RFE/RL Newsline, Vol. 4, No. 41, 00-02-28

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From: Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty <http://www.rferl.org>

RFE/RL NEWSLINE

Vol. 4, No. 41, 28 February 2000

CONTENTS

[A] TRANSCAUCASUS AND CENTRAL ASIA

[01] RUSSIA TO CONTINUE GUARDING ARMENIA'S SOUTHERN BORDERS

[02] ARMENIAN COURTS UPHOLD FURTHER DETENTION OF PARLIAMENT

[03] AZERBAIJAN REJECTS RUSSIAN CLAIMS OF AID TO CHECHENS

[04] AZERBAIJAN FINALLY MAKES PUBLIC DECEMBER POLL RESULTS

[05] AZERBAIJANI JOURNALIST BEATEN BY POLICE

[06] GEORGIAN PRESIDENT MEETS WITH DPS FROM ABKHAZIA

[07] KAZAKHSTAN PLEDGES TO PROTECT FOREIGN INVESTORS

[08] KYRGYZ OPPOSITION POLITICIAN CHARGED WITH PLANNING TO

[09] TAJIK OPPOSITION CHARGES VIOLATIONS IN PARLIAMENTARY POLL

[10] TURKMEN OPPOSITION LEADER SENTENCED, ALONG WITH SON

[B] SOUTHEASTERN EUROPE

[11] YUGOSLAV ARMY STEPPING UP COMBAT READINESS IN MONTENEGRO?

[12] MONTENEGRO'S BURZAN CALLS FOR EXPLANATION OF ATROCITY

[13] VOJVODINA PARTY WANTS FEDERAL SERBIA

[14] DJINDJIC RE-ELECTED PARTY CHIEF

[15] SERBIA PROMOTES TIES TO NORTH KOREA

[16] INCIDENTS ON EVE OF UCK ANNIVERSARY

[17] NATO AMBASSADORS FAIL TO AGREE ON TROOP INCREASE

[18] MACEDONIAN POLICE SEIZE ARMS, DRUGS BOUND FOR KOSOVA

[19] MESIC TO VISIT BOSNIA

[20] BOSNIAN SERB WAR CRIMES TRIAL BEGINS

[21] STRIFE CONTINUES AMONG BOSNIAN SERB SOCIALISTS

[22] WHO SHOULD APOLOGIZE TO WHOM IN ROMANIA?

[23] ROMANIAN SUPREME COURT UPHOLDS SENTENCES OF 'REVOLUTION

[24] MOLDOVA ASKS GAZPROM TO RESUME SUPPLIES

[25] BULGARIAN PRESIDENT, PREMIER VOW TO FIGHT CORRUPTION

[26] BULGARIAN OFFICIALS FLY TO LIBYA

[C] END NOTE

[27] WHAT ARE 'FREE AND FAIR ELECTIONS?'

[A] TRANSCAUCASUS AND CENTRAL ASIA

[01] RUSSIA TO CONTINUE GUARDING ARMENIA'S SOUTHERN BORDERS

Service Director Colonel General Konstantin Totskii said

Russia will continue to help Armenia guard its frontiers with

Turkey and Iran, as Armenia is not yet capable of doing so on

its own, ITAR-TASS and RFE/RL's Yerevan bureau reported.

