RFE/RL Newsline, Vol. 4, No. 79, 00-04-20

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

RFE/RL NEWSLINE

Vol. 4, No. 79, 20 April 2000

CONTENTS

[A] TRANSCAUCASUS AND CENTRAL ASIA

[01] SIX DETAINEES RELEASED IN KARABAKH

[02] KAZAKHSTAN'S PRESIDENT SAYS POLICE RESORT TO TORTURE

[03] KAZAKHSTAN AGREES TO EXPORT MORE OIL VIA RUSSIA

[04] KYRGYZ SECURITY OFFICIAL DENIES THAT KULOV WILL BE RELEASED

[05] MORE ISLAMISTS ARRESTED IN TAJIKISTAN

[06] EBRD SUSPENDS LOANS TO TURKMEN GOVERNMENT

[B] SOUTHEASTERN EUROPE

[07] CLARK: NATO READY FOR SERBIAN 'GAMES'

[08] SERBIAN OPPOSITION WANTS 'ASPHALT FOR DEMOCRACY'

[09] OPPOSITION WALKS OUT OF VOJVODINA ASSEMBLY

[10] PRIVATIZATION COMMISSION FOR MONTENEGRO?

[11] KOSOVAR LEADERS APPEAL FOR END TO HATE

[12] EU'S PATTEN WARNS BOSNIA

[13] MIXED RESULTS ON BOSNIAN JOINT CABINET

[14] CROATIAN PARLIAMENT SPEAKER WANTS END TO PASALIC IMMUNITY

[15] CROATIA'S SPLITSKA BANKA SOLD

[16] OPPOSITION LEADER CLAIMS GENERAL PACEPA 'REACTIVATED' IN

[17] ROMANIAN LOCAL ELECTION CAMPAIGN STARTS OFF

[18] ROMANIAN STUDENTS EMULATE MOLDOVAN NEIGHBORS

[19] MOLDOVAN PREMIER MEETS PROTESTING STUDENTS

[20] IMF SUSPENDS LENDING TO MOLDOVA

[21] BULGARIA SHATTERED BY CORRUPTION SCANDAL

[22] BULGARIAN EU NEGOTIATOR SEES 2007 AS 'TARGET DATE'

[23] EU APPROVES LOAN FOR BULGARIA'S KOZLODUY

[C] END NOTE

[24] BALKANS ON THEIR WAY TOWARD EUROPEAN INTEGRATION?

[A] TRANSCAUCASUS AND CENTRAL ASIA

[01] SIX DETAINEES RELEASED IN KARABAKH

custody last month on suspicion of involvement in the 22

March bid to assassinate Arkadii Ghukasian, president of the

unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, have been released,

Noyan Tapan reported on 20 April. The six have given written

assurances that they will not leave the country. LF

[02] KAZAKHSTAN'S PRESIDENT SAYS POLICE RESORT TO TORTURE

Kazakhstan's police and law enforcement agencies of

incompetence and of resorting to "sadistic" torture to

extract confessions of guilt from arrested persons. Nazarbaev

attributed the rising crime rate in Kazakhstan to increasing

unemployment and declining living standards. He deplored the

fact that last year one-third of all serious crimes remained

unsolved. LF

[03] KAZAKHSTAN AGREES TO EXPORT MORE OIL VIA RUSSIA

and Energy Minister Viktor Kalyuzhnii and Kazakhstan's

Energy, Industry, and Trade Minister Vladimir Shkolnik signed

an agreement in Moscow on 19 April whereby Russia will allow

Kazakhstan to increase by 3 million tons the amount of oil it

exports this year via Russian pipelines, Interfax reported.

