Velvet Revolution: A peaceful switch to democracy

PRAGUE: The peaceful Velvet Revolution toppled the Communist regime in former Czechoslovakia 30 years ago, paving the way for democratic and economic reforms in the former Soviet satellite. Here is an account of how it unfolded:

Truncheons and armor

On Friday, November 17, 1989, the Czechoslovak police brutally disperse a student march held in the capital Prague under the auspices of the Communist Party’s Youth Union. The event marks the 50th anniversary of student protests held in Prague at the outbreak of World War II. Riot police stop the march a few hundred meters from the central Wenceslas Square, declared a no-go area for the rallying students by authorities. Nearly 600 mostly young people are injured as 1,600 police officers wielding truncheons and supported by armored vehicles attack the crowd of some 10,000.

Prisoners released

Students and actors across the country declare a strike the next day, while prominent opposition figures around dissident playwright Vaclav Havel create the Civic Forum in Prague, the country’s first opposition party. In the eastern Slovak part of the country, the opposition sets up the Public Against Violence movement. Its leader Peter Zajac meets Havel in Prague on November 21 in the first encounter bringing together the opposition in both parts of the federation. The first political prisoners are released and the Civic Forum leads talks with the Communist Party, but no consensus is reached as hundreds of thousands of people continue to rally across Czechoslovakia.

The deadlock breaks only after a twohour nationwide general strike on November 27. Following heated talks, a government in which the Communists have a minority emerges on December 10. On December 28, the Czechoslovak parliament undergoes a revamp. Alexander Dubcek, the Communist leader of the 1968 ‘Prague Spring’ political thaw that was crushed by Soviet-led forces, is named speaker of parliament. The next day, Vaclav Havel becomes the president of Czechoslovakia.

Coup wave

The country is one in a series of former Soviet satellites switching from Communism to democracy owing in part to “Perestroika”, a softer policy pursued by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, and pressure from the United States under President Ronald Reagan. Poland leads the way with a free election held in June, followed by Hungary in July as the Warsaw Pact crumbles. East Germany is next with a wave of protests and an exodus from the country via Hungary and the West German embassy in Czechoslovakia. — AFP