Totskii said there is no need to revise the 1992 treaty

whereby the two countries jointly provide for security on

Armenia's borders. But he added that equipment for doing so

is becoming obsolete and will need to be replaced over the

next few years. Both Totskii and his Armenian counterpart,

General Levon Stepanian, stressed that cooperation in

guarding Armenia's frontiers testifies to the "strategic

partnership" between Moscow and Yerevan. Totskii also met

with President Robert Kocharian and Prime Minister Aram

Sargsian. LF

[02] ARMENIAN COURTS UPHOLD FURTHER DETENTION OF PARLIAMENT

Two Armenian courts on 25 February

rejected claims by the lawyers of two prominent suspects in

the 27 October parliament shootings that the charges against

the two men were fabricated, RFE/RL's Yerevan bureau

reported. The two men are presidential aide Aleksan

Harutiunian and Armenian State Television Deputy Director

Harutiun Harutiunian (no relation to Aleksan). Aleksan

Harutiunian's lawyer argued last week that the investigation

into his client's alleged incitement of the gunmen to commit

the killings should be transferred from the military

prosecutor to Armenia's Prosecutor-General's office (see

"RFE/RL Newsline," 23 February 2000). But a senior prosecutor

told RFE/RL that "there are sufficient grounds" to prosecute

both men. LF

[03] AZERBAIJAN REJECTS RUSSIAN CLAIMS OF AID TO CHECHENS

Novruz Mamedov said on 25 February that a statement issued

the previous day by the Russian Foreign Ministry claiming

that wounded Chechen fighters are being treated in Baku

hospitals is "untrue," Turan reported (see "RFE/RL Newsline,"

25 February 2000). Novruzov noted that in the past Moscow has

never called into question the legal status of the Chechen

representation in Baku. Former Azerbaijani presidential

foreign policy adviser Vafa Guluzade, for his part, told

Turan on 25 February that he cannot confirm or deny the

presence of wounded Chechen fighters in Baku, but he noted

that even if the Russian reports are true, Azerbaijan "has no

moral right to refuse to treat injured and sick people." LF

[04] AZERBAIJAN FINALLY MAKES PUBLIC DECEMBER POLL RESULTS

session of Azerbaijan's Central Electoral Commission on 25

February, chairman Djafar Veliev finally presented the

results of the municipal elections held on 12 December, Turan

reported. Veliev said that 40.6 percent of the total 35,616

registered candidates represented political parties, while

the remainder were independent. Voter participation was 52.6

percent. The ruling Yeni Azerbaycan won 8,305 seats on local

councils, the opposition Azerbaijan Popular Front 754, and

the opposition Musavat party 618. Other political parties won

a total of 512 seats. Spokesmen for both the Popular Front

and Musavat, however, rejected Veliev's figures as falsified.

Musavat's Arif Hadjiev said that 1,200 of his party's

candidates were issued certificates by local election

commissions confirming their election. Repeat polls have been

scheduled for 26 March in 222 districts where the vote was

deemed invalid or the results annulled. LF

[05] AZERBAIJANI JOURNALIST BEATEN BY POLICE

a journalist for the Azerbaijani daily newspaper "525-

gazeti," was beaten by police in Baku on 25 February while

trying to photograph some 50 people picketing the Russian

Embassy to protest Russia's military activities in Chechnya,

Turan reported. Police also used violence to disperse the

protesters but made no arrests. LF

[06] GEORGIAN PRESIDENT MEETS WITH DPS FROM ABKHAZIA

ethnic Georgian displaced persons from Abkhazia and

representatives of the Abkhaz parliament in exile, Eduard

Shevardnadze said in Tbilisi on 25 February that Georgia "has

won the information war" by succeeding in securing the

support of the international community for Georgia's

territorial integrity, Caucasus Press reported. Shevardnadze

urged the displaced persons to bring up their children in the

belief that "Abkhazia is ours and we will return to live

there" in peace with "our brothers the Abkhaz." LF

[07] KAZAKHSTAN PLEDGES TO PROTECT FOREIGN INVESTORS

Minister Qasymzhomart Toqaev told journalists in Almaty on 25

February after meeting with a group of U.S. financiers that

Kazakhstan will defend the interests of foreign investors and

insist that all legislation concerning that sphere is

strictly observed, Interfax reported. He warned against

shifts in government policy vis-a-vis foreign investors.

