Council of Europe adopts Warsaw Declaration but leaves many questions open
20.5.2005 - Slawek Szefs

The Council of Europe, Europe's oldest and largest human rights organisation, was set up in 1949 to promote democracy on the continent. Leaders from its forty-nine nations met in the Polish capital Warsaw to reform the body. But after winding up its summit with several documents outlining future actions, observers are asking what next?

The leaders adopted the so-called Warsaw Declaration and an action plan for the coming term when the Council of Europe will be presided over by Portugal. The first is a summary focusing on democratic transformations which have taken place in Central and Eastern Europe; the second is devoted to maintaining democratic standards and respecting human rights in member states of the Council. That means in all European countries, except for Belarus, whose absence had been noticed with great concern.

'Mr. Lukasenko's regime is further isolating itself and the people of Belarus from the family of free European nations.'

...said Lithuanian president Valdas Adamkus. Presently there are three big organizations in Europe which play a major role in forging its policies - the EU, OSCE and the Council of Europe. In the opinion of Norwegian Prime Minister Kjell Bondewik, tightening cooperation between them is mandatory.

'We need to ensure that all three organizations cooperate and coordinate their activities and do not compete with each other.'

Terry Davis, Secretary General of the Council of Europe underscored the importance of its joint effort with the OSCE against the "three hostages of humanity: terrorism, human trafficking and money-laundering".

"We have different strengths. The OSCE have much different presence in countries of their activities than we do. But we are generally accepted as being stronger in the area of standard setting. So, we are going to work very closely together between ourselves and the OSCE."

However, conventions on those issues must be ratified by individual member states before they can take effect. All this has urged critics to claim that the Council of Europe is only a facade for disseminating ideas, however noble, without concrete practical results in implementing them. Christopher Bobinski, political analyst and expert on EU affairs.

'The problem of the Council of Europe is that it's an organization which is basically intergovernmental, set up by governments which have retained their autonomy, retained their freedom of action. And that means that the organization has never really developed past the talking shop. Whereas, the European Union, which was set up a few years later, because it's an integrated organization, has made much more progress. Maybe this is the time to look seriously at the Council of Europe and to ask whether it's still necessary. I think these are subjects which should be discussed and I hope they will be after this summit.'

A case in point might be the anti-war demonstration during the Warsaw summit.

'Today we are marching for peace.'
'Today we are marching for tolerance.'
Today we are marching for everybody's dignity and right to live in peace.'

The protesters' main reservation towards the Council meeting participants had been the discrepancy between verbal declarations and inability to cope with the harsh reality of military intervention in Iraq or Chechnya, to mention but two of numerous such examples.

Is Council of Europe meeting the goals for which it was created?
20.5.2005 - Kerry Skyring

One of the main functions of the Council of Europe is now the European Court of Human Rights. But that court has a backlog of nearly 80,000 cases. We asked Aaron Rhodes - the head of the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights whether the Council is still meeting the goals for which it was created:

"Yes and no. I think the Council of Europe renders a service to its members, especially through the workings of the European Court of Human Rights and this is unique in the world as a system of providing remedies to citizens."

That court has a backlog of nearly 80,000 cases. That would suggest that something is wrong there...

"Well, something is wrong and that's why I said 'no' also. You know, the court actually violates the same rights that it is trying to uphold. One of the rights to which European citizens are entitled is the right to a fair and speedy trial. Proceedings in the European court are so slow that that isn't provided."

There does appear to be a bit of a contradiction here. The member states sign up to the European Convention of Human Rights and then you have so many cases of obviously human rights abuses coming back to the court. This must mean that the member states are not observing that convention that they signed up to.

"Of course they are not. But the court is there to provide remedies. So, in a sense it can be good. But there are other cases, where this is a terrible scandal. The worst is Chechnya. This is the worst human rights situation in the entire region and the ministers of the Council of Europe have hardly taken up the case at all..."

...and Russia is a member of the Council!

"Of course it is but the committee of ministers hasn't even taken up this case in any meaningful way. In fact, they have backslidden on the issue; they have discontinued the special monitoring procedure that was established for Chechnya last summer."

So do they not have an effective means to criticise their members? I know this has been an issue between the OSCE and Russia. Russia objects to being criticised by this organisation. The same applies then to the Council of Europe.

"Well, of course Russia objects to it but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be done. These are objective violations of the Council of Europe standards but the members of the Council don't want to go head-to-head with Russia over these questions. So, the Council of Europe, like most international organisations, is as good as its members and it reflects the political will of its members and you can see the lack of political will in the issue of Chechnya."

