Slovenian Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel on Thursday reflected on the 40th anniversary of the Prague Spring, saying that the events of 1968 were about the fight for "democracy, human rights and...against brute force and an undemocratic system".
Rupel told the press in Ljubljana that the events which prompted a Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 were an attempt to establish a "socialism with a human face".
He pointed out that the developments in Prague were viewed with concern in the then Yugoslavia. According to him, it was evident that there were different interpretations of the Prague Spring in the former Yugoslavia: while students in Slovenia picked up on the calls for the liberalisation of the economy, protesters in Belgrade carried pictures of Marx, Lenin and Tito.
Rupel said that the 1960s saw both a start and an end to efforts for liberalisations in the then communist countries, until they were reborn in the 1980s.
The 1980s saw major changes that led to the fall of the Berlin Wall and break-up of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, he pointed out.
The Slovenian foreign minister, who is one of the authors of the 57th issue of the Nova revija intellectual magazine, which in 1987 called for democratic change in Slovenia, said that remembering the events of 1968 was even more important in light of recent worrying developments.
He pointed to the recent events in Georgia, but added that it was difficult to draw parallels between these events and those of 1968. He added that the key issue at stake however is the relationship between "freedom-loving, democratic nations and the interests of major powers".
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