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RFE/RL Newsline, Vol. 5, No. 8, 01-01-12Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty: Newsline Directory - Previous Article - Next ArticleFrom: Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty <http://www.rferl.org>RFE/RL NEWSLINEVol. 5, No. 8, 12 January 2001CONTENTS[A] TRANSCAUCASUS AND CENTRAL ASIA
[B] SOUTHEASTERN EUROPE
[C] END NOTE
[A] TRANSCAUCASUS AND CENTRAL ASIA[01] ARMENIAN PRESIDENT NAMES NEW YEREVAN MAYORRobert Kocharian on 11 January accepted Albert Bazeyan's resignation, which he had tendered the previous day, as mayor of Yerevan, RFE/RL's bureau in the Armenian capital reported (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 11 January 2001). The same day, Kocharian appointed as Bazeyan's successor 45 year old Deputy Energy Minister Robert Nazarian, who is not a member of any Armenian political party. Suren Sureniants, a senior municipal official who worked closely with Bazeyan, said that Bazeyan and Kocharian had disagreed over the city finances. LF[02] FORMER AZERBAIJANI OFFICIAL SENTENCED TO LIFE IMPRISONMENT...A Baku military court on 11 January handed down a life sentence on former Gyanja city police chief Natik Efendiev, Turan and Interfax reported. Efendiev was found guilty, together with Terter district military commander Colonel Rasim Alekperov, of plotting at the behest of exiled former parliamentary speaker Rasul Guliev to overthrow the Azerbaijani leadership. Alekperov and his brother Aghasi both received 15 year jail sentences. Efendiev, together with a second former Gyanja official, Rza Mamedov, was arrested in Turkey, where he had been living for several years, in January 2000 and extradited to Azerbaijan (see "RFE/RL Caucasus Report," Vol. 3, No. 4, 28 January 2000). Alekperov was arrested in February 2000 in connection with two murders committed by his subordinates (see "RFE/RL Caucasus Report," Vol. 3, No. 7, 17 February 2000). LF[03] ...DESPITE LACK OF EVIDENCELawyers for the accused repeatedly complained that the trial, which began in late October (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 25 October 200), was conducted with grave procedural violations, Turan reported. That agency also quoted Efendiev's lawyer, Elton Guliev, as saying that the evidence adduced by prosecution proved only that Efendiev was guilty of illegal arrest or exceeding his authority, but could not by any stretch of the imagination be construed as treason or as substantiating the charges that he was planning a coup d'etat. LF[04] UKRAINE ADVISES GEORGIA AGAINST 'ZERO OPTION'...Georgian parliament deputy Koba Davitashvili told journalists in Tbilisi on 11 January that the Ukrainian government has urged the Georgian parliament not to ratify the so-called "zero option," whereby Georgia will forfeit any claim to a share of the assets of the former USSR in return for the restructuring of its $179 million debt to Russia, Caucasus Press reported. Ukraine and Georgia are the only two former Soviet republics that have not yet formally abjured any claim to the assets of the former USSR. Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze has argued in favor of the "zero option," noting that ratification of it is a key condition for disbursement of a new IMF loan (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 21 December 2000 and 8 January 2001). Davitashvili argued that Georgia's share of the Soviet assets, which is estimated at between $2.5-5 billion, is enough to pay off not only its debts to Moscow but the entire state debt, which he said totals $1.4 billion. LF[05] ...AS KEY DOCUMENTATION FOUND MISSINGDavitashvili also argued on 11 January that whoever is found to be responsible for the disappearance from the state chancellery of a Georgian- Russian document initialed in 1993 detailing Georgia's share of the assets and liabilities of the former USSR should be brought to trial for espionage or criminal negligence, Caucasus Press reported. Georgian National Security Minister Vakhtang Kutateladze said that his ministry is trying to trace the document which, he added, vanished "several years ago." LF[06] RELATIVES SEEK TO NEGOTIATE RELEASE OF SPANIARDS ABDUCTED IN GEORGIAGeorgian Interior Minister Kakha Targamadze told journalists in Tbilisi on 11 January that the families of the two Spanish businessmen kidnapped east of Tbilisi in late November are conducting negotiations in Russia on securing their release, Interfax and Caucasus Press reported (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 1 December 2000). Targamadze complained that those talks "have seriously harmed the search" for the two hostages. Also on 11 January, Georgian National Security Minister Kutateladze said he cannot definitively confirm that the two Spaniards are being held in the Pankisi gorge in north- eastern Georgia. LF[07] KAZAKHSTAN TO INCREASE USE OF