The Czech radar 'miracle'
By Jeremy Druker for ISN
Now, a mere six weeks later, Rice will soon be back in town - around 8 July is the latest speculation - and the chances that the deal will squeak through parliament are higher, much higher.
In early May, before Rice’s meeting was postponed for scheduling reasons, the future of Washington’s plans to place a radar station in a town 90 kilometers southwest of Prague - a key part of US plans to build a missile defense shield in Europe against rogue states - was looking dim. According to Czech law, both houses of parliament and the president must approve any deployment of foreign troops on Czech territory, and the ruling Civic Democrats (ODS) had big problems.
The loyalty of ODS deputies has never been questioned over the radar site, but their coalition partners - the Christian Democrats (KDU–ČSL), and the Green Party (SZ) - have been another matter. Two out of the six Green deputies have long expressed their reservations, and at least one Christian Democrat has also been wavering. But the parties in opposition - the Social Democrats (CSSD) and the Communist Party - are dead set against the plan, and CSSD leader Jiri Paroubek has threatened to expel any member voting for the radar station.
Paroubek’s worries about party discipline are well-placed. Since the two main left- and right-wing camps in parliament ended up in a dead heat following the 2006 elections, the ruling coalition has depended on CSSD defectors to survive its original vote of confidence and, subsequently, to pass major pieces of legislation. Until last month, those defectors numbered three, which would still not have been enough to replace the doubters in the coalition’s ranks.
The pessimism over the success of the radar deal has now, however, largely evaporated, and all it took was yet another defection of a Social Democratic deputy. At the end of May, Petr Wolf abruptly decided to leave the CSSD.
The press speculated that Wolf’s departure might have something to do with the conclusions of the country’s Highest Control Office that a company owed by Wolf had misused a grant by the state. The financial office in the city of Ostrava is currently reviewing the case, and the Environment Ministry will then decide whether Wolf must return up to several million crowns or not (1 million crowns equals approximately US$ 66,500).
The Social Democrats then picked up that theme and suggested that the ODS had blackmailed Wolf: In return for leaving the CSSD, his financial errors would be forgiven. Wolf and the ODS resolutely denied the accusation. Instead, Wolf countered, it was Paroubek who had threatened earlier in the year to publicize the case if Wolf didn’t vote for the party’s candidate in the presidential elections - the kind of pressure that eventually drove him to leave the CSSD.
Ugly party politics aside, the important thing for the supporters of the radar base is that Wolf has been known to support the US plan, despite the party line. His defection now translates into a majority of 101 votes that Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek can suddenly, somewhat miraculously, promise his American counterparts.
For the US State Department, the now probable parliamentary approval of the treaty will surely be welcome, since the Bush administration has expended an enormous amount of energy to get deals on the books with the Czech Republic and Poland before the president leaves office. But the larger picture should prompt deeper reflection and even some mixed feelings.
The installation of the radar station has come at a high price in Czech public opinion. The plans have prompted massive citizen protests, hunger strikes and a petition signed by over 100,000 people.
As Marek Svehla pointed out in a recent commentary in the weekly Respekt, the anti-radar movement has become the strongest and best-led opposition movement since the Velvet Revolution, uniting around 60 civic associations. The opposition has been bitter and has surely been fed by the anti-Americanism that has built up over the years of the Bush administration and now often divides young people from their pro-American parents.
So, on the one hand, those in the US administration who have lamented the passivity of the Czechs and the stunted growth of civil society should rejoice that such a cause - any cause - has rallied thousands, including many young people, into action. On the other, the cause is, unfortunately, one that revolves around the US and will likely reinforce some of the negative perceptions of current US foreign policy among a good chunk of the younger generation.
And then there is the uncomfortable reality that parliamentary approval might come about because of some form of political corruption - long a worry that US officials have had about the Czech Republic and a particularly high priority for the current US ambassador in Prague, Richard W Graber.
Yes, the Social Democrats have furnished no proof for their blackmail allegations, just as similar mudslinging after previous defections also failed to generate any evidence. Yet the perception of corruption remains, partly because the defectors - Wolf in this case, and his predecessors as well - have done such a poor job of explaining their departures.
Some Czech commentators have also wondered why Wolf didn’t just wait to vote for the radar station and have Paroubek unceremoniously throw him out of the party, allowing him to play the role of victim and a martyr for his principles.
For its part, the ODS has attracted suspicions because it has already made clear that it has no scruples about an “ends justify the means” approach. In May, for example, the Czech daily Lidove noviny reported that the ODS would block ratification of the International Criminal Court until the junior Green Party agreed to the radar - despite the fact that the country remains the only country in the European Union yet to ratify the ICC’s founding Rome Statute and will take over the EU presidency next January.
In an interview with Lidove noviny, Hynek Fajmon, an ODS member of the European Parliament, didn’t hide the party’s cynical approach: “The issues can be presented as mutually interconnected. With clenched teeth, we'll nod to the ICC, which is not our priority, and the [Greens] will with clenched teeth nod to the radar.” He apparently had no misgivings that such tactics might trivialize the entire issue of international justice and crimes against humanity.
In the end, the latest defection of a Social Democrat means that the smiles on the faces of Secretary of State Rice and Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg next week will be more justified - the deal they are signing might actually become reality. Yet all the intrigues around the upcoming parliamentary vote and the passion of the protests should at least leave a bad taste in their mouths.