Read the Treaty Establishing the European Community (Rome, 25 March 1957) Read the Convention Relating to the Regime of the Straits (24 July 1923) Read the Convention Relating to the Regime of the Straits (24 July 1923)
HR-Net - Hellenic Resources Network Compact version
Today's Suggestion
Read The "Macedonian Question" (by Maria Nystazopoulou-Pelekidou)
HomeAbout HR-NetNewsWeb SitesDocumentsOnline HelpUsage InformationContact us
Thursday, 28 March 2024
 
News
  Latest News (All)
     From Greece
     From Cyprus
     From Europe
     From Balkans
     From Turkey
     From USA
  Announcements
  World Press
  News Archives
Web Sites
  Hosted
  Mirrored
  Interesting Nodes
Documents
  Special Topics
  Treaties, Conventions
  Constitutions
  U.S. Agencies
  Cyprus Problem
  Other
Services
  Personal NewsPaper
  Greek Fonts
  Tools
  F.A.Q.
 

RFE/RL Newsline, Vol. 4, No. 155, 00-08-14

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty: Newsline Directory - Previous Article - Next Article

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

RFE/RL NEWSLINE

Vol. 4, No. 155, 14 August 2000


CONTENTS

[A] TRANSCAUCASUS AND CENTRAL ASIA

  • [01] ARMENIAN PREMIER, WORLD BANK DISCUSS DELAYED LOANS
  • [02] ARMENIAN GENERAL QUITS AS LEADER OF NEW WAR VETERANS' UNION
  • [03] KARABAKH OFFICIALS DENY ENCLAVE USED FOR DRUGS TRANSIT
  • [04] AZERBAIJANI OPPOSITION AGAIN DEMANDS ELECTION LAW AMENDMENTS
  • [05] AZERBAIJANI POLICE DENY JOURNALISTS ACCESS TO DISPLACED
  • [06] ABDUCTED RED CROSS WORKERS RELEASED IN GEORGIA
  • [07] EXPLOSION DESTROYS MONUMENT TO ABKHAZ WRITER
  • [08] KAZAKHSTAN'S PRESIDENT 'SATISFIED' WITH MACRO-ECONOMIC
  • [09] UZBEK ISLAMISTS INVADE KYRGYZSTAN
  • [10] TWO MILITARY PHYSICIANS SHOT DEAD IN TAJIK CAPITAL

  • [B] SOUTHEASTERN EUROPE

  • [11] SERBIAN OPPOSITION CANDIDATE SEEKS 'THIRD PATH' BETWEEN
  • [12] ...CALLS FOR 'EUROPEAN' AID...
  • [13] ...CRITICIZES MONTENEGRIN LEADERS
  • [14] MONTENEGRIN PARTY LEADERS TO MEET
  • [15] SERBIAN OPPOSITION TO RUN CANDIDATES IN MONTENEGRO?
  • [16] MILOSEVIC ADOPTS NEW DEFENSE STRATEGY
  • [17] PEACEKEEPERS TAKE CONTROL OF MINING COMPLEX IN NORTHERN
  • [18] KOSOVA TO VOTE ON 28 OCTOBER
  • [19] SERBIAN RADIO IN MITROVICA REJECTS UN ORDER
  • [20] ROMANIA INVESTMENT FUND MANAGER ARRESTED
  • [21] TOP NATIONAL PEASANT PARTY OFFICIALS JOIN LIBERAL PARTY
  • [22] OSCE URGES CONFIDENCE-BUILDING BETWEEN MOLDOVA,
  • [23] MALFUNCTION LEADS TO TEMPORARY CLOSING OF BULGARIAN NUCLEAR
  • [24] BULGARIAN MINERS STRIKE FOR BACK WAGES

