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RFE/RL Newsline, Vol. 2, No. 158, 98-08-18Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty: Newsline Directory - Previous Article - Next ArticleFrom: Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty <http://www.rferl.org>RFE/RL NEWSLINEVol. 2, No. 158, 18 August 1998CONTENTS[A] TRANSCAUCASUS AND CENTRAL ASIA
[B] SOUTHEASTERN EUROPE
[C] END NOTE
[A] TRANSCAUCASUS AND CENTRAL ASIA[01] SIX PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES REGISTERED IN AZERBAIJANThe Azerbaijan Central Electoral Commission has formally registered six candidates for the 11 October presidential election, Turan reported on 17 August. The six are incumbent President Heidar Aliev, Azerbaijan National Independence Party chairman Etibar Mamedov, Independent Azerbaijan Party chairman Nizami Suleymanov, Azerbaijan Social Welfare Party chairman Khanguseyn Kazymly, Communist Party leader Firudin Hasanov, and Association of Victims of Political Repression chairman Ashraf Mekhtiev. Three applicants were rejected on the grounds of irregularities in the collection of signatures supporting their candidacy: Umid [Hope] Party chairman Abulfaz Akhmedov, Alliance for Azerbaijan chairman Abutalib Samedov, and businessman Ilgar Kerimov. LF[02] GEORGIAN DEFENSE MINISTER POSTPONES TRIP TO MOSCOWDavit Tevzadze's visit to Moscow, scheduled to begin on 16 August, has been postponed indefinitely due to the protracted disagreement over the division between Russia and Georgia of former Soviet military facilities in Georgia, Caucasus Press reported. During a visit to Kyiv last week, Tevzadze and his Ukrainian counterpart, Oleksandr Kuzmuk, discussed the creation of a peacekeeping battalion composed of units from the GUAM states (Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Moldova). Kuzmuk said that proposals for the structure and organization of that battalion have already been drafted and submitted to the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry. LF[03] GEORGIAN DISPLACED PERSONS ISSUE ULTIMATUMSome 200 ethnic Georgian fugitives from Abkhazia staged a demonstration in Tbilisi on 15 August, Caucasus Press reported. The demonstrators, who make a living by trading in medications, were protesting the confiscation by city inspectors of their merchandise. Many of the drugs and antibiotics in which the demonstrators trade reportedly have either date-expired, thereby posing a health hazard, or were part of humanitarian aid consignments and therefore may not be resold. The demonstrators demanded that either their wares be returned and they be allowed to continue trading or the Georgian authorities take measures to enable them to return to Abkhazia. LF[04] GEORGIA TO INTRODUCE NEW IMMIGRATION PROCEDURESAs of 1 September, all persons arriving in Georgia by air at Tbilisi, Kutaisi, and Batumi airports will be required to complete immigration forms detailing the purpose and duration of their stay in the country, Caucasus Press reported on 18 August. The procedure will be extended in 1999 to visitors arriving by sea. LF[05] KARABAKH BISHOP LAMBASTES JEHOVAH'S WITNESSESIn a recent address to the Armenian nation, Bishop Pargev Martirossian condemns the missionary activities in Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh of Jehovah's Witnesses, whom he terms "a totalitarian sect" that poses "a most horrible threat to our people, our state, [and] our faith," Noyan Tapan reported on 17 August. He said Jehovah's Witnesses' refusal to take up arms to defend their country "undermines the foundations of our state." The bishop also expressed concern that those countries that refuse official registration to the Jehovah's Witnesses may be considered to have violated international commitments to freedom of conscience and may consequently be refused membership in the Council of Europe. Armenia currently has special guest status in that organization. LF[06] CENTRAL ASIAN PRESIDENTS DISCUSS AFGHANISTANKazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev spoke by telephone with the presidents of Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan on 17 August, ITAR- TASS and Interfax reported. The four agreed that given the successful offensives by troops of Afghanistan's Taliban movement, a meeting of their countries' foreign and defense ministers is necessary. Nazarbayev's press service released a statement saying the four were "unanimous" that the meeting should be held to discuss "strengthening security in the Central Asian region." The ministers are expected to meet in the Uzbek capital, Tashkent, in the near future. BP[07] UN ENVOY'S BODYGUARD FOUND DEADThe bodyguard of UN special envoy