Czech-Americans seek return of homeland citizenship

Wednesday, November 19, 1997

Czech-Americans seek return of homeland citizenship

POLITICS:

Exiles plea to prime minister for restored rights lost when they
fled CzechoslovakiaBy Andy Shah

Daily Bruin Contributor

Everything was proceeding smoothly Friday as Czech Prime
Minister Václav Klaus addressed the UCLA public concerning his
country’s market economy.

But when he started fielding questions, he received a question
he didn’t appreciate.

A Czech-American poet took the floor and denounced the
government’s refusal to grant dual citizenship to her and 30,000
other Czech-Americans, the only Czech population living abroad
without this right.

Jirina Fuchs, the volunteer coordinator of the International
Association of Czechs (IAC) for Dual Citizenship, Restitution and
Voting Rights, has been lobbying hard for the past four years to
obtain dual citizenship for the 30,000 Czech-Americans now living
in the United States.

Fuchs continued pleading her case until Chancellor Carnesale,
moderator Ivan Berend and the prime minister himself got fed up
with her digression.

Klaus responded by saying that the problem is "very complex" and
that several legislative steps have been taken to rectify the
problem.

According to a now-defunct article in the 1928 Treaty of
Naturalization between the United States and Czechoslovakia, all
Czechs who fled their homeland and became naturalized U.S. citizens
after May 7, 1957, automatically lost their Czech citizenship.

However, this past August the treaty became ineffective, with a
clause stating that it could be abolished one year from either
party’s notice, which the U.S. government gave in September of
1996. However, since the treaty is not retroactive, these new
citizenship rights are inapplicable to exiled Czechs.

Unlike Czechs in South Africa, Canada and other countries who
fled either communist or Nazi oppression, Czech-Americans are the
only exiles being denied the return of their citizenship.

Some feel that Fuchs’ efforts are excessive. "She’s making a big
deal out of this," said M. S. Halouzka, a Czech-American present at
Klaus’ address. "It’s a small thing."

Yet Fuchs says this is her duty. "I am a Czech poet," she said.
"I hear the cries of the people. I feel the peoples’
suffering."

For the past four years, her organization has been lobbying to
obtain Czech citizenship for Czech-Americans living in the United
States.

"This is absolutely outrageous," Fuchs said. "Czech-Americans
don’t deserve (to be singled out)."

Fuchs, also a professor of the Czech language and culture at
Loyola Marymount College, escaped from Czechoslovakia in 1963.

She began investigating how to reclaim her Czech citizenship
after the fall of communism in 1989, and discovered that the
problem lay with the Czech side.

Since the formation of the IAC, members have written many
letters and petitions to both the Czech and U.S. governments.

In a letter to government officials, the IAC specified three
things they would like to see before the U.S. Senate votes to
ratify the Czech Republic’s NATO membership: the return of Czech
citizenship, the right to property restitution for people
regardless of their citizenship and the right for all Czech
citizens to take part in elections, even when abroad.

Following a speech at Washington’s Cato Institute last
Wednesday, Klaus said, "To speak about justice or injustice is
completely unseemly.

"The main injustices are not in the area of property, but of
human lives, destinies and careers, and those cannot be in any
manner given back," Klaus said.

The main qualm the IAC has with the denial of Czech-American
dual citizenship is that they say it is unconstitutional.

In 1991, the Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms was
instituted as a constitutional act of the Federal Assembly of the
Czech and Slovak Federal Republic.

Article 14 of that charter states that "freedom of movement and
residence is guaranteed" and "everybody who is legitimately staying
on the territory of the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic has the
freedom to leave it."

Dr. Jaroslav Marik, the head of the Czech Society for the
Preservation of Human Rights, agrees that the "automatic withdrawal
of citizenship is unconstitutional."

"The Czech government sets up rules for citizenship withdrawal
but does not follow them," he said.

In the near future, a resolution is possible.

According to Mlada Fronta Dnes, a Prague daily newspaper, "By
January, government officials are supposed to present a draft of a
law, which would introduce a possibility of dual citizenship."

Thousands of Czech-Americans will be keeping an eye on the Czech
government in the upcoming months.

Ken Duffy, a student of Fuchs, said, "Even though
Czech-Americans have been here (up to) 50 years, many of their
hearts are still back home."

INGA DOROSZ

Jirina Fuchs asks Czech Prime Minister Vaclav Klaus a question
during his visit.