  • [C] END NOTE

  • [25] LEFT IN THE FILES

  • [A] TRANSCAUCASUS AND CENTRAL ASIA

    [01] ARMENIAN PREMIER, WORLD BANK DISCUSS DELAYED LOANS

    Andranik

    Markarian met with World Bank officials in Yerevan on 11

    August to discuss terms for the release by the bank of some

    $46 million in two structural adjustment credits intended to

    cover much of the anticipated budget deficit for this year,

    RFE/RL's bureau in the Armenian capital reported. The World

    Bank had earlier made disbursement of the two new tranches

    contingent on privatization of four energy distribution

    networks (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 15 May 2000). LF

    [02] ARMENIAN GENERAL QUITS AS LEADER OF NEW WAR VETERANS' UNION

    Major General Arkadii Ter-Tadevossian announced his decision

    to step down as head of the recently created Union of

    Veterans of the Liberation Struggle on 10 August, Noyan Tapan

    reported. That organization was established as a counterpart

    to the increasingly politicized Yerkrapah Union of Veterans

    of the Karabakh war (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 11 May 2000).

    Ter-Tadevossian said in a statement that while the new

    organization is already "fully fledged," he wishes to devote

    himself to other, unspecified activities. LF

    [03] KARABAKH OFFICIALS DENY ENCLAVE USED FOR DRUGS TRANSIT

    Bako

    Sahakian, who is interior minister of the unrecognized

    Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, has rejected allegations by

    Azerbaijani presidential apparatus official Ali Hasanov that

    the enclave is used for the transit of drugs from Asia to

    Europe, Noyan Tapan reported on 11 August. Hasanov blamed a

    100 percent increase in drug addiction in Azerbaijan over the

    last three years on the increased availability of drugs

    transiting Karabakh. Sahakian said that his ministry fully

    controls the situation in Karabakh. He affirmed his readiness

    to cooperate with the Azerbaijani central authorities to

    crack down on drugs smuggling. LF

    [04] AZERBAIJANI OPPOSITION AGAIN DEMANDS ELECTION LAW AMENDMENTS

    Between 1,000 and 5,000 people attended a government-

    sanctioned demonstration in Baku on 12 August demanding

    amendments to the election laws to ensure that the 5 November

    parliamentary poll is democratic and fair, ITAR-TASS and

    Turan reported. They also demanded changes to the election

    law of Azerbaijan's Nakhichevan Autonomous Republic that

    would allocate at least a number of seats in the exclave's

    new legislature under the proportional system (see "RFE./RL

    Newsline," 2 August 2000). Some members of the Islamic Party

    of Azerbaijan who attended the demonstration carried green

    banners, according to ITAR-TASS. Police confiscated portraits

    of imprisoned former Interior Minister Iskander Hamidov from

    rally participants. Speaking at a press conference in Baku

    the previous day, parliament secretariat head Safa Mirzoev

    said he does not consider necessary any changes to either the

    national or the Nakhichevan electoral laws. He termed the

    failure of the Nakhichevan election law to allocate any

    mandates under the proportional system "an internal affairs"

    of that republic. LF

    [05] AZERBAIJANI POLICE DENY JOURNALISTS ACCESS TO DISPLACED

    PERSONS' CAMP

    Police and local officials resorted to

    violence and insults to prevent six journalists representing

    non-government funded newspapers from entering a camp for

    displaced persons in Azerbaijan's southern Sabirabad Raion on

    11 August, Turan reported. The journalists were herded into a

    bus and driven to the raion border. LF

    [06] ABDUCTED RED CROSS WORKERS RELEASED IN GEORGIA

    The three Red

    Cross workers abducted in Georgia's Pankisi gorge on 4 August

    were released unharmed early on 13 August. Former Georgian

    parliamentary deputy Mamuka Areshidze, who negotiated with

    the abductors, said they had agreed to release their captives

    without any ransom payment in exchange for guarantees that

    the criminal case opened against them will be shelved,

    according to "The Independent" on 14 August. Georgian

    authorities have not disclosed the identity or nationality of

    the hostage-takers, but AP quoted Italian Ambassador to

    Georgia, Michelangelo Pipan as saying that they "were not

    Chechen rebels but in all probability common criminals." The

    persons responsible for two earlier abductions of UN

    observers in western Georgia have likewise never been

    identified or apprehended (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 15 October

