Quote of the Month - Vaclav Havel

Havel: has experience overcoming dictatorships

"However, most important is that if [Western] relations with Russia are to be friendly, they must be open and sincere, otherwise there can be no friendship at all. That means one should be able to speak openly about everything at meetings and conferences. It shouldn’t be that we can’t discuss the killing of journalists in Russia, or the suppression of human rights, or all the warning signs surfacing in Russia because of oil and gas or other economic reasons. It's a big problem, but it's the same in Western relations with Arab states. There's a dilemma over how to balance concrete economic interests with critical opinions on the state of human rights. It's the human rights that suffer, and that's a great price to pay."

Czech playwright and former President Vaclav Havel, interviewed by Radio Liberty/Radio Free Europe ahead of his first feature film, due out next month.