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Subject: Memorandum 24.08.2004
Sender: Vladislav Bevc, Ph.D. Executive Officer
American Owners of Property in Slovenia
Contact: www.projusticia.net
Email
We estimate that restitution claims for confiscated property now
pending in the reorganized communist countries of Eastern Europe
amount to $150 billion and if the land subject to these claims is
appraised at the market value this figure may easily be raised to
$500 billion.
Massive expropriation of property in Eastern Europe were part of the
systematic program of destroying the economic base of class enemies
which is the essence of every communist system. The infamous Benes
and AVNOJ decrees in Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, the inventors of
ethnic cleansing, were not directed only at German nationals but
against anyone who might oppose communism. It is absurd to maintain
that confiscating property of civilian nationals of a defeated
aggressor represented the reparations due because of the aggression.
The Communists, who are still in full control of the so-called
fledgling democracies of Eastern Europe, know full well that property
is the basis of all other human rights and that it is necessary to
destroy it to make the opposition powerless. In addition communist
officials who remain in charge of the reorganized communist countries
that are now joining the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization have themselves profited from the expropriations and now
hold and enjoy the property confiscated from their enemies.
The Council of Europe in its Resolution 1096 on Dismantling the
Heritage of Former Communist Totalitarian Systems had, among other
things, called for the restitution of confiscated property in integro
as part of the de-communization process.
Scant attention to this
resolution has been paid by the European Commission on the
Enlargement which holds that restitution of confiscated property
should not be a condition for admission to the European Union. The
European Court of Human Rights, packed with Marxist judges from the
reorganized communist countries, seems to be equally reluctant to
deal with the violations of property rights.
The Congress, in House Resolution 562 of October 1, 1998, also called
on Croatia, the Czech Republic, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia
and any other nation holding expropriated property to return it to
the original owners. The situation of property claims of expropriated
persons who are now United States citizens has been described in the
testimony before the Congressional Commission on Security and
Cooperation in Europe and shows that the reorganized communist
countries resist by any means possible the restitution of or
compensation for the confiscated property.
Unfortunately the Department of State, notwithstanding the existing
policy of promoting human rights as a cornerstone of the U.S. foreign
policy, holds that property rights are not human rights and that
violations of these rights should not be reported in its annual
reports on how various foreign countries observe these rights.
This may be understandable because the Department of State does not wish
to become embroiled in international disputes on behalf of
naturalized citizens, and because such advocacy would militate
against its support of agrarian reform in South America as well as
serious interference with property rights by the Environmental
Protection Agency and other executive departments in the United
States.
Finding that a country is violating human rights would require that
any security aid received by that country from the United States be
suspended as has recently happened in the case of Uzbekistan. This
would be embarrassing in case of the newly found NATO allies who have
sent token forces to Iraq and who profess to support the United
States policy of fighting terrorism.
As for Poland, it is interesting to note that in July of 2002
Poland's President Kwasniewski and Foreign Minister Wlodzimiers
Cimosiewicz assured the Chairman of the Commission on Security in
Europe Christopher Smith and other congressional leaders that Poland
would have a law on property restitution or compensation ready by
early 2003.
Kwasniewski had previously vetoed such legislation when
it was proposed by Poland's Parliament. No such legislation has
materialized so far to the apparent surprise of the CSCE which at the
time was not sparing plaudits to the visiting communist leader.
Just as the depredations of the Holocaust, the massive violations of
the human right to hold and enjoy property without undue government
interference will have to be addressed some day. We hope that it will
not take 50 years, as it took the Holocaust victims, to obtain just
compensation from the reorganized communist countries of Eastern
Europe.
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