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Media highlight dark pasts of contenders

Secret police files and criminal complaints make headlines

January 30th, 2008 issue

By Ondřej Bouda

For The Post

As the countdown to the Feb. 8 election enters its home stretch, some dirty laundry on both President Václav Klaus and challenger Jan Švejnar has been dragged into the media spotlight. Klaus has been suspected of having worked for the Czechoslovak communist secret police (StB), while Švejnar is thought to have been partly responsible for a data leak at one of the country’s largest banks, ČSOB.

Although such accusations involve past events, they’ve been mixed into current political discussions as both candidates move toward the Feb. 8 showdown.

Regarding the incumbent, it seems the StB was more interested in Klaus than had been previously thought. Apart from the much-publicized file codenamed “Kluk” (Boy), Mladá fronta Dnes reported last week that the StB also kept another file, codenamed “Rek” (Hero). The latter file, however, was shredded three weeks after the collapse of the communist regime in late 1989, and it is not clear what aspect of Klaus it focused on.

The StB first began following Klaus’ activities in 1984. At the time he was working at the Czechoslovak National Bank, where he organized economic seminars. Agents monitored these meetings to determine whether they were a platform for anti-social opinions. The surveillance operation ended two years later and the documents codenamed “Kluk” ended up in the StB archives.

However, in April 1988, the StB started another file on Klaus, who by then was working at the Prognostic Institute of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences. It is not clear what this file was about as it was destroyed Dec. 9, 1989, almost a month after the Velvet Revolution (the only known record of it is a note about its destruction in the documents of Slovakia’s National Memory Institute).

The shredding of documents started sometime in mid-November 1989 and continued for a full month through Dec. 15. While experts decline to speculate about the content of the file “Rek,” their comments regarding events taking place at the StB archives following the revolution are unsettling.

“Due to an administrative oversight, the Interior Ministry was controlled for the first month after the revolution by First Deputy Alojz Lorenz, who at the same time was head of the StB,” said Jan Bureš of the Political Science Institute of Charles University. “The secret police thus had total operational freedom. Just like any other secret agency faced with a change of regime, they tried to destroy as much evidence as possible. Primarily this meant burning and shredding all files that concerned active agents, and files about people who rose to be the new political elite and thus became untouchable might have been destroyed.”

Pavel Žáček, director of the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes, was even more accusatory. “The StB tried to conceal its active agents who wanted to start a political career after the revolution. They succeeded almost completely,” he said.

Klaus has repeatedly stated his lack of interest in the StB files. “I doubt I could learn anything new and useful by looking into them,” he told the Czech News Agency a year ago. “Back then, I supposed they were spying on me. I didn’t know exactly who was shadowing me, but I didn’t really care.” While his spokesman declined further comment, he said that Klaus’ views on the matter remain unchanged.

Švejnar’s camp

Meanwhile, Czech-American economist Jan Švejnar faces, along with other former and current members of ČSOB management, a criminal complaint over a data leak two years ago, TV Nova reported last week. The complaint was filed by bank client Zbyněk Vašíček, who accused Švejnar and other ČSOB managers of failure to prevent the leak of bank clients’ sensitive data in 2003–05. According to Vašíček, data concerning client loans and contact information were simply thrown out in trash bins behind the Brno branch.

The senior opposition Social Democrats (ČSSD) are enraged by the complaint being filed against Švejnar only weeks before the presidential election and view the timing as highly suspicious, representatives said. Party leader Jiří Paroubek called the complaint “a futile effort by the Civic Democrats [ODS] to intentionally throw dirt at our presidential candidate, Švejnar.”

The head of the ODS deputies’ group, Petr Tluchoř, flatly rejected the allegation, stating, “Yes, and when it snows, it’s also our fault.”

Police have refused to comment on the case, saying it is too early in the investigation. Švejnar has declined to comment at present because he has not yet received any official information, his spokeswoman said.

Ondřej Bouda can be reached at news@praguepost.com

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