novine.1.bale.,
CROATS GIVE MUSLIMS ULTIMATUM
(from the Fargo Forum, Monday, Sept. 7, 1992 (Fargo, North Dakota))
Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP)
In another move pushing Bosnia toward partition, Croat forces broke with the
mainly Muslim Bosnian army Sunday and threatened to drive Muslim forces from
territory around Sarajevo.
The move appeared to further weaken the Bosnian governmnet , and it
tightened the vise on the Serb-besieged capital, where shelling resumed
Sunday night after a day of relative calm in the 6-month-old civil war.
There were no immediate reports of casualties. But for the 24-hour period
ending at noon Sunday, the Ministry of Health said 10 people had died and
118 were wounded across the republic. More than 8,000 people -- some
estimates say 35,000 -- have died since the war began.
Sarajevo's already desparate living conditions worsened when the Serbs cut
off the city's main reservoir. And presaging the long, hard winter to came,
teh first snow fell in the surrounding mountains.
Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic has called for a unified, independent
country. But Serbs and Croats have taken control of most of Bosnia since
the fighting broke out after a February referendum approved secession from
the Serb-dominated Yugoslavia.
Velimir Maric, president of the Croatian militia for Sarajevo, said Croatian
headquarters in Mostar, southwest of Sarajevo, had given the Bosnian
government until today to withdraw from six suburbs around Sarajevo.
"After the ultimatum expires we will use all available measures to liberate
Croatian territories," Maric told reporters in Stup, a western suburb
controlled by Croats. "That could imply a conflict."
"Lots of blood will be lost ending one state and lots of blood will be lost
creating one state," he said. "No one who lives in Bosnia-Herzegovina is a
Bosnian. They are Croats, Muslims, and Serbs. First of all, I am a Croat."
The six suburbs, most of whose populations are predominantly Croat, were
Stup, Bare, Azic, Otes, Dagladi and parts of Nedzarici, all communities
along the city's western front line.
Bosnian government forces are surrounded on all sides by Serb fighters, and
the government has relied on these suburbs for much of its fuel, weapons,
and food, which arrive via Croat-Serb cooperation.
Mustafa Hajrulahovic, commander of Bosnian forces in Sarajevo, reacted to
the Croat ultimatum by saying: "We have to live in one republic, which is
un-cantonized. If they don't agree with that, we will fight until we
liberate our territory."
Maric said he would not help the Bosnian army try to break the siege of
Sarajevo unless he received orders from his commander, Mate Boban -- the
leader of ethnic Croats in Bosnia and an ally of President Franjo tudjman of
Croatia.
Maric, a 40-year-old food inspector before the war, read from a statement on
stationary of the Croatian headquarters in Mostar.
================================================
Los Angeles Times
Saturday, September 5, 1992
by William D. Montalbano
Times Staff Writer
Rome---... U.N. officials in Bosnia-Herzegovina told reporters that witnesses
on the ground said they saw two missiles fired at the Italian 46th Air Brigade
aircraft, which Ando said was clearly marked with U.N. insignia.
Residents close to the crash site, which is near the town of
Jesenic, 20 miles west of Sarajevo, told the British news agency Reuters
on Friday that they saw one of the two rockets slamming into the plane
from the direction of Konjic, a town in Muslim-Croatian territory, although
the area south of it is held by Serbian militiamen.
"I was watching the plane flying past toward Sarajevo when two seconds
later two rockets homed in on it from behind without a sound," Zahrovic
Fohrudin said.
Added Dudic Esad, a local Muslim fighter: "One hit the plane in the
rear. A wing fell off, and the plane burst into flames. The other rocket
missed. The plane spun straight down to the ground."
Loggers Mato Javran and Anto Behrcic, interviewed by an Associated
Press reporter, told a similar story. They said they saw what looked like a
rocket hit the plane; a wing broke off, and the plane begin to spin before
suddenly droping out of the sky.
The United Nations halted all relief flights to Sarajevo after the
crash. Asked when they might resume, Mike Aitchinson, a U.N. official in
Zagreb, Croatia, said, "Maybe never."
The plane which had departed from Split, Croatia, fell in the heavily
wooded mountainous region where Serbian, Bosnian Croatian and Muslim
irregulars are skirmishing for control. Serbian irregulars told reporters
that Muslims were responsible for shooting it down. They speculated that
Muslim fighters had mistaken the Italian plane for one belonging to the
Yugoslav air force.
Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic, a Muslim, countered that "the
missiles came from area controlled by Serbs." He told reporters that the
United Nations should either provide military air escorts for future flights
or send troops to clear land corridors of heavy weapons and anti-aircraft
guns.
In Washington, the State Department said it had not yet received
official word about the cause of the crash.
... The Pentagon said Thursday that two of four U.S. helicopters
were fired upon, but not hit, as they helped search for the wreckage of the
Italian plane. On Friday, according to the Associated Press, the report was
modified: Pilots of two of the helicopters said they had seen flashes of
small-arms fire but could not be sure that shots had been fired at them.
But the Financial Times, a London newspaper, reported that a local
commander of the Croatian Defense Council admitted that his men had shot at
the helicopters.
...In an interview Friday with CNN, Acting Secretary of State,
Lawrence Eaglburger said that the helicopter incident illustrated the danger
of becoming more deeply involved in the Bosnian conflict.
That is "an example of the sort of thing I'am concerned about," he
said. "We need to recognize that there is a real distinction between trying
to assist in getting humanitarian aid into Sarajevo and getting engaged in
trying to make peace amongst the contending factions."
He said the limited role of providing and shielding humanitarian
assistance is the most appropriate one for the United States now.
Eaglburger said he would "hazard a guess...the plane was shot down."
"There are a lot of out-of-control people in the area," he said. "It
could have been anyone."
...In a speech to the Economics Club of Indianopolis that was
broadcast back to Pentagon, Cheney cited potential dangers to U.S. intervention
in th eregion, saying: "It doesn't strike me as the type of conflict in which
I am prepared to commit young Americans to combat."
...
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
[The rest of this article deals with the usual background information and
physical description of the site of the wreckage.]
================================================
CNN Headline News
Sunday, September 6, 1992
10pm PST
[Toria Tolley]
"...Ethnic turmoil in Yugoslavia gets even more divisive. Croats
announced today that their forces are separating from Bosnian forces which
are mainly Muslim. They also threaten to liberate some sections of Sarajevo
if Muslims do not pull out from there by Monday."
novine.2.bale.,
CNN Headline News
Wed, Sept 9, 1992
10am PST
Sarajevo--- ...French call yesterday's attack on relief convoy equivalent to
an act of war...
[Wounded French soldier]: "...You can't believe that we are here on
humanitarian and peace mission..."
[French general]: "...There was a fighting between the two sides. After one
phone call Serbian side stopped. Bosnians didn't..."
Two French soldiers were killed, more wounded.
...As another frustration for U.N. peacekeepers there was a delay in exchange
of prisoners. Serbian busses came, and their prisoners were waiting for
hours in the scorching heat...
[U.N. officer to Bosnian representative]: "...We will wait here two
more hours, then..."
Bosnian busses never came.
It could be seen that most of Serbian prisoners were victims of "ethnic
cleansing", women and children. There was just one bus with soldiers.
...Peace neogotiators in Geneva condemned the shooting incident... U.N. does
not feel secure even for its headquarter in Sarajevo... The time may be coming
when U.N. will not be able to perform its mission any longer..."
novine.3.bale.,
RFE/RL Daily Report 09 SEP, 1992
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 1992 14:03:48 +0100
Reply-To: rferl-daily-report-request@AdminA.RFERL.ORG
From: rferl-daily-report-request@admina.rferl.org
The RFE/RL Daily Report is a digest of lastest developments
in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. It is published
Monday through Friday (except German holidays) by the
RFE/RL Research Institute (a division of Radio Free Europe/
Radio Liberty, Inc.). Copyright 1992 RFE/RL, Inc.
- ----------------------------------------------------------------
F..................................................................M...........
M
RFE/RL DAILY REPORT
No. 173, September 9, 1992
SUCCESSOR STATES TO THE USSR
NATIONAL PATRIOTS DEMONSTRATE IN ST. PETERSBURG. "Social Security
for Workers," was the slogan under which the extreme nationalist
Russian Party held a meeting in St. Petersburg on 7 September,
Ostankino TV reported. The meeting was permitted by the mayor's
office. The demonstrators condemned Yeltsin's leadership as
"criminal and Zionist." The demonstrators also demanded the release
of the chief editor of the newspaper Narodnoe delo, who has been
arrested and charged with the dissemination of anti-Semitic
material. The "red-brown opposition" in Russia plans to hold mass
demonstrations on 15 September. The protests will reportedly
include the picketing of the St. Petersburg and Ostankino TV
centers. (Vera Tolz, RFE/RL Inc.)
ATTEMPT TO REVIVE CPSU AS MASS MOVEMENT. On 8 September, Pravda
published a draft program aimed at reviving the Communist Party as
a mass movement. The program said Communists should hold a
conference in Moscow next month. The program also called for a
"rebirth" of the Soviet Union and its return to socialist
development. It said state socialism experienced "crisis" in the
1970s, but it blamed the "mistakes" and the "treason" of Mikhail
Gorbachev and others for turning the USSR toward capitalism. (Vera
Tolz, RFE/RL Inc.)
EXPORT OF RUSSIAN OIL PRODUCTS HALTED. The major Russian exporter
of petroleum products, Rosnefteprodukt, has suspended deliveries to
Japan and Western Europe, Reuters reported on 8 September. An
official of the company explained that this happens most years
because of increased domestic demand during the harvesting campaign
and because of the need to ship oil to the Far North before rivers
froze. An aide to the Russian Energy Minister was quoted as saying
that shipments of crude oil were continuing. Aleksandr Shokhin,
the deputy prime minister for foreign economic relations, was
quoted by the Financial Times of 9 September as saying that the
government had "lost control" over state-owned oil exporters and
wanted to recentralize purchases in order to meet obligations to
foreign states. (Keith Bush, RFE/RL Inc.)
JAPAN AGAINST CHINESE PURCHASE OF EX-SOVIET CARRIER. Japanese Vice
Foreign Minister Koji Kakizawa on 7 September advised China not to
buy an ex-Soviet aircraft carrier under construction in Ukraine.
UPI quoted Kakizawa as warning that such a purchase would
destabilize the Asia-Pacific region. There have been persistent
rumors that China plans to buy the "Varyag," a sister ship of the
Russian Navy's "Admiral Kuznetsov," that was being fitted out in a
Ukrainian shipyard at Mykolaiv prior to the breakup of the Soviet
Union. The September edition of the "U.S. Naval Institute
Proceedings" says that the deal has been finalized, and that Russia
will provide twenty-two SU-27 fighters to equip the ship. (Doug
Clarke, RFE/RL Inc.)
FOUR CIS STATES WANT TO DISCUSS BORDER ISSUES WITH CHINA. Russia,
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan agreed on 8 September to
raise the issue of mutual troop reductions along their combined
8,000 kilometer border with China, as well as other border issues.
ITAR-TASS, which announced the agreement, said that it was reached
on the periphery of a meeting of CIS foreign ministers in Minsk.
The Russian and Chinese defense ministers discussed troop pullbacks
from their mutual border when they met in Moscow last month, but
failed to agree on how far back the troops should be withdrawn.
(Doug Clarke, RFE/RL Inc.)
KRAVCHUK CALLS FOR SPEEDY REFORMS. Ukrainian President Leonid
Kravchuk called for speedy implementation of economic reforms and
criticized political groups for engaging in polemics, Western news
agencies reported on 8 September. Kravchuk addressed a group of
cabinet ministers and other officials on the eve of the opening of
a new parliamentary session, saying that the time for political
rallies was over. At the same meeting, the new first deputy prime
minister, Valentyn Symonenko, outlined a new economic program
stressing "mass privatization." Symonenko argued that new
legislation was needed for the program to be successful. (Roman
Solchanyk, RFE/RL Inc.)
DISGRACED SHEVARDNADZE ASSOCIATE MAKES COMEBACK AS VICE PRESIDENT.
Soliko Khabeishvili, the former Georgian Communist Party Central
Committee secretary for industry, who was sentenced in the spring
of 1987 to 15 years' deprivation of freedom for allegedly accepting
75,000 rubles in bribes from three raikom first secretaries, is now
Georgia's vice president, according to Die Welt of 8 September.
Khabeishvili has been a close associate of Shevardnadze since the
late 1950s when both men were members of the Georgian Komsomol
Central Committee apparatus. (Liz Fuller, RFE/RL Inc.)
CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE
UN PEACEKEEPERS KILLED. International media report on 8 September
that two French peacekeepers were killed and at least two others
wounded in an attack on a UN convoy by as yet unknown assailants.
Bosnian Muslims and Serbs each accusing the other of the attack,
which UN observers say was clearly deliberate. The 35-vehicle
convoy originated in Belgrade and was delivering supplies to UN
peacekeeping forces in Sarajevo. The attack occurred near
Sarajevo's airport. Fighting throughout most of Bosnia-Herzegovina
continues. Cyrus Vance and Lord Owen, cochairmen of the
international peace conference on the former Yugoslavia are due in
Zagreb today to start a three-day official visit which will also
take them to Belgrade and Sarajevo. The envoys are seeking ways of
resuming humanitarian aid flights and are expected to press for
guarantees from the warring parties to stop the attacks on relief
efforts. Sarajevo officials say that the city's food supply will
run out on 10 September. (Milan Andrejevich, RFE/RL Inc.)
RIFT AMONG BOSNIAN SERBS? Radios Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia
report on 8 September that Bosnia's ministry of internal affairs
has obtained evidence of a rift between Bosnian Serb leader Radovan
Karadzic and Gen. Ratko Mladic, the commander of the Bosnian Serb
army. The document charges that Karadzic is applying a double
standard to the army: in the past month he has been praising the
army and emphasizing its successes publicly, while privately
working toward replacing Mladic and his inner circle. For their
part the Bosnian Serb military leadership is unhappy with
Karadzic's behavior and handling of policy, particularly over his
handing control of Serb artillery over to UN forces, which Mladic
feels is being done at an unsuitable time for the Serbian army.
Mladic believes that the army now has no chance of holding its
current positions and will suffer further setbacks, as in Gorazde.
(Milan Andrejevich, RFE/RL Inc.)
TENSE SITUATION IN THE SANDZAK. In a letter to the Geneva
conference on the former Yugoslavia, the Muslim Council of the
Sandzak says that about 70,000 Muslims have fled the region,
allegedly because of "Serbian military terror." Council president
Sulejman Ugljanin says that the Sandzak has been occupied by the
Serbian and Montenegrin army, which deployed 29,000 reserve troops
to the area between early February and June. According to Ugljanin,
the terror the Muslims are subjected to and the display of military
might and combat hardware have been stepped up since the London
conference in late August and show no sign of abating. The letter
states that 70 explosions have destroyed shops and properties owned
by Muslims in the Montenegrin towns of Pljevlja, Bijelo Polje, and
Priboj. The Sandzak is a region straddling the Serbia-Montenegro
border. Radio Croatia carried the report on 8 September. (Milan
Andrejevich, RFE/RL Inc.)
VOJVODINA HUNGARIANS PROTEST RESETTLEMENT. Janos Vekas, vice
president of the Democratic Union of Hungarians in Vojvodina, said
that by forcefully settling large numbers of Serbs in Vojvodina,
Hungarian-Serbian relations could be spoiled for a long period of
time. According to Vekas, each city in Vojvodina will have to make
room for some 4,000 Serbs, and citizens will have to take in the
refugees without compensation. The report was carried by Radio
Budapest on 8 September. (Judith Pataki, RFE/RL Inc.)
CZECH FOREIGN MINISTER ON FUTURE CZECH-SLOVAK RELATIONS. Speaking
to reporters in Prague on 8 September, Czech Foreign Minister Josef
Zieleniec said that the Czech Republic and Slovakia will exchange
ambassadors early next year. He also said that the priorities of
Czech foreign policy will remain the same as those of the
Czechoslovak foreign policy but that the Czech Republic will wield
less international influence and will scale down some of the
foreign policy projects initiated by former Czechoslovak Foreign
Minister Jiri Dienstbier. The Czech foreign minister further said
that attaining membership of the European Community, NATO, and West
European Union will be among the priorities. (Jiri Pehe, RFE/RL
Inc.)
KLAUS REJECTS CZECH-SLOVAK DEFENSE UNION. Speaking on Czech Radio
on 8 September, Czech Prime Minister Vaclav Klaus ruled out the
possibility that the Czech Republic and Slovakia could form a
defense union or have a common army after 1 January 1993, when
Czechoslovakia is to split into two independent states. Klaus said
that there exists a strong army lobby in Czechoslovakia, consisting
of generals and high officers who would like to preserve a federal
arrangement for the army even after the breakup of Czechoslovakia.
Klaus rejected such a scenario but said that, in physical terms, it
may not be possible to separate the Czech and Slovak parts of the
army completely before 1 January 1993. (Jiri Pehe, RFE/RL Inc.)
POLISH GOVERNMENT FIRM ON STRIKES. Reviewing the strike scene on 8
September, the Polish cabinet restated its basic principles of
action. In a statement issued after the meeting, the government
reminded the public that Polish law does not permit the payment of
wages for strike days; that strikers' pay demands cannot be
addressed to the government, which is not a party to wage talks;
and that the government will do everything in its power to ensure
that no pay increases result from current strikes. Responding to
the proliferation of strike "mediators," the government stressed
that all official talks with unions must have the labor ministry's
approval and that no agreements will be reached with parties or
parliamentarians. Meanwhile, President Lech Walesa met with Maciej
Jankowski, leader of Solidarity's radical Warsaw region, to discuss
his idea of a "confederation of reformist forces." (Louisa Vinton,
RFE/RL Inc.)
ROMANIAN MINERS HOLD PROTEST RALLY. On 8 September some 1,500
miners from Cluj County took part in a protest rally in the city of
Cluj. The rally, which was also attended by delegations from other
regions, including Maramures, Moldova, and the Banat, demanded
state subsidies for the mining industry, cash payments to
compensate for recent subsidy cuts in prices for staples and
services, and adequate social protection. Radio Bucharest quoted
Eugen Tamas, president of the Federation of Romania's Mining Trade
Unions, as saying that 90% of union members favor a strike if
demands are not met by the authorities. (Dan Ionescu, RFE/RL Inc.)
"KING OF ALL GYPSIES" CROWNED IN ROMANIA. Ion Cioaba, self-styled
King of all Gypsies, was crowned on 8 September at the Bistrita
Monastery in Oltenia. Radio Bucharest reports that thousands of
Gypsies cheered as a priest laid a two-and-a-half-kg Swiss-made
golden crown on his head. The 57-year-old Cioaba swore to fight to
overturn centuries of contempt for Gypsies. Rival Gypsy groups that
do not recognize Cioaba as a leader and accuse him of collaboration
with Nicolae Ceausescu's regime protested the ceremony. According
to the last census, taken in January, 410,000 Gypsies live in
Romania, but Gypsy leaders maintain the figure is much higher. (Dan
Ionescu, RFE/RL Inc.)
[As of 1200 CET]
Compiled by Hal Kosiba & Charles Trumbull
(END)
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novine.4.bale.,
UPI NEWS ---
Subject: French say gunfire against soldiers came from Bosnian zone
Subject: Conflicting versions of U.N. convoy incident
Subject: Bosnian Serb leader claims artillery ready for U.N. supervision
Subject: The prisoner exchange that wasn't
Subject: Attack on U.N. convoy called 'cold-blooded murder'
Subject: Fischer and Spassky started game five of rematch
Subject: U.N. says all sides violate human rights in Bosnia-Hercegovina
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: French say gunfire against soldiers came from Bosnian zone
Date: 9 Sep 92 09:59:44 GMT
PARIS (UPI) -- The French Defense Ministry Wednesday said machine-gun
fire that killed two French United Nations peacekeeping troops near the
Sarajevo airport came from a zone held by Bosnian forces.
``The logistic convoy coming from Belgrade was hit by light-infantry
fire and grenades as it entered a zone held by Bosnian forces south of
the Sarajevo airport,'' a ministry statement said.
The statement labeled the two dead soldiers ``victims of a deliberate
attack, and of a manifest provocation by persons wanting to make war,
and who are enormously bothered by the prospects of peace.''
Military officers on the scene said Tuesday's attack appeared
deliberate, because it lasted for about five minutes.
The slain troops, identified as Frederic Vaudet, 28, and Eric Marot,
21, died from bullet wounds to the head, even though they wore
protective United Nations blue helmets, the ministry said.
Three other French soldiers suffered slight injuries in the attack.
The latest bloodshed raised the total number of U.N. peacekeepers
killed in Sarajevo to four. Some 46 other U.N. soldiers have also been
injured.
Last week, four Italian pilots also died when someone shot down their
relief plane as it approached Sarajevo airport.
Italian authorities initially claimed the craft had been deliberately
targeted by Serbian forces, who allegedly fired two surface-to-air
missiles at it.
But Wednesday, the British Broadcasting Corp. reported officials now
speculate the plane might have flown into the middle of a fight between
Serbian and Bosnian forces.
In the wake of the tragedy, U.N. officials in Sarajevo said they
considered a resumption of humanitarian flights unlikely in the
foreseeable future.
On Tuesday, U.N. Secretary General Butros Ghali said he agreed ``in
principle'' with the idea of providing military air support for
humanitarian flights, but said such a step would require a U.N. Security
Council resolution.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Conflicting versions of U.N. convoy incident
Date: 9 Sep 92 16:10:17 GMT
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Hercegovina (UPI) -- The U.N. military commander in
Sarajevo insisted Wednesday that Bosnian fighters shot dead two French
troops and wounded five others in a U.N. supply convoy. But witnesses
said the unprotected column drove directly into a pitched battle.
The conflicting versions surfaced a day after the incident occurred
on the edge of Sarajevo airport, a U.N.-controlled island set amid
shifting battlefields on the western fringe of the Bosnia-Hercegovina
capital.
Both versions agreed that fierce fighting had been raging outside the
airport for three days, with predominantly Muslim Slav Bosnian forces
pressingan attac from the suburb of Butmir against the Serb-held
settlement of Lukavica.
Egyptian Brig. Gen. Hussein Abdel Razek, the Sarajevo sector
commander of the U.N. Protection Force (UNPROFOR), contended a cease-
fire had been in effect for 20 minutes before the U.N. convoy began
moving from Lukavica into the airport complex at about 7:20 p.m.
Tuesday.
But, witnesses, including French soldiers aboard the convoy, said it
drove directly into raging crossfire between Bosnian units and fighters
belonging to Serbian forces seeking to carve a self-declared state out
of Bosnia-Hercegovina.
``We drove straight into a firefight. The range was very close, about
10 meters,'' said one of the French soldiers interviewed at the U.N.-
controlled airport. ``There was no time to fire back.''
Razek said gunfire fire was loosed by ``uncontrolled elements'' at
three trucks of the column as it moved into the airport complex.
``It was very clear that the fire came from the Bosnian side,'' Razek
told a news conference. ``It was just one or two persons on the ground
who were involved.''
``The accident resulted in two French soldiers being killed and five
were wounded,'' said Razek.
Razek, however, then became unsure of certain details of the incident
and contradicted himself on several key points.
He asserted that the head and tail of the convoy were each protected
by ``two or three'' armored personnel carriers dispatched from UNPROFOR
headquarters.
But U.N. sources and witnesses said there were no armored cars, a
breach of standing UNPROFOR orders that require them to be sent to
accompany all U.N. convoys entering war-torn Sarajevo.
Razek denied witness reports that at least one mortar round was
loosed at the convoy.
He said he supported the French convoy commander's decision to
proceed to the airport despite the dangerous conditions.
``I agree with this judgement. The light was enough for anybody to
recognize and identify the trucks and the shots came from a very short
distance...not less than 100 meters, maybe less,'' he said.
Later, however, Razek said: ``If the story (of fierce fighting) had
come to my ear a little earlier, I wouldn't have allowed the convoy to
proceed to the airport unless both sides could withdraw their elements a
proper distance from the road.''
Razek said he received assurances at a meeting with senior Bosnian
officials that they would investigate the incident.
Officials of the U.N. High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) were among
those who said that the clashes were still raging when the convoy
entered the airport complex.
``There was an intense battle going on and they (the convoy) tried to
cross the runway. The battle was so intense before they arrived that we
had gone to shelters,'' said Dag Espeland, the chief UNHCR logistics
officer based at the airport.
``I asked myself why they came in,'' he said.
In Zagreb, Croatia, Cyrus Vance, co-chairman of the ongoing
Yugoslavia peace conference, called the killing of two U.N. peacekeepers
``plain cold-blooded murder.''
``It simply cannot be tolerated,'' said Vance, who is touring the
region for talks with leaders of the warring factions.
Serbian forces beseiging Sarajevo and Bosnian defense units clash
almost daily in seesaw contests for control of several townhouse and
apartment colonies located right on the airport boundaries.
Bosnian Vice President Ejup Ganic said the goverment's information
also was that the U.N. vehicles drove into a firefight, and he
indirectly criticized UNPROFOR for not taking better precautions.
``We are very sorry for those two soldiers...but one should try to
program things more carefully. We always asked UNPROFOR people not to
travel at night. We always asked them to avoid direct fights,'' said
Ganic.
The French convoy bearing food, fuel and water was completing a
regular weekly supply run from Belgrade to the U.N. headquarters on the
western fringe of the embattled Bosnia-Hercegovina capital.
The two dead French soldiers were the first fatalities of the 800-
member French army contingent of UNPROFOR, which is assigned to
protecting the airport and U.N. humanitarian aid operations in and
around Sarajevo.
The incident brought UNPROFOR's overall casualties in Sarajevo since
May to at least four dead and 46 injured. The previous casualties have
all been blamed on attacks against UNPROFOR by the warring factions.
Last week, U.N. Under-Secretary Marrack Goulding, the head of the
United Nation's peace-keeping operations, warned that UNPROFOR could be
withdrawn from the war-ravaged city because of the high casualty rate.
The latest incident, however, did not affect U.N. humanitarian aid
distribution convoys, said Izumi Nakamitsu, the head of the UNHCR's
Sarajevo operations.
``We are not going to stop,'' she said, adding that cooperation
between the agency and the warring factions was increasing and raising
``the level of confidence.''
She said that the week-old suspension in the U.N.-supervised
humanitarian airlift did not threaten the estimated 500,000 people
blockaded in Sarajevo as the size of UNHCR truck convoys was being
increased.
By Friday, she said, daily convoys would be arriving with 180 tons of
food and medicines from Croatia's Adriatic port city of Split. The
amount is only 20 tons less than what the airlift was providing each
day.
The airlift was suspended after an Italian cargo plane crashed last
Thursday en route to Sarajevo with humanitarian supplies, possibly
because it was hit by missiles. Four Italian crewmembers were killed.
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Subject: Bosnian Serb leader claims artillery ready for U.N. supervision
Date: 9 Sep 92 13:58:02 GMT
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (UPI) -- Radovan Karadzic, the leader of Serbian
guerrillas in Bosnia-Hercegovina, said Wednesday his forces' artillery
would be placed under U.N. supervision before the Saturday deadline.
``At midday today (Wednesday), U.N. observers should be placed on all
Serbian positions around Sarajevo, and tomorrow (Thursday) morning they
will come to positions around Bihac and Jajce. In this way we have
permitted the supervision of our artillery two days before the deadline,
'' Karadzic said.
Karadzic, the self-styled president of a self-declared Serbian state
in newly independent Bosnia-Hercegovina, said he would have talks with
Cyrus Vance and Lord David Owen, the co-chairmen of the Geneva peace
talks on former Yugoslavia, in a Serbian stronghold near Sarajevo
Thursday.
Vance and Owen have given Karadzic's forces until Saturday to place
under U.N. supervision the heavy weaponry in areas surrounding the
Bosnia capital of Sarajevo, and the towns of Bihac and Jajce.
Karadzic said he was ready to make ``territorial concessions'' to the
Bosnia-Hercegovina authorities, but only after the ongoing war ceases.
The Bosnia-Hercegovina government is mostly made up of Muslim Slavs
but also includes moderate Croats and Serbs.
Karadzic's guerrillas have captured about 70 percent of the
republic's territory although Serbs comprise only 32 percent of the
population of 4.4 million.
Addressing reporters at a Belgrade hotel, he said he may negotiate
giving back anything between ``one to 20 percent'' of the territory.
Referring to the predominantly Muslim Slav city of Sarajevo, Karadzic
said the whole of the capital is ``on the land that is in possession of
Serbs.''
``A large part of Sarajevo will go to the Serbs...the old part of the
city would be given to the Muslims, while a part in which Croats live
would be an extra-territorial section,'' Karadzic said. He did not
elaborate any further.
Karadzic reiterated his stand that Bosnia-Hercegovina should be
divided into Swiss-style ``ethnic districts.''
A Serbian land-grab campaign, to carve out a self-declared Serbian
republic and attach it to neighboring Serbia, began late in March,
before the former central Yugoslav republic's independence was
internationally recognized early in April.
Bosnia-Hercegovina's population is comprised of 1.9 million Muslim
Slavs, 1.4 million Christian Orthodox Serbs and 750,000 Roman Catholic
Croats.
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Subject: The prisoner exchange that wasn't
Date: 9 Sep 92 17:49:27 GMT
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Hercegovina (UPI) -- This is a tale of arms and men,
the evils of drink and of more than 900 people who disappeared in the
prisoner exchange that wasn't.
It is also the story of a stolid Royal Canadian Mounted Police
sergeant from Winnipeg who tried to make it happen, but learned that in
the Balkans, things rarely come off the way one hopes.
``I respect these people here, but I don't respect their ability to
organize things,'' said Sgt. Jim Hull, the commander of the civilian
police unit of the U.N. Protection Force in Sarajevo.
U.N. police and troops Tuesday set out to oversee a swap of 470
Serbian and Bosnian war prisoners in Kobiljaca, a town wedged between
Serbian and Croatian lines, 15 miles northwest of Sarajevo.
The swap was agreed by the warring factions for 1 p.m. It began with
U.N. personnel escorting two buses of Bosnian captives from the Serb-run
prison of Kula, outside Sarajevo.
Things began going awry immediately.
The convoy arrived in Koblijaca an hour late because it was held up
at a Serbian checkpoint and forced to pick up more prisoners.
In Kobiljaca, U.N. personnel found seven more buses of Bosnian
captives, said Hull. ``These nine buses were later joined by two more
buses containing alleged prisoners.''
Hull said the U.N. unit was then told by negotiators of the two sides
that the exchange had grown, with 462 Bosnians to be swapped for 454
Serbs -- who had still not arrived.
U.N. officers waited three and a-half hours for the Bosnian side to
deliver the Serbian prisoners. During that time, they noticed ``the
Serbian military presence in the area appeared to increase and the
indulgence of alcoholic beverages was clearly evident,'' Hull said.
A U.N. armored car was sent to find the Serbian prisoners, who were
discovered 8 miles away in six buses. The buses were escorted by the U.
N. vehicle to within less than a mile of Kobiljaca, where they were
stopped at a Croatian checkpoint.
An argument erupted between the Bosnian negotiators and the Croatian
commander that soon embroiled bystanders, Hull said.
``It was learned that Croatian military were justifiably concerned
about the presence of many armed Bosnian soldiers who had come with the
convoy,'' he explained. ``This in all probability could have caused an
armed confrontation (with the Serbs).''
U.N. personnel also objected to the Bosnian soldiers. But, unable to
resolve the dispute and growing anxious because of the approaching dark,
the U.N. unit tried to coax the convoy to move by proceeding through the
checkpoint.
Only one bus followed, but ``broke down...and had to be left behind,''
Hull said.
The U.N. unit continued into Kobiljaca, where ``it was quite apparent
that tension was mounting among everyone present,'' he said.
``With this in mind and the fact that the liquor being consummed
during the day was now showing undesirable effects on the Serbian
soldiers and civilians present,'' the U.N. contingent abandoned the
exchange, Hull explained.
The prisoners were left with their captors and ``we have no idea
where they are,'' said Hull.
That, however, was not the end of the story.
More than seven hours after leaving Kula, the four-vehicle U.N. unit
set out to return to Sarajevo, but was forced to stop for about two more
hours at a Serbian checkpoint.
Hull said the halt resulted because a Serbian police chief wanted to
arrest the Bosnian prisoner exchange negotiators accompanying the U.N.
personnel back to Sarajevo.
The U.N. officers refused to surrender the Bosnians, and after
``cooler heads prevailed,'' the convoy was allowed to continue, Hull
said.
Despite the farcical nature of the incident, Hull was not amused.
``We, under the circumstances, don't find it very comical,'' he said.
``This is too deadly a situation...to be messing around.''
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Subject: Attack on U.N. convoy called 'cold-blooded murder'
Date: 9 Sep 92 18:17:31 GMT
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Hercegovina (UPI) -- Mediators working to negotiate
peace among the Yugoslav republics arrived in the region to assess the
chances for progress Wednesday amid continuing confusion over who was
responsible for an attack on a U.N. convoy that killed two French
soldiers and wounded five.
Arriving in the Croatian capital of Zagreb, peace conference co-
chairman and former U.S. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance sharply
condemned the attack on the convoy Tuesday night, describing it as
``plain cold-blooded murder'' and saying those responsible should be
brought to justice.
Conflicting accounts continued to cloud the incident, which took
place on the edge of Sarajevo airport, a U.N.-controlled island set amid
shifting battlefields on the western fringe of the capital of Bosnia-
Hercegovina.
A U.N. military commander insisted Wednesday that Bosnian fighters
deliberately attacked the unprotected U.N. supply convoy, killing two
French troops and wounding five others, but witnesses said the column
accidentally drove into a pitched battle between Serbs and Bosnians.
Both versions agreed fierce fighting had been raging outside the
airport for three days, with predominantly Muslim Slav Bosnian forces
pressing an attack from the suburb of Butmir against the Serb-held
settlement of Lukavica.
Speaking upon his arrival in Zagreb, Vance acknowledged it was
difficult to know who was to blame for the incident, but he sharply
condemned the attack.
``It simply cannot be tolerated,'' Vance said. ``People who commit
those kinds of cold-blooded crimes will be apprehended if it is possible
to do so and submitted to the courts and be given the penalties...that
such cold-blooded crimes deserve.''
Vance and peace conference co-chairman David Owen were in the region
to meet with leaders of the warring factions to try to secure
humanitarian relief flights and land convoys into war-torn Bosnia-
Hercegovina.
A key issue is the interrupted airlift, still in abeyance following
the crash last week of an Italian Air Force plane on U.N. service, Vance
said. Four airmen were killed in the plane that possibly was shot down
by missiles.
Another major issue was the Vance-Owen demand that Yugoslav army-
supplied Serbian heavy artilllery be concentrated in U.N.-monitored
locations by Saturday.
Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic set for himself a deadline for
concentrating the weapons by Thursday, when he expected to meet Vance
and Owen in a Serbian stronghold near Sarejevo.
In Belgrade, Karadzic also told reporters Wednesday he may negotiate
giving back ``one to 20 percent'' of the Bosnian territory captured by
the Serbs who are trying to carve an separate nation out of the newly
independent republic.
Brig. Gen. Hussein Abdel Razek, commander of the Sarajevo sector of
the U.N. Protection Force, doubted Karadzic could meet his self-imposed
deadline.
``I know there are some difficulties with their local commanders,''
Razek told a news conference. ``Our senior military observers are
working with them (the Serbs) to sort out all their difficulties.''
Referring to the fatal attack on the U.N. convoy, Razek said gunfire
was loosed by ``uncontrolled elements'' at three trucks of the column as
it moved into the airport complex.
``It was very clear that the fire came from the Bosnian side,'' he
said. ``It was just one or two persons on the ground who were involved.''
Razek said a cease-fire had been in effect for 20 minutes before the
convoy began moving from Lukavica into the airport complex Tuesday
evening.
But witnesses, including French soldiers in the convoy, said it
accidentally drove into a raging battle between Bosnians and Serbs.
``We drove straight into a firefight. The range was very close, about
10 meters,'' said one of the soldiers at the U.N.-controlled airport.
``There was no time to fire back.''
Razek said he received assurances from senior Bosnian officials they
would investigate the incident.
Officials of the U.N. High Commission for Refugees also said a fight
was raging when the convoy entered the airport complex.
``There was an intense battle going on and they (the convoy) tried to
cross the runway. The battle was so intense before they arrived that we
had gone to shelters,'' said Dag Espeland, chief UNHCR logistics officer
at the airport.
``I asked myself why they came in,'' he said.
Bosnian Vice President Ejup Ganic said the goverment's information
also was the U.N. vehicles drove into a firefight.
``We are very sorry for those two soldiers ... but one should try to
program things more carefully,'' Ganic said. ``We always asked UNPROFOR
people not to travel at night. We always asked them to avoid direct
fights.''
The French convoy bearing food, fuel and water was completing a
regular weekly supply run from Belgrade to the U.N. headquarters on the
western fringe of the embattled Bosnia-Hercegovina capital.
The dead soldiers were the first fatalities of the 800-member French
army contingent of UNPROFOR, which is assigned to protecting the airport
and U.N. humanitarian aid operations in and around Sarajevo.
The incident brought UNPROFOR's overall casualties in Sarajevo since
May to at least four dead and 46 wounded. The previous casualties all
have been blamed on attacks against UNPROFOR by the warring factions.
Last week, U.N. Under-Secretary Marrack Goulding, head of the United
Nation's peace-keeping operations, warned UNPROFOR could be withdrawn
from Sarajevo because of the high casualty rate.
The latest incident would not affect humanitarian aid convoys, said
Izumi Nakamitsu, head of the UNHCR's Sarajevo operations.
``We are not going to stop,'' she said, adding cooperation between
the agency and the warring factions was increasing and raising ``the
level of confidence.''
She said the week-old suspension in the U.N.-supervised humanitarian
airlift did not threaten the estimated 500,000 people blockaded in
Sarajevo as the size of UNHCR truck convoys was being increased.
By Friday, she said, daily convoys would be arriving with 180 tons of
food and medicines from Croatia's Adriatic port city of Split. The
amount is only 20 tons less than what the airlift was providing each
day.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Fischer and Spassky started game five of rematch
Date: 9 Sep 92 19:00:11 GMT
PRZNO, Yugoslavia (UPI) -- Former world chess champion Bobby Fischer
and his longtime rival, former Soviet grandmaster Boris Spassky, started
the fifth game of their controversial re-match Wednesday after a two-day
break.
Fischer is playing white in the game that started 3:30 p.m. in the
Maestral Hotel in Przno, near the plush Montenegrin resort of Sveti
Stefan in the southern Adriatic.
Fischer played the classical Ruy Lopez opening -- the same one he used
in game three -- and after the first 20 moves experts said Fischer
appeared to have a slight advantage.
``I am satisfied with this opening,'' said Fischer's second, Spanish
grandmaster Eugenio Torre.
``Fischer prepared well for this game, and the fight will be very
long and interesting,'' Torre added.
