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RFE/RL Newsline, Vol. 2, No. 113, 98-06-15Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty: Newsline Directory - Previous Article - Next ArticleFrom: Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty <http://www.rferl.org>RFE/RL NEWSLINEVol. 2, No. 113, 15 June 1998CONTENTS[A] TRANSCAUCASUS AND CENTRAL ASIA
[B] SOUTHEASTERN EUROPE
[C] END NOTE
[A] TRANSCAUCASUS AND CENTRAL ASIA[01] GEORGIAN PRESIDENT CALLS FOR EMERGENCY CIS SUMMITEduard Shevardnadze has written to CIS President Boris Yeltsin demanding that an emergency CIS summit be convened, an RFE/RL correspondent in Tbilisi reported on 15 June. Shevardnadze wants the summit to consider the repatriation of the Georgian fugitives to Abkhazia's Gali Raion. LF[02] ABKHAZIA ACCUSES GEORGIA OF SHOOTING HOSTAGESThe Abkhaz Foreign Ministry has accused Georgian authorities of shooting three Abkhaz civilian hostages after last month's fighting in Gali Raion ended, ITAR-TASS reported. The12 June statement condemned the failure of international human rights organizations to protect Abkhazia's civilian population. The Georgian parliament's ad hoc commission on Abkhazia has sent a letter to the UN protesting the alleged "passivity" of the unarmed UN observers in western Georgia and calling on the UN, the OSCE and the international community to expedite the repatriation of Georgians forced to flee Abkhazia during the fighting. Addressing a council on foreign investment on 14 June, Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze said that if the Georgian fugitives are allowed to return to Abkhazia, the $5 million donated by the U.S. government will be spent on rebuilding Georgian homes destroyed in the fighting. LF[03] KARABAKH PRESIDENT NAMES NEW PRIME MINISTERArkadii Ghukasian told a news conference in Stepanakert on 13 June that the leadership of the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic has decided to appoint Deputy Premier Zhirair Poghosian as prime minister, RFE/RL's Stepanakert correspondent reported. Ghukasian denied there are animosities within the Karabakh leadership, although he admitted that its members disagreed over social and economic policy. Five days earlier, Ghukasian had finally accepted the resignation of Premier Leonard Petrosian, whom the parliament had criticized for his failure to implement economic reform. Ghukasian said that Karabakh Defense Minister Samvel Babayan, one of Petrosian's harshest critics, declined the offered premiership, arguing that the enclave's army needs him more. A 56-year-old electro-mechanical engineer, Poghosian has been deputy prime minister since 1992, according to ITAR-TASS. LF[04] FRANCE DENIES PLANS TO SHIP NUCLEAR WASTE TO ARMENIAThe French embassy in Yerevan issued a statement on 12 June denying claims by Armenian ecological activists that the French and Armenian governments have concluded a secret deal on storing French nuclear waste in Armenia, RFE/RL's Yerevan bureau reported. Three days earlier, the Union of Greens chairman Hakob Sanasarian said that the Armenian government has agreed to store the waste at a special facility under construction at the Medzamor nuclear power station in return for French assistance in reactivating the facility in 1995 (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 11 June 1998). The statement said France is helping Armenia to build a storage facility at Medzamor "in strict compliance with the norms set by the International Atomic Energy Agency." LF[05] UN CONDEMNS DETENTION OF OBSERVERS IN TAJIKISTANThe UN observer mission in Tajikistan issued a statement on 13 June deploring an incident two days earlier in which two of its members were intercepted, beaten, and robbed, ITAR-TASS reported. The two observers and their interpreter were taken from their vehicle at gun point in a region controlled by opposition forces. They were roughed up and threatened with execution before finally being released. Opposition commanders denied any involvement in the attack, which they suggested may have been the work of criminals seeking to discredit the opposition. LF[06] TAJIK OPPOSITION LEADER RESUBMITS MINISTERIAL NOMINEESUnited Tajik Opposition leader Said Abdullo Nuri has written to President Emomali Rakhmonov asking him to expedite the appointment of opposition representatives to the new coalition government, ITAR- TASS reported on 13 June. Nuri noted that under the 1997 peace agreement, the opposition is entitled to 30 percent of government posts. Six opposition representatives have already been named to the new cabinet, but a decision on another eight is still pending. Those nominees include Islamic Revival Party leader Mukhammed Sharif Khimmatzod as deputy premier and opposition forces commander Mirzo Ziyeev as defense minister. LF[07] KYRGYZ PARLIAMENT DEBATES BARSKOON CYANIDE SPILL...The Kyrgyz parliament on 13 June voted to create an international commission to monitor the aftermath of the 20 May spill of 20 tons of sodium