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RFE/RL Newsline, Vol. 2, No. 83, 98-04-30Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty: Newsline Directory - Previous Article - Next ArticleFrom: Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty <http://www.rferl.org>RFE/RL NEWSLINEVol. 2, No. 83, 30 April 1998CONTENTS[A] TRANSCAUCASUS AND CENTRAL ASIA
[B] SOUTHEASTERN EUROPE
[C] END NOTE
[A] TRANSCAUCASUS AND CENTRAL ASIA[01] GEORGIAN PRESIDENT DISCLOSES DETAILS OF ABKHAZ SETTLEMENTEduard Shevardnadze told Interfax on 29 April that the document on resolving the Abkhaz conflict endorsed by eight of the 11 CIS summit participants defines Georgia as a federation of which Abkhazia is a constituent part. It also proposes that an Abkhaz should head the federal Senate. Shevardnadze expressed satisfaction that the summit agreed to the redeployment of the CIS Abkhaz peacekeeping force throughout Abkhazia's southernmost Gali Raion. He also greeted the appointment of Major-General Sergei Korobko to command that force, as did Abkhaz President Vladislav Ardzinba. But Ardzinba has warned that Abkhazia will resort to armed resistance if the peacekeeping force is redeployed without its consent, while the Confederation of Peoples of the Caucasus has offered Abkhazia military support, "Izvestiya" reported on 30 April. The previous day, eight Abkhaz were killed in a clash with Georgian guerrillas in Gali, Caucasus Press reported. LF[02] AZERBAIJANI ARMY OFFICER SENTENCED FOR SUBWAY BOMBINGThe Azerbaijani Supreme Court on 29 April sentenced former army Captain Azer Aslanov to life imprisonment for masterminding a bomb explosion in the Baku metro in April 1994 that killed 13 people, Turan and Interfax reported. Aslanov, an ethnic Lezgin, pleaded not guilty to the charges. He said he was taken prisoner by Armenia in January 1994 and coerced into organizing the bombing; later, he said, he served in a private military formation in Dagestan. Armenian officials have denied any connection with Aslanov, whom the Russian Federal Security Service extradited to Azerbaijan in 1996. Seven other Lezgins were sentenced in March,1997 for their role in the explosion (see "OMRI Daily Digest," 21 February and 20 March 1997). LF[03] IRAN DENIES RUSSIAN STEEL SHIPMENT INTENDED FOR MILITARY USEAn Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman on 29 April said the consignment of stainless steel plates intercepted by Azerbaijani customs officials on the Azerbaijani-Iranian frontier last month was not intended for the production of ballistic missiles (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 23 April 1998). He added that the alloy could have been ordered by a company in the private sector for civilian use. LF[04] PROMINENT ARMENIAN POLITICIAN ARRESTED FOR ASSAULTArarat Zurabian, the deputy chairman of the former ruling Armenian Pan- National Movement (ARFD), was arrested in Yerevan on 27 April, RFE/RL's Yerevan bureau reported. Zurabian has been charged with assault after he and a group of associates beat up Armenian Revolutionary Federation- Dashnaktsutiun (HHSh) party member Aghvan Vartanian in a Yerevan cafe. Vartanian is close to President Robert Kocharian and was his press spokesman during recent presidential election campaign. The ARFD newspaper "Yerkir" reported on 29 April that HHSh chairman Vano Siradeghian was in the cafe and "watched calmly" as Vartanian was beaten up. Siradeghian refused to comment on the incident when asked by RFE/RL the previous day. LF[05] KYRGYZ PRESIDENT WRAPS UP VISIT TO CHINA...Askar Akayev wrapped up his five-day official visit to China on 30 April, RFE/RL correspondents in Beijing reported. During his visit, Akayev met with Chinese Prime Minister Zhu Rongji and speaker of the parliament Li Peng. Zhu noted that trade with Kyrgyzstan has increased 1,000 percent since 1992. Akayev invited China to buy antimony and hydro-electric power from Kyrgyzstan and invest in Kyrgyz hydro-electric projects. Talks with Li Peng centered on the CIS-Chinese border agreement, to which Russia, Kazakhstan, and Tajikistan are also parties. BP[06] ...AFTER RELEASING STATEMENT WITH CHINESE PRESIDENTIn a statement released on 27 April, Akayev and Chinese President Jiang Zemin praised the confidence- building measures provided in the CIS-Chinese border agreement, Beijing's Xinhua news agency reported. They agreed to further develop economic ties, improve road, rail, and aviation links, increase cooperation in environmental protection, and work together to fight organized crime, terrorism, and drug and arms smuggling. Kyrgyzstan affirmed its recognition of Beijing's position on Taiwan, Tibet, and Xinjiang. In return, China agreed to a "nuclear-free Central Asia," which is particularly important for the Kyrgyz as China's Lop Nor nuclear testing site is close to Kyrgyzstan's eastern border. BP[07] FORCES OF TAJIK GOVERNMENT, OPPOSITION CLASHFighting broke out between forces of the Tajik government and the United Tajik Opposition 10 kilometers east of Dushanbe on 30 April, RFE/RL correspondents reported. At least three government soldiers are reported dead and eight wounded . UTO casualties have not been reported. Opposition fighters attacked a road checkpoint outside the town of Rokhaty. Gun fire was also reported in the Kofarnikhon region, where last month the