National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 271

Edited by Dr. Vilém Prečan (Czechoslovak Documentation Centre, Prague) and Thomas Blanton (National Security Archive, Washington)

Translation and editorial assistance by Todd Hammond and Derek Paton

Research assistance by Dr. Alena Nosková and Radek Schovánek

Web production and documents management by Michael Evans, Sue Bechtel, and Patrick Hanlon

Posted January 26, 2009

HERE

The brutal suppression by Czechoslovak Communist authorities of commemorative ceremonies for "Palach Week" 20 years ago this month marked the beginning of the end of the regime in the annus mirabilis 1989, according to secret police, Communist Party, and dissident documents posted today on the Web by the Czechoslovak Documentation Centre (Prague) and the National Security Archive (www.nsarchive.org) at George Washington University (Washington, D.C.).

"These documents posted on the Web today are the Internet equivalent of the wreath that Václav Havel tried to place in Wenceslas Square in January 1989," remarked Thomas Blanton, director of the National Security Archive at George Washington University. "We don't face arrest like he did for this commemoration, but we do have the responsibility of never forgetting those sacrifices, both by Jan Palach, and by everyone who made the peaceful revolutions of 1989."