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August 24, 2018 www.intellinews.com I Page 2
Kremlin-friendly Zeman refuses speech to mark 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia
Unlike Slovak counterpart Andrej Kiska, who will make a speech to be broadcast by Slovakia’s pub- lic station RTVS and Czech TV channel CT24, Ze- man will be conspicuous for his silence as Czechs and Slovaks recall the momentous events of 1968 in which Soviet tanks rolled into Czechoslovakia along with around a quarter of a million troops to crush the Prague Spring move towards political liberalisation. The choice of protest symbol re- lates to a 2015 stunt by activist group Ztohoven in which giant red boxer shorts were attached to the flagpole where the presidential standard flies atop Prague Castle to object to Zeman’s closeness to Moscow and Beijing.
The Czech Republic’s Fleet Sheet Final Word column responded to Zeman’s decision not to give a speech by writing: “As it happens, each of the three Czech presidents [since the 1989 Velvet Revolution and subsequent Velvet Divorce of the Czechs and Slovaks] has been in office on one
of the 10-year anniversaries of the invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Warsaw Pact on Aug. 21, 1968. Vaclav Havel was the president on that day in 1998, Vaclav Klaus in 2008 and Milos Zeman
in 2018. Zeman, as the incumbent president in a world that is far more divided than it was 10 or 20 years ago, has decided to exercise his right not to incriminate himself by saying something that would get him in trouble either with a large part of the electorate at home or with his friends in Moscow.
“Vaclav Klaus was far from quiet 10 years ago. He compared Aug. 1968 to the Nazi occupation in March 1939 and said it was the biggest shock since the end of WWII. Vaclav Havel's comments from 10 years earlier are harder to track down,
but in speaking to Czech Radio he emphasized
the resistance to the invaders by society and the media. Havel's words are hauntingly transportable in time to the Trump-Putin era.”
Jiri Pehe, a former adviser to the late President Havel and a frequent Zeman critic, told RFE/RL that he was stunned by the president's decision not to give a speech on one of the darkest days
of Czech and Slovak history or pay his respects
by attending a commemorative occasion. Noting that the invasion caused many people to flee the country, a decision which often meant never see- ing your family again, he was reported as saying: "Although this is not embedded in the constitu- tion, the president has a job description... to speak on such an important anniversary."
August 21 will at least see Czech PM Andrej Babis (Ano party), Senate President Milan Stech (Social Democrats) and Speaker of the House Radek Von- dracek (Ano) speak at a memorial event in front of a Czech Radio building in Prague that was occu- pied by Soviet troops after the invasion.
Zeman’s silence also drew a stinging rebuke from journalist Robert Malecky of the E15 daily. He said that Zeman was allowing Kiska to become the president of all Czechoslovaks.
Apologist for Putin
The populist and often foul-mouthed Zeman narrowly won re-election in a run-off vote in late January. The 73-year-old former Social Democrat, popular in the provinces but widely detested in Prague, vilifies Islam, has flirted with the far
right and is often an apologist for the actions of Russian President Vladimir Putin. His bid for re- election, in which he was too infirm to campaign, was dogged by allegations that it was benefiting from money from Moscow.
In November last year, Zeman once again broke ranks with other European leaders and the Czech government by visiting Putin and calling for sanc- tions against Russia to be dropped.