Czech parliament security committee against National Guard again

Frantisek Bublan, chairman of the Czech Chamber of Deputies security committee, told Pavel Sedlacek, spokesman for the paramilitary National Guard (NG), that he disagrees with the NG's existence.

The meeting between Bublan, shadow interior minister of the opposition Social Democrats (CSSD), and Sedlacek, at whose request it was held, took about one hour.

The guard was established as a paramilitary organisation of the National Party (NS), and both Bublan and Interior Minister Ivan Langer (Civic Democrats, ODS) criticised its foundation previously already.

Bublan said he insists on his previous statement that national guards should not be founded. If people want to help, as the NG claims, they can do it otherwise than in uniform and under the brand of a party.

Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek, chairman of the senior government ODS, also met NS representatives in August 2005 when he was not yet PM.

"Any cooperation is completely impossible, the meeting was formal and the last one," he then told CTK.
The NS lodged a complaint against Topolanek this week over his statement about Czechs' cowardice.

Daily Hospodarske noviny (HN) wrote on Monday that Topolanek said "Czechs usually see everything negative and when it comes to the crunch, they fill their pants."

Topolanek reacted saying the offensive words were prnounced by the paper reporter in his questions and that he only confirmed them.

Later he said he would not like to generalise and that there definitely exist exceptions.

According to CTK's sources, the main goal of the guard activity is to make the National Party that only won 0.17 percent of the vote in June 2006 elections visible.

The founders claim the guard is not armed, but it is based on a "strict military principle." The guard's activities are to rest in "assistance and service to the homeland," they say.

"It is a paramilitary organised group that will serve not only our meetings, but also in disasters," party chairwoman Petra Edelmannova said.