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RFE/RL Newsline, Vol. 3, No. 148, 99-08-02Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty: Newsline Directory - Previous Article - Next ArticleFrom: Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty <http://www.rferl.org>RFE/RL NEWSLINEVol. 3, No. 148, 2 August 1999CONTENTS[A] TRANSCAUCASUS AND CENTRAL ASIA
[B] SOUTHEASTERN EUROPE
[C] END NOTE
[A] TRANSCAUCASUS AND CENTRAL ASIA[01] ARMENIA SAYS TIES WITH RUSSIA TO CONTINUE AT 'HIGH LEVEL'Armenia's foreign and defense ministers said on 31 July thatcooperation in the military sphere between Yerevan and Moscow will continue "at a high level," ITAR-TASS reported. Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanyan said these ties have deep historic roots and will grow even stronger in the future. Meanwhile, Defense Minister Vagarshak Aratyunyan stressed that this cooperation is not directed at any third country, adding that officers from the two countries work closely together: "We have all come out of the same school. We have served together and graduated from the same schools. We have the same mentality. And there are no problems in relations." PG [02] AZERBAIJANI OPPOSITION CALLS FOR RECONVENING PARLIAMENTUnhappy with amendments introduced on the law on municipalelections, the 20 deputies who are members of the Democratic Bloc have called for an extraordinary session to debate the matter, the Turan news agency reported on 31 July. PG [03] AZERBAIJANI JOURNALISTS PROTEST TV STATION CLOSURESRuh, theindependent journalists' organization of Azerbaijan, issued a statement on 31 July denouncing official interference that it said has led to the closing of four of the eight local television stations in the country, the Turan news agency reported. Meanwhile, an Azerbaijani court fined the opposition newspaper "Sharg" for insulting parliamentary speaker Murtuz Aleskerov. And seven members of the Azerbaijani People's Front were arrested in Nakhchevan on 30 July, Turan said. PG [04] AZERBAIJAN GRADUATES FIRST OFFICERSOn 30 July, theAzerbaijan Military Academy graduated its first class, including 30 officers from the academy itself and another 13 from its special courses on strategic research and state defense management, Turan reported. Defense Minister Safar Abiyev told the graduates that he believes they "will play an important role in raising the fighting efficiency of the country." PG [05] UN EXTENDS ABKHAZ MANDATE, IGNORES TBILISI ON ETHNICCLEANSINGOn 30 July, the UN Security Council extended the mandate of UN military observers in the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict zone until 31 January 2000, Prime News reported. But the resolution failed to include a finding that Abkhazia is guilty of engaging in ethnic cleansing. Georgia sought such a finding, but the Russian Federation indicated it is opposed. PG [06] U.S. DEFENSE CHIEF PRAISES GEORGIADuring his visit toTbilisi on 1 August, U.S. Secretary of Defense William Cohen praised Georgia for its progress in all areas and said it is up to Tbilisi to decide whether to replace Russian bases with American ones. Cohen indicated that Georgia could seek NATO membership in the future. And he signed agreements to increase military cooperation, including supplying helicopters to improve security at Georgia's borders, Prime- News, Georgian radio, and ITAR-TASS reported. PG [07] GEORGIAN DEPUTIES SEEK CLOSURE OF RUSSIAN BASESThe Georgianparliament's Defense and Security Committee on 30 July called for the closure of Russian military bases in Gudauta and Vaziani, Prime News reported. The committee said the former should be closed because it is contributing to a continuation of the Abkhaz conflict and the latter because its nearness to Tbilisi raises questions as to its purpose, "especially under circumstances when there have been instances of illegal arms trade and the sheltering of terrorist groups on the territory of the base." The committee took no position on the Russian bases in Akhalkalaki and Batumi. PG [08] GEORGIA CANCELS ROUNDTABLE IN ETHNIC ARMENIAN AREAGeorgianauthorities on 30 July cancelled a roundtable of academics to have been held in the predominantly Armenian area of Javakh, Noyan Tapan and Caucasus Press reported. It explained that move by saying the forum might exacerbate ethnic tensions there. The