Two million tons of that amount will be exported via the

newly-completed pipeline from Makhachkala to Novorossiisk

bypassing Chechnya, and the remaining 1 million tons via the

Atyrau-Samara pipeline (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 11 and 13

April 2000). Also on 19 April, Nurlan Balghymbaev, head of

Kazakhstan's state oil company, told a news conference in

Atyrau that the cabinet will probably reject a proposal by

the Customs Committee to impose an export duty of 15 euros

($14.4) per ton on exports of crude oil. LF

[04] KYRGYZ SECURITY OFFICIAL DENIES THAT KULOV WILL BE RELEASED

Bishkek on 20 April that rumors of opposition Ar-Namys party

chairman Feliks Kulov's imminent release from pretrial

detention are groundless, Interfax reported. Meeting on 16

April with Kyrgyz President Askar Akaev, U.S. Secretary of

State Madeleine Albright had called for Kulov's release (see

"RFE/RL Newsline," 17 April 2000). Poluektov said that Kulov

has been charged with abuse of office and will also be

charged with the illegal sale of 500 tons of alcohol. He

added that there is "incontrovertible evidence" of Kulov's

involvement in that crime. Other Kyrgyz security officials

have rejected Kulov's attempts to demonstrate that the

charges against him are fabricated (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 18

April 2000). LF

[05] MORE ISLAMISTS ARRESTED IN TAJIKISTAN

the banned Hizb-ut-Tahrir Muslim party have been detained in

Tajikistan's northern Leninabad Oblast, Interfax reported on

19 April. The four men are accused of spreading subversive

literature calling for the overthrow of the country's

leadership. Their arrest raises to over 50 the number of

members of that organization detained in Tajikistan since the

beginning of the year. According to "Nezavisimaya gazeta" on

15 April, members of Hizb-ut-Tahrir began appearing in

northern Tajikistan in the late summer of 1999. The

organization's program is broadly similar to that of the

Movement for the Islamic Renaissance of Uzbekistan, whose

members were accused of the February 1999 car bombings in

Tashkent, the paper notes. LF

[06] EBRD SUSPENDS LOANS TO TURKMEN GOVERNMENT

issued in London on 18 April, the European Bank for

Reconstruction and Development said it will no longer advance

loans to Turkmenistan's public sector because of that

country's lack of progress towards democratization or market

reform, Reuters reported. EBRD First Vice President Charles

Frank said that failure "suggests that the government of

Turkmenistan is not committed to one of the basic principles

upon which the EBRD is founded." The statement said that the

bank will continue to provide funding for private sector

programs in Turkmenistan. The EBRD has signed five projects

in Turkmenistan worth a total of $208.2 million. On 19 April,

Turkmenistan's President Saparmurat Niyazov criticized the

EBRD's decision. Niyazov had refused earlier this week to

meet with an EBRD delegation, according to the "Financial

Times" of 19 April. LF

[B] SOUTHEASTERN EUROPE

[07] CLARK: NATO READY FOR SERBIAN 'GAMES'

commander in Europe, General Wesley Clark, said in Budapest

on 19 April that "we're watching very closely [Yugoslav

President Slobodan] Milosevic...we know he's fought four wars

in a decade.... There are always 'games' under way. What

comes of those depends very much on a number of

circumstances, but he should clearly understand that NATO is

capable of handling any challenge down there." Clark also

warned ethnic Albanians who might try to provoke incidents in

southwestern Serbia in hopes of drawing NATO into a conflict

in the area. "NATO doesn't support and will not permit the

export of violence from [Kosova] into southern Serbia,"

Reuters quoted him as saying. Clark stressed that the

Atlantic alliance's 1999 campaign was a necessity: "In

assessing this, you have to say what would have happened if

the NATO air campaign hadn't been conducted. I think you

would have had a region-wide tragedy and a situation of

substantial instability," he concluded. PM

[08] SERBIAN OPPOSITION WANTS 'ASPHALT FOR DEMOCRACY'

