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RFE/RL Newsline, Vol. 2, No. 218, 98-11-11Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty: Newsline Directory - Previous Article - Next ArticleFrom: Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty <http://www.rferl.org>RFE/RL NEWSLINEVol. 2, No. 218, 11 November 1998CONTENTS[A] TRANSCAUCASUS AND CENTRAL ASIA
[B] SOUTHEASTERN EUROPE
[C] END NOTE
[A] TRANSCAUCASUS AND CENTRAL ASIA[01] AZERBAIJANI OPPOSITION ACCUSED OF LINKS WITH FOREIGN INTELLIGENCEAddressing the Azerbaijani parliament on 10 November, Interior Minister Ramil Usubov and Security Minister Namik Abbasov charged that the country's opposition parties are collaborating with the intelligence services of foreign countries, including Russia, Turan reported. Prosecutor-General Eldar Hasanov said that criminal proceedings will be opened against five opposition politicians in connection with statements made at demonstrations on 7 and 8 November, which he said "defamed the honor and dignity" of President Heidar Aliev, according to Reuters. Hasanov accused Azerbaijan Popular Front Party chairman Abulfaz Elchibey, Musavat Party leader Isa Gambar, and Azerbaijani National Independence Party chairman Etibar Mamedov of "attempting to destroy state structures" and seize power. LF[02] AZERBAIJANI PARLIAMENT WANTS MORE STRINGENT CONTROLS ON MEDIAJust three months after the formal abolition of media censorship, the Azerbaijani parliament issued a statement on 10 November calling on the Ministry of Information to take "all legal measures" to preclude the publication of "unconfirmed and provocative materials" and to "defend the honor and dignity of the president," Reuters and Turan reported. Meanwhile, Reporters Sans Frontieres and the Committee to Protect Azerbaijani Journalists have both condemned the beating of journalists during the unsanctioned 7 November demonstration in Baku. The U.S. State Department has also issued a statement condemning police violence against demonstrators on 7-8 November. LF[03] AZERBAIJANI OFFICIALS FIRED IN HUMANITARIAN AID SCANDALPresident Aliev has dismissed Gyulabbas Gakhramanov from his post as chairman of the State Committee for Refugees, Interfax reported on 10 November. Gakhramanov's deputies were similarly fired, and Deputy Prime Minister Izzat Rustamov was reprimanded for his failure adequately to monitor the distribution of humanitarian aid to persons displaced during the Karabakh conflict. Prosecutor-General Hasanov told a government session on 6 November that criminal proceedings have been brought against 49 persons in connection with the embezzlement of humanitarian aid worth $1 million. The theft of humanitarian aid valued at several million dollars was uncovered by a special commission one year ago (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 21 November 1997). LF[04] GEORGIAN MINISTER OF STATE IN BAKUVazha Lortkipanidze ended a two-day visit to Baku on 10 November during which he met with President Aliev, Prime Minister Artur Rasi-zade, and representatives of the Azerbaijan International Operating Committee engaged in exploiting three offshore Caspian oil fields, Azerbaijani agencies reported. Some of that oil is to be exported via a pipeline from Baku to the Georgian Black Sea terminal of Supsa beginning in April 1999. Alluding to the disagreement between the AIOC and the Azerbaijani state oil company SOCAR over the financing of repairs to the Baku-Supsa pipeline, AIOC Vice President John Hollis told Lortkipanidze that the budget for doing so "will not exceed $590 million." The original estimated cost of the repairs was $315 million (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 12 June 1998). The Georgian and Azerbaijani leaders agreed on the need to expand economic cooperation and signed inter-governmental agreements on tourism and combating economic crime. LF[05] GEORGIAN WARLORD SENTENCEDThe Georgian Supreme Court on 10 November handed down sentences in the 11- month trial of 15 members of the paramilitary organization Mkhedrioni, including its 72-year-old leader Djaba Ioseliani, Caucasus Press reported. Ioseliani was sentenced to 11 years' imprisonment on charges of treason, the attempted assassination attempt against then Georgian head of state Eduard Shevardnadze in August 1995, and robbery. Former Georgian Interior Minister Temur Khachishvili, a close associate of Ioseliani, received a 15- year sentence and the remaining defendants between three to 15 years. Unknown assailants threw a grenade through the windows of Mkhedrioni's Tbilisi headquarters on 10 November shortly before the sentences were pronounced, AP reported. LF[06] MINSK GROUP CO-CHAIRMEN IN YEREVANThe French, Russian, and U.S. co-chairmen of the OSCE Minsk Group met with Armenian President Robert Kocharian and Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian in Yerevan on 10 November to unveil their new proposals for resolving the Karabakh conflict, RFE//RL's Yerevan bureau reported. Speaking