be a measure that is necessary to start post-communist nations on a sure footing. No other measure more clearly represents a break from the communist era when the state was a servant of the nation's political elite. Lustration, one could argue, is necessary to introduce the idea that the state bureaucracy, especially those elements most removed from regular pub- lic scrutiny, must be trusted to serve the interests of the nation as a whole, and not only the personal interests of its rulers. Such screening need not be seen as anti-democratic. All Western governments, after all, screen applicants for employment in sensitive fields and look for red flags such as affiliation with anti-democratic groups (such as neo-Nazi movements) or past abuse of office. If the states emerging from the shadow of totalitarianism wanted to demon- strate deep commitment to democracy and the rule of law, screening out agents of the past regime would seem a good place to start.

But while Slovakia may demonstrate that lustration is necessary, it also shows that it is not sufficient. The political parties that Meffiar has led have won three of the four national elections held in Slovakia since the fall of Communism. In two of those three elections, Me, Jar's opponents pounded home the message that he had abused his office for personal political gain. And the Slovak elec- torate, despite hearing this message again and again, has almost always re- turned him to office. Despite allegations that Me~iar's allies murdered men who threatened his rule, Me~iar ran a strong second in opinion polls for presi- dential elections in May and, subsequently, finished second.

Should Slovakia's friends give up? Are the Slovaks determined to have their dictator? Are there nations, such as Me~iar's Slovakia, Milosevi4's Serbia, and Lukashenka's Belarus, where no amount of light shed on nefarious behavior will discredit a popular leader? It is probably too soon to despair completely, but it may be about time to recognize the real problem of promoting human rights in the former Eastern bloc. If these leaders show as much disdain for democratic procedure as their Communist predecessors, the element of conti- nuity may not lie simply in the reproduction of a class of tainted officials alone, but in the persistence of a political culture that both gave the Communist regime some legitimacy and gives post-Communist nationalists the freedom to abuse their powers.

36 Human Rights Review, October-December 1999

Vladimir Meffiar began his political career as the darling of Slovakia's anti- Communist dissident community. Although he had been expelled from the Communist Party for supporting the reformers of the 1968 "Prague Spring," he had worked quietly as a lawyer until joining the protest movement, Verejnost Proti Nasiliu (Public Against Violence), just as the revolutions of 1989 began. His charm won him an appointment as Slovak Interior Minister during the brief interregnum between the fall of the old regime and the Czechoslovak elections of June 1990. As the movement's most active and charismatic cam- paigner, he easily won election as Prime Minister of the Slovak Republic within federal Czechoslovakia.

In the latter half of 1990, however, Me,Jar's allies began to wonder if he had developed too cozy a relationship with the agents of the secret police many of whom had been spies for the Communist regime--whom he had overseen as Interior Minister. a When journalists confirmed such fears, the former dissi- dents who had picked Me~'iar to lead their movement removed him from of- rice. Abuses of office could hardly be tolerated, after all, in a country trying to make a break with its totalitarian past. Me~iar seemed to represent exactly the sort of person who had long manipulated the state for personal gain. So deter- mined were Me,Sar's erstwhile allies to make a clean break with the past, they supported passage of a federal Czechoslovak"lustration law" later that year.

Just after the revolutions of 1989, the civil and security services of former communist nations were at the sharp end of all debates on how to move from a one-party state to a constitutional and parliamentary regime. Although com- munist governments had savaged central Europe's economies and civic insti- tutions, their most enduring legacy may have been the undermining of all legal restraints on power. For regimes in which a self-appointed and self-gen- erating elite group directed the destiny of the nation, the personal truly was the political. No objective standards of qualification, such as exam results or professional competence, could keep a "golden child," a scion of a high party official, from gaining a degree in law or running a town's largest factory. Although corruption still abounds across central Europe, the fall of one-party states has allowed many new objective measures of performance to sweep aside the old networks of cronyism. The most dramatic examples of the new meritocracy are to be found, of course, in the economy, where sheer entrepreneurial will can allow a businessman to compete with even the most durable old networks. Those segments of society most resistant to change are those removed not only from fresh breezes of the market but even, to some extent, from political transparency. Every society, even the freest and most market-oriented, requires a civil service to implement its laws and an intelligence service that protects it from external and internal threats. It is in these quiet comers of the state bureaucracy and the secretive enclaves of the security services that men and women are expected to serve the "national inter- est" above all.

