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RFE/RL Newsline, Vol. 4, No. 87, 00-05-04Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty: Newsline Directory - Previous Article - Next ArticleFrom: Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty <http://www.rferl.org>RFE/RL NEWSLINEVol. 4, No. 87, 4 May 2000CONTENTS[A] TRANSCAUCASUS AND CENTRAL ASIA
[B] SOUTHEASTERN EUROPE
[C] END NOTE
[A] TRANSCAUCASUS AND CENTRAL ASIA[01] ARMENIAN PRESIDENT HOLDS TALKS ON NEW CABINETRobertKocharian assured outgoing government ministers in Yerevan on 3 May that the composition of the next cabinet will not differ fundamentally from the previous one, RFE/RL's Yerevan bureau reported. But Minister for Industrial Infrastructures Vahan Shirkhanian, a staunch supporter of sacked Premier Aram Sargsian, said he will not join the new cabinet. Kocharian's press secretary, Vahe Gabrielian told Interfax on 3 May that Kocharian's dismissal of Sargsian and Defense Minister Vagharshak Harutiunian the previous day had not been a snap decision. Meanwhile, according to observers in Yerevan, possible candidates to head the next government are Deputy Foreign Minister Artashes Tumanian, Right and Accord party chairman Artashes Geghamian, National Democratic Union chairman and former Premier Vazgen Manukian, People's Party leader Stepan Demirchian, Central Bank Chairman Tigran Sarkisian, and business magnate Hrant Vardanian. LF [02] GEORGIA DENIES IT PLANS TO HOST FOREIGN MILITARY BASEGeorgian Foreign Minister Irakli Menagharishvili toldjournalists in Tbilisi on 3 May that Georgia will not make the Vaziani military base near Tbilisi available either to Turkey or NATO after Russian troops withdraw next year, Russian agencies reported. He added that his ministry regards as a priority ensuring that international monitors supervise the withdrawal of Russian forces from the military base in Gudauta, Abkhazia. On 4 May, Caucasus Press quoted Georgian Defense Ministry official Paata Gaprindashvili as saying that in talks scheduled for next month, Tbilisi will raise with Moscow its demand for a share in the assets of the Soviet Black Sea Fleet. LF [03] ABKHAZ, GEORGIAN OFFICIALS DISCUSS GALI KILLINGSGeorgianMinister of State Vazha Lortkipanidze and Abkhaz Premier Vyacheslav Tsugba on 3 May agreed to set up a working group composed of police and security officials from both sides to investigate acts of terrorism in Abkhazia's Gali Raion, ITAR- TASS reported. At least 13 Abkhaz have been killed in the district in recent weeks (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 27 April and 3 May 2000). It is unclear how that group differs from the one Lortkipanidze and Tsugba agreed to create under the auspices of the UN Coordinating Council in January (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 20 January 2000). The two premiers also agreed to exchange lists of persons suspected of involvement in terrorist activities in Gali. The Georgian list contains 67 names, according to Caucasus Press. LF [04] ARRESTED KYRGYZ OPPOSITION LEADER DEMANDS RUSSIAN DEFENSELAWYERSAr-Namys party chairman Feliks Kulov, who was arrested in March and charged with embezzlement and abuse of his official position as security minister from 1996-1998, has again asked Kyrgyzstan's prosecutor-general and the minister of national security to allow two Russian lawyers from St. Petersburg to defend him, RFE/RL's Bishkek bureau reported on 3 May. Investigator Ikramidin Aitkulov rejected a similar appeal by Kulov last month on the grounds that his case involves state secrets. LF [05] UZBEK PRESIDENT WRAPS UP VISIT TO INDIAIslam Karimovcompleted a three-day state visit to India on 3 May, during which he met with his Indian counterpart, K. R. Naranayan, and Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee. Karimov's talks with the latter focused on security in Central and South Asia, the situation in Afghanistan, and fighting international terrorism. The two signed nine agreements on upgrading political and economic relations, an extradition treaty, and a declaration pledging to cooperate to counter any future destabilization in Central or South Asia as a result of developments in Afghanistan, dpa reported. Also on 3 May, the official Afghan Islamic Press agency issued a statement rejecting Karimov's assertion that Afghanistan supports international terrorism, dpa reported. It said the statement was intended to divert the attention of the Uzbek people from domestic hardships. LF [B] SOUTHEASTERN EUROPE[06] BAJUK ELECTED SLOVENIAN PRIME MINISTERThe parliament voted46 to 44 on 3 May to elect center-right candidate Andrej Bajuk as prime minister (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 2 May 2000). The