Czech press surveyed by Jan Jarab

Daily newspapers surveyed: Cesky denik, Lidova demokracie, Lidove noviny, Mlada fronta dnes, Prace, Rude pravo, Svobodne slovo, Telegraf.

In alphabetical order:

LIDOVA DEMOKRACIE (Catholic) informs on the first page about the "Secret Anti-Nuclear Report". According to LD, Greenpeace have discovered a secret report of the World Bank which says that all reactors of the Chernobyl type should be stopped and those nuclear power plants which are currently being built should not be finished.

LIDOVE NOVINY (liberal) inform about recent development on the Czech political scene. Social Democratic leader Milos Zeman "welcomes" the recent statement of Jiri Dienstbier, leader of the liberal OH, who said recently that "the Klaus Government must be defeated"; however, Dienstbier's deputy T.Sokol claims that collaboration with the Social Democrats is out of question, because the OH represents a non-socialist opposition. (JJ: Although there are many well-known Chartists and former Ministers in OH, the party is not even represented in Parliament.) Zeman, however, steadily invites OH to join him in his opposition to the right-wing Klaus Government. Both Zeman and Dienstbier have described the ODS + Christian Democrat coalition as "right-wing Bolsheviks".

Foreign Minister Zieleniec says that during yesterday's meeting with his Chinese counterpart in Beijing he mentioned human rights issues. Mainly, however, their conversation concerned economics.

Headline: The Copenhagen summit of the EC has decided to take steps to liberalize trade with Eastern and Central Europe.

PRACE (trade-union) brings an interview with J.Mlynarik, a historian who represents one of the Slovak groups in the CR. J.Mlynarik, who was a deputy in the previous Parliament, says that he is in favor of returning confiscated property to some 150 000 Germans who were not deported in the 1945 deportation wave and to whom the Czechoslovak citizenship was later returned. (He had proposed such a measure in Parliament but it was rejected.)

RUDE PRAVO (left-wing, ex-Communist) brings a long article by Petr Uhl (a former dissident who spent 9 years in Communist prisons and was in 1990 temporarily appointed as Director of CTK News Agency, where he still works today) under the title "Will Ruml Introduce an Iron Curtain?" Uhl criticizes Interior Minister Jan Ruml for his statement that 60% of the 18 000 migrants returned to Slovakia in the first 5 months of the year were "illegal migrants"; the Minister used this as an explanation why a firm border between the CR and Slovakia is inevitable (and he plans to introduce it on July 1,1993, despite lack of cooperation on the Slovak side). Uhl points out that a vast majority of these "illegal migrants" have entered the CR legally and only extended their stay beyond the permitted time. "Anyway, let us suppose that the Minister isn't foolish. He must know that fixed border crossings - built allegedly for foreign nationals - do not solve the problem: legal migrants will come waving their passport, and stay,

while the illegal ones will simply cross it elsewhere. No - what we really need is a guarded border...Why? Not just because of refugees. According to Ruml's ideological vision, the Western civilization and its prosperity is threatened by the Balkanic, Soviet, Oriental instability. And the Czechs have always been part of this Western civilization; if they are reluctant to let us in today, let's prove to them, that we deserve it, that we can defend our Eastern border from the Oriental barbarians...If Jan Ruml is able to persuade the Government and Parliament about his xenophobic and anti-Slovak truth, it will be a catastrophy." Ruml quotes Czech philosopher Egon Bondy who says that if the rich North doesn't change its attitude to the poor South, then these hungry people will simply come and take from us what we have...If we all, in Europe and the former Soviet Empire, are to follow Bondy's appeal, we should try not to enter something, overtake someone, - we should work for partnership, for cooperation on basi

s of equality. Only this attitude can result in integration - not only of Europe but also of the world. In this process, building borders is simply counterproductive," says Petr Uhl.