Well, there was an impressive line-up of leaders in Warsaw. What could they do to make the organisation more effective and overcome some of those problems?

"We, as the Helsinki Federation, would urge that the members of the Council of Europe would start getting more serious about making sure that their fellow members play by the rules."

Anticipating the result of France's upcoming EU constitution referendum
20.5.2005 - Anca Dragu

At the end of the month, the whole of Europe will be watching France, where a crucial referendum will be taking place to ratify the European Union constitution. But while French President Jacques Chirac, with the help of other European leaders including Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski, have been busy promoting the constitution in France, opinion polls show just as many French would vote against it as for it.

Radio Slovakia International discussed the challenges the EU faces with the ratification process and future enlargement with the former president of the European Commission, Jacques Santer, who was in Bratislava to encourage Slovak businessmen to face the challenges posed by EU membership:

"From my experience I know that after each enlargement process, we face some problems that last for at least one generation. So we cannot make an assessment after only one year. It was a good and successful year but we have to go ahead now in the development and come to the constitution."

Well, we come to the constitution and discover that politicians have a different view on this document in comparison to ordinary citizens.

"With 15 member states we came to the limit of the possibility that the Union can function properly because the institutions were conceived for a union with only six member states. With an enlargement to 9, 12, 15, 25, and tomorrow 27 member states, you cannot function properly without a profound reform of the institutions. Therefore, this constitution is necessary if you want this Union to be managed properly and efficiently. Europe also has to play its political role on the international scene. With a GDP worldwide of 25% we have to take also our political responsibility to an international level."

It seems that the French disagree.

"You know [laughs] General de Gaulle said once in his memoir that if you hold a referendum, the people who have to vote with "yes" or "no", they don't give an answer to the question, they give an answer to those who put the question forward and that's the problem in France. There are some other referenda, such as that one in the UK. If this referendum will be negative, we can deal with the UK because the UK doesn't want political union like it is but they want a big market of course, a bigger trading zone and they also want to have, and this is important for us too, a common defence policy. There we can manage something. I think there we could find a solution.

"With France it would be more difficult. France is a founding member and we have to be aware that the whole construction of the European Union is founded on the reconciliation between France and Germany. That's a pillar of the European Union and if this pillar would crash, then the Union would split and that's the real danger with France."

Is Hungary too tolerant of extreme right?
20.5.2005 - Gyorgyi Jakobi

A young Roma boy was seriously injured in Budapest after he was stabbed with a sword by a man, who witnesses identified as a neo-Nazi - apparently wearing a Nazi uniform and a war helmet. The stabbing took place in a crowded bus, in broad daylight, and in a district that is believed to house a training centre for extreme-right groupings.

But the police are still searching for the assailant and Hungarians are divided over whether or not this latest attack was racially motivated. In solidarity with the Roma community, a protest demonstration was held in Budapest. Radio Budapest asked philosopher and protest organiser Gaspar Tamas Miklos whether this most recent, and most violent, incident could help bring attention to xenophobia and racism that still appears to prevail in Hungary:

"In a way I wish it would be, since this poor boy who was stabbed by a neo-Nazi with a sword should at least have the satisfaction that his suffering has served some purpose. Public opinion on this is divided as always. I looked at a few internet sites discussing what happened and the demonstration that was organised afterwards to protest against Neo-Nazi racial crimes. There was some solidarity towards the Roma but there was even more indignant opinion saying that people protest when a minority is stabbed but they don't protest when members of the majority are victims of aggression. Today's papers had similar comments too.

"But if we consider that the measures that the Ministry of Education took last year, in order to end segregation in elementary schools that discriminate against people of colour, people of Gypsy origin, were effectively countermanded and stopped by pressure from MPs and public opinion and finally nothing happened, I don't know whether this will make people think a bit."

Vojna Memorial a chilling reminder of 1950s communist horrors
20.5.2005 - Jan Velinger

An icy gale and drizzling rain pound upon new grass and gravel near the Vojna Memorial: located in the Pribram region of Central Bohemia Vojna was a prison camp that first housed Nazi criminals, then opponents of Czechoslovakia's Communist regime. Ironically, prisoners jailed there included some of Czechoslovakia's finest, who had fought for their country during the war, only to ultimately be branded as traitors and western spies. Today, Vojna serves as a most chilling reminder of one of the darkest chapters of Czechoslovak history.