Georgian authorities suggested that a roundtable including the same people be held in Tbilisi in the fall. PG [09] KAZAKHSTAN, RUSSIA STILL DISAGREE ON BAIKONURAnother roundof talks between Kazakhstan and the Russian Federation has reduced the number of disputed issues related to Moscow's use of the Baikonur cosmodrome, ITAR-TASS reported on 31 July. Among the issues still to be resolved include the weight of launch vehicles and the scheduling of launches. PG [10] KAZAKHSTAN PRESIDENT PUTS OFF SALE OF FARM LANDFollowingprotests in several cities across the country, Nursultan Nazarbaev said on 30 July responded to one of the protestors' demands by saying it is "perhaps premature" to sell agricultural land, Kazakhstan television news reported. According to RFE/RL's Kazakh Service, the demonstrators also are calling for an end to operations at Baikonur, free transit for the elderly and handicapped, payment of all back wages and pensions, and the resignation of Nazarbaev. PG [11] KAZAKHSTAN INCREASES URANIUM PRODUCTIONKazakhstan'sNational Atomic Company forecast on 30 July that it will produce 37 percent more uranium in 1999 than it did last year, Interfax-Kazakhstan reported. PG [12] KYRGYZSTAN TO BUY GAS FROM KAZAKHSTANKyrgyzgas announced on30 July that it plans to purchase natural gas from Kazakhstan at a price lower than it has been paying to Uzbekistan, with which Bishkek has had some difficulties, RFE/RL's Kyrgyz Service reported. PG [13] BISHKEK MAY RE-REGISTER HUMAN RIGHTS COMMITTEEPresidentAskar Akaev has promised Jerzy Wieclaw, the head of the OSCE office in the Kyrgyz capital, that his government will re- register the Kyrgyz Committee for Human rights in the near future, RFE/RL's Kyrgyz Service Reported. The committee was registered in 1996 but stripped of that registration in September 1998. Meanwhile, in what may prove to be a related development, Akaev vetoed legislation governing non- commercial organizations. PG [14] TAJIK OFFICIAL DENOUNCES UZBEK 'CRIMINAL GROUPS'DeputyPrime Minister Abdurakhmon Azimov told Interfax on 1 August that some Uzbek citizens living illegally in eastern Tajikistan are members of criminal groups and are "armed to the teeth." While he gave no figures concerning such groups, approximately 500 Uzbek citizens are known to have refused to register with the Tajik migrant commission, the news agency added. PG [15] TAJIK OPPOSITION MAY LEAVE ELECTORAL COMMISSIONThe UnitedTajik Opposition will pull out of the Central Electoral Commission unless a UTO representative is appointed deputy chairman of that group and at least 25 percent of CEC staff in the capital and in the regions, Asia Plus reported on 30 July. Meanwhile, the UTO said that it is not yet in a position to say that it no longer has any armed formations, Interfax reported. PG [16] UZBEKISTAN TO RAISE WAGES, PENSIONSPresident Islam Karimovissued a decree raising wages, pensions, and student stipends as of 1 August, ITAR-TASS reported on 31 July. The decree sets 1,750 soms (approximately $13 U.S.) per month as the minimum wage. This is the second such increase so far this year. PG [17] ERK SAYS UZBEK PRESIDENT BENEFITED FROM BOMBINGSAn articlein the newspaper of the Erk Democratic Party, which has been banned in Uzbekistan, says that President Islam Karimov "hit the jackpot" as a result of the 16 February bombings, Iran's Mashhad radio in Uzbek reported on 28 July. That is because the bombings gave him the chance to introduce a "terror movement" of "unprecedented oppression." Erk said that "if it was not Karimov himself who organized these bombings, then most likely he is currently handing out rewards to those who did. PG [18] UZBEK DENOUNCES 'POISONOUS' RUSSIAN IDEOLOGYAn Uzbek stateradio commentator on 27 July said that the Uzbek people must be "vigilant" against "pseudo-cultural goods brought from Russia" that "are aimed at making the people spiritually blind and deaf," BBC monitoring reported on 31 July. The speaker said that this "poisonous ideology" is being brought in "by colonialists" and has already overwhelmed Kazakhstan. PG [B] SOUTHEASTERN EUROPE[19] U.S. FORCES PROTECT FLEEING SERBSKFOR ground troops andhelicopters prevented ethnic Albanians from attacking a convoy of 450 Serbs in 150 automobiles and tractors on 1 August. The Serbs had requested protection as they fled north from Zitinje, in