    1999 and 6 June 2000). LF

    [07] EXPLOSION DESTROYS MONUMENT TO ABKHAZ WRITER

    A bomb

    destroyed the monument in Sukhum to Dmitri Gulia early on12

    August, Interfax and Caucasus Press reported. Gulia is

    regarded as the founder of modern Abkhaz literature. LF

    [08] KAZAKHSTAN'S PRESIDENT 'SATISFIED' WITH MACRO-ECONOMIC

    INDICATORS

    Nursultan Nazarbaev told a cabinet session in

    Astana on 11 August that "we should all be satisfied" with

    "unprecedented" high indicators for GDP growth and industrial

    output during the first half of the year, Interfax reported.

    Industrial output increased by 116.3 percent during that

    period compared with the first six months of 1999. Nazarbaev

    said that last year's devaluation of the tenge and "the

    successful work of the government" contributed to that

    upswing. He denied that any further cabinet reshuffle is

    imminent. As future priorities he singled out combating

    poverty and unemployment. He also warned against "reinventing

    the wheel" in drafting programs for medium- and long-term

    economic development, advocating close attention to the

    experience of Australia and Canada in substituting domestic

    production for imports. LF

    [09] UZBEK ISLAMISTS INVADE KYRGYZSTAN

    A detachment of

    approximately 100 Islamic insurgents invaded southern

    Kyrgyzstan's Batken Oblast on the morning of 11 August. Since

    then, at least 10 Kyrgyz troops and 30 of the militants have

    been killed in heavy fighting involving combat helicopters.

    Reuters on 13 August quoted a Kyrgyz Defense Ministry

    spokesman as saying that "the majority of the bandit groups

    have been destroyed." ITAR-TASS on 14 August quoted Kyrgyz

    presidential spokesman Osmonakun Ibraimov as saying that at

    this stage Bishkek will not ask its CIS allies for military

    assistance to fight the invaders. On 12 August, an Uzbek

    Defense Ministry official denied media reports that the

    country's armed forces had incurred "mass casualties"

    fighting the Islamists last week. On 11 August, General

    Amirqul Azimov, who is Tajik Security Council secretary,

    denied that the Islamists had entered Uzbekistan from Tajik

    territory, Asia Plus-Blitz reported. He also ruled out the

    possibility that they could reach Kyrgyzstan via Tajik

    territory. But the region of Kyrgyzstan where the current

    fighting is taking place is surrounded by Tajik territory and

    does not border on Uzbekistan. LF

    [10] TWO MILITARY PHYSICIANS SHOT DEAD IN TAJIK CAPITAL

    Two

    military doctors, one of them a woman, were shot dead in a

    residential district of Dushanbe on the night of 11 August,

    AP and ITAR-TASS reported the following day, citing the Tajik

    Interior Ministry. Police have not yet established the motive

    for the killings. LF


    [B] SOUTHEASTERN EUROPE

    [11] SERBIAN OPPOSITION CANDIDATE SEEKS 'THIRD PATH' BETWEEN

    MILOSEVIC, U.S....

    Vojislav Kostunica, who is the united

    opposition's candidate for the Yugoslav presidency in the 24

    September elections, said in Belgrade on 13 August that he

    does not want any help from the U.S. in his campaign against

    President Slobodan Milosevic. "Serbia and this unfortunate

    nation do not need any help coming from the White House. I do

    not want any kind of support that may serve as an excuse for

    any foreign intervention," Reuters reported. Kostunica added

    that he wants Serbia to follow what he called a "third path"

    between Milosevic and the U.S., which he described as "the

    two extremes...that are slowly tightening the noose around

    the neck of the Serbian opposition." He argued that

    Washington has been "evil" toward the Serbs, AP reported. PM

    [12] ...CALLS FOR 'EUROPEAN' AID...

    Kostunica stressed in Belgrade

    on 13 August that "our path must be the one where Serbia was

    born, namely Europe. We need...the kind of assistance that

    has been coming from Europe for some time, in the form of

    energy [and] asphalt..., the assistance that helps to ease

    life of people who suffer from sanctions and NATO bombing,"

    Reuters reported. Observers note that Milosevic and Vuk

    Draskovic's Serbian Renewal Movement (SPO) also place most of

    the blame for Serbia's problems on the U.S. and NATO rather

    than on mismanagement by Serbia's own elected authorities.