cyanide into the Barskoon river, which flows into Lake Issyk-Kul. The previous day, deputies rejected the testimony of cabinet ministers who claimed that the cleanup of contaminated soil and water at the site of the accident has been completed, RFE/RL's Bishkek bureau reported. The deputies demanded the resignation of Ecology Minister Kulubek Bokonbaev and President of the State Gold Company Dastan Sarygulov. They also voted to revise the agreement between the Kyrgyz government and Canada's CAMECO corporation, one of whose lorries was involved in the accident, and to request that the Canadian government pressure CAMECO to pay compensation, estimated at $1 million. Four people have died of cyanide poisoning and 790 are still hospitalized. LF[08] ...WHILE PRESIDENT WARNS AGAINST "POLITICAL GAMES"President Askar Akaev, who visited the Barskoon region on 12 June, has warned against politicizing the disaster, RFE/RL's Bishkek bureau reported. Akaev's press secretary Kanybek Imanaliev issued a statement the next day accusing the parliament of playing "political games," which he warned could destabilize the domestic political situation and thus deter potential foreign investors. LF[09] TWO DRUG DEALERS SENTENCED TO DEATH IN UZBEKISTANTwo Kazakh citizens who smuggled 40 kilos of opium from Tajikistan to Uzbekistan have been sentenced to death by the Tashkent regional court, Supreme Court chairman Sabir Kadyrov told Interfax on 12 June. In a separate development, the Uzbek authorities have publicly burned 7.5 tons of confiscated narcotics with an estimated market value of $80 million. LF[B] SOUTHEASTERN EUROPE[10] NATO JETS CARRY 'LAST WARNING' TO MILOSEVIC...Some 84 aircraft from 13 NATO member states conducted an exercise called "Determined Falcon" over Albania and Macedonia on 15 June. NATO defense ministers agreed in Brussels on 12 June to stage the maneuvers as a "final warning" to Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to stop the violence in Kosova and negotiate a settlement with Kosovar leaders. On 14 June, the Yugoslav Air Force put on an extensive display of skills in front of a crowd of more than 100,000 people at the annual Belgrade Air Show. PM[11] ...AS DOES COOKBritish Foreign Secretary Robin Cook said in Cardiff on 15 June that the exercise is a message to Milosevic that NATO is keeping "all options open," including air strikes against Serbia and the deployment of ground troops to Kosova, Reuters reported. Cook added that he hopes Milosevic "will use his meeting [in Moscow later the same day] with [Russian] President [Boris] Yeltsin to confirm that he has accepted the demands of the international community, including Russia, that he stop the violence, that he let the refugees go, that he let international monitors in so that [the refugees] can go home without fear." PM[12] ALBANIA, MACEDONIA PLEDGE SUPPORT TO NATOAlbanian Prime Minister Fatos Nano said in a statement on 13 June that Tirana's international airport and all military airports are at NATO's disposal. He added that Albania will provide additional, unspecified logistical support for the Atlantic alliance. Nano stressed that he hopes a combination of diplomatic and military actions on the part of the international community will lead to "a final solution of the conflict" and "halt the murdering hand of the Stalinist and militarist regime of Milosevic." Macedonian Prime Minister Branko Crvenkovski, who was in Tirana for a two-day visit, also pledged support for the NATO exercises. The two leaders signed an accord on economic, transport, and trade cooperation and agreed to expand cooperation in the sphere of security and border protection, with the aim of stop arms trafficking. FS[13] WESTERN LEADERS SLAM SERBIAN POLICIESForeign Secretary Cook said in London on 14 June that Serbia is "carrying out ethnic cleansing" in Kosova and that Milosevic's policies in the province have strengthened the position of the Kosova Liberation Army (UCK). In Paris, President Jacques Chirac said the previous day that Serbia's behavior in Kosova is "unacceptable" and warned that the West may use force there. Chirac added that Serbia's policies are responsible for a new wave of refugees in the Balkans. On 12 June in London, foreign ministers of the international Contact Group countries agreed to reimpose an earlier ban on new foreign investments in Serbia and to ban flights of Serbia's JAT airlines to and from Western countries. Russia did not agree to these measures. PM[14] COHEN SAYS NATO CAN ACT IN KOSOVA WITHOUT UN MANDATEIn Warsaw, NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana said on 14 June that the alliance will seek a mandate from the UN before it launches any intervention in Kosova, but he did not rule out that NATO would act without such a mandate, the "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung" reported. In Copenhagen on 13 June, U.S. Secretary of Defense William Cohen stressed that NATO would not need a UN mandate to act in Kosova. The