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RFE/RL Newsline, Vol. 2, No. 47, 98-03-10Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty: Newsline Directory - Previous Article - Next ArticleFrom: Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty <http://www.rferl.org>RFE/RL NEWSLINEVol. 2, No. 47, 10 March 1998CONTENTS[A] TRANSCAUCASUS AND CENTRAL ASIA
[B] SOUTHEASTERN EUROPE
[C] END NOTE
[A] TRANSCAUCASUS AND CENTRAL ASIA[01] ARMENIAN POLICE ARREST FOUR AFTER RALLY MELEEPolice arrested four people on 9 March in connection with their alleged role in the beating of several participants at an election rally staged by presidential candidate Vazgen Manukian the previous day, RFE/RL's Armenian Service reported. Representatives of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe who are currently in Armenia to observe the presidential race there called on Yerevan to vigorously pursue the investigation of those involved. PG[02] TBILISI CONDEMNS ABKHAZ ELECTION PLANSIn statements issued on 7 and 9 March, respectively, the Georgian parliament and Foreign Ministry have condemned the Abkhaz local elections scheduled for later this week, ITAR-TASS and Caucasus Press reported. Georgian lawmakers said the election plans demonstrate the ineffectiveness of the CIS peacekeeping force currently deployed along the border between Abkhazia and the rest of Georgia. The Foreign Ministry said the planned poll is illegal and a "provocation," given that ethnic Georgians who fled during the 1992-1993 war are unable to participate. LF[03] GEORGIAN PRESIDENT UNDECIDED ABOUT ATTENDING CIS SUMMITIn his weekly radio address on 9 March, Shevardnadze said he has not yet made a final decision on whether to attend the CIS summit meeting in Moscow on 19-20 March. Noting that the trail of those who attempted to assassinate him last month disappeared in the Russian capital, Shevardnadze suggested he might be subject to another attack if he were to attend. The Georgian president also commented that an upcoming visit by Russian Defense Minister Igor Sergeev might help resolve the question of Russian military bases in Georgia and thus ease tensions. PG[04] TAJIK OPPOSITION LEADER TAKES UP GOVERNMENT POSTKhoja Akbar Turajonzoda, the deputy leader of the United Tajik Opposition, has officially taken up his post as first deputy prime minister, RFE/RL correspondents reported on 10 March. Turajonzoda will be responsible for economic and trade relations with other CIS countries. BP[B] SOUTHEASTERN EUROPE[05] KOSOVARS WANT AUTOPSIESPolice in Srbica turned over the bodies of 62 Albanians to Kosovar representatives on 9 March. Spokesmen for the families of most of the dead, however, said they will not bury the bodies until international experts perform autopsies. The spokesmen accused the Serbian authorities of demanding immediate burials in order to prevent investigations into an "atrocity." The corpses include the remains of 14 women and 12 children. Some of the bodies were burned beyond recognition or showed signs of mutilation. Kosovar shadow-state President Ibrahim Rugova has proclaimed 10 and 11 March days of mourning for those killed by police. Serbian police officials said they will bury the dead in a mass grave on 10 March if their families do not claim the bodies by that afternoon. PM[06] PRISTINA POLICE TOLD NOT TO BEAT PROTESTERSA Serbian policeman said in Pristina on 9 March that "we got orders from Belgrade not to beat" the 50,000 or so ethnic Albanians who staged a brief demonstration against "police terror" in the Kosovar capital. The protest was the largest in Pristina in 10 years, RFE/RL reported. Albanian spokesmen said, however, that police broke up demonstrations in Istok, Klina, and Pec. PM[07] CONTACT GROUP AGREES ON KOSOVO MEASURESThe foreign ministers of the U.S., U.K., Germany, France and Italy, and the deputy foreign minister of Russia agreed in London on 9 March to place an embargo on sales to Yugoslavia of arms and other equipment that could be used to aid repression there. All countries except Russia pledged to deny visas to Serbian officials responsible for the police violence in Kosovo and to impose a moratorium on credit for government-financed exports to Yugoslavia. All participants except Russia also said they will freeze Yugoslav assets abroad unless Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic launches a dialogue with the Kosovars within 10 days, halts action against civilians, withdraws special police units, and allows international representatives into Kosovo. PM[08] GELBARD EMPTY-HANDED IN BELGRADEU.S. special envoy Robert Gelbard informed Milosevic on 9 March about the London talks but did not inform reporters of the Yugoslav president's reaction. Gelbard went on to Pristina to meet with ethnic Albanian leaders. In Washington, a White House spokesman said the measures will have a "persuasive effect" on Milosevic. In London, Foreign Secretary Robin Cook said that the situation in Kosovo "cannot be tolerated." In Paris, a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman called the measures "dynamic" and added that "it was the French approach