Havel 1977, 1989, 1992… 2011
(BRUXELLES2) This is undoubtedly the image that I will remember of Vaclav Havel. This photo taken in 1989 accompanied me for many years and still adorns my desk today. How to present Havel? Poet, playwright, dissident, statesman... Be that as it may, the Czech Republic has lost a great man, and Europe too.
The architect of a velvet separation: the refusal of the conflict for Slovakia
It is also important to remember an important episode in his life as a politician. A less mentioned episode. It is, in fact, partly thanks to Havel that Europe was spared one more conflict in the post-Soviet years. When Slovakia separated from its Czech sister-republic, the option of a muscular, even military intervention to bring the Slovak patriots to their senses was, at stake, for a moment. Havel cut short any discussion on this topic. Me president, he indicated in substance, there will be no intervention. Slovakia then separated peacefully from the Czech Republic. And it's not for lack of animosity. Because if the Czechs and Slovaks were for the most part peaceful, this was not the case for all. To have witnessed the visit of V. Havel to Bratislava in October 1991, one was surprised by the violence of the insults that were uttered against him, when it was not the whistles and the eggs, rising from the ranks of Slovak nationalists. But we stayed with the verbal exchanges. At the same time, and for several years, Yugoslavia, which did not have a leader "wise" enough to adopt Havel's posture, we will not stop at words...
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