‘Indifference Is Not Permissible’

Think of Vaclav Havel as Arthur Miller and Nelson Mandela rolled into one. By the time Havel became president of Czechoslovakia almost 18 years ago, he was already an internationally renowned writer—whose work had been banned at home—and a human- rights activist who spent four years in jail as a political prisoner. Once dubbed the dissident playwright, he was a part of Czechoslovakia’s “Prague Spring,” the vibrant social and intellectual movement forcefully crushed by Soviet troops in 1968. In 1989, Havel led the bloodless Velvet Revolution that toppled his nation’s communist rulers and was promptly elected president of the newly free nation. He stayed in office until 2003, when he was prevented from running again due to term limits.

Now 70, Havel shows no signs of slowing down, either artistically or politically. He remains active in global politics, and has been an outspoken critic of human-rights violations, particularly in North Korea. He recently completed a seven-week residency in New York hosted by the Arts Initiative at Columbia University. Meanwhile, a collective of Off-Broadway theater companies presented a career retrospective called “Havel Fest,” which featured 18 of his plays. Havel shared his opinions on Iraq, North Korea and civil rights with NEWSWEEK’s Karen Fragala Smith. Excerpts:

NEWSWEEK: When you were in New York City for the first time in the late 1960's, you attended protests against the Vietnam War. Do you see any similarities between the current military conflict in Iraq and Vietnam?

VACLAV HAVEL: I believe that the international community has the right to intervene in cases of genocide, and that indifference is not permissible. I would draw the parallel with Germany in 1938-39, and had there been an intervention back then, many lives would have been saved. But the thing is to be well prepared, and this has not been the situation with the Iraq War. In the case of Iraq, the timing was not explained sufficiently, and the explanation about the hidden weapons of mass destruction was not convincing at all.

President Bush has spoken often of his desire to bring democracy to the Muslim world. Given your experience during the Velvet Revolution, do you believe that democracy can be installed from outside?

I think the very term “export of democracy” is an unhappy term. Even a government that is elected democratically can cause a lot of evil, as we know from the story of Hitler. In Iraq, the goal should be to save another 100,000 Iraqi people rather than the creation of a different political system. The question of the political system should not be part of the reasoning for the war because it really is up to the Iraqi people to decide what sort of political system they want. The mess that is in Iraq today should have been foreseen. I think that Americans should have left Iraq a long time ago. They should leave now.