Twenty years after the fall of the Iron Curtain, a major issue of our common European legacy remains unresolved. Although Europe has gathered extensive experience in dealing with the Nazi dictatorship, starting with the trials of Nazi war crimes and culminating in detailed information on the crimes and on the Holocaust, very little has been done in order to come to terms with the crimes committed by the communist dictatorships in Central and Eastern Europe.

There has been no comprehensive disclosure and evaluation of the crimes, many of which probably classify as crimes against humanity as defined by international law since 1945. The united Europe of today founds its existence on a strong commitment to the protection of the human rights of its citizens.

The conference was held in the heart of Europe wanted to create an overview of the crimes committed by the communist regimes behind the Iron Curtain, to assess them from a legal point of view  and to search for possible solutions to the situation today, its goal being reconciliation within the post-communist societies and a strengthened European integration across the former East-West divide.

The Conference was organized by the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes together with the partner institutions from the working group of the Platform of European Memory and Conscience. Institutions, guests and diplomats from Russia, Slovenia, Bulgaria, the United States, Romania, Slovakia, Hungary, Sweden; Lithuania,Estonia, Latvia, Belarus, Ukraine, Poland,Germany, Serbia, Finland and South Africa. Read more here. http://www.crimesofcommunism.eu/home.html

CONFERENCE PROGRAM

             

Opening of the conference 

 Jiří Liška, Vice-President of the Senate and Pavel Žáček , Director, Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes,(Czech Republic)

 

Inaugural Address by Mr. Harry Wu (USA),

former dissident and political prisoner in China, Director of the Laogai Research Foundation, Washington, D.C.

Communist regimes and crimes against humanity

Crimes committed by communist governments against their own citizens in the 20th century.
Twenty years since the fall of communism in Europe. Definition of crimes against humanity. The nature of communist crimes from the point of view of international legislation. Our commitment to justice. International treaties and resolutions.

Host: Jiří Liška, Vice-President of the Senate
Naděžda Kavalírová (Czech Republic), Chairwoman, Confederation of political prisoners of the Czech Republic, Chairwoman, Council of the ISTR
Martin Mejstřík (Czech Republic), former student leader of the Velvet Revolution, former Senator
Dainius Žalimas (Lithuania), Head of the Institute of International and European Union Law, Faculty of Law, Vilnius University

Crimes committed by communist regimes in the former Soviet Union, the new EU member states, Germany and the Balkans - studies of individual states 

Host: Alexandr Vondra, Senator, former dissident, former Deputy Prime Minister of European Affairs

     

Russia – Nikita V. Petrov, Vice-chairman, Memorial
Estonia – Toomas Hiio, Member of the Board, Institute of Historical Memory, and Research Director, Estonian War Museum
Latvia – Valters Nollendorfs, Director of External Affairs, Museum of the Occupation of Latvia 1940-1991
Lithuania – Emanuelis Zingeris, Chairman, International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupation Regimes in Lithuania
Ukraine – Igor Yukhnovsky, Director, Institute of National Memory of Ukraine;
Vlodymyr Viatrovych, Director of the Branch state archive, the Security Service of Ukraine

Crimes committed by the communist regimes - studies of individual states 

Host: Zuzana Vittvarová (Czech Republic), founder, Association Enemy’s Daughters

Belarus – Zianon Pazniak, former leader of the Belarusian opposition
Poland – Władysław Bułhak, Head, Division of Research, Expertise, Documentation and Library Holdings at the Public Education Office, Institute of National Remembrance
Slovakia – Lubomír Morbacher, Nation’s Memory Institute
Hungary –Janos M. Rainer, Director, Institute for the history of the 1956 Hungarian revolution
Germany – Hans Altendorf, Director, Federal office for the records of the national security services of the former GDR

Crimes committed by the communist regimes - studies of individual states

Host: Zdeněk Křivka (Czech Republic), Member, Confederation of political prisoners of the Czech Republic

     

THE JUSTICE (TO BE) DONE

Welcome by Hubert Gehring (Germany), Director,  Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung Prague

Opening by Miroslava Němcová (Czech Republic), First deputy chairwoman, Chamber of Deputies, Parliament of the Czech Republic

Case study: Communist crimes in Czechoslovakia and their prosecution.
Czechoslovakia as an example: classification of crimes committed in 1948-1989 and their prosecution after the fall of the communist regime. Host: Milan Hulík, lawyer, member of the Committee for the Defense of the Unjustly Persecuted (VONS)

Miroslav Lehký, 1st deputy director, Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes,Czech Republic
Pavel Gregor, former Head of investigation, UDV (Office for the Documentation and Investigation of Communist Crimes)
Eduard Stehlík, head of the education department and of the military library, Institute for Military History

Sentencing of communist criminals – country studies.
Germany, Poland – countries with long experience in prosecution of communist crimes. Shootings at the Berlin wall, other sentences of criminals from the former GDR. Experiences of the Institute of the Nation’s Memory. The Jaruzelski trial? Slovenia - legal responses to totalitarian communist crimes.
Romania – the road to justice and problems with application of international law. Was international law ever applied or considered?