Spassky, now a naturalized French citizen, defeated Fischer in a
previous game Sunday. Monday and Tuesday were days off.
The match will continue until one of the longtime rivals achieves ten
victories. The result by now is 1:1, with Fischer winning the first game
and Spassky the fourth. Games two and three were draws. Under the
scoring system demanded by Fischer, drawn games are not counted in
scoring.
Fischer still demands to be called ``the chess champion of the world''
even though he went into seclusion shortly after earning that title and
has avoided public life and chess competition for the past 20 years.
Fischer became the world chess champion after defeating Spassky for
the title in the 1972 championship in Reykjevik, Iceland. He was
stripped of the honor a few years later after refusing to play Soviet
grandmaster Anatoly Karpov under the World Chess Federation rules.
Fischer, 49, is also in a deep trouble with the U.S. Treasury
Department, which said the match with Spassky would violate U.N.
sanctions against the new Yugoslav federation of Serbia and Montenegro.
The U.N. sanctions ban all financial and economical transactions with
two republics because of their involvement in the war against
neighboring Bosnia-Hercegovina.
Fischer publicly spat on the Treasury's cease-and-desist order at a
news conference Sept. 1 on the eve of the first game. He could face a
fine of up to $250,000 and a maximum 10 years in prison for defying the
order.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: U.N. says all sides violate human rights in Bosnia-Hercegovina
Date: 9 Sep 92 18:03:14 GMT
UNITED NATIONS (UPI) -- A U.N. human rights investigator charged
Wednesday that all warring parties in Bosnia-Hercegovina have committed
grave violations and proposed that peacekeeping troops be deployed to
cover the whole Balkan republic.
Former Polish Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki warned that there is
a ``real possibility'' that violence involved in the Serb-led so-called
``ethnic cleansing'' activities will spread to Kosovo, Sandzak and
Vojvodina, the other ethnic regions in the former Yugoslavia.
Mazowiecki, appointed by the U.N. Commission on Human Rights in
Geneva, visited Bosnia-Hercegovina last month to investigate allegations
of mass execution of Muslims and Croats by Serbian forces in their drive
to claim large chunks of the republic's territory.
The investigator said his visits were limited by time and his
assessments were a ``diagnosis'' of the main problems existing in that
country with three distinct ethnic populations embroiled in a five-
month-old civil war.
``Massive and grave violations of human rights are occurring
throughout the territory of Bosnia-Hercegovina,'' Mazowiecki said in a
report to the U.N. Security Council.
``Human rights violations are perpetrated by all parties to the
conflicts,'' he said. ``There are also victims on all sides. However,
the situation of the Muslim population is particularly tragic: they feel
that they are threatened with extermination.''
Mazowiecki said he has obtained ``credible evidence'' that Muslims
and Croats were subjected to the ethnic cleansing campaign in both
Bosnia-Hercegovina and Croatia. But on the other hand, Serbs in Croatia
have been also discriminated against, harrassed and maltreated and the
importance of human rights violations there cannot be underestimated.
``There is credible evidence that some prisoners have died of torture
and mistreatment in both Croatia and the various parts of Bosnia-
Hercegovina, and at the present stage of this investigation it cannot be
ruled out that executions may have been carried out systematically in
other regions,'' he said.
But he said allegations of systematic execution of Muslims and Croats
by Serbs in detention camps have been ``proven false'' by ``humanitarian
bodies'' in the Yugoslav territories.
Mazowiecki proposed that the Security Council expand the mandate of
the U.N. Protection Force in Croatia to cover the whole territory of
Bosnia-Hercegovina. The 14,000-strong U.N. peace force was set up
earlier this year to put an end to the civil war in Croatia, but its
troops were called to provide security to the Sarajevo airport and to
escort humanitarian convoys.
At the U.N. headquarters in New York, the death of two French
peacekeeping soldiers south of Sarajevo Tuesday was strongly deplored by
Secretary-General Boutros Ghali. France has also asked the Security
Council to meet urgently Wednesday to discuss the incident, which
occurred after a U.N. food convoy was reportedly ambushed.
U.N. spokesman Francois Giuliani said the United Nations has ordered
an investigation on the incident. He said Ghali may present next week a
plan to increase the strength of the U.N. peace force in Bosnia-
Hercegovina in order to deal with the war situation in that republic.
novine.5.bale.,
RFE/RL DAILY REPORT
No. 174, September 10, 1992
SUCCESSOR STATES TO THE USSR
YELTSIN ABRUPTLY CALLS OFF JAPAN VISIT. On 9 September, Russian
President Boris Yeltsin indefinitely postponed his long-planned
visit to Japan just four days before it was scheduled to begin.
Japanese Foreign Minister Michio Watanabe would not confirm whether
or not Yeltsin's decision stemmed from Japan's refusal to provide
large-scale economic aid to Russia until the Kuril Islands dispute
is resolved in Japan's favor, Western agencies reported. On 6
September, Yeltsin had noted that "I have to consider the attitude
of 150 million Russians," when considering the Kuril Islands issue,
"Novosti" reported on 7 September. Yeltsin also announced that his
trip to South Korea would be postponed until December when Yeltsin
is already scheduled to visit China. (Hal Kosiba, RFE/RL Inc.)
BURBULIS CRITICIZES JAPAN. Russian State Secretary Gennadii
Burbulis has warned Japan not to "exaggerate its role and
importance to the detriment of other states in the Pacific region."
He told ITAR-TASS on 9 September that Russian-Japanese relations
"are not the only prospects in this region" for Russia. Burbulis
said that according to a recent opinion poll published by Interfax
on 8 September, 60 percent of Russians oppose returning the Kuril
islands to Japan, and he noted that Yeltsin and government
officials must take the opinion and sentiments of the Russian
population into account. (Alexander Rahr, RFE/RL Inc.)
ON THE ROLE OF THE SECURITY COUNCIL. Russian President Boris
Yeltsin indicated in his phone conversation with Japanese Prime
Minister Kiichi Miyazawa that the decision to postpone his visit to
Japan had been made by the Security Council rather than by him
personally. If this statement is accurate, it demonstrates the
extent to which this recently created committee has become a major
collective decision-making body in Russia. However, First Deputy
Parliamentary Speaker Sergei Filatov, who is also a member of the
Security Council, was not present at the meeting and was unaware of
the postponement, Western news agencies reported on 9 September.
(Alexander Rahr, RFE/RL Inc.)
RUSSIAN FOOD SUPPLY DOWN. The Russian State Committee for
Statistics (Roskomstat) announced on 9 September that food
production during the past few months has declined by an average of
22% when compared with the same period of 1991, ITAR-TASS reported.
Roskomstat attributed part of the decline to shortfalls in
contractual deliveries from other CIS members and from the Baltic
states. (Keith Bush, RFE/RL Inc.)
SCALE OF RUSSIAN CAPITAL FLIGHT MINIMIZED. The Russian First Deputy
Minister for Foreign Economic Relations, Sergei Glaziev, announced
on 9 September that Russia has exported some $2 billion to date in
1992, Interfax reported. About half of this sum has been retained
abroad legally to purchase foreign goods and materials. The rest
has been transferred illegally but has also been used to buy
foreign goods. The total sum is far below some Western estimates of
capital flight: these Glaziev attributed to Western banks which
spread the reports in order to raise their interest rates charged
because of the implied risk factor. (Keith Bush, RFE/RL Inc.)
FURTHER RAISES FOR RUSSIAN COAL MINERS. Acting Prime Minister Egor
Gaidar and coal union officials signed an agreement on 8 September
that provides for gradual increases in coal miners' wages, Interfax
reported on 9 September. Starting on 1 September, average wages
for those working in mining, processing, and transportation of coal
will rise by 60%; by the end of the year, the increment will reach
80%. The average monthly wage for coal miners in July was 10,900
rubles. A union official said that the raises will not be funded by
means of budget subsidies. Instead, mines will increase wholesale
prices of coal by up to 30%--the current average price of coal is
95 rubles a ton--which should cover the pay raise. (Keith Bush,
RFE/RL Inc.)
RUSSIA ASKS PARDON FOR OFFICER CONDEMNED TO DEATH IN AZERBAIJAN.
Russian authorities have asked Azerbaijan to pardon an Russian
officer sentenced to death by the Azerbaijan Supreme Court's
military collegium on 31 August. According to ITAR-TASS, the
Russian Defense Ministry and a public committee concerned with
servicemen's social rights appealed on 9 September to Azeri leaders
to stay the execution of Lieutenant Evgenii Lukin. Lukin was in
charge of the guard at the Baku Military School on 7 September 1991
when it was attacked by an armed group seeking to obtain weapons in
the school's depot. When the attackers failed to retreat in the
face of warning shots, Lukin ordered his men to shoot to kill.
Three attackers lost their lives. The Russians claim that Lukin
should have been tried by a Russian court. (Doug Clarke, RFE/RL
Inc.)
RUSSIAN OFFICER DEFECTS TO FINLAND. ITAR-TASS on 9 September
reported that a officer of the border guards defected to Finland on
1 September. According to the press center of the Russian Border
Forces, Major Andrei Vykhrystyuk--the commander of a guard unit on
the border with Finland--had been on the brink of a nervous
breakdown and was drinking heavily prior to the incident. The
agency report said that the major's father and wife were insisting
that he be repatriated. (Doug Clarke, RFE/RL Inc.)
"NEW UKRAINE" CALLS FOR ORGANIZED OPPOSITION. The opposition
coalition "New Ukraine" held a press conference in Kiev on 8
September devoted to the current political situation in Ukraine,
DR-Press reported on 9 September. Volodymyr Filenko, the chairman
of the coalition, emphasized the need to form an organized
opposition aimed at gaining a majority in the parliament. Filenko
also did not exclude the possibility of "New Ukraine" participating
in a government of popular trust. The former economics minister,
Volodymyr Lanovyi, told reporters that he intends to establish a
National Center of Market Reforms. (Roman Solchanyk, RFE/RL Inc.)
UKRAINIAN DELEGATION IN WASHINGTON. A Ukrainian parliamentary
delegation led by Ivan Plyushch, head of the Ukrainian parliament,
is in Washington for meetings with top American officials, Radio
Ukraine reported on 8 September. Members of the delegation are
scheduled to meet with Secretary of State Dick Cheney, National
Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft, senators and congressmen, and
other US officials. (Roman Solchanyk, RFE/RL Inc.)
TURKEY PROVIDING WEAPONS TO NAKHICHEVAN? According to an
unconfirmed report on 9 September by Armenia's Snark News Agency,
the military council of the Ninth Corps of the Turkish army has
decided, with the Turkish government's consent, to supply
considerable quantities of Soviet-made weapons and combat material
to the government of Azerbaijan's Nakhichevan Autonomous Republic.
To date, the Turkish government has publicly resisted pressure to
offer military assistance to Azerbaijan. Turkish Prime Minister
Suleiman Demirel visited Nakhichevan last month and promised
financial and food aid worth $10 million to counter the effects of
the Armenian blockade of the region. (Liz Fuller, RFE/RL Inc.)
"DNIESTER REPUBLIC" ESTABLISHES OWN AIR FORCE. The "Dniester
republic Supreme Soviet" on 8 September formally approved the
establishment of its own air force and a "department of military
aviation," consisting of "airplanes and helicopters based on its
territory," DR-Press reported from Tiraspol on 9 September. The
report clearly refers to the aircraft of Russia's 14th Army. Some
aircraft have already been turned over to the "Dniester" forces by
that Army, and they took part in the "Dniester" military parade on
the anniversary of the "republic" on 2 September in the presence of
the Army's commander, Major General Aleksandr Lebed, DR-Press
reported that day. An RFE/RL correspondent and the St. Petersburg
TV program "600 Seconds" reported on 7 and 8 September,
respectively, that the "Dniester republic" had warned that any
Moldovan overflight of the area without "Dniester" permission would
be treated as a military attack. (Vladimir Socor, RFE/RL Inc.)
"DNIESTER REPUBLIC" OFFICIALLY REIMPOSES RUSSIAN SCRIPT ON
"MOLDOVAN" LANGUAGE. The "Dniester republic Supreme Soviet" on 8
September voted in a language law reimposing the Russian alphabet
on the "Moldovan" (i.e. Romanian) language in the territory under
its control. As cited by Radio Rossii, the "law" requires the use
of the Russian alphabet for "all situations in which the Moldovan
language is used." The measure is likely to force part of the local
Moldovan intelligentsia out of their jobs and out of the area.
Although the law formally stipulates the equality of the Russian,
Ukrainian, and "Moldovan" languages, the "Dniester authorities"
promote the old policy of linguistic russification. Moldovans, who
comprise 40.1% of the population, are the largest ethnic group in
the territory at issue, but ethnic Russians, who form only the
third-largest ethnic group (behind Ukrainians), rule the area.
(Vladimir Socor, RFE/RL Inc.)
CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE
UN COMMANDER BLAMES BOSNIANS FOR ATTACK. On 9 September the
commander of the UN forces in Sarajevo, Egyptian General Hussein
Ali Abdul Razik, said that the two French soldiers were killed on 8
September by bullets fired by "irresponsible elements" who
disobeyed orders of the local Bosnian commander. The shots came
from positions held by Bosnian government troops, Razik said,
"There is no mistake about this because visibility at the time of
the attack was good." State Presidency member Ejup Ganic denied
that Bosnian forces attacked the convoy. Bosnian Foreign Minister
Haris Silajdzic stated that "it's totally illogical" that Bosnian
forces would fire on "those providing relief." UNPROFOR
headquarters in Zagreb released a statement saying that the Italian
relief plane downed on 3 September was shot down in an area
controlled by Croatian forces. But the statement adds "exactly how
or by whom is the subject of intensive study." The statement also
lays blame on Bosnian government forces for the 8 September attack
on the convoy. International media carried the reports. (Milan
Andrejevich, RFE/RL Inc.)
VANCE SAYS RELIEF CONVOYS TO CONTINUE. UN envoy Cyrus Vance told
reporters in Zagreb on 9 September that overland relief convoys to
Sarajevo will continue despite the recent tragedy, which he
described as "cold-blooded murder." Vance, along with EC envoy Lord
Owen were in Zagreb for talks with UN, Red Cross, and Croatian
officials. They will continue with stops in Sarajevo and Belgrade
in an effort to secure further guarantees that overland convoys and
air relief flights will not be attacked. (Milan Andrejevich, RFE/RL
Inc.)
IRANIAN ARMS SEIZED BY CROATIA. Radio Croatia and Western media
report on 10 September that Croatian security forces have impounded
an Iranian Boeing-747 aircraft loaded with arms bound for the
Muslim-dominated government forces in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The
incident occurred on 4 September. Officials seized 4,000 guns and
more than one million rounds of ammunition and deported about 40
Iranians found hidden in the aircraft. The New York Times on 10
September stated that the interception of arms from Iran is the
first documented evidence of military support by an Islamic country
to the Bosnian government. (Milan Andrejevich, RFE/RL Inc.)
PANIC STRIKES HARD. In his first interview since surviving the vote
of no-confidence in the Federal Assembly on 4 September, Milan
Panic, prime minister of the rump Yugoslavia, told Belgrade Radio
on 9 September that he has replaced the Yugoslav negotiating team
at the Geneva peace conference. Panic said the previous team had
"lost all battles," a clear reference to the Socialists ,who
brought Serbia-Montenegro into virtually total global isolation
after being accused of fomenting war in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The
new team will be led by Ljubisa Rakic, former dean of Belgrade
University's medical school. Panic also described the
no-confidence motion as a phase of democracy, but said he was
surprised at how "few details . . . and lies" his critics
presented. Panic also singled out the privatization of the media as
one of the most important domestic issues. Turning to the Kosovo
situation, Panic said that some laws there are clearly "detrimental
to Albanians and they ought to be changed immediately." He also
proposed that the state provide financial assistance for classes
taught privately in the Albanian language at the university,
secondary, and primary school levels. (Milan Andrejevich, RFE/RL
Inc.)
POLAND'S FIRST POLITICAL PRISONER? On 9 September, Poland's
Supreme Court turned down a request by the chief prosecutor to
reconsider the case of Roman Galuszko, who was sentenced by a
Cracow military court in April to 18 months imprisonment for draft
evasion. Galuszko's request for alternate service on moral and
religious grounds was rejected; the draft board refused to accept
the Catholic faith as a valid argument against military service.
This rationale has stirred controversy. In another judicial
development, the Bialystok prosecutor announced on 9 September that
"criminal arson" caused the fire in January 1989 that killed
Stanislaw Suchowolec, an activist Solidarity priest. The communist
police had ruled the death accidental. Suchowolec was one of three
activist priests killed in mysterious circumstances in the period
before and after the round-table talks. (Louisa Vinton, RFE/RL
Inc.)
ROMANIA'S ETHNIC HUNGARIANS URGE TOKES TO END HUNGER STRIKE.
Magyar Bishop Laszlo Tokes has been urged by his supporters to
abandon his week-old protest fast. In a statement read on Radio
Bucharest, the Hungarian Democratic Union of Romania, which
represents the country's Hungarian minority, urged Tokes to
"preserve his strength to fight for the victory of truth and moral
values." Tokes began his hunger strike in an attempt to force the
authorities to identify the murderers of the 1,033 victims of the
1989 Romanian uprising. President Ion Iliescu offered last week to
meet Tokes but has effectively rejected the latter's demands from
the outset. (Dan Ionescu, RFE/RL Inc.)
ROMANIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH AND THE ELECTIONS. Patriarch Teoctist of
Romania said in a pastoral address that the Romanian Orthodox
Church "would not express a preference for any candidate or party
in the presidential and parliamentary elections" scheduled for 27
September, Radio Bucharest reported on 4 September. However, the
patriarch added that this "political neutrality" did not mean
"indifference from the moral and social point of view;" he urged
the faithful to vote for "belief in God" and the "safeguarding of
freedom," in what Reuters reported to be an appeal "for the
preservation of Christianity against atheism and Communism."
(Michael Shafir, RFE/RL Inc.)
REMAINS FOUND IN MASS GRAVE IN ROMANIA. Western agencies report
from Bucharest that a mass grave containing about 140 skeletons
dating from the 1950's has been found on premises run by the
Securitate, the former secret police, an Interior Ministry
statement said. The remains, which appear to be from members of
peasant families who opposed collectivization, were found at
Caciulati, near Bucharest, according to the Association of Former
Political Detainees. (Michael Shafir, RFE/RL Inc.)
[As of 1200 CET]
Compiled by Hal Kosiba & Charles Trumbull
(END)
The RFE/RL Daily Report is produced by the RFE/RL Research
Institute (a division of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Inc.)
with the assistance of the RFE/RL News and Current Affairs
Division (NCA). The report is available by electronic mail
via LISTSERV (RFERL-L@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU), on the
Sovset' computer bulletin board, by fax, and by postal mail.
For inquiries about specific news items, subscriptions, or
additional copies, please contact:
In USA:
Mr. Jon Lodeesen or Mr. Brian Reed
RFE/RL, Inc.
1201 Connecticut Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20036.
Telephone: (202) 457-6912 or -6900
fax: (202) 457-6992 or -202-828-8783;
Internet: RI-DC@RFERL.ORG
or in Europe:
Ms. Helga Hofer
Publications Department
RFE/RL Research Institute
Oettingenstrasse 67
8000 Munich 22
Telephone: (+49 89) 2102-2631 or -2642
fax: (+49 89) 2102-2648
Internet: Pubs@RFERL.ORG
Copyright 1992, RFE/RL, Inc. All rights reserved.
novine.6.bale.,
RFE/RL DAILY REPORT
No. 175, September 11, 1992
SUCCESSOR STATES TO THE USSR
RUSSIAN LEADERS BLAME JAPAN FOR POSTPONEMENT OF TRIP. Vyacheslav
Kostikov, the Russian presidential press secretary, has blamed the
Japanese government for the postponement of President Boris
Yeltsin's trip to Japan. He told Izvestiya on 11 September that the
ruling Liberal-Democratic Party wanted to exploit the issue of the
Kuril islands for its electoral campaign. The first deputy
parliamentary speaker, Sergei Filatov, told Ostankino TV on 10
September that the "hysterical" approach to the Kuril islands in
Japan prevents the constructive resolution of the issue by the two
nations' respective leaders. Yeltsin's press department denied
reports that the Russian President also plans to postpone his
forthcoming trip to China. (Alexander Rahr, RFE/RL Inc.)
REACTION TO POSTPONEMENT OF YELTSIN'S TRIP TO JAPAN. Viktor Alksnis
and Vladimir Zhirinovsky, two leading Russian nationalists,
celebrated President Boris Yeltsin's decision to postpone his trip
to Japan as a victory for patriotic forces, Interfax reported on 11
September. Liberals, such as Russian Minister of Foreign Economic
Relations Petr Aven, warned that the postponement could effect
negotiations on Russia's foreign debt, since Japan maintained the
strictest position in Russia's negotiations with major creditors.
Japanese Foreign Minister Michio Watanabe told the Japanese news
agency Kyodo on 11 September that Yeltsin had indicated that he
plans to visit Tokyo in the beginning of 1993. (Alexander Rahr,
RFE/RL Inc.)
RUSSIAN OIL PRICES TO DOUBLE. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Viktor
Chernomyrdin told a news conference after a cabinet meeting on 10
September that the wholesale prices of energy carriers will be
raised next week, ITAR-TASS, Interfax, and the Financial Times
reported. The price of oil will roughly double, from 1,800-2,200
rubles a ton to 4,000-5,000 rubles a ton. This may be seen largely
as a technical correction for inflation: prices throughout the
economy have more than doubled since the last price increase for
oil. At the current rate of exchange, the new price will represent
some 14-18% of the world price. A 50% tax will be levied on income
derived from sales at prices higher than the guidelines. (Keith
Bush, RFE/RL Inc.)
RUSSIAN INDUSTRY HEAD CRITICIZES PRIVATIZATION PLANS. Minister of
Industry Aleksandr Titkin has sent a letter to President Yeltsin
condemning current plans for industrial privatization, Interfax
reported on 9 and 10 September. Titkin claims that the plans are
exacerbating chaos in industry and accuses the State Property
Commission of engaging in a "self-serving process" inconsistent
with national interests. He also outlined his own variant of
privatization that envisages an initial stage of industrial
restructuring managed by the ministry itself. (Erik Whitlock,
RFE/RL Inc.)
RUSSIA TO BE SELF-SUFFICIENT IN GRAIN? Russian Vice President
Aleksandr Rutskoi told a news conference in Moscow on 10 September
that Russia will need to import only 12-15 million tons of grain
this winter, Interfax reported. The introduction of modern
technology and improved seed should obviate the requirement for
grain imports in 1993, in Rutskoi's opinion. Other estimates have
put the total grain imports required for calendar year 1992 at
around 25 million tons. Rutskoi may later regret having made this
prediction, although it is true that a smaller amount of feed grain
will be needed as livestock herds have been drastically culled.
(Keith Bush, RFE/RL Inc.)
CHERNOBYL TO REOPEN FOR A YEAR? The chairman of Ukraine's nuclear
power utility, Vladimir Fuks, told The Guardian of 10 September
that two of the reactors at Chernobyl will reopen in October.
However, Fuks insisted that the plant will be closed down for good
at the end of 1993. Subject to parliamentary approval, three
pressurized water reactors will be commissioned elsewhere in
Ukraine to replace the Chernobyl output. Official pronouncements
on the final closure of the Chernobyl reactors have been
contradictory. (Keith Bush, RFE/RL Inc.)
FIRST JEWISH GYMNASIUM IN KIEV. The first Jewish gymnasium
(secondary school) in Ukraine opened in Kiev this school year,
Nezavisimost reported on 5 September. The gymnasium, which was
formerly school No. 299, has 520 students who will be studying
humanitarian subjects, including the history, culture, religion,
and languages of the Jewish people. (Roman Solchanyk, RFE/RL Inc.)
CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE
ANOTHER BOSNIAN CEASE-FIRE; MORE UN TROOPS. International media
report on 10 September that UN envoy Cyrus Vance and EC envoy Lord
Owen met separately with the leaders of the Muslim and Serbian
warring sides in Bosnia-Herzegovina. A new cease-fire agreement was
hammered out, and both sides agreed to meet in Geneva on 18
September. Vance said the most important outcome of the talks is
that Alija Izetbegovic, Bosnia's President, agreed to attend the
conference. Izetbegovic had previously rejected all efforts at
getting the Muslims to sit in the same conference room with the
Serbs. On 9 September Bosnian Croat leader Mate Boban agreed to
participate. Vance said Boban, Izetbegovic, and Serb leader Radovan
Karadzic would all be meeting in Geneva for the first time.
Meanwhile, UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali has formally
requested an additional 6,000 peacekeepers for Bosnia and proposed
expanding UN relief efforts to an additional 11 regions in the
republic. (Milan Andrejevich, RFE/RL Inc.)
IRAN DENIES ARMS DELIVERY. At a news conference in Beijing,
Iranian President Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani stated that Iran
will consider sending arms to Bosnia's Muslim-lead government if
diplomatic efforts fail to end the war. The Los Angeles Times
reports on 11 September that Rafsanjani also dismissed as "lies"
and "fabrications" US newspaper reports that Croatia had impounded
a planeload of Iranian arms headed for Bosnia. However, on 10
September, Radio Croatia reported that Croatia's government
officially confirmed that the Iranian arms were confiscated at
Zagreb airport on 4 September. (Milan Andrejevich, RFE/RL Inc.)
TURKEY URGES ACTION. Turkish media report that Prime Minister
Suleyman Demirel, speaking at a meeting of Council of Europe
representatives in Istanbul, urged member states to convene a
summit to discuss means of ending the war in Bosnia and
Herzegovina. Turkey, which has historic ties to Bosnia dating back
centuries, fears that the conflict could touch of a Balkan-wide
war. Turkey is especially concerned about the fate of Muslims in
Bosnia and has offered 1,000 peacekeeping troops to assist the UN
force there. (Duncan Perry, RFE/RL Inc.)
IS LIBYA SUPPORTING "REUNIFICATION?" Belgrade media are widely
speculating about an alleged proposal by Libya's leader Mu'ammar
al-Qadhafi's support for the reunification of the former Yugoslav
republics of Bosnia-Herzegovina and Macedonia with the rump
Yugoslavia, made up of Serbia and Montenegro. Panic reportedly
described Qadhafi's idea as "very good" and indicative of the
Libyan leader's support of Panic's efforts toward establishing a
Balkan economic association. Radio Serbia carried the report on 9
September. (Milan Andrejevich, RFE/RL Inc.)
MUSLIM MERCENARIES? Reuters reports on 10 September that Ashark
al-Aswat, a London-based Arabic-language daily, carries an
interview with one Abu Abdel-Aziz, identified as the leader of
foreign Muslim warriors who have gone to Bosnia to defend their
faith. Abdel-Aziz (a nom de guerre) would not give his nationality
and provided no estimate of the size of the foreign Muslim forces.
The story was datelined "Mujahideen Headquarters in Central
Bosnia." Rumors of mercenaries and other irregular fighters in
Bosnia have circulated before. (Charles Trumbull, RFE/RL Inc.)
JOVANOVIC RESIGNS; BLASTS PANIC. Vladislav Jovanovic, minister of
foreign affairs of the rump Yugoslavia, submitted his "irrevocable
resignation" on 10 September. In a letter sent to Prime Minister
Milan Panic, Jovanovic said Panic's approach to resolving the
crisis in the former Yugoslavia profoundly clash with Jovanovic's
"notion of national duty and dignity," adding that "I find it
impossible to continue to remain in a government that is
increasingly and openly pursuing a policy opposed to the interests
of Serbia and the Serb nation." Panic accepted the resignation
saying that he "greatly respects" Jovanovic as a person, but also
made it clear that there are differences between the two "in
approach and style of conducting foreign policy." Ilija Djukic,
Belgrade's ambassador to the People's Republic of China has been
tagged as Jovanovic's successor. Radio Serbia carried the report.
(Milan Andrejevich, RFE/RL Inc.)
SUCHOCKA: FSM STRIKE "IRRATIONAL." Polish Prime Minister Hanna
Suchocka issued the government's sharpest warning yet to the
strikers at the FSM auto plant. In a written response to a plea for
action from one of the Solidarity regions most at risk if FSM were
to close, Suchocka called the strike "completely irrational"
because it was making a bankrupt of a firm with guaranteed growth
prospects. The government will not permit a minority to thwart a
majority with economic rationality on its side, she said. The
"state of unlawfulness" in Tychy could drive the government to take
"harsh measures" to restore the legal order. PAP carried the text
of Suchocka's letter. Meanwhile, a two-hour warning strike called
for 10 September by the Network (Solidarity locals at large
industrial plants) drew only a scattered response. (Louisa Vinton,
RFE/RL Inc.)
ROMANIAN HIGH COURT RULES ON ILIESCU'S SENATE CANDIDACY. On 10
September the Supreme Court of Justice rejected an action by
attorney Nicolae Cerveni against the Democratic National Salvation
Front (DNSF), the party backing Ion Iliescu's candidacy for a seat
in the Senate. Cerveni contends that the DNSF's decision to field
Iliescu violates the electoral law, which provides that parliament
candidates be members of the party they run for. Iliescu, who is
also the DNSF's presidential candidate, has no official party
affiliation. Meanwhile, Radio Bucharest reports that Iliescu
continues his electoral campaign in the provinces. On 10 September
he visited the town of Calarasi. (Dan Ionescu, RFE/RL Inc.)
ROMANIA ACCUSES DIPLOMATS OF MEDDLING. On 9 September Traian
Chebeleu, a spokesman for the Romanian Foreign Ministry, suggested
that diplomats in Bucharest are meddling in the electoral campaign.
Rompres quoted Chebeleu as saying that his ministry has received
several complaints about alleged attempts by foreign diplomats to
influence the electorate. Chebeleu, who refused to say which
embassies were involved in these actions, insisted that Romania
welcomes foreign election observers, including members of the
diplomatic corps, on the condition that they observe neutrality.
(Dan Ionescu, RFE/RL Inc.)
SOLE MAGYAR OFFICIAL IN ROMANIAN GOVERNMENT DISMISSED. Radio
Budapest reported on 9 September that Andor Horvath, state
secretary for education and the only Romanian cabinet official of
Hungarian nationality, has been dismissed from his post. No reason
was given for the move. The educational sector is considered
crucial by Romania's two million ethnic Hungarians who are fighting
for more schools with instruction in Hungarian. (Judith Pataki,
RFE/RL Inc.)
BULGARIAN SOCIALIST PARTY TO BE EXCLUDED FROM SOCIALIST
INTERNATIONAL. The Bulgarian Socialist Party, successor of the
Bulgarian Communist Party, reportedly will not be invited to join
the Socialist International, a forum for socialist and
social-democratic parties around the world. In an interview on 10
September Hans-Eberhard Dingels, chief of the international
relations section of the German Social Democratic Party, informed
an RFE/RL correspondent that the BSP does not meet the admission
criteria. Moreover, one Bulgarian party is already affiliated with
the Socialist Internationalthe Social Democratic Party. (Duncan
Perry, RFE/RL Inc.)
[As of 1200 CET]
Compiled by Hal Kosiba & Charles Trumbull
(END)
The RFE/RL Daily Report is produced by the RFE/RL Research
Institute (a division of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Inc.)
with the assistance of the RFE/RL News and Current Affairs
Division (NCA). The report is available by electronic mail
via LISTSERV (RFERL-L@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU), on the
Sovset' computer bulletin board, by fax, and by postal mail.
For inquiries about specific news items, subscriptions, or
additional copies, please contact:
In USA:
Mr. Jon Lodeesen or Mr. Brian Reed
RFE/RL, Inc.
1201 Connecticut Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20036.
Telephone: (202) 457-6912 or -6900
fax: (202) 457-6992 or -202-828-8783;
Internet: RI-DC@RFERL.ORG
or in Europe:
Ms. Helga Hofer
Publications Department
RFE/RL Research Institute
Oettingenstrasse 67
8000 Munich 22
Telephone: (+49 89) 2102-2631 or -2642
fax: (+49 89) 2102-2648
Internet: Pubs@RFERL.ORG
Copyright 1992, RFE/RL, Inc. All rights reserved.
novine.7.bale.,
UPI NEWS --------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Yugoslav's Panic to visit China
Subject: Yugoslav foreign minister resigns
Subject: Iran denies shiping arms Bosnian Muslims
Subject: Vance and Owen open peace talks in Sarajevo
Subject: Spassky wins game five against disappointing Fischer
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Yugoslav's Panic to visit China
Date: 10 Sep 92 09:25:06 GMT
BEIJING (UPI) -- Yugoslav Prime Minister Milan Panic will visit China
for talks next week, the Chinese Foreign Ministry announced Thursday.
Panic is to spend Sept. 14 to 16 in Beijing on a ``working visit,''
according to Foreign Ministry spokesman Wu Jianmin, who added that
officials arranged the visit ``not long ago.''
``The two sides will exchange views on the situation in the former
Yugoslavia, bilateral relations and international issues,'' the
spokesman said.
He reiterated Chinese calls for a peaceful resolution to the fighting
in the former Yugoslavia, saying, ``We hope that a proper settlement
will be found through peaceful means.''
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Yugoslav foreign minister resigns
Date: 10 Sep 92 15:07:48 GMT
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (UPI) -- Vladislav Jovanovic, foreign minister of
the rump Yugoslav union of Serbia and Montenegro, resigned Thursday
after criticizing Prime Minister Milan Panic for ``anti-Serbian policy,''
the Serbian official news agency Tanjug said.
In a short letter to Panic, Jovanovic said he ccould no longer stay
in Panic's Cabinet, which he said is ``openly acting against the
interests of Serbia and the Serbs,'' Tanjug reported.
``Your approach to the Yugoslav crisis and some of your recent moves.
..are deeply against my concept of patriotism and dignity,'' said
Jovanovic in his letter.
Jovanovic said his resignation was ``irrevocable''.
Political observers said that Jovanovic was considered to be closely
associated with Serbian hard-line President Slobodan Milosevic, and that
his resignation weakens Milosevic's position in the Yugoslav federation.
Panic, the Belgrade-born naturalized U.S. citizen and millionaire who
promised to bring U.S.-style democracy to the truncated federation and
to stop the ethnic war in neighboring Bosnia-Hercegovina, has not
commented the resignation.
Panic's confrontation with Milosevic began just after the London
peace conference on the Yugoslav crisis in late August, when Panic was
accused of ``selling Serbia to Western powers'' by Milosevic's ruling
Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS). But Panic won a no-confidence vote last
week despite the overwhelming SPS majority in the Federal Parliament.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Iran denies shiping arms Bosnian Muslims
Date: 10 Sep 92 15:22:37 GMT
BEIJING (UPI) -- President Hashemi Rafsanjani Thursday denied a report
of Iranian arms shipments to Bosnia-Hercegovina but indicated that Iran
would consider future sales to embattled Muslim forces in the war-torn
country.
``I would like you to know that they have not yet requested arms from
Iran,'' Rafsanjani said, but added his country would give U.N. sanctions
a chance to work.
He left the door open for future sales if the sanctions do not work.
``If they request arms from Iran, this is something we shall
consider,'' Rafsanjani said at a news conference.
According to a report in Thursday's New York Times, Croatian
officials in the capital of Zagreb confiscated 4,000 guns and more than
a million rounds of ammunition from an Iranian Boeing 747.
The report, attributed to Bush administration sources, said Croatian
officials found the war materiel and up to 40 Iranian nationals on a
routine inspection of relief supplies bound for Bosnia.
In the past few months Bosnian Muslims have lost much of their
territory to better equipped Serbian forces, and Muslim countries are
known to be disturbed by the increasingly one-sided civil war.
``The situation right now is very bad,'' Rafsanjani said. ``Only one
side has all the arms, and soon the other side will have to get them
from someone.''
The Iranian leader, who is on a four-day official visit to China,
rejected the New York Times report, saying his government had no such
airplane.
``I have not heard of any such thing,'' the president said. ``The
report is a mere fabrication.''
Rafsanjani told reporters the main purpose of his trip to China, his
first since assuming the presidency, was to cement close ties between
the two countries.
He denied persistent reports of Chinese arm sales to his country,
saying the only contracts discussed were for a new subway system and for
the sale of a small nuclear reactor for peaceful purposes.
``We have no military contracts to be signed here,'' Rafsanjani said.
An Iranian military delegation led by army logistics chief Gen.
Alastu Tuhidi arrived in China Tuesday to discuss ``the further
development of friendly relations between China and Iran,'' according to
China's official Xinhua news agency.
Western reports have said the talks would include co-production of
weapons in Iran, as well as future weapons sales by the Chinese.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Vance and Owen open peace talks in Sarajevo
Date: 10 Sep 92 16:38:43 GMT
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Hercegovina (UPI) -- European Community envoy David
Owen Thursday expressed horror at the Serb-inflicted devastation of
Sarajevo and vowed that he and U.N. mediator Cyrus Vance would ``slowly,
persistently, patiently'' end the war in Bosnia-Hercegovina.
The two diplomats arrived in the Bosnian capital as fighting flared
on the city's fringes, and Serbian forces loosed sporadic artillery fire
into civilian areas.
Casualty figures were not immediately available.
Owen and Vance, the co-chairmen of the Geneva peace conference on
former Yugoslavia, began their visit almost seven hours later than
scheduled, driving immediately to the shell-shattered city center for
talks with Alija Izetbegovic, the republic's Muslim Slav president, and
other government officials.
Owen said he was shocked by the devastation wrought to Sarajevo by
the almost incessant artillery, rocket and tank fire loosed by
encircling hilltop Serbian gunners against what was once one of the most
picturesque cities in the Balkans.
``You see the whole wanton destruction. I don't think I have ever
seen anything so wanton, so ghastly,'' said Owen as he entered the
artillery-ravaged presidency building.
``Tower blocks shot to smithereens,'' he said. ``When you realize so
much of it was done from on top and not from street fighting...''
But, he expressed optimism that he and Vance could mediate an end to
the war that has left tens of thousands dead and injured, uprooted more
than 1 million from their homes and defied all previous international
attempts at mediation.
``Slowly, persistently, patiently, we will end this,'' vowed Owen.
Among the topics expected to be covered were the deaths of two French
U.N. soldiers and wounding of five others Tuesday when their U.N. supply
convoy came under fire on the fringe of Sarajevo airport.
The U.N. Protection Force (UNPROFOR), France and others blamed
Bosnian fighters, although witnesses and French soldiers said the convoy
drove straight into a raging battle.
After the meeting with Izetbegovic, the envoys traveled to the
southwestern Serb-held suburb of Lukavica for a meeting with Serbian
leader Radovan Karadzic, the ``president'' of a self-declared state for
which extremist Serbs have been fighting for more than five months.
Karadzic's forces, backed politically and financially by the
neighboring communist-ruled republic of Serbia, beseiged Sarajevo to
press a demand that the city be divided into ethnic districts.
Bosnian forces dominated by Muslim Slavs, but also including moderate
Serbs and Croats, oppose the partition of the former Yugoslav republic,
which won international recognition as an independent state in early
April.