Rosenberger 37

Concern that former communists in the state machinery would use their positions to undermine democratic rule has prompted Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic to adopt some form of lustration law. The Czechoslovak law, adopted in October 1991, barred from state service for five years all former members of the secret police and its willing collaborators, senior Communist Party officials, members of the voluntary "People's Militia," and members of the "normalizing committees" that had purged state institutions in 1948 and 1968. The laws were also meant to restore the faith of citizens in their govern- ment. Removing those officials for whom manipulation of personal networks was a way of life would not only prevent them from exploiting the old system for their own benefit, but would give citizens the strong sense that agencies of the government could be trusted to serve the people's interests objectively.

It is ironic, then, that Me~iar, who was removed from office for failing to act in the interests of the nation, should have fought back so effectively in the nation's name. He founded Hnutie za demokratiske Slovensko, the Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (HZDS), and ran a campaign of deeply personal grievance. Slovakia, he argued, must be protected from the"federalists," those Slovaks who had cooperated with their Czech allies to remove the man, Me~iar himself, who had defended Slovaks against Czech hegemony. On a campaign which demanded more autonomy for Slovakia, he won the June 1992 elec- tions handily. Six months later he managed to lead Slovakia into indepen- dence despite deep misgivings among most of the men and women who had elected him. In short, Me~iar so effectively wrapped himself in the Slovak flag that allegations of abuse of office, the strongest claim against him, could gain no legitimacy with the Slovak electorate. If Me~iar was a dangerous thug to the high-minded (and high-handed) former dissidents, he was Janos~, a Slo- vak Robin Hood, to many ordinary voters. The very electorate whose trust he had supposedly abused equated Me~iar's political fate with that of the Slovak nation.

Me~iar returned the compliment by appointing members of his personal inner circle to offices of national influence. He immediately suspended the federal lustration law. With the help of his chief of staff, Ivan Lexa, Me~iar built a state within a state that used the state's role in the economy and intel- ligence gathering to further his political aims. Whenever his parliamentary majority was under threat, Me~3ar would dole out patronage or intimidate his political opponents. If Slovaks were going to invest their hopes for their na- tion in his reign, Me~'iar would use the nation's every resource to prolong his stay in power.

In February 1994, for example, dissatisfied members of Me~iar's political party formed the "Club of Political Realism" within his movement and threat- ened to vote against him in a vote of no confidence. Me~iar immediately turned every knob of state power in a last-ditch attempt to preserve his government. Having appointed himself the Minister of Privatization, for example, Me~'iar

38 Human Rights Review, Oclober-December 1999

sold forty-five state-owned properties. The primary beneficiaries were rela- tives of parliamentarians in his wavering coalition.Vitozslav Moric, a low-rank- ing member of the Slovak National Party, had shown some signs of voting against the party's chairman for turning on Me~iar. Me~'iar sold majority con- trol of two companies that repair locomotives to a firm owned by Moric's wife, while Moric was appointed head of a company exporting weapons. 4 Three days later, Moric voted to expel Me~iar's opponents. Me ,a t also used the min- istry of privatization to keep his own party members loyal. Novo Frucht, a food processing plant in Novy Zamky, for example, went to the wife of MilosVajda, a wavering HZDS deputy.-~ Other HZDS deputies were appointed to the plainly superfluous, but potentially lucrative, posts of"advisor to the privatization minister"--Me~ar himself. Worse, he tolerated graft among the ministers of his own government--not unusual, but this time on a scale without prece- dent. Jaroslav Dutsky, Me~iar's Minister of the Economy, "did not approve a single privatization project in which he was not a silent partner,'according to a former member of Me~:iar's circle. 6

When Meffiar's flagrant misuse of the Ministry of Privatization nonetheless failed to forestall his removal, the government succeeding in having him thor- oughly investigated and widely publicized his abuses of power. In an address to parliament after Meffiar's downfall, Kov,~', the Slovak president, revealed that Me~'iar had sought appointment of Ivan Lexa, then Me~'iar's chief of staff, to the Ministry of Privatization solely to raise money for his political party."He said that HZDS was already out of money," Kov,~" recalled,"didn't have money to pay its bills, and that with new elections likely the movement would need cash. Furthermore, he said only Lexa could do this work and that, once it was done, he would leave (the ministry). "7 It was only when Kova~ refused that Me~'iar took on the task himself. And yet despite all of his opponent's efforts, Me,Jar's HZDS won the October vote with a thundering 35 percent, 25 per- cent ahead of any opposition party.

