EU-Russia summit overshadowed by disputes and differences
18.5.2007 - Kerry Skyring

A summit between the EU and Russia at the end of the week was in trouble, even before it began. The EU wants what it calls a "strategic partnership" with Russia but that's being blocked by a host of disputes. Energy supplies, Moscow's ban on Polish agriculture products and Russia's democratic and human rights values are just a few of the problems. The future of Kosovo is another.

Kerry Skyring spoke to Katynka Barysch from the Center for European Reform in London and asked her - why has the EU-Russia relationship fallen on hard times?

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Czechs remember Russians abducted by Soviet secret police
18.5.2007 - Rob Cameron

In Prague last week there was a brief ceremony to commemorate the thousands of Russian émigrés illegally abducted by the Soviet secret police at the close of World War Two. The abductions began as soon as the Red Army began to liberate Czechoslovakia in 1944, and continued long after the Soviets arrived in Prague in May 1945. It's one of the most mysterious chapters in Czechoslovakia's 20th century history, but the fate of those abducted has not been forgotten.

A military band played and the wind blew through the trees at the Russian section of Prague's sprawling Olsany Cemetery on Friday, as around a hundred people gathered to pay tribute to the thousands of Russian émigrés - Czechoslovak citizens - who were kidnapped by the Soviet secret police and taken to the Soviet Union. Most of them disappeared without trace into Stalin's gulags. Among the Czech dignitaries attending the service was President Vaclav Klaus:

"For us it's important because it was immediately after the Second World War, after the victory over German Nazism, and I think it was the first moment that Stalinist and communist methods and procedures started to function here in this country, at a moment when most people here were not aware what was going on. So this is a special event. We discuss quite often our gulags, our concentration camps in the communist era here, people know a lot about it, but this is something which is even now not part of the standard knowledge in this country."

What is known is largely due to the efforts of one man - journalist and writer Vladimir Bystrov senior, founder of an organisation called "They Were The First". His father was one of the thousands of Russians, Ukrainians and Belarussians, often intellectuals, often democrats opposed to the Soviet system, who emigrated to Czechoslovakia in the 1920s and 30s. In 1945 he was kidnapped by a special division of the NKVD - the precursor to the KGB - called SMERS.

SMERS stood for "Smert Spionam" or "Death to Spies". Part of its mission was to follow the Red Army as it advanced into Europe at the close of World War Two, liquidating and kidnapping potential enemies of the Soviet Union. These included Soviet citizens who had emigrated and started new lives abroad. Only a handful of the thousands of Russian émigrés illegally abducted in Czechoslovakia ever returned.

Vladimir Bystrov's father was one of the lucky ones, returning after ten years in Siberia. For years his son, now an elderly man, has investigated the kidnappings, and has just written a new book, a copy of which he presented to President Klaus at Friday's ceremony. The subject was of course taboo during the Communist period, but Vladimir Bystrov says there is now increasing awareness about the fate of Czechoslovakia's Russian émigrés.

Exactly how many Russian émigrés were abducted is still not known. Research into the subject continues, in an attempt to shed light on a dark chapter of Czechoslovakia's history. As Vladimir Bystrov stresses, these people - most of them fully-fledged Czechoslovak citizens - were illegally abducted from their homes, as the authorities looked on.

The abductions began in the fog of war but continued even after Czechoslovakia had regained full sovereignty in 1945. And most crucially, thousands of Czechoslovaks were being abducted by the Soviet secret police long before 1948, when the communists took power.

Slovakia debates "naming and shaming" figures from the communist past
18.5.2007 - Anca Dragu

Slovakia spent 51 years building up socialism and Soviet styled communism. All of that occurred between 1948 and 1989 when Slovakia was a part of Czechoslovakia. There are people who spent their entire adult life under communism and there are thousands whose lives were destroyed because they disagreed with those in power. Anca Dragu reports on why, 18 years on, there are attempts to "name and shame" figures from the communist past.

