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My thoughts on the book: "Unos demokracie: Zo zakulisia slovenskej tajnej sluzby (Tak to vidim ja)" by Luba Lesna

In English the title, according to my amature translation sounds something like: "Kidnapping democracy, behind the scenes of the Slovak secret services (How I see it)"

I have just finished reading this book yesterday evening. Very fascinating book, written in Slovak language, containing a bit more than 300 page.

There are a couple of cicrumstances that had led me to reading this book.

First of all, I'm interested in economic, poilitical system transformations of the former communist countries in Central-Eastern Europe. Second of all, I try to keep the spectrum of literature that I read as broad as possible. Third of all, if once I had learned a language, like in this case, Slovak language, I try to stay fit in that language and read something in that language from time to time.

How I came about to buying this book?

Actually, how I came about to buying this book was quite interesting. Last year, end of September, begining of October I visited Bratislava with my family, just for 4 days. On the last day of the visit in Bratislava we had stopped by a bookstore, at that time it seemed like it had been just newly opened. (Thanks God for Google, i was just able to google it, and the name of the bookstore is "Kníhkupectvo Alexis" on Kosicka street, near the former apartment where I used to live in Bratislava). In that bookstore I had bought another book, not the "Unos Demokracie" by Luba Lesna, but "Boss všetkých bossov" by Gustav Murin. (maybe sometime i will write another blog entry on this book). "Boss všetkých bossov" lay around on the bookshelf for few weeks and finally sometime in November, I got around to reading it. The story of the mafia boss Miklas Cernak had really fascinated me. In the bibliography the author of "Boss všetkých bossov" was quite extensively citing Luba Lesna. That is how I came across the author of "Unos demokracie". What I usually do in such situation, i start roaming around the internet for more information on the cited sources. I came across a couple of very interesting videos on youtube featuring Luba Lesna, I read some newspaper articles written by her and I finnally decide to see if I can actually buy a book written by her. I managed to do it, I found an internet used bookstore (by the way, from Bardejov in Eastern Slovakia -- one day I would like to visit this city) that had her book for sale. I had ordered this books and it arrived in my mailbox before Christmas in order just to land for time being on the bookshelf. It happens quite often with the books which I buy. They first land on the bookshelf and just lay there and was, so that I can read them in a later time, whenever I'm in the right state of mind for grabbing and reading them. On my bookshelf at home i have many, many books, which i intend to read some day. They wait for me to be in the right "mood", until the appetiate comes so that i can consume them.

How I reached the right state of mind that provoked me to start reading "Unos demokracie"?

Just so that I don't forget the Slovak language from time to time I read on the internet Slovak news or listen to Slovak news on my iPod by subscribing to the Podcast via iTunes of "Radio Slovakia International". Somehow begining of January I checked some Slovak websites to read what is happening in Slovakia. The so called "Kauza Gorila" or "Gorilla Affair" seemed to be hitting the headlines quite a lot. On a couple of evenings I listened to the Podcast "Radio Slovakia International". Somehow the situation in Slovakia got interesting to me and even until now, from time to time I'm checking the Slovak news just to see how the political situation keeps developing. (Here I would like to mention that I even managed to read the original text of the "Gorrilla Affair" published on some underground websites.) Anyway, Slovakia is facing early parlamentary elections which will take place on March 10th 2012. "Gorilla Affair" happening in the midst of elections makes the situation even more interesting. However, why I mention in this context "Gorilla Affair"? Well, the answer is easy -- the latest developments on the political scene in Slovakia and the "Gorilla Affair" had insipred me to take from my bookshelf the book of Luba Lesna which I have bought few weeks ago. The "Gorila Affair" had put me into the state of mind which lead me to reading "Unos Demokracie".

"Gorilla Affair" and the book "Unos demokracie"

What the "Gorila Affair" is showing is that even today, after more than 20 years after the collapse of the totalitarian communist regime in Czechoslovakia, and almost 20 years after Slovakia has been enjoying its independence, the system transformation of Slovak Republic to a mature democracy is still in its early developmental stages. I assume that the "Gorila Affair" is not a piece of fiction and that it really shows how politicians in Slovakia are corrupt. I think it shows how ineffciently the government instituations are functioning, the state establishment, the state in itself as institution with its justice and legal system is actually performing service to those who are in power, than rather to the average citizens who in a democratic society need to rely on a well functioning legal and justice system. What the "Gorila Affair", if its really true as I think it is, allowed me to understand is that actually the political transformation in Slovakia has not progressed as much as I expected. Due to the fact that I feel nostalgy and a lot of sympathy toward Bratislava, toward Slovakia and due to the fact that I feel some personal dissapointment to the fact that there is still much corruption in the Slovak politics I decided to understand better the system transformation of the last 20 years of Slovakia. Therefore I decided to start reading the book of Luba Lesna, "Unos Demokracie" hoping to find more explanations in this book to the current events taking place in Slovakia, to the events concerning the "Gorila Affair".

