Millions of people worldwide have watched the now infamous video clip of Czech President Václav Klaus slyly pocketing a decidedly fancy pen during an official trip to Chile this April, smiling and nodding while his counterpart Sebastián Pinera rattled on about friendly bilateral relations or something equally non-newsworthy.
While the famously prickly Czech head of state insisted, through a spokesman, that the ceremonial pen encrusted with lapis lazuli, a semi-precious stone, was his for the taking, as is diplomatic protocol as such event, the comical and literally underhanded manner in which he did so made international news (American talk show host Jay Leno even poked fun at Klaus on The Tonight Show).
The incident, of course, also became a running joke in his homeland — not only was the incident symbolic of the kleptomania the nation’s leaders are often accused of, in the Czech language the word for pen (pero) is nearly identical to a slang term for penis (péro) — “Apparently, President Klaus doesn’t have a pen(is) of his own.” ‘Apparently, President Klaus doesn’t have a pen(is) of his own.’
For the “Commander in Thief,” [Klaus is head of the army] it has been a public relations disaster. In late April, during an official visit to Prague by Hungarian president Pál Schmitt, women dressed as Chilean police officers announced — in Czech and Spanish, just as the Castle Guard welcoming parade had ended — that they were going to “arrest” Klaus for theft (before being detained themselves by the real police.)
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The pen-pocketing video gone viral also inspired a Facebook campaign that culminated in May — “Collection of pens for Mr President” (Sbírka per pro pana prezidenta) — in which people were asked to send writing utensils of all sorts (crayons, markers, ball-points and even quills) to Klaus, care of Prague Castle, the official seat of the Czech presidency.
“According to the video … Mr President has nothing for writing. Because of that we would like to help him this way. We believe that your present will bring joy to the President and in future he will no longer have to ‘borrow’ pens during his trips abroad,” the campaign’s organizers, Radek Řeháček and Jan Kozák, wrote in their appeal at the time.
Hundreds of people did so — and then the story faded from the headlines.
‘A Pen for Klaus’
So, where did the all those pens end up, you ask? No one knows, as Klaus was apparently nonplussed by the allegations of pen pilfering and did his best to (pun intended) write a line under the sordid affair, having at first said it was merely a ballpoint pen, and then refusing to comment further.
But a Czech charity did capitalize on the huge popularity of the original Facebook campaign — the site currently lists 13,514 people as “going” to the event, another 5,040 “maybe” going out of the 53,155 people “invited” — by staging its own collection drive, titled “A Pen for Klaus.”
Civitas per Populi — a Hradec Králové-based NGO associating scientists, university teachers and students active in public planning and urban environmental issues, took in more than 600 pens and pencils, which it has dispatched not to the scene of the crime (i.e., Chile) but to the Asian natural disaster-prone country of Cambodia, along with a group of Czech student volunteers.
“Due to Typhoon Nagril and recent autumn floods, we eventually decided to divide the collection of pens between the two poorest schools in the agricultural province of Siem Reap [in northwestern Cambodia],” Civitas chairman Michael Pondělíček told the news server iDNES.cz.
Students at the Vietnamese-Khmer school on Lake Tonle and in a primary school in the fishing village of Poum Steung are now the proud owners of “Klaus’ pens”; based on the success of the campaign, Civitas plans to make another collection in the coming year.
The King of Cambodia, Norodom Sihamoni — who lived in the Czech Republic in his youth (1962-1975) and speaks the language fluently— has called the country his second homeland. “It is unique to have a friend in far away Cambodia,” Klaus said when the king visited Prague in September 2006. No word on whether they have remained (pun intended, yet again) pen pals.