    Kostunica and many other nationalists seem to hope that the

    EU will soon return to providing generous trade benefits and

    credits, as Western countries did during much of the rule of

    Josip Broz Tito. PM

    [13] ...CRITICIZES MONTENEGRIN LEADERS

    Kostunica said in Belgrade

    on 13 August that he "will not be able to accept any help

    from the Montenegrin leaders [around President Milo

    Djukanovic] if they boycott the elections." Kostunica added

    that it would be "hypocrisy" for him to accept assistance

    from Djukanovic, whom he taunted for not taking part in the

    vote: "By boycotting the ballot, these parties help Milosevic

    out of fear that they might lose. They say they are

    democratic authorities. But a democratic leadership allows

    itself to be tested at the polls. If [a governing party] is

    strong, it will win," Reuters reported. Kostunica added,

    however, that he is prepared to stand aside as opposition

    presidential candidate in favor of "someone" from Montenegro

    if the Montenegrin leadership reverses its decision to

    boycott the ballot. PM

    [14] MONTENEGRIN PARTY LEADERS TO MEET

    Delegations from

    Djukanovic's Democratic Socialist Party and the opposition

    Socialist People's Party of Yugoslav Prime Minister Momir

    Bulatovic will meet on 17 August in Podgorica, Montena-fax

    news agency reported on 12 August. On the agenda will be a

    discussion of the general political situation in Montenegro

    and the need to maintain peace amid growing political

    tensions in the run-up to the federal elections. Djukanovic

    told representatives of the Montenegrin diaspora in Cetinje

    recently that he wants neither the elections nor internal

    strife, the Belgrade daily "Blic" reported on 14 August.

    Bulatovic and his supporters have said they will participate

    in the elections. Elsewhere, the authorities of some two-

    thirds of Montenegro's districts have informed the federal

    Election Commission that they will not hold elections in

    their respective districts on 24 September, Montena-fax

    reported on 12 August. PM

    [15] SERBIAN OPPOSITION TO RUN CANDIDATES IN MONTENEGRO?

    Leaders

    of the united opposition in the Alliance for Change are

    slated to meet in Belgrade on 14 August to decide whether to

    put forward lists of candidates in Montenegro, Democratic

    Party leader Zoran Djindjic told "Blic." The alliance hopes

    to win votes of Montenegrins opposed both to Milosevic and to

    the boycott. PM

    [16] MILOSEVIC ADOPTS NEW DEFENSE STRATEGY

    Meeting with top

    military leaders in Belgrade on 12 August, Milosevic

    announced the adoption of a "new defense strategy," "Vesti"

    reported. Serbian authorities provided few details about the

    doctrine. Reuters quoted political analyst Bratislav Grubacic

    in Belgrade as saying that Milosevic's announcement means

    that the military will be increasingly used against internal

    enemies. PM

    [17] PEACEKEEPERS TAKE CONTROL OF MINING COMPLEX IN NORTHERN

    KOSOVA

    In the early hours of 14 August, some 800 KFOR troops

    occupied the Serbian-run Trepca mining complex near Zvecan.

    The UN recently reported that levels of lead pollution and

    other forms of contamination from the plant have reached

    "very dangerous" levels (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 8 August

    2000). After the occupation of the mine, crowds of local

    Serbs threw stones at peacekeepers, AP reported. Unconfirmed

    reports suggest that some Serbian engineers inside the mine

    may have barricaded themselves in their offices. Bernard

    Kouchner, who is the UN's chief civilian administrator for

    Kosova, said: "As a doctor and as chief administrator..., I

    would be derelict if I let this threat to the health of

    children and pregnant women continue for one more day." PM

    [18] KOSOVA TO VOTE ON 28 OCTOBER

    Kouchner announced in Prishtina

    on 12 August that local elections will take place on 28

    October. He stressed that these will be the "first free,

    democratic and well-controlled elections" in the province's

    history," London's "The Times" reported. Observers note,

    however, that most Serbian voters refused to register for the

    poll. On 13 August, leaders of Ibrahim Rugova's Democratic

    League (LDK) of Kosova appealed to representatives of

    international organizations in Kosova to help end the recent

    wave of violence against its members (see "RFE/RL Newsline,"