previous day, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright expressed similar views at the Contact Group meeting in London. The U.S. standpoint is based on the view that the former Yugoslavia falls within NATO's traditional area of activity and that the alliance does not require UN approval to carry out its policies there. PM[15] UCK CLAIMS CONTROL OVER ONE THIRD OF KOSOVAThe Kosova Liberation Army issued a declaration on 13 June saying it has control over 30 percent of Kosova's territory. It said it now controls the main road from Prishtina to Peja, whereas in previous weeks it held only smaller roads in the countryside. The same day, the Prishtina daily "Bujku" estimated that the UCK holds more than 40 percent of the province's territory and has currently 30,000 armed troops, RFE/RL's South Slavic Service reported. The daily added that the UCK could increase that number to some 300,000 if it wanted to do so. FS[16] RAPE AS POLICY IN KOSOVA?Several Kosovar women refugees told Western journalists in northeastern Albania that armed Serbs raped them before they could escape across the border. The BBC said on 13 June that, if true, those stories suggest that Serbian forces may again be using rape as a deliberate instrument of policy, as they did in Bosnia. The Serbian paramilitary police include many veterans of the Croatian and Bosnian wars. Western news agencies reported in recent days that Serbian forces have mined areas along the border between Kosova and Albania to discourage refugees from trying to return to their homes. PM[17] MORE REFUGEES ARRIVE IN ALBANIALatest estimates put the total number of Kosovar refugees in Albania at almost 14,000 and in Montenegro at 8,000, Reuters reported from Molle e Kuce on the Yugoslav-Albanian border on 14 June. About one-third of the refugees in Montenegro are ethnic Serbs. Refugees from Popoc and Ponoshec told foreign journalists in Tropoja on 14 June that Serbian forces have completely destroyed both villages with air missiles and heavy artillery. They added that thousands of other refugees are hiding in the mountains in Kosova and that others died on their way to Albania. On 13 June, the Albanian government began to convert former military barracks in the Tropoja area into refugee accommodations and set up a tent camp nearby for 1,200 people. Most refugees are currently living in overcrowded family homes. FS[18] FOOD AID DELIVERY DELAYED AFTER ROBBERYA Norwegian Hercules C-130 military aircraft made four flights on 13-14 June to transport aid from Sarajevo to Tirana. Officials of the UN High Commission for Refugees, however, postponed delivering the aid to northern Albania after two masked gunmen hijacked the vehicle of a French aid organization in Bajram Curri on 13 June. A UNHCR spokeswoman said that the delivery is "a bit of logistical nightmare" owing to security problems and the lack of infrastructure. After the robbery, special police forces from Tirana set up checkpoints along the roads in the north. Meanwhile, a ship arrived at Durres from the Croatian port of Ploce on 14 June carrying enough wheat flour, vegetable oil, and beans to support 10,000 refugees for three month. FS[19] ANTI-WAR PROTESTS IN SERBIAMore than 100 parents of Yugoslav army conscripts from Kragujevac who have been sent to Kosova have issued a statement pledging to go to that province "to save our children," "Nasa Borba" reported on 15 June. Some 400 Serbian policemen have refused duty in Kosova this year. In recent days, Serbian police in several cities arrested an unspecified number of people who had distributed leaflets in support of the organization Anti-War Campaign, RFE/RL's South Slavic Service reported on 12 June. PM[20] SFOR ARRESTS WAR CRIMES SUSPECTA spokesman for NATO peacekeepers said on 15 June in Sarajevo that French and German SFOR troops arrested Milorad Krnojelac in Foca, which is in the French command area in the southeast. SFOR sent him immediately to The Hague. He was the commander of the Foca prison between April 1992 and August 1993 and has been indicted by the Hague-based war crimes tribunal for "permitting prolonged torture and beatings, countless killings, and forced labor practices," the spokesman added. Krnojelac is among an unknown number of people whom the court has indicted but whose indictments it has kept secret. PM[21] ROMANIAN MINERS' LEADER RECEIVES LIGHT SENTENCEMiron Cozma, the leader of miners whose rampage in Bucharest in September 1991 caused the downfall of Petre Roman's government, has been sentenced by a Bucharest court to 18 months in prison. The judges changed the charge from undermining state authority, which carries a sentence of between 5 and 15 years, to the less serious offense of illegal possession of arms. Cozma has been in custody since January 1997, which means he will be released in 25 days, RFE/RL's Bucharest bureau reported on 12 June. Both Cozma's lawyers and the Prosecutor-General's Office said they are appealing the sentence. MS[22] ROMANIAN DEPUTY