STATE LANGUAGE IN COURTSThe Kazakh Supreme Court has endorsed a program of instruction in the state language (Kazakh) for employees in the judiciary, with the aim of increasing the use of Kazakh in the legal system, RFE/RL's Almaty bureau reported on 11 January quoting a Supreme Court official. Judges will eventually be expected to have a professional command of both Russian and Kazakh. At present the use of Russian predominates in the court system. LF[08] IRAN DISPATCHES HUMANITARIAN AID TO AFGHANS STRANDED ON AFGHAN-TAJIK BORDERThe Iranian embassy in Dushanbe on 11 January dispatched some 40 tons of aid to the estimated 10,000 Afghans who have taken refuge on the Afghan- Tajik border from the ongoing hostilities between the Taliban and the Northern Alliance, Interfax reported. Tajik President Imomali Rakhmonov has said those displaced persons will not be permitted to enter Tajikistan (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 8 January 2001). LF[B] SOUTHEASTERN EUROPE[09] YUGOSLAV MINISTER CALLS ON WAR CRIMINALS TO TURN SELVES INYugoslav Justice Minister Momcilo Grubac said in Belgrade on 11 January that Yugoslav citizens indicted for war crimes should turn themselves in to the Hague-based war crimes tribunal, Reuters reported. Referring to former Republika Srpska President Biljana Plavsic's voluntary decision to go to The Hague, Grubac said: "Biljana Plavsic acted normally, in the way every other citizen suspected by a court, local or international, should do. The procedure does not mean that a person is guilty," (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 11 January 2001). Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica, several other leading Belgrade officials, and the former regime have all questioned the legitimacy of the Hague-based court. PM[10] SERBIAN MINISTERS TO DROP BUSINESS INTERESTSJustice Minister-designate Vladan Batic said in Belgrade on 12 January that "members of the new Serbian government will not be allowed to have their own private businesses," Reuters reported. "They will not be allowed to enter any kind of new business arrangements or exert pressure on the media, the judiciary, the police, and public enterprises," Batic added. Djindjic has vowed to clean up corruption. Under former President Slobodan Milosevic, government officials participated in massive corruption designed to give them a stake in the system and provide Milosevic with a potential source of blackmail or other pressure against them. Batic added that all ministers will undergo medical tests, the results of which will be made public. PM[11] YUGOSLAV GOVERNMENT OK'S AMNESTY LAW--BUT NOT FOR KOSOVARSThe government approved an amnesty law on 11 January, RFE/RL's South Slavic Service reported. The largest group affected will be some 34,000 persons who have been sentenced for "crimes" against the army, including desertion and failure to answer a draft notice. Some 700 Kosovars seized during the 1998 and 1999 Serbian crackdown still remain in Serbian jails. They include student leader Albin Kurti. PM[12] MONTENEGRIN PRESIDENT TO BELGRADEMontenegrin Prime Minister Filip Vujanovic said in Podgorica on 11 January that President Milo Djukanovic will travel to Belgrade on 14 January. He will discuss future Serbian-Montenegrin relations with Kostunica and Djindjic (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 11 January 2001). Kostunica and Djindjic have said recently that the Montenegrin leadership is making unnecessary trouble by raising demands for redefining Podgorica-Belgrade relations. Djindjic said on 11 January that the Montenegrins should have raised their demands not now but rather "six years ago," when Milosevic was still in power and the present Montenegrin leadership squarely behind him, Beta news agency reported. PM[13] MONTENEGRINS REACT TO KOSTUNICA PROPOSALOn 11 January criticism continued from Montenegrin political leaders of Kostunica's recent proposal to redefine Belgrade-Podgorica ties (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 11 January 2001). Vujanovic said that the proposal meant that Serbia would always be in a position to dominate Montenegro. Milica Pejanovic-Djurisic, who is a leader of Djukanovic's Democratic Party of Socialists, dubbed the offer "paternalistic." She stressed that it does not go as far to meet Montenegrin demands as Kostunica had previously indicated would be the case, RFE/RL's South Slavic Service reported. Social Democratic leader Miodrag Ilickovic dubbed the proposal a "document for the elimination of Montenegro." But Predrag Bulatovic of the Socialist People's Party called the proposal "completely acceptable" and a "help for the parties that want unity" with Serbia to continue. In Novi Sad, Vojvodina leader Nenad Canak said that the proposal is only "a personal [one] by...Kostunica, which is supported by nobody." PM[14] ITALIAN MINISTER SLAMS MONTENEGRIN