Cuba gives Czech diplomat 72 hours to leave

Cuba gives Czech diplomat 72 hours to leave

Reuters
Thursday, April 13, 2006; 5:05 PM

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.

(Additional reporting by Anthony Boadle in Havana)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/13/AR2006041301278.html