RFE/RL Newsline, Vol. 4, No. 149, 00-08-04

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RFE/RL NEWSLINE

Vol. 4, No. 149, 4 August 2000

CONTENTS

[A] TRANSCAUCASUS AND CENTRAL ASIA

[01] ARMENIAN OPPOSITION POLITICIAN CALLS FOR SHADOW GOVERNMENT

[02] PREPARATIONS UNDERWAY FOR AZERBAIJANI PRESIDENT'S VISIT TO

[03] FORMER AZERBAIJANI DEFENSE OFFICIAL SAYS MUCH MILITARY

[04] GEORGIAN PRESIDENT AMNESTIES 44 PRISONERS

[05] KAZAKHSTAN'S PRESIDENT WARNS TAX EVADERS

[06] KAZAKHSTAN'S PROSECUTOR GENERAL REJECTS BRIBE CHARGES

[07] KYRGYZ DEMONSTRATORS DEMAND KULOV'S ACQUITTAL

[08] TAJIK SECURITY OFFICIAL SEES THREATS RECEDING

[09] TAJIK CABINET SEEKS TO INCREASE EXPORTS

[B] SOUTHEASTERN EUROPE

[10] BRITISH FOREIGN OFFICE PROTESTS SERBIAN ARRESTS

[11] GENERAL CLARK URGES PLANNING FOR MONTENEGRO

[12] YUGOSLAV ARMY SHUTS SOME MONTENEGRIN BORDER CROSSINGS

[13] ALBRIGHT: SERBIA'S MILOSEVIC 'RUNNING SCARED'

[14] DRASKOVIC TRYING TO PRESSURE SERBIAN OPPOSITION?

[15] THREE SUSPECTED WAR CRIMINALS ESCAPE FROM JAIL IN KOSOVA

[16] KOSOVA MODERATE PARTY SLAMS SHOOTING OF TWO LEADERS

[17] U.S. TO REOPEN VISA SECTION IN TIRANA EMBASSY

[18] THE LAST YUGOSLAV?

[19] ROMANIA'S LIBERALS ISOLATING FORMER ALLIES...

[20] ...AND CONTINUE FEELERS WITH MELESCANU'S PARTY

[21] EU RAPPORTEUR SAYS ROMANIA'S ROAD TO UNION 'LONG AND

[22] ROMANIAN ROMANY ORGANIZATION TO SUE STATE

[23] OSCE DOUBTS RUSSIAN WITHDRAWAL BY END 2002

[24] BULGARIAN PREMIER DENIES INVOLVEMENT IN BUGGING SCANDAL

[C] END NOTE

[25] DEATH OF A CHECHEN PRAGMATIST

[A] TRANSCAUCASUS AND CENTRAL ASIA

[01] ARMENIAN OPPOSITION POLITICIAN CALLS FOR SHADOW GOVERNMENT

National Democratic Union (AZhM) parliament deputy Arshak

Sadoyan accused President Robert Kocharian and Defense

Minister Serzh Sarkisian of creating an atmosphere of

"political confrontation," Armenpress reported. Sadoyan said

the present leadership is incapable of setting national

priorities and pursues "selfish ends." He also argued that

the 26 and 28 July parliament votes approving government

proposals to privatize four energy distribution networks were

not valid, as 66 votes are required but only 64 and 63 were

cast in favor. Sadoyan called on all "healthy forces" to

align in a shadow government with the objective of forcing--

by legal and peaceful means--the present government's

resignation. LF

[02] PREPARATIONS UNDERWAY FOR AZERBAIJANI PRESIDENT'S VISIT TO

Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Vilayet Guliev met in Baku

on 3 August with Tehran's ambassador, Alirza Bikdeli, to

discuss the agenda for Heidar Aliev's visit to Iran next

month, Turan reported. The visit had originally been

scheduled for the fall of 1999 and then for March of this

year (see "RFE/RL Caucasus Report," Vol. 2, No. 41, 14

October 1999 and Vol. 3, No. 12, 24 March 2000). LF

[03] FORMER AZERBAIJANI DEFENSE OFFICIAL SAYS MUCH MILITARY

Alekper Mamedov, a former aide to

Azerbaijani Defense Minister Safar Abiev, told journalists in

Baku on 3 August that since 1994 the country's armed forces

have been using obsolete equipment, Interfax reported. He

claimed that the Defense Ministry had spent millions of

dollars purchasing obsolete Soviet military hardware. Mamedov

also claimed that 2,000 servicemen have been killed and about

3,000 wounded in peacetime. An investigation last year failed

to confirm similar allegations of corruption within the

Defense Ministry (see "RFE/RL Caucasus Report," Vol. 2, No.

