Slovak Ambassador Lobbies for Divided Village by Carolyn Chapman Slovak Ambassador Rastislav Kacer had never heard of the small village called Velke Slemence in Eastern Slovakia until a few months ago. A tall barbed wire fence has cut across the villageís main street for 60 years. This fence, and the guard tower that overlooks it, is the border between Slovakia and the Ukraineóand, since Slovakiaís accession into the European Union, this fence has also become the border between the EU and its poorer eastern neighbors. It was Annette Lantos, wife of Rep. Tom Lantos (D-Calif.), who told Kacer about the village. And it was a Washington lobbying group, the Center for Hungarian American Congressional Relations (CHACR), who brought the village into the biggest spotlight it has ever been in, making the border crossing there an issue in Washington. ìThis is a forgotten village. Itís as if time froze there,î said CHACR President Sandor Nagy, who has devoted a majority of the groupís time and budget this year to helping the village get a border crossing. ìThis story really is a relic of the Cold War. Itís not just an inconvenienceóitís an injustice. The villagers are not asking to be reunited under the same flagójust to be able to walk through the fence to the other side of the village.î The Ukrainian side of the village is called Solonci, and the combined villages have been dubbed Szelmenc. The fence was erected by the Soviet Union in 1944, and the villagers on the Slovak sideówho are all ethnic Hungariansóstill call it the Iron Curtain. The fence has separated these villagers from their friends and family on the opposite side for decades, and they fear that the division will worsen now that EU accession mandates stricter border controls. ìThe worst part about it is that [60 years ago] you could just walk over to the other side,î said one villager on the Velke Slemence side. But now, to walk the five minutes that it should take to get from Velke Slemence to Solonci, it takes the villagers three daysóone for the actual crossing and two to travel to yet another town to apply for a visa and then to pick it up. It is a time-consuming, expensive, bureaucratic hassle for the 809 residents of Velke Slemence and Solonci, many of whom are among the poorest in the region. The villagers have been asking their governments to open a small border crossing there since 2001, but with no success. On March 29, members of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus sent a letter to Slovak Prime Minister Mikulas Dzurinda and Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma requesting a renewed effort to create a border crossing between the two sides. There was also a caucus briefing on the issue held on April 21 at the Rayburn House Office Building, during which the mayors of both villages testified. ìI am surprised, in a good sense, that people would care about the problems of this little communityóthis really tiny villageóin Washington,î said Kacer, who also testified at the April 21 briefing along with a counselor from the Ukrainian Embassy. ìI think there is a solution, which seems to be at hand,î he said. ìThere is a new piece of EU legislation, which if approved, would allow for little border crossings for locals. The EU is very cautious about this because this could be a loophole, which could help illegal migration, so it should be very carefully handled.î Compared to many of the larger issues that Kacer deals with on a daily basis, this small villageís predicament is just a minor problem in Kacerís overall portfolio. However, as an ambassador, this problem is one that Kacer feels he can help to remedy. The issue also illustrates the different options that diplomats have when issues come across their desks, and the different paths they can take with them. Admittedly, Kacer can play a limited role in whether or not the village will get its border crossing. ìI could do two things,î he explained. The first option would be to perform his basic professional duty, which is to ìact as a messenger, taking news from home and passing it along here. This is a minimal role which any professional diplomat would take,î he said. If an ambassador becomes personally interested in an issue, such as Kacer has with this case, he can take a second, more aggressive route. ìI can do other things like make phone calls, call the ministers, give personal recommendations on what should be done, extend a little gentle pressure to make people at home think that they should be doing more, [and follow up on new developments,]î Kacer said. ìIíve tried to do this.î Itís rare that an ambassador will personally lobby for small cases, Kacer noted. ìItís very individual. Ambassadors are strange people, in particular career diplomats,î he said. ìIf you work for the government, you see governments coming and going. You become mentally above little nitty-gritty troubles. You would be concerned about the big agenda. Itís all about big relationships, like the U.S.-Slovak relationship, or the Slovak-German relationship.î Moreover, the amount of influence that ambassadors have depends on the individual ambassador and their relationship with their governments. ìThere are ambassadors who have a strong influence at home because of personal relationships or because of the agenda that they deal with,î Kacer said. ìItís always different when ambassadors from the U.S. call the prime minister, compared with ambassadors from smaller countries.î He pointed out that hectic schedules and the large number of issues on their agendas prevent many diplomats from getting personally involved with anything past the necessity stage. ìYou donít put too much of your own involvement into anything if you donít have to because there are so many things that you do have to do, and because it could cost you your neck if you didnít [come through]. Things like [the border crossing] would not cost you anything. Most of my colleagues would not overstretch themselves. Iím a little different because Iím not a typical career diplomat,î Kacer said. However, the ambassador added that in the short 12-year history of an independent Slovak Republic, ìI remember cases where Foreign Service members have made a tremendous impact on how the government at home behaved.î Based on what he has heard from his government in Bratislava, Kacer is optimistic that his diplomatic work here in Washington will lead to the opening of a border crossing more than 4,000 miles away in Velke Slemence, although he cautioned that it could take a few years for anything to happen. For a long time, many residents of Velke Slemence and Solonci werenít aware of the diplomacy and lobbying being conducted on their behalf in Washington. In fact, they only learned of it in early March when Nagy of CHACR visited the village and informed the residents of the developments in Washington, presenting both sides of the village with American flags to show his and the Hungarian-American communityís support for them. Once he saw the village for himself, ìit became my own personal mission,î Nagy said. ìIím worried because I am raising their expectations, and now I really want to see this happen.î Washington is known as a city of bureaucrats and endless paperwork, but as the effort to open a border crossing in a tiny village thousands of miles away proves, personal lobbying and diplomacy can still make a huge difference. As Nagy pointed out, ìThis is an issue that we can win with grassroots action.î Carolyn Chapman is a contributing writer for The Washington Diplomat.