The following Czech organizations have signed this Proclamation: Alliance for the Citizens' Self-defense, Prague, Czech Republic Alliance of Czechoslovak Exiles, Berwyn, USA All Things Czech, Los Angeles, USA Association for the Defense of Exiles, Bad Kreuznach, Germany Association of Czechoslovak OREL in Chicago, USA Canadian H-21, Toronto, Canada Committee of Czechs and Slovaks in Holland Czech Christian Exile Community in Astoria, USA Czechoslovak Boy Scouts, Switzerland Czechoslovak Culture Club, Los Angeles, USA Czechoslovak Ex-Servicemen's Independent Association, NSW, Australia Czech Society for the Preservation of Human Rights, Los Angeles, USA Czechoslovak Association "Beseda", Zurich, Switzerland Czechs Abroad Memorial, Pilsen, Czech Republic Friends of Czechoslovak Music, San Diego, USA International Association of Czechs for Dual Citizenship, Restitutions and Voting Rights, Los Angeles, USA International Movement for Free Czechoslovakia, West Chicago, USA Sokol of San Francisco, San Francisco, USA The Free Czechoslovakia Fund, Washington, USA The World Association of Former Czechoslovak Political Prisoners in Exile, Switzerland West European Confederation of Czech Political Prisoners

Proclamation

addressed to the President of the Czech Republic, to the Ministers of the Government of the Czech Republic, to the Senate and to the House of Deputies, to the political parties and to all Czechs at home and abroad.

Six years of Nazi occupation and 40 years of the reign of communism left wounds in the social fabric of our country that have proved difficult to heal. Their results are clearly evident in current low levels of trust, economic performance and integrity of institutions. The main reason for this chronic and unfavorable state of affairs is, in our view, the aversion of the government to settling past accounts in the way expected from a lawful, Western-oriented and democratically elected government. The signatories of this Proclamation inside and outside the Republic deem these attitudes to the following problems to be unacceptable:

None of the crimes perpetrated by the Communist regime and those who actively supported it (Act 198 dated July 9, 1993, On Illegality of the Communist Regime and the Resistance Against It) have been punished. Many of those crimes are in reality persisting to this day; specifically, unlawfully confiscated properties are still in the hands of those who actively supported the Communist regime and who obtained these properties as a result of their support.

For the last eight years and up to this day, an obsolete 1928 agreement between the United States of America and Czechoslovakia, signed in a different time and for different reasons, was indiscriminately applied by Czech courts. The agreement is used to deny Czech expatriates their Czech citizenship. This practice continues despite the fact that in 1967 the agreement was found to be unconstitutional by the United States Supreme Court, was never used there and was rescinded by both countries in 1997. The Czech Republic continues to misuse this agreement for the sole purpose of stripping tens of thousands of its citizens abroad of their citizenship rights.

These facts are very well known to all officials in the Czech Republic but have been persistently suppressed because there is no will to punish or redress crimes of the communist era.

It is common knowledge that properties confiscated in the course of the Communist regime's criminal activities of politically motivated jailings, executions and forced collectivization of farmland are often left in the hands of criminals and collaborators of the former regime. Even the so called Restitution laws, which enable restitution just in part and only to some, are used and applied by the courts in a way unfavorable to the victims. Not a single case exists in which a former high ranking Communist official was forced to return an unlawfully confiscated home or farm that he purchased with preference and below the fair price. This problem is common to the victims living abroad and in the Republic regardless of their present citizenship status.

Today, the Czech Republic is applying for accession to NATO and to the European Union.

It would therefore appear that its first priority should be to adhere to the principles of the Western world and its basic legal concepts and to distance itself from its unsavory past. Instead, it is turning away from its citizens abroad in order to protect the new owners of the confiscated properties. Moreover, under the guise of privatization, it continues to sell stolen properties, often into the hands of those who strip their assets and run them to ground. It is important to realize that more than material values are compromised. After all, one does not take those to the grave. What is at stake is the way of thinking, acting and applying justice which continues very much along the same lines as under the totalitarian regime.

Through the speeches of its representatives, the Czech Republic makes an effort to impress the world and to convince it that it is striving to become a real democracy. It wishes the world to believe that it does everything it can to become a state under the rule of law through the legislation it adopts and implements. Instead, it knowingly acts in contradiction with international, legally binding agreements, thus violating its own Constitution. Since July 19, 1995, it continues to ignore a request and three reminders of the Committee for Human Rights for a correction of Czech discriminatory and confiscatory laws. It ignores the Resolution of the European Parliament from December 14, 1995. Resorting to lame excuses and untruths, it tries to neutralize repeated appeals from the United States Commission on Cooperation and Security in Europe. It acts contrary to the commonly accepted legal principle which deems selling of stolen property to be a criminal act.

Such immoral and illegal conduct is damaging to the reputation of the Czech Republic abroad and is the cause of the low state of moral standards at home. This is evident in the fraudulent manipulations, wholesale stealing and "tunneling" (a practice through which the assets of a company, newly acquired from the state in privatization, are sold or embezzled, leaving just the name of the company and its debt). These attitudes and practices are giving rise to doubts and questions by Western organizations. One should build a house on rock, not on sand.

Full and unqualified implementation of Act 119/90, which annulled all Communist verdicts of imprisonment and property confiscation is necessary to establish a favorable climate for investments. Who would invest in property that, even according to Czech laws, has been unlawfully confiscated and whose legal and original owners and their heirs will claim title in the future?

Should Czechs abroad accepts the risk that their sons and daughters, one day NATO soldiers, may be called to defend the Czech Republic, the blatant discrimination of Czechs abroad has to be struck from Czech laws.

The undersigned organizations and individuals are calling for the renewal of a state under the rule of law and for cooperation of all Czechs at home and abroad. Our country must not shine just in the speeches of its politicians but rather by settling the accounts of its painful and oppressive past and by adopting the ways of human rights and justice.

March 28, 1998

For details and further information, please call (416) 665-7324.