that prevailed." Meanwhile, several European dailies on 10 March noted that the London package does not include any reference to massive economic sanctions or air strikes, which had prompted Milosevic to end the Bosnian war. PM[09] BOSNIAN SERB MERCENARIES IN KOSOVO?At least five busses filled with Serbian "volunteers" have left Doboj in recent days for Kosovo, "Oslobodjenje" reported on 9 March. The men are demobilized Bosnian Serb soldiers who have neither jobs nor prospects of employment in Bosnia. Their pay as mercenaries in Kosovo is $500 a month. The unemployment rate in the Republika Srpska stands at 70 percent. PM[10] MACEDONIA TO TAKE ACTION AGAINST ALBANIANSThe government will press charges against Republican Party leader Nevzet Halili, Halit Hajdari of the Party of Democratic Prosperity, and Reshat Nagavci of the Albanian Democratic Party, state-run television reported on 9 March. The three are accused of disturbing public order in conjunction with pro-Kosovo rallies held in Tetovo and Skopje the previous week (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 9 March 1998). Other charges include singing the Albanian national anthem and displaying the Albanian flag in violation of a 1997 law on the display of national symbols. PM[11] YELTSIN SAYS NO RUSSIAN TROOPS FOR KOSOVOPresident Boris Yeltsin said in Moscow on 10 March that "Russia cannot get drawn into a new [military] campaign, this time in Kosovo. There are already enough places where our forces are deployed." He stressed that Russia instead "should be cutting back" on its military commitments abroad. Some NATO foreign ministers recently discussed an expanded role for international peacekeepers in the southern Balkans (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 9 March 1998). PM[12] RUSSIA WARNS ALBANIA OVER BORDER DEPLOYMENTSRussian Ambassador Igor Saprikin presented a note to Foreign Minister Paskal Milo on 9 March expressing Russian concern over unspecified reports on the alleged passage of arms and "terrorist groups" from Albania to Kosovo. The note added that "the deployment of Albanian army formations on the border...could only aggravate the situation." Albania recently strengthened army units in the Kukes area and began preparations to deal with a possible influx of refugees there (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 9 March 1998). Yugoslav Information Minister Radmila Milentijevic said in Belgrade on 9 March that she has reports that Kosovar "terrorists" are undergoing training in Albania. PM[13] GUNMEN SHUT DOWN ALBANIAN TRANSMITTERUnidentified gunmen shot at a television transmitter in an isolated mountainous border region near Kukes on 9 March, cutting off power supplies to the facility, "Shekulli" reported. The transmitter's signal reaches southern Kosovo and three northern districts of Albania. Elsewhere, Albanian border guards in the region opposite the Yugoslav town of Djakovica said unidentified men crossed into Albania from Yugoslavia on 6 March and filmed the border area for some two hours. The guards added that they did not challenge the intruders in an effort to avoid an armed clash. And in Tirana, the leadership of the opposition Democratic Party voted to end the party's boycott of the parliament to show national solidarity in the face of the Kosovo crisis. FS[14] WAS BOMB TARGETED AT PYRAMID INVESTIGATORS?A powerful bomb badly damaged the VEVE business center in central Tirana on 7 March and shattered the windows of the nearby National Museum. The VEVE building is owned by ethnic Albanian Croatian businessman Vebi Velia and houses many well-known companies, including Deloitte & Touche, which is investigating the collapsed pyramid schemes. FS[15] ROMANIAN PRESIDENT MEETS DEMOCRATIC PARTY LEADERSEmil Constantinescu on 9 March told leaders of the Democratic Party that their recent statement on the urgent need to relaunch economic reforms and restructure the economy was "fully acceptable." Democratic leader Petre Roman said the declaration also included the demand that reforms be launched by "another cabinet." Representatives of the Party of Social Democracy in Romania said after meeting with Prime Minister Victor Ciorbea that the party is "unlikely" to support the cabinet's draft budget, RFE/RL's Bucharest bureau reported. In other news, three extra- parliamentary parties on 9 March announced that they will merge to form the Romanian National Party, which is to be "centrist neo-liberal." The three formations are the Democratic Agrarian, New Romania, and Christian Liberal Parties. MS[16] ROMANIAN FORMER SPY CHIEF ON YUGOSLAV EMBARGOVirgil Magureanu, the former director of the Romanian Intelligence Service, has denied media reports that he said at a 7 March press conference that Nicolae Vacaroiu government's had approved fuel deliveries to Serbia in violation of UN sanctions. But an RFE/RL correspondent who attended the press conference in Oradea has provided RFE/RL's Romanian Service with tapes proving the accuracy of the media reports. Magureanu said that the decision to send 8,000 tons of gasoline and almost 40,000 tons of diesel fuel to