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"I am
not one of Fidel Castro’s favorite people,” said Václav Havel in
February 2001. The millennium is still young, but that should end up one
of its greatest understatements. The former Czech president — and still
the guiding spirit in that country — is a constant irritant to the
Castro dictatorship, even a threat. So is the Czech government at large.
Indeed, ordinary Cubans have no better friends than the Czechs, and
their relationship makes an amazing story.
That relationship was highlighted by recent events within the European
Union. In January, the EU moved to lift sanctions it had imposed on
Castro in 2003. This was after the dictator’s brutal crackdown, jailing
75 dissidents. Most remarkably, EU embassies in Havana started to invite
dissidents — those still out of prison — to receptions and other
official functions. But when the Socialist José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero
came to power in Spain, he determined to remove the sanctions on Castro.
And Spain has traditionally gotten its way on EU Cuba policy. Part of
the drive was to prohibit invitations to dissidents; these had greatly
infuriated the regime, and Zapatero wanted to play nice.
But the Czechs — new in the EU — would have none of it. They did
everything they could to frustrate the new policy. Martin Palouš, the
Czech Republic’s ambassador in Washington, says, “We wanted to be EU
partners; we were not keen to destroy their unity.” But neither
could the Czechs stomach the policy. And when dissidents in Cuba cried
against it, “we reminded everyone that their voices had to be taken
into consideration first.” Note that “first” — it is a very
Czech conviction.
On January 28, Havel weighed in, with his mighty pen. In an essay
published in newspapers around the world, he excoriated the EU, saying
it had abandoned principle, conscience, and reason. He spoke of his own
time as a dissident, when it was important to meet with diplomats from
democratic countries. But now, “one of the strongest and most
powerful democratic institutions in the world — the European Union — has
no qualms about making a public promise to the Cuban dictatorship that
it will re-institute diplomatic apartheid. The EU’s embassies in Havana
will now craft their guest lists in accordance with the Cuban
government’s wishes.” [ See also a commentary in Spanish
here
]
The EU “is dancing to Fidel Castro’s tune. That means that tomorrow
it could bid for contracts to build missile bases on the coast of the
People’s Republic of China.” And “where will it end? The release
of Milosevic? Denying a visa to Russian human-rights activist Sergei
Kovalyov? An apology to Saddam Hussein? The opening of peace talks with
al-Qaeda?” Havel concluded.
It is
suicidal for the EU to draw on Europe’s worst political traditions, the
common denominator of which is the idea that evil must be appeased and
that the best way to achieve peace is through indifference to the
freedom of others. Just the opposite is true. . . . I firmly believe
that the new members of the EU will not forget their experience of
totalitarianism and nonviolent opposition to evil, and that that
experience will be reflected in how they behave in EU bodies. Indeed,
this could be the best contribution they can make to the common
spiritual, moral, and political foundations of a united Europe.
That tore it. Havel, and his fellow Czechs, effectively shamed the EU.
There is some confusion about resulting EU policy — each government may
have its own, convenient interpretation — but the general understanding
is this: The EU’s 2003 sanctions will be suspended until July, when
policy will be reviewed. EU officials traveling to Cuba are strongly
encouraged to meet with the opposition, in addition to the regime. Each
embassy may decide for itself what to do about invitations. As Cyril
Svoboda, the Czech foreign minister, said, “We are on our territory,
and we can invite whomever we want.” The Polish deputy foreign
minister, Jan Truszczynski, said that if dissidents show up at the Poles’
door, “we will not throw them out.” Spain, France, and the others
may be less hospitable. In any event, Fidel Castro is not pleased.
Dictators of this kind long for their opponents to be marginalized,
invisible — treated as non-people. They have an interest in portraying
them as criminals, stooges, and saboteurs. And the legitimacy conferred
on them by dealings with democrats is a threat to absolute rule.
Ambassador Palouš — like Havel, a former dissident — recalls what it was
to be invited to the American embassy on July Fourth: indispensable.
In the old days, the relationship between Czechoslovakia and Castro was
very close. The governments were great trading partners, and the
Czechoslovakians represented Castro’s interests in Washington. All this
changed when the democrats came to power. In due course, the Czechs
began introducing human-rights resolutions against Castro in the United
Nations. Before, this was a U.S. task. Says Palouš, “If the issue is
the United States versus Cuba, that plays into Castro’s hands. The issue,
truly, is Castro versus the Cuban people. And we wanted to put this in a
broader, more international context, eventually influencing some folks
in Europe — lefties, what you here in the United States call liberals.
