Baez calls Havel, Mandela pillars of 20th century

Trencin, West Slovakia, July 19 (CTK) - U.S. folk signer Joan Baez said on Saturday she considers former Czechoslovak and Czech president Vaclav Havel and former South African president Nelson Mandela the moral pillars of the past century.

Baez, 67, a human rights activist, returned after two decades to Slovakia and she is one of the major stars of the Pohoda music festival in Trencin, which Havel attends.

She remembered her Slovak concert in 1989 still before the communist regime fell at the end of the year, at which she pronounced her disagreement with the regime.

Baez also remembered that Havel then carried her guitar at the concert in Bratislava.

He said today he did not want to be detained before the concert, supervised by the state police, and so he acted as Baez's guitar carrier.

"It did save me because it seemed to them stupid to detain me on her eyes and to arrest her servant," Havel said smiling.

Havel has met several times since Baez's Bratislava concert. She even once played when he was making a speech in the United States.

"I was then carrying here guitar from the stage just as a joke," he recalled today.

Havel said he esteems Baez not only because he likes her songs. "But also for her unpretentious courage and lifelong will to commit herself for what is correct," Havel said.

Published by Zuzana Polacikova