    10 August 2000). The previous night, unknown persons threw a

    hand grenade into the Prizren home of a journalist close to

    the LDK, RFE/RL's South Slavic Service reported. PM

    [19] SERBIAN RADIO IN MITROVICA REJECTS UN ORDER

    A spokesman for

    the pro-Milosevic Radio S said in Mitrovica on 13 August that

    his station will continue to broadcast, despite an order from

    the UN civilian administration to cease transmissions. The

    spokesman said that he suspects that the UN is angry that his

    station has refused to broadcast UN announcements for the

    coming elections. Radio S often refers to UN peacekeepers as

    an "occupying force," Reuters reported on 13 August. PM

    [20] ROMANIA INVESTMENT FUND MANAGER ARRESTED

    Romanian police on

    10 August arrested Marian Petrescu, the manager of the SOV

    Invest company, which administers the collapsed National

    Investment Fund (FNI), Romanian media reported. Petrescu is

    accused of having committed fraud between 1997 and 1998 and

    issuing fictitious reports to the National Securities

    Commission on the number of FNI issues in circulation, thus

    inflating the value of the FNI shares. Police estimate the

    losses to FNI investors at 1,057 billion lei (some $47.4

    million). ZsM/PG

    [21] TOP NATIONAL PEASANT PARTY OFFICIALS JOIN LIBERAL PARTY

    Three leading National Peasant Party Christian Democratic

    (PNTCD) officials, expelled from that party on 9 August for

    their support of National Liberal Party (PNL) presidential

    candidate Teodor Stolojan, joined the PNL on 11 August,

    Romanian media reported on 12 August. Norica Nicolai, chair

    of the Economic and Social Council and the Labor Ministry's

    secretary of state, and Alexandru Ciocalteu, chairman of the

    National Health Insurance House, said they will not leave

    their current positions and accused the PNTCD leadership of

    dictatorial behavior. Former State Ownership Fund president

    and parliament deputy Sorin Dimitriu said he has nothing

    against the PNTCD leadership but added that he always

    believed "the only guarantee for the Romanian civilization's

    modernization is the liberal way." Another PNTCD expellee,

    Romanian Development Agency President Sorin Fodoreanu, has

    not yet expressed his party preference. ZsM

    [22] OSCE URGES CONFIDENCE-BUILDING BETWEEN MOLDOVA,

    TRANSDNIESTER

    The OSCE mission to Moldova released a

    statement on 11 August saying that Moldova and the breakaway

    Transdniester region should work on measures to build

    confidence, Infotag reported. The mission released the

    statement after the "Peacekeeper" newspaper, which is run by

    the joint control commission, refused to publish it. "Such an

    approach," the mission said, "violates the underlying

    principles of the freedom of speech and to all appearances

    resembles censorship." PG

    [23] MALFUNCTION LEADS TO TEMPORARY CLOSING OF BULGARIAN NUCLEAR

    REACTORS

    A failure of electrical equipment led to the

    temporary shutting down of two reactors at the controversial

    Kozloduy nuclear power plant on 12 August, BTA reported the

    following day. The plant is located 200 kilometers north of

    Sofia. Officials said the malfunction had not posed a threat

    to nuclear safety. Bulgaria has agreed to permanently shut

    down the two oldest of Kozloduy's six reactors in 2002, three

    years before their 30-year lifespan is to expire. PB

    [24] BULGARIAN MINERS STRIKE FOR BACK WAGES

    Miners at the Bobov

    Dol coal mine went on strike on 11 August to demand payment

    of their June and July salaries, Reuters reported. The Bobov

    Dol mine, 70 kilometers west of Sofia, is one of 10 mines

    being offered for privatization by the government. The

    average monthly wage there is the equivalent of $110. PB


    [C] END NOTE

    [25] LEFT IN THE FILES

    By Paul Goble

    A Polish court concluded last week that neither former

    Solidarity leader Lech Walesa nor President Aleksander

    Kwasniewski had collaborated with communist-era security

    services. Those findings highlight both the continuing impact

    of this aspect of the communist past and the enormous

    difficulties people in Eastern Europe have in overcoming it.