to journalists after those talks, Russian co-chairman Yurii Yukalov said both the Armenian and Azerbaijani leaderships found the OSCE proposals "very serious" and pledged to "thoroughly consider" them. He declined to confirm media reports quoting Azerbaijani presidential adviser Vafa Gulu-zade as saying that Baku has rejected the co-chairs' proposal of a "common state" comprising Azerbaijan and the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic because that term is ambiguous. LF[07] ARMENIAN OPPOSITION CONDEMNS CORRUPTION ALLEGATIONSMembers of the Armenian Pan-National Movement (HHSh) who held top government posts under former President Levon Ter-Petrossian issued statements on 10 November saying that allegations of corruption made by members of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (HHD) at a rally in Yerevan on 30 October constitute a "witch hunt," RFE/RL's Yerevan bureau reported. Speakers at that rally accused former government officials of illegally acquiring fortunes through the embezzlement of public funds (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 2 November 1998). The HHSh-controlled Hanrapetutyun [Republic] parliamentary faction termed the allegations unfounded and slanderous, while former national security chief David Shahnazarian said that the present government is behind those allegations. Several of the former officials incriminated have said they will bring libel suits against the HHD. LF[08] THREE MORE KAZAKH PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES REGISTEREDKazakhstan's Central Electoral Committee on 9 November registered three more candidates for the 10 January presidential election, raising the total to eight, RFE/RL's Almaty bureau reported on 11 November. The three most recent candidates are Amantay-Haji Asylbek, leader of the anti-nuclear movement ATTAN, former dissident Karishal Asanov, and former Kazakh Customs Committee chairman Gani Qasymov. Each candidate must collect 170,000 signatures in support of his candidacy from at least 14 of Kazakhstan's regions. LF[09] WHEREABOUTS OF TAJIK INSURGENCY LEADER UNKNOWNRussian Foreign Ministry spokesman Vladimir Rakhmanin on 10 November said he has no information that would shed light on unconfirmed reports that Colonel Mahmud Khudaberdiyev, the key figure in last week's rebellion in northern Tajikistan, is in Russia, Interfax reported. In a telephone conversation the same day, Kyrgyz President Askar Akayev assured his Tajik counterpart, Imomali Rakhmonov, that Khudaberdiyev and his associates will be apprehended and extradited to Tajikistan if they enter Kyrgyz territory, according to ITAR-TASS. LF[B] SOUTHEASTERN EUROPE[10] U.S. OUTLINES AUTONOMY FOR KOSOVA...U.S. Ambassador to Macedonia Christopher Hill, who is also Washington's chief envoy in the Kosova crisis, has drafted a plan for an interim political settlement in Kosova that will give the province wide-ranging autonomy, the "International Herald Tribune" reported on 11 November. Under the plan, Kosova will have its own president, laws, police, and courts as well as one-fifth of the seats in the federal parliament. The proposal also includes a wider range of "human rights and fundamental freedoms" than Serbian citizens currently enjoy. The draft does not cover several thorny issues, such as how much power to grant the Serbian minority and who will obtain the profits from privatization. Hill is using the same negotiating tactics the U.S. delegation used at the 1995 Dayton conference, namely to begin with the least complex issues and leave the most difficult ones for last. PM[11] ...BUT WILL PARTIES AGREE?The "International Herald Tribune" also wrote on 11 November that Hill's proposal contains several elements that one side or the other may find difficult to accept. The plan gives Kosova as a province too much self-rule in the eyes of Belgrade, which wanted autonomy to be concentrated at the local level. Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic may object to allowing Kosovars to elect one-fifth of the parliament, lest the Albanians combine their votes with those of Montenegrin deputies and anti-Milosevic Serbs to oust him. The Kosovars demand at least republican status equal to that of Serbia and Montenegro. The Kosovars also want their own constitution and guarantees that the interim political settlement can be changed. In Brussels on 10 November, a spokesman for the Kosova Liberation Army (UCK) said that the UCK must be a signatory to any settlement and that no talks are possible as long as the "Serbian occupiers" remain in Kosova. PM[12] INCIDENTS CONTINUE IN KOSOVAThe Serbian Media Center in Prishtina reported on 10 November that two Serbian civilians went missing in the Skenderaj area and that the two may have been kidnapped by the UCK. The ethnic Albanians' Kosova Information Center reported that 13 buses carrying Serbian paramilitary police passed through the Podujeva area en route to Prishtina and that a Serbian tank "deliberately ran over" a