Prague calls development 'bad news'
By Yves Colon , ycolon@herald.com. Published Tuesday,
January 23, 2001, in the Miami Herald
Two prominent Czech citizens at the center of a dispute between Havana and
Prague will be held in "preventive detention'' for up to 60 days in Cuba
until their case comes up for trial, Czech officials said.
If the trial does not take place within that period, the two men could be
detained for up to six months, they said.
"It's bad news,'' said Petr Janousek, spokesman for the Czech Embassy
in Washington. "We were hoping the matter would be resolved in a more
positive way. Now it's going to take more time to get detailed information on
whatever crime the Cuban authorities accuse them of having committed.''
Janousek said officials will continue to press the Cuban government to
release Ivan Pilip, a member of the Czech parliament, and Jan Bubenik, a
corporate recruiter in Prague. The two men were arrested in the southern part of
the island last Friday after meeting with two dissidents.
The Cuba government accuses both men of "unlawful association with
intent to incite an uprising'' and wants to bring them before a military court.
FAMILY VISIT
"We naturally insist on an immediate release,'' foreign ministry
spokesman Ales Pospisil was quoted in Monday's edition of Mlada fronta Dnes,
Prague's largest newspaper.
During the weekend, Pilip's wife and Bubenik's brother visited the men for
three hours at the Villa Marista prison in Havana. The charge d'affaires at the
Czech Embassy in Havana, who met with the men Saturday, reported that they were
in good physical and psychological health, adding that they "were
cleanshaven and wore their own clothes.''
ACTIVISTS
Both men have participated in the Czech Republic's recent history of
democracy.
As a 20-year-old medical student, Bubenik became involved in the November
protests that toppled the communist regime. He became a spokesman for the Velvet
Revolution and went on to become a member of the first post-Communist
parliament.
As a member of parliament, Pilip has butted heads with his party's
leadership. Before co-founding the Freedom Union Party, he served as education
and finance minister. | 