CHARTER 77" Part I: the Manifesto: Action, Reaction, and Counterreaction by Dennison I

SOUTHEAST EUROPE SERIES Vol. XXII No. 1 (Czechoslovakia) SOME OBSERVATIONS REGARDING "CHARTER 77" Part I: The Manifesto: Action, Reaction, and Counterreaction by Dennison I. Rusinow February 1977 If efforts by citizens to point out breaches of the Charter of Human Rights and of prevailing laws are regarded from the outset as criminal actions and are answered with various kinds of reprisals and discrimination, this only proves how justified and true was the criticism contained in the manifesto. open letter to the Czechoslovak Parliament, from Jill Hiek and Jan Patoka, spokesmen for "Charter 77," February 1977. "Charter 77," the Czechoslovak human rights regimes to take the radical steps necessary to movement that came dramatically to life at the silence them. To do so, as early reactions in the beginning of this year, is the latest, the purest, and West have already made clear, would invoke a potentially the most important manifestation of a quality and distribution of international criticism significantly new form and style of protest that that would be particularly unwelcome for a variety seems to be sweeping across communist-ruled of reasons at the present time. Eastern Europe. The Prague regime's so far nervous and hesitating response is similarly On the other hand, the recent history of the symptomatic of the agonizing dilemma that the region also suggests to these same regimes that form and timing of such movements are posing for initially insignificant movements of criticism and governments in the region and indirectly for others, protest, if not firmly contained, can grow, jump including the new American administration, who class boundaries to engage more than small must at least react to regime reactions if not to the coteries of impotent intellectuals, and escalate into movements themselves. major crises. Three times in a little more than two decadesin 1953, 1956, and 1968a little license Common to all these movements is their carefully for criticism, legitimizing popular dissatisfaction exclusive focus on widespread violations of specific and followed by a client regime's inability to cope "human rights" that are guaranteed by their coun- or its initiation of reforms that were unacceptable tries' laws and international agreements. None of to the region's paramount power, has led to Soviet them is calling for political reforms that challenge military interventions in one or another of these the formal system or otherwise assuming a "dissi- countries. While these restored the old order and dent," anti-Communist Party of anti-regime maintained Soviet hegemony, they also raised the stance. This is why their spokesmen so vehemently specter of an East-West confrontation with incal- object to inclusion under the Western press's un- culably dangerous potential. The domestic price helpful catchall label of "dissidents." Moreover, it was invariably high, and the fact that East-West is this form, including "internationalization" of the confrontations did not take place, because the legitimacy of their demands through appeals to stakes were so enormous and the challenge to the international accords signed by their govern- "national interests" of the Western powers was so mentsmost explicitly and frequently the "final modest, offers small comfort to those who know Act" signed by 35 European and North American how many wars have happened because events heads of government at Helsinki in August escaped the control of "decision makers" who 1975 that makes it unusually difficult for their never meant them to happen. Copyright (C) 1977, American Universities Field Staff, Inc. [DIR-l-'77] DIR-l-'77 -2- The situation today is different in many impor- preparations on all sides for the Belgrade confer- tant respects. There have been no demands so far ence that will review implementation of the for structural, political, or ideological reforms that Helsinki "Final Act" in June 1977 have already could be perceived as challenging Soviet hegemony invoked an impressive array of descriptions, or one-party rule, although such demands were in analyses, and expressions of concern in the Euro- fact later arrivals in earlier crises that were ulti- pean and American press and by spokesmen of mately resolved by the Red Army. Other elements, various political and ideological predispositions however, are again present. In Czechoslovakia and (including the Chinese, who have provocatively Poland dissenting intellectuals and discontented forecast "a new Prague spring"). A selection of workers appear once more to be finding common these provides the basis for this Report, which ground, a rare event that has always alarmed their should be considered merely a set of random and rulers. One is thus entitled to join the East Euro- premature observations for nonspecialists who may pean regimes in at least wondering what new wish to know a little more about a matter that is challenge to domestic law and order and then to now and in the immediate future of concern to d6tente, the international order, and possibly world American policy makers and public opinion. It is as well as regional peace may ensue this time if likewise the immediacy of these questions Charter 77 and its analogues elsewhere are not whether merely in anticipation of Belgrade or in quickly and effectively suppressed. more critical circumstancesthat excuses violation of a prudent rule: that in a fluid and rapidly de- These considerations constitute the other horn of veloping situation, with partial and often inaccu- the dilemma presently confronting the affected rate secondhand information, one should leave regimes in Eastern Europeand also, in different "instant analysis" to newspapers and other instant quality, the Western powers and public opinions media, whose mistakes of fact, interpretation, or whose moral and political support the human anticipation at least will not be confounded by rights campaigners are demanding. To put it more additional sources or subsequent developments provocatively: are we not about to be presented before they are even published. with more evidence in support of the "S0nnenfeldt Doctrine," here understood as really only a new I. Prague '77 phrasing for an old view that othersat one moment including Zbigniew Brzezinskihave also A manifesto addressed to the Czechoslovak auth- occasionally tried on for size and fit? Evidence, that orities and state news agency, dated January 1, is, for the view that the only real effect of persistent 1977, and signed by an initial group of 242 (in other efforts by East Europeans to gain more indepen- versions 257) Czechoslovak citizens was the first dence from Soviet domination and/or from Soviet public appearance of the informal group of human sociopolitical "models," given the improbability of rights campaigners who call themselves "Charter change in geopolitical realities, the global balance 77." The signatories came from many social strata, of power, or the nature of the Soviet system, is to including workers and politically heretofore unex- create an unhealthy regional instability and posed academics and scientists as well as promi- periodic crises that merely threaten East-West nent political and intellectual veterans of the peace, which is the only supervenient Western and "Prague spring" of 1968. Excerpts from the mani- American national interest in the area. If this is festo were published in several Western European trte, it can also be argued that the best American newspapers on January 7, and the full text policy is still to pass by on the other side, quickly appeared in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. and with only a softly muttered word of sympathy On the same day Prague police detained at least for Charter 77 and its kin and of disapproval when four leading signatories for interrogation as they are suppressed. "material witnesses," a status that meant they were not being charged and could not be held but that Meanwhile, and even without dramatic develop- also deprived them of legal rights to counsel or to ments that would require urgent and difficult refuse to give evidence. All were reportedly released policy decisions by the Westwhich most observers during the evening, but they and others were de- consider unlikelythe immediate regional impor- tained again for further interrogation on the next tance and human drama of present events and and subsequent days. This was the beginning of a -3- DIR-l-'77 campaign of harassment and intimidation that was noncommunist playwright who was politically to increase in intensity and in imaginativeness active in 1968, now employed in a brewery; and Ji{ during the following weeks. Htjek, 63, Czechoslovak Foreign Minister in the Dubeek period and a pre-1948 Social Democrat The manifesto begins by invoking the authority expelled from the Communist Party after the 1968 of the Czechoslovak Register of Laws, No. 120 of Warsaw Pact invasion. The manifesto also once October 13, 1976, which published (and thereby again invokes international legitimacy and support adopted as domestic law) the text of the Inter- for its demands: national Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and of the International Covenant on Economic, By its symbolic name Charter 77 denotes Social and Cultural Rights, "which were signed on that it has come into being at the start of a behalf of our Republic in 1968 reiterated at year proclaimed as Political Prisoners' Helsinki in 1975, and came into force in our Yeara year in which a conference in Bel- country on March 23, 1976. Since that date our grade is due

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