The union of Me~'iar's personal political destiny with that of the Slovak na- tion found its purest expression after Me~'iar's return to power. Having lost power briefly once, M6ciar was taking no chances the second time around. This time, his loyal servant Lexa did not go into something as relatively benign as the economic sphere, but rather straight to control of the secret police. Only in Me~'iar's current absence from office can the truth of Lexa's deeds be known. Thanks to a recently published report on Lexa's activities written by Vladimir Mitro, his successor as head of the intelligence agency, we now know how far Me~'iar was willing to go in defense of his reign.

Under Lexa, the secret services went to new lengths to destroy Me~ar's political enemies and monitor his wavering supporters. The SIS planned the kidnapping of Kov~g's son, for example, as part of a long-range effort to push Slovakia's president off the political stage. Lexa's orchestration of the entire operation was merely the final step in a plan he had first laid out for Me~iar

Rosenberger 39

three months earlier. To pressure parliamentarians to oust the president, Lexa proposed to sell members state-owned businesses at favorable prices or, if bribery failed, to set up "corruption traps" that implicated deputies and later threaten to blackmail them. ~ The agency also sought to smear other oppo- nents, according to the Mitro report. It arranged the sale of a painting taken from the headquarters of Slovakia's bishops, for example, in order to discredit Rudolf Balaz, Chairman of the Confederation of Slovak Bishops and a Me~iar opponent. The intelligence services also gathered what compromising mate- rial it could find on opposition leaders such as Robert Krajnak, organizer of a petition for Meeiar's removal; Rudolf Schuster, a potential presidential candi-

v z

date; Jan Camogursky, head of the Christian Democratic Movement; and Jozef Miga~, head of the reformed Communist Party. In an especially Kafkaesque twist, the agency spied on those parliamentarians charged with overseeing its activities. Perhaps not coincidentally, the information on such figures, as well as reports on churches, trade unions, non-governmental organizations, and individuals expressing disagreement with the government was stored in a da- tabase reserved for "information on activities threatening the constitutional system, territorial integrity, and sovereignty of the Slovak Republic. "~ Could anyone seriously argue that Me~iar's interests and Slovakia's were not one and the same?

The SIS also penetrated Slovakia's business world to strengthen Me~iar's rule. The agency spied on and intimidated members of the Board of National Property, which owns strategic shares in the largest state industries. Me~iar could thus force votes on those boards that were in the economic interest of his cronies. The SIS 52 nd section, the"provocation unit," planned more direct operations. It shadowed Pavel Rusko, general director of Markiza, Slovakia's only independent television station, and even attempted to oust its manage- ment. Shortly before the September election, guards of a company called Gamatex seized the television station's offices; Gamatex director Marian Kocner claimed to own the station. Mitro's report reveals that two of Kocner's busi- ness partners, Stephan and Ladislav Agh, were registered as SIS agents in 1995.1~

But if Me~iar ran a state-within-the-state, wholly unaccountable and wholly beholden to his own interests, his greatest abuse of power was to build a bridge from the secret services to Slovakia's criminal underworld across which his agents of influence could scramble the moment the political winds shifted. First, his SIS armed Bratislava's gangs. Working from bits of evidence left be- hind, Mitro has established that Lexa sold a cache of more than $1 million dollars worth of weapons to a garbage dump for less than its total worth as scrap metal, n Analysts suspect that the sale was merely a means by which to transfer surreptitiously the arms to crime bosses such as Robert and Eduard Dinico, Miroslav Sykora, and Robert Holub, 12 who repaid the favor by cooper- ating with operations such as the abduction of Kov~i~'s son. As the SIS sank

40 Human Rights Review, October-December 1999

deeper into the criminal world, the restraints of responsibility appear to have broken entirely. Me~ar's SIS directors are now investigating whether the agency ordered a mob hit on Robert Remias, a key source on the Kov~i~: kidnapping, who was mysteriously murdered in 1996. If mafia figures such as the Dinico brothers, Sykora, and Holub were involved in Remias' death, however, they will never tell. All were killed in 1997.

