RedNet News News and Views from the Communist Press Postmark Prague No.331 >From KEN BIGGS, 5/02/01 05:05:57 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [En Español] [Em Português] [En Français] [In Italiano] [Auf Deutsch] [??-??????] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dear Comrades, Herewith attached statements by the Czech CP and others on the Czech detainees in Cuba. Greetings from Prague! Ken Biggs POSTMARK PRAGUE No.331 News release (750 words) Sunday 4 February 2001 CZECH COMMUNIST PARTY'S APPEAL TO "THE GENEROSITY OF THE CUBAN PEOPLE" The Executive Committee of the Czech Communist Party's Central Committee issued the following statement on Friday on the case of the two Czech citizens currently being detained by the Cuban authorities: "The Executive Committee of the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia (KSCM) has followed the long-term deterioration in Czech-Cuban relations with alarm. In the 1990s Czech diplomacy failed to establish well-balanced relations with the Cuban Republic comparable to those which have been developed between most of the countries in the European Union and Cuba. The KSCM believes that relations based on open communication can exist even between countries with different political and economic goals, and that in themselves these differences are no obstacle to economic and political exchanges. Our party has long maintained that human rights, including the right to their development, can be a legitimate long-term priority of Czech foreign policy, provided that the same standards are applied to all, double standards are not used and the issue is not abused to serve other interests. "The long-term deterioration in Czech-Cuban relations, for which the leadership of our state, notably Vaclav Havel, is responsible, is also reflected in the case of Ivan Pilip and Jan Bubenik, who have been detained in Cuba since Jan.12. "The Executive Committee believes that, in the interests of arriving at a reasonable resolution of this case, two factors have to be separated: the legal and the political aspect of the whole problem and the human, humanitarian aspect. The leadership of the KSCM has no illusions about the motives and intentions behind the two men's journey (even though information on the investigation and proof of their guilt is still awaited), where the decisive context is given by the Cuba's 1999 law on the sovereignty and protection of the economic interests of Cuba and the part of the 1996 Helms-Burton Act which calls for the collection of data and information useful to America on the internal situation in Cuba. "On the other hand, the KSCM is aware of the fact that, regardless of the nature of the two men's journey to Cuba, their long-term detention could lead to an unecessary escalation of tension between our two states. We therefore appeal to the generosity of the Cuban people, who have so often demonstrated that their dignity and sovereignty matter to them above all else. We hope that this appeal to the generosity of a nation which has had similar historical experience of the political ambitions of a stronger neighbour to that of the Czech nation will also be echoed by the Czech authorities, and that they will stop using unnecessarily provocative phraseology and proceed with the greatest possible circumspection. We welcome the fact that the Czech side has begun to adopt such an approach, especially in recent days. Only in this way will a humanitarian gesture which benefits the families of the two detained men become possible. "We are convinced that paradoxically this crisis is an opportunity to create completely new political space for the shaping of relations between both states. Our party is doing everything it can to end the stalemate in both this case and the whole complex of mutual relations between the two states and to achieve a result which will benefit both sides. Prague, 2 February 2001." Several other Czech left-wing and progressive organisations have issued statements on the arrest and detention of Ivan Pilip MP and former 1989 student leader Jan Bubenik. The Foundation of Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia, a cultural organisation, "unanimously condemns the conduct of Messrs Ivan Pilip and Jan Bubenik during their visit to Cuba, when they did not behave like tourists but like agitators opposing the lawful Cuban government. Their activities, as reported in the media, would not be acceptable in any sovereign state." A joint statement by the Slav Committee, the Club of the Czech Borderlands and Society 2001 "rejects hostile actions against free Cuba, which defends the real human rights of its nation the right to life, independence, health and work in the difficult conditions of a long-sustained American embargo condemned by the UN General Assembly. The greater the difference between the living standards of the citizens of Cuba and those of most of the Latin American states economically dominated and exploited by the USA, the more hypocritical is the behaviour of the government of the Czech Republic in accusing Cuba at the UN of not observing human rights." END