ADMITS TO HAVING BEEN SECURITATE INFORMERAdrian Vilau, chairman of the Chamber of Deputies commission on supervising the activity of the Foreign Information Service, has admitted to having been an informer of the communist secret police. The admission was made on 14 June, after a journalist submitted evidence to Vilau's Democratic Party, which subsequently decided to withdraw its backing of Vilau as commission chairman. In other news, the Democrats on 14 June said the main purpose of their recent meeting with the opposition Party of Social Democracy in Romania (PDSR) was to coordinate policies in the parliament on restructuring, saying that the meeting was "overly publicized" by the PDSR. The Democrats said collaboration with the PDSR in local or general elections is not "on the agenda". Two days earlier, PDSR chairman Ion Iliescu had said that the two parties have a common past and a common Social Democratic orientation. MS[23] MOLDOVAN COALITION CRISIS RESOLVEDPremier Ion Ciubuc and the leaders of the Democratic Convention of Moldova (CDM) and the Party of Democratic Forces (PFD) have reached an agreement over the distribution of the posts of deputy minister and director-general of ministries. Both sides said the agreement was a "compromise." CDM co-chairman Mircea Snegur told journalists that the CDM and the PFD agreed to renounce the "exact implementation" of the coalition agreement. Ciubuc, for his part, pointed out that in the current cabinet, 57 percent of the ministers, deputy ministers, and directors-general are new, RFE/RL's Chisinau bureau reported on 12 June. MS[C] END NOTE[24] LINKING FREUD, TSAR NICHOLAS, NIETZSCHE, AND TROTSKYby Charles FenyvesiThe turn of the century was the last era in which Europe was one--though not free. That period was followed by a dark age in which it was neither one nor free. As Europe is now becoming one as well as free, writers are rediscovering long-lost ties linking European centers of thought. One such writer is Aleksandr Etkind, a 42-year-old professor of humanities at the European University of St. Petersburg, founded two years ago. Etkind has been writing what the Russians call "cultural bestsellers" on intellectual connections between the Russian empire, on the one hand, and the Austrian and German empires, on the other. His focus is the period from the late19th century to the 1930s. Etkind argues that Sigmund Freud's invention of psychoanalysis created a busy trade of ideas between Vienna and St. Petersburg. And he suggests that the second most influential thinker was Friedrich Nietzsche, whose prophecy of the "superman" spurred a generation of Russian revolutionaries. Etkind spoke recently in Washington, a city fascinated with empires new and old, as well as with Freud, whose influence remains strong among psychiatrists on the East Coast of the U.S. The Austrian embassy provided Etkind with the forum. His audience was dominated by scholars of Russian culture and practitioners of psychoanalysis--two sizable communities that seldom get together otherwise. In his lecture, Etkind described what he called the morbid affinities between the Romanov and Habsburg empires. Both imperial families were troubled, neurotic, and dysfunctional. Both Nicholas and Franz Josef suffered from psychological problems and lived unhappy personal lives. In both empires, psychoanalysis brought to the surface archaic and demonic elements from the unconscious. Nevertheless, the governing elite in both repressed all thoughts of an imminent decline, ruling out the fall of the monarchy. In a letter to a friend, Freud mused about what he would do if asked to treat Nicholas, but Etkind has found no evidence that Nicholas ever considered making himself comfortable on Freud's couch. As far as is known, Freud did not muse about treating his own emperor, Franz Josef. Freud's inventions of the id and the unconscious fascinated Russian intellectuals and revolutionaries, including the early Bolsheviks, Etkind argued. Similarly, Nietzsche's call for the superman beyond good and evil prompted powerful echoes among the same people yearning for freedom from tsarist oppression. Etkind said that at one point, Commissar Leon Trotsky even supported the psychoanalytical movement with government funds. Combining the ideas of Freud and Nietzsche, Trotsky argued that the Soviet regime should apply psychoanalysis in "cleaning up the mess" in the unconscious of the emerging new Soviet superman. Thus purged, the Soviet superman would be better able to rebuild society. According to Etkind's analysis, Trotsky "shed rivers of blood in order to get rid of the power of human instincts." But, Etkind notes, Russia rejected Trotsky's proposed treatment, choosing Stalin, who encouraged "faith and the cult of his personality" and brought death to millions. The author is a member of RFE/RL's Communications Division. 15-06-98 Reprinted with permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
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