Czech Leader Says Difficulty Gave Insight

PRAGUE, Czech Republic — Czech President Vaclav Havel said Wednesday he felt more deeply about the world after facing the possibility of death when he underwent surgery to remove a lung tumor a month ago.

“In the year we have just dismissed, I have faced death twice. First when it came for my closest being and second when it swirled around my hospital bed,” he said in a New Year address on national television.

Speaking publicly for the first time since the Dec. 2 operation, Havel reflected on his illness and the loss of his wife, Olga, to cancer last January.

The former playwright, looking thinner, said both events had caused great suffering and made him feel the world was unjust.

Havel, 60, said he had thought “about myself, about the mysterious order of human existence and about the volume of signs or hidden messages . . . speaking to us from within this order, which we are mostly ignoring.”

The president called for a deeper understanding of common goals in Czech society.

He said 1996 had brought many “important, beautiful and painful” things to the Czech public.

The year was tainted by the failure of several banks, political spats and corruption cases.