34, 26 August 1999 and Vol. 3, No. 5, 4 February 2000). LF

[04] GEORGIAN PRESIDENT AMNESTIES 44 PRISONERS

Shevardnadze pardoned 44 prisoners on 2 August out of a total

of 147 whose names were submitted to him for consideration,

Caucasus Press reported. All had already completed more than

half the prison terms to which they had been sentenced for

minor offenses, and 11 of them were former members of Tengiz

Kitovani's Georgian National Guard. Shevardnadze declined,

however, to amnesty 48 supporters of former President Zviad

Gamsakhurdia whose comrades have threatened major protests if

they are not released, according to AP. Parliament speaker

Zurab Zhvania met on 3 August with members of the

parliament's National Reconciliation Commission and the

Coordinating Council for Political Prisoners to discuss those

cases but the parliament's Human Rights Committee chairwoman,

Elene Tevdoradze, said on 4 August that all those

Gamsakhurdia supporters eligible for amnesty have already

been released. LF

[05] KAZAKHSTAN'S PRESIDENT WARNS TAX EVADERS

northern city of Pavlodar on 2 August, Nursultan Nazarbaev

said an investigation will be launched to establish why many

of the country's major industrial enterprises, including the

Eurasian Bank group and KazakhMys, the country's largest

copper producer, are failing to meet their tax commitments,

Reuters and Interfax reported. "We need to work on getting

them to open up their secrets, so that every Kazakh knows how

much they produce, where they sell, what the world price was,

how much profit they made, and how much tax they paid on that

profit," Reuters quoted him as saying. Nazarbaev also said he

has charged Deputy Premier Daniyal Akhmetov with drafting

measures to persuade major enterprises to purchase locally

produced rather than imported

equipment. LF

[06] KAZAKHSTAN'S PROSECUTOR GENERAL REJECTS BRIBE CHARGES

Khitrin told a press conference in Astana on 3 August that

Western press accounts claiming that President Nazarbaev and

former Premier Nurlan Balghymbaev received multimillion

dollar bribes from Western oil companies are "complete

nonsense and fiction," and no evidence exists to substantiate

those accusations, Reuters reported. Khitrin also said he

plans to travel to Belgium next month in an attempt to

persuade the Belgian authorities to cooperate in efforts to

secure the extradition to Kazakhstan and prosecution of

former Prime Minister Akezhan Kazhegeldin. LF

[07] KYRGYZ DEMONSTRATORS DEMAND KULOV'S ACQUITTAL

people gathered outside the Supreme Court building in Bishkek

on 3 August to demand the acquittal of former Bishkek Mayor

Feliks Kulov, RFE/RL's bureau in the Kyrgyz capital reported.

Kulov's six-week trial on charges of abusing his official

position while serving as National Security Minister ended on

31 July, but a sentence has not yet been passed. Meanwhile

the trial continues of a second prominent opposition

politician, Topchubek Turgunaliev, who is accused of plotting

to assassinate President Askar Akaev (see "RFE/RL Newsline,"

3 August 2000). LF

[08] TAJIK SECURITY OFFICIAL SEES THREATS RECEDING

opposition movement with significant popular support no

longer exists in Tajikistan, Interfax on 3 August quoted

Security Council Secretary Amirkul Azimov as saying. Azimov

said almost all arms belonging to former units of the United

Tajik Opposition that have been integrated into the armed

forces or Interior Ministry have been registered, and that

President Imomali Rakhmonov's May decree abolishing contract

military service has further contributed to stabilizing the

political situation. Azimov said some legally registered

opposition political parties have only minimal influence. He

evaluated the Tajik armed forces as the most mobile and

professional in all the Central Asian Soviet successor states

by virtue of their experience fighting the civil war of 1992-

1997. But he admitted that Tajikistan remains vulnerable to

continued upheaval in neighboring Afghanistan, adding that

the entire world community must endeavor to bring about an

end to drug-smuggling from Afghanistan via Tajikistan to

other CIS states and Western Europe. LF

[09] TAJIK CABINET SEEKS TO INCREASE EXPORTS

Economic Relations Minister Yahyo Azimov said in Dushanbe on

2 August that Tajikistan intends to increase the production

and export of aluminum and cotton, which are the country's

two main foreign currency earners, Reuters and Asia Plus-

Blitz reported. He estimated that aluminum production will

increase from 230,000 tons in 1999 to 300,000 tons in 2000

and 346,000 tons in 2005. Presidential spokesman Zafar Saidov

told Reuters that cotton production this year will be 500,000

tons, up from 316,000 tons last year. Azimov had estimated

this year's cotton harvest at 350,000 tons. Azimov also

downplayed last week's UN agency claims that half of

Tajikistan's population is threatened by hunger as a result

of this summer's drought (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 28 July

2000). Deputy Agriculture Minister Ikhtior Ashurov said only

100,000 tons of grain of an anticipated harvest of 700,000

tons have been lost. "There will be no famine," he concluded.

