The 'political deal' about Nov. 17

The entire "democratic" side of Czech politics erupted in indignation last month when Andrej Babiš reached a "regular political deal" with the Slovak interior ministry under which the ministry acknowledged that Babiš didn't knowingly cooperate with the StB. Yet when Czechs celebrated the Nov. 17 holiday, hardly anyone showed interest in getting to the bottom of whether the student demonstration and police intervention in 1989 were orchestrated or spontaneous. Judge Vojtěch Cepl Jr. told Barbora Tachecí of Czech Radio last Thur. that there could be many reasons for the unwillingness to uncover the details, including a desire for personal glory on the part of the faces of the revolution or, on the contrary, support for the theory that Communism was collapsing anyway. Cepl said that information about the role of the StB, KGB and police keeps coming out. In a sense, today's "democrats" are still sticking by the same kind of "political deal" about history that they so criticized Babiš for last month.