most severe fighting between government and UTO forces took place since the signing last June of the peace accord. BP[B] SOUTHEASTERN EUROPE[08] CONTACT GROUP SLAPS FRESH SANCTIONS ON BELGRADEDiplomats representing the U.S., U.K., Germany, France, and Italy agreed in Rome on 29 April to freeze Yugoslav assets abroad in response to President Slobodan Milosevic's failure to withdraw special police forces from Kosova and begin talks with the Kosovar leadership. If Belgrade fails to launch negotiations with the Kosovars by 9 May, the Contact Group will block any new foreign investment in Serbia. If Belgrade does start talks, it will be welcomed back into international institutions. Russia did not agree to the sanctions but joined the other five countries in urging an end to the "unacceptable status-quo in Kosova." Representatives of the six countries also warned that "the risk of an escalating conflict requires immediate action.... If unresolved, the situation in Kosova threatens to spill over to other parts of the region." The six also slammed the "excessive use of force by the Yugoslav army and the proliferation of arms in the territory." PM[09] MIXED REACTIONS TO SANCTIONSA State Department spokesman said in Washington on 29 April that the Contact Group's sanctions package is a "good one" that will offer Milosevic a "stark choice." In Belgrade, Serbian bankers expressed fears that the ban on investments will cripple the government's privatization plans, which are based on the assumption that large amounts of foreign capital will be available. Opposition leader Zoran Djindjic said on 30 April that the sanctions will hit ordinary Serbs more than they will affect the government. In Bonn, Kosovar shadow- state Prime Minister Bujar Bukoshi expressed similar views. He said the elite around Milosevic has its money deposited in secret accounts on Cyprus and that this elite knows from its experiences during the wars of 1991-1995 how to profit personally from sanctions. Bukoshi called instead for tougher measures that will directly affect Belgrade's power centers. PM[10] MORE DEATHS IN KOSOVA...Unidentified gunmen attacked a police car near Duha on 29 April, killing one of the occupants and injuring another. Near Decan, police killed a man at the funeral of three Kosovars whom Serbian forces recently shot. Some mourners at the funeral said that police physically abused some of those present and fired into the crowd. A police spokesman said that armed members of the Kosova Liberation Army (UCK) fired first at the police and that the dead man was one of the uniformed guerrillas present. Elsewhere in the Decan area, Kosovar sources said there was gunfire in some villages, RFE/RL's South Slavic Service reported. PM[11] ...AND CHARGES OF RIGHTS VIOLATIONSBrother Sava Janjatic, who is a spokesman for the Orthodox Church in Kosova, said in Decan on 29 April that ethnic Albanians continue to intimidate and physically abuse local Serbs. For several weeks, dozens of Serbs have fled their homes in mainly Albanian areas and sought shelter near the medieval Serbian monastery in Decan. Brother Sava called for a dialogue between Serbs and Albanians. He is close to Bishop Artemije Radosavljevic, who opposes Milosevic and urges reconciliation between Kosova's ethnic communities. In Prishtina, "Koha Ditore" wrote that Hafir Shala, an ethnic Albanian physician, has been held incommunicado by the police since 10 April. The police refuse to provide any information about his whereabouts or health, and his family fears he may be dead. PM[12] KOSOVAR ESTABLISHMENT SLAMS UCKThe Prishtina daily "Bujku," which is close to the shadow-state government, said in a commentary on 27 April that "the existence of an armed wing [of the ethnic Albanian national movement] leaves much to be desired." The editorial chided the guerrillas for having limited their operations "to the murder of a few forest rangers" and noted that "there was not a single sign [of the UCK] giving the slightest help" to innocent civilians when the Serbian forces launched their crackdown at the end of February. The UCK has frequently criticized the mainstream civilian leadership as weak and ineffective (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 29 April 1998). PM[13] ALBANIAN PRIME MINISTER WANTS NATO SUPPORTFatos Nano told the parliament on 29 April that the "worsening of the situation in Kosova and the risk of an expanding armed conflict leaves us no alternative but to call for the deployment of an armed NATO force on our border." He added that unspecified people "both from within [Albania] and from the other side" of the frontier have recently caused provocations along the border. He said "these individuals and groups, by issuing declarations and conducting [illicit] trade, want to give the Serbs a pretext to cause bloodshed," "Zeri i Popullit" reported. He did not elaborate but stressed that Albania is opposed to terrorism and arms trafficking. NATO turned down Tirana's previous request for NATO troops to patrol its own border with Yugoslavia (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 12 March 1998). NATO nonetheless recently sent a succession of small teams to inspect the area. FS[14] ALBANIAN PARLIAMENT APPROVES GOVERNMENTLawmakers on 29 April endorsed the new cabinet, despite criticism from both the opposition