CZECH RIGHT-WINGERS IN A LATHER OVER FIDEL'S PUBLICITY

Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit

Monday, January 29, 2001 11:07 PM

CTK National News Wire
January 29, 2001

CZECH PRESS SURVEY: RIGHT-WINGERS IN A LATHER OVER FIDEL'S PUBLICITY

PRAGUE, Jan 29 -- Fidel Castro has killed two birds with one stone -- he has
punished his former ally for its anti-communist position and he has again
become the centre of attention, the daily Lidove noviny writes today.

Newspapers in countries, which normally pay very little attention to Castro,
are now publishing his twaddle about imperialists and its servants,
providing him with an excellent opportunity to spread revolution, the author
says.

Now this man is calling from Havana for the defence of the Cuban Embassy in
Prague. Although no one intends to attack it the Cuban Embassy in the Czech
Republic, which has so far been ignored, has suddenly found itself in the
limelight and its members are gradually becoming heroes, the author says.

Cuba wanted to punish Prague for taking the liberty of proposing a
resolution condemning Havana, and for intending to appoint a former
dissident an ambassador, a step that could have been viewed as a
provocation.

On the other hand, the detention of Pilip and Bubenik is a warning to all
who would like to have good trade contacts with Havana. If there are such
people they will at least know what they can expect. They will have to spend
months to free their citizens from Cuban prisons, the author says.

The least thing Czech citizens could do is to resolutely protest (against
the detention of Pilip and Bubenik), the daily Mlada fronta Dnes writes
today.

However, where are the expected tens of thousands of signatures under a
petition for the release of the two Czechs and where are demonstrations
outside the Cuban Embassy in Prague? the author asks.

"If anyone treats our co-citizens in an immoral way he actually treats all
us in this way. Let's be Europeans and let's be citizens of the world.
However, they are only Czechs who have been detained in Cuba. How loudly
would Americans, the French or Poles would cry if they have been their
citizens. We will not cry. Many of us will only pronounce a couple of
scornful remarks while others will wait for someone else to act instead of
them,"

the author says. Representative of the striking Czech Television (CT)
journalists Martin Schmarcz was in a difficult position when he defended his
views (on Prima Television's Sunday discussion programme) at a time when
public support for the television rebellion is not as clear as it was from
the beginning, the daily Pravo writes.

Schmarcz was not convincing especially at the moment when there was talk
about the ethics of the television rebellion, about calls for demonstrations
from the screen or insulting slogans which hang in the television studios,
the author says.

However, mutual attacks of both parties in the dispute and a political tinge
of this protracted affair have overshadowed something very important, which
should be strictly separated from these methods and this is an evident
effort by political parties to gain control over the public broadcaster CT
to their own benefit. Has this danger been eliminated by weeks of the
festival of passions? Not at all, the author says.


source - cana11@juno.com>
 
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