Zivkovic of Nis told Reuters on 19 April that he wants the EU

to build on the success of last winter's Oil for Democracy

program by providing $1.45 million to cover one-third of the

costs for bitumen to improve 270 km of damaged roads. In

Belgrade, representatives of the G-17 group of economists

also endorsed the proposal. The purpose of both projects is

to show ordinary Serbs that the opposition can deliver help

from abroad. PM

[09] OPPOSITION WALKS OUT OF VOJVODINA ASSEMBLY

legislators left the provincial assembly in Novi Sad on 19

April after deputies from the government parties refused to

consider opposition proposals for topics to be added to the

legislative agenda. The topics included calling elections at

all levels, holding a roundtable on election rules, ending

repression against citizens, and setting up a parliamentary

commission to investigate recent incidents in Zrenjanin,

RFE/RL's South Slavic Service reported (see "RFE/RL

Newsline," 7 April 2000). PM

[10] PRIVATIZATION COMMISSION FOR MONTENEGRO?

Podgorica on 19 April discussed a Social Democratic proposal

to set up a commission to review the privatization process.

Representatives of several opposition parties expressed

doubts that such a commission would be effective. Liberal

legislators said that the proposal should be withdrawn

because the commission would have no real authority and would

become a farce, "Danas" reported. "The Los Angeles Times"

wrote that many friends of President Milo Djukanovic are

doing well under a system of "crony capitalism" at a time

when the U.S. and EU help fund Djukanovic's government. The

article suggested that Dragan Brkovic is about to profit

handsomely from the privatization of the KAP aluminum

concern. Brkovic has reportedly done several important favors

for Djukanovic and his government, including providing luxury

apartments and offices, the Los Angeles daily added. PM

[11] KOSOVAR LEADERS APPEAL FOR END TO HATE

leaders Hashim Thaci, Ibrahim Rugova, Rexhep Qosja, and

Mahmut Bakalli joined Serbian Orthodox Archbishop Artemije,

Father Sava, and Rada Trajkovic in signing an appeal to all

people in Kosova in Prishtina on 19 April. The signatories

called for an end to hatred and the development of an

atmosphere of tolerance. They urged people to direct their

efforts toward a better future for everyone in the province.

Meanwhile, in Gjilan and Rahovec, UN civilian authorities

began a painstaking process of registering all citizens.

Officials hope to identify citizens--as opposed to recent

arrivals from Albania and Serbia--and issue them appropriate

documents. PM

[12] EU'S PATTEN WARNS BOSNIA

Chris Patten said in Sarajevo on 19 April that there will not

be another donors' conference for Bosnia-Herzegovina until it

introduces essential reforms. "It would not be very sensible

to have a donors' conference unless things appear to be going

very well, because it would limit the enthusiasm of donors to

contribute. I think what we would like to see is absolutely

clear, politically and economically, in terms of [joint]

institution building, and in terms of the economic reforms,

like a transparent privatization process," Reuters reported.