horse-drawn cart near Gjakova and injured its four Kosovar passengers. In Washington, the State Department said in a statement that both sides must observe the cease-fire in Kosova. "It is the responsibility of both the Serbian security forces and the [UCK] to exercise restraint and prevent a resurgence of violence," the text added. In London, a Foreign Office spokesman called "on all sides to show restraint and support the efforts of [Hill]...to bring about a political settlement. Violence is not the answer," he added. PM[13] FRANCE NAMES KOSOVA MISSION HEADThe French Ministry of Defense has chosen paratroop Brigadier-General Marcel Valentin to head NATO's 1,500-strong "extraction force" that will rescue unarmed OSCE monitors in Kosova should they find themselves in danger, Reuters reported from Paris on 10 November. The force is expected to be based in Macedonia once that country's new government takes office and gives its approval. Valentin commanded the Sarajevo sector for UNPROFOR peacekeepers in 1993 and has also served in Chad. PM[14] SERBIAN POLICE CONFISCATE NEWSPAPERAn unspecified number of police raided the Belgrade offices of the independent daily "Dnevni Telegraf" during the night of 9-10 November and confiscated all copies of the10 November edition. The Serbian authorities have tried in recent weeks to put the newspaper out of business through legal restrictions and fines. In order to circumvent the restrictions, the editors have re-registered "Telegraf" in Montenegro and sold individual copies not as newspapers but as scrap paper, RFE/RL's South Slavic Service reported. PM[15] POPLASEN TO PICK PRIME MINISTERHard-line Republika Srpska President Nikola Poplasen said in Banja Luka on 10 November that he will select a prime minister "by the end of the week." He did not indicate whom he will pick but noted that he "cannot nominate the candidate without the consent of the biggest party in the parliament," which is Radovan Karadzic's Serbian Democratic Party. PM[16] CONTACT GROUP THREATENS TO CUT BOSNIAN AIDIn Washington on 10 November, representatives of the international Contact Group said in a statement that outside assistance to Bosnia will be "gradually reduced" but did not specify a time frame. This a long-planned move aimed at reducing aid-dependancy. At the same time, the diplomats warned Bosnia that it must make greater progress in moving toward a market economy in the near future or risk even deeper aid cuts. In Sarajevo, Mirza Hajric, who is a top aide to Muslim leader Alija Izetbegovic, rejected a recent statement by an unnamed U.S. official, who charged that the Muslims are the chief opponents of the move toward a market economy, Reuters reported. PM[17] NO U.S. JETS FOR CROATIAN AIR FORCE?Unnamed Croatian generals and Defense Ministry officials told "Jutarnji List" of 11 November that the armed forces of Croatia and the U.S. have cooperated well together in recent years but that Washington refuses to sell Zagreb advanced fighter aircraft. The Croatian military want the planes to help bring the air force up to NATO standards in preparation for membership in the alliance's Partnership for Peace Program. Croatia is currently seeking Israeli help to modernize its aging fleet of MiG-21s, the daily added. In other news, the same newspaper reported that a recent study shows that the number of declared bankruptcies has risen ten-fold since 1994. The study warned that "dramatic" political and social consequences on the Russian model could follow if the trend continues. PM[18] ALBANIAN GUNMEN FACE DOWN POLICE...About 30 gunmen blocked the office of the prefecture and the town hall of Shkodra on 10 November, firing weapons into the air and capturing a police car. They demanded the release of three people whom police had arrested the same day in Tirana for reasons that are unclear. The crowd dispersed after representatives had talked with Prefect Ali Lacaj. An Interior Ministry spokesman told Reuters that Shkodra police have meanwhile received reinforcements and restored order. The three arrested men included a former member of the elite Presidential Guard and two of his friends, all from Shkodra. The guardsman, who also had served as a bodyguard to recently murdered opposition politician Azem Hajdari, was sent to a high- security prison in Tirana, dpa reported. Police released the other two men independently of the protests in Shkodra. Their subsequent appearance there helped calm the situation, AP added. FS[19] ...PLUNDER OSCE OFFICESA spokesman for the OSCE said in Tirana on 10 November that unknown people entered its office in Shkoder during the unrest. They stole or damaged computers, telephones, and furniture and took one vehicle parked outside. Meanwhile, dpa reported that some of the protesters identified themselves as members of anti-communist trade unions. They said they will hold protest demonstrations unless the imprisoned former guardsman is released on 11 November. FS[20] ALBANIA, ITALY SIGN ANTI-MAFIA PACTItalian Prime