LF

[B] SOUTHEASTERN EUROPE

[10] BRITISH FOREIGN OFFICE PROTESTS SERBIAN ARRESTS

Office summoned Belgrade's London-based diplomats on 3 August

to demand information on the recent arrest at Andrijevica--

near Montenegro's border with Kosova--of two British OSCE

police trainers and two Canadian contractors, "The

Independent" reported (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 3 August 2000).

In Ottawa, the Canadian government expressed similar

concerns, Reuters noted. The four were on vacation in

Montenegro from their jobs in Kosova. In Vienna, a

spokeswoman for the OSCE called "absolutely absurd" Yugoslav

army charges that the four are "terrorists" sent to train

Montenegrin police for an eventual confrontation with

Belgrade, the "Guardian" reported. The arrests come shortly

after the arrest of four Dutch citizens for allegedly

plotting to kill Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic (see

"RFE/RL Newsline," 1 August 2000). PM

[11] GENERAL CLARK URGES PLANNING FOR MONTENEGRO

that the arrests are most likely part of a Milosevic campaign

to stir up anti-Western sentiment in Serbia in the runup to

the 24 September elections. That the latest arrests took

place in Montenegro appears to be part of an effort to depict

the Montenegrin leadership as a Western fifth column and to

intimidate Podgorica. U.S. General Wesley Clark, who was

NATO's supreme commander in Europe until recently, believes

that Milosevic will try to move against the Montenegrin

leadership at some point in the next few months when the U.S.

public is absorbed in the November general elections, the

"Guardian" reported on 4 August. He called on the White House

and Pentagon to begin now to position aircraft in the region

and to line up political support from allies. PM

[12] YUGOSLAV ARMY SHUTS SOME MONTENEGRIN BORDER CROSSINGS

army has set up checkpoints and closed frontier crossings at

several places along the Montenegrin-Bosnian border, RFE/RL's

South Slavic Service reported on 3 August. The latest action

is part of an ongoing series of cat-and-mouse moves that the

army has made in recent months in an effort to assert its

authority vis-a-vis the Montenegrin police and border guards.

PM

[13] ALBRIGHT: SERBIA'S MILOSEVIC 'RUNNING SCARED'

of State Madeleine Albright said in Washington on 3 August

that Milosevic is "running scared and consequently taking

actions that are illegal and changing [Yugoslavia's]

constitution to suit his purposes and trying to be

provocative," AP reported. She added that "the important

thing is for the opposition to solidify, present a single

[presidential] candidate, and get on with the elections....

There is no doubt in anybody's mind that this election is

going to take place...and that it will take place in unfair

circumstances where the media is under control and the

opposition is being intimidated," Albright noted. PM

[14] DRASKOVIC TRYING TO PRESSURE SERBIAN OPPOSITION?

General Momcilo Perisic of the Movement for Democratic Serbia

said on 3 August that the Serbian Renewal Movement's Vuk

"Draskovic asked [other opposition leaders] to join him in

boycotting parliamentary elections and demanded that we

support his candidate for the federal president. In return,

he would work with us in the local polls," Perisic added.

Reuters reported that Draskovic's presidential candidate

could be Vojislav Mihajlovic, who is mayor of Belgrade and a

senior SPO official. SPO leaders will hold a strategy meeting

on 6 August. PM

[15] THREE SUSPECTED WAR CRIMINALS ESCAPE FROM JAIL IN KOSOVA

genocide escaped from a hospital in Mitrovica in the early

hours of 4 August, dpa reported. Doctors with the UN's

civilian administration in Kosova (UNMIK) had recently

recommended that the men be sent to the hospital. UNMIK said

in a press release that an investigation is under way. PM

[16] KOSOVA MODERATE PARTY SLAMS SHOOTING OF TWO LEADERS

Rugova's Democratic League of Kosova said in a statement on 4

August that "attacks against party activists and members are

intensifying. As the preparations for the [October] elections

are under way, this fact proves that authors of these attacks

are against democratic elections, against stability, and

against the independence and future of Kosova," AP reported

from Prishtina. The statement referred to the recent

shootings of two local LDK officials in separate incidents

(see "RFE/RL Newsline," 3 August 2000). PM

[17] U.S. TO REOPEN VISA SECTION IN TIRANA EMBASSY

Ambassador to Albania Joseph Limprecht said in Tirana on 4

August that the visa section of the embassy will reopen on 5

September. He said that the decision to reopen the facility

reflects the growing stability in Albania. The visa section

was closed in 1998 in an effort to tighten security against a

possible terrorist threat from the Middle East. PM

[18] THE LAST YUGOSLAV?

