Posted on 04/14/2006 2:24:54 PM PDT by Grzegorz 246
PRAGUE (Reuters) - Cuba has given a Czech diplomat in Havana 72 hours to leave, the Czech Foreign Ministry said on Thursday. It called the move retaliation for Czech criticism of Cuba's human-rights record.
Cuban President Fidel Castro's communist government gave no reasons for refusing to extend the visa of the first secretary at the Czech embassy, Stanislav Kazecky.
The Czech Foreign Ministry said it had summoned the Cuban charge d'affaires in Prague to protest and said the government would take reciprocal action.
"The Czech Republic understands this as an act of expulsion," the ministry said in a statement. "Cuba undoubtedly is reacting to Czech foreign policy, which rigorously criticizes human-rights violations in Cuba and supports Cuban opposition," it said.
The Czech Republic, a former communist country and new European Union member, has advocated reimposing EU diplomatic sanctions on Cuba for repressing dissent and jailing critics of Castro's 47-year rule.
The Cuban foreign ministry declined to comment on Kazecky.
"Cuban authorities gave no explanation. We suppose it has to do with Czech activities in the human rights field," Kazecky told Reuters in Havana.
The 34-year-old diplomat, who had close contacts with dissidents in Cuba, has booked a flight for Paris on Saturday.
He was posted to Havana in April 2004, a year after a political crackdown landed 75 Cuban dissidents in jail and led to the freezing of diplomatic ties between Cuba and the EU.
Relations improved last year after European nations lifted minor sanctions and stopped inviting Cuban dissidents to their national-day celebrations, ending a so-called "cocktail war."
But tensions between Prague and Havana have continued.
In May last year, Cuban police picked up Czech Sen. Karel Schwarzenberg and drove him to the airport for a flight home, preventing him from attending a meeting by leading dissident Martha Beatriz Roque.
In January, Prague asked Cuba to explain the detention of former Miss Czech Republic 1999, supermodel Helena Houdova, while she was taking photographs in a Havana slum.
http://www.ceskenoviny.cz/news/index_view.php?id=183243
Cuba accuses expelled Czech diplomat of subversion
Havana- Cuba today accused Czech diplomat Stanislav Kazecky, whose visa it had refused to extend, de facto expelling him, of subversion and work for the USA, the Spanish news agency EFE writes today.
Cuba has decided not to extend Kazecky's visa because the diplomat "constantly violates the rules of the Vienna convention and does not behave like a diplomat, persistently performing intelligence work and subversive tasks," Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque told journalists.
In an interview with CTK, Kazecky has rejected the accusations. He returns from Cuba to the Czech Republic at the weekend.
"In fact, he does not work for the Czech, but U.S. government," Perez Roque said.
He said that Kazecky "was fulfilling the tasks of U.S. special services, cooperates narrowly with U.S. subversive bodies, is involved in the distribution of money and printed material, trying to provision mercenary groups and help the U.S. administration in this."
"Besides, we had to investigate him several times since he was trying to photograph military installations, infiltrate or secure access close to them, to the place wheres a Czech diplomat, who is expected to represent the interests of his people and work to the benefit of the relations, has nothing to do," Perez Roque said.
"According to my knowledge, I have never entered any army base, I have not photographed there and I have never had such an intention," Kazecky told CTK.
The Czech government considers the decision of the Cuban authorities not to extend Kazecky's visa as a sort of expulsion and in a reciprocal step, it has refused to extend the visa to one of the Cuban diplomats in Prague.
"I am not worried about the Czech reaction and what the Czech minister says. Cuba is defending its sovereignty and the country must be respected. Neither Czechs nor any other country may disrespect the laws and sovereignty of our country," Perez Roque said according to EFE.
Any nation with an embassy in Cuba is a loser nation.......
What a pity the MSM in the United States don't have the backbone the Czechs do or Castro might not get away with what he has.
That's a pretty short czech-out.
The Usual Suspect Lefties here in the U.S. will manage to find some lame way to excuse this action by Castro and the Cubans.
Yep. Not better than CNN.
At least the *Eastern* Europeans get it.
Kudos to Stanislav Kazecky and the great Czech nation!
Wouldn't it be easier for the Cubans to simply give him a box of cigars, drive him to the Camp Gitmo gate, and say goodbye in a gentlemanly way? That's more respectful than looking like international douche-bags.
If those Czechs would be so active in Belarus like they are in Cuba, it would be great! In the Caraibian they have nothing to lose :)
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