War's legacy painful issue in emerging democracies

PARIS - Time is a healer. Except, maybe, in Eastern Europe.

Seven decades have elapsed since the start of World War II. Nearly 20 years have passed since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Most of the region is in the European Union, a haven of peace, stability and prosperity.

Yet the past week has exposed a smouldering suspicion towards Russia, while tension is flaring between two EU neighbours. In this part of Europe, history is a weighty burden.

In Poland and the Baltic states, many accuse Moscow of failing to atone for the Soviet Union's secret pact with Hitler in August 1939 and the long years of communist subjugation.

Ceremonies last week to mark the war's 70th anniversary featured an unprecedented tribute to Poland by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

He hailed the bravery of the Polish forces, "who stood up first against Nazism in 1939" and hoped Poland and Russia would become "genuine partners", like Germany and Russia.

In a letter to the Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza, Putin admitted the Nazi-Soviet pact was "morally unacceptable" but similar to the 1938 Munich agreement, in which Britain and France let Hitler grab a German-speaking region of Czechoslovakia.

In contrast - at a service attended by Putin - Polish President Lech Kaczynski described the pact as a stab in the back.

Under it, Hitler and Stalin carved up Poland and handed Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania to Moscow.

In 1940, Soviet forces massacred 21,000 Polish Army officers and intellectuals and buried the corpses at Katyn, near Smolensk. It took the Soviet Union until 1990 to acknowledge responsibility; until then, it blamed the Nazis.

Putin said the atrocity should never be forgotten but sidestepped the question of blame.

"The people of Russia, whose destiny was crippled by the totalitarian regime, fully understand the sensitivity of Poles about Katyn," he said.

Some applauded Putin for reaching out to Poland on a sensitive anniversary. Others accused him of rewriting history. Through the prism of Russian nationalism, the Hitler-Stalin deal was a ruse to gain time, enabling the war to be won thanks to Soviet - and, by implication, Russian - sacrifice.

"The letter is a step away from previous statements that have come from the Russian leader ... [yet] fails to mention many Soviet crimes, some of which are still denied within Russia, and focuses primarily on the acts of the Nazi aggressors," the Krakow Post said.

For all Putin's talk of "genuine partners", the Polish daily warned, "most people in Poland realise that this will not happen until the record is set truly straight in Russia".

The Hitler-Stalin pact was "the tool that stripped us of our freedom", said the Estonian paper Postimees. "Unfortunately Moscow's selective memory still influences foreign policy today."

Stephen Bastos, an analyst with the German Council on Foreign Relations think tank, says the scars of World War II have largely healed in Western Europe, thanks to reconciliation, historical honesty and Germany's profound apologies.

But in the tender democracies of the East, the truth of the past has only recently emerged and remains a source of rancour, piqued by fears of the new Russia.

"History still has a defining role in these countries. You have to keep in mind that they only now have the chance to discuss all their historical legacy, everything that has happened, in a liberal and free way."

Bastos suggests EU membership in 2004 provided former Soviet bloc countries with the assurance to start assessing the grievances of history - and the world is now seeing the outcome.

"Old, fundamental questions are popping up. One result is that Russia is definitely drifting away from Europe."

Yet a row between Hungary and Slovakia - once part of the Austro-Hungarian empire - shows EU membership is by itself no salve when ancient antagonisms are revived.

Slovakia's nationalist Government has drawn up a new law that Hungary says discriminates against ethnic Hungarians, who comprise 10 per cent of the population. The legislation includes fines of up to €5000 ($10,500) for the use of minority languages in public services.

In August, unknown assailants hurled petrol bombs at the Slovak Embassy in Budapest, and the following day, two men tried to force the Slovak Ambassador's car off the road. Hungarian President Laszlo Solyom was forced to scrap a private visit to Komarno after Slovakia said it would bar him from entering. The countries' premiers are to meet this week to discuss the crisis.

"When these countries were preparing for EU membership, they learned how to do all the formal requirements and get things ready for accession so that it would look good on paper," said Jeremy Druker, of the Prague-based Transition Online think tank. "A lot of issues lurk below the surface and haven't been settled. The societies are just not as mature as you would hope to be as EU member states."