southeastern Kosova. They told reporters that they no longer feel safe in their ethnically mixed village. Local ethnic Albanians said that some of the Serbs had earlier looted Kosovar homes. The Albanians added that they intend to take back their property if they see any Serb trying to leave with it, Reuters reported. PM [20] BOMB ATTACK ON SERBIAN CHURCHUnknown persons set off a bombthat damaged the unfinished Prishtina Serbian Orthodox Cathedral on 1 August. No one was injured. The UN's Bernard Kouchner said that "there are people who want to destroy, symbolically, Orthodox churches. I find this behavior absolutely unacceptable." Serbian Orthodox Father Sava, who favors reconciliation between Serbs and ethnic Albanians, added that "Albanian extremists are organizing a systematic campaign of destruction of Orthodox churches, with the intention to blot out all traces of Serbian existence" in the province. Sava added that "we very much wonder why [the attack] could not have been prevented," AP reported. Work on the cathedral began in 1996. PM [21] BLAIR URGES END TO VIOLENCEBritish Prime Minister TonyBlair visited Prishtina on 31 July and urged local Albanians that "justice must apply to all people whatever their race, whatever their religion, whatever their class, whatever their background," AP reported. Blair met separately with both the Kosova Liberation Army's (UCK) Hashim Thaci and his main rival, Ibrahim Rugova. He also met with local Serbian politicians and leaders of the Serbian Orthodox Church, who have expressed increasing concern about the revenge attacks against Serbs. Father Sava told Blair that Albanian looters recently destroyed or damaged 35 medieval Serbian Orthodox churches. He stressed that these buildings "survived 500 years of Turkish occupation but not the 40-something days of peace with the international peacekeepers." FS [22] KOSOVA'S THACI SLAMS RUSSIANS...Thaci sharply criticizedRussian KFOR soldiers after they briefly detained UCK General Agim Ceku on 31 July near Kijeva. Ceku heads the guerrillas' general staff. Thaci said that "as [prime minister of the UCK-backed] provisional government of Kosova, we condemn this act as premeditated, with a political aim.... It shows our doubts about Russian troops' participation within KFOR were correct," Reuters reported. Thaci warned that "we will defend our honor" if such incidents occur again. A KFOR spokesman in Prishtina said, however, that the soldiers detained Ceku to check his identification and to verify whether he had KFOR's permission to wear a UCK uniform. Ceku was traveling with four armed bodyguards and was not carrying the card authorizing him to do so. FS [23] ...WHILE RUSSIA CALLS THACI REMARKS 'UNACCEPTABLE'TheRussian Foreign Ministry issued a statement on 1 August in Moscow calling Thaci's complaints "unacceptable and impermissible." The statement says that "the impunity of the UCK, carrying out illegal violent acts against local Serbs, has reached the point where its leaders are already making public threats against the international peacekeepers.... Any pretence on the part of the UCK that it is somehow in charge of the situation in Kosova and controls territory in the province directly contradicts UN Security Council resolution 1244...and other documents describing the status and tasks of international peacekeepers." FS [24] SARAJEVO SUMMIT UNDERSCORES POLICY DIFFERENCESU.S.President Bill Clinton, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, and several other Western leaders joined many of their Balkan colleagues in signing a declaration on Balkan regional development in Sarajevo on 30 July (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 30 July 1999). EU countries issued a separate statement blaming Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic for Serbia's isolation. Russia had refused to approve any explicit reference to Milosevic in the declaration (see Part 1). Elsewhere, unnamed U.S. officials called on the EU to follow Washington's lead and "lift trade controls on Balkan products." The officials stressed that EU countries "must bear the lion's share of the burden" in the reconstruction and development of the Balkans. After the conference, EU aid coordinator Bodo Hombach denied charges by unnamed critics that the summit was only a "media spectacle," the "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung" reported on 2 August. Official Belgrade media slammed the gathering as "anti-Serbian." PM [25] SERBIA'S AVRAMOVIC: MILOSEVIC MUST GO SOONDragoslavAvramovic told AP in Belgrade on 1 August that Milosevic must resign by late September if Serbia is to receive sufficient international aid in time for the winter. He argued that any attempt at reform with Milosevic still in power would be "like building a house on a landslide." Avramovic is a senior banker whom many observers believe will head the first post- Milosevic government, PM [26] SERBIAN POLICE IN SCUFFLE WITH OPPOSITIONIn Paracin on 1August, an unspecified number of police beat several persons. Those protesters had sought to prevent the police from interfering with efforts by opposition activists to collect signatures on a petition calling for Milosevic to resign. Following the incident, officials of the opposition Democratic Party said they will press legal charges against the local chief of police and several of the police involved in the scuffle, RFE/RL's South Slavic Service reported. In Leskovac and Valjevo, several hundred demonstrators demanded Milosevic's resignation. In Nis, a hunger strike staged by 14 army reservists for back wages entered its seventh day. PM [27] SFOR DETAINS BOSNIAN SERB WAR CRIMES SUSPECTNATO Secretary-General Javier Solana said in Brussels that NATO peacekeepers in Bosnia detained indicted war criminal Radomir Kovac on 2 August. Solana added that NATO officials will soon send Kovac to the Hague-based war crimes tribunal. Kovac is a former police official and paramilitary leader whom the court indicted in connection with the alleged systematic rape of Muslim women in Foca during the 1992-1995 war. PM [28] CROATIA'S TUDJMAN BLASTS HAGUE TRIBUNALSpeaking in Sarajevoon 30 July, Croatian President Franjo Tudjman denied recent charges by a Hague tribunal prosecutor that he is responsible for Bosnian war crimes (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 1 August 1999). "That accusation...is as much surprising as it is completely unfounded. Croatia, and I personally, have done everything to defend Bosnia," AP reported. Tudjman also charged that "those dilettantes in The Hague" failed to take note specific actions he took on Bosnia's behalf. Tudjman recalled that he urged local Croats to vote in Bosnia's 1992 referendum on independence from the former Yugoslavia and that Croatia was the first country to recognize independent Bosnia. He stressed that "Croatia and Bosnia are so linked that they cannot exist one without another." Earlier that day, he and Muslim leader Alija Izetbegovic signed an agreement defining the border between the two states. PM [29] WESTENDORP IMPOSES BOSNIAN PUBLIC BROADCASTING LEGISLATIONIn one of his last official acts as the internationalcommunity's chief representative in Bosnia, Carlos Westendorp decreed measures establishing a single public broadcasting service for the entire country, Reuters reported from Sarajevo on 31 July. The service will provide newscasts to television stations both in the mainly Muslim and Croatian federation and in the Republika Srpska. The new service will represent Bosnia in the European Broadcasting Union and consequently have the rights in Bosnia to broadcast international sporting events. Westendorp's office said in a statement that he decreed the legislation "following the failure of the relevant local authorities" to agree on a number of unspecified issues "vital to the continued implementation" of the 1995 Dayton peace agreement. Austria's Wolfgang Petritsch will shortly take up his post as Westendorp's successor, the "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung" reported on 2 August in an interview with him. PM [30] HUNGARIAN FOREIGN MINISTER IN ROMANIAJanos Martonyi on 31July and 1 August toured settlements in Transylvania inhabited by ethnic Hungarians and met with leaders of the Hungarian ethnic minority. On 30 July, he told journalists that Hungary does not promote border revision and that such fears on the Romanian side are due to "incorrect information" or are "fueled by circles with a vested interest." Martonyi said he and his Romanian counterpart, Andrei Plesu, agreed that a Hungarian consulate will be opened in Miercurea Ciuc in 2000. He said there are still "problems" in bilateral relations