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RFE/RL Newsline, Vol. 1, No. 33, 97-05-19
RFE/RL NEWSLINE
Vol. 1, No. 33, 19 May 1997
CONTENTS
[A] TRANSCAUCASIA AND CENTRAL ASIA
[01] GEORGIAN PRESIDENT INVITES POPE TO VISIT.
[02] AZERBAIJAN BELATEDLY RATIFIES CFE FLANK AGREEMENT.
[03] KAZAK PRESIDENT CRITICIZES RUSSIAN OFFICIALS.
[04] NEW TAJIK AGREEMENTS.
[05] NEW PRESIDENT FOR MONGOLIA.
[B] SOUTHEASTERN EUROPE
[06] POLITICAL BRINKMANSHIP IN ALBANIA.
[07] PRODI DENIES THREAT TO LEAVE ALBANIA.
[08] TENSE WEEKEND IN KOSOVO.
[09] DID BRITAIN'S RIFKIND OBSTRUCT WAR CRIMES INVESTIGATION AGAINST
MILOSEVIC?
[10] MILOSEVIC MEETS BOSNIAN SERB LEADERS.
[11] CROATIAN CURRENCY BECOMES LEGAL TENDER IN EASTERN SLAVONIA.
[12] NEWS FROM AROUND FORMER YUGOSLAVIA.
[13] FORMER PRESIDENTIAL AIDE NOMINATED ROMANIA'S INTELLIGENCE CHIEF.
[14] ROMANIAN GOVERNMENT APPROVES NEW DRAFT LAWS.
[15] ROMANIAN PREMIER ON LABOR UNREST.
[16] MOLDOVAN PREMIER ON BASIC TREATY WITH ROMANIA.
[17] IMF TEAM BEGINS WORKING WITH BULGARIA ON CURRENCY BOARD.
[18] BULGARIAN PARLIAMENT TO DEBATE "MACEDONIAN-LANGUAGE ISSUE."
[A] TRANSCAUCASIA AND CENTRAL ASIA
[01] GEORGIAN PRESIDENT INVITES POPE TO VISIT.
At a meeting in the Vatican on 16 May, Eduard Shevardnadze invited Pope
John Paul II to visit Georgia, AFP reported. Shevardnadze also held talks
in Rome with Italian leaders and with officials of the UN Food and
Agriculture Organization, which will implement a special program to
increase agricultural production and crop yields in Georgia, according to
ITAR-TASS. A declaration on political and economic cooperation and several
bilateral agreements were signed, including one on military cooperation,
Interfax reported.
[02] AZERBAIJAN BELATEDLY RATIFIES CFE FLANK AGREEMENT.
The Azerbaijani parliament ratified the 1996 CFE flank agreement on 16 May,
24 hours after the official deadline for doing so expired, ITAR-TASS
reported. A senior official in Baku told Interfax yesterday that the
provision stating that signatory states may cede part of their armament
quotas to Russia or permit the stationing of Russian troops on their
territory does not apply to Baku. Azerbaijan was the last signatory state
to ratify the accord. The Moldovan parliament approved it on 15 May,
according to BASApress.
[03] KAZAK PRESIDENT CRITICIZES RUSSIAN OFFICIALS.
Nurusultan Nazarbayev told a journalists' conference in Almaty at the
weekend that Kazakstan "has no debts to Russia," according to Interfax and
AFP. Nazarbayev was responding to Russian Minister for CIS Affairs Aman
Tuleev's statement that Kazakstan owes Russia 134 kilograms of gold and 6.5
tons of silver. The Kazak president claimed Russia owes Kazakstan $480
million in rent for the Baikonur space center. He also noted that Russia is
doing little to promote "equality and respect for the sovereignty of other
CIS countries." And he criticized Russia's military presence in other CIS
countries, notably Armenia and Tajikistan, which, he said, reflected a "pro-
communist mentality" in the Russian bureaucracy.
[04] NEW TAJIK AGREEMENTS.
President Imomali Rakhmonov and United Tajik Opposition leader Said Abdullo
Nuri signed several agreements in Bishkek on 16-17 May. The two leaders
agreed to a general amnesty, continued prisoner exchanges, and a plan to
hand over 25% of the seats in the Central Election Committee to the UTO.
They also agreed to allow 500 UTO members into Dushanbe to protect their
representatives on the committee. The issue of legalizing the UTO has still
not been fully resolved, and disarming UTO armed formations remains an
issue. The government says this step must be completed before a
reconciliation council can begin planning new parliamentary elections,
scheduled to take place no later than summer 1998. The UTO argues that the
four or five months needed by the government for this process would hinder
its chances in those elections.
[05] NEW PRESIDENT FOR MONGOLIA.