Devin is a sleepy suburb of Bratislava located at the point where the river Morava flows into the Danube. Austria lies only 10 meters away over the Morava. Until 1989 the Slovak shore was covered with barbed wire and and a tall fence. Nowadays a monument stands in the same place. It looks like a stone gate riddled with bullets. It bears the names of a few hundred people who had been shot while trying to cross the border and escape to the free world. Who shot them and persecuted their families? Miroslav Lehky was a dissident under communism and got involved with Charta 77, a movement fighting for human rights in Czecholsovakia at that time. Nowadays he is working for the Nation's Memory Institute supervising researchers who dig into the archives of the communist secret police, the famous, or better said, infamous Stb.

"The law allows the Nation's Memory Institute to ask the prosecutor to investigate the crimes committed by informers, agents or officers involved in the activities of Stb or other special units of the army and Ministry of Interior between until 1989. Unfortunatelly nobody has been charged in Slovakia although the Czech republic saw a few cases. Only for those shot at the border we have about 300 victims whose cases have been reconstructed from archive. Besides this we have thousands of people who had been arrested for no reason and in many cases we know who did it and they are still alive, some of them doing very well."

For the time being Nation's Memory Institute, which was established in 2002, keeps on publishing on the internet the names of those who were involved in the activities of the repressive bodies of the communist regimes. The latest such action took place last Thursday when it published 764 names of former members of the 12th unit of the feared communist counter-intelligence unit on its web page. Jergus Sivos a researcher at the institute gives more details.

"This unit, with its headquarter in Bratislava belonged the Federal interior ministry, and was established on the order of the-then interior minister on May 20, 1974 as part of the reorganisation of central units of Czechoslovak counter-intelligence. It had three departments, one in charge with following Slovaks who were perceived as critics and opponents of the regime, the second was in charge with foreigners coming into contact with Slovaks including diplomats and foreign journalists and the third one tried to protect the local economy from espionage and sabotage."

The documents published last week also offer pictures of the commanding officers besides biographical data and a short description of their career while at the same time publishing the names. You may ask, ok so there are documents proving that these people were involved in commiting crimes, we know who they are so why is it difficult to send them to courts? Miroslav Lehky explains.

"Because under the current legislation judges decide that officers obeyed the orders of their commanders and cannot be punished for it or the crime was prescribed. Therefore we plan to ask the Parliament to decide that the crimes of former repressive units of the communist state should be regarded as crimes against humanity and cannot be prescribed. This includes shootings at the state borders between 1948-1989, and the denial of freedom to innocent people during this period. We don't only focus on the "monste processes of the 1950's. People were deprived of their freedom right up until the fall of communism, and were accused of crimes that they hadn't committed, even though in the 1980's punishments usual in the 1950's such as life imprisonment and the death penalty were no longer employed."

The daily SME has discovered a current judge and a succesful lawyer among those 764 whose names published by the Nation's Memory Institute. The daily interviewed two of them and both denied commiting any crimes and think that the Institute has a very simplistic approach. Both of them say they simply did their job and have nothing to regret.

Visegrad Four growth will "converge" - says Hungarian institute
18.5.2007 - Sandor Laczko

Economic growth among members of the Visegrád Group, Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Poland differs quite dramatically - ranging from a modest 3 percent in Hungary to a scorching 9 percent in Slovakia. But those growth figures are likely to converge in the next five years according to the Institute for World Economics at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.

Sandor Laczko of Radio Budapest spoke to the book's editor, Tamas Novak, who is the research director at the Institute for World Economics..

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Poland's Andrzej Wajda a guest at Cannes
18.5.2007 - Michal Kubicki

A special guest at the Cannes Film Festival this year is the renowned Polish director Andrzej Wajda. He presides over Cannes Classics, a series of screenings and events dedicated to 'rediscovered cinema, restored prints and DVD releases of the great works of the past'. Wajda will present a restored copy of 'Canal', a feature that brought him a Special Jury Prize in Cannes fifty years ago and skyrocketed him to international fame. In Wajda's native Poland meanwhile film lovers are looking forward to the release of his new film.

'Canal' was the first feature film about the Warsaw Rising of 1944. Wajda's latest project is the first Polish film about another crucial event in Poland's modern history - the massacre of Polish officers in Katyn forest in 1940.