stemming from the discrepancy between declarations and their implementation. In this context, he pointed to the restitution of Church property and the setting up of a Hungarian-language state university. Martonyi also said he and Plesu agreed that the planned Budapest-Bucharest highway must pass through Transylvania and "serve the interests" of its population. MS [31] ROMANIAN RULING PARTY REACHES COMPROMISE ON LEADERSHIPPrimeMinister Radu Vasile and National Peasant Party Christian Democratic (PNTCD) chairman Ion Diaconescu agreed on 31 July to postpone the election of a new party leadership until an extraordinary party congress scheduled for 2001. According to the party's statutes, the new leadership is to be elected in January 2000. Vasile provoked an uproar within the party when he said he will not lead the PNTCD during the parliamentary elections scheduled for 2000 unless he is appointed party chairman. The two PNTCD leaders also agreed that the party will decide on coalition partners only after the parliamentary elections. Vasile said in an interview with Reuters on 29 July that he may opt for a coalition partnership with "leftist parties." The declaration was criticized by other PNTCD leaders and welcomed by Party of Social Democracy in Romania chairman Ion Iliescu. MS [32] MOLDOVAN PARLIAMENT APPROVES NEW VERSION OF PRIVATIZATIONBILLThe parliament on 30 July approved a new version of the bill on the privatization of the Moldtelcom company. An absolute majority of all deputies voted in favor of the bill, after the Constitutional Court declared invalid a bill approved earlier. The new version of the bill drops the provision granting the winner of Moldtelcom's privatization tender the right to operate mobile telephones as well. Also on 31 July, parliamentary chairman Dumitru Diacov, changing his previous position on the privatization of the Tirex- Petrol company, sent the bill on that company's privatization to President Petru Lucinschi for promulgation. The legislation provides for a Romanian consortium to take a 51 percent stake in Tirex-Petrol in exchange for paying part of Moldova's electricity delivery debt to Romania (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 23 and 29 July 1999). MS [33] BULGARIAN DEPUTY STRIPPED OF PARLIAMENTARY IMMUNITYTheparliament on 31 July voted 190 to seven with 12 abstentions to strip Euroleft deputy Tsvetelin Kanchev of his parliamentary immunity (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 28 July 1999). The legislature went on to approve by 134 to 81 with six abstentions that Kanchev be detained immediately. Prosecutor- General Nikola Filchev, in a letter to the parliament, said Kalchev is suspected of "serious crimes," including racketeering and the "threat of battery and murder," an RFE/RL correspondent in Sofia reported. MS [C] END NOTE[34] IMPLICATIONS OF A ROMANIAN COURT DECISIONby Michael ShafirThe Supreme Court's recent decision to sentence Generals Victor Athanasie Stanculescu and Mihai Chitac to 15 years in prison and the responses to that decision raise several questions. The most obvious is why the judiciary waited nearly a decade to put the two generals on trial. After all, it was an "open secret" that they had been executing the orders of dictator Nicolae Ceausescu when they led the attempt to quash the December 1989 popular revolt in Timisoara, which triggered the toppling of the communist regime. The answer is that the Romanian judicial system was not allowed to pursue the perpetrators of the crimes committed during the popular revolution. The Party of Social Democracy in Romania (PDSR), the Greater Romania Party and the Party of Romanian National Unity--the three opposition parties in the parliament are right when they claim that the court's decision is a "political one." But it is political only in the sense that it reverses their earlier objection to let justice be done. As long as they had been in power, the investigation into the December 1989 events was never completed for alleged "lack of evidence." Romanian democracy, whose "birth certificate" was marred by the mock trial of Ceausescu and his wife, continued in a judicially ambiguous limbo. Even those members of the Ceausescu leadership sentenced to prison terms immediately after the overthrow of the former regime were freed from jail on health grounds, and