Robert Fico, Slovakia’s Prime Minister, made his first public announcement since the attempted assassination of May 15. The 14-minute video is entitled, “I Forgive and Warn.” Three weeks after he took several bullets to his abdomen, he gave a masterful ‘truth-to-power’ account of sovereignty and leadership vs. the international hypocrites and warmongers.
He said of “the stranger who shot me… I forgive him and let him sort out what he did and why he did it in his head. In the end, it is evident that he was only a messenger of evil and political hatred, which the politically unsuccessful and frustrated opposition has developed in Slovakia to unmanageable proportions.”
“I want to ask the anti-government media, especially those co-owned by the financial structure of G. Soros, not to” pretend there was a lone assassin, but “to respect not only the gravity of reasons for the attempted murder but also the consequences of this attempt… I have no reason to believe that it was an attack by a lone madman.” He himself had publicly warned of “the probability of an assassination of a government politician in Slovakia… I spoke about it publicly in the media and at press conferences, I said it to all EU and NATO ambassadors in Slovakia.”
Then, the heart of his account: “I fundamentally disagree with the single-correct opinion policy that some major Western democracies are aggressively promoting today. I reject interference in the internal affairs of other countries, or the forced export of democracy to countries that have decided to go their own way.” Slovakia can’t force itself on others, so we strictly adhere to “international law and have the courage to call things for what they are, no matter how large a country they relate to. If a small country like Slovakia has political leaders with such fortitude, its position on the international stage is not always easy… A self-confident sovereign Slovak foreign policy, although based on membership in the EU and NATO, but oriented towards all four corners of the world, is simply not in vogue.” We “prefer peace to war.” Since the Ukraine conflict, the EU and NATO has “literally sanctified the concept of the single correct opinion, namely that the war in Ukraine must continue at any cost in order to weaken the Russian Federation. Anyone who does not identify with this single mandatory opinion is immediately labeled as a Russian agent, and politically marginalized internationally. It is a cruel statement, but the right to a different opinion has ceased to exist in the EU…
“The reluctance of some major democracies to respect the concept of a sovereign and self-confident Slovak defense policy has become grist to the mill of the Slovak opposition... The government, which was formed by the opposition between 2020 and 2023, fully submitted to the interests of large countries and… joined the camp of the countries promoting a military solution to the conflict in Ukraine.” Hence, they were allowed to carry out political repression and arrests which, when we brought it to the EU, were overlooked.
When we won in September 2023, our sovereign policy was direct to “the four corners” of the world. The opposition relied upon “international organizations” and pushed for the war in Ukraine and targeted “Russia and China to be mortal enemies.” No one holds “up a mirror to the growing and well-fed opposition’s aggressiveness, neither the media, nor the non-governmental organizations, nor the head of state, nor Brussels nor NATO. Physical threats against high-ranking government politicians… therefore became an acceptable standard for aggressive representatives of the opposition.” (He cites the threats against Lubos Blaha and Erik Kalinak and his wife.) “The hatred and aggressiveness of the current opposition, covered and tolerated by opinion-forming media, non-governmental organizations funded by foreign countries and unfortunately without any response from international organizations peaked after the successful presidential election of coalition candidate Peter Pellegrini” this spring. The “opposition sends paid provocateurs to national holiday celebrations who grossly insult constitutional officials, actors after their political speeches at opposition rallies, attack government officials” and such.
The assassination attempt “was not an attack by some madman. The opposition abuses how large democracies enforce a single mandatory opinion on major foreign policy issues and reject the sovereign positions of small countries. In domestic Slovak politics, this manifests itself in such a way that any violent and hateful excesses against legitimate governmental power are tolerated at the international level without any comment.” The opposition proceeded forward hatefully with no outside checks. It was only a matter of time before an assassination attempt occurred.
“I would like to express my belief that all the pain I have gone through and am still going through will serve something good.” My previous governments were not perfect. But “precisely the offer to do things differently and better, to have different opinions, must be the elementary basis of any meaningful democratic competition.” Not jailings and killings. “The opposition will have to think about this.” If present behavior continues, there will be more such assassination attempts, he stated.
“I believe that society will calm down and that we will meet soon in a meaningful and peaceful manner. All the best and let’s keep our fingers crossed.”