Czech Senate President Visits the Freedom House Pair

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Wednesday January 31 (via Yahoo)

Czech Senate Head Visits Detainees in Cuba Jail 

By Isabel Garcia-Zarza

HAVANA (Reuters) - A senior Czech official, on a mission to secure the
release of two prominent Czechs jailed in Cuba after meeting anti-Castro
dissidents, visited the pair Tuesday in a Havana state security prison.

Senate President Petr Pithart's visit to the Villa Marista detention center
came on the same day he began meeting Cuban authorities in an effort to
break the diplomatic deadlock over the dispute between the two Soviet-era
allies.

Pithart, who arrived on the communist-ruled Caribbean island Monday night,
held a long meeting early Tuesday with a Cuban parliament delegation to
discuss the fate of ex-finance minister and current legislator Ivan Pilip
and former student leader Jan Bubenik, both detained in Cuba since Jan. 12.

`It was very sincere, tough and open ... on the legal political, and
historical aspects of the case,'' Pithart said of the meeting, which
represented the first high-level official contact between the two countries
about the detentions.

`We are at the very beginning of a series of discussions,'' Pithart added in
brief comments to Reuters outside Cuba's National Assembly offices. He was
also to meet Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque and probably President
Fidel Castro.

The Czech Senate president's presence has raised hopes for a diplomatic
solution to an incident that has further soured already-poor relations
between Havana and Prague, which abandoned communism 12 years ago.

`I am a bit more hopeful today,'' Pilip's wife, Lucie Pilipova, told Reuters
in Havana, where she has been visiting her husband in jail almost daily.

She confirmed Pithart's visit to Villa Marista.

Pithart In Cuba On Castro's Invitation

The Senate head was in Cuba on Castro's personal invitation after sending a
letter to him from Prague requesting the two men's release and insisting
they were not U.S. `agents.''

Pilip and Bubenik were arrested in the central province of Ciego de Avila
after meeting dissident journalist Antonio Femenias and human rights
activist Roberto Valdivia. The Czechs were accused of making `subversive
contacts.''

Havana regards all dissidents as U.S.-backed `counter- revolutionaries,''
and outlaws all overt opposition activism.

In a case that also has drawn strong protests from Europe and the United
States, Cuba insists the two men broke local laws and were operating on the
instructions of the U.S.-based Freedom House organization, known for its
opposition to Castro.

Cuba says Freedom House financed their trip at a cost of $1,400, and gave
them names and addresses of dissidents, as well as a computer to be handed
over to their contacts.

If tried under Cuba's local penal code, the pair would be charged with `acts
against the security of the state.''

Havana has implicitly offered to be lenient if the Czech Republic accepts
that the men were wrong to sustain `subversive'' contacts with activists,
and Prague appeals to Cuba's ''generosity.''

But President Vaclav Havel -- himself a former anti- communist dissident --
and other Czech authorities have ruled that out, condemning the arrests as a
human rights abuse.

 
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