Shortly after Meffiar lost the election in Slovakia, he and his associates com- pleted packing up their personal state-within-the-state and moved beyond the state's control entirely. A total of 128 SIS officers resigned; many received staggering pay increases and generous severance packages just before leaving. The agency also went on a shredding spree, destroying 271 files, most involv- ing, according to Mitro, information on"organized crime, drugs, illegal hoard- ing, selling arms, radioactive substances," and about "activities of the underworld, corruption, property and financial frauds. "13 Although the Slovak MP Ivan Simko has concluded that Lexa built an illegal security agency out- side the government entirely, Mitro would only say that the former agents had gathered in "commercial organizations"in Slovakia, from which "they actively engage in operations aimed against the current SIS and its management. TM

Me~iar himself has done all he can to defend his loyal assistant. When the new government threatened to prosecute the former SIS director, Me~iar gave up his seat in parliament to Lexa, thus granting him parliamentary immunity. When parliament stripped Lexa of such immunity, Me~iar decided to return to politics and run for president, where he would have the power to grant full pardons.

If the lustration law of 1991 had continued in force for the past eight years, would Slovakia have been spared Me~iar's gross abuses of power? To some extent, yes. Me~iar had shown a great fondness for agents of the old regime even during his first term as Prime Minister before Czechoslovakia's dissolu- tion. When his successor as Interior Minister tried in 1990 to fire thirty-two former agents, Me~iar forced the minister's resignation and rehired them all. As head of the secret services, Lexa followed the personnel policy. According to Vladimir Mitro, Lexa employed eighty agents of the former Communist re- gime in the secret services alone2 s Given what we now know of how Me~iar used the tricks of the intelligence trade to shore up his power, one can surmise that his mischief would have been less successful if his lackeys had not known the ropes so well.

Lustrafion's greatest contribution to cleaning up politics in the post-com- munist era however, may be symbolic, and in this respect Slovakia has missed an opportunity to make a break with its past. Me~iar has been able not only to ignore calls for significant de-communization and construction of a profes- sional, disinterested dvil service, but has also given personal, capricious, and authoritarian rule a renewed credibility by so closely tying his own political fate to that of the country whose independence he wrought. Slovakia shows

Rosenberger 41

that question of the process of de-communization in a newly independent state is something of a chicken-and-egg riddle. Did Me~iar's abuse of the Communist- style secret services extend his reign? Or was he allowed to rule with Communist- style capriciousness because his authoritarianism, justified in the name of defending the people, benefited from the same legitimacy that had underwritten the Com- munism system itself? Is the question of lustration just a matter of hiring good people and dismissing bad ones, or is it a deeper question of addressing a problem in the style of thought that has led Central European governments so far astray for so long? And if lustration and other attempts at de-communization are aimed at such fundamental questions of political culture, is the task perhaps far greater than anyone might have imagined when the Berlin Wall first fell?

As noted earlier, the essence of de-communization is not economic renewal, but the creation of a disinterested state that serves the nation as a whole rather than any particular group of citizens. Such a liberal state will flourish, how- ever, only if the "nation" it is meant to serve is imagined in an equally liberal light. A"nation" or a"people" will insist upon a state that treats all individuals under its rule with equal respect only if the"people" is defined as a union of individuals who are masters of their individual fates. A nation, on the other hand, that imagines itself to be a historical collective, an entity with a will and destiny greater than the sum of its individual citizens, will always be prone to dictatorship. Such a nation cannot assume that its collective destiny is the sum of the actions of the individuals who constitute it. It must, instead, seek out a leader or class of leaders who articulate not only the wishes of individuals, but who embody the destiny of the supra-individual nation as well.

Although it is beyond the scope of the current essay to delve into the his- torical details of Central European nationalism, we may note that the nations that emerged from the ruins of the Habsburg Empire were defined as ethnic collectivities rather than unions of free individuals. As such, their politics im- mediately took on an authoritarian tinge that has proven difficult to eradicate. Political leaders who could claim to speak for the interests of the nation were accorded extraordinary leeway: the ends of defending the dignity of the nation justified virtually any means against mere citizens. Indeed, the means by which nations of individuals--particularly the English and French--had acquired dignity and freedom were positively scorned. Liah Greenfeld has argued that such a turn is an example of the power of ressentiment. The Central European nationalists of the nineteenth century were so painfully aware of their nation's backwardness in comparison with England and France that any imitation of these powers could only lead to further humiliation.16The only alternative was to reject their values, and even to exalt their utter opposites. If England was a nation of free individuals, then better to be a nation bound as a collective. If France was wealthy, then all the better to be poor.

