The Stasi past of two ex-ministers

Two ministers who held office during Czechoslovakia's post-communist period, former Minister of the Interior Richard Sacher and former Defence Minister Miroslav Vacek, have been exposed as former collaborators with the StB, the communist secret service. Files on the two ministers were found in around two hundred previously unsorted sacks of papers that were supposed to be destroyed during the upheaval of the fall of communism. "Is it scandalous that the ministers worked for the Stasi ?" asks Martin Zverin. "Of course. But is it surprising? No. ... If 18 years after the fall of communism the names of prominent agents for the communist apparatus of repression are still being revealed and the public is still interested, this is an expression of its frustration that the promised confrontation with the past has been a very selective process. The same goes for the police's investigation of corporate crime. The big fish have been able to sit back and relax. Only once we are convinced that our communists can no longer do any harm will we cease to take an interest in such new revelations."

» full article (external link, Czech)
More from the press review on the subject » Domestic Policy, » History, » Czech Republic
All available articles from » Martin Zvěřina

» To the complete press review of Wednesday, May 30, 2007