Czech foreign minister gives rose for Havel to Suu Kyi

When former Czech president Vaclav Havel died last year, Burmese opposition activists laid the flower on her behalf on the coffin of Havel who supported Suu Kyi's struggle for freedom for many years.

Suu Kyi voiced her deep sorrow over Havel's death and thanked him for the long-lasting support he had provided to her.

She sent a bunch of flowers to Havel and paid her last respects to him on the day of his funeral.

The bunch laid on Havel's coffin was preserved and dried up. Today, its story ended in Naypyidaw. The flower was laid in a glass case which Schwarzenberg personally handed to Suu Kyi.

When Suu Kyi was 60, Havel wrote an article entitled "A Rose for the 'Unfree'" in the U.S. paper Washington Post. In it, he voiced the wish to hand a rose to the Burmese dissident.

"I would like to meet her and give her a rose like the one she is seen holding in a photograph in my study. Such an ordinary wish, however, in the case of such an extraordinary woman as Aung San Suu Kyi may seem a silly idea," Havel wrote.

"Aung San Suu Kyi is no stranger to tributes for her courageous political opposition in Myanmar, but the latest was perhaps the most bittersweet - delivered from beyond the grave from an ardent admirer who was another tenacious fighter for democracy," the news agency AP wrote today about the ceremony.

Havel recommended Suu Kyi for the Nobel Peace Prize she received in autumn 1991. They never met personally.

Speaking with Schwarzenberg today, she voiced her sadness over the fact.

"I am very sad that I never had the opportunity to meet him but I feel very close because his thoughts and his writings guided me during the years of struggle," AP quotes her as saying.

Author: ČTK
www.ctk.cz