Some 22 thousand Polish officers were taken prisoner by the Red Army when the Soviet Union invaded eastern Poland in September 1939, 17 days after the Nazi attack on Poland. On orders from Stalin, the Poles were shot in the Katyn forest. The crime was revealed by the Nazis in 1943 but the Soviet Union blamed Hitler's Germany for the massacre. Andrzej Wajda's film is not a historical account of the tragedy but draws psychological portraits of a group of mothers, wives and daughters of Polish officers.

"I think my film shows how the lie about Katyn was brought to Poland with the Red Army and the communist administration, and how this lie - that the Polish officers were murdered by the Germans - lingered for so many years. While it was the men who were murdered, the lie about Katyn concerned in the first place the women. This is not so say of course that massacre itself is not present in the film. It is."

For 81 year-old Wajda, whose father was a victim of Katyn, this is probably the most important project ever. Kordian Piwowarski, who was his second assistant on the set, says that for all members of the crew this was a highly demanding project.

"It was very difficult not onlt from the technical point of view but specially from the motional point of view for everyone and I saw people from the crew crying. when we started shooting the scene when the Germans announced the list of Katyn victims. In the morning when the set designers put on the flags in the Main Square of Krakow the people started to complain and called the police asking what was going on, why Nazi symbols are again shown everywhere and we had to take them off and Wajda had to make a speech on local radio and TV and ask Krakow citizens not to be offended."

Even though in 1990 the Soviet leader Gorbachev acknowledged Soviet responsibility for the Katyn massacre, Russia still claims it was a crime under civic jurisdiction and therefore no longer subject to prosecution. What is also worrying for Poles is that according to recent surveys, as many as 40 percent of Poles do not know who is responsible for the Katyn massacre. The producers of the film hope it will play an important educational role. Historian Janusz Cisek..

"People don't take education from books any more. It's through the Internet and movie productions. You can see it judging Spelberg's films about the Holocaust. It's the best way of introducing historical education to modern society. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for this movie and am looking forward to the day of its introduction to our movie stores."

Wajda's Katyn will be premiered on September 17, an anniversary of the Soviet Union's attack on Poland in 1939. It remains to be seen if it proves an artistic success comparable to his Ashes and Diamonds and Man of Iron. One thing is certain - it is surely the most eagerly awaited Polish feature film in many years.

Slovenia's Magdalena festival - focusing on the young and creative
18.5.2007 - Heather Pirjevec

The city of Maribor in Slovenia is again hosting a festival with a focus on young people. It's called "Magdalena" and it's for people under 30, mainly those working in creative areas such as advertising and public communication. The festival takes a critical stance towards unethical practices in the media and irresponsible advertising. Srdjan Trifunovic is the festival's coordinator and she told Heather Pirjevec from Radio Slovenia International why the festival is focussed on young people.

"Well the idea is, basically because there are only few festivals or events that are mainly for the young, we think there should be more of them, so Magdalena is one of them trying to give opportunity to the young artists, young creatives, designers, just give them the chance to show their work."

You've got special guests attending the festival?

"Every year we invite members of the jury that are mainly people that are recognized in the world as good professionals and also the important thing for us is that they are good people as well."

The festival Magdalena does give awards for people who take part in the festival?

"One of the important things of this festival is also competition, so we give the golden Bras awards for best works in the different categories and then the golden heel award for best work in competition groups. There is ths very sexy sculptore of Magdalena, which is the main award. Last year it became really popular also with the agencies as well, so the advertising agencies are pushing their young creatives to come to Magdalena and try to win this award."

Tell us a little bit about the programme?

"We have 3 lectures: one is sex and advertising, which is going to be held by Kristo Kaftandijev, who was also a member of the Jury a few years ago, so this year he is coming back as a lecturer. Then there is a word of mouth from Zoran Savin, so there is going to be 7 great lectures.

One in particular I am a bit afraid of and on the other side I can hardly wait, is a virtual lecture from Dawid Marcinkowsk from Poland. He will be joining us on Saturday, we're doing this for the first time this experiment with virtual lecture. He is an internet artist and director of many music videos, so we can hardly wait for that."

You said this is mainly streamlined at the young people who are involved in public communication and public advertising but are other visitors welcome?

"Well, the competition is for the young people but normally the festival is aimed at everybody so we like to have professionals here, who work at agencies, marketing directors as well as designers, everybody."