Host: Göran Lindblad (Sweden), President, Political Affairs Committee, Vice-President, Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe
Christoph Schäfgen (Germany), former General prosecutor, Berlin
Witold Kulesza (Poland), Professor of criminal law, University of Łódz
Jernej Letnar Černič (Slovenia), researcher in international human rights law, European University Institute, Firenze, Italy
Raluca Grosescu (Romania), Head of the Research and Documentation Office, Institute for the Investigation of Communist Crimes in Romania

Thick lines, limited justice and the consequences.

Why has the road to justice been so unsatisfactory? The “thick line” - an explicit or unspoken phenomenon and its consequences. The rights of the victims. The role of law and the judiciary in post-totalitarian countries. What happened to the communist regime‘s judges, prosecutors and police? Were the approaches different in the post-communist countries?  What are the consequences in today’s societies in Central and Eastern Europe?

Host: László Tökés (Romania), Bishop, former dissident, MEP
Joachim Gauck (Germany), former Federal Commissioner for the records of the Stasi, chairman, association ‘Against oblivion – for democracy‘
Vytautas Landsbergis (Lithuania), former dissident and President of Lithuania, MEP

THE SOLUTION?
Venue: Office of the Government of the Czech Republic
opening by Jana Hybášková, (Czech Republic), former MEP

Crimes of Communism and Nazism – what have we learned?

Can we compare the crimes committed by the two dictatorships of the 20th century? The similarities, the differences. What did Western democracies know about the extent of human rights violations in the communist bloc? The Nazi crimes have been documented and prosecuted. Should we try to achieve the same for the communist crimes, and how? 

Host: Sandra Kalniete (Latvia), former dissident, MEP

Anders Hjemdahl (Sweden), founder, Institute for Information on the Crimes of Communism
Petr Brod (Czech Republic), journalist, former head of the BBC in the Czech Republic
Milan Zver (Slovenia), political scientist, sociologist, Member of the European Parliament

European Union and Human Rights.
The role of the European Union. How to achieve progress in integration in a Europe in which severe violations of fundamental rights remain unpunished?

Introduction: Heidi Hautala (Finland), Chairwoman, Human Rights Subcommittee, European Parliament

International justice: UN tribunals, the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
Transitional justice at the end of the 20th and beginning of the 21st centuries. Can parallels be found with the situation in Central and Eastern Europe? How to deal with communist crimes in the former communist countries?

Host: Tunne Kelam (Estonia), former dissident, MEP

Alexandra Mihalcea (Romania), lawyer, former collaborator of the International criminal tribunal for Rwanda
Ntsiki Sandi (South Africa), lawyer, former member of the Amnesty Committee, Truth and Reconciliation Commission
Boris Burghardt (Germany), lawyer, Department of ciminal law, Humboldt University, Berlin

How to attain justice in post-communist societies, notably in the new EU member states?
The lessons drawn. How to overcome the non-action of national courts?

Host: Pavel Žáček (Czech Republic), Director, Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes

Roundtable discussion

with Sandra Kalniete, László Tökés, Joachim Gauck, Harry Wu, Milan Zver, Vytautas Landsbergis, Tunne Kelam, Göran Lindblad,Ntsiki Sandi and other speakers and VIP guests of the conference

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On 26 February 2010, the last day of the International Conference “Crimes of the Communist Regimes”, a statement was presented in which the participants respond to the situation of the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes in connection with the revocation of Dr. Pavel Žáček, Director, on 17 February and to the revocation of Dr. Marius Oprea, President, and the withdrawal of investigative powers from the Romanian Institute for the Investigation of Communist Crimes, which was announced while Mr Oprea was participating in the Conference and opening an exhibition of his Institute in Prague as a part of the anti totalitarian festival MENE TEKEL.

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Film Screening: The Living

           

As part of the complimentary conference activities, a well-received screening of the award-winning film “The Living“ (“Zhivi“) by Sergiy Bukovsky (Ukraine 2008) was arranged by the Institute for Information on the Crimes of Communism, Sweden, the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes of the Czech Republic, and the Polish Institute in Prague.

The film tells the story of the Great Ukrainian Famine (Holodomor) of 1932-33. It also tells the story of British journalist Gareth Jones, whose truthful reports about the Ukrainian tragedy were never heard in the West.

The IICC would like to thank the Polish Instiute, the Polish Embassy, the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes and the film's producer, Ms. Victoria Bondar, for making it possible to screen the film,

For more information (in English) and a trailer of the film, please click here

Exhibition:

Common Denominator: Death

    

The exhibition was opened by the Romainian Ambassador to the Czech Republic, H.E Gitman, and Mr. Lazlo Tokes, bishop of Timisora and MEP. The exhibition was presented by Dr. Marius Oprea, Directors of the Institute for the investigation of Communist crimes in Romania and the Memory of Romanian Exile (IICCMER). The event was organized as a result of ten field campaigns undertaken in order to exhume the remains of the opponents of the Communist regime who were executed by the Securitate in the interval 1948-1952. Please read more here http://www.crimelecomunismului.ro/en