Minister Massimo D'Alema and his Albanian counterpart, Pandeli Majko, signed a cooperation agreement in Rome on 10 November aimed at curbing illegal migration and fighting organized crime. D'Alema told journalists that smuggling migrants across the Strait of Otranto "has already produced too many victims and...is an...unacceptable form of crime." He stressed that "we are trying to hit the smugglers, not the immigrants." Italian authorities last week started handing out some 38,000 residence permits to illegal Albanian immigrants to help regulate their status. Meanwhile, representatives of Albania's secret service (SHIK) asked that the trial of suspected Islamist terrorist Claude Cheik Ben Abdel Kader be suspended while SHIK further investigates his case (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 9 November 1998). FS[21] ROMANIA TO RESTRUCTURE GOVERNMENTThe leaders of the ruling coalition have approved a plan to restructure the government, cutting the number of ministries from 23 to 17, RFE/RL's Bucharest bureau reported on 10 November. Including the premier, there will be 18 ministers in the cabinet. Among those ministries to be abolished are privatization and reform, both of which are to be transformed into government departments under the premier's supervision in a bid to speed up reforms. The Tourism and the Communication Ministries will be transformed into national agencies, and the Research Ministry will be subsumed into the Education Ministry. The National Peasant Party Christian Democratic will now have six ministers, the Democratic Party four, the National Liberal Party three, the Hungarian Democratic Federation of Romania two, and the Social Democratic Party one. The parliament will vote on the streamlined structure after the government officially approves it. MS[22] BULGARIAN PRESIDENT IN ROMANIAPetar Stoyanov and his Romanian host, Emil Constantinescu, told journalists on 10 November that their two countries suffer from a false image in the West, whose perception of the impact of the world economic crisis and the Russian economic crisis on the Bulgarian and Romanian economies does not reflect reality. Constantinescu said it is "not true" that the EU recently gave Bulgaria and Romania the lowest marks in its evaluation of candidate member countries. The two leaders agreed to intensify economic cooperation. Five cooperation agreements in agriculture, transportation, education, science, and customs were signed. Constantinescu said "regional traffic" is "likely to intensify" once a new bridge over the Danube River is constructed. But to date there is no sign that an accord on the location of such a bridge is imminent. The two states have long differed over this issue. MS[23] MOLDOVAN GOVERNMENT APPROVES 1999 BUDGETThe government has approved the budget for next year, RFE/RL's Bucharest bureau reported on 10 November. Finance Minister Anatol Arapu said the budget envisages revenues of 2.8 billion lei (some $3.9 billion), which, he said, amount to 28.3 percent of GDP, and expenses of 3 billion lei. He said some 23 percent of the budget will service the country's foreign debt but added that this servicing is not included in the budget figures since it will be financed from revenues obtained from privatization and from international loans. Arapu said that while drafting the budget, the cabinet has "conducted a dialogue with the IMF" that was "tense" but ended in agreement. The government said it intends to introduce a 5 percent tax on all imports, excluding energy supplies. MS[24] SPLIT REOPENS IN BULGARIAN ORTHODOX CHURCHPatriarch Maxim on 10 November rejected the conclusions of a two-day meeting of clergymen at which new statutes for the Bulgarian Orthodox Church were adopted in a bid to stage elections for a new Church leader by the end of 1999. The meeting was a follow-up to the world gathering of Orthodox Church leaders in Sofia in September, which informally advised Maxim to step down in the near future and to receive back into the Church the followers of rival Patriarch Pymen. Maxim, who served the communist regime, said on 10 November that the recent gathering "had no legal or religious value" and "violated the statutes of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, as it was not convened by the Holy Synod," Reuters reported. MS[C] END NOTE[25] RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT HOLDS REMNANT SALEby Julie A. CorwinAt the beginning of November, the Russian government announced that it was officially canceling its third attempt to sell 75 percent of the state- owned company Rosneft. The news was not unexpected: Prime Minister Yevgenii Primakov had said on several occasions that the state could no longer raise the revenues that it had expected. The previous government of Sergei Kirienko hoped to use proceeds from the sale to plug a growing budget deficit and foreign debt. With the country now in worse economic shape than under the past government, Moscow needs the cash more than ever. It is