Representatives of the international community have long

chastised nationalist politicians for holding up reforms and

fostering corruption. PM

[13] MIXED RESULTS ON BOSNIAN JOINT CABINET

leaders were unable to agree on from which of those two

ethnic groups the new joint foreign minister will come,

RFE/RL's South Slavic Service reported from Sarajevo on 19

April. As a result, the joint presidency was unable to select

a prime minister as well, a Serbian spokesman said. Shortly

after that meeting, presidency officials announced that the

prime minister, when elected, will be a Serb. Under new

legislation, there will be only one prime minister instead of

the previous two co-prime ministers. PM

[14] CROATIAN PARLIAMENT SPEAKER WANTS END TO PASALIC IMMUNITY

will soon begin discussing lifting parliamentary immunity for

Ivic Pasalic in conjunction with the "Vecernji list" affair

(see "RFE/RL Newsline," 19 April 2000). Vladimir Seks, who is

a leader of the Croatian Democratic Community (HDZ), to which

Pasalic belongs, called the investigation "amoral and

illegal." He added that it constitutes an effort to

"criminalize the late President Franjo Tudjman," "Vecernji

list" reported. "Jutarnji list" published the results of a

public opinion poll, in which 56 percent of the respondents

said that they believe Pasalic is guilty of wrongdoing in the

privatization of the mass-circulation daily during the HDZ's

rule. Only 20 percent of the respondents did not believe the

charges. PM

[15] CROATIA'S SPLITSKA BANKA SOLD

approved the sale of Splitska Banka to the Milan-based

UniCredito Italiano for $46 million. The move is "an

important part of efforts to reinvigorate the Croatian

economy" in the wake of the collapse of several banks, the

"Financial Times" reported. On 6 April, the government issued

$11.1 million worth of state bonds for 15 banks facing

liquidity problems. The main beneficiary is Istarska Banka.

Of the other two banks whose privatization began at the same

time as Splitska's in 1999, Privredna Banka Zagreb has

already been sold to the Banca Commerciale Italiana, while

the Bayerische Landesbank is the leading contender to acquire

Rijecka Banka. PM

[16] OPPOSITION LEADER CLAIMS GENERAL PACEPA 'REACTIVATED' IN

The parliamentary commission supervising the

activity of the Romanian Information Service (SRI) has

summoned Director Catalin Harnagea to testify on the alleged

"reactivating" of master-spy General Ion Mihai Pacepa by

presidential order, Mediafax reported. Opposition Party of

Social Democracy in Romania (PDSR) First Deputy Chairman

Adrian Nastase made the claim during a visit to China. He

said that Pacepa, whose death sentence passed by the

communist regime was quashed in June 1999, is the person

behind the name General Petre Ion Gavrilescu, who was

recently reintegrated into the SRI on the order of President

Emil Constantinescu. George Serban, former head of the

parliamentary supervisory commission, dismissed the

allegation, saying it was made in China as part of the PDSR

effort to enlist Chinese financial backing of its 2000

electoral campaign "as was the case of the previous

elections." MS

[17] ROMANIAN LOCAL ELECTION CAMPAIGN STARTS OFF

local elections officially began on 20 April and will last 45

days. The first round of the elections will take place on 4

June. Peter Kovacs Eckstein, who is minister in charge of

national minority problems, has been chosen by the Hungarian

Democratic Federation of Romania as its mayoral candidate in

Cluj, Mediafax reported. Kovacs Eckstein said he is

"optimistic," though he does not believe he will be able to

defeat incumbent nationalist Mayor Gheorghe Funar. MS

[18] ROMANIAN STUDENTS EMULATE MOLDOVAN NEIGHBORS

students clashed in Iasi, capital of Moldavia, with police

forces on 19 April, Reuters reported. They were demanding

cheaper rail travel and higher tuition grants. A spokesman

for the demonstrators said the protest was not related to

demonstrations by peers in neighboring Moldova (see below),

but students in several Romanian cities marched in support of

their Moldovan colleagues and in protest against the clashes

there. MS

[19] MOLDOVAN PREMIER MEETS PROTESTING STUDENTS

Dumitru Braghis on 19 April met with representatives of the

students, who continued their protest in Chisinau for a third

day. He said the government had accepted their demand that

the free use of public transportation be restored "at least

until September," when scholarships are due to be increased

by 50 percent, RFE/RL's Chisinau bureau reported. Braghis

also said that the demonstrators included "provocateurs" who

had nothing to do with the students' demands and who incited

violence. Meanwhile, skirmishes between police and

demonstrators continued in central Chisinau, as students

demanded the liberation of their detained colleagues. The

authorities say all those detained had been set free.

Romanian Radio announced on 20 April that the students were

renewing their protests in the Moldovan capital. MS

[20] IMF SUSPENDS LENDING TO MOLDOVA

lending to Moldova because the parliament has rejected

legislation that would have allowed the privatization of the

country's wine and tobacco industries, AP reported on 19

April. Hassan al-Atrash, the IMF representative in Chisinau,

said the fund might reconsider its position by the end of the

year, but that its conditions for resuming lending will not

change. Premier Braghis one day earlier announced that the

government will not resign. He said on 19 April that the

IMF's decision will necessitate adjustments in the 2000

budget, which was drawn up on the assumption that the IMF and

other loans will finance a large part of the budget deficit.

