Unique Videos From 1969 Released

Prague, August 21, 2009

– On the 40th anniversary of the demonstrations against the occupation of Czechoslovakia, the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes has released unique security services video clips from the collections of the Security Services Archive. The clips are viewable as a part of the Institute’s 1968-1969 Web project. The released clips, shot by security services staff, serve as documentation of the protests against the occupation of Czechoslovakia by Warsaw Pact troops. In some of them, armed troop carriers are visible, first used by the Public Security Service (Veřejná bezpečnost – VB) in August 1969 to suppress the demonstrations. These interventions against demonstrators in Czech and Moravian cities resulted in five casualties, hundreds of wounded and thousands of arrests. Institute historian Lukáš Cvrček describes the first of the released videos: “The clips feature exercises of VB intervention units intended to disperse demonstrators in August 1969. Its servicemen disposed of OT-64 armed troop-carriers, in addition to other technology, as well as a Robur bus adapted for the VB and equipped with strong loudspeakers. A tear-grenade thrower on a GAZ-69 support frame, newly imported from Poland, is clearly visible in close-up shots. In August 1969, security service cameramen monitored a gathering of citizens in the center of Prague. The shots were chiefly taken in Prague’s most well-known squares – Wenceslas and Old Town squares, and náměstí Republiky – as well as in neighboring streets. The deployment of water cannons against demonstrators and armed troop-carriers parked on Pařížská Street are captured in several short sequences,“ Beyond the release of these 1969 videos, the Institute’s 1989 Project has recently added to its web pages the August 1989 situation reports – unique documents from the communist secret police’s workshop, which on a daily basis passed on to the highest Czechoslovak leadership information on the security situation, this time from the period when only three months remained until the fall of the regime. For more information, please contact Institute spokesperson Jiří Reichl. Jiří Reichl Spokesperson Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes Siwiecova 2, 130 00 Prague 3 mobile: +420 – 725 787 524 email: press@ustrcr.cz