What "Unos Demokracie" is about?

Luba Lesna in this book describes the biggest corruption affairs of the 1990s which took place in Slovakia. For the most part, the main villain of these affairs, in the foreground or in the background seemed to be pretty much always, Vladimir Meciar.

First affair, so called "Tisova Villa affair" described in the book, reminds me a bit of US Watergate affair of the 1970s. Meciar, acting at the time as the minister interior affairs of the Slovak Republic, which was still part of the Czechoslovak Federal Republic in the year of 1991, simply ordered some of his subordinates to break into a building of the Czechoslovak ministry of interior affairs (Czechoslovak interior affairs ministry, was a separate insitution, managed by federal government in Prague, was not part of the separate local interior affair ministry of Slovakia -- i know it's a bit complicated, i needed to google it a bit, to understand it better). The crooks send by him, stole some documents from the federal ministry at night, bringing it directly to Meciar. It is suspected that perhaps Meciar later used these documents to blackmail his political oponents, since most likely these were files of the former communist Czechoslovak secret police, so called StB. (kind of a czechoslovak KGB). Meciar saw nothing unusual in the fact that he was sending guys to steal documents, breaking into government buildings at night... etc... As long as he could get away with it, he did it. I think the biggest problem, and that is mentioned by the author in the book is, that not only Meciar was capable of stealing documents in such a blatent way, however, what was worse, later he used the position of the power to cover up his deeds, bully any opponents that would try to get in his way, oponents who would try to bring his unlawful deeds to justice.

Meciar took over power in the independet Slovak Republic after the elections of 1994. He became master of crowd manipulation. Interesting example of that is the Vivat Slovakia video (below youtube link). Incredible. Meciar managed to rally masses of people. To me this is alarming. Thanks God these times are over....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kiRvY5IcA4

I personally get the impressions that Meciar comes across as a really friendly and nice guy. Is that not the impression that one could get afte seeing him on voter rallies or on TV? Certainly those grandmas from the youtube video which link is attached above thought so.... and so did many other people that voted for him. This is the dark side of democracy. Someone might come across as a nice guy, but in reality is really corrupt, authoritarian and anti-social leader.

Conflict with president Kovac

There was one obstacle in Meciar's way to complete power take over in Slovakia and it turned out to be his former party hellow, the president which he helped get the post, Michal Kovac. Although Meciar supported in the begnining Michal Kovac, even helped him to become president, time has shown, that Michal Kovac wanted to independently carry out his presidential duties, without being influenced by Meciar. It drove Meciar completely mad and he started using criminal means to preassure Michal Kovac out of the presidential seat.

Affairs which were triggered to pressure Michal Kovac to give up his presidential seat

Kidnapping of the son of Michal Kovac. Much evidence points to the fact that Meciar and his followers, especially Ivan Lexa, the secret police chief plotted using Slovak Inteligence Services (SIS -- Slovak Secret Service) to capture the son of the president. The kidnapping actually happened on the 31st of August of 1995. The son of the president was kidnapped in front of his house, severly beaten, forced to drink huge amounts of alcohol upto the level of unconsciousness and smuggled through the Slovak-Austria border to a small Austrian town of Hainburg. Parrarel to that the Slovak corrupted justice system, most likely on the orders of Meciar and Lexa issued an international warrant of arrest for the son of president Kovac, where according to the warrant of arrest, Kovac Junior was wanted on charges of embezlement which he apprerently made as an employee of a company called Technopol. The kiddnappers which smuggled Kovac Junior to Austria, left him unconscious laying in a car parked in front of the police station in the small town of Hainburg. Than an annonymous infromer called the police station and cordially has informed the police that a man for whom interenational arrest warrant was issued is in front of the police station. Austrian police acted on this annonymous tip and arrested Kovac Junior. Later on it turned out that it was just an intrigue and Kovac Junior was freed of the charges by Austrian and German courts. The implicatoins of the kidnapping affair of the president's son were incredible. Meciar with his state run Secret Police was blatently abusing power in order to pressure his oponent out of presidential office. What is interesting is that Meciar and Lexa dared to involve institutions from outside of own country in their corrupted affairs. To me this is mind bugglining. It shows how daring they were.



Billboard with a digital clock in front of the Presidential Palace. Another interesting fact that I found in the book -- and I really wonder how it looked like in reality, (Unfortunately on the internet I could not find any photos of it. It would be very interesting to see a photo of it). was that someone installed a bilboard in front of the presidential palace in Bratislava with text "time left until the end of President's Kovac term" and below this text there was a digital clock that was counting down the time that was actually left until Kovac's presidential term end. The circumstances show that it was most likely another trick of Meciar and Co. that would instill further psychological pressure on president Kovac and pressure him to give up the presidential post. Incredible.