most remained at liberty till after the 1996 elections. One should avoid concluding from this "evidence" that in order to legitimize their rule, Romania's post-1989 leaders had staged the resistance to the revolution. The jury is still out on that question. But it is beyond doubt that Stanculescu (who first became minister of industry and later defense minister) and Chitac were associated with the post- revolutionary regime of Ion Iliescu and Petre Roman. This common past must make Iliescu and Roman (despite their having since parted political ways) to wonder whether they will not be the ultimate targets of an all-out judicial campaign. And even if the two former allies were to be pronounced innocent by a court of justice, they would be unlikely to survive the ordeal politically. This may explain PDSR deputy chairman Adrian Nastase's denunciation of the sentence as attesting to a "political war" in which the two generals are "just the first two victims" and Iliescu and Roman the ultimate ones. By the same token, Defense Minister Victor Babiuc commented initially that the verdict was "not just a legal mistake" and a "blunder with strong political bias" but was aimed at "discrediting the army as a whole." It would be a mistake, however, to suggest that in responding this way, Babiuc was putting party interests (as one Roman's deputies in the Democratic Party) above professional ones (he is a lawyer by training). Babiuc's main objection was to the "institutional implications" of the sentence. First, as both Babiuc and Chief of Staff General Constantin Degeratu pointed out, the verdict questions the very principle on which armies are supposed to function-- namely, carrying out orders. Indeed, the court, rejecting the two generals' plea that they had obeyed orders, ruled that "military discipline excludes blind subordination and does not annul responsibility for a crime." This issue has haunted military and military-like structures ever since the Nuremberg trials and cuts across party lines. For example, Interior Minister Constantin Dudu Ionescu, taking a stand very different from that of other National Peasant Party Christian Democratic leaders, revived a proposal he had first made in 1998. It was the "responsibility of the political class," he said at the time, to find a way out of the haunting legacy of December 1989 by agreeing to amnesty those involved in the events of that time. And Ionescu, who was briefly defense minister when the Democrats walked out of the coalition in February 1998, had become even more convinced of his "solution" when Interior Ministry forces sent to stop the miners' march on Bucharest in January this year reportedly hesitated about obeying their superiors lest they be accused by a PDSR successor government of having implemented "criminal orders." Second, the court ruled that the Ministry of Defense must pay compensation to relatives of those killed or wounded in 1989. Babiuc said the ministry will appeal the ruling, which, in his opinion, affects the Romanian army's honor, transforming it into a collective accomplice to a crime. Some observers even argued that the army's budget should not be slashed as a result of the compensation ruling, particularly at a time when the army is undergoing reform under considerable budgetary restraints. None of these arguments, of course, carries any real weight. Stanculescu and Chitac were brought to justice for individual, not collective, deeds. Carrying out the orders of a democratically elected government is not, and cannot be considered tantamount to implementing the orders of a dictator and thus does not undermine hierarchical principles. Moreover, it is not the army but the "body politic" that assumes responsibility by compensating the victims of 1989, and it is certainly not those victims who have to carry the mundane burden of budgetary constraints. Democratic justice, after all, is also guided by moral responsibilities. Whether those responsibilities can triumph in the fast-approaching election year in a country where the army rates in opinion polls as one of the two state institutions enjoying almost unanimous confidence is a matter that the pending appeal of the sentence will help clarify. 02-08-99 Reprinted with permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
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