'A friend of Poland has passed away'

Czech newspaper announces death of Vaclav Havel: photo - EPA/Filip Singer

“Poland has lost a friend,” President Bronislaw Komorowski, currently on a trip to China, said on learning the news of the death of the 75 year-old politician and leader of the 1989 Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia.

“Vaclav Havel was a politician who permanently changed the face of Europe, and left a lasting impression,” he added.

Komorowski recalled a recent meeting with Vaclav Havel in the spring of this year, when the Polish president made an official visit to Prague.

“It was evident that it was an encounter with a person who was suffering from his illness.”

Havel had been hospitalized several times over the last few years after being diagnosed with lung cancer.

A statement by Polish foreign minister Radek Sikorski recounted the many achievements of Vaclav Havel, president of Czechoslovakia and then the Czech Republic throughout the 1990s till 2003.

“He supported the Polish democratic and independence aspirations and cooperated with the Workers’ Defence Committee KOR and Solidarity. He also co-founded the Polish-Czech-Slovak Solidarity. He continued his good cooperation with Poland also within the Visegrad Group after 1989 as President of Czechoslovakia and then of the Czech Republic,” says the statement.

“To honour the memory of Vaclav Havel, all the EU Council meetings under the Polish Presidency on Monday, 19 December, will commence with a minute of silence,” Sikorski announced. (pg)