Giant_and_Dwarf-FIN

Giant and Dwarfarms were exported to the developing world, in particular to Arab countries. In spite ofthis fact, the battlefields of Iraq, Iran, Libya, Syria and other countries are littered with theburned out hulks of thousands of tanks, armoured personnel carriers, artillery systems andother weapons that passed through the hands of workers in Martin, Detva, Dubnica nadVáhom and many other cities and towns in Slovakia, Moravia and Czech lands. Ultimately,hundreds of thousands of Czechs, Slovaks and Poles as well as others in the recent MemberStates admitted to the European Union that they have the weapons that caused so muchdeath and suffering across Africa, the Arab world and elsewhere to thank for their employmentand welfare in general (perhaps lower relative to the West but clear when comparedto countries to the east and south).Of course one argument is that if we hadn’t supplied those arms, someone else surelywould have, but does this part of our history make us somewhat responsible for the currentcondition of the world? Every once in a while one of us, a central European, says that wenever had colonies and that we have no responsibility for their current condition and thereforeno duty to contribute. Is it so cut and dry?Let’s step away from arms and turn to Czechoslovak deliveries of peaceful equipmentand industrial complexes to the countries of Africa. Their mapping and recording interviewsfrom the entire generation of people involved in such projects is again deserving of a separatepublication. One project, however, stood out from the rest and entered the collectiveconsciousness of everyday Czechs and Slovaks. In 1983, only six short years before the fallof Communism, a total of 66 Czechoslovaks (including 14 women and 21 children) survivedcaptivity and a 1,300-kilometre, 84-day long march through jungles, swamps andsavannahs of Angola. The Czechoslovak engineers, technicians and electricians had beencharged with restarting the largest paper mill in the country in the town of Alto Catumbelabut were kidnapped along with their families. The kidnappers were members of the UNITAseparatist movement led by Jonas Savimbi. If you remember the previous chapter, he firstfought against Portugal, the colonial power in Angola. When the Portuguese left in 1975and Savimbi did not become the political leader of Angola, his UNITA movement fought onwith the support of the USA, China and South Africa against the Angolan government supportedby the Soviet Union and the Soviet Bloc. UNITA released 45 kidnapped Czechoslovakcitizens on 30 th June 1983. Bratislava native Jaroslav Navrátil died during the ordeal andanother 20 of his fellow citizens remained in captivity until June 1984. The tale of theseCzechoslovak specialists and their families became the inspiration for many books, articlesand interviews, including a made-for-TV film “Angolský deník lékařky” (A Doctor’s AngolanJournal) 176 and the hour-long documentary film “Zajati v Angole” (Captive in Angola) 177which was filmed by Czech Television in 2009.176 A film was also shot in 1984 by Vladimír Kavčiak, a director with Slovak roots; the lead was portrayed byJana Brejchová with other well-known actors in supporting roles, including Jozef Adamovič.177 Lubomír Sazeček, one of the kidnapped Czechoslovak citizens who was involved in the film project,incorporated the theme of the work of Czechoslovak experts in Angola and their kidnapping in the198