Both Owen and Vance wore blue flak-jackets as they emerged from
small, white U.N. armored cars at the entrance of the heavily guarded,
shell-pitted presidency building in the center of Sarajevo.
They were late because they chose to drive from Croatia's Adriatic
port city of Split rather than fly following shelling Tuesday evening
near the airport and last week's crash of an Italian humanitarian aid
flight, which was widely believed to have been downed by missiles.
The envoys' arrival coincided with fierce fighting in several areas
of Sarajevo, with military sources reporting a major advance by Bosnian
forces into the Serb-held stronghold of Nedzarici.
The sources said the advance was marked by the raising of the
republic flag on a building in the suburb, a strategic point from which
Serbian fighters had been thwarting Bosnian attempts to break through
their seige.
Serbian gunners persisted in sporadic shelling of the city and
blasted mortar rounds into the roof of the already badly damaged
television headquarters building.
The Bosnian government said its troops attacked Serbian forces when
they tried to move heavy weapons from a hill overlooking the downtown to
the Serbian stronghold of Pale, east of the city, to avoid detection by
U.N. military monitors.
Owen and Vance have given Karadzic until Saturday to fulfill an
accord to gather in U.N.-monitored locations all of the Yugoslav army-
supplied heavy weaponry that Serbian forces have been using to pummel
Sarajevo and the towns of Gorazde, Jajce and Bihac.
Karadzic said on Wednesday that the Serbs would complete the heavy
weapons concentrations by Thursday.
But, Egyptian Brig. Gen. Hussein Abdel Razek, the Sarajevo sector
commander of the U.N. Protection Force, Wednesday expressed skepticism
that the deadline would be met.
He also said he believed the Serbs had hidden large amounts of tanks
and artillery from U.N. monitors.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Spassky wins game five against disappointing Fischer
Date: 9 Sep 92 21:57:57 GMT
PRZNO, Yugoslavia (UPI) -- Former Soviet grandmaster Boris Spassky won
the fifth game of his controversial re-match with former world chess
champion Bobby Fischer Wednesday to take a 2-1 lead in the series.
Spassky won the game after 45 moves, after Fischer sacrificed a pawn
on his 24th move.
Expert observers said that Fischer made the crucial mistake on his
28th move, and he then played on after losing a rook.
``Fischer made a crucial mistake on his 28th move by playing with his
knight,'' said Yugoslav grandmaster Svetozar Gligoric. ``After that,
Spassky came into the winning position.''
Fischer played on after losing the rook, but there was no way back
and the game ended after five hours of play.
Fischer began the match playing with the white pieces at 3:30 local
time in the Maestral Hotel in Przno, near the plush Montenegrin resort
of Sveti Stefan in southern Adriatic.
Fischer began with a classical Ruy Lopez start, the same tactic he
employed in game three.
Spassky, now a naturalized French citizen, defeated Fischer in a
previous game Sunday. Monday and Tuesday were days off.
The match will continue until one of the long-time rivals achieves 10
victories. The score now stands at 2-1, after Fischer won the first
game. The second and third games were drawn, and under the rules of the
match, no points are awarded for draws.
Fischer, who has lived a secluded life away from competitive chess
for the past 20 years, still insists on being referred to as ``the chess
champion of the world''.
He won that title from Spassky in 1972 championship in Reykjavik,
Iceland, but was stripped of it when he refused to play Soviet
grandmaster Anatoly Karpov under the rules of the World Chess
Federation.
Fischer, 49, is also in trouble with the U.S. Treasury Department,
which banned him from competing in the match in rump Yugoslavia.
The Treasury's order endorsed the U.N. sanctions that ban all
financial and economical transactions with the former Yugoslav republics
of Serbia and Montenegro for their involvement in the war in neighboring
Bosnia-Hercegovina.
But Fischer publicly spat on the Treasury's cease-and-desist order at
a news conference Sept. 1, on the eve of the first game.
He now faces a fine up to $250,000 and a maximum 10 years in jail for
``willingly and knowingly'' defying the order.
novine.8.bale.,
RFE/RL Daily Report
No. 176, 14 September 1992
SUCCESSOR STATES TO THE USSR
THE DECISION ON JAPAN. State Secretary Gennadii Burbulis said,
during an interview on Russian TV broadcast on 13 September, that
the decision to postpone Yeltsin's trip to Japan came after
"discussions were held within the government, the Supreme Soviet,
and finally in the Security Council... It was in line with the
collective views of these three bodies that the president made his
final decision to postpone the trip." It is noteworthy that
Burbulis did not mention any role played by the Russian Foreign
Ministry in making the decision. Nonetheless, Burbulis explicitly
rejected the idea that conservatives had pressured Yeltsin into
canceling the trip. For his part, Yeltsin defended the trip's
postponement. Speaking to reporters upon arrival in Cheboksary on
11 September, Yeltsin said that Japan had been "too categorical"
on the issue of returning the islands to Japan. "We cannot deal
like that," the Russian president said. (Suzanne Crow)
AMBARTSUMOV, LUKIN DEFLECT CRITICISM ON JAPAN TRIP. Evgenii
Ambartsumov, Chairman of the Supreme Soviet Committee on
International Affairs and Foreign Economic Ties, said that Japan
had taken too hard a position on the question of the Kuril
Islands, and this put Yeltsin in a difficult position. Speaking on
the Russian TV program "Krasnyi Kvadrat," Ambartsumov said that
the question of guaranteeing Yeltsin's security was not the only
consideration in calling off the visit, adding that in Russia, a
negative feeling had developed about sending Yeltsin to Japan.
Speaking on the same program, Russia's ambassador to the United
States, Vladimir Lukin, said that the postponement of the trip
could not be viewed as a great tragedy. Lukin also blamed Japan,
saying that Tokyo's attempt to pressure Russia for the return of
the islands brought the opposite result and stiffened Russian
opinion against the move, ITAR-TASS reported on 13 September.
(Suzanne Crow)
HIGHER RUSSIAN STATE BUDGET DEFICIT. The Russian government is now
allowing for a deficit "not exceeding" 950 billion rubles in 1992,
Interfax reported on 13 September. The original budget deficit
was projected at 300 billion rubles, but parliament insisted on
additional expenditures for industrial subsidies and social
programs. The new limit represents about 7% of GNP at current
prices, and is far above the Gaidar administration's original aims
and the IMF guidelines. It looks like an understatement, though
because on 24 August the Russian finance minister admitted that
the deficit had already risen to almost 1 trillion rubles and was
heading towards a year-end total of 2 trillion rubles "which is
tantamount to hyperinflation." (Keith Bush)
VOLSKY, YASIN WARN GOVERNMENT. Arkadii Volsky, leader of the Union
of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, is turning up the political
heat on the government. Speaking at a news conference in Moscow,
Volsky announced that he would call a conference of industrial
managers by November to pressure the government if it does not
alter its economic policy to his liking, the Financial Times
reported on 12 September. Evgenii Yasin, chief economist at the
institute of Volsky's group, but also an advisor to the
government, had warnings of his own during the news conference.
Yasin said that hyperinflation was "closer than ever" as a result
of disarray in the state's financial and credit policy. He claimed
that new credit emission in September will be ten times greater
than in March. (Erik Whitlock).
UKRAINE DEMANDS REMOVAL OF KASATONOV. The Ukrainian parliamentary
Commission on Defense and Security and the Ukrainian Defense
Ministry demanded on 11 September that the current commander of
the Black Sea Fleet, Admiral Igor Kasatonov, be relieved
immediately of his duties, Interfax reported. A statement released
by the two agencies reportedly criticized both Kasatonov and the
Russian Defense Ministry for resisting efforts by Ukraine to take
control of two naval academies in Sevastopol. Moscow apparently
wants to subordinate the schools to the CIS command and to keep
them under Russian jurisdiction. (Stephen Foye)
GENERALS DISMISSED FOR CORRUPTION IN BELARUS. Interfax reported on
11 September that the Belarus military prosecutor could bring
charges against several top generals, including the commanders of
the 5th and the 7th tank armies--identified as generals Rumyantsev
and Ivanitsky--for, among other things, illegally trading military
property. The prosecutor denied that Defense Minister Pavel
Kozlovsky was involved in illegal activities. He also said that
crime within the armed forces had more than doubled this year,
attributing the rise at least in part to the disbanding of the
army's military-political organs. (Stephen Foye)
FIGHTING CONTINUES IN AND AROUND NAGORNO-KARABAKH. Following the
total deadlock of the CSCE-sponsored preparatory Karabakh peace
talks in Rome on 10 September, Azerbaijan has accused Armenia of
violating the agreement on a cease-fire on the
Armenian-Azerbaijani border. Armenian parliament deputy Samvel
Shakhmuradyan was killed during an Azerbaijani artillery attack in
Mardakert on 11 September, ITAR-TASS reported; dozens of
Azerbaijanis and some Armenians were reported killed in heavy
fighting on 12-13 September in the Armenian-controlled Lachin
corridor that links Nagorno- Karabakh with Armenia, according to
the press center of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, as cited by
ITAR-TASS. (Liz Fuller)
WESTERN GEORGIA STILL POLITICALLY UNSTABLE. Six representatives
of the Georgian National Democratic Party were kidnapped by
supporters of ousted Georgian President Zviad Gamsakhurdia in the
West Georgian town of Zugdidi during the evening of 10 September,
ITAR-TASS reported. In an interview published in Le Quotidien de
Paris on 11 September, Georgian State Council Chairman Eduard
Shevardnadze stated that the parliamentary elections scheduled for
11 October have been postponed to a later (unspecified) date in
Abkhazia and parts of Western Georgia because the situation there
is so unstable. (Liz Fuller)
"DNIESTER REPUBLIC" FORGING AHEAD WITH OWN STATE STRUCTURES. Using
the breathing room gained through the cease-fire agreement, and
under the protective cover of the Russian troops, the "Dniester
republic" is creating state structures of its own. On 11
September, Interfax and DR-Press reported that a decree by
"Dniester president" Igor Smirnov established "Dniester border
troops," subordinated to the "Dniester Ministry of National
Security" which was created last week by the "Dniester Supreme
Soviet." Tiraspol further announced that it had succeeded in
creating the "Dniester republic's" own banking system, fully
separate from that of Moldova, and that it is now conducting its
own transactions with partners in the other CIS states, bypassing
Moldova, DR-Press reported on 13 September. (Vladimir Socor)
CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE
BOSNIAN UPDATE. International media reported on 13 September that
Serbian and Bosnian forces around Sarajevo have begun making their
heavy weapons available for UN observation but that the Serbs had
failed to take similar steps in three other areas of Bosnia. The
republic's president, Alija Izetbegovic, said he will boycott
peace talks in Geneva this week because of continuing Serb attacks
against Bihac and Gorazde, where Muslims managed to drive the
Serbs back just over two weeks earlier. The 14 September
Washington Post reports that a UN report backs the Bosnian
government's position on the death of two French soldiers at
Sarajevo airport the previous week. The report says that the
relief convoy drove into the middle of a firefight between Bosnian
and Serbian forces, and concludes that the two were not
deliberately killed by the Bosnians, as France has charged.
(Patrick Moore)
ANOTHER NO CONFIDENCE VOTE FOR PANIC? Radio Serbia and Politika
report on 12 and 13 September that last week's resignation of the
foreign minister of the rump Yugoslavia may bring about a second
vote of no confidence in Prime Minister Milan Panic. According to
reports, a group of deputies from the ruling Socialist Party and
the ultranationalist Serbian Radical Party (SRS) will raise the
motion soon, but give no indication when. SRS leader Vojislav
Seselj, stated on 10 September that Panic continues "to make
mistakes," and specifically criticized Panic's decision to change
the rump Yugoslav negotiating team for the Geneva Conference on
the former Yugoslavia. Panic described the accusations as childish
and rejected the existence of a Serbian foreign policy describing
it as "political Mickey Mouse." (Milan Andrejevich)
novine.9.bale.,
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Security Council allows 6,000 more troops in Bosnia-Hercegovina
Subject: China pledges aid for former Yugoslavia despite sanctions
Subject: U.N. officials say Serbian unmonitored tanks advancing from west
Subject: Bosnian-Serbs blamed for attack, Izetbegovic to attend talks
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Security Council allows 6,000 more troops in Bosnia-Hercegovina
Date: 15 Sep 92 02:45:39 GMT
UNITED NATIONS (UPI) -- The U.N. Security Council voted Monday to
allow Secretary-General Boutros Ghali to strengthen the U.N.
peacekeeping operations in Bosnia-Hercegovina by 6,000 trooops and to
accept financial contribution from Western countries to the peace force.
The 12-0 vote, with three abstentions, by the council also authorized
the establishment of a ``no-fly'' zone in the troubled former Yugoslav
republic.
One U.S. official said in Washington Monday that the European
Community wanted to monitor from the ground all military aircraft
flights over Bosnia-Hercegovina to thwart any interference with the U.N.
-led humanitarian airlift.
The United States has insisted that jet fighter patrols be used to
enforce the no-fly zone which was agreed upon at the European Community-
United Nations conference on the former Yugoslavia in London last month.
``The EC is thinking about ground monitors,'' a U.S. official said in
Washington. ``We are looking at it in terms of doing something like (air
combat patrols.)''
Last week Ghali asked the Security Council to send up to 6,000 more
peacekeeping troops to Bosnia-Hercegovina and to authorize them to use
force in self-defense.
Ghali said the new troops, possibly to be provided and paid for by
NATO countries, will be scattered throughout the war-torn Balkan
republic at four or five centers, in Banja Luka, Bihac, Doboj, Goradze,
Mostar and Tuzla. Each center will have an infantry battalion,
logistical and mine clearing units and medical evacuation groups.
Their main duty would be to provide security for humanitarian
operations being organized by the U.N. High Commissioner on Refugees,
which is spearheading the relief activities in Bosnia-Hercegovina.
The 6,000 troops will strengthen the existing 14,000-strong U.N.
Protection Force which was sent earlier this year to Croatia in an
effort to put an end to the civil war there. There also 1,600
peacekeepers in Sarajevo whose task has been to protect the
international airport for incoming humanitarian flights.
The resolution said the importance of air measures, ``such as the ban
on military flights'' over Bosnia-Hercegovina would reinforce the
security of humanitarian activities on the grounds.
The request for the additional 6,000 U.N. troops is aimed at
increasing security for an expanded food convoys, which the United
Nations said would be more effective in bringing larger quantities of
food and medical supplies to besieged cities in Bosnia-Hercegovina
before the winter than the airlift.
The council authorized Ghali to accept financial assistance from
troop contributors, which would ease the cash-strapped world
organization.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: China pledges aid for former Yugoslavia despite sanctions
Date: 15 Sep 92 10:16:21 GMT
BEIJING (UPI) -- Yugoslav Prime Minister Milan Panic on his visit to
China said Tuesday Premier Li Peng had offered humanitarian aid to his
country in spite of international sanctions.
At a news conference at Beijing's Great Hall of the People, the
millionaire businessman-turned-diplomat said that Chinese Premier Li
Peng had thrown his support behind Panic's government and the upcoming
peace talks.
When pressed on the point, Panic admitted there had been no specific
promise by the Chinese, but said they had promised support in principle.
``(Li Peng) said he fully supports the new government, which is
trying to solve the problems peacefully,'' Panic said.
``Li said the Chinese government hopes parties concerned will
immediately accept a cease-fire and settle their conflicts through
negotiation,'' the official China Daily reported Tuesday.
Panic said Li Peng had talked of sending humanitarian aid such as
cooking oil and food to Serbia and Montenegro in spite of international
sanctions.
Panic was visiting China on a three-day ``working visit'' to secure
the support of China as part of the United Nations. Since limited
military and other sanctions have been placed on Belgrade, Panic has
seen his country increasingly isolated diplomatically.
As one of five permanent members of the United Nations Security
Council, China holds the power of veto over any decision on sanctions
made by the council. While not committing itself to a veto, China has
said it is opposed to additional international sanctions and U.N.
military intervention.
Panic, a U.S. immigrant who prides himself on his close relationship
with the Bush administration, is the founder and chairman of the board
of the California-based pharmaceutical giant ICN.
The neophyte diplomat, who earlier this month emerged victorious from
a no-confidence motion in Serbia's parliament and a political test of
wills with hard-line Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, has wagered
his political life on obtaining a peace agreement in Bosnia and
establishing relations with Croatia.
He said he was optimistic about the upcoming peace conference, to be
held in Geneva beginning this Friday.
``An enormous amount of work has been done in the government of
Yugoslavia to prepare for this conference,'' Panic said.
``I think there is no question that Serbs are now prepared to give up
territory, to silence the guns, and to negotiate with Muslims and
Croats,'' he said.
Panic lavished praise on recent Chinese economic reforms, saying that
Chinese enjoyed greater political freedoms because of their recent
economic growth.
``It is much easier to change politics when you are rich than when
you are poor,'' he said, adding ``The only truly free man is an
economically free one.''
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: U.N. officials say Serbian unmonitored tanks advancing from west
Date: 15 Sep 92 12:21:30 GMT
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Hercegovina (UPI) -- Serbian tanks hidden from U.N.
monitors Tuesday methodically leveled houses in a Sarajevo suburb in a
thrust that could bring them into positions to cut the U.N.-controlled
airport off from the Bosnian capital, U.N. officials said.
The situation threatened to create serious problems between the Serbs
and the U.N. Protection Force, which is empowered by the U.N. Security
Council to use force if necessary to move humanitarian aid from airport
warehouses into the city.
A U.N. source said UNPROFOR had already asked Serbian leaders to
guarantee the unrestricted movement of U.N. vehicles and relief convoys
between the airport and downtown Sarajevo should Serbian forces gain
control of the airport road.
The drive was part of what senior UNPROFOR officers called the most
concerted Serbian advance on Sarajevo since the early stages of the more
than five-month-old war in Bosnia-Hercegovina.
The officers said that at least 10 Yugoslav army-supplied tanks were
involved in the Serbian thrust from Dogladi, through Bare and into
Adzici, Croat-dominated suburbs about 5 miles to the west of the center
of the beseiged city.
They said that at about 5 a.m., the Serbian tanks began firing for
about 90 minutes on homes in Adzici, methodically targeting one after
the other.
``They were raising them,'' said one officer.
Local media reports and witnesses said Croatian civilians were
fleeing Dogladi and Adzici in large numbers amid widespread destruction
of homes.
The Serbian advance began Monday, the officers said, coinciding with
one of the fiercest bombardments launched against Sarajevo since Serbian
forces moved in late March to carve a self-declared state out of the
former Yugoslav republic of Muslim Slavs, Serbs and Croats.
The division of Europe's newest country is opposed by forces loyal to
the Sarajevo government and comprised mostly of Muslim Slavs, but also
including Croats and moderate Serbs.
Monday's indiscriminate barrages left scores of civilian casualties
and came amid reports of an upsurge across Bosnia-Hercegovina in Serbian
attacks, including air raids around the Bihac area.
The U.N. officers said that just as with artillery used in Monday's
barrages, the tanks in Adzici were outside the 11 zones in which Serbian
leader Radovan Karadzic had agreed to gather all Serbian heavy weaponry
for U.N. observation by noon Saturday.
Ten other Serbian tanks, also outside the U.N.-observed
``concentration areas,'' unleashed pre-dawn barrages Tuesday from the
Serbian base of Lukavica into Bosnian-controlled Butmir, a housing
colony opposite the airport, the officers said.
Karadzic consented at least month's London peace conference to place
under U.N. monitoring all Serbian heavy weapons around Sarajevo, Bihac
and the towns of Gorazde and Jajce.
The U.N. officers said they were concerned by the Serbian advance on
Adzici because if it continued, it could bring the tank-backed Serbian
forces into the mostly Croat suburb of Stup, from where they would be
able to cut the road linking the airport and downtown Sarajevo.
The airport, which has been under U.N. control since June 29, is the
base of the U.N.-supervised humanitarian relief operations for Sarajevo
and other areas of the war-ravaged republic.
The fall of Stup carries other implications as the suburb has served
as a buffer zone in which Sarajevo residents have been able to purchase
for hard currency food and fuel from Croats in league with the Serbs.
The Serbian advance along Sarajevo's western boundary is apparently
aimed at retaking ground lost in recent weeks to Bosnian forces fighting
to break through the blockade of the city before the harsh Balkan winter
sets in.
A Bosnian commander, Zlatko Lagumzia, said he had lost 10 men in
fierce fighting Monday against Serbian forces backed by two tanks in the
western suburb of Ilidza.
He said he was forced to order his units to retreat, although
official government statements claimed Bosnian troops had held their
ground.
Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic on Sunday decided against
attending a new round of peace talks set for Friday in Geneva, in part
because of what he alleged was the deployment around Sarajevo of 100 new
Serbian tanks.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Bosnian-Serbs blamed for attack, Izetbegovic to attend talks
Date: 15 Sep 92 12:13:51 GMT
GENEVA (UPI) -- The co-chairmen of the Geneva conference on the former
Yugoslavia Tuesday accused Bosnian-Serb forces of being responsible for
an air attack Monday on the town of Bihac, a U.N. spokesman said.
The two chairmen, Cyrus Vance and Lord David Owen, have written to
Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic condemning the attack in which four
unidentified planes attacked the town with rockets and cluster bombs.
U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard told a news conference that Vance and
Owen had concluded that Serbian forces must have been responsible.
``Although the co-chairmen recognize that the Bosnian Serbs are not
the only source of the current hostilities, they are the only ones with
the aerial capability to mount attacks of this kind,'' U.N. spokesman
Fred Eckhard told a news conference.
``The co-chairmen deplore these attacks and have told Mr. Karadzic so
in a letter,'' Eckhard said. ``They have called on him to cooperate in
the fullest possible way with the peace process and the agreements
signed in London.''
Meanwhile, in an unexpected turnaround, Bosnian President Alija
Izetbegovic said he will after all be attending the talks in the Swiss
capital later this week, the U.N. official said.
The Muslim Slav president, who earlier said he would not attend the
Geneva talks, has changed his mind after a personal plea from Owen and
Vance, Eckhard said.
The spokesman said Croatia and the Serbian federal government would
also be represented. Radovan Karadzic will also attend the talks,
Eckhard said.
The conference in Geneva follows the London conference on the former
Yugoslavia. It is scheduled to bring leaders of the main ethnic factions
involved in the conflict together in Geneva Friday.
A news conference by Vance and Owen scheduled for Tuesday was
postponed for 24 hours and Eckhard said he hoped they would have more
details then.
novine.10.bale.,
Subject: Yugoslav camp detainees arrive in Britain
Subject: U.N. general says Serbs ignore weapon requests
Subject: Russia drops opposition to barring Belgrade from U.N.
Subject: U.N. says Italian relief plane shot down by missile near Sarajevo
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Yugoslav camp detainees arrive in Britain
Date: 15 Sep 92 20:11:43 GMT
LONDON (UPI) -- Sixty-eight sick and injured detainees from Serb-run
camps in Bosnia-Hercegovina were flown into Britain Tuesday in what is
planned to be the start of an ongoing evacuation of civilian prisoners
from the republic, officials said.
The detainees, who flew into Stansted airport north of London before
being moved to hospitals in the area for medical treatment, could be
joined by their families at a later date, the International Committee of
the Red Cross said.
The detainees, all men, appeared gaunt as they walked or were carried
on stretchers down the airplane steps to be received by a fleet of 25
ambulances.
The prisoners were being held at the Manjaca and Trnopolje detention
camps near Banja Luka in northwest Bosnia-Hercegovina, an ICRC spokesman
said.
They were handed over to ICRC officials in the region, before being
flown by a specially chartered plane direct to the United Kingdom, an
ICRC official said.
``These pepole were examined by ICRC doctors and selected based on
their health condition. Some of them were cancer victims or had similar
diseases not necessarily caused by the life in the camps,'' said Jack
McIver, political advisor at the EC monitoring mission in Zagreb.
The British government has agreed to allow the detainees' relatives
to join them at a later date, the ICRC said.
The airlift was organized in line with an agreement at the London
peace talks on the former Yugoslavia, which guaranteed the unconditional
release of all civilian detainees.
The ICRC said it had not yet received full information about
detention camps and prisoners, but added that it ``regards today's
operation as the first step in this release process.''
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: U.N. general says Serbs ignore weapon requests
Date: 16 Sep 92 19:13:03 GMT
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Hercegovina (UPI) -- Serbian forces have ignored
repeated requests to abide by an accord to place all of their heavy
weapons under United Nations monitoring as they pursue an advance in
Sarajevo's western suburbs, the U.N. commander in the Bosnian capital
said Wednesday.
``The Serbs have a military goal and they want to achieve it by all
means, and it is very difficult to convince them to put all heavy
weapons in concentration areas,'' Egyptian Brig. Gen. Hussein Abdel
Razek of the U.N. Protection Force (UNPROFOR) said in an interview.
Serbian leader Radovan Karadzic agreed at last month's London peace
conference to place all of his tanks, cannons and large mortars under U.
N. monitoring in 11 locations around Sarajevo, and publicly guaranteed
that he had done so by a Saturday noon deadline.
The plan was designed as a first step toward ending the more than
five-month war pitting Serbs determined to capture a self-declared state
against Bosnian forces comprised mostly of Muslim Slavs, but also
including Croats and moderate Serbs, who oppose the partition of the
former Yugoslav republic.
But, Razek said that Serbian forces failed to abide by the accord,
pounding Sarajevo on Monday for nine hours with both big guns gathered
in the so-called ``concentration areas'' and others hidden from
UNPROFOR.
Serbian forces also persisted Wednesday in using secretly retained
heavy weapons, including 10 tanks, in an ongoing attempt to smash
through Bosnian forces holding the western, mostly Croat suburbs of
Dogladi, Bare and Adzici, Razek said.
Razek said he had made numerous requests to Serbian commanders to
fulfill their London agreement and place all of their heavy weapons
under U.N. monitoring.
Asked what answers he received, Razek replied: ``The shelling tells
you.''
He noted that the Bosnian military was not obliged to place its heavy
weapons under U.N. ``supervision'' until UNPROFOR provided a written
guarantee that the Serbs had done so with all of their guns of more than
82mm.
``Up until now, frankly, I can't say that,'' Razek said. ``I cannot
give them (the Bosnian military) a written statement.''
Razek said he was scheduled to hold talks Thursday with Serbian
leaders on the issue at which he would again formally request they
observe the London agreement.
``I am going to discuss with them specifically if they are serious in
implementing this process or not,'' he said.
The talks were to take place a day before the start of a new round of
peace negotiations between the warring factions in Geneva under the co-
chairmanship of U.N. special envoy Cyrus Vance and European Community
mediator Lord David Owen.
The Serbian advance in the western outskirts of Sarajevo began on
Monday under the diversionary cover of the bombardment of the city, one
of the worst of the war.
Explosions and machine gun fire echoed throughout the day and into
the night Wednesday from the dust-shrouded area, located only about 3
miles west of the center of the capital.
On Tuesday, U.N. officials said, Serbian tanks systematically blasted
Croatian homes to the ground in Adzici.
Razek said he believed the thrust was intended to retake ground
captured by Bosnian troops struggling to break the more than five-month-
old siege by Serbian forces seeking to divide Sarajevo into ethnic
districts.
The offensive was being overseen by a Serbian general who was
appointed to the Sarajevo area less than two weeks ago, said Razek, who
declined to disclose the officer's name.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Russia drops opposition to barring Belgrade from U.N.
Date: 16 Sep 92 19:27:39 GMT
WASHINGTON (UPI) -- Russia no longer opposes denying Serbia and
Montenegro the United Nations' seat once occupied by Yugoslavia, an
administration official said Wednesday.
The Union of Serbia and Montenegro, the unrecognized successor states
to Yugolsavia, claim Belgrade's seat in the United Nations.
But the United States and the European Community, as a result of
Belgrade's relentless siege of Bosnia-Hercegovina, have pressed the
United Nations to deny Serbia and Montenegro the de-facto recognition
that would come with representation
British Ambassador David Hannay told the opening session of the U.N.
General Assembly Tuesday that ``it is anomalous and unacceptable that
representatives of...Serbia and Montenegro should continue to
participate in the work of United Nations.''
Russian Ambassador Yuli Vorontsov said that denying Belgrade the seat
would hurt U.N. efforts to broker peace in the war-torn Balkans, with
which Russia has always had close strategic and philosophical ties.
Only the five permanent members of the Security Council, to which
Russia belongs and thus has veto power over any action, can approve the
measure.
But an administration official speaking under conditions of anonymity
said that the Russians have now dropped their opposition to the plan.
``I don't think they are a problem,'' the official said. ``Their
position has evolved. We're working on language to achieve this goal.''
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Wednesday the United
States was consulting on a resolution with the other four permanent
members of the Security Council -- China, France, Russia and Great
Britian -- to ``achieve our objective of denying Belgrade's claim.''
Boucher said that Serbia and Montenegro should apply for U.N.
membership if they want to join the 179-member body.
``We do not consider Serbia-Montenegro to be the continuation or the
sole successor to the former Yugoslavia,'' he said. ``We firmly believe
that Serbia and Montenegro should be required to apply for membership in
the United Nations and should meet the criteria for admission before
being admitted.''
The United Nations has admitted the former Yugoslav republics of
Bosnia-Hercegovina, Croatia and Slovenia.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: U.N. says Italian relief plane shot down by missile near Sarajevo
Date: 16 Sep 92 19:41:51 GMT
UNITED NATIONS (UPI) -- The Italian relief plane downed near Sarajevo
this month was destroyed by a heat-seeking missile or an improved
version of the U.S.-made Stinger missile, the U.N. refugee agency said
Wednesday.
The preliminary report of the investigation by the Italian government
said the destruction of the plane, which killed four crew members on
Sept. 3, was caused by a heat-seeking missile SA9, or SA16, or an
improved Stinger missile, the U.N. Commissioner for Refugees in Geneva
said.
The plane, a G-222 aircraft which was carrying blankets for refugees
in Sarajevo, crashed 17 miles south of the capital of Bosnia-Hercegovina
and witnesses reported seeing at least two missiles fired at the plane,
one of which hit it.
The downing of the plane forced the suspension of the U.N.-led
humanitarian airlift campaign to bring badly needed food and medical
supplies to Sarajevo and besieged cities in the Balkan republic before
the winter.
``The results (of the investigation) obtained so far suggest without
any doubt that the aircraft G-222 had been struck at least by one
missile that had probably been provided with infra-red guidance,'' the
report said.
The report said the crash area was mountainous and there was no
evidence of any involvement of radar emissions or sophisticated radio-
controlled or radar-based missiles units. It concluded that the missile
must have been easily transportable.
The report did not indicate which side in the conflict in Bosnia-
Hercegovina was involved in the downing of the plane.
A news report from Islamabad, Pakistan, suggested last week that a
Stinger missile might have been involved in the crash. The report said
Muslim elements in Afghanistan may have given the Stingers to Muslim
Slavs in Bosnia-Hercegovina. The United States supplied the deadly
accurate Stinger missiles to the rebels during the war against the
Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.
The UNHCR said refugee commissioner Sadako Ogata met in Geneva on
Wednesday with representatives from the United States, Britain, Italy,
Canada, France, Germany, Norway and Sweden to discuss the investigative
report and the possible resumption of the humanitarian airlift. Ogata is
expected to recommend the resumption by week's end.
The agency has increased the number food convoys to Sarajevo and
other Bosnian cities since the suspension of the airlift which brought
about 200 tons of food in daily.
The Security Council on Monday allowed Secretary-General Boutros
Ghali to send up to 6,000 new U.N. peacekeeping soldiers to Bosnia-
Hercegovina. Their main task will be to provide security for the food
convoys. There are currently 1,600 U.N. troops guarding the Sarajevo
airport.
In a related development, the Bosnian U.N. Ambassador Muhamed
Sacirbey said at news conference that he was concerned that a recent
statement issued by U.N. forces in Sarajevo was a ``ploy to force my
government to negotiate from a position of diplomatic weakness.''
The U.N. statement, released Sept. 9, found Bosnian forces had
``deliberately perpetrated'' four attacks on the U.N. peace-keeping
forces in which three U.N. soldiers were killed in the past month. Among
the dead were two Frenchmen who were killed in an attack against an
unarmed food convoy on Sept. 8 at the Sarajevo airport.
Sacirbey called the U.N. statement ``repulsive as well as inaccurate
and inconsistent with our obvious objectives.'' He objected that an
official statement had been made before all the incidents could be
investigated.
Sacirbey pointed to reports about the attack on the French convoy
that contradicted the U.N. version of the incident. The reports said the
convoy had been caught in crossfire between the two militias.
``Clearly our troops were not trying to shoot or kill or injure any
U.N. troops,'' Sacirbey said.
The ambassador said the statement implied an effort to ``reach a
quick negotiated end (to the Yugoslavian conflict) that for Bosnia-
Hercegovina could mean capitulation.''
novine.11.bale.,
RFE/RL Daily Report
No. 177, 15 September 1992
SUCCESSOR STATES TO THE USSR
WARNINGS OF HYPERINFLATION IN RUSSIA. Somewhat belatedly, top
Russian officials have been warning of the very real possibility of
hyperinflation. President Yeltsin told regional officials in
Cheboksary on 11 September that supporters of cheap credits and
unrealistic social programs are pushing Russia into the abysss of
hyperinflation, according to Reuter. Evgenii Yasin warned on the
same day that hyperinflation had not yet arrived but that it was
closer than ever before, Biznes-TASS reported. And Sergei Vasiliev,
in an interview with The New York Times of 15 September, laid the
blame for looming hyperinflation squarely on the acting chairman of
the Russian Central Bank, Viktor Gerashchenko. (Keith Bush)
PLAUSIBILITY OF WARNINGS. The generally accepted definition of
hyperinflation is a rise in prices of 50% or more a month. This can
well happen in October, in the opinion of Anders Aslund,quoted in
the same New York Times article, "and once you hit hyperinflation,
it destroys most economic institutions." Indeed,the imminent
increase in the controlled wholesale prices of energy-carriers will
cause a substantial leap in the overall price index. But, as the
article suggests, these warnings are probably aimed primarily at
creating a sense of emergency and at organizing public pressure on
the parliament, the Congress of People's Deputies, and the Russian
Central Bank to act more responsibly. (Keith Bush)
RUSSIA TO RECEIVE MORE US FOOD AID. The Department of Agriculture
announced in Washington that the US is makinganother $1.15 billion
in loans available to Russia for foodimports this winter, according
to Western news agencies. Most of the aid, $900 million, is in the
form of loan guarantees for creditors providing import financing.
The Los Angeles Times on 15 September said that the Yeltsin
government had lobbiedWashington to approve the food aid early,
before winter got underway. Last year Russia began urgently
appealing for Western assistance only after the winter's food
supply crisis hadalready developed. Since the beginning of 1991,
the US has reportedly provided Russia with $5.75 billion in food
credit. (Erik Whitlock)
KHASBULATOV ON POSSIBILITY OF CONFEDERATION. Russian parliamentary
speaker Ruslan Khasbulatov said during his trip to Kyrgyzstan that
he believes the establishment of an interparliamentary assembly of
CIS states, which will become official at the summit of CIS state
leaders in Bishtek on 25 September, is the beginning of the
creation of a new confederation of former Soviet republics. The
assembly is scheduled to become an independently operating
organization with the right to dispute decisions made by the
leaders of CIS states. Interfax quoted Khasbulatov as saying that
Ukraine's absence in no way affects the work of the
interparliamentary assembly because Ukraine will join the assembly
at a later stage. (Alexander Rahr)
"DEMOCRATIC RUSSIA" PREPARED TO FIGHT. The Coordinating Council of
the "Democratic Russia" movement has issued an appeal to the
Russian people to fight attempts by the old nomenklatura forces to
halt privatization and reform, DR-Press reported on 11 September.
The St. Petersburg regional section of the Democratic Party of
Russia decided to support "Democratic Russia" and to distance
itself from the central leadership of the Democratic Party of
Russia, headed by Nikolai Travkin, which had formed a coalition
with the Civic Union. Meanwhile, the leadership of the Civic Union
decided to join a nationwide campaign for the organization of a
referendum on private ownership of land. (Alexander Rahr)
RUSSIA ASSURES US ON BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS. U.S. State Department
spokesman Richard Boucher on 14 September said that Russia had
given assurances that it would end "all aspects" of its biological
warfare program. Western press accounts of his statement indicated
that the pledge had been given during talks between American and
Russian representatives in Moscow on 1011 September. Boucher said
that on-site inspections were among the measures agreed by both
sides. Last month American and British government sources expressed
doubts that the Russian program had been terminated despite
President Yeltsin's earlier order banning the production of
biological weapons. (Doug Clarke)
RUSSIANS BALK AT SOME CONVENTIONAL ARMS INSPECTIONS. Richard
Boucher said on 11 September that Russia had refused allied arms
inspectors access to parts of some military facilities inspected
during August and September under the terms of the Conventional
Forces in Europe (CFE) treaty. That treaty became legally binding
on the signatories on 17 July 1992. According to Western agency
reports, Boucher acknowledged that the treaty was a complex one and
that problems during its implementation were "probably inevitable."
He indicated that the Russians had barred inspectors from entering
some storage, administrative, and other facilities in garrisons
said to be housing military equipment limited by the treaty. (Doug
Clarke)
GORBACHEV TO ATTEND SOCIALIST INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS. Mikhail
Gorbachev will attend the next Socialist International as a guest
of honor, "Vesti" reported on September 14. (The Congress is
scheduled to open today in Berlin.) About 70 parties from various
states of the world have applied for membership and are waiting for
their application to be reviewed at the Congress, "Vesti" noted.
The list includes a number of Russian political parties, among them
the Social Democratic Party of Russia, which includes a number of
prominent politicians, such as Oleg Rumyantsev, the author of the
official draft of the new Russian Constitution and an ardent
Gorbachev critic. (Julia Wishnevsky)
SUPREME SOVIET TO RECONSIDER DEFENSE LAW. The chairman of the
Russian Supreme Soviet Committee on Legislation, Mikhail Mityukov,
told ITAR-TASS on 14 September that the "law on defense" will be
considered once again by the parliament at its upcoming session.
On 10 August, Yeltsin refused to sign the law, which had been
approved by the Supreme Soviet on 26 June, because, among other
reasons, it limited his authority to appoint the defense minister.
Mityukov said that members of his committee supported Yeltsin's
proposal that the President be granted sole authority to name the
defense minister, the chief of the General Staff, and the
commanders of all service brancheswithout the approval of the
Supreme Sovietand that the President himself should submit for
approval to the Supreme Soviet plans for the composition,
structure, and strength of the Russian armed forces and its
leadership. (Stephen Foye).
