Pellegrini Commemorates Occupation of Czechoslovakia by Warsaw Pact Troops

Bratislava, August 21 (TASR) - We will do our utmost to ensure that our future will be free of foreign tanks and innocent victims and full of shared hope, just as people felt this for a few spring months 56 years ago, said President Peter Pellegrini on Wednesday on the occasion of the 56th anniversary of the occupation of Czechoslovakia by Warsaw Pact troops. "The window of hope closed definitively on the night of August 21, 1968. It closed with the screeching of tank tracks, the bark of machine guns, and remained sprinkled with the blood of innocent people," Pellegrini wrote on Facebook. The president noted that the spring of 1968 was perceived by the public as a breath of freedom, new times and faith in their leaders. "It was a time of hope that socialism, with its social certainties, could have a human and democratic face, which was embodied above all by Alexander Dubcek," he remarked. This hope, he added, had specific fruits. People, according to him, were suddenly more cohesive, kinder to one another, more willing to make sacrifices for their homeland. "The dismay and fear in many grew into anger when they saw occupation tanks sweeping through the streets of their city and the clueless faces of foreign soldiers who didn't understand anything, either," said the president. Gradually, he noted, all feelings were replaced by a huge sense of disappointment, and people realised that their hopes for a better life, more freedom and more open borders had finally come to an end. The 1968 reform and democratisation process in Czechoslovakia was brought to an end by the invasion of the armies of five Warsaw Pact countries - the Soviet Union, Bulgaria, Hungary, the German Democratic Republic and Poland. The event has been commemorated as a memorial day in Slovakia since 2021. zel/df