Many Czechs Dislike Moscow Agreement

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31770, 29 August 1968, Page 1

Many Czechs Dislike Moscow Agreement

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright)

PRAGUE, August 28.

Bursts of machine-gun fire ripped across fog-shrouded Wenceslas Square early today as the Warsaw Pact occupation of Czechoslovakia entered its second week.

It was impossible to see through the murk who was shooting at whom.

Citizens were streaming to work and there were no indications of an early response to an appeal by Prague students last night for a general strike in protest against the Moscow agreement announced yesterday.

Battered red trams packed the square from end to end. Shops were reopening and, with luck, getting fresh supplies in, as Prague slowly regained some semblance of the normal appearance of a capital city. Young Czechoslovaks had planned fresh demonstrations this morning against the Moscow agreement, regarded by manv in Czechoslovakia as a settlement imposed by force to reduce the country to a Soviet puppet State. Resistance Possible There were signs that sectors of the population might strenuously resist the agreement thrashed out by their leaders at the Moscow talks—a resistance which would pqse grave problems for the Communist Party leader, Mr Alexander Dubcek.

Radio Free Danube reported that members of the Slovak Communist Party presidium had, gone into an allnight session “with tears in their eyes” because of the Moscow deal. President Ludvik Svoboda yesterday appealed to the people to maintain their good sense and discipline in face of the invaders while Mr Dubcek appealed for order and said that any mistrust of the agreement on the gradual withdrawal of Warsaw Pact forces was unfounded. But a mood of uncertainty has replaced the wave of optimism which swept the country when 1 the Czechoslovak leaders, returned from Russia early yesterday.

Radio Free Danube said there had been an atmosphere of distress at yesterday’s session of the extraordinary Slovak Party Congress when the deputy Premier, Mr Gustav Husak, reported on the Moscow talks. Withdrawal Talks Mr Husak told delegates that talks on concrete dates for the withdrawal of troops were due to begin in about 10 days. But his report “could not satisfy the broad congress plenum,” the radio said.

One free radio charged that the Kremlin agreement was a “betrayal and capitulation.” But to the people of Czechoslovakia reports that the stationing of Soviet troops along the border with West Germany and the muzzling of the press had been agreed to in Moscow were more significant than anything in the communique itself. Soviet troops are already reported to have taken up positions at several points along the 235-mile-long West German border for the first time since the end of the Second World War. Russian forces made no move to intervene yesterday as thousands of people demonstrated their anger by gathering under the windows of Parliament after marching 25-abreast through the streets of Prague. Parliament’s View They were told by a deputy who came to address them: “Parliament does not agree to the communique from Moscow.”

Assurances given by Mr Svoboda and Mr Dubcek that they would not abandon their programme of liberalisation failed to carry much weight among the thousands gathered round transistor radios in Wenceslas Square.

People leapt onto the plinth of the Wenceslas statue as Mr Dubcek finished speaking to condemn the Moscow agreement.

One student leader called for a general strike.

Czechoslovak Radio announced that the Central Committee of the Czechoslovak Communist Party would meet in a Prague factory this morning to consider the Moscow agreement The meeting will take place at the Autopraga factory in Prague, the radio said. The radio last night broadcast a committee proclama-

tion expressing bitterness at the outcome of the talks between Czechoslovak and Soviet leaders.

(Communique text, p. 11.)