CZECH COVERT OPERATORS FREED BY CUBA AFTER PUBLIC CONFESSION Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit Tuesday February 6 1:06 AM ET CZECH COVERT OPERATORS FREED BY CUBA AFTER PUBLIC CONFESSION based on a dispatch from Andrew Cawthorne, Reuters' own King of Snide (Smarmy quotation marks, knowing winks, and propagandistic comments HAVE have been altered!--NY Transfer] HAVANA (Reuters)--Two high-profile Czechs, jailed in Cuba after meeting with anti-Castro counterrevolutionaries, were on their way home Monday night after a public confession earned their release in a case further souring ties between Cuba and the formerly socialist Czech state. Former Czech finance minister Ivan Pilip, and former anti-communist student leader Jan Bubenik took an 11 p.m. (EST) flight to Madrid, from where they said they would travel to Prague to end their month-long saga. [They were arrested on Jan 12; they were freed on Feb.6th, so the rest of the "month-long saga" included their meetings with staff of the CIA-supported Freedom House in New York, and rabid anti-Castro Cubans in Miami. --NY Transfer] Earlier, at an extraordinary meeting inside Cuba's Foreign Ministry, the pair admitted "unwittingly" breaking Cuban laws by meeting "dissidents" working against the Cuban revolution at the behest of a U.S. organization [the CIA-supported Freedom House, which claims to be a "human rights" group.] Accompanying them were leaders of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), an umbrella organization grouping 140 world legislatures [including Cuba's], which has mediated in the case. ENTERED AS "TOURISTS," LEAVING AS "TOURISTS" "They are not being expelled, they are leaving as tourists," IPU Secretary-General Anders Johnsson told Reuters by telephone as he accompanied the men to Havana's Jose Marti international airport. "They are very well, very happy, very cheerful." Johnsson boarded the same plane as the Czechs, who entered Cuba Jan. 8 and were jailed Jan. 12. [Obviously, they were all "tourists."] Their confession -- a signed statement read to foreign diplomats and Cuban officials, including Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque -- attempted to save face, but satisfied Havana's demand for an apology, which Cuba said was required for an honorable solution. "They recognized that they had violated the national law with their acts, and if these acts offended the Cuban people, they were apologizing," said IPU human rights' committee president Juan Pablo Letelier, who also helped mediate the case. Prague condemned their arrest from the outset as a "human rights abuse," and the pair insisted they had "no idea" that what they were doing was a crime. Both Washington and the European Union had appealed for their release. "A Hug for the Kids" Asked what she and her husband would do on their return home, Pilip's wife, Lucie Pilipova, told Reuters: "Give a big hug to our three kids, and to all of us." Pilipova had been visiting her husband, an opposition legislator, regularly. [What he is in "opposition" to, besides the Cuab Revolution, is not further explained in Cawthorne's story.] In their confession, the pair acknowledged traveling to Cuba in collaboration with the U.S.-based Freedom House, known for its opposition to [and subversive operations against the Cuban Revolution. The organization's active collaboration with US intelligence destablization programs has in the past led to its 3-year suspension by the United Nations as a credentialed NGO to the world body.] Havana was apparently more irked [sic] by the Czechs' contact with Freedom House than with their meeting with counterrevolutionaries. U.S. officials say Freedom House is a normal non-governmental organization, but Havana labels it a CIA-inspired body. [Who would you believe?] Pilip and Bubenik were detained in the central province of Ciego de Avila, accused of [entering the country under false pretences and arranging secret contacts with local subversives], and had been held since then at the Villa Marista state security detention center in Havana. Despite Cuba's request for an apology, Czech President Vaclav Havel, a former anti-communist dissident, and other Czech leaders refused to criticize the pair and condemned their arrest from the start as a "human rights abuse." At an airport news conference, the IPU's Letelier, a Chilean socialist parliamentarian, acknowledged Cuba's act of generosity and political willingness to facilitate a solution to the case. Once-rosy Cuban-Czech relations deteriorated after the destruction of socialism in Eastern Europe a decade ago, and worsened last year when the Czechs co-sponsored a joint resolution at a U.N. forum alleging Cuban human rights violations. At the time of the vote, about 100,000 Cubans marched noisily past the Czech Embassy in Havana in a protest of the Czechs' [acquiesence to United State pressure over the motion] before the UN Human Rights Commission, which was passed by a vote of 21 to 18. Havana has accused its former ally of becoming a "traitor, lackey and puppet of Yankee imperialism." Cuba views local so-called "dissidents" as pro-U.S. counter-revolutionaries. ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nyteeu-02.06.01-08:12:55-23792