The soldiers believe that the contracts they signed before flying beyond the Arctic circle made no mention of how long they might spend here. Although they admit that they’re afraid and have families at home, they don’t want to go back. For some it’s the money, for others the adventure. “I want to make enough money to buy a flat. Yes. If I stay here six months, I’ll have enough for a flat in Prostějov,” says Josef. “You can’t do this work for money,” says an agitated skinhead giant. “A man has to like it.” Then he goes outside his tent to show us how he gave himself a special injection against pain. “If you step on a mine and it rips off a piece of your foot, it’s great. You can crawl for another hour without feeling any pain.” This Goliath explains that there are all kinds of ampoules for injections available, that he doesn’t know them all. His friend on the next bunk, in a tent that sleeps 17, keeps stressing that he can survive in the taiga with just an emergency box containing matches, hooks, and a fishing line that can be used to trap animals. He had something else as well, but we didn’t get to see it because of the superb camouflage scarf known as a barracuda.
Attention!
No, these people don’t want to go home, whether they’re in Junja for money, or for fun. And many of them certainly like soldiering. So far, they’ve only been playing soldiers under the ægis of a future Czechoslovakia. But boys have always liked playing soldiers. And nobody gets paid for playing, do they? This play, paid for as if it was serious, has one basic drawback: loss of personal freedom. When I ask one of them if he doesn’t mind having to stand to attention whenever someone orders him, he replies: ”I don’t mind standing to attention at all. You see, I know why I’m doing it!”
ONDŘEJ TARÁBEK, Lidové noviny (The People’s News)
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For a man, nothing is certain.
Junjan Slovak proverb
As soon as the sound of champagne corks popping and of gunpowder celebrating New Year subsides, the country has to be put into some sort of an order. As early as January, Telgarth resumes the export of lichen: its price on the world market has now reached dizzy heights. The world’s perfume industry breathes a sigh of sweet relief. Ethnic Junjans are used to gather lichen. Telgarth doesn’t want them in the cities anyway. It’s best if they’re overseen and centred in concentration camps. Telgarth recalls the months he spent in such a camp. So he orders three more to be set up on Ommdru island. His experience as an inmate and escapee now helps him improve these camps’ security system. When the lichen puts money in the state treasury, Telgarth will implement further steps.
For example, he’ll transfer the seat of government and all state organs to New Bystrica, the former Űŕģüllpoļ. Its location in the south of the country is better suited for international sea and air links.
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Junja — the End of the Idyll?
Ćmirçăpoļ (New City), Prague. Just a few weeks ago the Junjan Slovaks were welcoming Czech soldiers as liberators and brothers in arms, bearing them on their shoulders and throwing them flowers. Today, they often curse them, throw rocks at them and sometimes even shoot at them. One patrolling soldier was even wounded by an angry mob of Slovaks in the former Ćmirçăpoļ, today’s New City. Trust between representatives of both sides has been harmed. Serious incidents are reported almost daily when the Royal Czech Army and Marines forces (brought, of course, to the Junjan archipelago on planes, rather than ships) have to deal with armed attacks. The main reason for enmity is that the soldiers are trying to implement in Junja a multiethnic environment and protect the remnants of the ethnic Junjan community from attacks by vengeful Slovaks.
Those who know local conditions are not very surprised. “It’s understandable; the euphoria is gone and suddenly there’s a mutual recognition of people’s expectations,” says intelligence expert Petr Kopečný. “The Slovaks understood their victory side by side with Czech soldiers as liberation and expected the Czechs to go on helping them; the Junjan Slovaks did not quite understand that the Czech presence would also mean the first steps being taken for a civil society and tolerance.”
This causes the Czech command anxiety. The situation in Junja has changed rapidly since spring. If this state of affairs continues, there is a threat that Junja could become hostile territory for Czech forces. This would not just make their activities unacceptably risky, it could, at worst, prematurely scuttle the mission, some foreign observers note. This would also put an end to hopes of creating a common democratic state. The joint command of the Royal Czech Army and Navy so far officially ascribes tension to post-war chaos and apparently fights shy of open conflict with the Slovaks. They say that the Slovak National Front of Liberation (SNFL), the most powerful Slovak organization, may have lost control over some of its members.
But privately, some western diplomats express the opinion that the situation is quite the opposite: the political leadership of the country headed by the legendary and controversial Telgarth, is working against the Czechs, while the position of open support for Czechoslovakia is now held only by a group around Geľo Todor-Lačný-Dolniak, another respected fighter for freedom. Some Czech commanders are unofficially extremely displeased and have no confidence in the leadership of the military wing of the SNFL.
“We have problems with some isolated extremist elements. But we’ll deal with that,” General Evžen Tvrdý, commander of Czech forces tried to make light of the situation.
Hundreds of incidents belie this statement. Tvrdý himself soon challenged the leadership of SNFL to explain to its countrymen that Junja today has nothing in common with Junja before the fall of the Khan’s fascist regime. “Junjan Slovaks have achieved many of their aims, above all independence, thanks to us. It would be madness if they now went on to attack Czech units,” said Tvrdý.
However, it is obvious today that the political leadership of the Junjan Slovaks is in no hurry to build a multiethnic state and is perhaps not even interested in having Czech forces stay on their territory. Foreign experts worry that the SFNL leaders, particularly Telgarth (in fact, his real name is Alfréd Mešťánek), are playing a double game: they pretend to cooperate and disavow attacks on Czechs; in reality, however, they support all anti-Czech activities and, according to many reports, sometimes even organize them. All those who know the local situation stress that any change for the better will take time.
The enormous pressure that the Slovak community has now put on Junjans is understandable given the terror once organized by the Junjans: it will take some time for the situation to calm down. “Incidents luckily don’t affect the whole territory of the Junjan archipelago. This situation will eventually stabilise,” says Petr Kopečný.
But Czech soldiers realise that they cannot let the situation get out of hand. General Tvrdý yesterday sharply warned the Slovak Liberation Army leadership, the SNFL’s military wing, not to try to create artificial tension between Czechs and Slovaks in Junja.