Musicians play Shostakovich at the opening of the Vojna Memorial: 17 buildings where prisoners were kept, spreading out below a hilly countryside. Visible are barbed wire fences, look-out towers, and an infamous concrete cell (the bunker) where prisoners were handed down special punishment: kept in chilly conditions for days, sometimes as many as twenty at a time. Prisoners, unable to stand upright or lay down, had no choice but to crouch - awake or in sleep. There was no relief.

One of those who remembers life in Vojna is Jiri Zenahlik, a lieutenant during the war who was imprisoned by the communists in 1952. He survived to old age in part, he says, in the hopes of teaching young people about the past. It happens, though, that they often refuse to believe the story he has to tell:

"I was sent to Germany during the war as a forced labourer, but I managed to escape to France. I then returned home with the Americans' 14th armoured division. For all my service to my country I was labelled a traitor and a spy and received a death sentence in 1952. I was 26 years-old. I spent 23 days on death row, but ultimately my sentence was reduced. I was then sent to various prisons and camps, including this one."

Vojna was not just a prison, it was a labour camp: hard labour in hazardous health conditions at a uranium mine. Under such dreadful conditions it's hardly surprising many died.

"The conditions were dreadful working in the mine. Many of us didn't make it through. To this day I still get regular check-ups for cancer - I want to be around as long as I can, I want to teach young people about that time, to show them that democracy and freedom have a price. I spent eleven years, six months in prison. The whole time my wife waited for me. She never gave up."

Jiri Zenahlik points out that thousands of innocent people received brutal sentences from high courts or people's courts and he is adamant that this dark period in the country's history must not be forgotten, at the risk of repeating it. That is one lesson the memorial and camp certainly hopes to teach, a point repeated by many at the opening Wednesday, including Culture Minister Pavel Dostal, who said he hoped the memorial and site - which is fully accessible - would be visited by the young. Another visitor, Milan Paumer, known for a particularly dramatic escape in the early 1950s in which he and others shot their way to freedom, agrees the lesson must not be lost.

"Now I have the chance to really see what was happening and what was going on during those "Socialistic years" and I'm glad they opened this place. I just hope that people will come and see it with their own eyes, and I'm talking about young people, who didn't go through these horrible years. Also schools, so that pupils will see what was happening over here."

Visiting Vojna is a far from cheerful experience but it is a necessary one. Otherwise, as survivors say, the past could easily be glossed over, not least by communist sympathisers today. Had the camp lain forgotten, or been bulldozed to the ground, some might be more inclined to downplay or even forget the suffering of the past.

Kobarid Museum commemorates bloody WWI battle with new exhibition
20.5.2005 - Ksenija Samardzija-Matul

The Kobarid Museum, in the town of Kobarid on the Slovenian-Italian border was founded in 1990 with the aim of presenting the rich history of the town and its role during World War I, especially between May 1915 and November 1917. This year the museum extended its famous exhibition on what has been called the "Soca Front" to mark the 90th anniversary of a bloody battle.

Joze Serbec is the director of the museum:

"In contrast to other institutions we have not planned any special manifestations or events but we decided to start two or three projects. The biggest project was to upgrade the former multimedia presentation, which means we made a new documentary film, with original film material of that time, animation, some black and white shots, still pictures of the battles and with film material of today."

The historical museum is one with a military subject and an antiwar message. In the foreground are the "little people" caught up in the horrors of war. The greater part of the permanent exhibition is devoted to events in the mountainous northern section of the Soca Front and the detailed presentation of the famous Battle of Kobarid 1917, during which German and Austro-Hungarian divisions drove the Italian forces back deep into Italian territory. The museum displays an amazing set of military equipment, a vast collection of photographs and personal belongings of soldiers fighting at the front. This year the museum put a lot of effort into a promotional film:

"The second part of our project was the promotion film about the Kobarid museum, where we will show our visitors the museum itself on DVD, CD and also VHS. One of the bigger projects this year is also the travelling exhibition, which is currently on display in Italy."

The interest in the exhibition is still high even 90 years after the start of the battles during WWI and the number of foreign visitors is rising:

"The interest in the events at the Soca Front does not stop and we are surprised at the response we receive. The structure of our visitors in the past years has changed - today visitors from abroad prevail. Most Slovenians have already seen the exhibition and as I've said the number of foreign visitors is still rising."

The majority of foreign visitors almost 80% come from Italy and German speaking countries but there are also more and more visitors from the United States, Canada, Great Britain and all the other parts of the world.

The Kobarid museum is not one of victory and glory or of national pride but it is a museum of man and his distress.