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SURVEY OF SLOVAK PRESS by CTK

BRATISLAVA, June 23 (ÇTK) - The left-leaning daily +Pravda+

points to a press conference of Miklós Duray, chairman of the

Égyüttélés-Coexistence movement of ethnic Hungarians living in

Slovakia, which is to take place in Vienna today. The daily

reports on documents circulated Tuesday among the participants

of the conference on human rights, which is currently taking

place in Vienna. The documents demand "general and regional

self-government and personal autonomy" (for the Hungarian ethnic

minority in Slovakia -ed.). They also claim that the language of

the major ethnic group inhabiting a region become the area's

official language. "The journalists participating in the event

noted Duray striving to imitate the Tibetan Dalai Lama in

popularity," +Pravda+ comments.

Reacting to Hungary's possible obstructing Slovakia's

admission into the Council of Europe (CE), as envisaged by

Slovak Premier Vladimír Meçiar on Sunday, the tabloid +Nový ças+

asks whether or not Hungary's minority rights legislation was

considered during Hungary's admission into the CE. Hungary still

has no "minority law", the daily stresses. "These arguments

should be presented by both our diplomacy and our lobby abroad,"

+Nový ças+ writes.

The paper also focuses on a bill regulating the internal

rules of the Slovak parliament and reducting a deputy's mandate

- for example, in depriving him of his right to vote - in case

he withdraws from the group or political movement which

nominated him to his post. Some provisions of the bill, which

were approved by the leadership of the ruling Movement for a

Democratic Slovakia (HZDS), should become valid (retroactively)

as of January 1, 1993. "In other words, a parliamentary deputy

who left his group of deputies to become independent, will have

lost his deputy's mandate since January 1, 1993," +Nový ças+

writes, adding that Meçiar and (his) HZDS are thus settling

their internal problems with the "Kñaæko-group". (Being

dismissed from the post of Slovak Foreign Minister at Meçiar's

initiative, former HZDS Deputy Chairman Milan Kñaæko, together

with other eight HZDS deputies, withdrew from the HZDS group to

form an independent one in early April -ed.).

+Slovenský denník+, the daily close to the opposition

Christian Democratic Movement (KDH) comments on the fact that

the envisaged coalition between the HZDS and the Slovak National

Party (SNS) has been put off. This is due to the controversies

in the two parties' programmes and their inappropriate claims.

The SNS's claim to veto rights in the government is a rather

ridiculous gesture, as the SNS has a mere 15 seats in the

150-seat Slovak parliament, the daily underlines. "The veto

would likely become a permanent occurence as the distance

between the economic ideas of the HZDS and the SNS is like that

between the heaven and earth, and the two parties are well aware

of this," +Slovenský denník+ writes. It is possible that Meçiar

will protract the negotiations (on a HZDS-SNS coalition) until

the parliament session ends, and having attained his goals, will

then "throw the SNS overboard", the paper adds.

The trade unionist daily +Práca+ writes that information

emerged at a recent meeting of the Slovak opposition parties

that Meçiar was preparing a heavy attack against Jozef Stank,

member of the Democratic Left Party (SDL), who was recently

nominated as the opposition's joint candidate for the post of

head of the Slovak Supreme Inspection Office (NKù). Meçiar wants

to "dig up some dirt" on Stank's membership in the Slovak

Communist Party prior to November 1989 (when the Communist

regime was toppled in Czechoslovakia -ed.), the daily notes.

"Filling of the NKù leading posts will indicate to what extent

the SNS accomplished the role of Meçiar's Trojan horse. After

the SNS reunits with the HZDS [in a coalition], all further

plans of the opposition might be lost, including the intended

repeated expression of no confidence in Slovak Health Minister

Viliam Soboña or meeting the growing ambitions of [Kñaæko's

newly established] Alliance of Democrats to fill some parliament

posts," +Práca+ comments. Meçiar wants to test the opposition's

fragility by protracting the HZDS-SNS negotiations, the paper

adds.