law requires him to present a government by 18 May. His program will center on preparing Slovenia for admission to the EU at the earliest possible date as well as on liberalizing the economy in order to attract foreign investment. The 56 year-old economist has lived mostly abroad. His family left Slovenia in 1945 and moved to Argentina, where Bajuk became a university professor. He has spent most of his working career at the Interamerican Development Bank. PM [07] BLAIR BACKS CROATIA FOR NATO PROGRAMBritish Prime MinisterTony Blair told his visiting Croatian counterpart, Ivica Racan, in London on 3 May that his government backs Croatia's request for quick admission to NATO's Partnership for Peace program (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 2 May 2000). Blair's spokesman said that "Racan set out Croatia's aspirations for admission to Partnership for Peace and opening of negotiations on a stabilization and association agreement with the European Union. The prime minister gave his full support," Reuters reported. Blair also told his guest that the EU and NATO must help Croatia "move forward." Racan told the Royal Institute of International Affairs that "Croatia has every reason to expect the long-awaited Partnership for Peace membership as early as the end of May." PM [08] MESIC BLASTS CROATIAN RIGHTMarinko Liovic, who heads theAssociation of Croatian War Invalids of the War for the Homeland, has threatened that his group will block various "roads, harbors, and airports" at the start of the tourist season, "Slobodna Dalmacija" reported on 4 May. The move is aimed at protesting the government's polices on economic reconstruction and on cooperation with the Hague-based war crimes tribunal. Liovic has the backing of several other nationalist organizations, including Ante Djapic and his Croatian Party of [Historic] Rights, "Novi List" reported. President Stipe Mesic said in Vukovar, however, that "probably only those with blocked brains want to block the roads." He argued that those "adventurists" who plan to obstruct the roads are making impossible demands on the government. The authorities will not tolerate a closing of the roads, which were closed long enough during the 1991-1995 war, Mesic added. PM [09] UN FORENSICS EXPERTS EXAMINE SECOND MASS GRAVE IN CROATIAForensics experts from the Hague-based war crimes tribunalhave discovered human bones from at least 10 people at a suspected mass grave in Obradovic Varos near Gospic, AP reported on 3 May (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 19 April 2000). The bones are now being studied and identified in Zagreb. Investigators have begun work at a second site near Brusane, which is also in the Gospic area. The forensics experts are investigating charges that Croatian forces killed Serbian civilians in several localities during the 1991-1995 war. Recent weeks have seen much discussion in the press about who was responsible for the killings and which top officials knew about them. PM [10] UNHCR TO LEAVE NORTHERN MITROVICA?A spokesman for the UNHCRsaid in Prishtina on 3 May that the international refugee organization may cease its operations in Serb-held northern Mitrovica if attacks on UN vehicles and personnel continue. He added that UNHCR employees are "not prepared to be sitting ducks...[if] thugs...continue to target the international community," Reuters reported. His statement comes in response to violence on 29 April in which 15 international personnel were injured, one vehicle damaged, and another destroyed. PM [11] SERBIAN PROTESTS IN KOSOVAIn northern Mitrovica on 3 May,some 2,000 Serbs staged a peaceful demonstration to demand the return of all Serbian refugees to their homes in Kosova. In Prishtina, moderate Serb leaders told the UN's interim administrative council that they demand that international security forces find or account for all 1,000 non-Albanians who have disappeared since the end of the 1999 Kosova conflict. PM [12] 'NO MEDIA FREEDOM IN SERBIA'The chief editors of thedailies "Blic" and "Glas javnosti," the weekly "NIN," and Studio B Television said in a joint statement to mark World Press Freedom Day that "there is no media freedom in Serbia," Vienna's "Die Presse" reported on 4 May. The editors added that some 30 media companies have been fined more than $2 million under the draconian 1998 media law aimed at intimidating or silencing the non-state media. PM [13] SERBIAN GOVERNMENT FINES STATIONIn the latest move againstprivate media under the 1998 law, the authorities fined Studio B Television $10,000 on 3 May for reporting "false news." The station had reported that "four bodyguards" of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's son Marko recently