Translation

Original: Czech

Distinguished Mr. Kovalev,

Distinguished Mr. Mayor,

Distinguished Members of the Jury of the Nuremberg International Human Rights Award,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Precisely sixty years ago this historical city of Nuremberg became the stage for one of the key moments of the greatest horror and ignominy of this century. During the so-called Reichsparteitag der Freiheit, a rally of the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP), in an atmosphere of bombastic Nazi parades, the Reichstag, by then no more than a contemptible caricature of the previous parliament of the German people, adopted the infamous legislation reducing one group of people to the status of inferior beings, segregating them both politically and racially from the rest of German society. It was these publicly declared guidelines that eventually led to the largest mass murder in history.

The evil began to spread. On the basis of the Nuremberg Laws and other absurd directives people began to be classified as members of a higher or a lower race, a higher or a lower people; blood and "racial purity" soon became a requirement for participation in public life, for admission to schools and decent jobs, and ultimately for mere survival.

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Western democracies, unfortunately, remained deaf and blind to this reality, limiting themselves by and large to a mere formal criticism of these so-called laws. As a result of the democratic powers' cautiousness and reluctance to intervene in a forceful way, the policy of appeasement prevailed. The criminals who proclaimed the Nuremberg Laws were strengthened in their belief that they were free to implement them with impunity. As part and parcel of the brown plague, the Nuremberg Laws infected also the territories that were joined to or annexed by the Nazi Reich, without any significant opposition on the part of the international community. The last chance to challenge these policies was lost in 1938, when the European democracies failed the test of their commitment to defence and solidarity. By this I mean the Munich Agreement, a document that destroyed a democratic state which had previously granted asylum to thousands of both Jewish and German refugees alike, a state in which provisions such as the Nuremberg Laws had been unthinkable until then. At the same time, this act debased the honour, self-respect and self-confidence of the democratic politicians and discredited their mandate.

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Along with the Munich diktat, the Nurenberg Laws came to my country, too. The flaming synagogues in Liberec and other towns in the Czech borderlands on the so-called Kristallnacht were a logical outcome of that. Tens of thousands of our citizens, particularly Jews, fled in terror to the interior which was still somewhat safer at the time. But the chance to stop the evil had been squandered. What followed, inevitably, was the occupation of the rest of the Czech lands, the invasion of Poland, the first mass transport of European Jews from the Moravian-Silesian city of Ostrava to Nisko in Poland, transports to Theresienstadt and from there to Auschwitz. Needless to say, the tragedy of the Czech Jews was but one part in the larger apocalypse of the Holocaust and the policy of the so-called final solution for entire nations and states.

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How was it possible for an ideology as perverted as National Socialism to come into being in a civilized European country ? How was it possible for legislation that made a mockery of law to be adopted in Nuremberg, an old European city associated with the historical codification of city law ? And how was it possible for the democratic powers to just stand by and watch, thereby allowing this wrong-doing to spread ?

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It seems that many politicians regarded democracy as nothing but a mechanism of generating political will while the awareness of its moral foundations was lost. It was not until the outbreak of World War II that democrats realized that it does not pay to tolerate the intolerable and to use standard diplomatic methods when dealing with a regime that violates every rule on which European civilization has been built. The price that had to be paid for their slowness in understanding this was high indeed.

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After the war everyone felt sure that nothing like it could happen, or be allowed to happen, ever again. Nuremberg, the site of Nazi party congresses and of the adoption of racial laws, played host to the trials that introduced the institute of an international war crimes tribunal, intended to serve as a warning to all those who might consider similar practices in the future. One other outcome of World War II was the creation of the United Nations - an institution whose mission has been to prevent such horrors from being repeated. One of the lessons to be drawn from World War II is that the international community should not think just mechanically in terms of balance of power among individual nations. It should also look at what is going on inside those countries. For the Munich Agreement was a direct consequence of the mistaken belief that for the sake of maintaining a balance of power concessions could be made even to a regime that promulgated the Nuremberg Laws. The horrors of the Holocaust and the sufferings of the war were the fruits of that.

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However, it appears as if humankind will never learn. There are still those who seek to divide people according to their ethnic affiliations and to revive the spirit of tribal wars. There are still those who believe that atrocities perpetrated in wartime will go unpunished, and therefore provoke wars, ridiculing the international community. And there are still democratic governments that believe aggressors can be stopped with concessions, with piecemeal manoeuvring, in a word, by giving in to evil. The United Nations, too - though undeniably it has often played a positive role in settling international disputes - still has a long way to go if it wants to live up to the expectations and objectives of its founders.