KOBETS NAMED TO NEW POST. Army General Konstantin Kobets has been
named chief military inspector of the Russian armed forces by Boris
Yeltsin, Interfax reported on 14 September. Kobets, 53, was a
deputy chief of the USSR General Staff (for communications), and
his role in organizing the defense of the Russian government
building during the failed August coup catapulted him into a
leading role in the post-coup Soviet and Russian armed forces. He
subsequently served as chief (and then chairman) of the RSFSR State
Committee for Defense and Security, as a military advisor to
Yeltsin, and as a Deputy Chairman of the Russian State Commission
for the Creation of a Russian Defense Ministry. It is unclear what
powers he will exercise as chief military inspector. (Stephen Foye)
STATE OF RUSSIAN TANK FORCES. The chief of Russian armored forces,
Col. Gen. Aleksandr Galkin, said in Krasnaya zvezda on 12
September that the most modern machinesT-726's and
T-80'sconstituted only 25% of the current total Russian tank fleet.
He nevertheless expressed optimism that design work in tank
production was moving ahead at an acceptable pace, and that the
value of the tank forces would not be underestimated during the
creation of a new, highly mobile and professional Russian army.
Galkin's remarks were summarized by ITAR-TASS on 12 September.
(Stephen Foye)
"SOVIET PEOPLE"A REALITY? Researchers at the Institute of General
Genetics of the Russian Academy of Sciences claim that the "Soviet
people," long the mainstay of the Brezhnev-Suslov nationalities
policy, really exist. The researchers say that their studies show
that "the Soviet people"a concept despised by many former Soviet
citizens and seen by many as a cover for Russification policiesis
not an artificial ploy and that there is a single genetic code for
the "Soviet people." Consequently, they argue, today's "dispersion
in national apartments," that is, the independence of the former
republics, is "only a temporary historical-geographical
fluctuation." The report was cited by Arkadii Volsky, President of
the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, interviewed
in Pravda of 9 September, in support of his argument that empires
like the Russian and the Soviet ones do not disappear "without
leaving a trace." Volsky stressed, however, his realization of the
fact that "the restoration of the Soviet Union at present is
excluded." (Roman Solchanyk)
CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE
COURT RULES PRUNSKIENE COLLABORATED WITH KGB. On 14 September
after three months of hearings, the Lithuanian Supreme Court ruled
that former Prime Minister Kazimiera Prunskiene had consciously
cooperated with the KGB, the RFE/RL Lithuanian Service reports.
The ruling was based on information supplied by the parliament
commission investigating KGB activities, including her pledge to
cooperate signed on 8 June 1980. The court noted that Prunskiene
did not present evidence disproving the commission's documents. The
parliament is empowered to suspend her as a deputy and schedule a
vote of confidence in her district, but is unlikely to do so since
new Seimas elections will he held on 25 October and Prunskiene had
announced several months ago that she will not run again. (Saulius
Girnius)
HEAVY SHELLING OF SARAJEVO. On 14 September the BBC said that
Serbian artillery subjected the Bosnian capital to some of the
worst shelling of the war. The 15 September Washington Post quoted
UN personnel as saying that this showed that the Serbs had not
revealed all their big guns to UN monitors and that both sides seem
to be fighting a conventional war for strategic advantage before
winter arrived in October. Serbian aircraft apparently based at
Banja Luka dropped cluster bombs on Bihac, and fired air-to-ground
missiles as well on 14 September. Western news agencies also
quoted UN sources as saying that the Serbs heavily shelled
Gradacac, Brcko, and Bosanski Brod. Meanwhile in Croatia, the 13
September Novi vjesnik gave extensive coverage to the second
anniversary of Croatian antiterrorist units. (Patrick Moore)
UN TO INCREASE ROLE IN BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA. On 14 September the
Security Council voted to send up to 6,000 more troops to protect
humanitarian efforts in the troubled republic in addition to the
1,500 UN forces already there. The BBC on 15 September said that
the vote was 120-3, with China, India, and Zimbabwe abstaining.
Canada, Britain, and France will contribute and pay for the bulk of
the new land forces, while the US will offer air and sea support.
Washington, London, and Paris failed to agree in time on the
modalities of a no-fly zone for Bosnia, so no decision was reached
on that issue. UN spokesmen have sa&id that Serbian aircraft shadow
UN relief flights to Sarajevo to minimize chances of being shot at
by Bosnian or Croatian forces. (Patrick Moore)
PANIC IN MOSCOW AND BEIJING. On 13 September Milan Panic, the prime
minister of the rump Yugoslavia, began a three-day visit to Moscow
and Beijing. Panic is seeking support from both countries in order
to prevent a possible vote on expulsion by the UN Security Council
later this month. In Moscow Panic met with Deputy Foreign Minister
Boris Kolokolov, who told ITAR-TASS that Panic gave him the
impression that his government "really is trying to resolve the
conflict." In Beijing Premier Li Peng said that all former Yugoslav
republics and the rump Yugoslavia "should have their own place
within the United Nations and other international organizations,"
stressing that "Yugoslavia's expulsion would have serious
consequences for all." But the Chinese leader did not explicitly
say whether China will support the rump Yugoslavia's claim to a UN
seat. Li Peng also said China is concerned over the worsening
situation in Bosnia-Herzegovina and expressed deep sympathy with
the people there. Panic also requested from the Chinese
"humanitarian aid with oil." Xinhua and Radio Serbia carried the
report. (Milan Andrejevich)
CRISIS CONTINUES IN REPUBLIC OF MACEDONIA. A team of CSCE experts
arrived in Skopje on 11 September to determine whether monitors
ought to be posted to the Macedonian-Serbian border in an effort to
check the possible expansion of the wars of Yugoslav succession. It
is not clear whether the observers would be military or civilian,
but the head of the mission, Robert Frowick, an American, noted
that posting observers would "demonstrate the support of the
international community for the territorial integrity of . . .
Macedonia," Reuters and BTA report. The border between the Republic
of Macedonia and the predominantly Albanian Kosovo region of Serbia
is especially volatile. In a related story, other Western agencies
report that the Republic of Macedonia's only oil refinery was shut
down on 12 September because 70,000 tons of crude oil were blocked
at the port of Thessaloniki, apparently as part of ongoing Greek
pressure to force the new republic to drop the word "Macedonia"
from its official name. (Duncan Perry)
BULGARIA'S EXILED KING SEEKS A COMEBACK. Simeon II, who departed
Bulgaria at the age of 6 following the onset of communism, said in
a Madrid interview on 14 September that a return of the monarchy is
in Bulgaria's best interest. He noted that the legislature could
create a grand national assembly and restore himwithout the need of
a popular referendum. The former king is a businessman in Spain,
where he lives with his family. He has been low-key about pressing
for his return to Bulgaria in order to give the legislature and the
population time to consider the prospect. Simeon has a following in
Bulgaria and a monarchist political party exists; however, he does
not seem to have majority popular support and certainly does not
have the support of a majority in the parliament. Simeon is married
to a wealthy Spaniard and has five children, none of whom speaks
Bulgarian. (Duncan Perry)
GANEV ASSUMES UNGA PRESIDENCY. Bulgarian Foreign Minister Stoyan
Ganev was elected president of the UN General Assembly and takes
over that post officially on 15 September, Bulgarian and Western
sources note. Ganev has energetically pursued a policy of
integrating Bulgaria with Western countries and has succeeded in
drawing Bulgaria closer to Europe; it joined the Council of Europe
during his tenure in the Foreign Ministry. Ganev is 37 years old, a
lawyer by training, and speaks Russian and English. (Duncan Perry)
ILIESCU MEETS POPE. Romanian President Ion Iliescu was received on
14 September by Pope John Paul II at his summer residence Castel
Gandolfo. Radio Bucharest, which described the private interview as
a "tete-a-tete," noted that Iliescu is the first foreign official
to see the pope after his surgery in mid-July. John Paul expressed
hopes that Romania will completely restore democracy and religious
freedom and that relations between the Vatican and Romania will
further develop. Iliescu later met in Rome with Italian president
Oscar Luigi Scalfaro, with whom he discussed mutual ties and
prospects for Romania's association with the EC. Rome was the last
leg on Iliescu's three-day visit to Spain and Italy. (Dan Ionescu)
ROMANIA'S RUMP COMMUNIST PARTY BACKS ILIESCU. A spokesman for
Romania's reborn communist party, the Socialist Labor Party,
announced at a press conference on 14 September that his party has
decided to support incumbent president Ion Iliescu in the 27
September presidential race. Reuters quoted the spokesman as
saying that his party "will not field its own presidential
candidate in order to preserve the unity of the left wing." In a
press statement the SLP praised Iliescu for alleged "tolerance and
transparency" during his term in office, saying he tried "to defuse
tension and conflicts and strengthen the role of democratic
bodies." Iliescu, a former communist, was a high-ranking party
official before falling out of favor with late dictator Nicolae
Ceausescu in 1971. (Dan Ionescu)
ROMANIAN ASSOCIATION WITH THE EC. On 14 September a Romanian
delegation began a new round of negotiations in Brussels on
association with the European Community. In an interview with Radio
Bucharest, delegation leader Napoleon Pop said that the two-day
talks will focus on the text of some 10 articles (out of a
124-points association agreement) dealing with Romanian exports of
agricultural products, iron and steel, and textiles to EC
countries. (Dan Ionescu)
WARSAW SOLIDARITY HOLDS PROTEST MARCH. Several thousand members of
Solidarity's radical Mazowsze region marched through Warsaw on 14
September. The protesters said their aim was to pressure the
government and the parliament into providing an economic program
satisfactory to workers. The Mazowsze region's firebrand leader,
Maciej Jankowski, threatened a general strike as a last resort that
would determine whether "the elites will send us packing or we will
send the elites packing." Other demonstrators claimed that this
would be the "last peaceful demonstration" by unionists in Warsaw
and shouted, "We want facts, not pacts" and "No more thieving
privatization." (Louisa Vinton)
HUNGARIANS GET COMPENSATION FOR COMMUNIST SEIZURES. The head of the
national compensation office, Tamas Sepsey, told MTI that his
agency has ruled on 202,340 claims for compensation for property
seized by the communist regime and has paid out some 9.5 billion
forint. He reported that only 130,000 of the 830,000 applicants
for compensation wish to use the compensation vouchers to buy land;
during the first two weeks of land auctions 86 people received
land. Sepsey said that Hungarians living abroad are also eligible
for compensation but most of them do not know about the
opportunity. He promised to provide more information about
compensation through Hungarian embassies. (Edith Oltay)
[As of 1200 CET]
Compiled by Hal Kosiba & Charles Trumbull
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novine.12.bale.,
RFE/RL Daily Report
No. 178, 16 September 1992
SUCCESSOR STATES TO THE USSR
SITUATION IN TAJIKISTAN. Authorities in Kulyab Oblast have accused
opposition forces of killing nine people and taking ten hostages
in a gun battle on 14 September, ITAR-TASS reported the following
day. The invaders apparently came from Kurgan-Tyube Oblast, which
has been attacked repeatedly by fighters from Kulyab who support
deposed President Rakhmon Nabiev. Ostankino TV's evening news
reported on 14 September that Tajikistan's leading Muslim cleric,
Kazi Akbar Turadzhonzoda, has protested the decision of
opposition-controlled Tajik TV to stop rebroadcasting Russian TV
programs. The head of Tajik TV claimed that Russian reporting on
events on Tajikistan was distorted. The kazi agreed, but objected
to "an information famine." (Bess Brown, RFE/RL, Inc.)
SITUATION IN ABKHAZIA STILL "EXTREMELY COMPLICATED". The
tripartite commission charged with monitoring the Abkhaz peace
agreement met in Adler on 15 September and drew up an accord on
the disengagement of Abkhaz and Georgian forces in north-west
Abkhazia and a new ceasefire agreement to take effect at midnight
on 15 September, ITAR-TASS reported. Addressing the State Council
in Tbilisi, Chairman Eduard Shevardnadze said that he had informed
Russian President Boris Yeltsin by telephone that Abkhazia was
violating the ceasefire agreement. Shevardnadze characterized the
situation in Abkhazia as still "extremely complicated" and stated
that Georgia's military contingent in the region would be
strengthened. (Liz Fuller, RFE/RL, Inc.)
RUSSIA REJECTS UN EXPULSION OF YUGOSLAVIA. Russian Foreign
Ministry spokesman Sergei Yastrzhembsky said on 15 September that
Russia opposes the idea of isolating rump Yugoslavia by expelling
it from international organizations such as the United Nations.
He noted that Russia could use its veto power during a vote at the
UN to block the expulsion of Yugoslavia, ITAR-TASS reported on 15
September. This statement is in line with remarks made by Milan
Panic in late July, apparently based on discussions during the
CSCE summit in Helsinki. Panic was quoted by Izvestiya on 31 July
as saying: "President Boris Yeltsin promised me that if necessary,
Russia will use its veto one hundred times in the UN Security
Council to oppose a resolution on the exclusion of Yugoslavia."
(Suzanne Crow, RFE/RL, Inc.)
CIS INTERPARLIAMENTARY ASSEMBLY OPENS. The Interparliamentary
Assembly of the CIS has gone into its first session in Bishkek,
ITAR-TASS reported on 15 September. Parliamentary delegations
from Armenia, Belarus, Kazhakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and
Tajikistan--the CIS states which have signed the agreement on the
creation of the Interparliamentary Assembly--are participating. A
delegation from Uzbekistan, which also signed the agreement, did
not arrive for the first session. The parliamentary delegations
are being headed by the speakers of the parliaments of the CIS
member states. The Assembly will discuss the development of
interstate relations inside the CIS, the role of parliaments in
the social protection of the population, and general economic
problems. (Alexander Rahr, RFE/RL, Inc.)
KHASBULATOV ELECTED HEAD OF INTERPARLIAMENTARY ASSEMBLY. Russian
parliamentary speaker Ruslan Khasbulatov has been elected Chairman
of the CIS Interparliamentary Assembly, ITAR-TASS reported on 15
September. Khasbulatov will preside over the work of the Assembly
for one year. It has also been decided that St. Petersburg will
become the seat of the Interparliamentary Assembly. The statute
of the Assembly was adopted and agreement has been reached on the
creation of permanent Assembly commissions on cooperation in
legal, economic, humanitarian, ecological and military affairs.
(Alexander Rahr, RFE/RL, Inc.)
BANKER WARNS AGAINST RUSSIAN DEBT REDUCTION. The managing
director of the prestigious Washington-based Institute of
International Finance, Horst Schulman, announced at a news
conference that offering Russia debt relief would be a mistake.
According to a RFE/RL correspondent reporting on 16 September,
Schulman asserted that such action would send a very unfavorable
message to both creditors and debtors around the world: "in the
face of what is clearly [a] very unsatisfactory performance," debt
relief would be viewed as "an entitlement program" for Russia. In
Schulman's opinion, Russia has not done enough to pay its foreign
debts. He cited Russia's reluctance to raise domestic prices for
oil, a policy which would restrict domestic demand and free up
supplies for hard-currency sales. (Erik Whitlock/Robert Lyle,
RFE/RL, Inc.)
RUSSIAN FARMERS DEMONSTRATE. Farmers gathered outside the Russian
government building in Moscow to demand economic assistance,
various Russian and Western news agencies reported on 15
September. In particular, the demonstrators called for more
investment in the agricultural sector, tax and debt relief, as
well as low-interest loans. Reports variously estimated the
number of participants at between four hundred and two thousand.
According to ITAR-TASS, the demonstration lasted an hour and a
half. The protest follows a similar action in August that was
viewed as largely ineffective. Interfax quoted demonstrators as
saying that this was their "last soft action," and that they would
use more serious methods in the future if the government did not
respond to their demands. (Erik Whitlock, RFE/RL, Inc.)
VOLSKY CRITICIZES PRIVATE BUSINESS SPECIALISTS. President of the
Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, Arkadii Volsky, stated
that about one and a half million specialists are duplicating
various intellectual and business activities in countless
fictitious enterprises, Voice of Russia reported on September 13.
Although these people have created an enormous number of
foundations, analytical centers, consulting bureaus, and middleman
companies, the result of all this activity is next to zero, Volsky
was quoted by Voice of Russia as telling Patriot (no.35). Voice of
Russia accused Volsky of being a high-level KGB officer, a charge
it has made frequently in the past. (Victor Yasmann,RFE/RL, Inc.)
COMMUNIST PARTY HEARINGS RESUME WITH EXPERT TESTIMONY. After a
six-week recess, the Russian Constitutional Court resumed the
hearings on the status of the communist party on 15 September.
Opening the session, court chairman Valerii Zorkin said that 13
legal experts would testify on whether the communist party is a
true political party and whether the Russian Communist Party (RCP)
is independent from the Soviet Communist Party (CPSU), Interfax
reported. Zorkin noted that six of these experts have given
written opinions supporting the Russian president's ban, while
seven other experts contend that the ban was illegal. The court is
also expected to examine the question of who owned and disposed of
party property. Meanwhile, Valentin Kuptsov, the former RCP first
secretary, asked the court to legalize the party temporarily until
the court reaches a verdict, Russian and Western agencies
reported. (Carla Thorson, RFE/RL, Inc.)
NATIONALIST PARTIES RESUME PICKETING OF OSTANKINO. On 15
September, representatives of extreme Russian nationalist parties
resumed their picketing of the Ostankino TV station demanding
daily broadcast time on Russian TV, ITAR-TASS reported. Their
picketing of Ostankino first started this past summer, and it led
to the opposition obtaining broadcast time on a monthly basis; now
they want more. (Vera Tolz, RFE/RL, Inc.)
YELTSIN HOLDS TALKS WITH TATARSTAN PRESIDENT. On 15 September,
Russian President Boris Yeltsin held talks in Moscow with the
Tatarstan President, Mintimer Shaimiev, ITAR-TASS reported. The
agency quoted Yeltsin's press office as saying the two presidents
discussed preparations for a draft treaty on the division of
functions between the Russian central and Tatar authorities. The
RuRFE/RL, Inc.)ar authorities agreed in July to prepare a treaty
on Tatarstan's sovereignty and its union with Russia. (Vera Tolz,
RFE
ORDERS FOR MILITARY HARDWARE TO GROW. ITAR-TASS reported on 11
September that state orders by the Russian government for military
hardware in 1993 will be higher than in 1992. No specifics on the
orders were provided. The increase was attributed to the need to
maintain the scientific and intellectual level of the defense
sector, and to reduce the effects of Russia's general economic
decline. The decision was reportedly reached at a closed-door
meeting of Russian government officials and leaders of the
military industries on 10 September. (Stephen Foye, RFE/RL, Inc.)
RUSSIA OFFERS TO SELL WARSHIPS TO THE PHILIPPINES. A spokesman for
the Philippine Navy said on 11 September that Russia had offered
to sell fast attack craft, corvettes, and minesweepers to the
Philippines. According to the Chinese Zinhua news agency, the
spokesman said that the offer had come during a meeting that day
in Manila between a Russian delegation and the chairman of the
Philippine Navy's weapons board. The agency also quoted
Philippine Air Force chief, Brigadier Gen. Leopoldo Acot, as
saying that a proposal to purchase MiG-29 jet fighters from Russia
was being "carefully studied." (Doug Clarke, RFE/RL, Inc.)
UKRAINIAN PARLIAMENT OPENS. The sixth session of the Ukrainian
parliament opened on 15 September against a background of
unresolved economic problems and the opposition's determination to
force new parliamentary elections and the dismissal of the present
government. Western news agencies reported on 15 September that
Prime Minister Vitold Fokin, in a message read to the lawmakers,
warned that the economy is in an "extremely deep crisis." Fokin
said that the government's new economic reform plan was still
being discussed and would be presented to parliament no later than
28 September. The lawmakers were met by protesters at the
parliament, which has become almost traditional for each new
parliamentary session. (Roman Solchanyk RFE/RL, Inc.)
BELARUS TO RATIFY CFE TREATY. Belarus President Stanislav
Shushkyevich told German leaders on 15 September that his
government would ratify the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE)
treaty by the end of the year. Shushkyevich was visiting Bonn and
his remarks were reported by Western agencies. The treaty, signed
by the members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)
and the former Warsaw Pact--including the successor states to the
USSR--sets limits on five categories of conventional weapons
allowed between the Urals and the Atlantic. The agreement came
into force on 17 July 1992 even though two of the 29 signatories,
Armenia and Belarus, had not yet ratified it. They were given 120
days to complete the process. (Doug Clarke, RFE/RL, Inc.)
NAZARBAEV PROMOTES ECONOMIC COOPERATION. Kazakhstan's President
Nursultan Nazarbaev told a meeting of industrialists in Alma-Ata
that political ambition is prevailing over economic rationalism in
the CIS, and he will propose to the CIS summit in Bishkek that
supragovernmental structures be created in the Commonwealth,
Russian TV reported on 14 September. On 15 September, the Russian
economics minister, Andrei Nechaev, and the chairman of
Kazakhstan's State Economics Committee, Tleukhan Kabdrakhmanov,
signed a protocol on economic cooperation between the two
countries, ITAR-TASS reported. This agreement provides for
prognoses of socio-economic development, cooperation in currency
and credit policy, and various joint mining and environmental
projects. Nechaev did not lend encouragement to a pet project of
Nazarbaev, the creation of a supranational currency authority.
(Bess Brown, RFE/RL, Inc.)
"DNIESTER" MOLDOVAN TEACHERS TO STRIKE FOR LATIN SCRIPT. Most
teachers in Moldovan schools controlled by "Dniester" Russian
authorities are protesting against the recent "Dniester" edict on
languages, which imposes the Russian alphabet on the "Moldovan"
(i.e. Romanian) language in place of the Latin alphabet (see
RFE/RL Daily Report, 10 September). The teachers have announced
plans for a general strike beginning on 20 September, Radio Rossii
and DR-Press reported on 14 and 15 September, respectively.
(Vladimir Socor, RFE/RL, Inc.)
"DNIESTER REPUBLIC" CONTINUES CREATING STATE STRUCTURES. The
"Dniester republic Supreme Soviet" decided to set up a customs
system for the would-be republic, Interfax reported on 11
September; it began functioning on 15 September, Nezavisimaya
gazeta reported on the 16th. The same source reported that
Moldova's television relays located on the left bank of the
Dniester have been taken over by the "Dniester" authorities. On
14 September, Interfax reported that the "Dniester republic"
intends to introduce its own citizenship. Since 2 September,
using the breathing spell gained through the ceasefire and the
protective cover of Russian troops, ostensibly in Moldova to carry
out impartial peacekeeping duties, the "Dniester republic" has
also proceeded to set up a government with full-fledged
ministries, including those of Defense and State Security;
announced the establishment of its own air force and border
troops, and the intention to create its own professional army; it
has also formed its own banking system. (Vladimir Socor, RFE/RL,
Inc.)
MOLDOVA FEELS CHEATED. An unnamed senior official of Moldova's
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, representing Moldova on the Joint
Control Commission which nominally supervises the Russian
peacekeeping forces on the Dniester, "expressed concern over
certain activities of that body...The presence of the peacekeeping
forces is being used by the Tiraspol leaders to consolidate
illegal state structures in the Dniester area." The Moldovan
official called for "a rigorous control of the [Russian-Moldovan
ceasefire] convention by international bodies...to avoid arbitrary
or hostile interpretations," Rompres reported on 13 September. The
statement, the first of its kind from Moldova since the convention
was signed on 21 July, appears to reflect the apprehension that
Snegur's gamble in accepting the deployment of Russian
peacekeeping troops in Moldova in exchange for Russian promises to
restrain the "Dniester" secession, is backfiring against Moldova.
(Vladimir Socor, RFE/RL, Inc.)
CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE
EC MOVES TO EXCLUDE SERBIA-MONTENEGRO FROM UN. Poland,
Czechoslovakia, Hungary, the US, and Islamic Conference member
states will apparently join Britain and the EC in taking steps
this week to bar Serbia-Montenegro from holding the former
Yugoslavia's seat in the UN and related organizations.
International media reported on 15 and 16 September that it is not
yet clear whether Russia will agree to such a ban.
Serbia-Montenegro call themselves "Yugoslavia" but the state
remains internationally unrecognized, largely because its creation
is widely regarded as an attempt by the Belgrade authorities to
claim much of the legitimacy and assets of Tito's now defunct
federation. For its part, Serbia-Montenegro says that it does not
see how it can continue to participate in a UN-backed peace
process if that organization excludes Belgrade from its work, the
BBC said on 16 September. (Patrick Moore, RFE/RL, Inc.)
"NO-FLY ZONE" OVER BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA? International media also
report that the Security Council is expected to consider stetting
up a "no-fly zone" on the Iraqi model over the troubled republic.
Of the combatants, only Serbian forces have aircraft, and they
have been accused of shadowing UN relief flights as a way of
obtaining cover on bombing missions against Bosnian and Croatian
forces. Peace envoys Cyrus Vance and Lord Owen on 15 September
deplored Serb air attacks the previous day on four
Muslim-controlled towns in Bosnia, Western news agencies report.
UN peace-keeping operations chief Marrack Goulding said that the
attacks show how urgent it is to set up the "no-fly zone."
Meanwhile, 68 badly injured Bosnian refugees were taken by air
from Banja Luka to London for treatment. The Red Cross had
selected them from numerous inmates of Serbian "detention
centers." (Patrick Moore, RFE/RL, Inc.)
CROAT-MUSLIM CONFLICTS IN BOSNIA. Radios Serbia and Slovenia
report on 14 and 15 September that there has been a rise of
clashes between Croatian and Muslim militia in towns in
Herzegovina. In the Bosnian towns of Prozor and Vitez, local
education officials decided that instruction in primary schools
will be based on those in Croatia. Muslims have protested the
decision saying Muslim children would not attend schools modeled
on those of another state. The majority population in Vitez is
Muslim, but all authority is in the hands of the Croats. On 14
September Radio Bosnia-Herzegovina reported the republic's
Constitutional Court passed a decision saying that the
establishment of the "Croatian Community of Herceg-Bosna" on 18
November 1991 was illegal. The Bosnian authorities have also
earlier condemned successionist moves by Serbian groups. Vecerniji
list on 15 September, however, quoted Bosnia's vice president as
playing down reports of tensions between Muslims and Croats.
(Milan Andrejevic, RFE/RL, Inc)
MACEDONIAN BORDER SECURITY TIGHTENED. As a response to the ongoing
Bosnian war and fear that it might spread to the Republic of
Macedonia, the Skopje government has decided to strengthen
security along its 240-km border with Serbia, Reuters and Makpres
report. The move came just after a CSCE mission recommended
patrols along the border to help head off expansion of the war
there. Evidently only main highways until now have had border
checkpoints. Military personnel will soon begin construction of
defense facilities along the border according to Nova Makedonija.
The CSCE patrols, which would augment the frontier guard force,
may be composed of civilian observers. (Duncan Perry, RFE/RL,
INC.)
SERBIAN PREELECTION SCENE. On 14 September round-table talks
between the rump Yugoslav government and opposition parties
resulted in the adoption of parts of a declaration on the
electoral system and the financing of upcoming elections. The
adoption of these documents will be placed on the federal
assembly's agenda on 18 September. The remaining aspects of the
declaration referring to the role of the media are also slated for
debate soon. Meanwhile, Zoran Andjelkovic, a leading official in
the ruling Socialist Party (SPS) stated on 15 September that
Slobodan Milosevic, in addition to his candidature for SPS
chairman, will run as "the SPS candidate in the forthcoming
elections for the most responsible state functions in the
republic." Andjelkovic did not elaborate. Radio Serbia carried
the reports. (Milan Andrejevich, RFE/RL, Inc.)
DEMONSTRATIONS OVER HUNGARIAN TV PRESIDENT. According to a 14
September Radio Budapest report, two demonstrations are being
organized involving Elemer Hankiss, the president of Hungarian TV.
Hankiss was dismissed by Prime Minister Jozsef Antall earlier this
year, but President Arpad Goncz refused to sign the dismissal
order. The first demonstration--against Hankiss--is organized by
the Committee for Free Hungarian Information, which includes some
journalists, members of the World Federation of Hungarians
Fighting in 1956, and some chapters of the Hungarian Democratic
Forum and the Christian Democratic Peoples' Party. The
demonstration will start next Saturday and, organizers say, will
last until Hankiss remains in office. The second
demonstration--in support of Hankiss--is organized by artists and
reportedly more resembles a picnic than a political event. (Judith
Pataki, RFE/RL, Inc.)
ROMANIA TIGHTENS VISA RULES FOR THIRD WORLD. Romanian Interior
Minister Victor Babiuc announced on 15 September that Romania will
tighten visa regulations for 24 countries in an effort to curb
illegal immigration. Under the new rules, citizens of those
countries need an invitation from a Romanian citizen or firm, and
these must assume financial responsibility for the visitors.
Albania is the only European country on the list; the others are
mostly Arab and Third World countries. Western agencies quoted
Babiuc as saying that many foreigners are using Romania as a
springboard to the West. There are currently some 30,000
foreigners in Romania who have overstayed their tourist visas.
(Dan Ionescu, RFE/RL, Inc.)
NATIONALIST PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE BESIEGED IN TIMISOARA. Some
2,000 protesters jeered Romanian presidential candidate Gheorghe
Funar in Timisoara. Funar, the mayor of Cluj, is running on the
ticket of the Party for Romanian National Unity (PRNU), the
political arm of the extreme nationalist Vatra romaneasca
("Romanian Hearth") organization. The protesters shouted
"Communist" and "Fascist" and threw fruit and vegetables at Funar
while he was laying a wreath at a monument outside the cathedral
in Timisoara to honor those killed in the December 1989
revolution. Many carried signs hailing the Democratic Convention,
the main opposition alliance. Radio Bucharest carried a PRNU
statement condemning the incident. (Dan Ionescu, RFE/RL, Inc.)
GORBUNOVS IS LATVIA'S INTERIM HEAD OF STATE. On 15 September the
Supreme Council ruled that the chairman of the Supreme Council
will serve as head of state until the Saeima (parliament)
convenes. Saeima deputies are still to be elected and an election
date has not been set, though elections are expected to take place
in the fall of 1993. The functions of the head of state are
representational. This decision supplements the law on the duties
and functions of the Supreme Council that was adopted on 5 August
and does not grant new powers to Supreme Council Chairman
Anatolijs Gorbunovs, Radio Riga reports. (Dzintra Bungs, RFE/RL,
Inc.)
PRESIDENTIAL POLL IN LITHUANIA. On 15 September BNS reported on
the results of a poll conducted in late August and early September
by the Sociological Research Laboratory of the University of
Vilnius. The leading candidate for president is parliament
chairman Vytautas Landsbergis with 31% of the poll, followed by
Lithuanian Democratic Labor Party chairman Algirdas Brazauskas
with 19% and Lithuanian chargi d'affaires in Moscow Egidijus
Bickauskas with 5%. When asked who they would like to see in the
new parliament, 20% of the respondents mentioned Brazauskas,
18%--Landsbergis, and 12%--Bickauskas. BNS gave no margin of error
for the poll. (Saulius Girnius, RFE/RL, Inc.)
IMF APPROVES FIRST CREDIT FOR LATVIA. On 15 September Latvia
became the first of the former USSR republics to achieve a full
stand-by arrangement with the International Monetary Fund, making
it eligible to draw loans of up to about $81 million over the
coming year. The credit is meant to support a comprehensive
economic reform that includes continued price liberalization and a
speeded-up privatization process. The IMF says that without
outside help Latvia's "decline in output and employment could be
significantly larger than anticipated," RFL/RL correspondent
reported on 16 September from Washington. (Dzintra Bungs,
RFE/RL, Inc.)
DIFFICULTIES WITH LITHUANIA-RUSSIA TRADE AGREEMENT. During a
meeting in Moscow on 18 September, Lithuanian Prime Minister
Aleksandras Abisala and Russia's acting Prime Minister Egor Gaidar
were expected to sign a long-term trade agreement. On 15
September, citing unofficial sources, BNS said that the meeting
had been postponed to 22 September at Lithuania's request. Deputy
chairman of the Lithuanian Parliament Ceslovas Stankevicius, who
heads the state delegation for negotiations with Moscow, had
earlier told BNS that although agreements on mutual accounting and
payments were ready for signing, Russia's proposals on trade
required further discussion since Russia suggested quotas and
licenses that would allow it to introduce certain limitations that
were unacceptable since Lithuania wanted a real "free trade
agreement." (Saulius Girnius, RFE/RL, Inc.)
EC TALKS ABOUT BALTS. The European Parliament in Strasbourg has
delayed a vote on commercial and trade agreements with the Baltic
States by one month. Europarliament socialist delegate Gary Titley
from the UK told an RFE/RL correspondent on 15 September that the
vote was delayed because of concern over Estonia's constitutional
referendum, citizenship law, and election law. Officials from the
Europarliament Secretariat, however, told the RFE/RL Estonian
Service on 16 September that the delay is "purely technical." The
draft agreement was submitted to the Foreign Trade Commission,
which must approve all agreements before they are considered by
the parliament. (Riina Kionka, RFE/RL, Inc.)
ESTONIA'S JOBLESS RALLY FOR "HUMAN RIGHTS." About 1000
demonstrators rallied in support of "human rights" in Narva on 15
September, Estonian TV reports. The demonstration, organized by a
group calling itself the Estonian Association of the Unemployed,
demanded that the government "restore economic ties with Russia
and CIS member states in order to cut unemployment" in formerly
all-union factories, BNS reports. Unemployment in Estonia is
currently at an all-time high of 0.5%. Over 90% of Estonia's
current trade is with CIS member states. (Riina Kionka, RFE/RL,
Inc.)
POLISH GOVERNMENT SAVORS VICTORY IN FSM STRIKE. As the FSM auto
plant began preparations to resume production, Deputy Prime
Minister Henryk Goryszewski commented that "for the first time, a
strike has ended in something other than a victory for the
strikers; this time, the public and its democratic state won out."
The strikers abandoned all wage demands and accepted the terms of
an agreement negotiated between the management and the trade
unions on 29 July, shortly after the strike began. This gives them
limited raises as soon as Fiat takes over the plant. Workers will
also receive loans from local authorities. Management has agreed
not to take disciplinary action against strike participants, and
to consider rehiring the 347 strike activists fired during the
strike. Both sides agreed to help speed Fiat's assumption of
control. (Louisa Vinton, RFE/RL, Inc.)
POLAND'S ECONOMY GROWS, BUT SO DOES DEFICIT. Poland's industrial
output in August was 6.8% higher than in August 1991, the Main
Statistical Office reported on 14 September. Industrial
production for the first eight months of 1992 was just 0.8% below
last year's level. Economists from the Main Trade School reported
that Poland had not experienced the typical summer slowdown in
economic activity. Prospects for the rest of 1992 are good: firms
and banks report that new orders are up, while indebtedness and
inventories are down. Investment in machines and equipment rose in
August for the first time in a year. Deputy Finance Minister
Wojciech Misiag said on 14 September that the government had
already decided to ask the Sejm to revise the 1992 budget to deal
with the larger than predicted deficit. Misiag said a 30 trillion
zloty ($2 billion) shortfall was likely. PAP reported that the
unemployment rate at the end of August was 13.4%. More than
one-third of the unemployed are not entitled to benefits. (Louisa
Vinton, RFE/RL, Inc.)
POLISH DEFENSE MINISTRY OPPOSES LUSTRATION. Deputy Defense
Minister Bronislaw Komorowski told the Sejm's defense commission
on 15 September that passage of the "decommunization" laws now
under consideration would mean "the loss of virtually the entire
command structure of the Polish army." Only two generals--one the
military bishop, the other an academic worker--would survive the
process. Noting that 14,000 officers had been removed in 1990-91,
ministry officials argued that further cuts would undermine
Poland's defense capability. Proponents of lustration charged the
defense ministry with attempting to remove the army from
parliamentary supervision, but a majority of the Sejm commission
seemed to agree that the armed forces deserved special treatment.
The commission thus asked to participate in deliberations on the
six draft bills now before the Sejm. (Louisa Vinton RFE/RL, Inc.)
[As of 1200 CET]
Compiled by Hal Kosiba & Charles Trumbull
The RFE/RL Daily Report is produced by the RFE/RL Research
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novine.13.bale.,
UPI NEWS, 17.09.1992.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Fischer defeats 'tired' Spassky for 4-2 lead
Subject: Philippines to close its Yugoslav embassy
Subject: War is hell for dogcatchers, too
Subject: Fierce fighting in Sarajevo on eve of Geneva talks
Subject: Serbia threatens to topple Yugoslav prime minister
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Fischer defeats 'tired' Spassky for 4-2 lead
Date: 17 Sep 92 01:50:09 GMT
PRZNO, Yugoslavia (UPI) -- Former U.S. chess champion Bobby Fischer
defeated an admittedly tired Russian opponent Boris Spassky with only 21
moves Wednesday, taking a 4-2 lead in their 20th anniversary rematch.
Spassky, who is having trouble sleeping and was said by experts to
have missed a winning position in a previous game, asked after
Wednesday's loss that their next game be delayed until Saturday.
``I feel tired, I will ask for the postponement of the 10th game,''
Spassky said after Wednesday's three-hour contest. ``I need two days
rest.''
International chess master Nikola Karaklajic was highly critical of
Spassky's play Wednesday. ``This ninth game was unbelieveable,'' he
said. ``Spassky blundered.''
Fischer leads by four games to two, with three draws, in the $5
million contest at the Mestral Hotel in Przno, near the southern
Adriatic resort of Sveti Stefan in the Yugoslav republic of Montenegro.
Spassky, who complained that he has been waking up at 4 a.m., visited
a doctor after Wednesday's game and was given medicine to help him
sleep.
The doctor, Ljubo Zivkovic, also persuaded Spassky to change his
diet.
Fischer also changed his diet earlier in the series after reportedly
realizing his eating habits were hurting his concentration.
``Boris is very tired,'' Spassky colleague Alexander Nikitin said
Wednesday. ``The last three games he played far from his shape.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Philippines to close its Yugoslav embassy
Date: 17 Sep 92 08:46:09 GMT
MANILA, Philippines (UPI) -- The Philippines Thursday announced plans
to close its embassy in war-shattered former Yugoslavia to protest
alleged human rights abuses by Serbian forces against Bosnian Muslims.
``We deplore what has happened there to the point that...we are going
to close down that embassy,'' Foreign Secretary Roberto Romulo told
reporters. ``The exact timing has to be worked out, but we will make the
appropriate formal notices today.''
The Philippines had previously recalled its ambassador to Yugoslav on
Aug. 19, warning that Manila would close the facility altogether if the
situation worsened.
International groups accuse Serbian guerrillas -- armed by the
Yugoslav central army -- of abusing captured troops in Bosnia-
Hercegovina, a former Yugoslav republic.
Serbian forces have been waging a five-month war against Bosnia-
Hercegovina, which declared independence from Yugoslavia earlier this
year.
The European Community and other groups have labeled Serbia the
primary aggressor in the conflict.
Earlier this month, the Philippines joined the 108-member Non-Aligned
Movement in condemning alleged Serbian abuses against Bosnians.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: War is hell for dogcatchers, too
Date: 17 Sep 92 15:32:41 GMT
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Hercegovina (UPI) -- Two teen-aged girls watched
tearfully as Bambi thrashed in a vain struggle to escape the bite of
steel wire snares looped around his throat and rear haunches.