Other alarming events taking place as an implication of the kidnapping of Kovac Junior.

The kidnapping affair of president's son has several other tragic events as its implications. The most tragic perhaps is the murder of Robert Remias. He was a young fellow, member of police forces, good freind of Oskar Fergyveres, who on the other hand was member of the Slovak Inteligence Services who decided to speak up and reveal the scheme of kidnappiung of president's son. Both Oskar and Robert got in trouble. Oskar needed to run away and hide himself abroad, Robert's fate was much worse. He ended up being executed. Bomb was planted in his car and as he was driving it exploded. The killing of Robert Remias was never properly investigated and nobody was prosecuted as a result of it. Most likely mafia was behind it, but indirectly someone from Slovak Inteligence Service could have been involved in this assasination as well. This hypothesis is stated by Luba Lesna in her book.

Example of other scandals taking palce during Meciar's rule.

The grain affair of 1995. This affair shows how anti-social and corrupt the government under Meciar has become. In 1995 the farming sector of Slovakia and in general in Europe due to unfavroable weather conditions produced much less grain than usual. On the domestic and European markets there was a deficit of grain. As a result the grain prices went up and in case a foreign buyer would be found for the Slovak grain, a lot of money could have been earned. Despite the grain deficit on the Slovak market, someone within the government created a scheme of selling a huge grain contingent to abroad, later as a result, Slovakia needed to buy a huge contingent from abroad to satisfy the demand of the local market. As a result someone earned a lot of money, first by exporting the grain and later someone earned a lot of money again, by importing grain. This would not have happened if the govvernment agency responsible for exporting and importing grain had not triggered this whole process. This whole scheme put the whole country in danger, caused inflation of food prices etc... etc....

Connections to Mafia. Luba Lesna describes in the book that on many occasions there were indications that officials from the Meciars government had close ties to mafia. Even Meciar himself was accused of having close ties to the mafia boss Mikulas Cerniak. Once, when asked by journalist about this, he reacted aggresively and has physically assaulted a jouralist. (youtube video below)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lW7oPOgZ9Rs

Privatization. During Meciars rule Slovak government started privatization process of state owned factories, businesses. The book menitones the privatisation cases of Nafta Gbely, Slovnaft, VZS (Eastern Slovak Steel factories in Kosice -- later the steel mills of this holding were sold to US Steel). The problembusinesses with all the privatizations was that the state owned businesses were sold much below its value, only selected indivuduals would have access to privatization, etc. The owners of privatized companies in many cases would simply drain the privatized enterprises from cash often just transfering it to off-shore accounts, additionally often taking loans from state-owned banks using as collateral privatized companies, and even further draining the cash from the banking system. Mind buggling. All of this allowed jsut a small group of corrupted oligarchs to get richer and richer. Meciar and his givernment provided perfect conditions for such cash draining schemes.

Destabilization of the political situation in the countries surrounding Slovakia. Avoiding integration with NATO and EU. Ties to secret services in China, Russia.

There is a very interesting hypothesis mentioned by Luba Lesna. In several passages she points out that Meciar's government could have had also some secret international agenda, which could have the aim of general destabilization of the political situation in Central and Eastern Europe. Indirectly, the domestic havoc caused by Meciar and his government could have aimed to slow down the European and NATO integration of Slovakia and surrounding countries. Meciar was perhaps encouraged or even secretly supported by someone from abroad, perhaps Moscow? There is some evidence which points that clearly the Slovak Injteligence Services were getting friendly with the Russian Secret forces and even with the Chineese secret service!

What are my main conclusions from "Unos demokracie"?

Leadership position in a situation of an economic and system transformation is quite critical. From my point of view one of the biggest lessons learned out of the system transformatio in Slovakia, and not only, pretty much that seems to be valid for the whole post-Communist block, without proper leadership, planning, clarity of thinking of politicians in leadership positions, proper transformation is not possible. Economic and system transformation is quite a complex endevour. It creates a lot of room for corruption and criminality. In a transformation system a visionary or rather effective leadership is quite crucial. The whole state needs to readjust and act quickly, outpace the creative criminals who want to take advantage of the chatoic situation, institutional, legal void that has suddenly appeared as a result of the system change. What happened in Slovakia in the 1990s is that it had a corrupt leader, who was not interested in any structural reform, sustainable economic development, in establishment of democratic well functioning institutions. Meciar was simple minded anti-social individual, who just wanted to advance his own position. Quite often he surrounded himself with people, whose behaviour in very many cases was likewise anti-social, corrupt, self-centered.