PRESIDENTFinance Minister Ottaviano Del Turco told "La Repubblica" of 11 January that Djukanovic has knowingly harbored and protected Italian cigarette- smuggling kingpin Francesco Prudentino, AP reported. Del Turco added: "Without President Djukanovic's protection, Prudentino would have never become the richest, the most powerful, and the most dangerous trafficking boss in the Mediterranean." Djukanovic--like some other leaders in several parts of the former Yugoslavia--is widely suspected of having made handsome profits from profiteering during the wartime sanctions regime. PM[15] ALBANIA, YUGOSLAVIA TO RESTORE DIPLOMATIC TIESThe Foreign Ministry said in a statement in Tirana on 11 January that "the Albanian government once again expresses its readiness to re-establish diplomatic relations between the two countries. We hope this would serve the interests of the two sides as well as cooperation, good understanding, and security and stability in the region," Reuters reported. The Yugoslav government offered the previous day to restore ties, which were effectively broken in 1997. Belgrade wants Tirana to help guarantee an international settlement in Kosova, including one ignoring the demand of the province's 90 percent ethnic Albanian majority for independence (see "RFE/RL Newsline, " 18 December 2000). Albania is under international pressure to improve ties to the Kostunica government (see "RFE/RL Balkan Report," 15 December 2000). Albanians on both sides of the Albanian-Kosovar border generally consider the new Belgrade government to be as nationalistic as the previous one. PM[16] PETRITSCH RULES ALL ETHNIC GROUPS EQUAL THROUGHOUT BOSNIAWolfgang Petritsch, who is the international community's high representative, issued an interim ruling on 11 January that makes all citizens fully equal throughout Bosnia regardless of their ethnic background. The move is a key step toward breaking the political power of the ethnically-based parties (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 10 January 2001). PM[17] MACEDONIAN PRIVATE STATIONS STAGE STRIKEA group of private television and radio stations plan a two-hour strike for 12 January, Makfaks news agency reported. The broadcasters object to what they call a lack of transparency in the allocation of state broadcasting funds, as well as to the national television monopoly of MRTV, which costs them potentially lucrative advertising revenues. The broadcasters also object to the continuing existence of numerous stations that broadcast without a license. PM[18] SLOVENIAN CABINET COMPLETEDThe parliament voted 54-17 on 11 January to fill the four vacant cabinet posts, "Delo" reported. They are: Economics Minister Tea Petrin; Education, Science, and Sport Minister Lucija Cok; Transportation Minister Jakob Presecnik; and Information Minister Pavel Gantar (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 16 October 2000). Some 81 out of 90 legislators were present. PM[19] CROATIAN GOVERNMENT SEALS TUDJMAN'S ARCHIVESThe government on 11 January ordered that all documents belonging to the office of the late President Franjo Tudjman go into the custody of the state archives and remain closed to the public for 30 years. The measure also includes tape recordings and transcripts of them, RFE/RL's South Slavic Service reported. The ruling mentions that there can be "exceptional cases," but it is not clear what this means. The Hague-based war crimes tribunal has expressed an interest in several of Tudjman's tapes. "Novi List" said that the tribunal's access to the materials will be "limited," describing the ruling with the comment: "The transcripts will go into a military bunker." PM[20] ROMANIAN FOREIGN MINISTER MAKES DEBUT AS OSCE CHAIRMAN...In his inaugural address as OSCE rotating chairman, Foreign Minister Mircea Geoana told the OSCE Permanent Council in Vienna on 11 January that the organization will continue to focus on respect of individual rights, conflict prevention and conflict resolution, as well as on international cooperation and security, Romanian and international agencies reported. Geoana said Bucharest has handed over responsibility for the Transdniester conflict to Portugal in order to "avoid the impression of partiality" but the OSCE must continue insisting on finding a solution to that conflict based on respect for Moldova's territorial integrity and the OSCE 1999 Istanbul summit resolution on withdrawal of Russian troops from the region. MS[21] ...LISTS FURTHER OSCE PRIORITIESGeoana said another main focus of activity will be Chechnya, and proposed that Romanian ambassador to Kyiv Alexandru Cornea head a new mission to Grozny, calling on Russia to grant it "all possible support." He said his first mission as OSCE chairman will take him next week to Belgrade, and the OSCE will help prepare elections in Kosova and build democratic institutions in Bosnia. The OSCE will also