MS

[21] BULGARIA SHATTERED BY CORRUPTION SCANDAL

Stoyanov on 19 April pledged to support Prime Minster Ivan

Kostov's struggle against corruption but urged him to act

decisively against corruption among senior officials.

Stoyanov's remarks came after governmental spokesman Mihail

Mihailov was forced to resign on 18 April after being accused

by a trade union leader of accepting a $10,000 bribe from a

businessman. Mihailov denies the charge and says he has

resigned to devote his time to clearing his name. Former

Interior Minister Bogomil Bonev, whom Kostov sacked in

December 1999, accused the premier of failing to react to his

ministry's reports on graft among top officials. The

opposition Socialist Party announced it will move a no-

confidence vote in the cabinet, Reuters and AP reported.

[22] BULGARIAN EU NEGOTIATOR SEES 2007 AS 'TARGET DATE'

on 19 April said his country will be ready to join the EU by

2007, but problems on both sides could stretch the

negotiations. In an interview with Reuters, Bozhkov said

Bulgaria must have "an internal timetable" to keep the

process "under necessary pressure," but added that even if

that succeeds, obstacles will still have to be surmounted.

Among those, he mentioned the need for the EU to revise its

agricultural policy by 2003. MS

[23] EU APPROVES LOAN FOR BULGARIA'S KOZLODUY

on 18 April approved a 212.5 million euro ($201.8 million)

loan to help Bulgaria upgrade two 1,000 megawatt reactors at

the Kozloduy nuclear plant, Reuters reported. Bulgaria agreed

to close down the four oldest 440-megawatt reactors at the

plant before starting accession talks with the EU last month.

The modernized reactors are to be shut down no later than

2006, according to the agreement with the EU. MS

[C] END NOTE

[24] BALKANS ON THEIR WAY TOWARD EUROPEAN INTEGRATION?

Over the last 10 years, the Western approach towards the

Balkans has changed dramatically from ignorance through

involvement to advocating integration. It now remains to be

seen whether the EU will follow through on bringing

Southeastern Europe into the structures increasingly

integrating the rest of the continent.

In the early 1990s, most Western countries failed to

appreciate that Yugoslavia was going through a process of

disintegration. The Western fear of setting a precedent for

the further disintegration of the former Soviet Union or

other post-communist countries came to shape public opinion--

and above all the views of many leaders--more than the

developments on the ground. The result was that many Western

governments failed to grasp what was going on in the Balkans

and on that they let their policies be heavily swayed by

domestic concerns.

It took the EU (then EC) over half a year after Yugoslav

President Slobodan Milosevic launched his wars in Slovenia

and Croatia--and a major refugee crisis--to understand that

Yugoslavia had ceased to exist, and to recognize the

independence of most of its former republics. But it took

different countries different lengths of time to draw the

consequences from the disintegration process and from the

wars.

After the shelling of Vukovar and Dubrovnik in 1991,

German and Austrian public opinion tended to be more friendly

to Croatia and Slovenia, partly because of the relatively

widespread perception that Belgrade had started the war.

Another factor was the appearance of hundreds of thousands of

refugees on the Germans' and Austrians' doorsteps, as well as

the long-standing contacts to the former Yugoslavia--thanks

to a large Yugoslav immigrant community and to Yugoslavia's

earlier popularity as a holiday destination--provided a

strong feeling of proximity and involvement.

But in other countries, such as Britain and France, it

took a change of the political generation and a change of

government to appreciate that the core problem of the Balkan

wars was Milosevic's lust for power. The change of attitude

was triggered by months of horrific television images and

press reports of the siege of Sarajevo and by the frustration

from being unable to stop ethnic cleansing and genocide.

