Can Czech efforts to foster democracy in Cuba make a difference?

By Dinah A. Spritzer. Staff Writer, The Prague Post, Czech Republic, September 16, 2004.

The United States government has competition when it comes to exporting democracy.

Those not familiar with the special ties between the newly freed and the still-oppressed might be surprised to learn that the Czech Republic is the European nation most devoted to the liberation of Cuba, the only dictatorship left in Latin America.

"'So why Cuba?' That is the question we are always asked. The answer is Vaclav Havel," said Gabriela Dlouha, head of the newly created Transition Promotion unit at the Foreign Ministry. Dlouha's office aids democracy movements in Cuba, Belarus and Myanmar (formerly Burma) and also works with the governments of countries such as Ukraine and Moldova that are still struggling to implement democracy.

"After the fall of communism in Czechoslovakia, Vaclav Havel was an icon. The people in opposition in Cuba asked him to be their advocate. They asked him to ask other countries to support them. And that is still our moral obligation," said Dlouha, a former press officer for Havel, who served as president of Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic from 1990 to 2003.

Stepping again into the limelight, Havel will keynote what some say is the pinnacle of the Czech Republic's work toward a freer in Cuba, a conference titled "Toward Democracy in Cuba," held Sept. 17-19 at the Czech Senate.

Participants include nongovernmental organizations, parliamentarians and top diplomats from around the world including former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar and former Chilean President Patricio Aylwin Azocar, all of whom will send messages of support to those still struggling against Fidel Castro. Many of the attendees, such as the former prime ministers of Bulgaria and Latvia, will share their transition experiences with Cuban dissident groups during the three-day event.

The conference, hosted by the International Committee for Democracy in Cuba (ICDC), which Havel founded last year, is being held under the auspices of the Foreign Ministry and is organized by the Prague-based People in Need Foundation. Havel has spearheaded many international conferences featuring world leaders, sometimes evoking scorn from critics who say that such events are irrelevant thinkfests.

Whether such a conference -- or any effort by a small Central European country to foster freedom abroad -- can make a difference poses a challenge for Czech foreign policy. Scores of former Czech dissidents and current anti-Castro activists warn not to underestimate the impact of the Czech pro-democracy movement in Cuba.

Havel, perhaps the most famous dissident of the communist-era in Central and Eastern Europe, indicated that the international recognition a conference affords is the lifeblood of resistance to totalitarianism.

"I remember vividly what the support of the democratic world meant for me when I was persecuted and imprisoned in [communist] Czechoslovakia," he told The Prague Post. "I feel obliged to repay this debt to those who are in a similar situation now."

Making a difference

The Czech Republic has been active in aiding Cuban dissidents ever since the country was formed in 1993, but it was not until 1999 that it criticized Cuba on the world stage. After delegates at the 1998 meeting of the UN Commission on Human Rights in Geneva defeated a U.S. resolution condemning Cuba, the Czech Republic picked up the baton and successfully passed a similar resolution in 1999 in what was to become a yearly event. Pundits speculated that Czechoslovak-born former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright had urged Havel to follow in the United States' footsteps and thus the resolution became a Czech initiative. Whatever the motivation, the move has certainly given the Czech Republic even more cache with the anti-Castro movement, especially this year and last when a Cuban diplomat called the Czechs "toadies" and "U.S. lackeys" in Geneva.

"The resolution illustrates that the Czech Republic can play a role on Cuban matters," said Czech Ambassador to the U.S. Martin Palous, who as deputy foreign minister first presented the Cuba resolution in Geneva.

Not long after the resolution passed again in 2001, the Cuban government jailed Freedom Union MP Ivan Pilip, now vice president of the European Investment Bank, and former parliamentarian Jan Bubenek for 25 days. Their trip to Cuba had been paid for by Freedom House, a U.S.-funded, nongovernmental organization that assists dissidents. The crisis showed that Czechs working on behalf of dissidents were indeed a thorn in Castro's side, Palous said.

Palous, a signer of the Charter 77 human-rights manifesto in communist Czechoslovakia, said the Prague conference will provide inspiration at a critical time for Cuban dissidents.

Eighteen months ago Castro jailed 75 pro-democracy activists. All received long prison sentences, up to 20 years. But Oswaldo Paya, leader of a pro-democracy petition similar to Charter 77 called the Varela Project, was spared. The fact that Havel had nominated Paya for the Nobel Peace Prize may have helped keep him out of jail, according to political observers. The crackdown against dissidents also spurred the creation of the ICDC, an Albright-Havel initiative that brings together prominent European, American and Cuban voices for democracy.

Palous noted that just as the Czech Republic could not have easily emerged from communism without Western assistance, the Cubans will also need help when the Castro regime collapses. The Czechs can also offer advice on how to bridge the gap between exiles and those who never left, Palous said. "We can also offer our experience with restitution, court reform and the constitutional process," he added.

There are many common bonds between the two countries: Thousands of Cubans studied here under communism and Czechoslovak engineers constructed much of Cuba's infrastructure and energy plants.

Staying focused

Hans de Salas, a research associate at the Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies at the University of Miami, said, "Unless there is a coordinated support for dissidents from human-rights groups in Europe and Latin America, there is little hope for Cuba's dissident movement. Cubans are living in a police state with little chance to organize resistance on a grass-roots level."

That is where People in Need comes in. Starting in the mid-1990s, the charity began passing on medical supplies, computers, financial support and even advice from former Czechoslovak dissidents directly to those struggling against Castro. The Cuba program is now one of the organization's most significant projects and receives funding from the Foreign Ministry.

Tomas Pojar, People in Need's director, said when he first became involved in Cuba and approached European parliamentarians for help, all anyone would talk about was U.S.-Cuba relations.

"Well neither the U.S. embargo nor EU engagement has worked -- there are more dissidents than ever in Cuban jails," Pojar said, estimating the number of political prisoners at 400. "So we think the focus should be on the dissidents and as far as I know, we are the only European country taking this route." He added that this conference is yet another reminder to the Cuban government that the world is watching. The Cuban Embassy in Prague refused to comment on the conference.

As for the future of Czech foreign policy on Cuba, the Czech Foreign Ministry has been much more critical of Castro than the EU has, and Dlouha says Czechs will try to influence EU policy. That would please U.S.-based Cubans like de Salas, who said that "90 percent of the money European vacationers spend in Cuba goes to the Cuban government, especially the Ministry of Defense."

Frank Calzon, director of the Washington-based Center for a Free Cuba, said U.S.-based pro-democracy groups consider Czech involvement in Cuba to be vital. "People said many times that it didn't matter what happened to Czechoslovakia and look what happened, how much suffering this attitude caused," Calzon said. "Now Czechs can make sure the same thing doesn't happen to Cuba."

--Lenka Ponikelska contributed to this report.

Dinah A. Spritzer can be reached at dspritzer@praguepost.com

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