Prague Facing Crisis; Street Protests Called

This nation was sliding toward a new crisis today after the opposition group that has led the drive toward democracy called citizens back into the streets to protest Communist domination of an interim coalition Cabinet, sworn in Sunday.

The opposition Civic Forum, which just a week ago mobilized millions in a two-hour protest strike, called for a demonstration in Prague this afternoon to force more concessions from the authorities. And it threatened a new protest strike a week later if a more representative Cabinet is not named.

The attempt to call large numbers of protesters back onto the streets is a major gamble, in the view of diplomats.

If the response is weak, it would act to dissipate the pressure for change generated over the past two weeks. On the other hand, if the demonstrations are large and the mood turns ugly, violence could erupt.

The call for demonstrations, broadcast over national television, came as Prime Minister Ladislav Adamec and Communist Party boss Karel Urbanek left Prague for Moscow and a Warsaw Pact meeting to discuss results of this weekend’s U.S.-Soviet summit meeting. It was not clear who would be in charge in their absence.

Civic Forum had demanded last Tuesday that a new coalition government be formed by Sunday. However, despite sometimes intensive contacts during the intervening days, the announced composition of the new Cabinet appeared to catch the opposition off guard.

Sources close to the negotiations said that the opposition group, which refused any direct Cabinet role for itself, expects Adamec to announce a government evenly divided between Communists and non-Communists. Instead, Adamec presented a Cabinet of 21 ministers, only eight of whom are new, and 16 of whom are Communists.

“I’m very disappointed,” said Petr Miller, a worker from the giant CKD electrical engineering plant and a member of the Civic Forum leadership. “This does not reflect the new political situation.”

Referring to a constitutional amendment adopted last Wednesday that abolished the party’s monopoly on power, Miller added: “The Communist Party no longer has the ‘leading role’ in this country, but this Cabinet doesn’t reflect that fact.”

After 11 straight days of increasingly massive anti-government demonstrations, Civic Forum suspended public protests during coalition-forming negotiations in which it tried to play a kingmaker role.

Diplomatic analysts speculated that more conservative members of the party leadership had forced Adamec, who is also a member of the party Presidium, to name more Communist ministers than either he or the opposition wanted.

“They’re betting they can get away with this and that Civic Forum won’t be able to mobilize a big rally because the issues just aren’t that clear,” said one Western diplomat.

But a random sampling of Czechoslovaks interviewed in Prague on Sunday suggested that the issue is clear enough to many that today’s demonstration may prove the skeptics wrong.

“You had to expect that they would try to make fools of us,” said Frantisek Stetka, 53, an auto worker. However, he said, “people are still eager to press their demands. I think people will keep on fighting.”

“This new government is not acceptable to us,” said Martin Benda, 20, a striking student. Noting the imbalance between Communists and non-Communists, he added: “That’s no coalition.”

First Deputy Prime Minister Bohumil Urban conceded that the new Cabinet was a compromise.

“I do admit that all the demands of the Civic Forum could not yet, at this stage, be accepted,” he told a jammed government news conference shortly after the new Cabinet members were sworn in by President Gustav Husak, whose resignation Civic Forum has also demanded.

“But this is what life is like at this moment,” Urban added. “You can’t meet everybody’s demands.”

Adamec appealed in a televised statement for public support for his new team and stressed that “in the case of need, the government can further improve its quality.”

The prime minister said his government is “resolved to make even the most radical changes if these will lead to effective ways out” of the current crisis. He added that it would bring forward new laws on free elections, freedom of association and assembly and a new constitution.

However, appearing on behalf of Civic Forum on Sunday night, Miller told viewers that in addition to its political imbalance, the new government has a number of other problems. He said it is short of expertise and complained particularly that there was no change in key economic ministries.

Civic Forum specifically demanded the replacement of Foreign Minister Jaromir Johanes, who accompanied Adamec and Urbanek to Moscow on Sunday, and of Energy Minister Antonin Krumnikl, whose energy policies Civic Forum blames for Czechoslovakia’s pollution problems.

Civic Forum also reiterated its call for selection of a civilian defense minister and a civilian, non-Communist minister of the interior, who controls the national police. Although Adamec named new people to those posts Sunday, the defense minister is a career army man and former chief of staff, while the interior minister is a longtime party member.

Miller said Sunday that Adamec might meet Civic Forum halfway by naming new deputies who meet the opposition’s criteria at the two ministries.

In any event, Miller stressed, the “fundamental transformation of the government” that Civic Forum demanded “was not carried out.” The Cabinet named by Adamec “cannot come up with a new concept even if it sincerely wanted to,” he charged.

The opposition demanded that Adamec try again by next Sunday.

“If the present government does not understand the seriousness of the situation, we will ask for another demonstration strike on Monday, Dec. 11,” according to the opposition declaration. “We realize this is the only way people can show what they really want.”

The Civic Forum demanded free elections by July, 1990, and reiterated its call for Husak to resign. It objects to him because he was propelled into the leadership under Kremlin protection after the Soviet-led, Warsaw Pact invasion that crushed the Prague Spring reform movement of 1968.

Husak stressed Sunday that such a change shouldn’t be considered lightly, but he insisted that “I personally have no ambitions to remain in my function.” He said he would respect the wishes of “responsible political circles” at such time as they evaluated the situation.

Both Miller and Civic Forum spokesman Jiri Dienstbier called on Prague citizens to support the opposition group’s stand “by their presence” on the city’s main Wenceslas Square this afternoon. The square was the site of most of Civic Forum’s demonstrations last month.

One diplomat called Civic Forum’s plan for new demonstrations dangerous and “very tricky,” noting that people might not respond in large numbers to issues that are more complicated and subtle and no longer involve well-known personalities.

“The question now is whether, after downgrading their activity to the point that it was just idling, they will be able to crank up the protest machinery again so quickly,” a Western diplomat said.

Times staff writer Tamara Jones contributed to this story.