concentrate on the struggle against organized crime, ethnic hatred and discrimination against minorities. In 2001, he said, Romania will organize an OSCE conference on the situation of Sinti and Roma in Europe (see also "End Note" below). MS[22] OSCE TO INQUIRE INTO 'BALKAN SYNDROME'?Adrian Severin, chairman of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, on 11 January said the organization is considering setting up "a group of rapporteurs" to investigate the so-called Balkan Syndrome and the use of "risk-ridden modern military technologies," Romanian Radio reported. Severin told Mediafax he is "unsatisfied" with the collaboration with the Romanian Foreign Ministry and hopes that this will improve after the changes at the ministry's leadership. Former Foreign Minister Petre Roman and Severin are known to be political rivals, and Severin was expelled from Roman's Democratic Party in 1998. MS[23] TRANSYLVANIAN ROMANIANS WARN AGAINST 'NEW KOSOVA'Several organizations representing ethnic Romanians in the Harghita and Covasna counties, the majority of whose population is Magyar, are wary of the "consequences" of the agreement recently reached between the ruling Party of Social Democracy in Romania and the Hungarian Democratic Federation of Romania. In a letter addressed on 11 January to President Ion Iliescu, the government and the parliament, they warn against "the danger" of transforming "two counties in the heart of Romania into a new Kosova." The organizations object to the intention to pass in the Chamber of Deputies the Public Administration Law previously approved by the Senate. They claim that legislation gives the Hungarian language in areas inhabited by Magyars the status of "a [second] official language." They say this will "intensify separatism" and the "de facto setting up of a Hungarian border inside the country," RFE/RL's Bucharest bureau reported. MS[24] GREATER ROMANIA PARTY TO APPEAL TO CONSTITUTIONAL COURTAugustin Bolcas, leader of the Greater Romania Party (PRM) parliamentary group in the Chamber of Deputies, said on 12 January the PRM will appeal to the Constitutional Court against the chamber's decision to change house regulations. The decision aims at shortening parliamentary debate to speed up the legislation process. It stipulates that debates on articles of a draft law no longer need the presence of a majority of deputies. That presence is required only when voting on the law as a whole. Proposed amendments are to be debated mostly in commissions, plenum debates being allowed only on amendments commissions failed to debate. The agenda is to be decided by a new committee formed by leaders of parliamentary parties, whose vote reflects their respective factions' weight. Bolcas said this transforms the chamber into "a bureaucratic vote-machine that passes laws on assembly-line." MS[25] MOLDOVA, ROMANIA, STILL DIFFER ON BASIC TREATYForeign Minister Nicolae Cernomaz believes Moldova and Romania should not reopen the negotiations on the basic treaty initialed last year, but his Romanian counterpart Mircea Geoana insists on doing so, Infotag reported on 11 January, at the end of Cernomaz's visit to Bucharest. The agency cited Geoana as saying that negotiations at expert level should be aimed at ensuring that the treaty can be ratified by the two countries' parliaments "without problems." Infotag also said that Cernomaz criticized the frequent official Romanian use of the term "two Romanian states" in reference to Moldova and Romania, warning that separatists "in Tiraspol and Gagauz-Yeri" are exploiting this for their own "anti-Moldovan interests." MS[26] BULGARIAN OPPOSITION 'BALKAN SYNDROME'The opposition Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) is demanding that a special meeting of the parliament National Security Commission be convoked to hear Defense Minister Boyko Noev and Chief of Staff general Mikho Mikhov report on the results of the medical examination that Bulgarian peace keepers in Kosova and Bosnia were submitted to. The BSP says the results must be published immediately and the government must request from all NATO member states all information they have on the use of depleted uranium munitions and their environmental effect on the territory of former Yugoslavia and neighboring countries. The BSP wants all members of the Bulgarian contingents in Bosnia and Kosova to be returned to Bulgaria for further medical examinations, and for water and soil along the border with Yugoslavia to be tested with international cooperation, Bulgarian Radio, cited by the BBC monitoring, reported on 11 January. MS[27] BULGARIAN DEPUTIES LEAVE RULING ALLIANCENational Agrarian Union (BZNS) deputies Georgi Pinchev and Zheko Stoyanov on 11 January resigned from the parliamentary group of the Union of Democratic Forces (SDS), Bulgarian Radio, cited by BBC monitoring, reported. They said the SDS has been "ignoring its allies from the BZNS by adopting administrative decisions that compromise the agrarian reform in the manner in which these measures are being implemented." Deputies representing the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization have also recently quit the SDS parliamentary group. SDS Deputy Chairwoman Rositsa Totkova denied either of these two desertions signal the disintegration of the SDS alliance. MS[28] CORRECTION:The name of the former Bulgarian Communist Interior Minister mentioned in "RFE/RL Newsline" on 11 January is Dimitar Stoyanov and not Petar Stoyanov, who is the incumbent Bulgarian President.