US embassy cable - 05BRATISLAVA135

UNCLAS  BRATISLAVA 000135 
 
SIPDIS 
 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PREL, PHUM, IZ, CU, LO, NATO 
SUBJECT: SLOVAKIA POLITICAL ROUNDUP FEBRUARY 17, 2005 
 
REF: (A) Bratislava 17 (B) Prague 174 
 
SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED -- PROTECT ACCORDINGLY 
 
NTM-I Contribution 
------------------ 
1. (SBU) Parliament approved a new, additional mandate 
February 10 for Slovakia's participation in the NATO 
Training Mission - Iraq (NTM-I).  The GOS will initially 
send two MOD trainers to Iraq and an additional three at the 
first troop rotation.  The MOD sent the first trainers to 
Italy to prepare for this mission the week before the 
parliamentary vote.  No one considered the proposal 
controversial, and parliament approved the mandate easily. 
The contribution was not reported in the Slovak press.  The 
MOD and MFA agreed to a modest proposal of five trainers 
after the Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) mandate of 110 
soldiers had gone partially fulfilled with 105 soldiers for 
months.  The GOS lacks soldiers with certain specialized 
skills to fulfill the 110-soldier OIF mandate, although the 
NTM-I mandate does not change the OIF mandate (Ref A). 
 
Cuba: Meetings with Dissidents Only Informal 
--------------------------------------------- - 
2. (U) Immediately following the January 31 GAERC meeting, 
FM Eduard Kukan announced the GOS will follow the Czech 
proposal on Cuba policy.  Kukan argued that Cuba cannot 
divide the EU.  The EU consensus lifts sanctions but allows 
individual states to determine whether they will invite 
dissidents to official receptions.  Kukan said the GOS will 
no longer invite Cuban dissidents to official receptions, 
but Slovak diplomats are obligated to promote human rights 
in all meetings with the GOC.  The GOS will continue to meet 
with dissidents informally.  The Czechs, Slovaks, Poles, 
Danes, and Germans will try this policy for six months; if 
the GOC does not improve its human rights record, the EU can 
re-impose sanctions (Ref B). 
 
Penal Code Revision Withdrawn 
---------------------------- 
3. (U) Parliament voted February 9 on over 300 provisions in 
the penal code individually and made 175 changes.  Justice 
Minister Daniel Lipsic withdrew the revised law from final 
consideration, since he objected to the parliament's 
changes.  Most notably, the revised draft law would: 
     -- keep communist-era laws that allow jail time for 
     criticism of public officials.  Lipsic has spoken out 
     against this provision months earlier, although he did 
     not remove the provision from the draft he submitted to 
     parliament; 
 
     -- remove the criminalization of denying the Holocaust 
     and other hate speech on freedom of speech grounds; and 
 
     -- remove the criminalization of supporting organized 
     crime and terrorist groups.  SDKU and HZDS argued 
     supporting a terrorist or organized criminal group 
     should not be illegal, because this law is duplicative 
     (i.e. murder is a crime) and it is vague enough to be 
     exploited. 
 
Lipsic stated he removed the new penal code from 
consideration, because it watered down anti-terrorism and 
anti-mafia initiatives.  Most expect the penal code to be 
considered again in May 2005. 
 
Second Batch of Secret Police Files Released 
-------------------------------------------- 
4. (U) The Institute for the Memory of the Nation published 
the Banska Bystrica (Central Slovakia) batch of files of the 
communist-era secret police (StB).  The Institute only 
releases names of individuals who agreed to collaborate with 
the StB and had the written approval of the head of 
department, head of the secret police administration or the 
Interior Minister for the person to be entered into the 
register of consciously collaborating secret collaborator. 
These conditions apply to only the most active collaborators 
with the secret police. 
 
5. (U) The Banska Bystrica batch includes one MP, Gabriel 
Karlin (HZDS) and Education Minister Martin Fronc.  Fronc is 
a controversial figure, who has advanced the post-communist 
education reform of initiating modest university tuition 
fees.  Fronc is recorded as "an examined person," which the 
KDH Spokesperson has said means he was followed but never 
cooperated with the secret police.  Archbishop of Trnava and 
Bratislava, Jan Sokol, was labeled a collaborator.  Bishop 
Rudolf Balaz was labeled "an enemy of the [communist] 
regime." 
 
Poll: Slovak Support for NATO Membership 
 
---------------------------------------- 
6. (U) More than 58 percent of citizens support Slovakia's 
NATO membership, according to public opinion poll carried 
out by the Mayer/McCann-Erickson agency for the Ministry of 
Defense.  Almost 55 percent of those polled were in favor of 
Slovakia's participation in collective defense under NATO's 
umbrella.  Over 83 percent of Slovaks said NATO should be 
the guarantor of security in the world. The poll had a 
representative sample of 1,091 respondents. 
MINIMIZE CONSIDERED 
 
THAYER 
 
 
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