We wanted to help them drop their bias, give individuals in this type of
dictatorship the attention they deserve, and not succumb to cheap Che
Guevarian mythology.” In November 1999, Havel — with Lech Walesa and
many others — sent a letter of solidarity to four Cuban political
prisoners. This may seem a small gesture, but such actions appall and
scare the Castro regime. In April 2000, the dictator sent some 100,000
subjects into the streets to march outside the Czech embassy.
In January 2001, he arrested two Czechs in Cuba who had met with
dissidents — bearing such weapons as pens, a computer, medicine, and
money. These Czechs were held for 25 days, in brutish conditions, before
being released. On their return home, Havel invited them and their
families to Prague Castle.
The next year, the
last of his presidency, Havel went even further. On a farewell tour of
the United States, he visited Miami, to meet with Cuban exiles,
including a group of former prisoners. Many of these had spent over 20
years in Castro’s gulag. They told Havel it was a supreme honor to meet
him. He replied, “No, I spent only five years in prison — the honor
is mine.” While in Miami, he received a message from Oswaldo Payá,
the Cuban democracy leader (whom Havel has pushed for the Nobel Peace
Prize). Payá told him, “You, too, are a plantado” — the Cuban
name for a long-serving political prisoner who cannot be broken.
Havel kept going. Through 2003, he made statements and waves, saying,
for example, that “Cuba must not and will not remain a forgotten
remnant of the Cold War, a kind of open-air museum of a system that
discredited itself and failed.” His work led to the creation of the
International Committee for Democracy in Cuba, which held a three-day
meeting in Prague last September. (Castro’s press remarked bitterly that
the center of imperialism had moved from Washington to the Czech
capital.) Joining Havel were eminent, freedom-minded people from all
over the world: fellow Eastern Europeans, Latin Americans, Americans,
Western Europeans (including José María Aznar, Zapatero’s predecessor as
prime minister). All involved pledged to work relentlessly for democracy
in Cuba, devising various means of doing so. Martin Palouš says, “I
can easily call this a coalition of the willing.”
One manifestation of Czech caring is the People in Need foundation,
which keeps a faithful eye on Cubans, among others. Adrian Karatnycky,
of Freedom House in New York, finds it “rather fascinating that there is
an Eastern European human-rights establishment focused on the outside
world.” Organizations such as Freedom House have “new allies,” which is
“very exciting.”
You might ask, Why the Czechs? Of all those with experience of
totalitarianism — even quite recent experience — why are the Czechs so
alert to Cuba? Frank Calzón, executive director of the Center for a Free
Cuba in Washington, says, “It can be explained in one word: Havel. He
is an extraordinary human being.” Calzón points out that Havel’s
essay “The Power of the Powerless” circulates throughout Cuba (underground,
of course). As with Solzhenitsyn, it does no harm that Havel, a
dauntless advocate, can really write. Otto Reich, the former State
Department official, says that Havel is important, yes, like Ronald
Reagan. But there are legions of others who share the missions of such
men, and carry them out. “The Czechs are amazing, at every level. I
have seen them in operation. They cannot be intimidated: not by Castro,
not by business interests, not by anybody.” Small wonder that their
western neighbors are prone to resent them: “an uppity little country
that morally outclasses them.”
Ambassador Palouš says that leadership on Cuba is part and parcel of
Czech purpose. “Cuba is for us a defining issue: It helps define who
we are, who are partners are, what our role in the world is.”
Where others may be blasé about freedom, the Czechs are not. The 15th
anniversary of the Fall of the Wall — last November 9 — was little noted
in Europe. But the Czechs marked it: with a celebratory concert in
Miami. What better way to observe the anniversary, they thought, than to
express support for Cuban democrats? Onstage was a rock group whose
music had been banned by the old Czechoslovakian regime. Its frontman
went on to serve with distinction in the Czech parliament. To Havel and
his compatriots, Cuba is a faraway country — but not one of which they
know nothing. They know a lot about it. More than Castro would like.
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