Toqaev also pledged a crackdown on corruption, which has

proven a major deterrent to foreign investment. He added that

by 2003 Kazakhstan intends to become self-sufficient with

regard to oil and gas production. LF

[08] KYRGYZ OPPOSITION POLITICIAN CHARGED WITH PLANNING TO

Topchubek Turgunaliev, who is a former

chairman of the opposition Erkin Kyrgyzstan party and former

rector of Bishkek State University, told RFE/RL's Bishkek

bureau on 24 February that the authorities have opened a

criminal case against him in connection with an alleged

failed plot to kill President Askar Akaev. Turgunaliev said

those charges are based on the testimony of a man variously

known as Stamkulov and Yuldashev, who told the Kyrgyz

National Security Ministry in April 1999 that an attempt on

Akaev's life was being prepared. But Stamkulov also said

during a face-to-face confrontation with Turgunaliev that he

had no knowledge of the latter's involvement in the alleged

plot. Turgunaliev received an 18-month suspended sentence in

April 1996 for insulting Akaev and a four-year sentence for

embezzlement and forgery in February 1997. He was released in

November 1997 after protests on his behalf by international

human rights organizations. LF

[09] TAJIK OPPOSITION CHARGES VIOLATIONS IN PARLIAMENTARY POLL

Democratic and Communist Parties said on 28 February that the

previous day's elections to the lower house of a new

bicameral parliament were "totally falsified, neither free

nor democratic," Reuters reported. IRP spokesman Makhmadali

Khaitov said that the violations were worse than during the

November 1999 presidential elections. Speaking on 27

February, IRP leader Said Abdullo Nuri had characterized the

parliamentary election campaign as a decisive step toward

democracy. A total of 324 candidates from six political

parties were contesting 63 mandates, of which 41 were in

single-mandate constituencies and the remaining 22 are to be

allocated under the proportional system. Voter participation

was estimated at 87.6 percent of the country's 2.87 million

electorate, according to Asia Plus-Blitz. LF

[10] TURKMEN OPPOSITION LEADER SENTENCED, ALONG WITH SON

Turkmen district court on 25 February sentenced Nurberdy

Nurmamedov, leader of the unregistered Agzybirlik opposition

movement, to five years in prison on charges of hooliganism

and intent to commit murder, RFE/RL's Ashgabat correspondent

reported. Nurmamedov's son Murad was sentenced to two years

in prison on charges of hooliganism (see "RFE/RL Newsline,"

10 and 17 January 2000). Foreign diplomats were barred from

the court proceedings. Nurmamedov was arrested in early

January, shortly after he had said that the amendment to the

country's constitution allowing an individual to serve more

than two consecutive presidential terms is "undemocratic and

unconstitutional." LF

[B] SOUTHEASTERN EUROPE

[11] YUGOSLAV ARMY STEPPING UP COMBAT READINESS IN MONTENEGRO?