on 3 August that Croatian police have completed a 16-month

investigation of a major cigarette-smuggling ring headed by

Marko Milosevic, who is the son of Slobodan. The young

Milosevic, who is well known as a "businessman," takes

cigarettes from the Croatian factory in Rovinj and gets them

to Belgrade via Slovenia and via the Montenegrin port of Bar.

Milosevic junior's firm is based in Vaduz, Liechtenstein. The

paper added that young Milosevic controls virtually the

entire illicit cigarette trade in Serbia. PM

[19] ROMANIA'S LIBERALS ISOLATING FORMER ALLIES...

Liberal Party (PNL) negotiators are meeting on 4 August with

representatives of the Union of Rightist Forces to discuss

forging an electoral alliance. On 3 August, PNL

representatives met with members of the civic organization

represented in the disintegrating Democratic Convention of

Romania (CDR) and with Victor Ciorbea, leader of the

Christian Democratic National Alliance (ANCD), in what

observers say is an attempt to isolate the National Peasant

Party Christian Democratic (PNTCD) from its prospective

allies in a restructured CDR that would not include the PNL.

Ciorbea said the meeting has "laid the foundation of setting

up a Liberal Democratic Alliance." He also said the ANCD

rejects the PNTCD demand that their two parties merge.

Constantin Ticu-Dumitrescu, who represented the civic

organizations, said the forging of "a new political

structure" capable of opposing the "slide to the Left," is

now feasible. MS

[20] ...AND CONTINUE FEELERS WITH MELESCANU'S PARTY

on 3 August agreed that contacts between negotiating teams of

their parties will continue at "expert level" with the

purpose of forging "a pre-electoral or a post-electoral

alliance." APR leader Teodor Melescanu said if the two

parties prove unable to agree on a joint presidential

candidate they might support their best-placed candidate in

the second runoff of the presidential contest. Also on 3

August, PNL First Deputy Chairman Valeriu Stoica and Iasi

Mayor Constantin Simirad, leader of the Party of Moldovans,

agreed to merge their formations. The agreement is to be

approved by extraordinary congresses of the two parties, both

due to be held on 18 August. MS

[21] EU RAPPORTEUR SAYS ROMANIA'S ROAD TO UNION 'LONG AND

Baroness Emma Nicholson, EU rapporteur on Romania

in the negotiations for the country's accession to the union,

said in her report that Romania's road to joining the

organization is "long, difficult, and full of hindrances,"

Romanian Radio reported on 3 August. Among the main obstacles

mentioned are the situation of abandoned children in that

country, corruption in its public administration, Romania's

economic situation, and the slow progress on privatization.

The report emphasizes, however, that Romania's geographic

position is important to stabilizing the region and that

Bucharest meets all political criteria for joining the EU. It

also says Romania has "taken all necessary measures for

national minorities to benefit from all rights stipulated in

EU Council documents." MS

[22] ROMANIAN ROMANY ORGANIZATION TO SUE STATE

non-governmental organization on 3 August said it will sue

the state for discriminating against Roma, AFP reported. The

organization said a state-funded employment agency in

Bucharest advertises job vacancies carrying the warning "Roma

need not apply." MS

[23] OSCE DOUBTS RUSSIAN WITHDRAWAL BY END 2002

with the BBC, William Hill, head of the OSCE mission to

Moldova, said Russia will not--due to "technical reasons"--be

able to abide by its pledge to end the withdrawal of troops

from the Transdniester region by 2002, as agreed at the

OSCE's 1999 Istanbul summit. Hill says that in order for the

withdrawal to be completed by then, Russia must start it in

autumn 2000 "at latest," Romanian Radio reported. Also on 3

August, Vasile Sturza, chairman of the Moldovan special

commission for the settlement of the Transdniester conflict,

told MoldPress that all Moldovan, Russian, and

Transdniestrian troops in the security zone separating the

two former belligerents must be replaced by OSCE troops. MS

[24] BULGARIAN PREMIER DENIES INVOLVEMENT IN BUGGING SCANDAL

parliament on 3 August that his cabinet never ordered

special surveillance means to be used against Prosecutor-

General Nikola Ilichev, legislators or magistrates (see

"RFE/RL Newsline," 31 July and 2 August 2000 ). Kostov

called for a "national consensus" to eliminate once and

forever the surveillance methods of the communist era.