One of my hypothesis is that, has perhaps the separation between Slovakia and Czech Republic taken place earlier than 1st of January 1993, lets say, immediatly after the velvet revolution of 1989, who knows, if Meciar began ruling independent Slovak Republic immediatly after the Velvet Revolution, maybe today, Slovakia would not be in EU, would not be in Euro zone and would be in a similar position as, let's say as Belarussia? I think the years when Czechoslovakia existed as a democratic federation after the Velvet Revolution and before the split up, between the years 1989-1992, allowed Slovakia somehow to establish some basic democratic institutions, lay some legal foundation which triggered the process of democratic reforms. The wheels of the democratic system transformation started turning in 1989 and when finally in 1994 Meciar completly took over power in independet Slovakia, the reforms went far enough, so that, even due to his anti-social, corrupt, almost, I dare to say, dicator-like authoritarian ruling, he was not able to turn Slovakia into what Lukashenko has managed to do in Belarussia. I should also not underestimate the fact that Slovakia has a rich democratic tradition of great leaders like for example M.R. Stefanik, or even a visionary, progressive Communist leader Alexander Dubcek. Having some democratic tradition made it also difficult for Meciar to completly rid of democracy in Slovakia. I think he was too sure of himself and underestimated the situation in 1998 when he suddenly lost elections. As a result Meciars opposition took over the government and could continue with democratic reforms. However, the damaged performed by Meciar, in my opinion, has been great. I think the demage has been so great, that today, such affairs, like "Gorilla Afair" take place.

Under Vladimir Meciar between the years 1994-1998 Slovakia has not been developing institutions and processes which a early democracy should be developing. Meciar ruled the country in a very authoritarian, almost in a dectator-like way and was not interested in developing democratic instituations of the country. What happpened under Meciar's rule is that, theoreticaly, institutions, which should be serving the citizens, where serving Meciar and his colleagues. Theoretically, courts, prosecutors, police where independent, democratic, however, in reality they were serving Meciar and his fellow crooks. From my point of view this has performed a great damaged to the whole society. In such an environment, citizens cannot truly trust the governmental institutions and politicians in general. Officially Slovakia has been a democracy since its foundation in 1993 and prior to that, as part of the Czechoslovak democratic fedaral state between 1990-1992, however, to the chaos cause by Meciar, people lost faith in democracy, interest in politics, became apathic as far as public and social life is concerned. Reading of "Unos Demokracie" buggles one's mind and shows, that a road to democracy is difficult, especially if a person who instead of serving the interest of the citizens, serves own interst first, gets into a leadership position, especially in difficult times of political, economic transition, which are full of turmoil.

Meciar's farewell - lessons learned

In this way Meciar has said farewell on TV to his fellow citizens.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uR0CodnrNAo&feature=related

In 1998 Meciar unexceptadly lost elections and new government was formed that started transforming the country. What came after 1998 was not perfect. As cruel as the Meciar era might sound, as corrupt as its government has been, there is something positive about it, it could be treated as an important lesson learned for future by everyone living in a modern democratic world, not only in Slovakia, but anywhere. In the end, the average citizen can vote and has the right to vote, has the right to speak up their mind, be invovled in public life. I think the most important thing is that, the average citizen, not only the politicians, not the government public officials need to transform or change in order to create a democratic society, but also an average citizen has to learn, has to transform, has to change his or hers mindset into a mindset of a citizen who lives in a democratic society. Has this transformation, mindset change taken place in the heads of all the citizens, such corrupt, power abusing governments as the one described by Luba Lesna in her book would have never taken place. Everyone needs to be open minded and be able to speak up and address when something goes wrong or is about to go wrong. That is the only way to mature, well functioning democracy.

The "Gorilla Affair" is showing that even today a fundemantal change in Slovakia is needed. This change can be only accomplished if as many people as possible participate in the democratic process.

Further reading -- books on this or similar topic which I would like to buy and read some day:

Mečiar a mečiarizmus Politik bez škrupúľ, politika bez zábran by Marián Leško,

Únos prezidentovho syna alebo krátke dejiny tajnej služby by Ľuba Lesná,

Gorila by Tom Nicholson (to be published on 29th of February of 2012)

P.S. Pardon my chaotic style. This is purely a result of my brainstorming. I do not intend to write professional essays.

Znalezione w statych notatkach

My thoughts on the book: "Unos demokracie: Zo zakulisia slovenskej tajnej sluzby (Tak to vidim ja)" by Luba Lesna

In English the title, according to my amature translation sounds something like: "Kidnapping democracy, behind the scenes of the Slovak secret services (How I see it)"

I have just finished reading this book yesterday evening....