Serbia was approved by the Supreme Defense Council, at the time headed by former President Ion Iliescu. He claimed that "international authorities, including the UN," had agreed to the deliveries. MS[C] END NOTE[17] PLAYING THE ETHNIC CARDby Paul GobleRiga's handling of a demonstration last week and Moscow's response to it are an object lesson in how sensitive certain ethnic issues remain in the region and how quickly they can be exploited for broader political ends. Last Tuesday, police used batons to disperse a protest march by some 1,000 elderly residents of the Latvian capital against increases utility rate hikes. The Latvian authorities said the protesters lacked a permit and were blocking traffic, and the police insisted that they had not used excessive force. But because most of the demonstrators were ethnic Russians, their protest and even more the Latvian handling of it immediately set off a political firestorm in Russia. At least some in Moscow now appear to be using the incident to isolate Riga and to pressure Latvia on a broader front. The day of the demonstration, Russia's ORT television carried footage of the clash between demonstrators and the Latvian police but gave little space to statements by Latvian authorities that the police had acted within the law. That report generated a crescendo of statements and actions by Russian officials. On Wednesday, Foreign Minister Yevgenii Primakov denounced Latvia's handling of the protest as a "flagrant violation of human rights." On Thursday, Russian President Boris Yeltsin's spokesman Sergei Yastrzhembskii described the Latvian action as a "blatant violation of elementary human rights," saying there "can be no talk" now about setting a date for a meeting between Yeltsin and Latvian President Guntis Ulmanis. Also on Thursday, Foreign Ministry spokesman Gennadii Tarasov called for international pressure on Latvia to change its approach to ethnic Russians more generally. And some 60 people gathered in front of the Latvian embassy in Moscow to protest Riga's policy. On Friday, Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin said he was "indignant" at Latvia's behavior, for which, he said, there could be "no justification." The Russian Duma called on Yeltsin to take firm steps, including economic sanctions and political reprisals, to force Riga to change its policies. And finally on Saturday, Yastrzhembskii told Ekho Moskvy that Yeltsin's advisers now favor imposing economic sanctions on Latvia, thus setting the stage for a further escalation of the crisis. Throughout the week, Latvian officials repeatedly denied that the police had acted illegally and suggested that the Russian authorities were responding on the basis of insufficient information. To give but one example, Latvian Prime Minister Guntars Krasts on Saturday repeated that the police had acted "very correctly" and that they had not violated anyone's human rights. Regardless of what happens next in this crisis, the events of the past week yield three conclusions. First, relations between Russia and the Baltic States remain far more finely balanced than many on either side had believed. A single incident can suffice to shift that balance. Prior to the events of last Tuesday, relations between Russia and Latvia in fact had been on the upswing. As recently as 19 February, a Latvian government spokesman said Yeltsin had sent Latvian President Guntis Ulmanis a letter that was characterized as "hopeful and positive" about relations between the two countries. Second, many in the Russian government believe that they can play the ethnic card against Latvia and its neighbor Estonia because neither country gave automatic citizenship to all residents at the time that they recovered independence. Instead, both countries required a naturalization process for all those who moved onto their territories while they were under Soviet occupation. Although consistent with international law, as any number of authorities have concluded, their decision to do so has offended many in Russia and has on occasion left them vulnerable to criticism from abroad. Indeed, since 1992, Moscow has routinely sought to enlist Western support against these two states on this issue and, failing that, to isolate Latvia and Estonia from their Western partners by appealing to human rights concerns among Western populations. And third, and perhaps most disturbing, at least some in the Russian government appear to be willing to exploit such situations to generate support for themselves. Given recent polls suggesting that many Russians dislike, or are indifferent to, the current Russian government, some officials there may have concluded that the exacerbation of relations between Moscow and its neighbors could serve their personal interests. To the extent that some in the Russian capital have indeed reached that conclusion, protests from Moscow over the status and treatment of ethnic Russians outside the Russian Federation may soon be directed at other countries as well. Reprinted with permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
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