Tass advises Carter to snub Bukovsky

Press, 26 February 1977, Page 6

Tass advises Carter to snub Bukovsky

NZPA-Reuter Moscow The official Soviet Tass news agency has issued a thinly disguised appeal to President Carter to call off his expected meeting next week with the exiled Soviet dissident, Vladimir Bukovsky.

A Tass commentary repeat e d 1 y described Mr Bukovsky, who served two prison sentences on charges of anti-Soviet agitation and violating public order, as a “criminal.” Mr Bukovsky was released from prison last December and flown to the West in exchange for the Chilean Communist Party leader, Mr Luis Corvalan.

He is at present in the United States, where he has already met members of Congress.

“It would seem there are; quite enough criminal ele-j ments of all kinds in the United States . . . but obviously there are too few criminals of their own for some people, so they decided to court imported crimi= nals,” a commentator, Alexei Petrov, wrote.

After listing a series of what he alleged to be Mr Bukovsky’s criminal activities in the Soviet Union, Petrov concluded in a clear reference to Mr Carter: “This information might be of interest to those who wish to converse with this renegade.” A summit conference of Eastern bloc nations will be held today (N.Z. time) in Prague, West German te!e= vision has reported in Hamburg. The station’s Prague cori espandent said that the conference of Eastern bloc leaders will be chaired by the Soviet Communist Party Secretary-General (Mr Leonid Brezhnev). The problem of dealing with dissidents and the com-; ing Belgrade conference are; expected to be on the; agenda, it was reported. [ Strong security measures! to protect the leaders were; already being taken in the: Czechoslovak capital, the television report added. However, a Czechoslovak Foreign Ministry spokesman said in Prague that he had no information about the summit. The spokesman (Mr Milan Kadnar) declined any further ; comment on the report. ; Although the German tele- ■ vision reported reinforced; security measures in Prague, none were visible. The • buildings at the old air- , port in Prague where vis-

iting official dignitaries are; usually greeted were; deserted. No special guards were on hand. Observers noted that a summit of the Soviet bloc countries could hardly be complete by today since the first secretary of the Rumanian Communist Party (President Nicolae Ceauscescu) is on an official visit to Senegal. The observers questioned whether, in view of the absence of the President of Rumania, whose country is fully as concerned with the problems of dissidents and human rights as any other East European nation, the Soviet Union would have convened such a conference at this time. Two young Czechoslovaks have been arrested after ciriculating the Charter 77 (human and civil rights maniIfesto, informed dissident (sources have said. They named those arrested as Vladimir Lastuvka. a 35-year-old nuclear physicist of Decin, and Ales Machacek, a 30-year-old agronomist of Usti Nad Labem. They were detained in north Bohemia. The sources said the two had been charged with creating public disturbances. Their names did not figure among the published lists of 448 signatories of the charter, which called for human and civil rights provisions in Czechoslovakia to be implemented. Three .charter signatories are at present detained — a

playwright, Vaclav Havel, a former journalist, Jiri Lederer, and a former theatre director, Frantisek Pavlicek. A fourth man also detained, Otto Ornest, a former theatre director, is not a charter signatory. Officials have said the four were not arrested in connection with the charter. The West German radio station, Deutsche Welle, which broadcasts to Eastern (Europe, has announced that iit has invited the Soviet dissident, Andrei Amalrik, tc Germany for an exchange ol views with its programme editors. Its invitation came just after Moscow had delivered a bitter attack on the statior charging it with employing nearly 400 former Nazi propagandists. The chief editor (Mr Hans Dieter Jaene), who issued the invitation, said, however that the timing was coincidental, and not a reprisal foi Moscow’s attack, made in 8 political commentary circulated by Tass. He rejected Moscow’s charge that Deutsche Welle broadcasts untruths and said that the station would make a full reply in its own commentary. The invitation from the station is the second Mt Amalrik has had from West Germany. The West German Minister of State (Mr HansJuergen Wischnewski) has said that he will meet the Soviet critic in Bonn shortly.