[C] END NOTE[29] OSCE CHAIRMAN TO DISCUSS MOSCOW CRITICISMSBy Roland EgglestonThe new chairman of the OSCE, Romanian Foreign minister Mircea Dan Geoana, said on 11 January he would use his year in office try to focus on the problems of the ordinary citizen but he emphasized that this would not diminish OSCE's efforts to overcome political and military crises in Europe. One of his priorities is to discuss doubts in Moscow about OSCE's focus. Geoana began his year with a meeting which agreed that OSCE should establish a mission in the Yugoslav capital Belgrade. Geoana said he will go to Belgrade next week to discuss with Yugoslav officials the scope of the mission's activities and when it could begin work. Yugoslavia was re- admitted to the OSCE only at the end of last year after the fall of the Milosevic administration. Geoana said he will also go to Moscow soon for discussions on a number of problems. One of them is Moldova and its breakaway region of Transdniester. Geoana said Romania remains skeptical of a draft settlement recently proposed by former Russian Prime Minister Yevgenii Primakov, which he described as "not ideal." However he said the dialogue with Russia and Moldova is continuing. He said he discussed Moscow's position with the Moldovan Foreign Minister in Bucharest the previous day. Geoana promised that OSCE will also continue to be involved in trying to find a solution to the Transdniester conflict. He noted that Romania has a special relationship with Moldova and said that to avoid any suggestion that the Romanian chairmanship was not objective, he had asked Portugal to take charge of day-to-day discussions. Portugal will take over the chairmanship of the OSCE next year (2002). During his Moscow visit, Geoana will also discuss Russia's growing dissatisfaction with some aspects of OSCE's work. Diplomats told an RFE/RL correspondent in Vienna on 11 January that these came to a head at a foreign ministers' meeting in Vienna at the end of last year. The Russian Foreign Minister, Ivanov, sharply criticized what he perceived as an exaggerated OSCE focus on the Balkans and parts of the former Soviet Union. In particular, he criticized OSCE's continuing criticism of the situation in Chechnya and its demands to be allowed to re-establish its mission there. He said the OSCE should also pay attention to faults in Western societies, including Xenophobia, racism and crime. His criticisms led to Russia refusing consensus to a planned official report on the meeting. Only a modified version appeared. Diplomats said in Vienna on 11 January that Ivanov's speech at the December meeting was reminiscent of comments which came from Moscow in the past and said there was concern about its implications. At his 11 January press conference, Geoana said he knew that Russia had discussed its concerns with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder during the latter's private visit to Moscow last weekend. However he gave no details. Nor did Geoana discuss the approach he will take during his forthcoming visit to Moscow. But he did say that he will continue to press for the return of an OSCE mission to Chechnya under a Romanian ambassador. Geoana promised a continued OSCE focus on all its traditional areas of interests, including Central Asia, Nagorno-Karabakh and Belarus. He said that OSCE "can and should make a real contribution to the democratization of Belarus." He said the OSCE urged all parties there to "commit themselves to a meaningful dialogue which would heal some of the existing internal divisions." He said the OSCE wants to work together with Central Asian states to identify specific areas of co-operation which would yield concrete and positive results for them. "Our goals in Central Asia will be to enhance the development of the rule of law, civil society and the rights of the individual," he said. The OSCE will also promote economic prosperity and environmental security. He said OSCE will also "explore the most appropriate ways to ensure the security of Central Asian borders against external threats." Roland Eggleston is a senior RFE/RL correspondent based in Munich. 12-01-01 Reprinted with permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
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