Podgorica on 27 February that the Yugoslav army has recently

increased its strength in manpower and weapons--including

heavy artillery--at Tuzi, near the Bozaj border crossing with

Albania, RFE/RL's South Slavic Service reported. He stressed

that Belgrade may at some point use force to "solve" its

problems with Podgorica. The reinforcement of the border

units is aimed at "discouraging" the Montenegrin authorities

from further improving relations with Albania, dpa added on

28 February. AP reported that Yugoslav troops have closed the

road linking Bozaj with Hani i Hotit in Albania. Reuters,

however, said the road is open and quoted an army statement

as denying that the military has increased their activities

in the area. Elsewhere, riot control specialists have been

sent from Serbia to take command of military police units in

Niksic, Berane, Pljevlja, and Bijelo Polje, dpa noted. PM

[12] MONTENEGRO'S BURZAN CALLS FOR EXPLANATION OF ATROCITY

Prime Minister Dragisa Burzan said in Podgorica on 27

February that an investigation into the disappearance of 20

Muslims from the Belgrade-Bar train in Strpci is long

overdue. In remarks on the seventh anniversary of the

incident, he called for a thorough investigation and for the

punishment of those responsible for the presumed death of the

Muslim passengers. Elsewhere, representatives of Sandzak

Muslim political parties demanded that the guilty persons be

brought to justice and that the Hague-based war crimes

tribunal play an unspecified role in the investigations and

trial. Finally, President Slobodan Franovic of the

Montenegrin Helsinki Committee said that the Strpci incident

was a planned crime in keeping with Belgrade's policy of

violence against ethnic Muslims. PM

[13] VOJVODINA PARTY WANTS FEDERAL SERBIA

Vojvodina's League of Social Democrats, said in Vienna on 27

February that in Serbia "a revolution will begin in the bread

lines," an allusion to the widespread poverty in that

country. The previous day in Subotica, delegates from Canak's

party approved a document entitled "Vojvodina--a Republic."

The text calls for a reorganization of Serbia into a

federation of six "units": Vojvodina, Belgrade, Sumadija,

Southeastern Serbia, Sandzak, and Kosova. Canak told the

gathering that decentralization and democratization of Serbia

is necessary to prevent the country from eventually

disintegrating into several independent states, "Danas"

reported. PM

[14] DJINDJIC RE-ELECTED PARTY CHIEF

the Democratic Party in Belgrade on 27 February re-elected

Zoran Djindjic chairman. He staved off a challenge from his

deputy, Slobodan Vuksanovic, by 605 votes to 485. Vuksanovic

had previously criticized Djindjic's manner of running the

party as authoritarian. After the vote, the two men called

for party unity. PM

[15] SERBIA PROMOTES TIES TO NORTH KOREA

Minister Zivadin Jovanovic arrived in Pyongyang on 26

February on a visit aimed at promoting political, economic,

and cultural ties. The trip is an attempt by the Belgrade

authorities to show that Serbia is not completely isolated,

RFE/RL's South Slavic Service reported. PM

[16] INCIDENTS ON EVE OF UCK ANNIVERSARY

take place in Kosova's Skenderaj region on 28 February to

mark the anniversary of the founding of the Kosova Liberation

Army (UCK) in 1996. The previous day in Gjilan, unknown

persons shot dead Josif Vasic, a local Serbian politician. On

Serbian territory on the Gjilan-Bujanovac road, unknown

assailants killed a Serbian police major and wounded three

policemen, Belgrade's official Tanjug news agency reported.

Police officials said the attackers entered Serbia from

Kosova. There is no independent verification of the story. In

Mitrovica on 28 February, a mine blew up a Serbian bus on a

busy road, KFOR spokesmen told Reuters. There were no

casualties. PM

[17] NATO AMBASSADORS FAIL TO AGREE ON TROOP INCREASE

Brussels on 25 February, the Atlantic alliance's governing

body failed to reach an agreement on increasing NATO troop

strength in Kosova in the wake of a series of violent

incidents in the divided city of Mitrovica (see "RFE/RL

Newsline," 25 February 2000). NATO Secretary-General Lord

Robertson said: "Mitrovica is a potential flash point; it

flared up but we dealt with the unrest quickly and

decisively." PM

[18] MACEDONIAN POLICE SEIZE ARMS, DRUGS BOUND FOR KOSOVA

Skopje and Bitola on 25 and 26 February, Macedonian police

confiscated 145 crates of automatic weapons and handguns, 2

tons of ammunition, 90 kilograms of narcotics, and other

unspecified illegal goods bound for Kosova, AP reported.

