Central Europe,
February 28, 2001.
4K Wants Kavan to Inform Committees About Resolution on Cuba
PRAGUE, Feb 27, 2001 -- (CTK - Czech News Agency) This year's resolution on
human rights violations in Cuba which is being drafted by Czech and Polish
diplomats must point to the counter-productive nature of across- the-board
economic sanctions, Foreign Ministry spokesman Ales Pospisil told CTK today.
Pospisil said the ministry had made this clear one year ago already. "This
condition can hardly be quit now even if this were to hypothetically lower the
chance of pushing through a resolution thus formulated," Pospisil said. If
the draft resolution were not pushed through the UN Human Rights Commission,
this would be no tragedy and the reputation of Czech foreign policy would not be
harmed, he said. "It [the Czech Republic's reputation] would be rather
harmed by a short-breathed, pragmatic calculation, that is effort to come with a
text which would avoid the problem," Pospisil said.
The Quad-Coalition (4K) of minor right-wing opposition parties asked Foreign
Minister Jan Kavan (Social Democrat, CSSD) to inform related parliamentary
committees about preparations of this year's resolution on human rights
violations in Cuba. Citing diplomatic sources, Senate foreign committee head
Michael Zantovsky (Civic Democratic Alliance, ODA) said at a 4K press conference
that the Czech Republic proposed that the resolution to be submitted to the
United Nations include explicit dissociation from economic sanctions against
Fidel Castro's regime.
The 4K asked Kavan not to take further steps in this regard until democratic
parties reach an agreement on the Czech position. "Neither the Czech
Parliament nor the Czech public have been informed about such an important shift
in Czech foreign policy," Zantovsky said. He warned against "imminent
and long-term harming of Czech foreign policy." Pospisil said that
diplomatic negotiations on the resolution's wording were only starting and that
the final form of the resolution "will sure be subjected to legislators'
control."
The Czech Republic and Poland have twice before submitted to the UN Human
Rights Commission draft resolutions on Cuba's failure to observe human rights.
Pospisil said that if the two houses' foreign committees asked the Foreign
Ministry to inform them about its approach to this year's resolution on Cuba, it
would certainly do so. The ministry, however, has received no such request
either this year or in the past years when Prague, together with Poland,
submitted similar resolutions to the UN Human Rights commission, Pospisil said.
In the past few weeks Kavan made it clear several times that he did not
consider general economic sanctions efficient. Zantovsky said today that this
year's draft resolution was sent by the Foreign Ministry to several other
countries before Poland had been consulted on its text. He conceded that a
reserved attitude to general economic sanctions was nothing new in the position
of the Foreign Ministry and the government and said that "there is nothing
wrong about it."
However, the relevant clause in the resolutions on human rights violations
was formulated in the past years in such a way that it was acceptable to all
countries which had supported it. In the case of the formulation proposed by the
Czech Foreign Ministry this year it could hardly be expected that the resolution
would be supported by all countries concerned, Zantovsky said.
((c) 2001 CTK - Czech News Agency)
Czech-Cuban relations improving after many years - Cuba
PRAGUE, Feb 27, 2001 -- (CTK - Czech News Agency) The recent meeting of
Czech Senate chairman Petr Pithart with Cuban President Fidel Castro, which
contributed to the release of two Czechs from a Havana prison in early February,
also benefited relations between Cuba and the Czech Republic, Cuban charge
d'affaires told CTK today.
After ten years, the Czech right has shown a kinder face to Cuba, Paulovich
said at an informal meeting with journalists. He said that owing to the "Cuban
crisis", the voice of Pithart had been heard from the Czech political scene
and that Pithart's good will had deeply impressed Castro.
If Pithart is an influential person on the Czech political scene in the
future, relations between the two countries could continue to improve, Paulovich
said. Pithart, 60, (Christian Democrats, KDU-CSL), a former anti- communist
dissident, is speculated about as a possible future candidate for Czech
president who could succeed Vaclav Havel after his second, last possible
five-year tenure expires in early 2003. Paulovich said that many Czech media had
not informed about the "Cuban crisis" objectively, but the position of
the Cuban charge d'affairs in the Czech Republic had still improved.
"New people are entering the club of Czech-Cuban friendship. We are
more and more frequently asked to provide materials about our country,"
Paulovich said. Czech opposition deputy Ivan Pilip (Freedom Union) and former
1989 student activist Jan Bubenik were jailed in Cuba for more than three weeks
in the second half of January and beginning of February after having met Cuban
dissidents. If sentenced, they could have spent many years in prison.
Paulovich helped mediate their release between Cuban and Czech authorities.
They were released several hours after Pithart's arrival from weeklong talks in
Cuba, including a six-hour meeting with Castro.
((c) 2001 CTK - Czech News Agency)
© 1995-2001 European Internet Network Inc. All rights
reserved. | 