Natsagiyn Bagabandi of the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party won
yesterday's presidential elections. He took just over 60% of the vote to
beat incumbent Punsalmagin Ochirbat, who received about 30%. Bagabandi has
promised to slow the pace of reform in Mongolia, claiming the "shock
therapy" reforms introduced by Ochirbat and his Democratic Coalition have
lead to widespread unemployment and poverty in Mongolia. However, the
Democratic Coalition still has a majority in Mongolia's parliament.
[B] SOUTHEASTERN EUROPE
[06] POLITICAL BRINKMANSHIP IN ALBANIA.
Socialist Prime Minister Bashkim Fino meets with representatives of other
opposition parties today to finalize their demands for changes to the
election law. Fino will then try again to persuade President Sali Berisha
to agree to the new provisions, which deal with proportional representation,
access to the media, monitoring, and control over electoral commissions.
Berisha himself would have to decree any changes, since on 16 May he
dissolved parliament and called elections for 29 June. It is unclear how
far in advance of the vote the law can still be amended. The opposition
over the weekend again hinted it might boycott the ballot if current law
remains unchanged. Berisha told supporters in Lac yesterday that he will
not modify the law.
[07] PRODI DENIES THREAT TO LEAVE ALBANIA.
Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi in Rome yesterday denied reports that
he has pledged to cut short Operation Alba unless the elections go ahead on
schedule. He said his earlier remarks about the need for the Albanians to
help stabilize their country themselves were not meant as a "threat, but
just [as] a serious observation." In Vlora, representatives of the
Salvation Committees controlling numerous southern towns met over the
weekend and rejected Berisha's demand that the local committees disband. In
Ulcinj in Montenegro, a local ethnic Albanian politician told BETA news
agency over the weekend that more than 100 trucks carrying scrap iron
arrive illegally from Albania each day. And in the Albanian industrial town
of Elbasan, five men were killed in gang warfare yesterday.
[08] TENSE WEEKEND IN KOSOVO.
Posters appeared in Pristina over the weekend calling on ethnic Albanians
in the name of the local Kosovo Liberation Army (UCK) to abandon shadow-
state President Ibrahim Rugova's policy of non-violence and launch an armed
struggle. For his part, Rugova's deputy Fehmi Agani said in Belgrade that
he does not know if the UCK really exists. On 16 May, unidentified
attackers shot an ethnic Albanian dead on the Prizren-Djakovica road, while
two Serbian police were wounded in the village of Srbica. Soon after the
attack on the policemen, Serbian authorities arrested at least 30 Albanian
students. The next day, students at the underground Albanian university in
Pristina protested the arrests. Meanwhile, the trial opened in Pristina
today of 18 Kosovars charged with terrorism as alleged members of the UCK,
Nasa Borba reported this morning.
[09] DID BRITAIN'S RIFKIND OBSTRUCT WAR CRIMES INVESTIGATION AGAINST
MILOSEVIC?
The Observer wrote yesterday that former Foreign Secretary Malcolm Rifkind
blocked a U.S. request last year to turn over jointly collected
intelligence data to the Hague-based war crimes tribunal. Court President
Antonio Cassesse also appealed in vain to Rifkind to release the telephone
intercepts that might have proven a link between Serbian President Slobodan
Milosevic and the Bosnian Serb leaders. The London weekly added that
Rifkind refused to change the orders of British peacekeepers to enable them
to arrest indicted war criminals Radovan Karadzic and Gen. Ratko Mladic.
The paper also charged that the Milosevic regime secretly paid $160,000 to
Rifkind's Conservative Party through a lobbying firm.
[10] MILOSEVIC MEETS BOSNIAN SERB LEADERS.
The Serbian president met in Belgrade on Friday with Momcilo Krajisnik, the
ethnic Serb member of the Bosnian joint presidency, and with Republika
Srpska Prime Minister Gojko Klickovic to discuss implementing the recent
economic agreement between Belgrade and Pale, Nasa Borba reported this
morning. Meanwhile in nearby Vojvodina, Romanian Foreign Minister Adrian
Severin met with his federal Yugoslav counterpart, Milan Milutinovic, on 16
May. They signed a protocol reaffirming the rights of each country's ethnic
minority on the other's territory, including the right of individuals to
declare their membership in an ethnic minority group. They also noted there
are no outstanding issues between Belgrade and Bucharest but that economic
links could be stronger.
[11] CROATIAN CURRENCY BECOMES LEGAL TENDER IN EASTERN SLAVONIA.
The kuna went into circulation today in eastern Slavonia, which is
gradually being reintegrated into Croatia. Meanwhile, Serbian deputies for
the first time since 1991 took their seats in the government of Osijek-
Baranja county, in Osijek, on 17 May. The county leader is once again the
Croatian Democratic Community's (HDZ) Branimir Glavas, but his deputies
are now the Independent Democratic Serbian Party's (SDSS) Mirko Blagojevic
and the independent Anica Horvat. An RFE/RL correspondent also reported
from Osijek that the HDZ and the SDSS have reached a power-sharing
agreement for the towns of Vukovar and Beli Manastir.