But Bambi's heart-wrenching howls and the girls' pleas for mercy
failed to deter his captors. They hauled the dog to their truck from his
adopted home in the war-ravaged city, a park between two shell-shattered
apartment blocks.
``We've lost everything and now they are taking our dog,'' wept Aida,
16. ``We like Bambi.''
The cries of the doomed sandy-haired mutt were muffled behind a door
at the rear of the truck.
``Everyone here gives him food,'' said Jana, 17.
For Sarajevo's four-man band of dogcatchers, Bambi's capture was a
tiny blow in their battle to contain a dangerous population explosion of
stray dogs. The strays are potentially potent sources of disease in the
besieged Bosnian capital.
Aida admitted reluctantly that perhaps it was best the popular
neighborhood pooch be put to sleep.
``He has been lethargic lately, and maybe he is sick. We all love him
and feed him, but maybe it is better to take him away,'' she said.
Aside from shelling and snipers, the canine problem is the most
serious faced by the sanitation department in the five-month-old Serbian
siege.
The blockade has severely restricted food supplies, reducing city
garbage by an estimated 45 percent.
At the same time, sanitation officials and workers said, the food
shortage is forcing residents to loose their pets to forage on the
devastated streets.
Many dogs, they said, also are finding their way into Sarajevo from
outlying villages abandoned by residents who fled the fighting or were
uprooted by Serbian ethnic cleansing.
Before the war, between 70 and 80 strays were caught each week in
Sarajevo and put to sleep by injection, said Vinko Raguz, manager of
public sanitation in the municipal sanitation department.
``The weekly average is now about 100 to 110 dogs,'' he said. ``Now,
many are running in packs.''
``The colonies of dogs are forming in the forests and the edges of
the town controlled by the Serbs,'' said Mirsad Kebo, the sanitation
department director. ``So, we can't go in and catch them.''
Ivan Ilic, a member of the dogcatching squad, said he and his
colleagues have been finding many pure-bred dogs among the ratty strays
they snag with the looped wire snares strapped on their wrists.
``We've seen valuable dogs, all kinds,'' he said. ``Poodles, cocker
spaniels, German shepherds are the most.''
All of the canines, no matter their pedigree, are difficult to handle
because of the food shortages, Ilic said.
``They are more dangerous because they are hungry,'' said the 20-year
veteran dogcatcher. ``They have had no food, or not the same selection
of food as they had before the war.''
``They are thin, but sometimes we find dogs in good shape, which
means they have just been kicked out,'' he explained.
Another problem is a lack of manpower.
``Before the war, we had two teams, but less dogs,'' observed Nikola
Dodik, another squad member. ``There are at least three times more dogs
than there were before.''
The dogcatchers, like the hundreds of thousands of other people in
Sarajevo, have not been immune from the ethnic hatreds that led to the
war in the former Yugoslav republic.
The team is comprised exclusively of Croats because the Serbian
dogcatchers all joined the Serbian forces encircling the city.
One of them, Ratko Rakic, was seen recently on the television channel
of the self-declared Serbian state by his former workmates. He was shown
manning an artillery piece, they said.
``I like catching dogs. I would never shoot a gun,'' said Ilic.
None of the dogcatchers have been killed or injured, and they are
escorted by the police when they have to enter dangerous areas.
``We have to go to such places when people call us,'' explained Ilic.
``The dogs enter the hallways of apartment buildings because they are
scared by shelling. But, then people can't get out of their homes.''
``Also at mating time, as many as 15 of them collect in one hallway,''
said Ilic.
The squad spends each day patroling different streets, parks and
alleyways in its yellow truck, constantly on the prowl for strays.
When one is sighted, the team stops and alights. Each member is armed
with a wire snare. They fan out in a circle with studied practice, and
then move in on their quarry with ruthless efficiency.
Many dogs sighted on a recent patrol proved too wily, slipping
quickly between the hunters and darting away.
In one case, an irate family refused to allow the team to take away a
litter of newborn puppies from an apartment building stairwell.
``I don't want to fight with people,'' said Franjo Ilic, Ivan Ilic's
brother and fellow dogcatcher.
Bambi posed no challenge, watching unsuspectedly with droopy,
bloodshot eyes until it was too late.
``We feel sympathy for these dogs, but now they are disturbing normal
life in the town,'' said Ivan Ilic, himself the proud owner of a
Macedonian sheep dog, a shaggy 110-pound giant.
``They have gone without vaccinations,'' he continued. ``They are
very fertile soil for infections.''
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Fierce fighting in Sarajevo on eve of Geneva talks
Date: 17 Sep 92 17:46:56 GMT
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Hercegovina (UPI) -- The U.N. headquarters came under
attack Thursday as fierce fighting and Serbian barrages convulsed
Sarajevo throughout the day, igniting fires that filled the sky with
smoke and darkened hopes for progress on the eve of new peace talks.
No U.N. personnel were injured in the fifth attack on their building
since Aug. 6. Despite the violence, the U.N. Protection Force (UNPROFOR)
announced the international humanitarian airlift into the Bosnian
capital may resume with a test flight Sunday by one of its aircraft.
Infantry clashes and shelling erupted at about 6 a.m. in several
areas less than a mile from the center of the Bosnia-Hercegovina
capital, and in western suburbs that have borne the brunt of a 4-day-old
attempted advance by tank-backed Serbian forces.
UNPROFOR said Serbian forces persisted in using heavy weapons
deployed outside 11 U.N.-monitored areas despite Serbian leader Radovan
Karadzic's guarantees that all of his Yugoslav army-supplied big guns
had been gathered in those zones.
The fighting came a day before a new round of internationally
mediated negotiations in Geneva on ending the war pitting extremist
Serbs bent on carving a separate state out of the republic and Bosnian
forces opposed to the division of the newly independent former Yugoslav
republic.
Bosnian troops mostly comprise Muslim Slavs, but also include Croats
and moderate Serbs.
UNPROFOR narrowly escaped a major disaster when two shells slammed
into its headquarters in a telecommuniations engineering center in the
western suburb of Alipasino Polje.
A 30 mm anti-aircraft round crashed at about 11 a.m. through a wall
and exploded into an empty third-floor office, spraying shattered
masonary and wood paneling across the carpet and breaking glass in
neighboring rooms.
A 122 mm tank round plowed a short time later through the front of
the largely glass building, exited a rear window, pounded down a fire
escape and rolled into a parking lot without exploding, U.N. officers
said.
It was later carried a safe distance away and detonated by French
army sappers.
``There was a good chance there could have been some casualties had
it exploded,'' said New Zealand Col. Richard Grey.
``Once again the PTT building has been shelled. It got direct fire
and also has been shelled by tanks,'' Egyptian Brig. Gen. Hussein Abdel
Razek, the Sarajevo sector commander of UNPROFOR, told a news
conference.
He said UNPROFOR has been unable to determine those responsible, and
he renewed an appeal to the warring factions to ensure the safety of the
contingent assigned to protect humanitarian aid operations.
``I should express my concern to both sides,'' said Razek.
UNPROFOR has suffered at least four dead and 46 injured since May.
Regarding the fighting, Razek said that U.N. military monitors had
observed at least 420 heavy artillery rounds fired between 7 a.m. and 4
p.m., all of them by Serbian gunners.
Of the total, he said, only 158 were loosed from Serbian heavy guns
gathered in the so-called U.N.-monitored ``concentration areas.''
The rest, he said, came from weapons the Serbs have maintained
outside the zones in violation of an agreement Karadzic made at last
month's London peace conference to place all tanks, artillery and large
mortars under U.N. observation.
Razek also said that he had been instructed by UNPROFOR headquarters
to inform the warring sides of Sunday's scheduled flight of an ordinary
U.N. plane into Sarajevo airport.
``It is a test flight. It would be encouraging for a resumption of
the normal flights,'' he said.
If the flight goes without a hitch, he said, a final decision will be
made on restarting the U.N.-supervised airlift of food and medicines for
the estimated 500,000 people trapped in Sarajevo by encircling Serbian
forces.
The airlift was suspended Sept. 3 after an Italian cargo plane en
route to Sarajevo was downed in a missile attack, killing four crewmen.
Responsibility for the attack has not been determined.
U.N. High Commission for Refugees officials said they were already
planning for a resumption of the airlift, saying it was vitally needed
as truck convoys on which they have been relying have not been able to
meet the city's daily food needs.
Much of the fighting and shelling focused on the residential areas of
Hrasno and Alipasino Polje and the western suburbs of Ilidza, Stup,
Nedzarici, Bare and Dogladi.
At one point, at least six different blazes were seen pouring out
huge pillars of black smoke, which mingled with clouds of dust drifting
slowly over the city's western skyline.
Serbian rounds scored direct hits on apartment buildings and the
already severely damaged fortress-like television station in Alipasino
Polje.
The Health Ministry said that during the 24-hour period that began at
1 p.m. Wednesday at least nine people were killed and 60 others wounded
in Sarajevo. They were among a total of at least 31 dead and 198 wounded
across the republic, the ministry said.
Sarajevo radio said Serbian multiply launched rockets and mortar
rounds burst on the fringes of the mosly Muslim Slav old city, and in
Hrasno, Mojmilo, and Alipasino Polje.
U.N. sources said Serbian tanks hidden from U.N. monitoring loosed
rounds at the predominantly Croatian suburbs of Stup and Dogladi, the
main focus of the ongoing Serbian armor-backed thrust.
The advance, which began Monday under the diversionary cover of a 9-
hour-long Serbian bombardment of Sarajevo, appeared designed to reclaim
land recently lost to Bosnian forces, who are intent on breaking the 5-
month-old Serbian siege of the city.
The fall of Stup would give Serbian tanks control of the road linking
downtown Sarejevo with the U.N.-controlled airport.
Thursday's fighting came on the eve of a new round of peace talks
slated to begin in Geneva.
Foreign countries plan to mediate negotiations between militant Serbs
-- who are attempting to carve out a self-declared state -- and Bosnian
forces, who oppose partition of the former Yugoslav republic. Most
Bosnian troops are Muslim Slavs, but some Croats and moderate Serbs are
also fighting on the Bosnian side.
Thursday, U.N. Protection Force officials said Serbian forces
continued to employ heavy weapons withheld from U.N. monitoring, in
violation of an agreement reached at last month's international peace
conference in London. Under the pact, Serbian guerrillas agreed to
concentrate all of their heavy weapons in areas monitored by the U.N.
However, the U.N. Thursday reported Serbians firing tanks and cannons
deployed outside the monitored areas. U.N. sources also said Serbian
gunners in at least one of 11 U.N.-monitored areas also joined in.
Egyptian Brig. Gen. Hussein Abdel Razek, the Sarajevo sector
commander of U.N. peacekeepers, was scheduled to meet Thursday with
Serbian military chief Gen. Ratko Mladic to discuss the apparent
violations.
However, U.N. sources said Serbian forces later announced Mladic
would be away from the area until next week.
In an interview Wednesday, Razek said Serbian leaders had ignored
repeated U.N. requests to comply with the weapons-concentration
agreement.
``The Serbs have a military goal and they want to achieve it by all
means and it is very difficult to convince them to put all heavy weapons
in concentration areas,'' Razek said.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Serbia threatens to topple Yugoslav prime minister
Date: 17 Sep 92 18:58:27 GMT
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (UPI) -- The battle between the Serbian
government and prime minister of the rump Yugoslav federation of
Montenegro and Serbia, Milan Panic, intensified Thursday with a ruling
Socialist Party leader threatening to call a new vote of no-confidence
in Panic's leadership.
The move follows Panic's plan to get United Nations membership for
the new truncated Yugoslavia, a move seen as threatening the former
Yugoslavia's old seat in the world body.
Serbian politicians believe the move would destroy any legitimacy
Belgrade might retain as the seat of government of a federated
Yugoslavia.
The Serbian-controlled rump Yugoslavia has not applied nor has it
been recognized by the European Community or the U.N., as were the three
other former Yugoslav republics of Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia-
Hercegovina.
Panic, who returned to Belgrade Wednesday night from a ``working
visit'' to China with a stopover in Moscow, said he planned to ``propose
to the government that it adopt a decision to apply for membership of
the new Yugoslavia in the United Nations and other international
organizations.''
``I deeply believe we don't have much choice (but to seek membership
in the U.N.),'' Panic told the Belgrade-based news agency Tanjug. Panic
said clinging to old Yugoslavia's seat in the U.N. would only lead to
humiliation, and that the seat would eventualy be lost anyway.
``The 'verdict' is already prepared and secured,'' he said, adding
that Yugoslav membership in the U.N. has already been questioned by the
Europian Community and United States.
President of the Socialist Party of Serbia, Borisav Jovic, said
Panic, by planning to ask for U.N. membership for the new rump
Yugoslavia, ``objectively suppports demands by some countries to exclude
Yugoslavia from the United Nations.''
Jovic said a ``question of further confidence of the Socialist Party
must be placed in the government of Mr. Milan Panic.''
He added that the Belgrade government could not ``give up the policy
of preserving the continuity of Yugoslavia.''
In a separate statement, the Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic
said Panic's plan would further internationally isolate the new rump
Yugoslav union of Serbia and Montenegro.
The Serbian Prime Minister, Radoman Bozovic, held an emergency
session of his Cabinet Thursday morning and issued a statement warning
that ``the revocation of international continuity would lead Yugoslavia
to a state of formal isolation.''
The statement recalled conditions that other East European communist
countries had to comply with in order to be internationally recognized
and said bluntly that it would be ``unacceptable'' for the rump
Yugoslavia.
Bozovic's government listed a number of ``unacceptable conditions.''
These included a special minority status for Serbia's provinces of
Kosovo, Vojvodina and Sandzak where large numbers of ethnic Albanians,
Hungarians and Muslim Slavs reside.
Panic survived a no-confidence vote in the rump Yugoslavian
parliament on Sept. 4, after he warned lawmakers the federation would
face further isolation if it fired him.
Panic, a Belgrade-born U.S. millionaire, left his Californian
pharmaceutical plant and went to Belgrade at the invitation of Serbia
after U.N. sanctions were imposed on the republic on May 30.
The United Nations slapped the sanctions on Serbia for its
involvement in the the ongoing war in Bosnia-Hercegovina.
Panic was sworn in as prime minister on July 14 and promised to
introduce Western-style democracy and a free market economy to the
republic.
novine.14.bale.,
RFE/RL Daily Report
No. 179, 17 September 1992
SUCCESSOR STATES TO THE USSR
ABKHAZ UPDATE. Georgian troops and Abkhaz National Guardsmen
clashed near the Black Sea town of Gagra on 16 September despite
the new ceasefire agreement due to take effect at midnight on 15
September, Reuters reported quoting local journalists. Under the
terms of the new agreement, all troops subordinate to the
Confederation of Mountain Peoples of the Caucasus must leave
Georgian territory within ten days. The first plenary meeting of
the CIS inter-parliamentary assembly in Bishkek issued a statement
expressing concern that the armed conflict in Abkhazia could
spread to neighboring states and calling for the disengagement of
troops and an immediate ceasefire, ITAR-TASS reported. It also
called on CIS member states to provide humanitarian aid to
Abkhazia. (Liz Fuller, RFE/RL, Inc.)
KAZAKH-MEDIATED KARABAKH PEACE TALKS FAIL. A meeting in Alma-Ata
on 16 September between Armenian and Azerbaijani working groups
ended in deadlock after the Azerbaijani delegation announced that
it was not empowered to conduct negotiations and proposed a
meeting between the Presidents of Armenia, Azerbaijan and
Kazakhstan, ITAR-TASS reported. The Armenians agreed in principle
on the condition that the Azerbaijani side first respond to the
ceasefire proposal made on 25 August by Italian mediator Mario
Raffaelli. A further round of talks was scheduled for early
October. (Liz Fuller, RFE/RL, Inc.)
FALL IN RUSSIAN TRADE VOLUME CONTINUES. The Russian Ministry of
Foreign Economic Relations reports that the volume of foreign
trade over the first eight months of this year is 27% less than
that of the same period last year. The report, carried by
ITAR-TASS on 16 September, indicated that trade with former
socialist countries (former members of the COMECON trading group)
remains the weakest, down 48%. Trade with developed industrial
and developing nations was down 21% and 20% respectively. This
year's trade deficit at the end of August was $200 million, which
is an improvement over the deficit of $700 billion at the end of
July, but way down from last year's January-to-August surplus of
$6 billion. (Erik Whitlock, RFE/RL, Inc.)
LIBERAL REFORMISTS ATTACK GAIDAR. Two leading Russian reformers
have attacked the leadership of acting Prime Minister Egor Gaidar.
Grigorii Yavlinski told the Italian newspaper La Stampa on 16
September that the "center"--by which he meant the Russian
leadership--has already lost control over the political and
economic processes at the periphery. According to him, Russia will
soon disintegrate if the executive does not change its policy and
reestablish its lost authority in the regions. Meanwhile, the
Russian Minister of Economics, Andrei Nechaev, told Ostankino TV
on the same day that his ministry has provided Gaidar's cabinet a
new economic project because Gaidar has no clear reform concept of
his own. (Alexander Rahr, RFE/RL, Inc.)
FORMER SOVIET DISSIDENT'S TESTIMONY STRICKEN BY CONSTITUTIONAL
COURT. On 16 September, former Soviet dissident, Pyotr
Abovin-Egides, testified as an expert witness on behalf of the
communist party (CPSU), Interfax and ITAR-TASS reported. In a
rousing defense of the CPSU, he attacked Russian President Yeltsin
as well as former Soviet President Gorbachev and the coup leaders,
arguing that, thanks to them, "the West won the third world war
without a single shot." Abovin-Egides said the ban should be
lifted since it "sows cruelty and hatred, intolerance of ideology,
extremism, bitterness, confrontation and social disparity." After
a short recess, however, the court struck the dissident's
testimony from the record because Abovin-Egides had failed to
speak about the issues and had abused his rights as an expert
witness by making ideological rather than legal arguments. Court
Chairman Valerii Zorkin repeated an earlier warning to both
parties in the case on the inadmissibility of anti-constitutional
proclamations and political evaluations. (Carla Thorson, RFE/RL,
Inc.)
RUSSIA SUPPORTS PANIC, UN MEMBERSHIP FOR RUMP YUGOSLAVIA.
Following talks on 16 September with the prime minister of
Serbia-Montenegro, Milan Panic, Russian Foreign Minister Andrei
Kozyrev told reporters that Russia wants "the new Yugoslavia, that
of Milan Panic, to receive international recognition and to occupy
a worthy place in the family of civilized free peoples." Kozyrev
added that Russia fully supports Panic's intention to apply for a
UN seat for the "new Yugoslavia," and he stressed that Russia will
do everything possible to see "full membership of a peaceful
democratic Yugoslavia at the United Nations." (Suzanne Crow,
RFE/RL, Inc.)
RUTSKOI ON KOZYREV. Russian Vice President Aleksandr Rutskoi is
quoted by Interfax on 15 September as saying that Foreign Minister
Andrei Kozyrev will remain in his job. Two months ago, Rutskoi had
openly declared that he insists on the dismissal of Kozyrev. But
he asserted that other reform-minded government members may be
replaced at the next parliamentary session which is opening on 22
September. Rutskoi stated that the atmosphere at the session will
be "tense" because of "conflicting opinions over developments in
the Russian economy." (Alexander Rahr, RFE/RL, Inc.)
RUSSIAN DECREE ON TAIWAN. Russian President Boris Yeltsin signed a
decree on 15 September on "Relations Between the Russian
Federation and Taiwan," ITAR-TASS reported on 16 September. The
decree was issued, according to its text, because of "differing
interpretations of the position of the Russian leadership with
regard to Taiwan." To clarify the Russian position, the decree
states: "In its policy, Russia proceeds from the premise that only
one China exists and that Taiwan is an indivisible part of it.
Because of this, Russia does not maintain official interstate
relations with Taiwan." (Suzanne Crow, RFE/RL, Inc.)
CIS INTERPARLIAMENTARY ASSEMBLY ENDS FIRST SESSION. The first
session of the newly created Interparliamentary Assembly of CIS
states in Bishkek ended with the adoptation of an Assembly statute
and the formation of five Assembly Commissions: for legal affairs,
economics and finance, social politics and human rights,
environmental problems, and security, ITAR-TASS reported on 16
September. Ruslan Khasbulatov said that his election as first
chairman of the Assembly demonstrates that the other CIS states
trust Russia. He stated that the Assembly is scheduled to become a
supranational parliamentary organ which will "neutralize many of
the negative processes characteristic of the CIS." (Alexander
Rahr, RFE/RL, Inc.)
CIS SUMMIT DELAYED. The leaders of Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Kazakhstan,
Ukraine and Belarus have decided to postpone the next summit of
CIS state and government leaders which had been scheduled for
24-25 September to 9 October, ITAR-TASS reported on 16 September.
According to a statement issued by the Kyrgyzstan president's
press service, CIS leaders want to further examine some documents
which will be discussed at the summit in Bishkek. (Alexander
Rahr, RFE/RL, Inc.)
RUSSIAN BUSINESSMEN CALL FOR PARLIAMENT DISSOLUTION. Speaking at a
press conference in Moscow on 16 September, the co-chairman of
Russia's Party of Economic Freedom, Konstantin Borovoi, said his
party supports the dissolution of the Russian Congress of People's
Deputies and the parliament, Interfax reported. He said a
constituent assembly should be set up instead. Borovoi accused
the congress and the parliament of blocking economic reforms in
Russia. He said he believed that at the next session the Congress
would try to force Boris Yeltsin to resign. Borovoi said his
party supports the idea of holding a referendum on the dissolution
of the congress. (Vera Tolz, RFE/RL, Inc.)
MINISTERS VISIT NUCLEAR TEST SITE. Pavel Grachev and Viktor
Mikhailov, the Russian Ministers of Defense and Atomic Energy,
respectively, arrived on 16 September at the nuclear test site on
the arctic island of Novaya Zemlya. They joined the Commander in
Chief of the Russian Navy, Admiral Feliks Gromov, who had arrived
the day before. ITAR-TASS reported that the purpose of the visit
was to investigate both the state of the technology at the test
site and to inquire into problems facing personnel stationed on
the island. Since the shutting down of the Semipalatinsk nuclear
testing site in Kazakhstan, Novaya Zemlya has been viewed by the
Russian government as the likely main site for any future nuclear
arms tests. (Stephen Foye, RFE/RL, Inc.)
MORE SQUABBLES OVER BLACK SEA FLEET. Accordin to Interfax reports
on 15 and 16 September, a disagreement has broken out between
Ukrainian and Russian military authorities over the disposition of
two Naval academies in Sevastopol. Ukraine apparently wants to
take control of the schools, while Russian officials contend that
previous agreements place the academies under CIS jurisdiction.
Interfax also reported on 16 September that Black Sea Fleet
commander Igor Kasatonov has protested what he says are attempts
by Kiev to transfer parts of the Kerchensko-Feodosisky naval base
to Ukrainian jurisdiction. On the same day, the commander of the
Black Sea Fleet from 1983-1985, Aleksei Kalinin, said on
Sevastopol radio that Ukrainian Defense Minister Konstantyn
Morozov ought to be dismissed for what he described as illegal
actions leading to the weakening of the fleet. (Stephen Foye,
RFE/RL, Inc.)
RUSSIAN TROOPS TO LEAVE CUBA BY MID-1993. The Cuban government
announced on 16 September that the Russian troops still stationed
in Cuba will be withdrawn by the middle of 1993. Western agency
accounts quoted the official announcement as saying the presence
of the troops had lost its meaning. The Soviets had what was
known as a "training brigade" stationed in Cuba as well as a
number of military advisors and a large intelligence facility.
When the formal talks on withdrawing these troops began in
September 1991, there were some 8,000 Soviet military and
intelligence personnel in Cuba. In February of this year the
Russians announced that the "training brigade" had been
unilateraly cut from 2,800 to 2,150 men. (Doug Clarke, RFE/RL,
Inc.)
RUSSIA TO PAY INTERNATIONAL ATOMIC ENERGY DEBTS. Western agencies
reported that Russia promised to pay its outstanding debts to the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The announcement was
made to the agency's board of governors on 16 September at their
meeting in Vienna. As the legal successor to the Soviet Union in
the IAEA, Russia must also pay outstanding contributions for 1991.
The reports said that Russia is responsible for around 13% of the
agency's yearly budget of $186 million, or some $24 million per
year. Russia would loose its voting rights in the agency should
the debts remain unpaid. (Doug Clarke, RFE/RL, Inc.)
RUSSIAN AIRCRAFT COMPANY FORGES AMERICAN TIES. The Russian
Yakovlev Design Bureau has established a joint collaborative
business alliance with an American aircraft engine manufacturer,
Textron Lycoming's Turbine Engine Division. According to a 15
September company press release at the Farnborough air show in
England, the American company will initially supply turbofan
engines to replace the present engines on the small YAK-40
regional airliner. Lycoming could also supply the engines for the
next-generation YAK-48 executive business aircraft. (Doug Clarke,
RFE/RL, Inc.)
"RUKH" LEADERSHIP MEETS. The leadership of "Rukh" met on 12
September and decided to convene a session of its Grand Council on
19 September, DR-Press reported on 13 September. The Grand
Council will discuss questions related to the convening of the
Fourth Congress of "Rukh," which should be held at the end of
October. (Roman Solchanyk, RFE/RL, Inc.)
GERMAN "REBIRTH" SOCIETY IN UKRAINE. The "Rebirth" society, which
groups together members of the German minority in the former
Soviet Union, held its official presentation in Kiev on 15
September, Radio Ukraine reported. The Kiev branch of "Rebirth"
works closely with the German Cultural Union, which has forty-two
centers in the former Soviet Union. The group's aim is to unite
all Germans interested in their history and culture. (Roman
Solchanyk, RFE/RL, Inc.)
ECONOMIC IMPACT OF WAR IN TAJIKISTAN. The turmoil and fighting in
Tajikistan during the last four months has caused a serious
worsening of economic conditions in the country. ITAR-TASS
reported on 16 September that a lack of fuel in Dushanbe has
caused interruptions in public transport and in deliveries of food
to the capital. Tajikistan may be in for a difficult winter.
Foreign correspondents have reported seeing crops neglected in the
fields while rural people were fighting for or against the
now-deposed President Rakhmon Nabiev. (Bess Brown, RFE/RL, Inc.)
CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE
FORMER YUGOSLAVIA TOPS THE CSCE PRAGUE MEETING'S AGENDA.
Representatives of the 52 states participating in the CSCE process
convened in Prague on 16 September for a three-day meeting. An
RFE/RL corespondent reports that the meeting will hear reports by
special investigators on the situation in Serb-controlled
detention camps, and on the possibility of the civil war in
Bosnia-Herzegovina spilling over into the Serbian province of
Kosovo and the independent Republic of Macedonia. CSTK reports
that Macedonia's application to join the CSCE process was rejected
at the meeting. The meeting will also focus on the situation in
Moldova and Nagorno-Karabakh. (Jiri Pehe, RFE/RL, Inc.)
MAZOWIECKI ON FORMER YUGOSLAVIA. Speaking at a press conference in
Prague on 16 September, Tadeusz Mazowiecki, former Polish prime
minister and currently a special UN rapporteur for human rights in
former Yugoslavia, said that human rights are being widely
violated on the territory of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Muslims in
particular are victims of wide-spread human rights abuses as well
as of ethnic genocide. According to Mazowiecki, the situation is
most serious in concentration camps and besieged towns. Mazowiecki
proposed the creation of an independent press agency, which would
inform about the situation in former Yugoslavia in an objective
manner. He warned that the conflict could easily spread to
Kosovo, Vojvodina, and the Sandzak. Mazowiecki ruled out military
intervention in Bosnia but suggested that UN peacekeeping troops
be strengthened so that they can intervene when needed. (Jiri
Pehe, RFE/RL, Inc.)
LITTLE-KNOWN SIEGE OF NORTHERN BOSNIAN TOWN CONTINUES. The 17
September Washington Post reports that Serbian forces around
Sarajevo continued "their three-day-old tank offensive" against
the Bosnian capital on 16 September, despite UN pleas to register
the tanks with monitors. The Croatian media in recent days, for
their part, have also been reporting on the months-old siege of
Gradacac in northern Bosnia, which is on the strategic route
connecting Serbia with Serb-held areas of Bosnia and Croatia but
where there are no Western correspondents. Croatian military and
local Muslims have successfully resisted intensified Serbian
shelling, which has destroyed over 80% of the mainly Muslim town,
including its landmark medieval tower and central mosques. The
local Croatian commander said that the spirit of Croat and Muslim
defenders was good. Elsewhere, Slobodna Dalmacija on 16 September
said that Cardinal Franjo Kuharic consecrated Herzegovina's new
archbishop on 13 September in Neum, with Muslim leaders, including
the Mufti of Herzegovina, in attendance. (Patrick Moore, RFE/RL,
Inc.)
BOSNIAN CROAT LEADER REJECTS COURT DECISION. Mate Boban,
president of the self-proclaimed state of Herceg-Bosna and
chairman of the Croatian Democratic Community (HDZ) in
Bosnia-Herzegovina, said that a ruling by the Constitutional Court
of Bosnia-Herzegovina annulling a decision by the Croats to form
their own republic in Bosnia-Herzegovina is "completely
unconstitutional." The "Community of Herceg-Bosna," established in
November 1991 and comprising municipalities in the south of
Bosnia-Herzegovina where Croats are the majority population,
declared itself an independent state on 3 July. Sarajevo Radio
quoted Boban on 15 September as saying that his party will
"ignore" the court's ruling. Srecko Vucina, spokesman for the
Croatian Defense Council (HVO) in Mostar, indignantly rejected the
ruling, which he says "seeks to discredit everything that the HDZ
and HVO have done so far in the defense of the area around Mostar
and Herceg-Bosna." (Milan Andrejevich, RFE/RL, Inc.)
HIGH-RANKING ROMANIAN OFFICIAL IN BELGRADE. Teodor Melescanu, a
state secretary in the Foreign Affairs Ministry, arrived in
Belgrade on 16 September. In an interview with Radio Bucharest,
Melescanu said that he discussed issues of mutual interest with
officials in Belgrade, including recent Western initiatives to
exclude the Yugoslav rump state from the UN. In a separate
development, Traian Chebeleu, a spokesman for the foreign
ministry, reafirmed his country's willingness to accept foreign
observers to monitor the traffic to and from Serbia and
Montenegro. (Dan Ionescu, RFE/RL, Inc.)
ROMANIAN FOREIGN MINISTRY PROTESTS LEBED STATEMENT. On 16
September spokesman Traian Chebeleu said a recent statement by
Gen. Aleksandr Lebed, commander of the 14th Russian Army in
Moldova, may cause serious harm to Romanian-Russian relations. On
Moscow's "Ostankino" TV on 14 September Lebed reportedly described
the Romanian flag as "the flag of [Marshall Ion] Antonescu and
Romanian fascists." Chebeleu said he finds such statements
"irresponsible and insulting" to Romania. Romanian Foreign
Minister Adrian Nastase summoned the Russian ambassador to
Bucharest to protest Lebed's statement. (Dan Ionescu, RFE/RL,
Inc.)
POLISH PRIVATIZATION MINISTER UNDER FIRE. The Sejm voted on 17
September to consider a motion to dismiss Privatization Minister
Janusz Lewandowski, who served in the same post for most of 1991.
The motion was submitted by the Confederation for an Independent
Poland (KPN) on the basis of a report by the Supreme Chamber of
Control (NIK), Poland's central auditing institution. The
government coalition parties say they will oppose the motion, and
Solidarity deputies condemned the KPN's attack on Lewandowski as
"a political game." NIK officials admitted on 16 September that
their criterion for evaluating the ministry's performance was the
letter of the law, not economic rationality. They also conceded
that their inspectors were not experts in privatization.
Lewandowski has argued that legal shortcuts were unavoidable in a
system where private business was just taking root. The Sejm is
also scheduled to debate the government's mass privatization
program. (Louisa Vinton, RFE/RL, Inc.)
POLISH GOVERNMENT SETS "PACT" TIMETABLE. Meeting with union
representatives on 16 September, labor ministry officials proposed
that negotiations on the government's draft "pact on state firms"
conclude by the end of the month. Signing would be possible by the
end of October. The labor ministry recommended that the unions
send a joint representation to the talks; this would be a major
departure for Solidarity, which has refused to negotiate in tandem
with the former procommunist OPZZ federation. The government's
economic committee recommended setting as a target the production
of at least 50% of GDP (excluding agriculture) by private firms by
the end of 1994. The committee also recommended shutting down
seven of Poland's 26 steel mills by 2002, which would eliminate
80,000 jobs. (Louisa Vinton, RFE/RL, Inc.)
HUNGARIAN GOVERNMENT EVALUATES LAST TWO YEARS. In a speech to
Parliament on 16 September, Prime Minister Jozsef Antall drew a
positive balance of the performance of his government during its
first two years in office, MTI and Radio Budapest report. He
stressed in particular that the legal framework needed for a state
based on the rule of law has been created through the parliament's
legislative activity and that the government has successfully
adjusted its foreign and economic policy to the changing
international environment. Antall admitted that economic problems
remain and that the government has to take unpopular measures in
switching from a command to a market economy. He stressed,
however, that his government has been able to keep the country
solvent and has launched the largest and most successful
privatization program in all of Eastern Europe. (Edith Oltay,
RFE/RL, Inc.)
ESTONIAN ELECTION UPDATE. The Estonian Ministry of Internal
Affairs plans no special security measures in northeastern Estonia
for the 20 September parliamentary and presidential elections.
Deputy Minister Juri Kaljuvee told BNS on 16 September that he
does not expect any provocations that day because local
authorities "have realized that the prospects for international
cooperation are better in Estonia than in Russia." Meanwhile,
Lennart Meri, a presidential candidate and former foreign
minister, has received a positive response from Council of Europe
Secretary-General Catherine Lalumihre on the establishment of a
special international commission to look into charges against his
father, diplomat Georg Meri. Lennart Meri proposed convening a
special commission after widespread reports last week that Georg
Meri was a KGB operative in the interwar period. In his letter to
Lalumihre, Lennart Meri said that the charges brought against his
father "are absolutely false, but have been arranged in order to
undermine my [presidential] candidacy," BNS reports. (Riina
Kionka, RFE/RL, Inc.)
LITHUANIAN PARLIAMENT SESSION. At its 15 September meeting the
Supreme Council two deputy speakers, Laima Andrikiene and Ceslovas
Jursenas, were reelected, Radio Lithuania reports. Two laws--on
competition and on the bankruptcy of enterprises--were passed and
will go into effect on 1 November. Economics Minister Albertas
Simenas noted that the purpose of the competition law is to
prevent the formation of monopolies and thus allow consumers. to
purchase goods at lower prices. An agency will be formed to
monitor prices and a council composed of producer, consumer, and
government representatives will apply sanctions when necessary.
(Saulius Girnius, RFE/RL, Inc.)
LITHUANIAN MODERATE MOVEMENT. On 16 September representatives of
the Moderate Movement held a briefing at the Parliament, BNS
reports. The movement intends to present a general list of 27
candidates for the Seimas elections who will also compete in
single mandate districts. The list is headed by parliament deputy
Eugenijus Gentvilas and includes in its top ten Albertas Simenas,
Minister without Portfolio Stasys Kropas, and Zigmas Vaisvila, a
former deputy prime minister. The movement's election program
calls for 350 of the largest enterprises not to be privatized.
Smaller businesses would be privatized under this plan, and
foreign investors would be given the right to purchase the land on
which the enterprise stands. (Saulius Girnius, RFE/RL, Inc.)
STOLOJAN PLEDGES MORE SECURITY IN THE ELECTORAL CAMPAIGN. At a
cabinet meeting on 16 September, Romanian Prime Minister Theodor
Stolojan ordered increased security for presidential candidates.
The move followed an attack on nationalist candidate Gheorghe
Funar in Timisoara the previous day. Funar, who runs on the
ticket of the Party for Romanian National Unity, had to be rescued
by police from a crowd of about 2,000 jeering protesters. In a
separate statement broadcast by Radio Bucharest, the government
deplored the incident and urged the Timisoara police to identify
the culprits. (Dan Ionescu, RFE/RL, Inc.)
PARFENOV TRIAL STARTS IN RIGA. The trial of Sergei Parfenov,
former deputy commander of OMON units in Riga, opened on 16
September, Radio Riga reports. Parfenov is charged with abuse of
power and will have to answer for attacks against civilians by
members of OMON, a special force under the jurisdiction of the
USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs, in Sigulda and the Vecmilgravis
section of Riga in 1990 and Ainazi in 1991. Parfenov, who
considers himself a Russian citizen and his supporters in Tyumen
region want the case to be tried in Russia, while the Latvian
authorities, who obtained his extradition from Tyumen, believe
that the trial should be held in Latvia. (Dzintra Bungs, RFE/RL,
Inc.)
BALTIC COUNCIL APPEALS TO CSCE. Leaders of the three Baltic States
have appealed to the CSCE to not let up pressure for withdrawal of
Russian troops from their territories because of the recent
Russian-Lithuanian agreement for early pullout, BNS reports. In
the joint communiqui issued by the Baltic Council after its 16
September Tallinn meeting, council members state that the Helsinki
Declaration requirements can be considered fulfilled only when
agreements [similar to that with Lithuania] are concluded and the
whole of the Russian military has left all the Baltic States.
(Riina Kionka, RFE/RL, Inc.)
LATVIAN SUPREME COUNCIL ON RELATIONS WITH RUSSIA. On 15 September
the Supreme Council adopted guidelines for further negotiations
with Russia regarding the withdrawal of troops. Diena of 15
September says the document calls for the unconditional withdrawal
of all troops by the end of 1993; the recognition that Latvia has
borders that have been fixed and recognized by international
treaties (especially the Latvian-Russian peace treaty of 11 August
1922); no naturalization of new citizens as long as a foreign army
is present in Latvia; and the necessity of Russian forces in
Latvia to act according to regulations approved by the Supreme
Council. (Dzintra Bungs, RFE/RL, Inc.)
LATVIAN-POLISH DEFENSE ACCORD SIGNED. On 16 September in Riga
Polish Minister of Defense Janusz Onyszkiewicz signed a military
cooperation accord, Radio Riga reports. Details were not
reported. During his three-day visit to Latvia, Onyszkiewicz met
with Latvian officials and saw military training facilities at
Sigulda and the naval harbor in Liepaja. (Dzintra Bungs, RFE/RL,
Inc.)
DUBCEK'S CONDITION STILL SERIOUS. Two weeks after the car crash
in which he broke his spine, ribs, and pelvis, Alexander Dubcek,
leader of the 1968 Prague Spring and former chairman of the
Czechoslovak parliament, is still too ill to have further surgery.
Dubcek underwent an operation on his spine immediately after the 1
September accident. A statement from the Prague hospital treating
Dubcek, released by CSTK on 15 September, says that another
operation, as well as long-term rehabilitation, can take place
only after stabilization of the patient's condition and after he
is transferred to a specialized clinic. (Jiri Pehe, RFE/RL, Inc.)
