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Date:         Wed, 19 Aug 1992 21:35:44 EST
From:         HAMMERL@UCS.INDIANA.EDU
Subject:      Meciar

The following article appeared in the NYT on Monday, August
10, 1992 (p. A3)

Foes of Slovak Chief Fear He'll Resist Democracy
			By
		Stephen Engelberg

Bratislava, Czechoslovakia-- In a few months, if all goes
according to plan, the 74-year-old union of Czechs and
Slovaks will end, and Slovakia will emerge as Europe's
newest nation with the newly elected Slovak Prime Minister,
Vladimir Meciar, as its leader.
	That prospect gladdens nationalists here, who say
Slovaks have been waiting a thousand years to win control
over their destiny.  But the Government elected in June has
stirred anxieties among opposition politicians, who see in
Mr. Meciar's first steps harbingers of an authoritarianism
to come.
	A former Communist turned populist whose campaign
touched Slovak national sentiment and fears over the
deteriorating economic situation, Mr. Meciar dismisses these
worries.  His vision for Slovakia, he insists, embraces a
free-market economy, political pluralism and tolerance for
the 500,000 ethnic Hungarians who live in this republic of
five million.
	Opposition politicians paint a darker picture,
saying Mr. Meciar's election promises of economic recovery
have raised hopes that cannot possibly be met.  Mr. Meciar's
detractors contend an independent Slvoakia is likely to have
a pliant press, Government-dominated economy and strained
relations with both neighboring Hungary and the ethnic
Hungarians living in Slovakia.

	NO CHANGES MINISTER SAYS

	"Nothing changes," said Dusan Slobodnik, the Culture
Minister in the new Government, in respokse to the charges.
"I would like to stress this fact.  Nothing changes in the
development of democracy in Slovakia.  Those who say
democracy would be cut or limited, they don't tell the
truth.  Nothing has ahppened that proves their
insinuations."     /happened\
	Opposition politicians point to these developments:
In its first weeks in office, the Meciar Government
renationalized the company that prints all the newspapers in
Bratislava, blocked a foreign joint venture that would
guarantee the financial security of Smena, the leading
independent daily, and told local bankers that the
Government intended to raise its ownership share in the
banks.
	As for the Hungarians, Mr. Meciar announced in
Parliament that any ethnic politicians who roil national
tensions would be treated as "political criminals."
	In a television interview, Mr. Meciar warned Hungary
against interfering in Slovakia's internal affairs, and
spoke ominously of purported military preparations on the
southern border.
	"We know that the Hungarian Army, and particularly
the air force, is, in spite of its lack of money, conducting
exercises even at a higher level than NATO pilot training,"
he said.  "This doesn't mean that we think they will attack
us, for heaven's sake.  But this aggressiveness against
other nations does not seem at all right to us."
	Hungary angrily denied the charge.
	Shortly after winning the election that has
propelled Czechoslovakia toward dissolution, Mr. Meciar
informed Slovak television of his plans to deliver weekly
broadcast speeches.
	Jan Fule, the news director, politely reminded Mr.
Meciar that Slovak law allowed the Government such
unrestricted access to the ariwaves only in emergencies, and
suggested instead a weekly program in which the Prime
Minister could face questions from journalists.
	"He refused," Mr. Fule recalled.  "He said that if
questioning was needed his press spokesman would be good
enough to do it."
	For the moment, the result is an impasse, but Mr.
Meciar's allies are working on a reorganization of Slovak
television that will most likely cost Mr. Fule his job.
	Among the dissidents who helped overthrow Communism
in 1989, the fear of the new regime is palpable.  Maria
Kanska, a member of the political party that initially led
the fight against Communism in Slovakia, said one of the new
Government's first acts was to dismiss at least 90 civil
servants.  Mrs. Kanska, a lawyer, found no takers when she
offered free legal defense to anyone willing to file a suit
challenging the removal.
	"My friends and I are in the group starting to
fear," she said.  "I know people who have sold their weekend
homes in Slovakia and bought in the Czech lands.  My mother
took all her savings out of the Slovak banks.

		THEY ARE PANICKING

	"It is very dangerous what Mr. Meciar keeps saying
that we must be united.  This is not consistent with a
democratic society, to have to be united.  We know what it
means to have to share one opinion.
	Jan Carnogursky, the previous Prime Minister, whose
Christian Democratic Party ran poorly in the recent
elections, has little patience for such sentiments, or for
the handful of intellectuals planning to leave Slovakia
rather than live under Mr. Meciar's Government.
	Switching from English to Slvoak in a recent
interview, he said, "They are cowards," and then, returning
to English, amended that to, "They are panicking."
	Mr. Carnogursky, who was repeatedly jailed by the
Communists, said "Even if he would want to, Mr. Meciar will
not be able to establish a dictatorial regime."
	The questions of Slovakia's future, Mr. Carnogursky
said, are more subtle.  "Mr. Meciar has a gift for appealing
to ordinary people," he said.  "He speaks their language,
thinks in their terms.  It is terms of the last 40 years.
It won't be the rehabilitation of Communism, but it will be
a return to their way of thinking and speaking."
	Roman Kovac, Deputy Prime Minister of Slovakia, said
in an interview that the opposition complaints were
unfounded.  The Government reasserted control over the main
printing company because a private monopoly in this instance
posed more of a threat to democracy than a public one, he
said.
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