Western Macedonia was known as a center for drugs and arms

smuggling even during the 1980s. PM

[19] MESIC TO VISIT BOSNIA

Zagreb on 26 February that he will pay an official visit to

Bosnia-Herzegovina in the second half of March. His itinerary

will include the Republika Srpska's capital of Banja Luka as

well as cities in the Muslim and Croatian federation. PM

[20] BOSNIAN SERB WAR CRIMES TRIAL BEGINS

February, the trial opened of four Bosnian Serbs for

atrocities committed at the Omarska, Keraterm, and Trnopolje

concentration camps near Prijedor in 1992. Commander Miroslav

Kvocka, his deputies Milojica Kos and Mlado Radic, and

alleged torturer Zoran Zigic are charged in connection with

the rape, torture, and deaths of many Muslim and Croatian

inmates. Films and photographs of emaciated prisoners at the

camps attracted international attention in the summer of

1992. PM

[21] STRIFE CONTINUES AMONG BOSNIAN SERB SOCIALISTS

February in Banja Luka, the steering committee of the

Socialist Party of the Republika Srpska (SPRS) called on all

local party organizations to comply with the committee's

decision to leave the governing coalition (see "RFE/RL

Newsline," 23 February 2000). The committee added that all

parliamentary deputies hold their posts at the discretion of

the party, which has the right to unseat any legislator who

does not adhere to party policies, RFE/RL's South Slavic

Service reported. Several legislators and local party

organizations have balked at the party's decision to withdraw

from the coalition, "Vesti" reported on 26 February. The SPRS

is the Bosnian branch of Yugoslav President Slobodan

Milosevic's party. The decision to leave the coalition is

widely seen as an attempt by Milosevic to undermine the

governing coalition or possibly even the Dayton peace

settlement. PM

[22] WHO SHOULD APOLOGIZE TO WHOM IN ROMANIA?

on 27 February announced it is nominating former Environment

Minister Florin Frunzaverde for the defense portfolio. The

National Liberal Party (PNL), however, has said it will not

agree to the dismissal of Victor Babiuc as defense minister

as long as Transportation Minister Traian Basescu does not

"properly" apologize to President Emil Constantinescu for

having accused him of being behind Babiuc's resignation from

the Democratic Party. The PNL says the apology must be made

through the proper channels and not "on a TV talk-show", as

was the case when Basescu apologized (see "RFE/RL Newsline,"

25 February 2000). Meanwhile, the opposition Party of Social

Democracy in Romania and Greater Romania Party are demanding

that Constantinescu formally apologize for his 25 February

comment that the two parties are filled with members of the

former Securitate who "set the agenda" of Romanian politics.

MS

[23] ROMANIAN SUPREME COURT UPHOLDS SENTENCES OF 'REVOLUTION

The Supreme Court on 25 February upheld the 15-

year prison sentence that a lower court handed down to

Generals Victor Stanculescu and Mihai Chitac last July for

their role in suppressing the anti-communist uprising in

Timisoara, RFE/RL's Bucharest bureau reported. Stanculescu

and Chitac, along with the Defense Ministry, were ordered to

pay 36 billion lei ($1.9 million) in damages to the families

of the 72 people killed and the 253 wounded during the

uprising. Babiuc and Chief of Staff General Mircea Chelaru

have protested that ruling. MS

[24] MOLDOVA ASKS GAZPROM TO RESUME SUPPLIES

government on 26 February asked the Russian Gazprom company

to resume supplies of natural gas, saying that by 1 March it

will pay its $10 million debt for deliveries since the

beginning of this year, ITAR-TASS reported. President Petru

Lucinschi told the Russian agency that Moldova will be able

to make regular payments only in the fall, once it has

finished privatizing its energy sector. Earlier this month,

the Spanish company Union Fenosa purchased Moldova's central

power grid for $25 million. MS

[25] BULGARIAN PRESIDENT, PREMIER VOW TO FIGHT CORRUPTION

ruling Union of Democratic Forces (SDS) on 26 February,

warned that fighting corruption within the party's ranks is

"the only way to regain [the public's] confidence and win the

elections" scheduled for 2001, Reuters reported. Prime

Minister Ivan Kostov said the SDS must "stop being a

springboard for making careers and securing economic

advantages." He pledged to "uproot everything [that is]

rotten in the SDS" and to "free the SDS's top ranks of

discredited politicians." MS

[26] BULGARIAN OFFICIALS FLY TO LIBYA

Simeonov, Prosecutor-General Nikola Filichev, and Deputy

Health Minister Galin Kamenov left for Libya on 25 February

to assist the six Bulgarians who are facing the death

sentence under charges of having willfully injected children

with the HIV virus, BTA reported. On 27 February, Filichev

and Kamenov met with the six, but the latter were allowed

only to sign a document requesting that a Libyan lawyer

represent them in court when the trial resumes on 28

February. MS

[C] END NOTE

[27] WHAT ARE 'FREE AND FAIR ELECTIONS?'