to Tajikistan, Jan Kubis, was found dead in his Dushanbe apartment on 17 August, ITAR-TASS reported. U.S. citizen Jori de Marco apparently committed suicide. Investigators from the Tajik Interior Ministry found no evidence of a struggle. It is believed that De Marco shot himself in the head with his own gun. BP[B] SOUTHEASTERN EUROPE[08] SERBS TAKE THREE MORE VILLAGES IN KOSOVASerbian forces captured three villages near Pec from the Kosova Liberation Army on 17 August. The Serbs "leveled" one of the settlements and destroyed the houses in at least one of the other two, RFE/RL's South Slavic Service reported. In Prishtina, the Kosova Information Center, which is close to the shadow-state government, reported that some 9,000 refugees are living without shelter in the Malisheva area. The news agency added that some 50, 000 displaced persons are concentrated in Gjakova and another 10,000 in the surrounding area. The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees puts the total number of persons who have fled their homes in Kosova at 231,000, AP reported. PM[09] COHEN SAYS U.S. WILL NOT GO IT ALONE IN KOSOVASecretary of Defense William Cohen said in Valdosta, in the U. S. state of Georgia, on 17 August that Washington would intervene in Kosova only with the agreement of its NATO allies. He added, however, that there is no consensus on intervention within the alliance. "So far we have not been successful in getting other NATO countries to sign up and say, 'Wait a minute, we're not going to allow these atrocities to happen,'" Cohen said. "But we have to give NATO time and wait for NATO to act. We are not going to act unilaterally," Reuters quoted him as saying. He added that "we have to wait and see whether NATO will in fact act as an organization, and institution, without having to go to the [UN] Security Council where either Russia or China or someone else can veto" any proposed intervention. PM[10] GREEK DEFENSE MINISTER SLAMS MILOSEVICAkis Tsohatzopoulos said in Athens that Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic is responsible for "unleashing the catastrophe in Bosnia" and for the "massacre of civilians" in Kosova, the Belgrade daily "Danas" wrote on 18 August. The defense minister added that "Milosevic has to realize that he cannot carry out ethnic cleansing and destroy entire villages in western [Kosova] and that everything has its limits." Tsohatzopoulos noted that "it must be clear to both sides that independence for the province is not possible. The only solution is wide autonomy within Serbia." The statement is the sharpest public attack on Milosevic by a Greek government official to date and reflects a recent shift in Athens' policy on Kosova away from Greece's traditional pro-Serbian stance. PM[11] VAN DEN BROEK WANTS INVESTIGATION OF MASS GRAVESHans van den Broek, who is the EU's chief representative for international relations, said in Salzburg that the international community should exert pressure on the Serbian authorities to allow independent forensics experts to investigate recent German and Austrian press reports of mass graves of Kosovar civilians near Rahovec (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 13 August 1998). Van den Broek discussed Kosova with Austrian Foreign Minister Wolfgang Schuessel, who told his visitor that "incredible things" had happened in Rahovec, the Vienna daily "Die Presse" wrote on 17 August. The Serbian authorities have denied that mass graves exist and declared Erich Rathfelder, who broke the story, persona non grata. Rathfelder and the two newspapers in which he published his account, "Die Presse" and Berlin's "taz," stand by the story. PM[12] KINKEL WARNS BELGRADE IN ROW OVER JOURNALISTSGerman Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel warned the Yugoslav authorities in a letter that "Yugoslav correspondents in Bonn may face problems" if Belgrade does not readmit German television journalist Friedhelm Brebeck, who was expelled from Yugoslavia on 16 August, the "Sueddeutsche Zeitung" reported on 18 August. Brebeck described as "completely absurd" the Yugoslav charges that his story about the fall of the village of Junik on the day he was expelled was deliberately inaccurate (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 17 August 1998). PM[13] ALBANIAN OPPOSITION CRITICIZES RUSSIAN ROLE IN NATO MANEUVERS...Opposition Democratic Party legislator Azem Hajdari on 17 August criticized the participation of 40 Russian troops in exercises that started earlier that day and involve both NATO member states as well as participants in the alliance's Partnership for Peace program. He argued that as a result of the conditions that Russia