[As of 1200 CET]
Compiled by Hal Kosiba & Charles Trumbull
The RFE/RL Daily Report is produced by the RFE/RL Research
Institute (a division of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Inc.)
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Copyright 1992, RFE/RL, Inc. All rights reserved.
novine.15.bale.,
RFE/RL Daily Report
No. 180, 18 September 1992
SUCCESSOR STATES TO THE USSR
KULYAB APPEALS FOR CIS TROOPS. The authorities in Tajikistan's
Kulyab Oblast, a stronghold of support for deposed President
Rakhmon Nabiev, have appealed to the leaders of the Central Asian
states and Russia to send CIS troops to stop the fighting in
Tajikistan, ITAR-TASS reported on 17 September. Nabiev had asked
for a CIS peacekeeping force prior to his fall. The opposition
found the request provocative, but in recent days several
government and opposition figures have suggested that CIS military
help may be necessary to restore stability in the country. On 17
September, the government asked a CIS division stationed in
Tajikistan to help local Internal Affairs forces guard important
installations; the same day, ITAR-TASS reported that Kulyab guards
had taken control of the Nurek dam. (Bess Brown, RFE/RL, Inc.)
SHEVARDNADZE CRITICIZES ABKHAZ MONITORING COMMISSION. Georgian
State Council Chairman Eduard Shevardnadze travelled to Sukhumi on
17 September, where he criticized as "ineffective" the tripartite
commission set up to monitor the 3 September Abkhaz ceasefire
agreement, Interfax reported. Shevardnadze complained that
fighters subordinate to the Confederation of Mountain Peoples of
the Caucasus still remain in Abkhazia. Speaking on Georgian
television, Georgian Defense Minister Tengiz Kitovani stated that
Georgia "will use force" if the troops in question do not leave
Georgia within ten days, Radio Rossii reported. A Turkish foreign
ministry spokesman stated on 17 September that Turkey will send 15
tons of food aid and medical equipment to Muslims in Abkhazia,
Western agencies reported. (Liz Fuller, RFE/RL, Inc.)
RUSSIAN DEFENSE MINISTRY WARNS GEORGIA. A statement issued by the
Russian Defense Ministry on 17 September charged that Russian
troops and civilians in Georgia were being repeatedly attacked by
Georgian units, and warned that Russian forces reserve the right
to fight back. In particular, the Defense Ministry has blamed
Georgia for a helicopter attack that occurred last month on a
hydrofoil carrying Russian refugees and vacationers. While the
Defense Ministry claims to have "irrefutable proof" that Georgia
was behind the attack, Georgia has denied involvement. The
exchange was reported by ITAR-TASS and Western agencies. (Stephen
Foye, RFE/RL, Inc.)
YELTSIN DECREE RAISES ENERGY PRICES. Russian President Boris
Yeltsin signed a much-anticipated decree raising basic energy
prices, various Russian and Western news agencies reported on 17
September. Prices on oil products will double from the current
price of 1,800-2,200 rubles. Coal prices will rise 30%. According
to ITAR-TASS, the decree also eliminates the ceiling on oil
prices, replacing it with a tax structure that discourages setting
prices in excess of 4000 rubles. The report was not clear on
details of the new price-setting rules. To soften the impact on
consumers, the decree calls on the government to raise price
subsidies for household energy consumption, transportation, and
basic agricultural goods. Commenting on the inflationary impact
of the decree, government economic advisor Aleksei Ulyukaev said
that the government predicted an economy-wide increase in prices
of 20-25%. (Erik Whitlock, RFE/RL, Inc.)
GERASHCHENKO WARNS OF DRASTIC BUDGET CUTS. Outspoken Russian
Central Bank Chairman Viktor Gerashchenko claims that the
government may be forced to make big cuts in spending in October,
ITAR-TASS reported on 17 September. He said that the government
had as yet only collected 40% of the revenue planned for the year.
Therefore, he asserted, "we may be forced to simply restrict the
expenditure side of the budget and keep it within the limits of
collected revenues." Gerashchenko suggested that the budget cuts
would be across-the-board and include social programs. The
government has recently predicted a 1992 year-end deficit of about
1 trillion rubles, significantly higher than the one approved in
its original budget. (Erik Whitlock, RFE/RL, Inc.)
GOVERNMENT UNDER ATTACK. Acting Prime Minister Egor Gaidar was
quoted by the Russian TV program "Vesti" on 17 September as saying
that the government has lost its ability to maneuver. Gaidar's
first deputy, Vladimir Shumeiko, told journalists that some
personal changes will soon be conducted in the government,
Ostankino TV reported on 16 September. The right-wing
parliamentary opposition bloc "Russian Unity" demanded the
convening of an extraordinary congress which would replace the
government, according to ITAR-TASS on 17 September. The foreign
edition of ITAR-TASS's newspaper 24 reported on 17 September that
a decree for the appointment of Vice President Aleksandr Rutskoi
as prime minister has already been prepared by President Yeltsin.
(Alexander Rahr, RFE/RL, Inc.)
STANKEVICH FOR COALITION GOVERNMENT. Presidential advisor Sergei
Stankevich told Rossiiskie vesti on 17 September that he favors
the establishment of a coalition government which would include
representatives of the Civic Union and the democrats, but he did
not rule out the possibility of forming a more right-wing
coalition without the democrats. He criticized Gaidar's government
for its adherence to macroeconomic theories, and said he supported
the more cautious reform approach of the Civic Union. He listed
his major political achievements as follows: successfully
convincing President Yeltsin to adopt policies that strengthen the
Russian state, solving the crisis in the Trans-Dniester region,
and drawing greater public attention to the problems which
Russians are experiencing in the non-Russian former Soviet
republics. (Alexander Rahr, RFE/RL, Inc.)
GAIDAR ON INCREASING ARMS EXPORTS. Prime Minister Egor Gaidar,
currently touring various cities in Russia, said in Tula that the
government would permit increased arms exports, according to
Russian news agencies on 16 and 17 September. Gaidar suggested
that weapons producers would be allowed to directly contract with
foreigners for the sale of output, as long as the deals in
question were not covered by state orders and were approved by the
government. He emphasized that increasing the opportunities for
sales abroad would not mean weakening government control and
supervision of weapons exports. (Erik Whitlock, RFE/RL, Inc.)
LAWYER DEFENDS COMMUNIST PARTY IN CONSTITUTIONAL COURT. Speaking
on 17 September at the Constitutional Court hearings on the
Communist Party, Defense Attorney Boris Lazarev said Yeltsin's
decrees first suspending and then banning the Communist Party of
the Soviet Union and Russian Communist Party were illegal, since
at the time of their adoption only the Soviet Supreme Court had
the right to make decisions on the status of political parties.
ITAR-TASS quoted Lazarev as calling Yeltsin's leadership
"incompetent." Lazarev also rejected the accusation that the CPSU
was "unconstitutional." The lawyer argued that there was no
legislation in the country defining the "constitutional
responsibilities of parties" at the time when Yeltsin's decrees
were adopted. (Vera Tolz, RFE/RL, Inc.)
CORRUPTION IN RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTRY? Vasilii Lipitsky, leader
of the People's Party of Free Russia, commonly known as "the party
of [Vice-President] Aleksandr Rutskoi," has appealed to President
Yeltsin and the Russian parliament, requesting that they
investigate corruption in the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Writing in the 37th issue of Megapolis Express, Lipitsky says that
representatives of his party had been unable to attend the current
session of the Socialist International in Berlin, to which they
had been invited, because the Foreign Ministry failed to provide
them exit visas. Instead, they were advised to seek visas in a
private "co-operative" firm, run by foreign ministry officials who
sell exit visas for their private gain. The party, Lipitsky
writes, refused to be served by such a "co-operative" out of
principle. (Yeltsin's decree on the fight against corruption
forbids governmental officials from becoming involved in
commercial activities.) (Julia Wishnevsky, RFE/RL, Inc.)
KHASBULATOV FAVORS GENERAL CIS CITIZENSHIP. The Chairman of the
Interparliamentary Assembly, Ruslan Khasbulatov, favors the
establishment of a common citizenship on the territory of those
CIS member states who support the new Assembly, Nezavisimaya
gazeta reported on 17 September. He also suggested that the
Russian Foreign Economic Bank should take complete control of all
CIS foreign currency accounts. Meanwhile, the Russian first
deputy parliamentary speaker, Sergei Filatov, revealed in an
interview with Moskovskie novosti (no.38) details on his political
battle against Khasbulatov at the most recent Congress. Filatov
attacked Khasbulatov for building a personal dictatorship in the
parliament, and hinted that the speaker may soon be replaced.
(Alexander Rahr, RFE/RL, Inc.)
LUKYANOV SAYS COUP LEADERS SHOULD HAVE BEEN MORE DECISIVE. Former
Soviet parliament chairman, Anatolii Lukyanov, who is now in jail
on charges of participating in the attempted coup last year, gave
an interview to Nezavisimaya gazeta on 17 September. Lukyanov
said that he would act more decisively if the August events were
repeated today. He said that the Committee for the State of
Emergency, which tried to seize power after putting Gorbachev
under house arrest in August 1991, was poorly conceived and
organized. (Lukyanov was not a member of the committee). Lukyanov
said the committee's actions were not a coup but rather an attempt
to rescue the Soviet socialist system. He said that he still
supports "full-blown Soviet power and a renovated Soviet
federation." (Vera Tolz, RFE/RL, Inc.)
NO RUSSIAN NAVAL BASE AT NOVOROSSIISK. Black Sea Fleet commander
Admiral Igor Kasatonov said on 16 September that Russia has no
plans to build a naval base in Novorossiisk because the port there
is inadequate for heavy naval traffic. His comments come as
Russian access to Ukrainian Black Sea ports is becoming
increasingly limited and follows the evacuation of Russian naval
personnel from the Georgian Black Sea port of Poti. (Stephen Foye,
RFE/RL, Inc.)
MOROZOV ON UKRAINIAN MILITARY REFORM. Ukrainian Defense Minister
Konstantin Morozov said in an interview in Krasnaya zvezda on 17
September that Kiev intends to build two operational commands on
the basis of the three existing military districts in Ukraine. He
also said that a new service -- the Air Defense Troops -- would be
formed by combining two currently existing force branches
(presumably the Air Force and Air Defense Forces. See Krasnaya
zvezda, 5 September). The interview was summarized briefly by
"Novosti." This past summer the commander of the Ukrainian Air
Defense Forces, Lt. Gen. Mikhail Lopatin, had criticized proposals
to subordinate his forces to the Air Force (see Krasnaya zvezda, 1
August). (Stephen Foye, RFE/RL, Inc.)
UKRAINIAN PARLIAMENTARIANS WANT TO KEEP MISSILES. At a conference
in Washington on 16 September, members of the Ukrainian parliament
indicated that Ukraine might balk on its pledges to transfer
ex-Soviet long range ballistic missiles to Russia for destruction.
According to a UPI account of the meeting, parliamentarian Yurii
Kostenko said Ukraine must retain these weapons on its territory
for "national security reasons." The Ukrainian legislators told
the conference that the republic needed the considerable amount of
hard currency that the enriched uranium in the warheads would
bring on the open market. (The United States has recently agreed
to buy the enriched uranium from Russian nuclear weapons in a deal
that some experts estimate might ultimately be worth $5 billion.)
Other CIS representatives at the conference cautioned that the
Ukrainian statements were not those of the government. (Doug
Clarke, RFE/RL, Inc.)
COMPETING DEMONSTRATIONS IN KIEV. On 16 September, the second day
of the new parliamentary session in Kiev, Ukrainian lawmakers
arriving for work were greeted by demonstrators and pickets
defending opposite points of view. DR-Press reports that in the
morning war and labor veterans with red flags and portraits of
Lenin were demanding an improvement of their overall situation.
They were joined by activists from the Socialist Party of Ukraine
and the "Toiling Ukraine" Association. Several hours later
demonstrators from "Rukh" arrived with the national blue and
yellow flag and stayed until the end of the day. In the meantime,
the parliament discussed a package of economic legislation. (Roman
Solchanyk, RFE/RL, Inc.)
UN OBSERVERS INVITED TO TAJIKISTAN. The UN delegation that arrived
in Tashkent earlier in the week in response to an urgent plea from
Uzbek President Islam Karimov has received an invitation from the
government of Tajikistan to visit that country as well,
Khovar-TASS reported on 17 September. Karimov had asked the UN to
send representatives to examine the destabilizing influence in the
Central Asian region of recent events in Tajikistan. The
invitation from the Tajik government promises that the visitors
will be given an opportunity to meet leaders of a variety of
political parties and movements. The Tajik authorities are
presumably eager to present their version of events to the outside
world. (Bess Brown, RFE/RL, Inc.)
NAZARBAEV MEETS WITH KAZAKHSTAN'S GERMANS. On 17 September, on
the eve of his official visit to Germany, Kazakhstan's President
Nursultan Nazarbaev met with representatives of the country's
German population and reiterated promises to do everything
possible to make continued residence in Kazakhstan a more
attractive option than emigration, KazTAG-TASS reported on 17
September. The German representatives requested that Nazarbaev
raise the issue of assistance promised earlier by German
government officials which has not materialized; they would also
like to be able to travel to Germany without a visa. Nazarbaev
earlier said that an autonomous German region would not be set up
in Kazakhstan. (Bess Brown, RFE/RL, Inc.)
CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE
IZETBEGOVIC PROTESTS SERB ATTACKS. The BBC on 17 September said
that the Bosnian president urged the UN to take action in the wake
of Serb air attacks on four Bosnian cities or towns. The Security
Council is expected to discuss soon proposals for setting up a
"no-fly zone" over the troubled republic, where only the Serbs
have aircraft. Meanwhile, the Serbian bombardment of the Bosnian
capital entered its fourth day, and Sarajevo Radio said that it
was the worst shelling since the Serbs began the war in Bosnia in
the spring. The 18 September Washington Post quotes the UN
commander in Sarajevo as saying that "this is not the atmosphere
to implement the UN mandate." Both sides seem to be trying to
consolidate their positions before winter sets in next month.
(Patrick Moore, RFE/RL, Inc.)
BOSNIAN PEACE TALKS TO OPEN IN GENEVA. International media report
that the latest round of UN- and EC-sponsored negotiations is
slated to start on 18 September, with mediators meeting separately
with each of the three warring sides. There has been much public
posturing in recent days, especially by Serbian and Muslim
leaders. The Muslims threatened at one point to boycott the
gathering, while the Serbs say they will press for a partition of
the republic, which is a nonstarter for the Muslims. Croatian
President Franjo Tudjman is known to be mistrustful of the Muslims
and supportive of partition, but most Croatian politicians argue
that no lasting peace is possible without the Muslims, and that
Croatia's own state interests require Zagreb to insist on the
sanctity of existing frontiers. (Patrick Moore, RFE/RL, Inc.)
IS "ETHNIC CLEANSING" SPREADING TO THE SANDZAK AND VOJVODINA? The
9 September Split independent weekly Nedjeljna Dalmacija reported
at length on moves by Serbian irregulars in Montenegro to
intimidate local Muslims with the at least tacit cooperation of
Montenegrin authorities. Most of the action has taken place in
the ethnically mixed Sandzak area, but Muslims and Albanians have
also been forced to flee Podgorica, the capital, for safer havens.
Serbs blame the tension on "Islamic fundamentalists," but the
paper said that the pressures seem to be coming almost exclusively
from the irregulars, many of whom are outsiders who drift in and
out from the front in Bosnia. Elsewhere, on 17 September Western
news agencies carried related stories, with one account saying
that 69,000 out of 400,000 Muslims had fled the Sandzak in the
face of "provocations." Other accounts told of similar moves
directed at the ethnic Hungarians in Vojvodina. (Patrick Moore,
RFE/RL, Inc.)
ATTEMPT TO EXPORT ARMS TO FORMER YUGOSLAVIA STOPPED. Czechoslovak
TV reported on 17 September that a private Czechoslovak firm,
Ikona Frydlant, attempted to export five Soviet-made MI-8 attack
helicopters to former Yugoslavia, most likely to Croatia. At least
one of the helicopters was obtained in Poland. The shipment was
stopped by Czechoslovak authorities. An official at the Ministry
of Foreign Trade said that under Czechoslovak law the company's
officials cannot be punished but the helicopters can be
confiscated. (Jiri Pehe, RFE/RL, Inc.)
BULGARIAN, MACEDONIAN OFFICIALS MEET. Bulgarian Prime Minister
Filip Dimitrov met with a delegation of officials from the
Republic of Macedonia led by Vice President Jovan Andonov on 17
September, an RFE/RL correspondent reports. Present for the
discussions, which focused on trade and other economic issues,
were Rumen Bikov and Aleksandar Pramatarski, Bulgarian ministers
of trade and industry, respectively, and Petrush Stefanov,
minister of economics of the Macedonian republic. (Duncan Perry,
RFE/RL, Inc.)
SLOVAK FOREIGN MINISTER TO BUCHAREST. On 16 and 17 September Milan
Knazko, minister of international relations and vice-president of
the Slovak government, paid an official visit to Romania. Knazko
held talks with Foreign Minister Adrian Nastase, Trade and Tourism
Minister Constantin Fota, and other Romanian officials. He was
also received by Prime Minister Theodor Stolojan. The talks
focused on political, economic and cultural cooperation. (Dan
Ionescu, RFE/RL, Inc.)
GERMANY TO SEND BACK ROMANIAN ASYLUM-SEEKERS. The German Interior
Ministry announced on 17 September that Bucharest agreed to take
back thousands of Romanian citizens who failed to obtain political
asylum in Germany. Western agencies said that German Interior
Minister Rudolf Seiters will sign an agreement on the deportation
next week in Bucharest. Deportations will begin on 1 November.
So far this year, more than 43,000 Romanian citizens--of whom
about 60% are Gypsies--have applied for asylum in Germany. Romania
declared itself ready to accept even those refugees who had
destroyed their identity papers in order to prevent repatriation.
(Dan Ionescu, RFE/RL, Inc.)
HUNGARIANS PROTEST SOCCER INCIDENT IN BRATISLAVA. According to
CSTK, 16 people were injured on 16 September in Bratislava during
a European Championship Cup match between Slovan Bratislava and
Ferencvaros Budapest. It was not clear how many injuries were
caused by police called in to suppress fights between Slovak and
Hungarian fans, but CSTK described the police action as "brutal."
250 policemen took part in the action. The Hungarian Foreign
Ministry made an official protest to Czechoslovakia. Hungarian
Foreign Ministry spokesman Janos Herman told MTI that video films
and eyewitness accounts indicate that the Slovak police
indiscriminately beat up and seriously injured many of the
estimated 7000 defenseless Hungarian fans. Some Hungarian police
officials who witnessed the incident, however, defended their
Slovak colleagues saying that Hungarian fans provoked the police
action. (Jiri Pehe & Edith Oltay, RFE/RL, Inc.)
LEWANDOWSKI SURVIVES DISMISSAL VOTE. Voting on 18 September, the
Sejm narrowly rejected a motion to dismiss Polish Privatization
Minister Janusz Lewandowski. The vote was 189 to 174 with 36
abstentions; the abstentions counted as "no" votes. The
postcommunist and patriotic-fundamentalist opposition parties
banded together in the attack on Lewandowski. The KPN, which
sponsored the motion, had based its charges on a state audit for
1991 that criticized the privatization ministry for undervaluing
state assets and overspending on foreign consultants. The KPN did
not conceal, however, that its larger aim was to bring
privatization to a halt. The close vote reveals the fragility of
the government's parliamentary base and suggests that new
challenges from supporters of state socialism are likely. (Louisa
Vinton, RFE/RL, Inc.)
POLISH GOVERNMENT COUNTERS COALITION SPECULATION. Although
cabinet members admit that the government needs 30 more votes in
the Sejm to secure a stable majority for its programs, the prime
minister's press secretary told Polish TV on 17 September that
"the government is not considering expanding the coalition." Jan
Maria Rokita, minister for public administration, said the same
day that "we aren't going to beg anyone for help." The government
has nothing against expanding the coalition to include the Center
Alliance or the Peasant Party, he said, but the initiative would
have to come from the parties themselves. The Center Alliance,
which had walked out on the original coalition at the last minute
in July, met outside Warsaw earlier in the week to
debate--apparently inconclusively--whether to join the hard-line
opposition or parley for a place in the government. (Louisa
Vinton, RFE/RL, Inc.)
SAVOV UNDER ATTACK IN NATIONAL ASSEMBLY. Stefan Savov, president
of the Bulgarian National Assembly, is under fire from opponents
in the Bulgarian Socialist Party and the predominantly Turkish
Movement for Rights and Freedoms, an RFE/RL corespondent reports.
Savov, who has been accused by his detractors of bias and
intolerance regarding those who do not share his views, is
currently the head of the Democratic Party, an organization which
is part of the ruling Union of Democratic Forces coalition. The
proceedings could begin against him as early as 18 September and
will likely generate bitter debate. (Duncan Perry, RFE/RL, Inc.)
LITHUANIAN-RUSSIAN TALKS ON RETURN OF KGB FILES. On 16 September
the two delegations discussed the return of KGB files, the RFE/RL
Lithuanian Service reports. The deputy chairman of the commission
to return KGB archives, Sajudis chairman Juozas Tumelis, noted
that although the talks were long and boring, they were positive
since Russia no longer disputes Lithuania's right to have them.
Expressing concern that the files on the so-called "national
defenders" might be used to prosecute these agents for genocide,
Russia said that they should remain in Russia under joint control.
Lithuania, however, would only agree to this if they were kept in
a third country. Groups of experts are to prepare a protocol on
limiting access to the files, especially for journalists, for the
next meeting, scheduled for 2 October. (Saulius Girnius, RFE/RL,
Inc.)
WITHDRAWAL OF RUSSIAN TROOPS FROM LITHUANIA. The Lithuanian
government commissioner for army withdrawal problems, Stasys
Knezys, noted that Russia has started serious preparations for its
troops to leave Lithuania by asking permission to take out
equipment and other property, BNS reported on 17 September.
Household goods are removed first, followed by military cargoes
and fighting equipment. Battle equipment has been taken apart and
removed only from missile complexes such as those near Klaipeda
and Vilnius. Knezys noted that the number of Russian troops has
decreased by 12,000 since the beginning of the year due to
Lithuania's efforts not to allow new recruits. (Saulius Girnius,
RFE/RL, Inc.)
ELECTION CONTROVERSY HEATS UP. A three-member team of
investigators appointed by rival election coalitions in Estonia
has found no evidence of KGB collaboration among the four
candidates standing for president in the 20 September elections,
BNS reports. The investigative commission, however, confirmed the
authenticity of documents suggesting that the father of
presidential candidate Lennart Meri was a high-level KGB agent.
Meri denies charges that his father, interwar diplomat Georg Meri,
was a collaborator, but the commission's findings have rocked the
Lennart Meri campaign just three days before elections. (Riina
Kionka, RFE/RL, Inc.)
BALTIC ADMISSION TO CE EXPECTED AFTER ELECTIONS. The Baltic
States are expected to be admitted as full members of the Council
of Europe after they hold new parliamentary elections. Currently
they have a guest status. The decision to admit each country
separately came at the request of the EC Executive Commission
after it had considered a report critical of Estonia's treatment
of its Russian minority, according to RFE/RL correspondent's
report of 15 September. Latvian Supreme Council deputy Andrejs
Pantelejevs told the press on 16 September that the Baltic States
can hope to become EC members sometime in 1993, but not
simultaneously, since the pace of political development in each
country is different. He also noted EC objections to capital
punishment, which is still allowed in the Baltics, BNS reports.
(Dzintra Bungs, RFE/RL, Inc.)
NATO TO TRAIN BALTIC OFFICERS? An Estonian defense official says
that NATO is willing to help train Baltic officers. According to
BNS of 17 September, Deputy Chief of the General Staff Col. Raul
Luks said NATO officials had issued Estonia invitations for five
officers to study at the organization's schools in Rome and
Stuttgart. Luks was given the invitations at a NATO seminar held
this week in Brussels. (Riina Kionka, RFE/RL, Inc.)
LATVIA RATIFIES ACCORD WITH CE. On 16 September the Latvian
Supreme Council ratified an accord with the European Community on
commercial and economic cooperation. The ten-year agreement
signed on 11 May, grants Latvia most-favored-nation status in
trade with EC member states and can be renewed every year
automatically if neither side objects. On 16 September the
Latvian Supreme Council also ratified the 1 March 1954 Hague
Convention which, among other things, restricts the use of
weapons, BNS reports. (Dzintra Bungs, RFE/RL, Inc.)
SKODA PLZEN TO STOP PRODUCTION. CSTK reported on 17 September
that Skoda Plzen, the largest heavy-engineering plant in the Czech
Republic, will cease production on 1 October because of lack of
cash. According to plant officials, the shortage is caused partly
by the fact that Czechoslovak State Railways owes the company 1.3
billion koruny that cannot be collected. The company itself owes
4.4 billion koruny and creditor banks have refused to postpone the
payment. Earlier this year, Skoda Plzen successfully concluded
several joint venture deals with Western companies, including the
German firm Siemens. (Jiri Pehe, RFE/RL, Inc.)
POLAND'S STRIKE BALANCE. With the resumption of production at the
FSM auto plant in Tychy on 17 September, relative labor peace
returns to Poland. FSM's management rehired all those fired for
organizing the 55-day strike there. Poland's statistical office
reports that the August strike wave did not affect the overall
level of industrial production, which in August exceeded 1991
levels for the fifth month running. Thirty strikes ended in
August, including twelve in the copper mining and smelting
industry. Some 30,000 workers took part. Prime Minister Hanna
Suchocka met with Solidarity leader Marian Krzaklewski on 17
September to open talks on the "pact on state firms." Krzaklewski
said that Solidarity would not negotiate jointly with the former
official OPZZ federation, a measure the government hoped would
save time. (Louisa Vinton, RFE/RL, Inc.)
[As of 1200 CET]
Compiled by Hal Kosiba & Charles Trumbull
The RFE/RL Daily Report is produced by the RFE/RL Research
Institute (a division of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Inc.)
with the assistance of the RFE/RL News and Current Affairs
Division (NCA). The report is available by electronic mail
via LISTSERV (RFERL-L@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU), on the
Sovset' computer bulletin board, by fax, and by postal mail.
For inquiries about specific news items, subscriptions, or
additional copies, please contact:
In USA:
Mr. Jon Lodeesen or Mr. Brian Reed
RFE/RL, Inc.
1201 Connecticut Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20036.
Telephone: (202) 457-6912 or -6900
fax: (202) 457-6992 or -202-828-8783;
Internet: RI-DC@RFERL.ORG
or in Europe:
Ms. Helga Hofer
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novine.16.bale.,
UPI NEWS, 21.09.92. ---------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Yugoslav peace chief warns Bosnian Serb leader
Subject: Fighting, shelling resume in Sarajevo after day-long break
Subject: Serb-organized protests by women, children block aid convoy
Subject: Bosnia-Hercegovina rejects ``ethnic cleansing'
Subject: Bosnian leader urges U.N. to enforce terms of London peace conference
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Subject: Yugoslav peace chief warns Bosnian Serb leader
Date: 21 Sep 92 14:58:28 GMT
GENEVA (UPI) -- U.N. mediator Cyrus Vance warned Radovan Karadzic,
leader of the Bosnian Serbs, during the weekend that continued fighting
in Sarajevo may bring peace efforts to a halt, U.N. sources said Monday.
Fred Eckhard, spokesman for the U.N., said he could not confirm the
report although he said that Vance and Karadzic met in what he described
as a ``one-on-one situation'' Sunday.
``But it is clear that if the fighting in Sarajevo continues the
search for a political solution is going to intensify as the fighting
intensifies,'' Eckhard told a news conference.
``This could be a last spasm of fighting or it could be a renewed and
more deadly flareup -- we just don't know. But it is not going to make
the climate in the political talks easier.''
Karadzic left Geneva Monday along with other delegates, although all
three factions involved -- Serbs, Croats and Muslims -- promised to keep
delegations in place to continue talking with U.N. official Martti
Ahtisaari.
Ahtisaari will continue talks through the week, while Vance and Lord
David Owen, the European Community's mediator, will fly to Greece
Tuesday for a one-day visit to discuss the crisis in ex-Yugoslavia,
Eckhard said.
Eckhard said this was part of a program under which Vance and Owen
would visit all neighboring states of the former republic to discuss its
future in the wake of its breakup.
Meanwhile, the U.N. High Commission for Refugees said it was awaiting
replies from the 19 nations involved in its airlift to Sarajevo before
deciding whether to resume aid flights.
All three parties involved in the conflict agreed Saturday that
security guarantees would be given to U.N. aircraft flying into and out
of of Sarajevo airport.
But a UNHCR spokesman said High Commissioner Sadakao Ogata was
consulting with the 19 and would not announce when the airlift would be
resumed before she had agreement from all of them.
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Subject: Fighting, shelling resume in Sarajevo after day-long break
Date: 21 Sep 92 16:22:20 GMT
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Hercegovina (UPI) -- Heavy fighting raged Monday
around Sarajevo, shattering a one-day lull in serious strife and cutting
power to most of the city in what the Bosnian government charged was a
Serbian breach of a new internationally brokered accord.
Shellfire and infantry duels began around 8 a.m. across the tree-
studded ridgelines and slopes of Zuc mountain, which divides the
Bosnian-controlled northern verge of Sarajevo and Serb-held areas around
the town of Vogosca, and raged throughout the day.
Fighting and shellfire also flared in several neighborhoods near the
downtown and convulsed hotly contested western suburbs near the U.N.-
controlled airport, witnesses and news reports said.
The Health Ministry said that at least 22 people were killed and 64
others injured in Sarajevo during the 24-hour period ending at 1 p.m.
They were among at least 55 people who died and 296 others who were
injured around the war-torn republic.
Shortly after 10 a.m., electricity was cut to most of the town. The
Bosnian government blamed the disruption on the destruction of a 110-
kilowatt feeder cable by Serbian forces bent on ``using electricity...as
a method of pressure against the citizens of Sarajevo.''
There was no independent confirmation of the charge.
The allegation was made by Energy and Industry Minister Rusmir
Mahmutcehajic in a letter to U.N. special envoy Cyrus Vance and European
Community mediator Lord David Owen, the co-chairmen of the ongoing
Geneva peace talks.
Matmutcehajic said the alleged Serbian act violated an accord reached
in Geneva on Sunday in which the warring Bosnian factions agreed to
safeguard electricity and water sources.
He urged Vance and Owen to work for a return of electricity to
Sarajevo, which recently enjoyed a restoration of power after U.N.-
brokered repairs to Serb-sabotaged supplies.
The clashes and shelling also preceded the resumption in Geneva of
the latest round of internationally mediated talks on ending the war
that began when extremist Serbs, backed by neighboring Serbia, set out
in late March to capture a self-declared state.
The division of the newly independent former Yugoslav republic is
opposed by Bosnian forces, dominated by Muslim Slavs, but also including
moderate Croats and Serbs. But, they maintain an uneasy alliance with
Croatia-backed ultra-nationalist Croats seeking an autonomous enclave.
U.N. High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) officials were awaiting
word from Geneva on a final decision on the resumption of humanitarian
aid flights that were suspended when an Italian military plane was shot
down Oct. 3 as it approached Sarajevo.
Larry Hollingsworth, the chief UNHCR coordinator for the city, said
the city's population of an estimated 500,medicines available to the city,
which has been under Serbian blockade
for more than five months.
UNPROFOR sources confirmed serious fighting along the front spanning
Zuc mountain, where fierce clashes erupted on Friday as Serbian units
apparently sought to drive back Bosnian forces bent on breaking the
siege of the city.
Nirmin Silajdzic, a Bosnian officer in the frontline suburb of Hotonj
on the eastern edge of Zuc, said Serbian gunners laid down intense
artillery barrages in advance of a ``wave'' of infantry attacks, which
he claimed were beaten back.
``They can't manage to get through our lines,'' he said.
Witnesses said fighting then erupted around Stup, a western suburb
that tank-backed Serbian units have been trying to capture for just over
a week in an apparent attempt to consolidate their grip on the
potentially weakest point in their blockade.
UNPROFOR officers said artillery rounds flew over the top of their
headquarters on the western side of the city.
Explosions and gunfire marked outbreaks of clashes in Hrasno, located
about a half-mile from the city center, and Sarajevo radio said Serbian
shellfire hit parts of the downtown and the suburbs of Mojmilo and
Dobrinja.
Tens of thousands of people have been killed and injured and in
excess of 1 million others uprooted by the war.
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Subject: Serb-organized protests by women, children block aid convoy
Date: 21 Sep 92 15:00:53 GMT
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Hercegovina (UPI) -- Local Serbian authorities
organized protests by women and children to prevent a U.N. aid convoy
from reaching a beseiged Muslim Slav town in a new tactic that has
prompted a review of relief delivery plans, a U.N. official said Monday.
``It's easy to stop a convoy with women and kids, and it's very
difficult to do anything about it,'' said Larry Hollingsworth, the chief
U.N. High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) coordinator in the Bosnia-
Hercegovina capital of Sarajevo.
``The implications are very worrying,'' Hollingsworth said in an
interview.
He said that because of the incident, UNHCR is reconsidering plans to
send desperately needed food and medicines this week to Jajce, 105 miles
northwest of Sarajevo, a predominantly Muslim Slav town under intense
Serbian attack for weeks.
``We have to step back and watch,'' he said.
Hollingsworth said that he set out Friday to lead a convoy of seven
relief-bearing trucks and nine support and U.N. military protection
vehicles to Srebrenica, a Muslim Slav town about 50 miles east of
Sarajevo.
Murat Effendic, a Srebrenica official based in Sarajevo, said Serbian
fighters for more than five months have encircled and bombarded the
town, where at least 37,200 people are trapped with little food or
medical supplies.
Leaders of the self-declared state for which extremist Serbs are
fighting agreed to allow the UNHCR convoy into Srebrenica.
After driving virtually all night, Hollingsworth said, the convoy was
forced Saturday morning to abandon its original route by mines laid on a
road outside the Serb-controlled town of Milici.
The column detoured via Serb-held Bratunac, where ``we were stopped
on the main street by a large group of women dressed in black and
children,'' Hollingsworth said.
``They began to shout 'Why no food for us? Why should you feed people
who are killing us?' There were about 100 women and children. They
blocked the road completely and we just couldn't get through,''
Hollingsworth recounted.
He said the protesters demanded they be given the relief supplies
carried on half of the aid-bearing trucks.
``We went back to Milici to try again. When we got there, a bridge
was absolutely jam-packed with kids,'' he said. ``They were shouting 'Go
away, go back.' They were about five-years-old and up. They were being
orchestrated by two women in uniforms.''
``We tried to reason with them, but it was no use and the convoy
returned to Sarajevo,'' he said.
Hollingsworth said the protests were organized by local Serbian
leaders in an unprecedented tactic of the more than five-month-old war
to prevent U.N. relief supplies from reaching Muslim Slav recipients.
``We had approval from the topmost Serbian authorities to get in and
I have no doubt that they wanted us to get in. The protests were
orchestrated by local Serbs,'' Hollingsworth said.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Bosnia-Hercegovina rejects ``ethnic cleansing'
Date: 21 Sep 92 17:04:33 GMT
Geneva (UPI) -- The government of Bosnia-Hercegovina told United
Nations mediators Monday it rejects ``ethnic cleansing'' on its
racially-mixed territory and pledged that all racial groups would be
proportionally represented in state bodies in the future.
The pledge was made in a document handed by the Bosnia-Hercegovina
delegation to Cyrus Vance, the chief U.N. mediator in talks now going on
here on the future of the former Yugoslavia.
Bosnian Foreign Minister Haris Silajdzic told a news conference later
the document was proof of his country's good faith in the talks, largely
bogged down in mistrust for the past two weeks.
``Bosnia-Hercegovina is an independent, sovereign and internationally
recognized state of peoples with equal rights -- Croats, Muslims, Sedrbs
and all others,'' he said. ``We all have to live together.''
Silajdzic spoke as Vance and Lord David Owen, the European Community
mediator in the talks, continued their round of meetings with
representatives of the Serbian community in Bosnia-Hercegovina, the
Croatian minority and with the government itself.
The talks are a spinoff of the larger UN-EC peace conference which
has been going on here since early September.
Vance had earlier met with Radovan Karadzic, leader of the Bosnian
Serbs. U.N. sources said he had warned no meaningful progress was
possible until the fighting stops in Sarajevo.
Fred Eckhard, the U.N. spokesman, said it was hard to tell whether
the shooting which was going on Sunday night and early Monday was simply
the residue of previous fighting or a new outbreak.
Meanwhile United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Sadako Ogata
continued her consultations with the 19 nations involved in the U.N.
Sarajevo airlift, on whether they are prepared to resume regular flights
ore not.
A test flight by a U.N. plane Sunday made it safely but U.N. sources
said despite the fact Mrs. Ogata had won written promises from all three
warring factions in Bosnia-Hercegovina on Saturday that they would
respect a resumed airlift, some countries are still wary of resuming
flights.
An Italian plane on U.N. business was shot down, apparently by a
missile, two weeks ago, halting the airlift. Mrs. Ogata's office said
she was hoping to resume it ``momentarily'' but did not yet have the
agreement of all 19 countries concerned.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Bosnian leader urges U.N. to enforce terms of London peace conference
Date: 21 Sep 92 21:41:05 GMT
UNITED NATIONS (UPI) -- The president of Bosnia-Hercegovina appealed
Monday for the United Nations to either enforce the terms of the London
peace conference among the former Yugoslav republics or lift sanctions
against his country ``to allow us to defend ourselves.''
President Alijah Izetbegovich told the U.N. General Assembly he
wanted to create a constitutional commission that would include all
ethnic and religious groups in his embattled republic to write a
constitution for a multi-ethnic society that would be a ``living and
breathing Jackson Pollack painting.''
He rejected the partition of his republic into warring enclaves of
Serbs, Croatians and Muslim Slavs as ``impractical and immoral,'' and
said if the United Nations could not enforce the terms of the London
peace conference ``then I ask you to allow us to defend ourselves,'' a
reference to the U.N. arms embargo in the region.
Izetbegovich's emotional appeal came amid a day of speeches to the
General Assembly by leaders from around the world, including one by
President Bush, who joined many other officials throughout the day in
discussing issues related to the war in the Balkins.
Iranian Foreign Minister Ali-Akbar Velayati, whose Islamic government
strongly supports Muslim Slavs in Bosnia-Hercegovina, told the General
Assembly that the Bosnian Serb attacks on Muslims were ``crimes...with
few parallels in the post World War II.''
Velayati called for the Security Council to put an end to the Serbs'
``aggression'' and urged the Bosnian people to defend themselves. He
also said Iran would welcome any move to end the ``fratridical
bloodshed'' in Afghanistan and called for talks to settle communal
disputes in Azerbaijan and Armenia.
