WORLD : Havel Pays Homage to Sakharov

Czechoslovak President Vaclav Havel today paid homage to the late human rights activist Andrei D. Sakharov, one of the few Soviets who openly welcomed the 1968 Prague Spring reforms and denounced the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia.

Havel visited the grave with Sakharov’s widow, Yelena Bonner, and Czechoslovak Foreign Minister Jiri Dienstbier. They placed flowers among the many bouquets that are constantly replenished by mourners.

Havel, Czechoslovakia’s first non-Communist leader in 41 years, also met with Soviet legislators and suggested an exchange of parliamentary delegations, with the Czechoslovak side led by Alexander Dubcek, the former Communist Party chief who authored the 1968 reforms.

Dubcek’s last two official visits to Moscow were humiliating. In the first, days after the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact invasion, he was under arrest. In the second, two months later, he signed an agreement allowing Soviet troops to stay on Czechoslovak soil indefinitely and promising the country would return to Soviet-style, hard-line rule.