attached to ensure its participation in "Cooperative Assembly 1998," the exercise will not send a sufficiently strong or clear message to Belgrade to stop military operations in Kosova. Russia agreed to participate in the 1,700 troop exercise only after NATO promised to keep the maneuvers "politically sterile," as a Russian commentator put it (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 17 August 1998). In Moscow, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said that the maneuvers will demonstrate how to stop weapons smuggling and the infiltration of terrorists from Albania to Kosova. FS[14] ...WHILE GOVERNMENT PRAISES 'SHOW OF FORCE'At a ceremony in Tirana marking the start of the exercises, Prime Minister Fatos Nano said the maneuvers send "the right messages to the people who are being massacred and the people that are massacring them to accept modern realities and try to work with us to identify peaceful solutions." Defense Minister Luan Hajdaraga said that NATO maneuvers on Albanian soil "are important to discourage" any move by the Serbian government to drive ethnic Albanians from Kosova. U.S. Admiral T. Joseph Lopez, who is the NATO commander of Allied Forces-South, said that "Belgrade and any belligerents in the region will get the same message--that NATO is ready. NATO has a wide range of contingencies and options ranging from peace support to combat operations." Lopez stressed that "this exercise is not directed at any particular party or element in Kosova or Belgrade, it is directed at regional stability." FS[15] MAJOR TRIAL OPENS IN THE HAGUESome six Bosnian Croats went on trial at the Hague-based war crimes tribunal on 17 August. The men are accused of killing more than100 Muslims, including babies, and torching Muslim homes in the village of Ahmici, near Vitez, on 16 April 1993. Their actions were allegedly part of an operation code-named "48 Hours of Ashes," which was aimed at driving Muslims out of the region. The six men are the largest single group of defendants to go on trial together before the court. PM[16] ROMANIAN PREMIER CONFIRMS LETTER TO CLINTON...Prime Minister Radu Vasile, in an interview with the daily "Adevarul" on 17 August, confirmed that he has written to U.S. President Bill Clinton asking him to donate 50-60 decommissioned Cobra helicopters for the purpose of training the Romanian air force. The letter was published by the daily on 15 August. The Ministry of Defense welcomed the premier's initiative but said the decommissioned helicopters cannot be an alternative to the envisaged deal with Bell Helicopters Textron for the purchase of 96 helicopters to be produced in Romania. The ministry also confirmed that a "potential project" exists for the acquisition of Cobra helicopters reconditioned in Israel. MS[17] ...SAYS GOVERNMENT 'REORGANIZATION' IS 'NO RESHUFFLE'In the same interview with "Adevarul," Vasile said he intends to "reorganize" the government by the end of August but denied this was a "reshuffle." At the same time, he said that those who may find themselves without portfolios as a result of the reduction in the number of government members may choose to "view this reorganization as a reshuffle." MS[18] OPPOSITION TO BESSARABIAN CHURCH SET UP IN MOLDOVAAn organization calling itself the Movement for the Unity of the Moldovan Orthodox Church was set up in Chisinau on 17 August, Infotag and BASA-press reported. The initiative group includes three Communist deputies and two former legislators, one from the Democratic Agrarian Party and the other from the Socialist party. The group opposes the registration of the Bucharest- subordinated Bessarabian Metropolitan Church and says the step would "legitimize the split in the Moldovan Orthodox Church". It also says that if the authorities agree to register the Bessarabian Church, more splits will follow and independent Gagauz and Transdniester metropolitan Churches will be set up. MS[C] END NOTE[19] REPAYING OLD DEBTS TO DEMOCRACYby Jan MaksymiukPoland was the first of Europe's communist countries to embark on the path to a democratic, market economy. Belarus may be the last one to do so, if at all. The two countries have a 600 kilometer joint border, which will become NATO's eastern frontier next year and is also likely to be the EU's eastern frontier in several years. In terms of economic and political realities, Poland and Belarus are likely to drift even farther apart than they are now. Many Poles and Belarusians, however, do not believe that this estrangement need necessarily take place. And there are many more who would not welcome such a development. There are three important reasons why Poland should not distance itself