President Bush called Monday for the world body to strengthen its
ability to ``prevent, contain and resolve conflicts across the globe''
and offered to provide U.S. logistic and training facilities to assist
the peace-keeping effort.
But Bush, in a 30-minute address to the General Assembly, did not
mention whether he intended to pay the $733 million the United States
owes to the United Nations, which is facing a severe cash and personnel
shortage to carry out its peace-keeping operations.
Bush's remarks raised eyebrows in the hall because except for small
observer missions, the United States has never taken part in U.N. peace-
keeping activities since 1945, in part because the success of the U.N.
peace-keeping operations depend upon neutrality. The majority of
peacekeepers come from Nordic countries, Canada and non-aligned
countries.
The U.S. president, making his fourth appearance before the General
Assembly, strongly endorsed Secretary-General Boutros Ghali's ``Agenda
for Peace,'' which calls for the establishment of a standing army to
sent be immediately to areas where a conflict threatens to explode.
The standing army, to which each country would contribute one
infantry battalion, would be placed under United Nations command. Each
country would be called to defray the cost of maintaining the battalion,
thus easing the United Nations' cash crunch.
``I welcome the secretary-general's call for a new agenda to
strengthen the United Nations' ability to prevent, contain and resolve
conflicts across the globe,'' Bush said. ``I call upon all members to
join me and take bold steps to advance that agenda,'' he said.
The first speaker to the podium Monday was Brazilian Foreign Minsiter
Celso Lafer. Brazil has been the traditional first speaker to open the
political debate of the assembly, which this year comprises 179 member
states.
Lafer as well as Austrian Foreign Minister Alois Mock voiced support
for Ghali's Agenda for Peace. More than 40 heads of state and
government, and scores of foreign ministers have asked the right to
speak in the first three weeks of the 47th General Assembly session.
The war in Yugoslavia, reform of the United Nations and economic woes
in developing countries will receive particular attention from the
assembly.
novine.17.bale.,
RFE/RL Daily Report
No. 182, 22 September 1992
SUCCESSOR STATES TO THE USSR
ISKANDAROV WARNS TAJIK GROUPS TO STOP FIGHTING. On 21 September,
the chairman of Tajikistan's Supreme Soviet, Akbarsho Iskandarov,
issued a warning to the leaders of armed groups that are still
fighting each other in the countryside, ITAR-TASS reported.
Iskandarov, who is the acting president of the country, threatened
that if the fighting does not stop by 24 September, force will be
used to disarm the opposing sides. He did not say what force would
be used--Tajik militiamen have been ordered to stay out of the
fighting and the country has no armed forces of its own--but in
the last week various government and opposition figures have
suggested that a CIS peacekeeping force might not be a bad idea
after all. (Bess Brown, RFE/RL, Inc.)
KARABAKH UPDATE. The situation in Nagorno-Karabakh remains
unclear, with Azerbaijani and Karabakh defense officials making
contradictory claims over casualty figures in recent days and
control of the Lachin corridor linking Karabakh with Armenia.
Interfax quoted Armenian President Levon Ter-Petrossyan as stating
that a ceasefire in Nagorno-Karabakh would be "a good
prerequisite" for a meeting with his Azerbaijani counterpart
Abulfaz Elchibey. Addressing the UN General Assembly, Iranian
Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati criticized the Security
Council for not sending observers to monitor Iranian-brokered
ceasefire agreements in Karabakh earlier this year. Velayati said
the Karabakh conflict can only be solved through negotiations,
preserving the territorial integrity of both states involved,
according to an RFE-RL correspondent's report. (Liz Fuller,
RFE/RL, Inc.)
RUSSIA CONCERNED AT ABKHAZ CEASEFIRE VIOLATIONS. Russian Foreign
Ministry spokesman Aleksandr Rozanov told a press conference in
Moscow on 21 September that Moscow is "most profoundly concerned"
that Abkhazia and Georgia are not complying with the terms of the
3 September Abkhaz ceasefire agreement, ITAR-TASS reported.
Georgian deputies to the Abkhaz parliament accused the Abkhaz of
"totally ignoring" the ceasefire. Meanwhile Georgian Defense
Minister Tengiz Kitovani extended the curfew in Sukhumi for a
further month and appointed Colonel Gubaz Urashvili as city
commandant to replace Giorgi Gulua. (Liz Fuller, RFE/RL, Inc.)
CONFLICT IN PARLIAMENT. Right-wing factions in the Russian
parliament, organized in the "Russian Unity" bloc, plan to remove
President Boris Yeltsin and his reformist government from power,
Western news agencies reported on 20 September. "Russian Unity"
intends to form a government of national confidence and hold
parliamentary elections next year. The democrats in the
parliament prefer to defend Yeltsin and impeach the conservative
parliamentary speaker, Ruslan Khasbulatov. The Civic Union seeks a
centrist role and opposes the removal of Yeltsin or Khasbulatov.
Meanwhile, acting Prime Minister Egor Gaidar predicted that he
would survive an expected onslaught at the forthcoming session of
the parliament. (Alexander Rahr, RFE/RL, Inc.)
KHASBULATOV ATTACKS GOVERNMENT. The speaker of the Russian
parliament, Ruslan Khasbulatov, attacked the government on the eve
of the opening of parliament. In an interview with Ostankino TV on
21 September, he strongly criticized Deputy Prime Minister for
Privatization, Anatolii Chubais, for "ignoring laws adopted by the
parliament." The liberal deputy Viktor Sheinis has warned of a
"personal dictatorship" by Khasbulatov. He told ITAR-TASS on the
same day that Khasbulatov wants to transform the parliament into a
"ministry for adopting laws." The first deputy speaker, Sergei
Filatov, accused Khasbulatov of creating a new
administrative-command system through the parliament, Radio Rossii
reported on 20 September. (Alexander Rahr, RFE/RL, Inc.)
AVEN, MOZHIN ON YEAR-END ECONOMIC FIGURES. Minister of Foreign
Economic Relations, Petr Aven, and senior negotiator on debt
issues, Alexei Mozhin, told reporters in Washington that Russian
industrial production can be expected to fall 30% by the end of
1992, according to Western news agencies on 21 September. The
figure represents an accelerated decline from the 13-15% drop from
the period between last June and this June, 21.5% from July to
July, and 27.5% from August 1991 to August 1992. Aven and Mozhin
also said that September's inflation rate in Russia was 20%, much
higher than the 7-8% officially reported for July and August.
Despite the increase, Aven claimed, by year-end a 9% inflation
rate was a "realistic figure." (Erik Whitlock, RFE/RL, Inc.)
GAIDAR CALLS FOR STRICTER FINANCIAL POLICIES. Russian Prime
Minister Egor Gaidar has added some detail to his call last week
for tougher fiscal and monetary policies. According to Interfax
on 21 September, Gaidar said at a conference in Moscow that since
April, national financial policy has been too lax. He devoted
particular criticism to the Central Bank for overly expansionary
credit policies, and to Chairman Viktor Gerashchenko personally
for interfering in strictly governmental affairs. "I would like
the Central Bank president to understand that he is responsible
not for investment policies, nor for socialist economy..., but for
monetary and credit policies," he said. Gaidar reportedly also
expressed his support for requiring Russian exporters to sell all
their hard currency revenues to the state at some fixed exchange
rate. (Erik Whitlock, RFE/RL, Inc.)
GORBACHEV, OTHER LEADERS, TO TESTIFY IN CONSTITUTIONAL COURT. The
Constitutional Court has agreed at last to call former CPSU
leaders to testify at the current hearings that will decide the
legality of President Yeltsin's decree banning banning the
activities of the Communist Party and confiscating its property,
Russian TV newscasts announced on 21 September. The leaders
invited to testify include former CPSU General Secretary Mikhail
Gorbachev, former leader of the Russian Communist party, Ivan
Polozkov, former Politburo members Egor Ligachev, Nikolai Ryzhkov
and Aleksandr Yakovlev, and the Director of the KGB and former
Minister of Internal Affairs, Vadim Bakatin. The "Novosti" anchor
reminded the audience of an earlier interview with Mihail
Gorbachev, during which the former General Secretary had declared
that he would never testify at the hearing, even if he were
delivered to the court in handcuffs. (Julia Wishnevsky, RFE/RL,
Inc.)
YELTSIN COULD SUSPEND BUT NOT BAN THE COMMUNIST PARTY, EXPERTS
SAY. Three of the four legal experts who have testified since the
Constitutional Court resumed its hearings on 15 September (Boris
Lazarev, Yurii Eremenko and Aleksei Mitskevich) have agreed that
only the first of the three decrees issued by President Yeltsin on
the Communist Party was justified. The decree, issued by Yeltsin
the day after the attempted coup against Gorbachev on 23 August
1991, stated that the activities of the Soviet and Russian
Federation's Communist Parties would be suspended until the court
investigated their involvement in the coup. Two other decrees,
dated 25 August and 6 November, 1991 respectively, announced the
confiscation of the party's property and a ban of its
organizational activities. According to the experts, only the
Russian Supreme Court, not the president, who is merely the chief
executive in Russia, is entitled by law to ban public
organizations and confiscate property. (Julia Wishnevsky,
RFE/RL, Inc.)
YELTSIN TO SIGN DECREE ON DEVELOPING DISPUTED ISLANDS. Sakhalin
regional government chief Valentin Fedorov has told a Japanese
newspaper that Russian President Boris Yeltsin intends shortly to
sign a decree promoting the development of the four southern Kuril
islands claimed by Japan. Fyordorov's interview was carried by
the Asahi Shimbun on 21 September, and was reported by UPI. He
told the newspaper that Yeltsin's decree would allow firms on the
islands to dispose independently of their products and would
simplify the procedures for setting up corporations, including
joint ventures, on the islands. On 18 September Nagao Hyodo, an
official of the Japanese Foreign Ministry, warned Russia that a
plan for a Hong Kong firm to develop tourist facilities on one of
the islands was "unacceptable." He also expressed concern about a
reported deal in which an Austrian company would build a golf
course on another of the disputed islands. (Doug Clarke, RFE/RL,
Inc.)
"GORBACHEV" CAR STOLEN. One of the three "Volga" cars of the
Gorbachev Foundation has been stolen, according to "Novosti" of 20
September. The "Novosti" anchor cited a Moscow police official as
suggesting that the crime must have been an inside job,
perpetrated by a person familiar with the workshift of the
Foundation's guards. (Julia Wishnevsky, RFE/RL, Inc.)
JOUSTING OVER BLACK SEA FLEET CONTINUES. The press center of the
Ukrainian Navy in Sevastopol said on 21 September that 50 officers
from the Higher Naval Academy in that city had taken the oath of
loyalty to Ukraine, bringing the number of officers that have
sworn loyalty to Ukraine to about 50% of the total. At the
Sevastopol naval engineering school, the rate was reported to be
over 60%. The figures were reported by Interfax. It also reported
that Russian and Ukrainian working groups were scheduled to resume
negotiations concerning the fleet on 23 September. On 18
September, Interfax had said that the talks were scheduled to
reopen on 21 September. (Stephen Foye, RFE/RL, Inc.)
MEETING OF UKRAINIAN AND RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTERS. The foreign
ministers of Ukraine and Russia, Anatolii Zlenko and Andrei
Kozyrev, met in New York on 20 September, ITAR-TASS reported. The
two diplomats exchanged views on world affairs and problems
confronting the current session of the UN General Assembly.
Special emphasis was placed on preparation of the
Ukrainian-Russian treaty and economic relations between the two
countries. (Roman Solchanyk, RFE/RL, Inc.)
EDUARD SHEVARDNADZE (AGAIN) THREATENS TO RESIGN. Having
threatened in late July to resign if Georgian troops used force to
quell armed resistance in Mingrelia by supporters of ousted
President Zviad Gamsakhurdia, Eduard Shevardnadze again stated on
21 September that he would step down if ongoing violence threatens
to jeopardize the parliamentary elections scheduled for 11
October, according to Radio Tbilisi. Shots were fired during the
night of 21-22 September at the State Council headquarters in
Tbilisi but noone was injured, ITAR-TASS reported. (Liz Fuller,
RFE/RL, Inc.)
PONTIC GREEKS FLEEING ABKHAZIA. Ethnic Greeks, of whom there were
14,664 in Abkhazia at the time of the 1989 census, are fleeing
Abkhazia and other southern regions of the former USSR in whole
families to escape persecution, according to a statement released
in Athens by the Pan-Hellenic Union of Pontic Fugitives and
summarized on 21 September by ITAR-TASS. The homes of many Greeks
in Sukhumi have been attacked by Georgian troops. The Greek
government has so far ignored repeated requests from the refugees
for assistance. Greek emigration from the USSR last year stood at
approximately 2,000 per month. (Liz Fuller, RFE/RL, Inc.)
ACTING PREMIER APPOINTED IN TAJIKISTAN. Tajikistan's acting
President Akbarsho Iskandarov has appointed Abdumalik
Abdullodzhanov acting Prime Minister to replace Akbar Mirzoev, who
resigned in August, ITAR-TASS reported on 21 September. Mirzoev
was a native of Kulyab Oblast and a close associate of deposed
President Rakhmon Nabiev. The 43 year old Abdullodzhanov is
apparently one of the new Tajik entrepreneurs--he has been general
director of a holding company called "Non" (Bread). (Bess Brown ,
RFE/RL, Inc.)
NAZARBAEV IN GERMANY. On 21 September, the first day of his
official visit to Germany, Kazakhstan President Nursultan
Nazarbaev told KazTAG and TASS correspondents that he had met not
only with German President Richard von Weisacker, but had
discussed financial help to German-populated regions of Kazakhstan
with Economics Minister Juergen Moelleman, and technical
assistance in reorganizing Kazakhstan's banking system with the
head of the Deutsche Bank. The bank is interested in investing in
extractive industries in Kazakhstan. An agreement was signed with
Siemens to build medical equipment and telecommunications
equipment factories in Kazakhstan. (Bess Brown, RFE/RL, Inc.)
RUSSIAN-MOLDOVAN TROOP TALKS. The second round of bilateral talks
on the status and terms of withdrawal of Russia's 14th Army from
Moldova, held on 16 and 17 September in Chisinau, "ended without
any results," Interfax reported. Moldovan delegation head and
ambassador to Russia, Petru Lucinschi, told the Moldovan media
that future negotiations will be "lengthy and difficult" and that
the chief gain thus far is Russia's consent to negotiate at all
and recognition that its troops are based in a sovereign state.
Lucinschi indicated that Moldova would agree to a withdrawal of
Russian troops by 1994 but that Russia would not discuss any dates
as yet. President Mircea Snegur assured the Russian delegates
that the Moldovan army would welcome in its ranks officers and
NCOs of the 14th Army after the latter's withdrawal. Snegur also
urged the inclusion of "Dniester" Russian leaders in the talks
since they will eventually have to persuade their people to accept
the Army's withdrawal. (Vladimir Socor, RFE/RL, Inc.)
RUSSIA LINKS WITHDRAWAL T0 ADDITIONAL ISSUES. Russia's ambassador
to Moldova and chief delegate to the troop talks, Vladimir
Plechko, told the Moldovan media on 17 September that the talks
are based on the Yeltsin-Snegur convention of 21 July on settling
the conflict in eastern Moldova and on "other issues pertaining to
interstate relations." The statement confirms earlier indications
that Russia seeks to link an eventual withdrawal of the troops to
the Dniester conflict and other issues and obtain concessions from
Moldova on those issues. Russia also confirmed the decision,
taken at the first round of talks in August, to withdraw a pontoon
unit (nominally a regiment but currently down to battalion
strength) from Bendery on the right bank of the Dniester.
(Vladimir Socor, RFE/RL, Inc.)
MOLDOVAN PRESIDENT REACHES OUT TO GAGAUZ. In a conciliatory
gesture of a kind that has previously been spurned, Moldovan
President Mircea Snegur travelled to Comrat raion to meet with
"Gagauz republic Supreme Soviet Chairman" Mikhail Kendigelyan and
with the chairmen of the Soviets of the three raions in which the
Gagauz form majorities or pluralities of the population,
Moldovapres reported on 18 September. While the agenda of the
talks was kept confidential, Moldova's Presidential Office told a
RFR/RL Research Institute correspondent that Snegur offered the
Gagauz administrative-territorial autonomy in the form of a
"national county" within Moldova. The concept has been under
discussion for some time by a special joint commission of the
Moldovan parliament and government. Snegur invited Gagauz
representatives to Chisinau for negotiations on this basis in the
coming days. (Vladimir Socor, RFE/RL, Inc.)
GAGAUZ MILITANTS ERECT "BORDER" AGAINST MOLDOVA. The militant
Gagauz "self-defense detachments" commanded by Ivan Burguji, which
have been armed by ex-Soviet troops stationed nearby, and which
conducted several successful guerrilla attacks on Moldovan
authorities this year, have begun erecting a "border" to separate
the territory of the "Gagauz republic" from Moldova. The armed
detachments guard the "border," illegally subjecting travellers to
checks and searches. Moldova's Presidential Office feels that the
move is an effort to torpedo Snegur's negotiations with the
Gagauz. Although politically marginal among their people, the
"self-defense detachments" have previously frustrated attempts by
Gagauz moderates to reach a compromise with Chisinau. (Vladimir
Socor , RFE/RL, Inc.)
CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE
PANIC AT THE UNITED NATIONS. Western agencies report that Milan
Panic, Prime Minister of the rump Yugoslavia, arrived in New York
on 21 September and met overnight with the foreign ministers of
the five permanent members of the UN Security Council. The
meeting, arranged by Russian Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev at
the Russian Mission, heard Panic discuss a new peace proposal.
Panic will be allowed to appeal his country's status to the UN
General Assembly on the 22nd. In accordance with the UNSC
recommendation of the 20th, however, the assembly is expected to
vote in favor of excluding "Yugoslavia." US President Bush
addressed the UNGA on 21 September at the start of its three-week
debate on the crisis in the former Yugoslavia. Bush called for
strengthening UN peacekeeping operations and offered the use of US
military facilities for the training of UN troops. (Charles
Trumbull, RFE/RL, Inc.)
NEW FRAMEWORK FOR BOSNIA PROPOSED. On 21 September Bosnian Foreign
Minister Haris Silajdzic proposed a new constitutional framework
for the republic to the Geneva conference on Yugoslavia. The plan
would preserve Bosnia as a single state but decentralize some
functions to different regions. This is an apparent attempt to
appease Bosnian Serbs, who have called for partition of the
republic along ethnic lines, Western agencies report. Relief
flights have still not been resumed into Sarajevo, where severe
fighting continues. (Charles Trumbull, RFE/RL, Inc.)
NEW CHIEF MUFTI IN BULGARIA. On 19 September Fikri Sali Hasan, the
29-year-old regional mufti for Kardzhali, was chosen as grand
mufti of Bulgaria, Radio Sofia reports. His appointment was
announced at the conclusion of the National Conference of the
Muslim Faithful in Bulgaria, where 665 representatives of
congregations from throughout the country selected him. Hasan's
appointment brings to an end the conflict between reformers and
those who had supported Nedim Gendzhev, the former grand mufti,
who had been appointed during the communist years. Gendzhev was
accused of working for the state security apparatus and was
criticized for his passivity throughout the late 1980s when the
government attempted to force the Bulgarization of ethnic Turks.
(Duncan Perry, RFE/RL, Inc.)
CZECHOSLOVAK FEDERAL ASSEMBLY TO DEBATE BREAKUP. The Czechoslovak
parliament is scheduled to debate a draft law on possible modes of
division of the Czechoslovak federation. The law provides for four
different ways of dissolving the federation, and the debate will
proceed along lines worked out by the two republics' leaders,
Czech Prime Minister Vaclav Klaus and his Slovak counterpart,
Vladimir Meciar. It remains highly questionable, however, that
Parliament will approve legislation, which would require the
support of a three-fifths majority. Not only are large groups
among the opposition expected to vote against dissolution, but
individual representatives of the ruling parties are said to favor
a nationwide referendum on the future of Czechoslovakia rather
than having Parliament decide. (Jan Obrman, RFE/RL, Inc.)
REGISTRATION OF SEIMAS CANDIDATES COMPLETED. The deadline for
registering candidates for Lithuania's 25 October Seimas elections
was midnight 20 September. The chairman of the Main Election
Commission Vaclovas Litvinas announced that 8 political parties
and 18 sociopolitical movements have formally registered, Radio
Lithuania reports. There will be more than 800 candidates
competing for the 70 seats distributed proportionally, and more
than 400 candidates for the 71 single-mandate seats. Various
right-wing coalitions that signed the "Accord for a Democratic
Lithuania" on 19 September will at times compete against each
other in the single-mandate districts since their component parts
have registered 126 candidates. The lists of candidates will be
published in the newspapers on Friday. (Saulius Girnius, RFE/RL,
Inc.)
ANTALL DEFENDS CSURKA. Hungarian Prime Minister Jozsef Antall
said in a interview with Newsweek that the uproar surrounding
recent allegedly racist and anti-Semitic statements by Istvan
Csurka, one of six vice presidents of the ruling Hungarian
Democratic Forum, has been overblown and it is only a domestic
political issue. Antall also said that he does not believe Csurka
is a Nazi and that the statement Csurka published in late August
represents his own personal opinion. Csurka is a writer, a
Hungarian enfant terrible, "a devilish child in political life who
has a fancy for taking risks," continued Antall. In the same
interview, Antall said that Hungary will do everything possible
not to become involved in the Yugoslav crisis but strongly
supports autonomy for Hungarians living in the Serbian province of
Vojvodina. (Karoly Okolicsanyi, RFE/RL, Inc.)
NEW DIRECTIONS FOR HUNGARIAN INTELLIGENCE SERVICES. Tibor
Fuzessy, minister in charge of intelligence, counterintelligence,
and antiterrorism, said that Hungary is redirecting its attention
to neighboring countries instead of the West, MTI reports. This is
necessary because these countries are vigorously building up their
spy networks in Hungary. Hungarian agents, earlier employed in
the West, are being relocated to the neighboring countries,
Fuzessy said. Also, despite the cleanup in the security agencies,
most staff is left over from the communist past due to the special
nature of the work. New personnel in the agencies will come only
after years or even decades, Fuzessy said. (Karoly Okolicsanyi,
RFE/RL, Inc.)
HUNGARIAN PRESIDENT IN ISRAEL. Arpad Goncz met on 21 September
with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin during the Hungarian
president's four-day official visit in Israel, MTI reports. At a
joint press conference Goncz stressed that Hungarian Jews now
living in Israel are a most important bond between the two
countries and said that, despite the appearance of some "old and
dusty ideas," no responsible political force in Hungary tolerates
anti-Semitic or racist ideas. Rabin said that Israel is worried
about recent extremist and sometimes anti-Semitic incidents in
Europe, from which Hungary is not exempt, but expressed hope that
they are only the actions of a small minority. Goncz also met with
Jerusalem's mayor, and visited the Holocaust Memorial Park, the
Knesset, and Bethlehem. In the evening Goncz was received at a
reception hosted by Israeli President Chaim Herzog. (Karoly
Okolicsanyi, RFE/RL, Inc.)
ILIESCU QUIZZED ON RADIO BUCHAREST. As part of his campaign for
reelection in the 27 September election, Romanian President Ion
Iliescu was interviewed on Radio Bucharest on 21 September by four
journalists from some of the country's main dailies. Speaking
about his time in office, he described his decision to outlaw the
Romanian Communist Party, taken at an anticommunist meeting on 12
January 1990, as "a moment of weakness" (the decision was reversed
on the following day). But Iliescu was unrepentant about his role
in the wave of violence from mid-June 1990, claiming that he had
shown "patience, calm, self-control, and emotional balance." (Dan
Ionescu, RFE/RL, Inc.)
STOLOJAN MEDIATES LABOR CONFLICT. On 21 September Romanian Premier
Theodor Stolojan received members of a commission investigating
the labor conflict between the railway trade unions and the board
of directors of Romanian Railways. Four union leaders are
currently on a hunger strike to protest the signing of a
collective labor contract as well as their dismissal after having
organized two strikes in May. The four have refused food for more
than one month and recently announced their decision to refuse
liquids as well; doctors say this may lead to rapid death. The
commission informed Stolojan that the decision of Romanian
Railways to dismiss the union leaders is illegal, but the railway
administration insists it acted in accordance with the law. (Dan
Ionescu , RFE/RL, Inc.)
10,000 SOVIET TROOPS STILL IN POLAND. Polish officials announced
on 10 September that the withdrawal of former Soviet troops is
proceeding according to plan. Some 10,000 soldiers remain, along
with 63 armored carriers, 5,000 other vehicles, 4 transport
planes, and two helicopters. All combat planes and tanks are
already withdrawn. Gen. Zdzislaw Ostrowski, the Polish
government's plenipotentiary for the former Soviet troops, said
that most conflicts with the Russian forces had ended with the
departure of Gen. Viktor Dubynin, now serving as Russian chief of
the general staff. Still, the Russian side is failing to keep
Poland informed about the exact strength of its forces. The
biggest problem, Ostrowski noted, is dealing with the more than
7,000 buildings and bases vacated by the Russian forces. (Louisa
Vinton, RFE/RL, Inc.)
HUNGARIANS REQUESTED TO FILL OUT WEALTH INVENTORIES. The
Hungarian government is instructing taxpayers to fill out a wealth
inventory by 30 November 1992, Nepszabadsag reports. The move was
made to clamp down on widespread tax evasion, a main reason for
the present growing budget deficit. The wealth inventory will not
have direct tax benefits, but rather will serve as a base to
establish increases in incomes in the future and make the work of
the tax authorities easier. (Karoly Okolicsanyi, RFE/RL, Inc.)
LATVIA'S FOREIGN TRADE MINISTER RESIGNS. Latvian Prime Minister
Ivars Godmanis announced on 18 September the resignation of
Minister of Foreign Trade Edgars Zausajevs. The official
explanation is that Zausajevs had taken a new job, although
Godmanis did not say what his new job is, Diena reports. It is
not known who will replace Zausajevs. (Dzintra Bungs, RFE/RL,
Inc.)
LATVIA'S ECONOMIC RELATIONS WITH TAIWAN. Upon his return to Riga
on 17 September, Godmanis reported to the press on his visit to
Taiwan. His delegation focused on economic relations and signed
an accord guaranteeing the protection of foreign investments in
Latvia. Taiwan expressed interest in using Latvian ports to
expand trade in Europe. While Latvia does not expect to upgrade
diplomatic relations with Taiwan, consular relations will be
inaugurated in the near future, BNS reported on 18 September.
(Dzintra Bungs, RFE/RL, Inc.)
FOOD PROCESSORS' DEBT TO LATVIAN FARMERS GROWS. According to data
from the Ministry of Agriculture, food processing plants under
state jurisdiction are badly in debt to the farmers who supply
them with milk and meat. On 11 September the debt was estimated at
1 billion rubles and by 18 September the amount had grown to 1.3
billion rubles, Diena reports. Minister of Agriculture Dainis
Gegers noted that a credit of 600 million rubles was allocated to
food processing plants early in June so that they could repay the
existing debts and begin prompt payments to the farmers. Noting
that the credit must be repaid by 1 October, Gegers said he is
deeply concerned about the situation and does not rule out the
possibility of calling for the resignation of some plant
directors. (Dzintra Bungs, RFE/RL, Inc.)
LATVIAN ELECTRICITY PRICES UP IN OCTOBER. On 11 September the
government decided to raise prices on electricity in mid-October,
largely due to demands by countries exporting energy to Latvia for
payment in hard currency. Prime Minister Godmanis said that Latvia
will have to pay 120 million German marks a year to Estonia for
imported electricity. He noted that the economic crisis is likely
to worsen, since many enterprises are already unable to pay for
their energy needs, BNS reported on 14 September. (Dzintra Bungs ,
RFE/RL, Inc.)
LITHUANIAN ECONOMIC STATISTICS. On 21 September Radio Lithuania
reported a Statistical Department announcement that for
January-August 1992 sales of industrial production decreased by
about 45% from the previous year, resulting in losses of about 127
billion rubles. The average monthly wage in August 1992 as
compared with the same period in 1991, however, increased more
than ninefold to 7,668 rubles with the greatest increase (512
rubles) occurring in the last month. (Saulius Girnius, RFE/RL,
Inc.)
[As of 1200 CET]
Compiled by Hal Kosiba & Charles Trumbull
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RFE/RL Daily Report
No. 183, 23 September 1992
SUCCESSOR STATES TO THE USSR
SITUATION IN TAJIKISTAN. On 22 September deputies of
Tajikistan's Supreme Soviet went to the town of Kulyab to
negotiate with supporters of deposed President Rakhmon
Nabiev, who are fighting opposition forces in the southern
part of the country, AFP reported from Dushanbe. The same
source had reported the previous day that Dushanbe residents
had demonstrated all day in front of the Supreme Soviet
building, demanding arms to protect themselves against
attacks by pro-Nabiev forces. Also on 21 September the
independent daily Charogi ruz criticized the appointment of
Abdumalik Abdullodzhanov as interim prime minister, accusing
him of corruption and association with Tajikistan's economic
mafia. (Bess Brown, RFE/RL, Inc.)
ARMENIA, AZERBAIJAN AGREE ON CEASEFIRE. At a meeting in
Sochi on 19 September the defense ministers of Armenia,
Azerbaijan, Georgia and Russia signed an agreement on a
ceasefire in Nagorno-Karabakh and along the
Armenian-Azerbaijani frontier and a two-month moratorium on
military activity in the region, according to Krasnaya zvezda
of 23 September. The ceasefire is to take effect at midnight
on 25 September after which Armenia and Azerbaijan have
pledged to begin the "phased withdrawal" of troops from the
area. Observers from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Ukraine,
Belarus and Kazakhstan will monitor the ceasefire. Whether
representatives from the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic
participated in the meeting and whether Karabakh defense
units consider themselves bound to comply with the ceasefire
is not clear. A three-day ceasefire along the border between
Nakhichevan and Armenia was agreed on 22 September,
Azerinform reported. (Liz Fuller, RFE/RL, Inc.)
GAIDAR REPORTS ON STATE OF THE ECONOMY. Russian Prime
Minister Gaidar presented a dim evaluation of the Russian
economy to parliament on 22 September, various Russian and
Western news agencies reported. Gaidar said that from August
1991 to August 1992 industrial production had fallen 27%. In
the agricultural sector, although grain production is up from
last year, cattle and poultry stock have dropped
substantially. Milk production is down 17% and eggs 12% from
last August's levels. Unemployment was officially 300,000 in
August and expected to quintuple by year-end. Gaidar also
confirmed that the budget deficit stood at 101.3 billion
rubles at mid-year, which is 7.5% of GNP, higher than the 5%
promised the IMF. (Erik Whitlock, RFE/RL, Inc.)
RUBLE DOWN, INFLATION UP. The ruble dropped 14.7% in
value against the dollar on 22 September, according to
various Russian and Western news agencies. The dollar reached
241 rubles, up from the 205.5 at the previous Thursday's
trading on the Moscow Interbank Currency Exchange. The
direct cause of the change was attributed by some observers
to the recent announcement of energy price increases. Recent
reports have also borne out expectations of increased
inflation, a significant factor in exchange rate
fluctuations. Russian government officials have said
September's inflation rate is running at 20%, up from
July-August's 7-8%. Prime Minister Gaidar told parliament on
22 September that consumer prices had risen 15 times between
last August and this August. This is significantly higher
than the officially reported thirteen-fold increase from June
1991 to June 1992. (Erik Whitlock, RFE/RL, Inc.)
RUSSIA SUSPENDS CREDITS TO UKRAINE. Prime Minister
Gaidar, speaking before the Russian parliament on 22
September, said that the Central Bank is suspending ruble
credits to Ukraine, according to ITAR-TASS. Gaidar said
credits would not be forthcoming until the two states worked
out an agreement on trade payments. The controversy over
Russian credit to other CIS republics erupted earlier this
week, when reform parliamentarians accused the central bank
of giving away Russia's "national wealth" by lending Ukraine
hundreds of billion of rubles. According to Western news
agencies, Ukraine government officials are very displeased
over the suspension. First Deputy Finance Minister Viktor
Ilyin is quoted as saying that "The action will lead to an
even greater crisis because Ukrainian firms are likely to
stop supplying Russian customers." (Erik Whitlock, RFE/RL,
Inc.)
MINISTRY OF FINANCE FORECASTS YEAR-END FOOD PRICES. A
report published by the Ministry of Finance suggests what the
Russian consumer may expect in food prices by the end of
1992. The forecasts of what appear to be retail trade prices
were reported by ITAR-TASS on 22 September. Beef is to rise
to 160-220 rubles per kilogram as compared to the recent 84
rubles (reported by Ekonomika i zhizn, no. 36). The price
of a liter of milk is predicted to increase from 12 to
between 15 and 19 rubles. Butter can be expected to rise to
225-280 rubles/kilogram from last month's 189. Wheat bread
may cost 37 rubles, up from 24 rubles. The report says that
the 23-fold increase in procurement prices for grain over
last year is the primary culprit for the general rise in food
prices. (Erik Whitlock, RFE/RL, Inc.)
RUSSIA TO JOIN IMF BOARD. Russia has gained a seat on
the IMF Board of Governors, an RFE/RL correspondent reported
in Washington, D.C. on 23 September. Approval for Russia's
inclusion in the Board was granted on Tuesday at the annual
meeting of the IMF/World Bank in Washington. Konstantin
Kagolovsky, an ambassadorial-level official with the Russian
government's department for relations with international
financial organizations, is expected to represent Russia on
the board. (Erik Whitlock/Robert Lyle, RFE/RL, Inc.)
RUTSKOI CHALLENGES REFORMERS. Vice President Aleksandr
Rutskoi told Delovoi mir on 19 September that although he
remains loyal to President Boris Yeltsin, he--together with
other leaders of the Civic Union--will put pressure on the
executive branch to adopt the Civic Union's alternative
economic reform program. Rutskoi said he favors the
introduction of a market system through a strengthening of
law and order and the reestablishment of economic ties
between former the Soviet republics. He accused democrats in
Yeltsin's entourage of having made several attempts to
isolate him from the president in the months before the Sixth
Congress last April, but he indicated that after the
Congress, his access to the president has improved.
(Alexander Rahr, RFE/RL, Inc.)
KHASBULATOV'S SECRETARIAT. Parliamentary speaker Ruslan
Khasbulatov has set up a personal secretariat which consists
of former CPSU Central Committee officials. The secretariat
is supervising the work of the parliamentary department, the
membership and structure of which are almost identical to the
staff of ex-Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev's chief of
staff, Valerii Boldin. Deputies are dependent on the speaker
because he has power over foreign travel, apartments, and
other privileges. Novoe vremya (no 38) commented that the
Russian parliament has become an institution dominated by
deputies' group interests. In such a situation deputies care
more about preserving their own interests than about adopting
laws. (Alexander Rahr, RFE/RL, Inc.)
PARLIAMENT SESSION OPENS. Parliamentary speaker Ruslan
Khasbulatov opened parliament with a conciliatory speech
calling for "concrete action" rather than confrontation,
Interfax reported on 22 September. The parliament rejected
the proposal by a number of liberal deputies to force
Khasbulatov to give an account of his work to the parliament,
and it also rejected the proposed formation of a commission
to assess the work of the Director of the Russian Central
Bank, Viktor Gerashchenko. The parliament did, however,
approve several other proposals by liberal deputies to
investigate the performance of the parliamentary presidium.
(Alexander Rahr, RFE/RL, Inc.)
KOZYREV CRITICIZES ESTONIA OVER ELECTIONS. In his
speech at the UN on 22 September, Russian Foreign Minister
Andrei Kozyrev harshly criticized the recent Estonian
elections. While registering his "special discomfort" at
discrimination against Russians, Ukrainians, and Jews in some
of the former Soviet Republics, he singled out Estonia for
violating the rights of its Russian minority. Claiming that
42% of Estonia's population was ineligible to vote in the
election, Kozyrev stated that this violated international law
and that Russia would raise the issue at the UN. At the same
time, however, Kozyrev said that Estonia's action would not
affect Russia's commitment to withdraw its troops in the
shortest time possible. (John Lepingwell, RFE/RL, Inc.)
RUSSIA SUPPORTS STANDING UN ARMY. At the United Nations
in New York on 22 September, Russian Foreign Minister Andrei
Kozyrev supported the idea of establishing a standing UN
army. UN Secretary-General Boutros Ghali has called for the
formation of such a military force, which would be put under
UN command and which could be used on short notice in trouble
spots, but which would be paid for by those countries
contributing forces. This proposal has also received the
support of the United States and Great Britain. Kozyrev was
quoted by the UPI as also saying that UN peace-keeping forces
"should return fire . . . when fired upon." (Doug Clarke,
RFE/RL, Inc.)
SWEDISH PRIME MINISTER CRITICIZES RUSSIA OVER SUBMARINE
INTRUSION. Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt on 22 September
stated that he suspected Russia of being responsible for a
submarine intrusion in Swedish waters on 21 September,
according to Western news agencies. Bildt noted that the
incident, in which Swedish forces fired depth charges,
grenades, and a torpedo at the intruding submarine, matched
the pattern of earlier incidents. Bildt suggested that the
failure of the new Russian government to halt the intrusions
may indicate that it has only weak control over the actions
of its navy. The strong measures taken against the most
recent intruder suggest that Sweden is making the cessation
of such intrusions a high priority in its relations with
Russia. (John Lepingwell, RFE/RL, Inc.)
VOLKOGONOV SAYS NO AMERICAN POWS ALIVE IN RUSSIA. In an
interview with Western news agencies on 21 September, Gen.
Dmitri Volkogonov claimed that no evidence has been found
indicating that any American POWs are alive or being held
against their will in Russia. Volkogonov is an advisor to
President Boris Yeltsin and the chairman of a joint
US-Russian committee established to investigate reports of US
POWs in Russia. (John Lepingwell, RFE/RL, Inc.)
WHERE IS THE CIS INTERPARLIAMENTARY ASSEMBLY MOVING TO?
The newly created CIS Interparliamentary Assembly is
scheduled to be moved to the Tavricheskii palace in St.
Petersburg, DR-Press reported on 20 September. The palace is
now being used by a Russian government personnel education
center. In a letter to the St. Petersburg mayor, Anatolii
Sobchak, the director of the center protested the decision to
move the Assembly into the palace. He recommended to Sobchak
that the Assembly be moved into the former House of Political
Education, which is still in Communist possession. (Alexander
Rahr, RFE/RL, Inc.)
CRIMEAN SEPARATISTS LIST DEMANDS. The Republican
Movement of Crimea (RDK) has issued an appeal to the Crimean
parliament, which is scheduled to open on 24 September, Radio
Rossii reported on 20 September. The RDK wants Crimean
lawmakers to defend the Crimean constitution; pass an
electoral law based on multiparty participation and laws on
citizenship and public associations; repeal its moratorium on
a referendum on the Crimea's state status; and set a date for
new parliamentary elections. (Roman Solchanyk, RFE/RL, Inc.)
