Some 200 people protested against the planned stationing of a U.S. radar base in the Czech Republic on Thursday.

"The government has started negotiating (about the base) behind the backs of the people," Communist (KSCM) deputy Katerina Konecna, whose party organized the demonstration, said.

She said that the base will make Czechs into a blind instrument of U.S. politics.

Rudolf Prevratil, from the No to Bases group, said that people reject the militarization of politics that invents the external and internal enemy and that restricts democracy.

"The resistance (to the U.S. shield) is worldwide and it will continue," he said.

The organizers also collected signatures against the base. They said that the petition has already been signed by 90,000 people in the ten-million country.

The Czech government is expected to start negotiating the base with the United States in mid-May and go on until the year's end.

Washington in January proposed installing parts of its anti- missile shield in central Europe, including some interceptor missiles in Poland and a radar system in the Czech Republic.

The Social Democrats, Communists and people from the towns and villages around the possible future site sharply opposed the U.S. radar base and demanded a referendum on the issue.

The senior government coalition of Civic Democrats, Christian Democrats and Greens, who have some partial reservations, support the U.S. project.

Source: Xinhua