perhaps for this reason, that the Primakov government appears to have adopted a more realistic plan for privatizing Rosneft: this time it is selling off the company piece by piece, asset by asset. Sakhalin Governor Igor Farkhutdinov told Interfax on 2 November that Rosneft is seeking buyers for a 49 percent share of its stake in the giant Sakhalin-1 project. The company's stake in Sakhalin-1 was one of three pieces of the company that initially attracted potential buyers as diverse as British Petroleum, Oneximbank, LUKoil, Gazprom, and Royal Dutch Shell; the other two pieces were its small stake in the Caspian Pipeline Consortium and the oil production enterprise Purneftegaz, which contributed 8 million tons of Rosneft's annual 13 million oil output. The other parts of Rosneft, according to Matthew Sagers, director of energy services at Washington- based PlanEcon, are liabilities rather than assets. In March of 1998, CentreInvest Group, a Moscow-based consulting firm, estimated the present net value of Rosneft's entire 17 percent stake in Sakhalin-1 at $265 million. But according to Sagers, the entire Sakhalin-1 stake--broken off from the rest of Rosneft--could fetch as much as $400 million. Of course, one half of $400 million-- or $200 million --may seem like a drop in the bucket compared with the Kirienko government's $1.6 billion starting price for all Rosneft, but with more than $17 billion in debt payments coming due in 1999, the Primakov government may have decided to settle for whatever cash it can raise. Pragmatism as well as poverty may have motivated selling off Rosneft in piecemeal fashion. It could be months, if not years. before Rosneft is reunited with its main production enterprise, Purneftegaz. Rosneft lost 38 percent of Purneftegaz in September, when a court ordered the sale of company shares as part payment for a bank loan on which Rosneft had defaulted. Rosneft had put up the block of shares as collateral for a $10 million dollar debt it owned to MAPO-Bank, Mestbank, and GIVTSneftegaz. According to "Russian Petroleum Investor," MAPO-Bank has close ties to LUKoil: together, they own the large oil production enterprise, Arkhangelskgeoldobycha. On 2 November, a Moscow arbitration court postponed the hearings of two lawsuits Rosneft had filed to regain control of Purneftegaz. The Russian government and the State Duma have been outspoken in their condemnation of the Purneftegaz transaction. A 38 percent stake of a company valued at a minimum of $600 million went for the grand price of $10 million to three companies, Feniks, MAK-Invest, and PAK-Invest, which are reportedly controlled by LUKoil and Boris Berezovskii, whose LogoVAZ group controls Sibneft. On 14 October, President Boris Yeltsin ordered that Prime Minister Primakov ensure that shares in Purneftegaz be returned to Rosneft, and on 5 November Federal Security Service (FSB) Chairman Vladimir Putin called the sale an act of "astounding fraudulence." According to ITAR-TASS, Putin declared that the FSB will spare no effort to prevent similar deals in the future and will "do its best to return to the state the resources and property that belong to it." The Duma, meanwhile, passed a special resolution declaring the Purneftegaz sale illegal and struck Purneftegaz's fields off lists included in pending legislation that would have made them eligible for production-sharing agreement terms. And on 20 October, Prosecutor-General Yurii Skuratov promised to investigate the sale, saying it showed signs of collusion, "Nezavisimaya gazeta" reported. However, most analysts familiar with the Purneftegaz sale, "Kommersant- Daily" reported on 7 October, believe that finding a legal means to overturn it--short of nationalization--may prove difficult. Valerii Garipov, first deputy fuel and energy minister, told the newspaper he believes that in order to return Purneftegaz to Rosneft, "it will be necessary to use 'Soviet' methods." Part of the problem is that employees of Rosneft may have purposefully engineered the loan default, which caused the subsequent sale of Purneftegaz. According to "Russian Petroleum Investor," some staff members of the Duma's Industry Committee claim that various Rosneft managers, including members of former company president Yurii Bespalov's team who are close to Berezovskii, conspired with the potential buyers and deliberately delayed payment of the $10 million credit in order to force the sale of the Purneftegaz stake. Regardless of the circumstances of the Purneftegaz sale, it is clear that annulling it and settling all outstanding legal issues to the satisfaction of potential new buyers will take time. In the meantime, the government can concentrate on selling its 2.5 percent stake in Gazprom and one-half of Rosneft's stake in Sakhalin-1. It will meet only a tiny segment of the country's financing needs, but it is at least a start. 11-11-98 Reprinted with permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
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