    Under the terms of a new Polish law that requires

    candidates for public office to declare whether they ever

    collaborated with the security services during the communist

    period, Walesa was forced to defend his reputation against

    charges that he had worked as an agent with the code name

    "Bolek." On 11 August, a special screening court concluded

    that documents suggesting that Walesa had done so had been

    planted in his files to discredit him when he was the leader

    of the anti-communist Solidarity movement. The decision came

    less than a day after the same court cleared current Polish

    President Kwasniewski of similar allegations.

    Had either man been found to have cooperated with the

    communist security services, despite his claims to the

    contrary, he would have been excluded from serving in any

    public office for a period of 10 years. Because of that

    possibility, many in Poland appear ready to make such charges

    to advance their own political agendas at the expense of

    someone else. Indeed, Walesa was very clear in expressing his

    disappointment that the screening process--which he had

    backed--had failed to convince everyone that he had not

    worked in some capacity with communist security agencies.

    The political use of such charges now is only one of

    many reasons people in these countries and abroad have argued

    against this or any other effort to expose senior communist

    officials and especially communist-era security officers so

    that they will not be able to subvert democratic efforts to

    overcome that past. Opponents of such efforts suggest that

    the communist-era secret police files are not an especially

    reliable source. Not only did secret policemen in communist

    times have an interest in claiming greater successes than

    they may have had, but on at least some occasions, they may

    have inserted false information in files to compromise

    people.

    The introduction of such fabrications likely became even

    more common at the end of the communist period in Eastern

    Europe. On the one hand, the secret police would have wanted

    to appear even more successful as things fell apart. And on

    the other hand, some of them may have been ordered by the

    Soviet KGB at the time to plant documents that could be used

    against democratic leaders in the future.

    Moreover, those who speak out against lustration

    frequently argue that any focus on the past will almost

    inevitably lead to witch hunts against innocent people and

    thus poison public attitudes at precisely the time that the

    stability of the countries involved is most at risk.

    And finally, opponents of lustration argue that such

    screenings fail to take into account the fact that people can

    and do change, that many who were swept up into the net of

    the communist-era security services had no real choice, and

    that what people should be most concerned about is the views

    of people in the present and future rather than their actions

    in the past.

    But despite these arguments, frequently made not only in

    Eastern Europe but in the West and in Russia as well, many

    people in that region believe that some effort at lustration

    is necessary for both practical and moral reasons. In

    practice, the supporters of the process Walesa and

    Kwasniewski went through often suggest that such efforts to

    expose those who did collaborate have the effect of calling

    attention to the fact that most people did not, even if

    others assume that they did.

    And morally, lustration of the Polish kind in particular

    does not so much punish individuals for their past action as

    allow Polish society to express clearly its abhorrence at the

    activities of the communist-era secret police and the

    communist past more generally. A rejection of that past, many

    in these countries argue, is absolutely essential if these

    societies are to be able to build a future not undermined by

    the past.

    As Walesa and Kwasniewski learned last week, such a

    process is almost inevitably awkward for individuals as well

    as the societies they live in. And given the high visibility

    of these two cases, Poles and others appear likely to have

    deal again with how to face the past and thereby overcome it.

    14-08-00


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


    Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty: Newsline Directory - Previous Article - Next Article
    Back to Top
    Copyright © 1995-2023 HR-Net (Hellenic Resources Network). An HRI Project.
    All Rights Reserved.

    HTML by the HR-Net Group / Hellenic Resources Institute, Inc.
    rferl2html v1.01 run on Monday, 14 August 2000 - 15:33:08 UTC