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January 26, 2000
Let's make things better goes the ad pitch for
the Dutch electronics giant Philips. It was hoping to
make things
better in Hranice, a city in an economically depressed
region of North Moravia, when it decided to build a huge
factory
there to produce television tubes. Today the factory sprawls
across the landscape and everyone would be happy if it
weren't
for one small detail: Hranice doesn't own one small strip
of the land making up the complex. The owner is a young
hairdresser, who is still willing to sell the land, only
for 15 times the original price. She claims, with the
help
of a savvy lawyer, that she upped the offer because the
mayor acted like a beast to her. Outraged, the mayor
and
city hall turned to the courts with a petition to seize
her land under the right of eminent domain. The government
took the case a step further when the BIS, the Czech
equivalent
to the FBI, began snooping around the hairdresser. For
reasons no one quite understands, the BIS doesn't fall
under any
judicial authority. It belongs to the Ministry of Labor,
whose boss, a bigwig with the ruling Social Democrats,
had
declared that all means must be used to safeguard the three
thousand jobs on the line at the new factory. The BIS
backed
off once the story appeared and the case was played down
by the government and media. If freedom really is at
stake
in this country, both are content to leave it to the phony
war being fought at Czech TV. The court, meanwhile, dealt
the government another blow by refusing to force the
woman
to fork over her property. The ball is back in Hranice,
where the town faces stiff fines from Philips if it doesn't
make things better with the hairdresser soon.
January 19, 2000
It seemed a little odd for the Freedom Union's
Pilip to undertake a mission of freedom to Cuba after
declaring
it was endangered in his own country. Perhaps he was inspired
by the support the strikers at Czech Television have
received
from abroad (like Time's incredibly naive article on January
15). Now, as Prisoner 501 awaits his fate, sympathy for
the strike has dwindled. Could it be that the Czechs
no
longer consider it their personal responsibility to battle
tyranny, as Time proclaimed? The reason, more likely,
is
that boredom has set in. Pilip is the headline now and
he had better hope he stays there if he wants to make
it home
any time soon. But the strikers also hurt their cause by
revealing their true colors, which didn't turn out to
be
the little red and white ribbons they're always wearing.
After the hated Hodac resigned as TV director, the strikers
installed their own man in the position, the former Chief
Financial Officer of the station. The move confirmed
widespread
speculation that the strikers were afraid that the new
management might start poking around in the books. The
CFO, who was
fired at the outset of the crisis, would know best where
to clean up before an audit was conducted. He says no,
rather
he wants to prevent the new management from doing the cleaning
up. Either scenario has little to do with actual freedom
in the Czech Republic. And yet it is under assault in
a
case that has been back page news compared to the TV and
Pilip. Next week read about the case of the mayor, the
hairdresser
and one of the largest multinational firms in the world.
January 12, 2000
How do you say freedom in Spanish? The President
and Mrs. Havel took off for their beloved Iberian peninsula
shortly after they threw in their lot with the strikers
at Czech Television. Ivan Pilip of the Freedom Union, the
one who brought his pajamas to that first night behind
the
barricades at the station, left for Cuba around the same
time. The Havels are back in the Castle, but Pilip is stewing
in a prison in Havana. The police arrested him and Jan
Bubenik,
one of the student leaders of the 1989 Velvet Revolution,
on charges of aiding and abetting counterrevolution on
the
island. The two are accused of passing along computer equipment
and money to a Cuban dissident provided by the Freedom
House
of New York. Relations between Cuba and the Czech Republic
have deteriorated since Havel began haranguing Castro about
his human rights record. Cuba now considers its former
Communist
ally to be a tool of US foreign policy, a sentiment shared
in some circles here. Pilip and Bubenik had to have known
that Castro's agents would be watching their every move.
So what were they doing in Cuba in the first place? The
most charitable explanation has them doing exactly what
they are accused of, importing democracy, which carries
a 10-20 year sentence. Not so charitable, but certainly
more favorable under the circumstances, has these two proponents
of freedom bargain hunting for nickel mines. And then there
is the grand conspiracy theory, once again courtesy of
President
Havel. It holds that the Castle, a shadowy group of intellectuals,
financiers and politicians surrounding the Havels, have
been scheming to undermine the opposition agreement between
the ruling Democrats in Parliament. As they see it, the
Social and Civic Democrats are led by thugs who have carved
up the government much the way gangsters do in a city,
say,
like Prague. Indeed, an electoral law passed by the Democrats
was seen as an attempt to squeeze the smaller parties out.
And so the smaller parties got together to form the Coalition
and, with Havel's blessing, used the crisis in Czech TV
to take on the Democrats. But the Coalition lacks a strong
leader to lead it to victory in the next election. So the
Castle devises this scheme: Pilip, a former Civic Democrat
who bolted the party when a corruption scandal unfolded,
would go to Cuba with a known freedom fighter and both
would
wind up in prison. Castro would sooner or later let them
go under pressure from the European Union and the United
Nations. Since later has turned out to be the case, now
it's time for Plan B: a parliamentary delegation shall
be
assembled and dispatched to rescue the two and led by Petra
Buzkova, who has long since fallen out with her party,
the
Social Democrats. Her popularity has been sagging lately,
one reason why she's let her hair down, and bringing home
Pilip and Bubenik might do wonders for her career as well.
Each stands to come home to a hero's welcome, although
Pilip
would have the better shot at succeeding Havel for the
presidency. His experience in Cuba has fulfilled that one
peculiar requirement
of all Czech presidents so far: Do time first.
January 5, 2001
Chaos, in theory, has a unity factor. In the case
of Czech Television--make that Czech television period--that
factor is Vladimir ®elezný. As noted earlier (October
21 news column), ®elezný is the owner of TV Nova,
the krupan (the meaning
is indicated below) who first hooked his people on soap
operas. When the crisis began unfolding at CT, ®elezný gave
unqualified support to the new management and its blockade
of rebel broadcasts. The law is the law, he asserted, making
no mention of the fact that his station is absorbing most
of the market share lost by CT. But what comes around, goes
around, and by most accounts, ®elezný illegally maneuvered
to wrest control of his station from his partner, who happens
to be a moneybag for the Democrats in America. That case
put ®elezný at odds with President Havel, who is good friends
with American Democrats, much more so than he is with Czech
Democrats. The Czech Social and Civic Democrats have thus
far declined to press the issue of ®elezný's control over
TV Nova. Does that mean they will support ®elezný when his
license comes up for renewal? If Havel has his way, no way.
The Civic Democrats have been contending all along that
the crisis in CT was instigated by Havel as a means of drawing
the Social Democrats into an agreement with the Coalition
and leaving the Civic Democrats isolated. The whole thing
is absurd because all these parties hate each other anyway.
One can't help but imagine Havel, with numerous absurd dramas
already to his credit, sitting up in the Castle and laughing
at all the chaos unfolding below.
Krupan--Hick, hayseed.
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