and within the governing Socialist Party (see "RFE/RL Newsline" 27 April 1998). Socialist deputy Halil Lalaj doubted whether the new cabinet will be able to tackle the country's problems better than the previous one, "Koha Jone" reported. He also objected that no northern Albanian is included in the cabinet. Opposition leader Sali Berisha attacked the previous government for raising taxes and failing to reduce poverty, and he demanded new elections. After Berisha's speech, most Socialist deputies who had previously criticized the government gave their support to Nano. FS[15] ROMANIAN SECURITY AND GUARD CHIEF RESIGNSPresident Emil Constantinescu has accepted the 29 April resignation of Nicu Anghel, the chief of the Security and Guard Service, RFE/RL's Bucharest bureau reported. Anghel had approved the leave of absence of Colonel Gheorghe Trutulescu, who has been missing since the uncovering the so-called "cigarette affair." Media reports say the two were friends since the 1970s, when both served in the communist secret police's army intelligence. Also on 29 April, deputy Adrian Moroinanu of the opposition Alliance for Romania said he has his own sources confirming media reports that the plane that unloaded cigarettes at Bucharest's military airport on 16 April smuggled military equipment out of Romania when it took off. Meanwhile, the Prosecutor-General's Office has extended to 30 days the detention of both the military commander of the airport and the owner of the warehouse to which the cigarettes were transported. MS[16] ROMANI PARTY CHIEF ON ROMA HOLOCAUST IN ROMANIAAt least 250,000 Roma were deported to concentration camps in the Transdniester under the regime of Marshal Ion Antonescu, of whom only 10, 000 survived, Romani Party leader Nicolae Paun said on 29 April. He added that the figure could be as high as 400,000. Paun's party was recently given access to the archives of the Romanian Intelligence Service and the Ministry of Interior, where documents providing evidence of the Roma holocaust are stored. Paun said the Roma will demand compensation from the government, but he added that, given the country's poor economic situation, the Roma realize that for the time being, compensation can be "moral" only, in the form of a "public apology" from the authorities, Mediafax reported. AFP reported that the Romani might ask for compensation from the German government as well. MS[17] MOLDOVAN GOVERNING PARTY CHOOSES PREMIER- DESIGNATEThe Democratic Convention of Moldova (CDM) on 29 April chose Valentin Dolganciuc, a member of the Christian Democratic Popular Front (FPCD), as premier- designate. President Petru Lucinschi has yet to agree to that appointment, RFE/RL's Chisinau bureau reported. The FPCD is one of the two main components of the CDM, and observers say Dolganciuc's selection may meet with resistance from the president, as the FPCD is in favor of union with Romania. Dolganciuc said after his election that he no longer considers himself to be a member of any political formation, but rather to represent the center- right Alliance for Democracy as a whole. That alliance includes the CDM and the pro-presidential For a Democratic and Prosperous Moldova Bloc and was set up on 21 April by the two formations. MS[18] WORLD BANK APPROVES LOAN TO MOLDOVAThe World Bank has approved a $15.9 million loan to promote land privatization in Moldova, an RFE/RL correspondent in Washington reported on 28 April. The loan is to help set up a land property registration system. An additional $4.7 million is to be granted to the project by international donors, including Switzerland, Sweden, and Norway. Chisinau will contribute $ 4 million to the project. MS[19] BULGARIA RECEIVES POSITIVE SIGNALS FROM GERMANY, WORLD BANKIn a letter to Prime Minister Ivan Kostov, German Chancellor Helmut Kohl says Bonn strongly supports Bulgaria's Western integration and wants to help create the necessary political, economic, and legal conditions for a stronger German involvement in Bulgaria's privatization process, an RFE/RL correspondent in Sofia reported on 29 April. The same day, Finance Minster Muravei Radev announced that the World Bank has endorsed a program of "aggressive strategy" in support of Bulgarian economic reforms over the next three years, an RFE/RL correspondent in Washington reported. Sofia anticipates that the bank will soon approve a $700 million loan for Bulgaria. MS[20] BULGARIA TO PARTLY PRIVATIZE GAS COMPANYIvan Shilyashki, the chief of Bulgaria's State Energy Committee, told an international conference in Sofia on 29 April that the government plans to begin partly privatizing the state-owned Bulgargas monopoly after 2001. He said the state will keep a majority stake in the enterprise and added that the selling of shares in Bulgargas is intended to adapt the company to free market conditions and bring in new technologies, Reuters reported. MS[C] END NOTE[21] KUCHMA FACES HARD TIMES AFTER ELECTIONSby Jan MaksymiukOne month after the 29 March parliamentary elections in Ukraine, the Central Electoral Commission is still counting votes. A flood of complaints about election fraud and irregularities has delayed the announcement of the final results. On 18 April, the commission published an incomplete list of 413 deputies, adding eight names to that list several days later. However, the lineup of the Supreme Council is more or less clear even before the final results are announced. The Communist Party scored an indisputable victory, with a total of 111 mandates gained on the nationwide party lists and single-mandate districts (nearly 25 percent of seats in the 450-strong legislature). But that victory has not strengthened the party's foothold in the legislature. Even in a coalition with the Socialists/Peasants bloc (34 seats)- -their most likely partner--they will not have a legislative majority. One Ukrainian newspaper observed that had the 1994 parliamentary elections been held under the current majority- proportional election system, the Communists would have fared much better at the time. Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma seems to fear that the new parliament spells trouble for him. With the ailing economy, deep-rooted corruption, soaring wage and pension arrears, and an uncooperative legislature, he may have few opportunities to improve his ratings in the presidential elections scheduled for October 1999. Since 29 March, he has made a series of uncoordinated maneuvers--most of them strongly reminiscent of the Soviet era --in a bid to reassure both himself and his political foes that he is still in control. There were two "presidential" parties in the campaign--the Popular Democratic Party, led by Prime Minister Valeriy Pustovoytenko, and the Agrarian Party, both of which were created to secure a pro-Kuchma bloc in the legislature. The former won only 28 seats, while the latter failed even to overcome the 4 percent threshold, gaining a mere seven seats in the single-mandate districts. Kuchma reacted immediately by replacing three oblast administration heads in the regions where his parties fared badly. In a further move to reinforce his grip on local administration, he demanded that all his regional administration chiefs either decide on their party affiliation by mid-May or face dismissal. Administration executives, according to Kuchma, are allowed to join not only the "presidential" parties but also those of a "centrist and constructive orientation." The president also lashed out at his ministers for their poor performance and threatened a reshuffle at a 9 April cabinet session. At the same session, he ordered that the 1999 budget deficit be cut to 2.5 percent of GDP and 1998 budget spending trimmed in a bid to curry favor with reluctant Western creditors. Kuchma then fired the head of the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast administration and went on to deal an even heavier blow. Presenting the new administration chief, Kuchma warned Dnipropetrovsk managers that the "democracy game is over" for them. He added that unless they find a cure for economic ailments at their enterprises by the end of the year, they will also have to look for new jobs. Moreover, Kuchma has had to deal with former Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko, leader of the Hromada Party (which gained 23 seats in last month's elections) and chairman of the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast Council. Lazarenko's party garnered some 700,000 votes--nearly two-thirds of the ballots cast for the party nationwide--in that oblast. This was a personal insult to Kuchma, who in the Soviet era had been a powerful party boss at Ukraine's famous Yuzhmash rocket-building plant in Dnipropetrovsk. Kuchma accused Lazarenko of exacerbating tensions in the region and the country as a whole and demanded that the Prosecutor-General's Office examine Lazarenko's "negative barter schemes." It is widely believed that Lazarenko will run against Kuchma in the 1999 presidential race. Still, Kuchma's gravest concern is Oleksandr Moroz, the leader of the Socialist Party and current parliamentary speaker, whom the left-wing camp would certainly prefer over Petro Symonenko, head of the Communist Party, as its presidential candidate. Kuchma has indicated his desire to remove Moroz from the parliamentary spotlight by replacing him--as he put it--with an "unengaged politician." Hennadiy Udovenko, who resigned his post of foreign minister and is reportedly seeking Moroz's job, may be an ideal replacement. And on 21 April, Kuchma held a meeting with newly elected deputies from business circles. More than one- third of the new legislature is composed of entrepreneurs and bankers, to whom Kuchma has appealed for support, regardless of their party affiliations and political preferences. He stressed that further confrontation between the executive and legislative branches would be "deliberate suicide" and made it clear that he categorically opposes the formation of a left-wing government. This latest move by Kuchma has reportedly had one very promising result for the president. According to some Ukrainian newspapers, the Popular Democratic Party's parliamentary faction has already managed to enlist more than 40 independent deputies to form pro- Kuchma faction in the Supreme Council. If those reports are accurate, Kuchma's chances are better than they seemed early this month. But he has only 18 months left of his presidential term to achieve what he has largely failed to do in the past four years. 30-04-98 Reprinted with permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
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