President Vaclav Havel warned his countrymen Sunday that the continued export of heavy weapons to countries like Syria poses a serious danger to Czechoslovakia.
But his remarks, while they may have pleased Israel and its supporters, brought Havel closer to a showdown with Slovak nationalists advocating a separate state.
Havel was referring to the shipment of 250 T-72 tanks to Syria despite earlier promises by Czech leaders that such exports would stop. “I am not pleased with our deliveries of tanks to Syria at all,” he declared in a radio address Sunday.
“We have been assured that the present deliveries are the last ones,” he added, referring to the former Soviet model tanks manufactured at industrial plants in Slovakia.
According to Havel, toying with the idea of exporting heavy armaments to areas of tension or to states supporting terrorism endangers Czechoslovakia’s political and economic interests and jeopardizes its future.
There are lobbies, he said, that are exerting pressure to continue arms shipments and their activities imperil Czechoslovakia’s world standing.
“Should any further contract bypassing legal procedures come to my ears, the matter would receive very serious consideration, and political consequences would be drawn,” Havel warned.
Israel has repeatedly protested the resumption of Czechoslovak tank deliveries to Syria, which were temporarily suspended before the Middle East peace talks in Madrid last October.
But Slovak politicians and economists argue that continued arms exports are essential to stem poverty and rising unemployment in the Slovak half of the Czechoslovak federation.
They point out that other countries export arms and could easily fill the orders that might have gone to Slovak factories.
The arms export issue is one of several threatening the cohesion of Czechoslovakia. Slovak nationalists last week successfully blocked constitutional bills sponsored by Havel in the federal Parliament aimed at preserving the unity of the nation.
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