"This practice of the past should forever remain in the

past," he said. Interior Minister Emanuil Yordanov repeated

that the check conducted by his ministry found that the

listening devices were planted in 1994 in Ilichev's and the

other apartments in which they were discovered last week,

but that they were never used, AP reported. The legislators

authorized their parliamentary National Security Committee

to investigate the use of special surveillance means and

requested stronger civilian control over the Interior

Ministry. MS

[C] END NOTE

[25] DEATH OF A CHECHEN PRAGMATIST

Of the quantities of journalistic and analytical

materials devoted to Russia's 1994-1996 war in Chechnya, one

of the most invaluable is Yusup Soslambekov's 100-page

compendium "Chechnya -- The View From Inside."

Published in 1995, before the signing by then Russian

Security Council secretary Aleksandr Lebed and then Chechen

army chief of staff Aslan Maskhadov of the August 1996

ceasefire agreement and the subsequent Khasavyurt accord,

Soslambekov's work comprises a chronological series of essays

devoted to political developments in Chechnya from 1990-1994,

together with a 1993 draft treaty on Chechen-Russian

relations, and three successive peace plans drafted in 1995.

Those materials are important and useful for several

reasons. Soslambekov was a key political actor in Chechnya in

his own right as chairman of the Foreign Affairs Commission

of the Chechen parliament elected in October 1991.

(Soslambekov split with then President Dzhokhar Dudaev in the

early summer of 1993 after the latter used force to dissolve

the parliament, of which Soslambekov was subsequently elected

chairman.) Soslambekov participated in talks with Moscow in

1991-1993 and was acquainted with all the Chechen and Russian

political figures who collectively contributed to the

escalation in tensions that resulted in the Russian invasion

in December 1994.

His insights into the evolving confrontation are

fascinating: he reveals, for instance, that in the late

summer of 1991 then Russian Supreme Soviet speaker Ruslan

Khasbulatov wanted to install his hand-picked team of Chechen

leaders, but Russian President Boris Yeltsin preferred

Dudaev. That choice proved fateful because, as Soslambekov

writes "The methods chosen by Dudaev to attain real

independence ran counter to common sense. Rather than taking

as his guidelines the norms of international law, from day

one of his term as president he chose the path of

confrontation...in regulating relations with the Russian

Federation." He attributes Dudaev's initial popularity among

the Chechen people to his honesty and the fact that he was a

member neither of the former Communist Party nomenklatura nor

the wealthy Chechen business community in Moscow.

Despite his avowed opposition to Dudaev, Soslambekov

remained committed to achieving independence for Chechnya,

but at the minimum cost in human life and suffering and with

the maximum effort to reduce tensions between Chechnya and

Moscow and to avoid destabilizing the neighboring North

Caucasus republics. To that end, he drafted a treaty "On the

basis of relations between the Chechen Republic and the

Russian Federation," whereby Moscow recognized Chechnya's

independence, but the territorial integrity of the Russian

Federation was nonetheless preserved.

Soslambekov argued repeatedly that neither the Russians

nor the Chechens could achieve a military victory in

Chechnya. His draft proposals for resolving the conflict,

based on the phased approach, all envisaged a cessation of

hostilities, the creation of a provisional Chechen

government, and the conduct of a referendum in which the

republic's population would be invited to choose between

independence for Chechnya; a confederation with Russia;

"associated membership" of the Russian Federation; and the

same degree of sovereignty within the Russian Federation as

enjoyed by the Republic of Tatarstan.

Soslambekov's proposed model for an independent

democratic Chechen state is Switzerland: he points to

similarities in mentality and traditions between two small

and fiercely independent mountain peoples. He offers concise,

but valuable comments on the relevance of such factors as

Chechnya's teyp (clan) system, Islam in Chechnya, and the

illicit export of oil.

However apposite and rational they may have been,

Soslambekov's proposals were routinely ignored by a Russian

leadership that proceeded to launch a new war last summer.

The similarities between the present situation and that in

1995 are depressing: the Chechen president is branded as a

criminal and thus not considered a valid partner for

negotiations; the military situation is close to a stalemate;

and the Chechen administration installed by Moscow has only

minimal control over events on the ground.

As Maskhadov's designated envoy for liaison with the

Russian leadership, Soslambekov was ideally qualified to

craft a new peace settlement had Moscow demonstrated any

interest in doing so. But he was gunned down on a Moscow

street on 18 July, and died nine days later, without

regaining consciousness, at the age of 44.

04-08-00

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

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