Havel, Czech anti-communist hero, has died


His assistant Sabina Dancecova says Havel died Sunday morning at his weekend house in the northern Czech Republic.

Havel was his country's first democratically elected president after the nonviolent "Velvet Revolution" that ended four decades of repression by a regime he ridiculed as "Absurdistan."

As president, he oversaw the country's bumpy transition to democracy and a free-market economy, as well its peaceful 1993 breakup into the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

The Associated Press