from Belarus. Two of those reasons were voiced by Polish Foreign Minister Bronislaw Geremek when he explained why Poland did not join the EU visa ban on Belarusian senior officials following the diplomatic housing scandal in Minsk. First, Geremek said that in its relations with official Minsk, Poland should bear in mind the fate of the some 420,000 Poles living in Belarus. Since the republic declared its sovereignty on 27 July 1990, Belarus's Poles have been able to pursue a variety of cultural and educational activities oriented toward developing their ethnic and cultural awareness. Warsaw is clearly afraid that Belarus's authoritarian leader, Alyaksandr Lukashenka, will retaliate by reneging on some concessions granted to the Belarusian Poles in the post-USSR period. Second, Geremek, who is also currently the OSCE rotating chairman, stressed Poland's responsibility to maintain the OSCE mission in Minsk and the "dialogue with Belarusian society." Belarus is located at the crossroads of Europe's major railroad, highway, and pipeline networks. The Belarusian market may have little importance for Europe, but Belarus is significant as a transport corridor to Russia. Third, the Belarusian market remains important for Poland, even if Warsaw is reluctant to admit this. There was an outbreak of protests among Polish small traders in late 1997 after Poland introduced tougher visa restrictions for Belarusians and Russians. As a result of those regulations, cross-border trade with Belarus and Kaliningrad Oblast-- including petty smuggling of alcohol and cigarettes-- declined considerably, threatening to leave hundreds of thousands of people throughout Poland without a source of income. To alleviate domestic tension, the Polish Foreign Ministry had to reduce the cost of visas and simplify visa issue procedures. Those three considerations may have inspired Polish and EU politicians to reconsider Poland's relations with Belarus. Poland has gradually assumed the role of infusing Western ideas of democracy into Belarusian society. Several non-governmental organizations in Poland have focused on Belarus with a view to opening its "closed" communities to Europe. The Civic Education Center Poland- Belarus in Bialystok, inaugurated in January 1998, seems most likely to succeed in that bid. The Program Council of the center includes prominent public figures from Poland, such as anti-communist veterans Jacek Kuron, Zbigniew Bujak, and Karol Modzelewski. The center's Board consists of two Poles and two Polish Belarusians--all young local politicians and intellectuals from the generation that developed its political profile in the 1980s, when Solidarity was struggling to depose Poland's communist regime. The organization is based in Bialystok, the center of a northeastern province inhabited by a 150,000-strong Belarusian minority. It is financed primarily by the Stefan Batory Foundation (the Polish branch of the Soros Foundation) and Great Britain's Westminster Foundation for Democracy. The president of the center's board, Artur Smolko, says that the underlying idea of the organization is to "remember how the West helped Polish democrats and anti-communists in the 1980s. Now it is our turn to help Belarus and to repay our old debts to democracy." Eugeniusz Wappa, a leader of the Belarusian community in Poland, runs the center's field operations. Wappa has an extensive knowledge of the Belarusian language, culture, and mentality as well as personal contacts with virtually all leading oppositionists in Belarus. "Lukashenka will not last forever. We must show young Belarusians how things work in Poland in order to prepare them to take over when the Lukashenka regime collapses," he says. The center has already launched or intends to launch seven projects linked to local government, the press, the environment, human rights, national minorities, and culture. Its partners across the border include the opposition Belarusian Popular Front, Charter-97, the Belarusian Congress of Labor Unions, and the independent newspapers "Naviny," "Nasha Niva," and "Pahonya." Predictably, the center's founding conference, which was called "Democracy Is Our Common Concern" and brought together a representative sample of Belarusian oppositionists and Polish politicians on 31 January-2 February, elicited a sharp reaction from Minsk. The Belarusian Foreign Ministry denounced the center as "subversive" and aimed at destabilizing the situation in Belarus. "It unmistakably proved that we had made a good start," according to Smolko and Wappa. 18-08-98 Reprinted with permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
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