Czech rock group Prazsky Vyber playing in support of Cuban opposition on anniversary of fall of Wall
One Czech rock group is marking the 15th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall in a most unusual way: Prazsky Vyber, an extremely popular underground band in Czechoslovakia in the 1980s, are playing a special concert in Florida to express their support for the opposition in Cuba.
Prazsky Vyber were hugely popular in 1980s Czechoslovakia, despite being banned by the Communists for some years. Prazsky Vyber's frontman Michael Kocab was one of several rockers who briefly entered politics after the Velvet Revolution; a good friend of Vaclav Havel's, he oversaw the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Czechoslovakia in 1991, the first such pullout in the region. Prazsky Vyber played a huge concert at the time entitled Adieu Soviet Army.
Now to mark the 15th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, Prazsky Vyber are in Florida to express solidarity with a country still under communist rule - Cuba. They're playing in an area of Miami known as Little Havana to an audience of Cuban exiles, with the concert also being broadcast to the island by the opposition television channel, Marti.
Prior to the broadcast the station is showing video messages from former Czech president Vaclav Havel, Czech-born former US secretary of state Madeleine Albright and US President George Bush.
A conference is also being held in Miami on the theme of central European states' experiences in the transition from communism to democracy, and how they can be used by the Cuban opposition, if and when the Castro regime falls.