The heroes of the literature written at the birth of Central European ethnic nationalism are romantic figures who scoff at the rules of enlightened soci-

42 Human Rights Review, October-December 1999

ety. 17 They are the titanic representatives and defenders of a people too silent and too docile to fight for itself. Typical of such heroes is Juro Jano~ik, a folk hero Who reigns in the pantheon of Slovakia's literary figures. The historical Jano~& was born in 1688 in what is now Slovakia; he served briefly in the Habsburg army before taking to highway robbery as his chosen profession. TM

Jano~& may or may not have been the kind-hearted Robin Hood of lore, but nineteenth century Romantic writers in Slovakia such as Janko Kral, Samo Chalupka, and Jan Botto had no doubt that his was a vigorous struggle for the liberty of his people. Botto's"The Death of Jano~ik'portrays his merry band as men,"hale and handsome, fond of sport and laughter, 'who robbed and mur- dered Imperial tax collectors with the cry: "Give us back the plundered Slovak brawn and muscle! "19 Jano~ik is thus imagined exactly as the nineteenth cen- tury Romantic nationalists imagined themselves: fighting on behalf of an op- pressed and silent nation--indeed, as its very representative--by any means necessary.

The contribution of Romantic writing to authoritarian political thought has been well documented. Less well understood is how much this ethnic nation- alist tradition contributed to the legitimacy of central and eastern Europe's communist regimes. The ideologues of communism were just as aware of the backwardness of their nations as the nineteenth century's ethnic nationalist writers had been, so the ambition to vaunt their peoples to a higher position, even by a destructive revolution of the"proletariat," was just as deeply felt as the ressentiment that led the Romantics to exalt a common thief. And given that the"people"of Romantic poetry were imagined as a silent mass cowering behind their hero, it would hardly object when the Communists merely re- named it the"working class."2~ Take, for example, the account of Jano~ik's signifi- cance found in the Communist era Slovak Biographical Dictionary:

In [Jano~'s] time, brigandage was one of the class warfare means used in the anti- feudal opposition of the oppressed population decimated by the frequent wars and epidemics; it had a profound influence on the consciousness of the popular masses. In the popular imagination and legends, brigand leaders symbolized warriors for right and social justice. For centuries, he was the symbol of the opposition of the working people against exploitation and national oppression, the hero of numer- ous Slovak, Czech and Polish popular fairy tales, songs and dances. 21

This is more than mere literary opportunism. The match of the "people" as imagined by Romantic writers and the "proletariat" as imagined by Commu- nist ideologues is extremely close. Both are an oppressed mass dependent on a heroic class to liberate them by any means, whether by robbery in the Ro- mantic case or violent revolution in the Communist one. Given this close in- terweaving of ethnic nationalism and communism, we should perhaps not be surprised that a nationalist such as Vladimir Me~iar has been able to use the leftover Communist apparat as he pleases and to win popular approval as he does so. It is telling, if unsettling, that, with a few exceptions, Me~iar has

Rosenberger 43

never seriously cracked down on Slovakia's free press. Despite all the corrup- tion and malfeasance in his government, Me~'iar has never needed to silence his critics. The echoes that his actions sound in Slovakia's very idea of itself drown the voices of his opponents out.

Me(:iar has had his followers in virtually every segment of Slovak society. On the day in April 1991 that he was first removed from office, however, the taxi drivers of Bratislava put on an especially impressive display of their affec- tion for him and anger at his downfall. Gathering first outside the parliament building in a flotilla of sorts, they turned down a ramp to the city's main high- way, swept through a loop around the town center, then cut back up to the government offices, all the while blaring their horns. The taxi drivers circled the parliament for hours this way. Many had placed stickers on their dash- boards that portrayed Mefiar in woodsman's garb. Above his image were the words "Me~:iar----our Jano~&."

Observing the tyranny of one nation over another at the height of the 1848 revolutions, John Stuart Mill remarked that "in the backward parts of Europe...the sentiment of nationality so far outweighs the love of liberty that the people are willing to abet their rulers in crushing the liberty and indepen- dence of any people not of their race and language. "22 From the aftermath of the revolutions of 1989, we might well note how willing some people are to abet their rulers in crushing the liberty of their fellow citizens. Will lustration, or any form of de-communization, end the reign of men like Me~'iar? Not unless Slovakia also undergoes a thorough examination of its soul. In the throes of independence the Slovaks have had little time to consider the political con- sequences of the identity scripted for them at the height of the Romantic age. They have not yet examined other elements of their nation's rich historical and cultural legacy that might better suit a country attempting to forge a demo- cratic future for itself. They still, of course, have time to do so, and may yet. Serious democratization, however, will have to wait until such soul searching is done.