[12] NEWS FROM AROUND FORMER YUGOSLAVIA.
Rail traffic resumed yesterday on the line between Tuzla, located on
Bosnian federal territory, and Doboj, in the Republika Srpska. In Podgorica,
some leaders of the Democratic Socialist Party (DPS) charged Montenegrin
President Momir Bulatovic with acting as if he were already the party's
presidential candidate in the upcoming elections, an RFE/RL correspondent
reported from the Montenegrin capital. The DPS' organization in Cetinje
underscored the point by nominating his rivals Prime Minister Milo
Djukanovic and parliamentary speaker Svetozar Marovic for the presidency.
And in Macedonia, an exercise sponsored by NATO and involving up to 1,000
troops ended on 16 May.
[13] FORMER PRESIDENTIAL AIDE NOMINATED ROMANIA'S INTELLIGENCE CHIEF.
President Emil Constantinescu yesterday nominated Costin Georgescu as chief
of the Romanian Intelligence Service. The 55-year-old Georgescu managed
Constantinescu's election campaign in 1992 (see RFE/RL Newsline, 6 May
1997). He is a construction engineer by profession and a deputy of the
National Liberal Party. He will have to resign that position if the
parliament approves his nomination, as it is expected to do, RFE/RL's
Bucharest bureau reported.
[14] ROMANIAN GOVERNMENT APPROVES NEW DRAFT LAWS.
The government yesterday approved amendments to the Law on Education doing
away with provisions that were viewed as discriminatory by the Hungarian
minority. The amendments provide for instruction in the mother tongue at
all levels of education and abolish the provision stating that national
minorities must study subjects such as history or geography in Romanian.
The executive also change the name of the ministry from Ministry of Public
Instruction to Ministry of National Education. In addition, it approved a
draft law on the National Bank giving it full independence and
responsibility for stabilizing the national currency and prices by
controlling the money supply.
[15] ROMANIAN PREMIER ON LABOR UNREST.
Victor Ciorbea says "obscure forces" are trying to manipulate people who
are genuinely hit by temporary hardships as a result of economic reform. He
said those who are suffering most are not "the noisiest." In an interview
with RFE/RL on 16 May, Ciorbea said the government has no intention to
"give into force and intimidation attempts." He was responding to a
demonstration in Bucharest one day earlier protesting the government's
economic policies. The same day, some 600 heavy truck drivers drove through
Bucharest and honked their horns as they passed government headquarters.
The demonstrators were protesting the cabinet's intention to institute a
road tax.
[16] MOLDOVAN PREMIER ON BASIC TREATY WITH ROMANIA.
Ion Ciubuc says the pending basic treaty with Romania must reflect "today's
realities [and] the interests of both countries and their constitutions."
Addressing a news conference in Chisinau on his return from a visit to
Romania on 17 May, Ciubuc said the draft of the treaty "should be
thoroughly prepared" to avoid "leading to tensions." He said the treaty
must be "one of friendship and cooperation and not one of fraternity, as
some people think." Earlier reports said Romania was insisting on a
document that mentioned the "special relationship" of the two countries
based on their unity of culture, history, and language, Infotag reported.
[17] IMF TEAM BEGINS WORKING WITH BULGARIA ON CURRENCY BOARD.
A team of IMF officials has arrived in Sofia for two weeks to assist
Bulgarian officials in setting up the currency board of the National Bank.
An RFE/RL correspondent in Washington reported on 16 May that the IMF views
the setting up of the board as the "key" to Bulgaria's economic reform and
stabilization program. The board will tie the lev to the German mark and
will strictly limit the amount of currency the bank can issue, making the
money supply dependent on the bank's hard-currency reserves. The agreement
with the IMF also prohibits the National Bank from providing cheap credits
to cover budget deficits or the losses of state enterprises.
[18] BULGARIAN PARLIAMENT TO DEBATE "MACEDONIAN-LANGUAGE ISSUE."
The parliamentary National Security Committee plans to debate the so-called
"Macedonian-language issue" at its first session. An RFE/RL Sofia bureau
correspondent says the dispute has clouded relations between Sofia and
Skopje for almost six years. Bulgaria has insisted for more than a century
that Macedonian is a dialect of Bulgarian. Skopje say this linguistic claim
is a "thin disguise" for territorial ambitions toward Macedonia that date
back to the breakup of the Ottoman Empire. In other news, BTA reported on
16 May that the spiritual leader of the country's 800,000 strong Muslim
community, Hadzhibasri Hadzhisherif, has died in Sofia aged 69.
Reprinted with permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
URL: http://www.rferl.org
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