For several years, Hrair Balian has been an election

observer in former Soviet countries that are new to

democracy. Today, he heads the Office for Democratic

Institutions and Human Rights of the Organization for

Security and Cooperation in Europe, or OSCE. In that

capacity, he is in charge of sending observation missions to

monitor elections throughout the 54-state OSCE region. His

office produces reports on the elections' procedures and

outcome--in other words, it seeks to determine how free and

fair those elections are.

In an interview with RFE/RL, Balian defined the terms

"free" and "fair": "Freedom relates to the freedom of a voter

to make a choice on a ballot without any undue pressure from

any source. The fairness relates to conditions under which

the candidates, political parties are able to compete in an

electoral campaign."

But freedom and fairness are only two of seven elements

the OSCE examines when it assesses the democratic nature of

an election. The organization also evaluates the universality

of the vote--that is, who is deemed eligible to cast a ballot

and who is not--the transparency of the electoral process,

the secrecy of the ballot, and the government's

accountability to the electorate.

Balian says any one of these individual elements can be,

and often are, violated. "One of the most common violations--

where we are devoting a lot of attention and resources now--

is the transparency of an election," he comments. "You can

conduct a perfect election on election day. You can give your

voters all of the chances they deserve to make a free choice

of candidates, parties, etc. And if the process falls apart

during the tabulation of the results arriving from the

polling stations, then that becomes seriously problematic."

Balian's office sends both long- and short-term

observers to watch the entire election cycle. Ahead of the

vote, they look at the registration of voters and candidates

and the way the media covers the campaign. On election day,

they watch the voting, ballot-counting, and declaration of

results. And finally, observers monitor the installment in

office of the winners.

OSCE monitors observe at least 10 percent of the polling

stations in a given country. That means it may send 400

observers to a large country, such as Russia, but only 100 to

Croatia.

Balian says the OSCE does not monitor all the countries

that have questionable electoral practices. It simply does

not have the resources to do that. Instead, the organization

looks for countries where it may be able to have a positive

impact.

Most recently, these have been the countries that once

made up the Soviet Union--states moving from a one-party

system to multi-party pluralism, which pose a particular kind

of problem, according to Balian: "In many of the transitional

countries..., (residents) have experienced for the first time

in the history of their country any level of democratic

election. So, for the first time they are confronted with the

possibility of making a choice and their choice counting."

Tajikistan is a case in point. This weekend, Tajiks

voted in parliamentary elections for the first time since

1991. The elections are part of a peace accord ending a

bloody civil war. Marie Struthers of Human Rights Watch, an

international monitoring group, has been working in

Tajikistan on and off since 1997, when the accord was signed.

She told RFE/RL that one of the most difficult obstacles on

the road to democracy is voter education:

"People have not seen candidates express diverging

views--although the views are not so diverging in Tajikistan

- via the press. And they are not used to having one platform

compared or contrasted against another. I mean, I speak to

people every day in the streets, in the stores, and I ask

them: 'Who will you vote for?' 'What party will you vote

for?' And they say: 'We don't really understand the

difference between the parties...and we don't know many of

the people presenting themselves because they haven't been

exposed to us."

Struthers says the transition to free and fair elections

in a country like Tajikistan is a slow process. But she has

no doubt about the importance of implementing a democratic

system. She says that people have to be given the right to

exercise their right to choice in a free manner. In her

words: "They should be able to say, 'I vote for this person'

in an unrestricted manner--without intimidation, without

pressure and without reprisal."

The author is an intern with RFE/RL's News and Current

Affairs Division.

28-02-00

Reprinted with permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
URL: http://www.rferl.org

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