& çâÌæÚUæð´ ·¤è ¥ôÚU Îð¹Ùæ ÁæÚUè ÚU¹ð´ ¥ÍæüÌ ¥ÂÙð ÜÿØ ÂÚU ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´Ð ãæÚU Ù ×æÙð´, €UØô´ç·¤ ·¤æ× ·¤ÚUÙð âð ¥æÂ·¤ô ©gðàØ ·¤è Âýæç# ãôÌè ãñ ¥õÚU ÁèßÙ ·¤æ ¹æÜèÂÙ ÎêÚU ãôÌæ ãñÐ ÖÜð ãè ÁèßÙ ×ð´ ç·¤ÌÙè Öè ·¤çÆÙæ§ü €UØô´ Ù ¥æ°, çÁ™ææâæ ¥õÚU ©ˆâæã ÕÙæ° ÚU¹ð´Ð ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´, ÜÿØ ã×ðàææ ¥æÂ·Ô¤ Âæâ ãôÌð ãñ´ çÁ‹ãð´ ÂæÙð ·Ô¤ çÜ° ÂýØæâ ¥æÂ ·¤Öè Öè àæéM¤ ·¤ÚU â·¤Ìð ãñ´Ð

Europe

Reborn Nations Exorcise Marxist Past
*** European ex-communist states are starting to realise that throwing out the totalitarian regimes in their countries is not equivalent to de-communisation. Anne Olson of IPS reports from Warsaw. ***
POLAND’S new government has declared war on communism, and (Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria have passed laws barring ex-communists from political life — yet decommunisation remains an elusive concept for the struggling new democracies.
This month over 300 Intel Icctuals and politicians from Central and eastern Europe gathered here to discuss the complex process of breaking with their communist past and what it means lo their societies.
"Our purpose was to promote a civilised confrontation of opposing views." said Aleksander Smoiar, board chairman of Ihc Slcfan Ba lory Foundation which sponsored the conference.
Tn some societies, politics is not looking for truth, but power and lighting and coalition-building," he said. "So in a way. our aspiration is lo do the very deep preparatory work from which political concepts can develop."
The two-day conference attracted various intellectuals including Iwo Polish cx-prlmc ministers, Hungarian free market economists, former members of the human rights group Charter 77 now part of the Prague government, and Catholic and Marxist sociologists and philosophers.
But the powerhouse cast was not enough, with the participant* quickly realising that the concept of decommunisation' Itself Is elusive.
Docs decommunisation, for example, mean a determined programme to rid society of communist influence and structure? Or is tl simply a by product of the process of building a market-oriented society and attendant democratic structures?
Czechoslovakia has tried Ihc first definition. Last November, ft adopted a law barring former ranking communist party members or cx-sccurily agents from posts In the government, army, slate firms or schools for five years. Bulgaria passed a similarlaw recently.
Vaclav Benda, leader of Czechoslovakia's Christian Democratic Party, said the approach has "absolutely positive" effects because groups dominated by ex-communists are becoming less effective politically. "It is not just an element of justice but a defence against the offensive of the former communists," he said.
Dana Nemcova, a deputy In the Cz.cchoslovak Federal Parliament, was not so sure. Nemcova said the law has also affected people who had long ago broken with their commu-nisl past.
I*ist year, ten members of Parliament were accused publicly of being secret police agents or Informers. Many re-
futed the charges, but said they were unable to defend themselves In the hysterical political climate.
While the ex-communist states share a totalitarian past, major differences existed among each country's commu-
nist regimes.
Poland's martial law period in the early 1980's, for instance, never came to the harshness of the Prague government before Ils sudden collapse tn November 1989.
In a recent survey on expe-
riences of people in Czechoslovakia. Poland and Hungary, only eight percent of respondents tn Poland considered decommunisation a major necessity, while about 80 percent in Czechoslovakia favoured ft.
Hungarian participants pointed instead to the problem of responsibility for crimes committed during the ill-fated 1956 uprising, when thousands did at the hands of Soviet troops called in to crush the revolt.
Only five such cases have been brought to trial, and the number is unlikely to exceed 100. One Hungarian said decommunisation was "an issue created by political elites’, adding that his people were far more concerned with everyday problems.
In Poland, where the powerful Influence of the Catholic church helped Poles create their own society within a weak regime, the concerns went back to abuses committed during the Stalinist period of the late 1040's and early 1950's.
Nevertheless, the Polish Interior Ministry is drafting a law that Would weed out of public office Poles who collaborated with the secret police. The leading party In the ruling
coalition, the Centre Alliance, Is the author of the decommunisation policy.
The measure is strongly opposed by the Democratic Left Alliance, Poland's reformed communists who have the second-largest caucus in Parliament.
Its leaders argue that Poland already has all the existing legislation needed to bring to account those deemed worthy of punishment for communist-cra crimes, but has failed to use iL
"Decommunisation is very safe for the new power elites because they are directing popular aggression towards the power group that lost." said Janusz Rcykowski, a professor who was one of the leading reformists in the last Polish Communist Politburo.
Samolar said many Poles do not think any special measures arc needed. But for those who do. the problem is how to formulate measures within a legal system that is part of the communist legacy. None of the ex-communist states of Central and Eastern Europe has yet adopted a newbody of law to govern its activities.
The current state of law imposes very stringent conditions for punishing crimes of the past," Smoiar said. They impose limitations on what we can do to the communist*. This is a transitory period where we don't yet have a new legal code. This create* a terribly complex problem.”