Brian Mitchell, Washington editor of Investor's Business Daily, has just
written this excellent piece the real composition of the leaders of "new
Europe" and just how they arrived in their positions of power.

-Daniel

by Brian Mitchell
Investor's Business Daily
February 25, 2003

NATO may be out, thanks to France, Germany and Belgium. But, hey, there's
still the Vilnius 10 – a loose league of ex-Communist NATO wannabes in
Eastern Europe. This month they signed on to a statement of support for
war with Iraq. They won't be sending troops, of course. But at least
they'll say they're on our side.

Public opinion is elsewhere in Eastern Europe. A recent poll by Gallup
International finds that "New Europeans" don't see the issue much
differently than the French and the Germans.

War with Iraq is most popular in Romania, where 45% are for it. It's
least popular in Bosnia, where 84% are opposed.

But since when did public opinion matter in Eastern Europe?

All but two of the Vilnius10 are run today by ex-Communists. For years
these men kowtowed to the Soviet Union. Now they're kowtowing to the U.S.

The two exceptions among the Vilnius10 are Albania and Latvia. Their
leaders are all for war but aren't ex-Communists.

In the other eight – Bulgaria, Croatia, Estonia, Lithuania, Macedonia,
Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia – it's "meet the new boss, same as the
old boss."

"It's not just that they were Communists – anyone could have been a
Communist – it's that they were very senior Communists," said John
Laughland of the British Helsinki Human Rights Group. "In three or four
of the cases, they were actually the Communist bosses in their country."

Estonia's President Arnold Ruutel was president of the country's Supreme
Soviet. Lithuania's Primier Algirdas Brazauskas was the first secretary
of his country's Communist Party.

Romania's President Ion Iliescu founded Romania's Communist student
union. He later served as secretary of the Communist Party's Central
Committee. Bulgaria's President Georgi Parvanov was too young to get far
in the Communist Party, until the party changed its name to the Bulgarian
Socialist Party in 1990. Parvanov is the first ex-Communist to be
president since the end of communism.

Slovakia's President Rudolph Schuster was a member of the Central
Committee of Czechoslovakia's Communist Party for 20 years. He attended
his last Communist Party meeting in 2000, boasting to the delegates, "I
am proud of what I did under the former regime."

The situation is much the same in Poland and Hungary. Large majorities
oppose war – 63% in Poland, 82% in Hungary – but their ex-Communist
leaders are backing the U.S.

The struggle to end communism in Poland pitted Lech Walesa, hero of the
Solidarity labor movement, against Aleksander Kwasniewski and Leszek
Miller. Kwasniewski was a career propagandist for the Communist regime.
Miller was a member of the Communist Party's Central Committee.

Today, Walesa is out, and Kwasniewski and Miller are back in. The first
is president; the second is prime minister.

Hungary's prime minister is Socialist Peter Medgyessy, who spied for the
Soviet-era secret police under the code name D-209. Medgyessy's election
last year was the second time the U.S. helped the Socialist Party back
into power in Hungary. Much of this is just as the U.S. has willed.
Since the end of the Cold War, the U.S. has spent billions of dollars to
get the governments it wants in Eastern Europe.

Some of the money was funneled through two Cold War groups, the
International Republican Institute and the National Democratic Institute.
Both are federally funded through the National Endowment for Democracy
and the U.S. Agency for International Development.

The $8 billion USAID also doles out dough directly to preferred customers
in country. For example, USAID's Polish American Enterprise Fund gave
$240 million to "private citizens" in Poland.

The fund also gave over $200 million to the Polish American Freedom
Foundation, to foster "democracy and free markets." The PAFF does this
with the help of NGOs (nongovernmental groups) like the Open Society
Institute and the American Federation of Teachers.

The Open Society Institute, funded by billionaire financier George Soros,
has been perhaps the most active and most leftist NGO at work in Eastern
Europe. The institute has been especially busy pointing out good guys and
bad guys – the good guys get U.S. backing, the bad guys get the finger of
blame.

In Slovakia, the good guy was someone like Rudolph Schuster; the bad guy
was Vladimir Meciar. Meciar wasn't keen on joining NATO. He also balked
at selling off the country's gas, oil, and telecom industries to foreign
interests.

"I'm not saying that Mr. Meciar is the one to pull the country out of
this mess, but it is the ruling coalition that is selling out everything
to please outside sharks," said John Vacval, Chicago businessman and
president of the Slovak World Congress Abroad.

Slovak voters gave Meciar's party the strongest showing last September,
but the other parties ganged up against him.

"I wasn't born yesterday, and I know very well what foreign countries are
expecting of us," said one candidate. Asked to explain, he said, "No
Meciar." So don't think the words of support from the new/old
nomenclatura of Eastern Europe means their countries are behind us.
They're just saying what's expected.

"They're all a bunch of Commie hacks who are used to giving into to
whomever is the biggest bastard on the block," Laughland said. "It's all
about power, and they are political operators who sided with whoever is
strongest and most horrible at the time."

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