"We have a joke here in Slovakia,"Jan (2arnogursk~, leader of the country's Christian Democratic Movement, once told me."When will Me~iar lose a Slo- vak election? When the people realize that J a n o ~ was a robber, not a hero."

Notes

1. The Slovak government did not officially remove the lustration law from its books until 1996, but Me(iar suspended enforcement of it immediately after winning the 1992 elec- tions

2. "Slovak Investigator: SIS behind abduction of Kov~"s Son," CTK in English, 1222 GMT, February 1, 1999 (FBIS-EEU-99-032).

3. For a full account ,.of Me~iar's ties to the secret pohce during his term as Minister of the Interior, see Milan Zitny,"Me~iar's Questionable Supremacy,"East European Reporter, January and February, 1992: 68.

44 Human Rights Review, October-December 1999

4. Report of the Slovak parliament's Committee on Pfivatization, March 10, 1994 and inter- views with Gabriel Palacka, deputy minister of pnvatization of the 1994 government and Anton Hrnko, former member of the Slovak National Party.

5. Interview with Palacka. 6. Interview with influential businessman, a former member of Me~'iar's inner circle, on the

condition of anonymity. Dutsky himself was killed in a mafia-style hit shortly after Me~iar lost the 1998 elections.

7. Trend, March 16, 1994: 5. 8. "Slovak Investigator: SIS behind abduction of Kovac's Son," CTK in English, 1222 GMT,

February 1, 1999 (FBIS-EEU-99 032). 9. Mitro Report to NR SR on S]ovak SIS, Part 1, in Sine, February 18, 1999: 5, 9 (FBIS-EEU-

1999-0302). 10. "Me~'iar's Secret Service Tried to Dominate Markiza TV,"CTK in English, 2115 GMT, Feb-

mary 14, 1999 (FBIS-EEU-1999-0214). When it came to critical journalists, the SIS took a less subtle line. Agents of the 52nd unit wrecked the cars of Peter Toth and Eugen Korda. In the run-up to the elections, a dead cat was nailed to Toth's door, while Korda's children were nearly abducted. SIS involvement in both incidents, while not yet proven, is strongly suspected.

11. "Intelligence Official on Operations Abroad," Magyar Hirlap in Hungarian, Feb. 25, 1999: pp. 1,6. (FBIS-EEU-1999-0225).

12. "Mec"iar Era SIS Had Close Mafia Ties," CTK in English, 0849 GMT, February 16, 1999 (FBIS- EEU- 1999- 0217).

13. Mitro Report to NR SR on Slovak SIS, Part 1, in Sme, February 18, 1999: 5, 9 (FBIS-EEU- 1999-0302).

14. "Daily Interviews SIS Director," Pravda, February 27, 1999:1,5 (FBIS-EEU-1999-0304). 15. "Daily Interviews SIS Director." 16. See Liah Greenfeld, Nationalism: Five Roa& to Modernity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Uni-

versity Press, 1992). See, especially, the chapter on Germany. 17. I have discussed the influence of Romantic poetry on Serbian politics in "A Tale of Two

Serbias,"a chapter in The Conceit of Innocence (College Station, TX: Texas A & M University Press, 1997"), 208-229.

18. Stanislav J. Kirschbaum, A History of Slovakia: The Struggle for Survival (NewYork: St. Martin's Press, 1995), 77.

19. Jan Botto, "The Death of Jano~ik," in An Anthology of Czechoslovak Poetry (New York: Co- lumbia University Press, 1929), 58.

20. For the best discussion of the relationship of communism to nationalism, see Liah Greenfeld, "Nationalism and Class Struggle: Two Forces or One?" Survey 29:3 (1986): 153-174.

21. "Jano~/k, Juraj,"in Slovensky biograficky slovnik, II. Sv. (E-J), (Martin: Matica slovenska, 1987): 528. Cited in Kirschbaum, History of Slovakia, 297.

22. Cited in Hans Kohn, The Age of Nationalism: The First Era of Global History (New York: Harper and Row, 1968), 11.