Czechs protest Rice visit over radar base treaty

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s idea of the Czech Republic’s “moving to democracy” is for the rightist Czech regime to sign a treaty allowing U.S. radar bases that 70 percent of the Czech population reject and for Czech troops to follow the U.S. lead in occupying countries all over the world.

The Czech people disagree. When Rice was in Prague July 8 to sign the treaty, people were out in the street protesting her visit. The Czech parliament has not yet approved the treaty, and Communist Party and most Social Democratic members of the parliamentary opposition have pledged to vote against it. Even some Green Party members, who are in the government coalition, oppose the treaty.

The radar base is part of a U.S. weapons system that includes interceptor missiles to be located in neighboring Poland, where the population also opposes the bases and where the rightist government is demanding billions in military aid before signing on. The U.S. claims the task of the missile system is to intercept nuclear missiles from Iran aimed at Europe. The Russian government has called the bases a threat to Russia.

The Communist Youth Union (KSM), which has been actively campaigning against the bases, was one of the groups mobilizing July 8 against Rice’s visit. The rightist Czech government has been using repressive measures to try to ban the KSM, but the young communists are fighting not only to stay in existence but also in anti-imperialist action.

According to a July 15 KSM statement, signing the treaty contradicts “the opinion of the majority of the people in Czech Republic and is a clear expression of the fully pro-imperialist policy of the government of the Czech Republic.” The KSM sees the base as developing “the domination of the U.S. imperialism not only in Middle Europe but ... far to the east.”

“The petition against the placement of the U.S. military base in Czech Republic launched by the KSM has been signed by more than 180,000 people so far,” the KSM statement continues.

“The Communist Youth Union together with other progressive and democratic organizations expressed its clear ‘No’ to all these steps of the state pro-imperialist policy including the presence of the Czech troops in Afghanistan, Iraq, in the Balkans and possibly in African Chad.”