beat up three opposition activists in a Pozarevac cafe (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 3 May 2000). The Pozarevac office of the United Yugoslav Left (JUL), which is headed by the mother of Milosevic junior, said in a statement that "hooligans" attacked local JUL members, Reuters reported. The statement added that "Marko does not have bodyguards" and stressed that the opposition wants to "create chaos and civil war in the country by a series of terrorist actions." The families of the three injured men plan to sue Marko Milosevic's four friends, AP reported. PM [14] MILOSEVIC BACKERS TAKE CONTROL OF FEDERAL UPPER HOUSEVukDraskovic's Serbian Renewal Movement lost its four seats in the upper house of the Yugoslav legislature on 3 May following the party's decision to boycott the Serbian parliament, which elects representatives to the federal body (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 3 May 2000). Former General Momcilo Perisic, who heads the small Movement for Democratic Serbia, said the opposition is to blame for the current political state of affairs because "they have not been sufficiently active either in the parliament or outside it," "Danas" reported. Leaders of several anti-Milosevic parties in Montenegro said in Podgorica that the latest developments show the Yugoslav federation has experienced a "debacle" and is in a continuing state of crisis, RFE/RL's South Slavic Service reported. PM [15] ROMANIAN NUCLEAR PLANT WORKERS THREATEN TO SHUT DOWN REACTORSeveral hundred workers at the Cernavoda nuclear power plantwent on strike on 3 May to demand higher wages and twice as many vacation days as are currently granted, RFE/RL's Bucharest bureau reported. After Industry and Trade Minister Radu Berceanu rejected those demands, the leader of the plant's union threatened to shut down the reactor. That action might pose a threat to safety. MS [16] U.S. SEEKS RESOLUTION OF TRADE DISPUTE WITH ROMANIAAspokesman for the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative said on 3 May that the office is in contact with Romania's Ministry of Industry and Trade to determine whether Romania is imposing discriminatory custom duties on some imported products. The spokesman said that if the talks fail, the U.S. may ask the World Trade Organization to make a ruling, an RFE/RL correspondent in Washington reported. In a written statement to the U.S. Congress earlier this week, U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky threatened to initiate actions against six countries, including Romania, for imposing high duties on imports of clothing, poultry and several alcoholic beverages, Mediafax reported on 2 May. MS [17] CLARIFICATION:The 1955 Lisbon ruling, referred to in "RFE/RLNewsline" of 3 May, recognized the right of King Carol II's first son, Mircea, to bear the Hohenzollerns' family name but did not recognize Mircea as "prince." Hence, the usage of that title by Mircea's son, Paul, is misleading, as is his usage of the title "Paul de Romania." [18] BULGARIAN GOVERNMENT SPOKESMAN CLEARED OF CORRUPTION CHARGESMihail Mihailov, who resigned last month as governmentspokesman (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 20 April 2000), has been cleared of the suspicion of bribe-taking and intends to resume his duties, AP reported. Police experts said a taped conversation between Mihailov and a businessman allegedly offering him a $10,000 bribe was clearly fabricated. MS [19] BULGARIA CONFIDENT ON EU TALKSForeign Minister NadezhdaMihailova on 3 May announced that Bulgaria intends to complete talks with the EU on six of the 31 chapters of the aquis communautaire by the end of this year. She told journalists that "the pace of membership talks is linked directly with the course of reforms and we believe we are capable of implementing those reforms," Reuters reported. EU official Eneko Landaburu said in Sofia that the ongoing corruption scandals in Bulgaria will not affect negotiations on joining the union. "Until we receive proof, we consider all this to belong to the sphere of rumors," he said. Landaburu also announced that the EU is granting Bulgaria 250 million euros ($223 million) this year to help the country achieve sustainable economic growth by implementing infrastructure projects. MS [C] END NOTE[20] HUNGARIAN LEADER AVERTS INTERNATIONAL EMBARRASSMENTby Michael ShafirTo a certain extent, the 29 April decision by Independent Smallholders' (FKGP) leader Jozsef Torgyan to turn down his nomination as presidential candidate was a patriotic gesture. In refusing the nomination, Torgyan has spared Hungary an international embarrassment, the ruling coalition inner tensions, and himself the unwelcome prospect of being rejected