Havel supports Ukraine opposition

Former Czech President Vaclav Havel threw his weight behind Ukraine’s opposition today, demanding that the results of the disputed presidential election be overturned.

“Let me greet you at these dramatic days when the fate of your country for many years to come is at stake,” Mr Havel said in a message to the Ukrainian opposition sent from Taiwan where he was on an Asian trip.

Your country’s future “is in your hands”, he said. “All respectable local and international organiasations agree that your demands are just.”

Mr Havel, aged 68, was a dissident playwright when he led the 1989 “Velvet Revolution” that peacefully toppled communism in his country.

He became president of then-Czechoslovakia in December 1989, and served as Czech president from January 1993, after the country split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia, until this past February.