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As World War II becomes increasingly remote with the years, and especially now that Communism has collapsed, the vigilance of the democrats seems to have slackened. Again, democracy seems to have been reduced to a mere routine, a mechanism for shaping political will. Yet, if democracy is to remain vital the values on which it is founded must be constantly renewed. Today again we need politicians who remember the ethical basis of democracy and who understand that one cannot rely on routine diplomacy when dealing with militant nationalists. Aggressors cannot be stopped with Chamberlain-style policies. For the same reason we also need citizens who are able to recognize evil at its inception and stand up to it despite the personal risks, and then voice their position clearly, in the most resolute terms, to their political representatives.

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Fifty years after World War II Europe is still suffering from armed conflicts, in particular from the war in the former Yugoslavia and strife in several areas of the former Soviet Union. Oftentimes, power-hungry men have made these conflicts into tribal wars in which age-old ethnic hatreds are revived and ignited into violence. In these regions it is our duty, and also in our own interests, to support those forces that are committed to the values of civil society and human rights. It is in their midst that we find Sergei Adamovich Kovalev. His entire life he has demonstrated his devotion to the concept of human rights as well as courage in struggling to make them a reality. This modest scientist began his work on behalf of human rights under Communist rule, as early as 1967, becoming a close collaborator of Andrei Sakharov. In 1969 Kovalev was one of the founders of the Initiative Group for Human Rights. First as a contributor and later as an editor, he was involved in the publication of the Chronicle of Current Events, an underground publication that reported human rights abuses in the USSR. In 1970 he lost his job as a scientist; in 1974 he was arrested, charged with "anti-Soviet propaganda" and sentenced to seven years in prison plus three more years of detention in Siberia. After serving that sentence, he lived in Kalinin, being banned from living in Moscow. In 1987 Kovalev returned to Moscow and joined the Human Rights Group of the International Fund for Survival and Development of Humanity. In 1990 he became Chairman of the Human Rights Committee of the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Federation. That same year he began serving as the head of the Russian delegation to the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva.

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To the whole world Sergei Kovalev's name has become a symbol of opposition to the bloody conflict in Chechnya, the victims of which have been for the most part civilians subjected to untold suffering. Sergei Kovalev's courageous conduct on the scene of the hostilities in Grozny was likewise a battle for democracy in today's Russia. He has spoken out against all of the dangerous aspects of the Chechnyan conflict that jeopardize the further development of Russian society, and has worked hard to promote democracy, human rights and the principles of civil society. Sergei Kovalev has become the foremost representative of Russian democrats whose ranks include not only politicians and other publicly active figures, but also ordinary citizens who have dared to speak out against the violence, injustice and threats to the democratic development of their country. Kovalev alone knows best how difficult it is to defy those who continue to long for the return of the old days.

It is characteristic of Sergei Kovalev that he begins to act the moment he sees an opportunity to help. We all followed with great anxiety the terrorist attack in the South Russian town of Budjonnovsk and Kovalev's efforts to mediate talks between the two sides - efforts that culminated in success.

At present Sergei Kovalev is an authority recognized the world over. Today's world needs people like Kovalev who, himself a politician, shows us, the other politicians, how we should think and act. It is people like him who represent a guarantee that there will be no more Nuremberg Laws and Munich Agreements.

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The city of Nuremberg seeks to serve as a transmitter of signals fostering understanding among nations. I see one such signal in the fact that I, a Czech, have been given the honour to address this forum. My fellow citizens have followed with pleasure and appreciation all that the city of Nuremberg, an important centre of a region bordering on the Czech Republic, has been doing for the good of Czech-German relations. In short, it is fitting that Nuremberg, remembering its turbulent history, is aware of its share of responsibility for the state of the world today, and that it has an acute understanding for a crucial imperative emanating from the stormy history of the twentieth century, namely that evil must be combatted at its inception. It is fitting that the Nuremberg International Human Rights Award has been established to honour those who are prepared to stand up to evil and carry on the struggle for human rights regardless of personal risk. It is fitting that Sergei Kovalev is the first recipient of this award.

Dear Sergei Adamovich, I congratulate you on this high distinction.