by the Hungarian legislature. According to the 1998 agreement that the FKGP signed with the major coalition partner, the Federation of Young Democrats-Hungarian Civic Party (FIDESZ), the FKGP has the right to propose the ruling coalition's joint candidate for president, and there was little doubt that the candidate would be Torgyan. The agreement was ambiguous enough to avoid specifying what would happen if FIDESZ rejected the FKGP's nomination--for good reason. The deal was one of the concessions made by FIDESZ during coalition bargaining, but Premier Viktor Orban was certainly not unaware that Torgyan's nomination to replace outgoing President Arpad Goncz would stir controversy both at home and abroad. The parliament must vote on a new president by 3 July. Signs had already emerged that Torgyan's candidacy would not be backed by all the coalition parties. In fact, as early as January 2000 Orban had bluntly stated that "it would be better" if Torgyan remained chairman of the FKGP." Other FIDESZ officials were making it clear to the FKGP leader that his path to the presidency would not be smooth. But in the past several months the Hungarian political scene has turned into one quite properly described by FIDESZ chairman Laszlo Koever on 27 April as a "cold civil war" in which the forces of the center-right and those of the opposition center-left seem unable to engage in dialogue. Furthermore, there were (and still are) obvious indications of an "unwritten pact" between the center-right coalition and the far-right Hungarian Justice and Life Party (MIEP). Against this background, a FIDESZ decision to accept Torgyan's nomination and his possible election as president with the support of Csurka's MIEP would have pushed Hungary into a situation closely resembling that in neighboring Austria following the formation of that country's new right- far-right coalition. The contrast between the liberal-minded and internationally popular Goncz and Torgyan could hardly be greater. The FKGP chairman has often been described as a "populist," though that term is too "elastic" to have any real meaning. Torgyan is, in fact, a "radical" politician of the kind that post-communist Eastern Europe has witnessed over the past decade or so, starting with Russia's Vladimir Zhirinovskii and including Bulgaria's Georges Ganchev, Poland's Stanislaw Tyminski and Leszek Moczulski and Slovenia's late Ivan Kramberger. Like most politicians of this ilk, Torgyan does not hesitate to indulge in demagogic rhetoric, frequently courting and encouraging extreme nationalism. He reportedly told Aurel Braun, a Canadian professor of political science who interviewed him several years ago, that Roma would be best isolated in apartheid-like enclosures, where, he said, their leaders would be held responsible for whatever misdeeds the inmates perpetrated. This "solution" was not really original (Corneliu Vadim Tudor had proposed it in Romania) and stopped just short of Csurka's more racist pronouncements. Torgyan is a typical post-communist leader whose policies come closest to what Poland's Adam Michnik described as "post-Bolshevik Bolshevism." Like all such "Bolsheviks" in the area, Torgyan readily embraces the myth of "Judeo- Bolshevism," and some members of his party do so even more openly than he does. Within that mindset, communism was not only imposed from the outside--an argument that can hardly be challenged--but was done so mainly with the help of local Jews. The danger that this will be repeated, according to the FKGP leader, has not disappeared. Addressing a rally of his supporters in March 1996, he spoke of a "liberal-Bolshevik" danger that is allegedly "paralyzing...the powers of the Hungarian nation." But he hastened to add that "We, however, cannot be paralyzed. We are Hungarian. And come the spring season, the Hungarian manually clears the vermin away. Let us also clear the vermin." There are many other examples of the "peasant leader" understanding how to translate alleged peasant seasonal practices into the rhetoric of daily politics. Perhaps Torgyan's "explanation" to his party as to why he chose to decline its nomination sums up his position: "I need to stand firm on the barricades erected against Bolshevik restoration," he said, adding that as president he would no longer have been able to do so. But Hungary, as everyone knows, is far from facing the danger of "Bolshevik restoration." It is a trusted NATO member and likely to become one of the first former communist countries to join the EU-- that is, if another Torgyan does not make it to the presidency. 04-05-00 Reprinted with permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
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