Czech Embassy Shelters Cubans

Two Cuban students seeking political asylum and five dissidents were taking shelter in the Czechoslovak Embassy in Havana on Tuesday, presenting Cuba and Czechoslovakia with a tricky diplomatic problem.

The seven entered the unguarded embassy in Havana’s Nuevo Vedado district Monday in an incident that seemed likely to further strain relations between Cuba’s Communist authorities and the new non-Communist administration in Prague.

Cuba’s foreign minister, in an apparent attempt to head off any copycat embassy invasions of the kind happening in Albania, called in foreign ambassadors Monday evening to brief them on the situation and the Cuban response, diplomatic sources said.

They said the ambassadors were told the Cuban government would not negotiate under duress and is not prepared to deal with its own citizens through the mediation of foreign embassies.

First to enter the Czechoslovak embassy Monday were the five dissidents. Several hours later two students scrambled over the embassy wall only minutes before police arrived.

The five dissidents said they are members of three opposition and human rights groups and had requested Czechoslovak government protection to enable them to travel to Europe and return without fear of reprisal from Cuban authorities, Czechoslovak press attache Lubomir Hladik said.

The case presented a tricky diplomatic problem for Czechoslovak President Vaclav Havel, himself a former anti-Communist dissident, who has already provoked the anger of President Fidel Castro by criticizing Cuba for human rights violations.