Taiwanese President decorates late Czech Senate head with the Order of Propitious Clouds

Taipei, Sept 3 (CTK special correspondent) – President of Taiwan Tsai Ing-wen decorated the late Czech Senate chairman Jaroslav Kubera with the Order of Propitious Clouds in memoriam today.

At the ceremony, Kubera’s successor Miloš Vystrčil received the medal on his behalf.

The Order of Propitious Clouds has been bestowed on personalities from civilian life since 1941.

Like Tsai, Vystrčil delivered a speech.

At first, the decoration was to be received by Kubera’s widow Vera Kuberova, but she did not go to Taiwan for health reasons. She sent a recorded greeting to Taiwan, in which she stated that she holds in high esteem the decoration for her husband.

“Unfortunately, I cannot take part in the trip. I wanted to push my husband’s idea to the end, but fate decided differently,” Kuberova said.

She added that she wanted to support Taiwan on its road to independence, democracy and freedom.

Tsai said Kubera was a “great friend,” the news agency AP reported.

She said Vystrčil’s Tuesday speech in which he said “I am a Taiwanese” in Chinese had touched many hearts.

Speaking to the Taiwanese parliament, Vystrčil paraphrased U.S. President John F. Kennedy’s famous words “I am a Berliner” in West Berlin in 1963, in the wake of the construction of the Berlin Wall.

“Our actions are telling friends in Europe and all over the world, whether Taiwanese or Czechs, we will not succumb to oppression, will bravely speak up, actively participate in international affairs, and contribute our capabilities,” AP quoted Tsai as saying.

Kubera wanted to leave for Taiwan at the end of February. He was about to take along with him a business delegation. The plan aroused critical responses not only by China, but also President Miloš Zeman who pursues the policy favoring Beijing.

Zeman threatened last year that if Kubera went to Taiwan, their friendship would end. Kubera dismissed the notion that the visit to Taiwan was against China.

Kubera was born in Louny, north Bohemia, on February 16, 1947.

Between 1967 and 1969, he worked in the imports department of the glassmaker Sklo Union Teplice and then, until 1990, in the trade department of the company Elektrosvit Teplice.

From late 1967 to early 1968, which was the time of the Prague Spring communist-led reform movement, he was a member of the Czechoslovak Communist Party (KSC), but he was expelled from the party after a few months.

Kubera started actively participating in politics after the fall of the Czechoslovak communist regime in 1989. He joined the Civic Democratic Party (ODS) in 1992 and was elected mayor of Teplice for the first time in 1994. He spent 24 years in the post of mayor, having been re-elected six times.

He was a Senate member for nearly 20 years. In 2016-18 he was an upper house deputy chairman and since November 2018 the upper house chairman.