AcknowledgmentsThis report was researched by Lisa Misol, researcher with the Arms Division of Human Rights Watch, and Ivan Feranec, consultant to Human Rights Watch, during five visits to Slovakia from April 2002 to July 2003. The report was written by Ms. Misol and edited by Steve Goose, executive director of the Arms Division of Human Rights Watch, and Dinah PoKempner, general counsel of Human Rights Watch. It also was reviewed by Mr. Feranec, Alex Vines, senior researcher with the Business and Human Rights Program of Human Rights Watch, Joseph Saunders, deputy program director at Human Rights Watch, Aaron Brenner, consultant to Human Rights Watch, and Emily Chiang, associate with Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP. A number of other Human Rights Watch staff or former staff reviewed sections of the report: Suliman Baldo, Jane Buchanan, Elahé Hicks, Arvind Ganesan, Miranda Sissons, Veronika Szente-Goldston, and Wilder Tayler. Research assistance was provided by former Arms Division associates Jamila Homayun and Charli Wyatt and interns Stephanie Caroll, Jessica Crawford, and Anna Khomenko. Milica Hrebickova translated the Slovak version of the report. Production assistance was provided by Ms. Homayun, Kristina Alessi, associate in the Europe and Central Asia division, Andrea Holley, manager of outreach and publications, Fitzroy Hepkins, mail manager, Veronica Matushaj, photo editor, John Emerson, web advocate, and Jagdish Parikh, online communications content coordinator. Human Rights Watch is grateful to the officials and private persons who agreed to be interviewed for this report and whose extensive cooperation was essential to our research. We also appreciate the collaboration of nongovernmental groups working to encourage further reform of Slovakia’s arms trade. In particular we would like to thank the members of the Slovak Working Group on Arms—Amnesty International-Slovakia, Civic Eye, People in Peril, the Slovak Foreign Policy Association (SFPA), and the Slovak Political Sciences Association—and London-based Saferworld, which helped establish the Working Group. We offer special thanks to Matus Korba and Ivo Samson of SFPA for assisting with the release of this report, which complements research they carried out for SFPA. A number of journalists also facilitated our research, and generously shared their own. Among these, Tom Nicholson and Milan Zitny were especially helpful. Several of the news articles cited in the report were made available by David Isenberg, an independent, United States-based arms researcher. Tamar Gabelnick, formerly the director of the Federation of American Scientists’ Arms Sales Monitoring Project, also made available a useful news archive. We are grateful to Emily Chiang for her expert legal advice. Human Rights Watch takes sole responsibility for the report’s content. Finally, Human Rights Watch would like to express its appreciation for the financial support it received from David Brown, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and the Overbrook Foundation. Human Rights Watch Human Rights Watch is dedicated to protecting the human rights of people around the world. We stand with victims and activists to bring offenders to justice, to prevent discrimination, to uphold political freedom and to protect people from inhumane conduct in wartime. We investigate and expose human rights violations and hold abusers accountable. We challenge governments and those holding power to end abusive practices and respect international human rights law. We enlist the public and the international community to support the cause of human rights for all. Human Rights Watch Arms Division Established in 1992, the Arms Division monitors arms transfers to governments and organizations that commit gross violations of international human rights and humanitarian law; works to ban or regulate weapons of humanitarian concern, especially landmines; and evaluates the conduct of combatants during armed conflict according to international humanitarian law. Stephen D. Goose is the executive director; Mary Wareham is the senior advocate; Marc Garlasco is the senior military advisor; Mark Hiznay is the senior researcher; Bonnie Docherty is a researcher; Lisa Misol is a researcher; Caroline Tubbs and Briana Wilson are the associates; and Monica Schurtman is a consultant. David Brown and Vincent McGee are co-chairs of the advisory committee and Nicole Ball is the vice-chair.
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