PRESIDENT OF SLOVENIA KUCAN
JUSTIFIES MASS EXECUTIONS BY HIS PARTY COMRADES
by Dr. Vlado Bevc
At the Holocaust Conference in Stockholm, on January 27, 2000, Slovenia's
President Milan Kucan stated: "In connection with its aspirations to
membership in the European Union, Slovenia will not accede to demands that
it repudiate acts and decisions by which the Slovenian state punished the
criminals of the occupying forces and those who collaborated with them in
committing crimes against the Slovenian nation."
It is clear that with these words Kucan intended to justify the post-war
police and communist party terror and the so-called extrajudicial
executions of political opponents carried out by the communists after the war.
For domestic use, Kucan's cabinet released a statement that the
"President-for-Life" had on several occasions condemned the extrajudicial
mass
executions. It is too bad that this was restricted for domestic use only
and
that he did not repudiate these acts before the world opinion in
Stockholm.
The conclusions that follow from Kucan's statement are clear:
- In Slovenia the civil war between the "reds" and the "whites" has not
yet ended. Constant recall of these matters in public is obviously useful
to someone because it clouds the cardinal question, viz., whither Slovenia?
It is a fact that without reparation of the injustices committed during 50 years
of
communist dictatorship-- to the extent that they can be repaired --
burdens
Slovenia's future with matters which cannot be ignored forever.
- The Slovenian president sought to legalize the criminal acts of his
country with the Potsdam declaration of 1945. But no party of the Potsdam
declaration advocated summary extrajudicial executions. [It is true that
Stalin -- Kucan's Teacher and Idol-- at Teheran proposed that all enemy
(German) officers and intellectuals be executed but when Churchill,
according to his memoirs, vigorously objected, Stalin withdrew his
proposal
saying that he only made it "in jest."]. In fact, the public no longer
reacted in the manner Kucan has been used to and he had to make a partial
retreat before the criticism of the Slovenian public and even the generally
subservient media. There are thus two kinds of anti-fascism, according to
Kucan: the western, democratic, anti-fascism and the eastern, Stalinist,
anti-fascism. Therefore, Kucan's belated departure from the assertion that
the communist terror and murders were carried out "in the spirit of
Potsdam"
represents an important victory of his critics. If the president will
continue to consider his critics as his enemies he will only demonstrate
how
difficult is the path for the policy of reparations and correction of
injustices in Slovenia.
- From the moral point of view it is clear what the communists did after
the war and continued to do for many years in its aftermath. In 1945 the
communists demonstrated that they are no different than the Nazis. To the
Nazi holocaust they responded with a holocaust of their own committed on
the
undesirable categories of their own population. The Jewish position versus
the Nazis was entirely different in its essence not because the Jews were
a
priory better than all the rest but because the rule of law is at the core
of the Jewish tradition and its religion. To the Nazi holocaust the
Jews --
as well as the State of Israel -- responded in the only possible and
democratic manner, that is, with legality and the rule of law.
Even the
most
heinous crime is committed by an individual and even the most despicable
criminal has the right to a trial and legal defense.
Such principles are
completely alien to Kucan and to his Slovenian electorate.