After four years of fruitless negotiations under

international mediation, hundreds of broken ceasefires, and a

hostage crisis involving Serbs taking UN troops prisoner, the

1995 Dayton agreement marked a turning point in the

international approach. It showed that when dealing with

tough-minded Balkan politicians, a credible threat of force

can make them more reasonable.

Since Europe at the time was unable to conceive or carry

out such a policy and its own mediation efforts had failed,

the U.S. was crucial in bringing the Europeans together

behind a common strategy. The deployment of a NATO-led

international peacekeeping force that was able to enforce

peace marked the end of the Bosnian war.

The post-conflict situation proved to be a still more

complex matter. Even though the international community gave

large amounts of humanitarian and reconstruction assistance

to Bosnia, the country now faces a deep economic crisis,

triggered by protectionist policies, communist economic

legacies, and by an overwhelmingly non-transparent and often

corrupt bureaucracy.

The negotiation process leading to the February 1999

Rambouillet talks and the subsequent Kosova war clearly

marked the change of western policies towards the region.

Albeit under U.S. leadership, the European countries united

behind a common goal and strategy in a comparably short time.

After the war, Europe took charge of the largest part of the

reconstruction and institution-building effort.

Furthermore, the Kosova war gave the essential impulse

for a new regional approach on the part of the EU, aiming at

integrating all of Southeastern Europe. And the EU's envoy on

foreign and security policy, Javier Solana, is in charge of

shaping that policy.

To date, however, Solana has not been able to present

great results. The EU's main mechanism for the region is the

Stability Pact for Southeastern Europe under the chair of

Bodo Hombach. But the Stability Pact has no resources of its

own; it merely keeps the region on the EU's agenda. It also

can serve as a clearing house to promote cross-border

cooperation and infrastructure development. The key impulse

for integration must come, however, through the Stabilization

and Association agreements that the EU is currently

negotiating. With the exception of Bosnia-Herzegovina,

Serbia, Montenegro, and Kosova, all entities in the region

are involved in the process of concluding such agreements.

The negotiations with Macedonia are likely to conclude

by the end of this year. Talks with Croatia have just begun,

and the country will have to introduce austerity measures to

get the process going. Albania has some possibilities, and

two weeks ago presented a status report on its internal

reforms to the EU. If local elections scheduled for October

proceed peacefully, it is likely that Albania will start

negotiations by the end of the year. For Bosnia no such

agreement is in sight, because the leaderships of the two

entities have failed to agree on the joint implementation of

reforms.

Unlike many Central European and Baltic countries, these

new candidates will draw up action plans jointly with the EU.

Thus the countries will have clearer guidelines as to where

the reforms must be going and what they have to implement.

For its part, the EU will apply "conditionality" to the

integration process, which means that the process comes to a

halt if the candidates fail to deliver on their promises. But

the arrangement gives the candidates some security in not

being left alone or lacking guidelines for their policies.

But not only the candidates will have to deliver on

their promises--the EU must make good on its commitment to

integrating them. Even though the EU supports regional and

cross-border cooperation, many candidates will paradoxically

have to give up free-trade agreements that are not in line

with EU standards. (The agreements between the Czech Republic

and Slovakia are a case in point.) Indeed, the EU wants the

candidates to apply the "acquis communitaire"--the set of

rules and standards for EU integration--among themselves

already before integration.

The idea is that regional cooperation between candidates

should not cause problems during their subsequent EU

integration. But many such bilateral agreements--especially

where free trade in agricultural products is concerned--are

in contradiction to protectionist EU policies. A first step

in a more open direction, however, is the willingness of the

EU to unilaterally open its markets to industrial products

from these countries. The most important is probably textile

production, which makes up about 45 percent of Macedonia's

exports, for example.

In the end, the sincerity of the EU's approach to the

economically fragile states of Southeastern Europe will be

measured in how far it opens its markets and gives policy

guidelines in a spirit of sincere and open partnership.

The author is an analyst of Albanian and former Yugoslav

affairs at Munich's Suedost-Institut.

20-04-00

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

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