Icon of a bloodless revolution dies at 75

VACLAV HAVEL, the dissident playwright who was jailed by Czechoslovakia’s communist government and then went on to lead the “Velvet Revolution” and become Czech president, died at 75 yesterday.

The former chain smoker, who survived several operations for lung cancer and a burst intestine in the late 1990s that left him frail for the rest of his life, died after a long illness.

Havel was with his wife Dagmar and a nun who had been caring for him when he died at his country home, north of Prague.

“We will remember his commitment to freedom and democracy just as much as his great humanity,” said German Chancellor Angela Merkel. “We Germans especially have much to thank him for.”

The diminutive playwright, who once took Bill Clinton to a Prague jazz club, was a friend of Mick Jagger and appointed Frank Zappa as a cultural ambassador, rose to fame by facing down Prague’s communist regime when he demanded they respect at least their own human rights pledges.

Born in 1936, the son of a building contractor, Havel was denied a good education by the communists who seized power in 1948.

Havel was barred by communist leaders from his job as a writer/editor after the suppression of the Prague Spring reforms of 1968 and he was forced to work as a manual labourer.

He became the first spokesman for the Charter 77 dissident group that strongly criticised communist officials.

Havel was sentenced in 1979 to more than four years in prison for “subversion” against the state. In 1983, he was released from prison amid immense foreign, diplomatic pressure after falling seriously ill with pneumonia.

Chosen as Czechoslovakia’s president following the collapse of the communist regime, he left office in 1992 ahead of the breakup of Czechoslovakia. On January 26, 1993, he was elected president of the newly-emerged and independent Czech Republic.

Much of his presidential term was cast as a struggle for the soul of democratic reforms against right-wing economist Vaclav Klaus, who replaced Havel as president in 2003.

Havel returned to writing, and published a new play, Leaving, which won rave reviews and premiered in 2008. When asked that year if he wanted to be remembered as a politician or playwright, he said: “I would like it to say that I was a playwright who acted as a citizen, and thanks to that he later spent a part of his life in a political position,” he said.