NAZARBAEV IN GERMANY. Kazakhstan's President Nursultan
Nazarbaev and German Chancellor Helmut Kohl signed agreements
on the protection of German investments in Kazakhstan and on
economic cooperation on 22 September, but the Kazakh
president was unable to obtain concrete commitments from the
German government to provide financial aid to the Central
Asian country, the Munich daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung reported
on 23 September. The German economics ministry has promised
to consider a Kazakh request for more credits and expert
assistance for Kazakhstan's privatization program. Nazarbaev
boasted to a meeting of German industrialists that Kazakhstan
could be the world's most important oil exporter in the next
century. (Bess Brown, RFE/RL, Inc.)
ECONOMIC DECLINE CONTINUES IN KYRGYZSTAN. Price
liberalization on 1 September has resulted in a reduction of
output at Bishkek's dairy products and flour combine. In
addition, industrial and agricultural output throughout
Kyrgyzstan has declined 20% this year, and food output is
down almost 40%, KyrgyzTAG-TASS reported on 22 September.
Although wage rates have risen twice in 1992, they have not
begun to keep up with raging inflation; the report estimates
that an average salary can cover only half the cost of food
for a normal family. In addition, the threat of mass
unemployment is looming as 920 firms plan staff reductions.
Prime Minister Tursunbek Chyngyshev complained that natural
disasters this year have overtaxed the country's budget.
Angry citizens have already begun demonstrating against the
price rises. (Bess Brown, RFE/RL, Inc.)
ROMANIANS IN NORTHERN BUKOVYNA PUBLISH FIRST BOOK IN
LATIN SCRIPT SINCE WW II. For the first time since 1944, a
Romanian-language book in the Latin script has been published
in northern Bukovyna, the Romanian media reported on 17 and
18 September. The book, a literary and historical almanac,
was published by the Chernivtsy-based Eminescu Society for
Romanian Culture. Moldovans/Romanians in the region are
currently beginning to reinstate the Latin script in the
native language press, education, and public signs. The
Ukrainian authorities' flexibility in this matter contrasts
sharply with the attitude of the "Dniester" Russian
authorities, who have just reimposed the Cyrillic alphabet on
the "Moldovan" (i.e. Romanian) language in place of the
Latin script. (Vladimir Socor, RFE/RL, Inc.)
CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE
"YUGOSLAVIA" EXPELLED FROM UNITED NATIONS. By a vote of
127 to 6, with 26 abstentions, the UN General Assembly voted
to exclude the rump Yugoslavia from membership in that body.
All Eastern European states (except Yugoslavia itself) and
all but three of the ex-USSR states voted with the majority.
The precedent-setting UNGA resolution specifies that the rump
Yugoslavia may not automatically take over the old
Yugoslavia's membership in the United Nations (presumably
including the specialized agencies), although the document
specifically mentions only exclusion from the General
Assembly. The new Yugoslavia will have to apply for
membership. In an eleventh-hour appeal, Prime Minister Milan
Panic argued that expulsion of his country from the UN would
be unjustified and would hamper his efforts to promote peace
in the area. Whatever the outcome of the vote, Panic
promised, Belgrade will continue its support of UN peace
efforts. (Charles Trumbull, RFE/RL, Inc.)
SKUBISZEWSKI AT THE UN. Polish Foreign Minister
Krzysztof Skubiszewski asked the United Nations to establish
an emergency system to address serious human rights
violations. Speaking before the UN General Assembly on 22
September, Skubiszewski said that Poland supports Austria's
proposal for such a system, which should be discussed at the
UN conference on human rights in Vienna next June.
Skubiszewski demanded that all detention camps in the former
Yugoslavia be closed immediately. He added that Poland will
offer one of the former Soviet military bases on its
territory for the training of UN peacekeeping forces. In
1993 Poland will put two or three infantry battalions at the
disposal of the UN Security Council. (Louisa Vinton, RFE/RL,
Inc.)
ROMANIA TO SEEK COMPENSATION FOR IRAQ EMBARGO. Romanian
Foreign Minister Adrian Nastase said in an interview with
Radio Bucharest on 22 September that his country will seek
compensation for losses resulting from the UN embargo against
Iraq. Nastase, on his way to New York to attend the UN
General Assembly session, claimed that Romania's transition
to a market economy and its economic reform program had been
seriously affected by the losses in its trade with Iraq,
which Romanian sources put to some $3 billion. Nastase added
that he would also discuss the negative impact of the UN
sanctions against Serbia and Montenegro on the Romanian
economy. (Dan Ionescu, RFE/RL, Inc.)
US CALLS FOR WAR CRIMES COMMISSION FOR YUGOSLAV AREA.
On 22 September the US government gave the UN a report on war
crimes in the conflict, the Los Angeles Times reports on 23
September. The document blames all sides for atrocities, but
singles out the Serbs for committing war crimes as "part of a
systematic campaign toward . . . the creation of an
ethnically pure state." The daily says that the text paves
the way for eventual war crimes trials. On 22 September the
New York Times reported on an alleged massacre of over 200
Muslim men by Serbs at Varjanta, near Travnik, in Bosnia.
Western news agencies have carried similar stories, and
Acting Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger told reporters
that Washington is looking into the reports. (Patrick Moore,
RFE/RL, Inc.)
LORD OWEN WARNS OVER KOSOVO. The BBC on 23 September
quotes the EC chief negotiator in the Yugoslav crisis, Lord
Owen, as warning that the conflict could turn into a general
Balkan conflagration if it spills over into Kosovo. On a
visit to Greece he said that the Albanians in Kosovo should
not demand independence but that they should receive back the
autonomy that Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic took away
from them in recent years. Meanwhile, Western and other
media continue to report on the alleged presence of foreign
Islamic warriors in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Die Zeit on 17
September said that they number in the hundreds at the most.
Stories are already legion about culture shock between devout
Muslims from the Middle East who have come to fight a jihad,
and the highly secular and European Bosnians who want just to
defend their homes. Reuters stated on 22 September that the
Bosnians want weapons, not volunteers. The Bosnian
authorities reportedly have about 40,000 men who are ready to
fight but who lack weapons. (Patrick Moore, RFE/RL, Inc.)
FEDERAL ASSEMBLY APPROVES GOVERNMENT REPORT ON BREAKUP.
The Federal Assembly has asked the Czechoslovak government to
present, by mid-October, a program that would prevent a
disorderly breakup of the country. CSTK reports that the
parliament approved, "with reservations," a government report
on the state of the federation. The government was also
asked to prepare a concept for Czech-Slovak relations after
the federation's disintegration by mid-November. In a
separate development, former Czechoslovak President Vaclav
Havel urged Czechs and Slovaks to dissolve the country in an
orderly manner, avoiding "chaos and civic conflicts."
According to CSTK, Havel expressed his concern that the
division might not be carried out "as elegantly, cleanly, and
professionally" as possible. (Jan Obrman, RFE/RL, Inc.)
POLISH GOVERNMENT COMPLETES PRIORITY PLANS. Prime
Minister Hanna Suchocka announced on 22 September that the
government will complete work on its five priority action
plans by the end of the week. These plans are designed to
restructure state industry, fight corruption and organized
crime, modernize agriculture, revive public finances, and
guarantee a minimum of social security. Suchocka will present
the plans to the public, as promised, by 10 October, exactly
three months after she took office. Suchocka said the
government has worked with great speed and hopes the same
will be true of the trade unions and the parliament. Gazeta
Wyborcza reported that one of the government plans will
substantially expand police powers, permitting freer use of
firearms and "sting" operations. (Louisa Vinton, RFE/RL,
Inc.)
PARTY LEADERS CALL FOR RESIGNATION OF LATVIAN
GOVERNMENT. On 17 September political leaders representing
the liberal, conservative, liberal-democratic, democratic
labor, and renaissance parties signed a document calling for
the resignation of the government of Prime Minister Ivars
Godmanis and for the formation of a government of popular
accord, Diena reported on 17 September and Radio Riga on 22
September. The signers envisage the new government as
focusing primarily on Latvia's catastrophic economic
situation and stipulate that such a government would exist
only until the election of the new parliament. This call can
also be seen as an effort by political parties, with
memberships ranging from former liberal communist to national
democrat to work together as a coalition. (Dzintra Bungs,
RFE/RL, Inc.)
TURMOIL CONTINUES AROUND BULGARIAN GOVERNMENT. A Gallup
poll conducted in Bulgaria in recent days and published in
168 chasa on 22 September indicates that if elections were
held now, 33% of the respondents would vote for the governing
Union of Democratic Forces, 28% for the Bulgarian Socialist
Party, 8% for the Movement for Rights and Freedoms, and 16%
for other parties. Some 15% said they would not vote. Unity
in the UDF remains fractured, while the BSP has said it will
not support a no-confidence vote in the government, though it
still hopes to bring down Stefan Savov, president of the
National Assembly. MRF and UDF leaders have evidently not
resolved their differences, leaving the effectiveness of
their loose coalition in the parliament in doubt. (Duncan
Perry & Nick Kaltchev, RFE/RL, Inc.)
EX-POLICEMAN TRIES TO SET UP ROMANIAN FASCIST PARTY.
Ionica Catanescu announced in Bucharest on 22 September that
he will try to set up a National Legionary Party in order to
revive the pre-war Romanian fascist movement, known as the
Iron Guard or the Legion. Reuters reports that Catanescu
appears to be the sole member so far. This move, coming only
a week before the 27 September elections, is being
interpreted by some as an electoral maneuver by the left to
win sympathies by conjuring up the ghost of fascism. (Dan
Ionescu, RFE/RL, Inc.)
KADAR FAULTS AUSTRIA. Hungarian International Economic
Relations Minister Bela Kadar has charged that Austria
conducts restrictive trade policies, hindering the growth of
Hungarian exports, Hungarian Radio reports. Kadar said that
Austria will have to liberalize its foreign trade if it wants
to be an EC member and wishes to maintain its position as the
country to which Hungary gives most preferential trade
treatment. Kadar warned that if Austria does not change its
trade policy, Hungary will have to retaliate. (Karoly
Okolicsanyi, RFE/RL, Inc.)
HUNGARIAN PARLIAMENT ACCEPTS JURISDICTION OF THE
INTERNATIONAL COURT. Hungarian deputies voted on 22
September to accept the Hague International Court's
jurisdiction, Hungarian Radio reports. Formal acceptance of
the court's jurisdiction is a precondition for Hungary to
seek adjudication in the Hague. Hungary is planning to ask
the court to rule in its dispute with Czechoslovakia over the
Gabcikovo hydroelectric dam system. (Karoly Okolicsanyi,
RFE/RL, Inc.)
JARUZELSKI DEFENDS MARTIAL LAW. General Wojciech
Jaruzelski appeared before a Sejm commission on 22 September
to defend the imposition of martial law in 1981 as a "lesser
evil" that had saved Poland from a "national tragedy." The
Sejm commission is considering a motion submitted by KPN
deputies to try Jaruzelski and the rest of the Council of
State and the Military Council of National Salvation on the
grounds that the martial law decree violated the
constitution. Senator Ryszard Reiff, the only member of the
Council of State to oppose martial law, challenged
Jaruzelski's suggestion that he had saved the country from a
Soviet invasion. Martial law was a "historical error," Reiff
said. The party should have followed the example of First
Secretary Wladyslaw Gomulka in 1956, Reiff argued, and
persuaded "the Russians that what was good for Poland was not
necessarily bad for Russia." (Louisa Vinton, RFE/RL, Inc.)
DELAY IN SIGNING TROOP WITHDRAWAL FROM LITHUANIA? On 22
September the Russian Supreme Soviet committee on
international affairs and foreign economic relations urged
President Boris Yeltsin to delay the signing of agreements on
Russian troop withdrawal from Lithuania until the interests
and rights of Russians there are taken into consideration,
ITAR-TASS reports. The committee points out that although
three of the seven draft agreements on the withdrawal have
been signed, they are not legally binding since the main
treaty has not been signed. The committee urges that all
agreements with Lithuania be submitted to the Supreme Soviet
for approval. (Saulius Girnius, RFE/RL, Inc.)
LANDSBERGIS COMMENTS ON TROOP WITHDRAWAL. On 22
September the Lithuanian Parliament public affairs office
issued a statement by Supreme Council Chairman Vytautas
Landsbergis, who is on an official visit to Belgium, noting
that the efforts of the Russian parliament committee to
terminate the agreements on troop withdrawal are indicative
of "representatives of imperial thinking," who are interested
"not in peace and cooperation, but in increasing tension and
expansion." He said that he does not believe that they would
"be able to compromise the policies of the new democratic
Russia" by terminating the agreements signed two weeks ago.
(Saulius Girnius, RFE/RL, Inc.)
LATVIAN-RUSSIAN TALKS CONTINUE. On 21 September Latvian
representatives met with leaders of the Northwestern Group of
Forces to continue discussions of specific issues related to
the pullout of Russian troops from Latvia. One point of
discussion was the takeover by Latvia of bases vacated by
NWGF, but not on the list of facilities to be turned over to
Latvia this year. On 22 September another round of
Latvian-Russian talks started in Jurmala. The principal point
of discussion was also troop withdrawal, and Latvia's
comprehensive proposal as to how all troops could be pulled
out by fall of 1993, Radio Riga reported on 21 and 22
September. (Dzintra Bungs, RFE/RL, Inc.)
SKODA PLZEN TO FIRE OVER 1,200, LAY OFF 2,000 MORE.
According to CSTK, Skoda Plzen, the Czech Republic's largest
industrial employer, plans to dismiss about 1,200 workers in
October and lay off another 2,000 temporarily due to
financial problems. Czech Minister of Trade and Industry
Vladimir Dlouhy said that most of the employees will be
rehired once the company is in a healthier position and
announced that they will continue receiving 60% of their
salaries as unemployment benefits. Skoda's main problem has
been the huge sums owed to the company by the state-owned
railways for the delivery of locomotives. Dlouhy ruled out
any state subsidies and said that the dispute between Skoda
and the railways would have to be settled in court. (Jan
Obrman, RFE/RL, Inc.)
ROMANIA'S GYPSY KING ASKS GERMANY TO COMPENSATE NAZI
VICTIMS. In an interview with German ZDF TV broadcast on 22
September, Ion Cioaba, the self-proclaimed "king of all
Gypsies," threatened to launch mass demonstrations if Germany
refuses to pay compensation for Nazi atrocities against
Gypsies in World War II. The interview was conducted in the
Transylvanian town of Sibiu. Germany faces a flood of
refugees, including thousands of Romanian Gypsies, which has
provoked racist backlash. Cioaba promised to call his fellow
Gypsies home if Bonn agrees to pay compensation. Cioaba's
authority, however, appears to be rather limited; on 11
September another Gypsy chieftain from Romania, Iulian
Radulescu, proclaimed himself an emperor of all Gypsies. (Dan
Ionescu, RFE/RL, Inc.)
novine.19.bale.,
UPI NEWS, 23.09.92. ---------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Croatians, Muslims at odds over former Yugoslav tourist town
Subject: General Assembly bars Serbia-Montenegro federation
Subject: Serbian bombardment kills hospital patients
Subject: Karadzic condemns U.N. Yugoslav ouster
Subject: French soldiers wounded in Sarajevo
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Croatians, Muslims at odds over former Yugoslav tourist town
Date: 23 Sep 92 02:08:04 GMT
MOSTAR, Bosnia-Hercegovina (UPI) -- Before the Yugoslav war broke out
in April, tourists flocked to this south-central Hercegovina town to
take in its distinctly Muslim flavor.
Before the war, Mostar was 34 percent Muslim, 33 percent Croat and 10
percent Serb.
Now Croatian flags hang on nearly every government building, Croatian
currency is circulated and taxes are paid to the local Croatian
authorities.
Most of the distinctive buildings that once attracted tourists have
been leveled or riddled with bullet holes. All but one of the city's 11
mosques have been destroyed.
The local Croatian leadership plans to rebuild Mostar and make it the
capital of their self-declared republic of Herceg-Bosna, which comprises
roughly one-third of Bosnia-Hercegovina. The plans are much to the
dismay of the internationally recognized Bosnia-Hercegovina government
in Sarajevo as well as area Muslims.
``They want to make Mostar the capital and claim it is a Croatian
city, but it's a Muslim city built by Muslims,'' said Faris Nanic,
secretary-general for the Party of Democratic Action (SDA) in Zagreb.
The SDA supports Alija Izetbegovic, president and Muslim religious
leader in Bosnia-Hercegovina.
``They have already organized their canton government, which is not
respected in Sarajevo because it is illegal and non-constitutional and
has introduced laws in discrepancy with Bosnian-Hercegovina laws,'' said
Izmet Hadziosmanovic, president of the SDA in Bosnia-Hercegovina.
The Bosnia-Hercegovina government favors a republic with four
ethnically mixed regions, all under the authority of a centralized
Parliament in Sarajevo.
But the leadership of the self-declared state of Herceg-Bosna headed
by Mate Boban wants separate Croatian, Muslim and Serbian cantons. Boban
is president of the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) of Hercegovina and
regional commander of the Croatian army (HVO).
``The Muslims are trying to create a mini Yugoslavia but it won't
work,'' said Sreck Vucina, Croatian army spokesman in Mostar. ``They
would have the majority and it would be the same as the former
Yugoslavia when the Serbs had the majority control before.''
Although the Bosnians and Croatians officially are allied against a
common enemy -- the Serbs -- their differing political aims threaten to
add another destabilizing element to the war-torn republic.
``In this area around Mostar and Stolac, Muslims have around 3,000
fighters and it could have long range consequences for both people if
any of the problems go too far,'' Hadziosmanovic said.
Rising tensions in the last month already have led to clashes between
the Bosnian army and Croatian forces in other central Bosnia-Hercegovina
towns such as Jajce and Travnik, which Boban's government claims for the
Croatian state of Herceg-Bosna.
Recently in Stup, a suburb of Sarajevo -- the Bosnian army attacked
Croatian forces in an apparent bid to break the siege of the capital.
``A number of HVO soldiers were killed, but no official number of
casualties has been released, said Ivo Primovac, a Croatian army
commander in Grude. ''This incident was only between Muslims and Croats
and it was really stupid because the Muslims should realize how much
they need the Croats.``
The Bosnian government is resentfully dependent on the Croats. Its
army is sorely lacking in weapons. Although Bosnia admits to receiving
arms from Islamic countries, deliveries have to come through Croatian
territory.
Primovac, and other HVO officials said the recent seizure in the
Croatian capital of Zagreb of weapons on an incoming flight from Iran
was a government warning to Muslim forces to respect the HVO command.
Officially, the Croatian government has said it seized the weapons to
enforce the international arms embargo against all three warring
factions.
The Bosnian army has very little influence in Mostar or elsewhere in
Herceg-Bosna, where the HVO outnumbers it more than two to one.
The HVO controls 30 percent of Bosnia-Hercegovina, the Bosnian-Serbs
60 percent and the Bosnian army about 10 percent.
``We cannot afford this,'' said Middhad Hudur, second commander of
the Bosnian army in Mostar. ``The Croatian army is stronger and we can't
afford to have a second enemy.''
HVO officials say they had to impose their authority over the region
because the Bosnian army and the Sarajevo government is too weak to
enforce their laws.
``The B-H army can't even liberate Sarajevo and nowhere does it have
power. Someone had to take control,'' Vucina said.
Nevertheless, Muslim leaders say unless the HVO submits to the
command of the Sarajevo government they will demand it.
``Unless they respect agreements they've made, the Muslims are going
to take the step of general disobedience to the laws of the HVO. This
will make our relationship even worse,'' Hadiosmanovic said.
More than 90 percent of the population within 10 municipalities in
the southwest region of Bosnia-Hercegovina are Croatian.
Croatian forces claim another 20 municipalities with substantial
Muslim and Croatian populations in a strip of land stretching northeast
through the middle of the republic fall into this Croatian area as well.
While the Croatian army holds the southwest Croatian territory,
allied Bosnian and Croatian forces still are fighting the Serbs for the
other 20 municipalities.
Serb forces withdrew from Mostar about a month ago, although they
continue to lob artillery shells daily into the city from a nearby
stronghold.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: General Assembly bars Serbia-Montenegro federation
Date: 23 Sep 92 02:20:31 GMT
UNITED NATIONS (UPI) -- The U.N. General Assembly voted overwhelmingly
Tuesday to reject the claim Yugoslav federation of Serbia and Montenegro
to hold the seat of the former Yugoslavia and barred it from the world
body.
The assembly voted 127-6 with 26 abstentions to adopt the measure
despite a plea by Yugoslav Prime Minister Milan Panic not to expel his
government because it is a ``peace-loving Yugoslavia.''
The Socialist Federation of Yugoslavia ceased to exist earlier this
year after four of its six republics seceded and are recognized by the
United Nations as independent states. The Serbian government in Belgrade
and Montenegro then claimed succession to the Yugoslav U.N. membership.
The vote to bar a delegation from the General Assembly was
unprecedented. The vote was taken at the recommendation of the Security
Council, a move disputed by some countries as contrary to the principles
of the U.N. Charter.
In 1974, South Africa was expelled from the assembly after its
credentials were rejected by the same body as a protest to that
country's apartheid policies. The assembly did not revoke Pretoria's U.
N. membership, however.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Serbian bombardment kills hospital patients
Date: 23 Sep 92 11:32:56 GMT
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Hercegovina (UPI) -- Clashes in Bosnia-Hercegovina
and its capital Sarajevo eased Wednesday only hours after Serbian
guerrillas in two separate assaults bombarded a hospital and a Red Cross
kitchen, killing at least 14 people and wounding another 48, Sarajevo
Radio said.
In a separate attack, a Serbian mortar shell Tuesday evening wounded
at least 17 people in a downtown Sarajevo street, the radio said.
Serbian guerrillas used tanks, mortars and infantry weapons in firing
on Bosnian forces positions and civilian targets Wednesday morning, the
radio said.
``There were only sporadic explosions early today in Sarajevo,'' a
police spokesman said.
A lull in clashes came after fighting intensified Tuesday evening
following relatively calms spells earlier in the day.
A Serbian tank shell hit the hospital in Bihac, a predominantly
Muslim Slav town in northwestern Bosnia-Hercegovina.
The shell struck a dining room on a lung disease ward while patients
had their dinner, Sarajevo radio said.
It indicated the attack on the Bihac hospital was in retaliation for
the downing of three Serbian air force jet fighters that Bosnian forces
reportedly shot down earlier Tuesday in the area between Velika Kladusa,
Bosanski Novi and Prijedor.
In Sarajevo, the predominantly Muslim Slav city that has been under a
Serbian siege since early in April, Serbian guerrillas fired a mortar
shell Tuesday evening into a Red Cross soup kitchen in Blagoje Parovic
Street, killing three persons and wounding another 28, the radio said.
Another mortar shell struck on Cetinjska Street Tuesday evening,
wounding at least 17 people, Sarajevo radio said.
Squads of workers, accompanied by officials of the United Nations
Protection Force (UNPROFOR), Wednesday morning went out to repair high-
voltage overhead long-distance electricity cables that were damaged in
fighting in the past week.
Large sections of Sarajevo, where about 350,000 to 500,000 residents
and refugees have been trapped since late in March, were without
electric power and water supplies.
A U.N.-sponsored humanitarian aid airlift has been suspended since
Sept. 3 when an Italian cargo plane was downed on its flight to
Sarajevo.
U.N. officials planned to reopen the international relief airlift but
sought additional guarantees from the warring sides.
Road convoys that carried food and medical supplies to besieged
Sarajevo were not enough to meet the city's demands of about 200 tons of
food per day and the city and the newly independent republic were
running short of food and medicines.
French Gen. Phillipe Morillon of the UNPROFOR in Sarajevo said U.N.
troops, that are to have self-defense rights to fire back if attacked
will be posted along corridors in Bosnia-Hercegovina to ensure relief
deliveries.
Morillon arrived in Sarajevo during the weekend to work out the
deployment of 6,000 troops that were authorized by the U.N. Security
Council last week as an expansion to the 1,500-member U.N. force to
ensure humanitarian aid deliveries as the cold Balkan winter approaches.
Serbian guerrillas late in March launched a campaign to carve a self-
declared state out of Bosnia-Hercegovina and annex it to Serbia, the
dominant republic in the former Yugoslav federation.
Militant leaders of the 1.4 million Christian Orthodox Serbs, that
make 32 percent of the republic's 4.4 million population, have declared
a ``Serbian Republic'' on about 70 percent of Bosnia-Hercegovina's
territory.
About 1.9 million Muslim Slavs and most of 750,000 Roman Catholic
Croats advocate an independent Bosnia-Hercegovina.
Serbian guerrillas have been fighting against Bosnia-Hercegovina
forces that comprise mostly Muslim Slavs but also include moderate Serbs
and Croats.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Karadzic condemns U.N. Yugoslav ouster
Date: 23 Sep 92 18:15:40 GMT
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (UPI) -- The leader of Serbs in Bosnia-
Hercegovina, Radovan Karadzic, condemned the international community
Wednesday for barring the Yugoslav delegation from the United Nations
and announced he ``will no longer make one-sided concessions'' in future
peace negotiations.
``The exclusion of Yugoslavia from the United Nations, as in the case
of our exclusion from the CSCE (Council on Security and Cooperation in
Europe), is just the continuation of international community pressure on
the Serbian people,'' Karadzic told a news conference in the Serbian
capital of Belgrade.
He said the U.N. decision, by hitting at only one side, would not end
the war in Bosnia-Hercegovina. ``Until all three sides are equally
pressured to stop fighting, the war will not end,'' Karadzic said.
Karadzic's criticism of the U.N. decision was echoed by ruling party
leaders in the new Yugoslav federation of Serbia and Montenegro, who
blamed the Western powers and federal Prime Minister Milan Panic for the
new Belgrade government losing the right to retain the seat of the old
administration.
``The (U.N.) resolution is completely unlawful, and shows that the
West has succumbed to the will of Muslim countries,'' said Batric
Jovanovic, a Socialist Party of Serbia delegate in the Serbian
Parliament. ``Western countries are too dependant on Arab oil,'' he
charged.
Opposition lawmakers, however, put the responsibility on Serbia's
hard-line President Slobodan Milosevic, the federation's most powerful
politician whose support for a land-grab in Bosnia-Hercegovina and
elsewhere touched off the wars among the Yugoslav republics.
``Milosevic has done the impossible: we are the first country in the
world to be kicked out of the U.N.,'' said Vuk Draskovic, the leader of
Serbian Renewal Movement. ``Not even Saddam Hussein, Emperor Bokassa or
Idi Amin Dada accomplished that,'' he added sarcastically.
At his news conference, Karazdic conceded the U.N.- and European
Community-sponsored Geneva peace talks were fairly constructive
regarding humanitarian aid issues, but he condemned Muslim Slav
representatives for not agreeing to divide the newly independent
republic into ethnic ``cantons.''
``There will be no more tolerance and we will not make any more
unilateral concessions, since all have been responded to by tougher
sanctions,'' said Karadzic.
He was referring to Serbian claims they have complied with a London
peace conference agreement to put heavy artillery under United Nations
Protection Force (UNPROFOR) supervision in several locations, including
the beseiged Bosnia-Hercegovina capital of Sarajevo.
While some Serbian heavy weaponry has been placed in sites where they
can be observed by UNPROFOR, other Serbian artillery in the republic has
remained hidden from U.N. inspectors and continues to shell civilian
targets.
Regarding the Geneva talks, Karadzic said that he was satisfied that
Croatia was ready to cooperate to stop the war in Bosnia-Hercegovina.
``The Croatian position is identical with that of the Serbs,'' said
Karadzic, referring to the de facto division of Bosnia-Hercegovian
between Serbs and Croats, who have established a territory they call
Herceg-Bosnia.
``We have recognized Herceg-Bosnia,'' Karadzic said, ``but now we
need to stop fighting and begin re-establishing economic relations.''
During the news conference Karadzic put up an ethnic map to show
reporters the envisioned configuration of a future Serbian state that
comprises nearly 60 percent of the republic.
``These are and will be our borders, whether we become independent or
decide to unite with some other nation,'' said Karadzic.
He said that he was ready to give up some 20 perecent of Serb-held
territories to Muslim Slavs as these areas are not ethnically Serbian
but were captured because of their strategic importance.
The war in Bosnia-Hercegovina began in late March when Serbian forces
launched a campaign to carve out a separate state on nearly 70 percent
of the republic.
Most of the Serbs want to merge their ``state'' with the new Serbia-
dominated Yugoslav union. The two-republic union was forged on April 27,
with the aim of inheriting the international status of the former six-
republic Yugoslav federation.
Bosnia-Hercegovina's 1.9 million Muslim Slavs and many of the 750,000
Roman Catholic Croats want their separate republic to remain independent
of the new Yugoslavia.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: French soldiers wounded in Sarajevo
Date: 23 Sep 92 17:47:53 GMT
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Hercegovina (UPI) -- Two French U.N. soldiers
suffered minor wounds Wednesday from a mortar round in sporadic shelling
and clashes in and around Sarajevo that prevented work on restoring
electricity to the war-ravaged Bosnian capital.
U.N. Protection Force (UNPROFOR) officials said the mortar shell was
believed to have been a stray round.
It slammed into the yard of the Tvornica Armatura factory, located
near the U.N. headquarters on the western end of Sarajevo, as the two
French soldiers and two local workers were cutting metal sheeting to
protect the Sarajevo airport control tower, they said.
Ukrainian Col. Viktor Bezrouchenko, the UNPROFOR chief of operations,
said one local worker was injured along with the French servicemen.
``None was seriously wounded,'' said Bezrouchenko.
The incident brought to at least 48 the number of UNPROFOR troops
injured since May. Four others have been killed.
Most of the casualties were caused by what U.N. officials have
condemned as deliberate attacks by both warring factions.
Adnan Abdel Razak, the UNPROFOR spokesman, said the French soldiers
were evacuated to Zagreb by a U.N. aircraft that also returned the
UNPROFOR deputy commander, French Gen. Phillipe Morillon, to the
Croatian capital after a four-day visit to plan a 6,000-troop expansion
of the 1,500-man U.N. contingent.
U.N. officials said that before his departure, Morillon held talks
with Serbian military officials about the possible relocation of the U.
N. headquarters to a hotel in the Serb-held western suburb of Ilidza.
The move would fit closely with Morillon's stated goal of deploying
U.N. troops in Ilidza to secure a corridor through which humanitarian
aid could enter Sarajevo through encircling Serbian lines.
Serbian forces, backed by neighboring communist-ruled Serbia, have
bombarded and besieged Sarajevo as part of their more than five-month
campaign to carve a self-declared state out of the former Yugoslav
republic of Muslim Slavs, Serbs and Croats.
Forces loyal to the government, comprised mostly of Muslim Slavs, but
also including moderate Serbs and Croats, are fighting to preserve the
republic's newly won independence and territorial integrity.
Fierce overnight fighting, during which Serbian barrages of the
Sarajevo set several major fires, eased after dawn to intermittent
clashes and Serbian sniper fire and shelling of civilian areas, police
and news reports said.
Skirmishes between Bosnian and Serbian lines along the city's
northern battlefront prevented a U.N.-supervised team of civilian
technicians from repairing an overhead cable that carries power to
Sarajevo, UNPROFOR officials said.
``We made a morning attempt and one in the afternoon. At both times
there was fighting in that area, shelling and mortars, and we could not
reach the line,'' said Razak.
The Bosnian government charged that Serbian force deliberately
severed the line on Monday, depriving electricity to most of Sarajevo in
violation of an agreement reached Sunday in Geneva on safeguarding
utilities.
The republic Health Ministry said that at least 14 people were killed
and 89 others injured in the capital during the 24-hour period that
ended at 1 p.m.
Among the casualties were three dead and 28 wounded from a Serbian
mortar shell that slammed into a Red Cross soup kitchen on Blagoje
Parovic St. on Tuesday evening, Sarajevo radio said.
At about the same time, another mortar shell explosion at Cetinjska
Street wounded at least 17 people, it said.
Heavy fighting, meanwhile, was reported in other areas of the newly
independent former Yugoslav republic, including new alleged air attacks
by warjets supplied to Serbian forces by the Serb-dominated Yugoslav
army.
Sarajevo radio said the heaviest clashes raged in the area around the
northwestern city of Bihac.
On Tuesday, a Serbian tank shell plowed into a dining room of a lung
diseases ward at Bihac hospital as patients were eating dinner, killing
at least 11 people and wounding 20 others, the radio said.
In Maglaj, central Bosnia-Hercegovina, fighting was escalating and
dead bodies were reported to be lying all over the streets, according to
local radio reports.
Local defense in the area is requesting more help from the Croatian
Army and the Bosnian-Hercegovina Army to defend the municpality from
Serbian infantry attacks, the report stated.
``Children are getting killed; dead bodies are all over the streets,
everywhere...There is not a single building that didn't suffer
devastation,'' the radio reports said.
Despite attempts, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
workers have been unable to reach Maglaj and surrounding areas with
relief supplies.
``Access is just not possible... It's just too dangerous,'' Michael
Keats, spokesperson for the UNHCR said.
``To get to Tuzla, (a nearby municipality), you have to cross the
front lines four times,'' Keats said.
If the reports are correct, the Bosnian-Serb army has made
substantial advances in the last month in their attempt to secure their
recently established corridor through north-central Bosnia which
connects the region with Serbia and Montenegro.
Bihac, a muslim populated pocket in the northwestern Serbian occupied
region of Bosnia Hercegovina, is the last muslim bastion in the area and
the local muslim defense has been able to repel Serbian advances.
However, Tuesday night and Wednesday morning the region came under
heavy attack as well from Serbian positions, Croatian radio reported.
In addition, Slavonski Brod, in Croatian on the border with northern
Bosnia, suffered some of the worst fighting since the war broke ot in
Bosnia-Hercegovina Wednesday.
Nine people died and nine were wounded in the center of town by
shells fired from Serbian strongholds acrss the river Sava, Erich Ganpe
at the Slavonski Brod information centre said.
``The material damage was very bad,'' Ganpe said but he would not
elaborate on what was actually hit for fear of informing the Serbian
side about the attack.
Slavonski Brod is of high strategic importance because the Sava river
is the borderline between northern Bosnia and Croatia.
The bridge, which connects Slavonski Brod with northern Bosnina is
the last one standing along the river and is the life-line for thousands
of Bosnian refugees fleeing the war-torn republic.
The republic Health Ministry said republicwide casualties, including
those in Sarajevo, since 1 p.m. Tuesday totalled at least 25 people
killed and 282 injured.
Serbian guerrillas late in March launched their drive to capture a
self-proclaimed state declared on 70 percent of Bosnia-Hercegovina,
where the 1.4 million Christian Orthodox Serbs comprise only 31 percent
of the population.
Militant Serbian leaders seek to join their territories to Serbia.
The 1.9 million Muslim Slavs, most of the 750,000 Roman Catholic
Croats and a tiny minority of Serbs oppose the partition of the
republic.
novine.20.bale.,
UPI NEWS, 24.09.1992. -------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Zagreb, Sarajevo form joint defense against Serbs
Subject: Bosnian president to visit Pakistan
Subject: Seven U.N. soldiers wounded in blast
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Zagreb, Sarajevo form joint defense against Serbs
Date: 23 Sep 92 21:18:13 GMT
UNITED NATIONS (UPI) -- The presidents of Croatia and Bosnia-
Hercegovina announced Wednesday to form a joint committee of defense
against ``aggression'' and to ask the Security Council to lift the arms
embargo imposed on the two Balkan republics.
Croatian President Franjo Tudjman and Alija Izetbegovich, president
of Bosnia-Hercegovina, made public a document they signed at U.N.
headquarters in New York saying that the diplomatic, political and
humanitarian efforts by the United Nations ``have not stopped
aggression...nor have they substantially alleviated the suffering of the
civilian people.''
They said a joint committee will be set up ``in order to coordinate
defensive efforts until aggression is stopped entirely.''
``The republic of Bosnia-Hercegovina and the Republic of Croatia will
jointly request the abrogation of the embargo on arms exports'' as
decreed by the Security Council last summer when the civil war broke out
in Croatia, the document said.
The document is an annex to the Agreement on Friendship and
Cooperation between the two republics signed on July 21, 1992. It was
designed to enhance their ``common interests'' in defending their
independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity, the presidents said
in a joint news conference.
Izetbegovich said he held talks with members of the Security Council
in New York while attending the General Assembly session, but none of
them supported the request to lift the arms embargo.
``I explained to them the situation and reminded them that our
countries have the right to self-defense, but that right was deprived by
the international community,'' Izetbegovich said.
He said both he and Tudjman will work for the removal of the arms
embargo. In addition to the arms embargo imposed on all six republics of
the former Yugoslavia, the Security Council earlier this year imposed
trade sanctions against Serbia and Montenegro to protest the Serb-led
war in Bosnia-Hercegovina.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Bosnian president to visit Pakistan
Date: 24 Sep 92 14:38:23 GMT
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (UPI) -- Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic is
due to arrive in Islamabad Saturday for a two-day official visit amid
reports that guerrillas from neighboring Afghanistan were training
Bosnian Muslim fighters.
There have been unconfirmed reports that Afghan mujahideen guerrillas
were training Bosnian Muslims near Sarajevo and supplying them with U.S.
-made stinger missiles.
Pakistan is a close ally of the mujahideen who fought against a
Soviet-installed regime in Kabul for 14 years from their bases inside
Pakistan and toppled it.
A government spokesman in Islamabad denied Pakistan is ``giving any
military assistance to Bosnia'' but said Islamabad has ``promised $10
million in humanitarian assistance to the Bosnian Muslims.''
Last month a delegation of Islamic scholars from Bosnia visited
Pakistan and appealed to local Muslims to ``send arms to their brothers
in Bosnia.''
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Seven U.N. soldiers wounded in blast
Date: 24 Sep 92 16:51:10 GMT
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Hercegovina (UPI) -- Seven U.N. troops sustained
injuries Thursday when an explosion ripped into their armored car hours
after Serbian shellfire hit a car and a public bus, killing at least
three people and wounding 15 others, officials and news reports said.
It was the second consecutive day that the U.N. Protection Force
(UNPROFOR) suffered casualties.
UNPROFOR officials said they were almost certain a land mine caused
the explosion that wounded a Canadian captain and six Egyptian soldiers
in the latest incident.
Bosnian fighters, however, contended that the armored personnel
carrier in which the seven were riding was hit by a rocket launched by
Serbian extremists.
``They fired a rocket from a house,'' said one Bosnian soldier,
Rusmir Salihspahic.
UNPROFOR officials and witnesses said the incident occurred about 4
p.m. in Adzici, a key flashpoint on the embattled western edge of the
Bosnian capital, as the armored car was escorting a truck carrying two
corpses to a pre-arranged body exchange between Bosnian and Serbian
units.
``The APC (armored personnel carrier) blew up in front of our eyes,''
said Eileen Kleinnan, a photographer riding in an armored Land Rover
belonging to the British Broadcasting Corp. ``Everyone just abandoned
their vehicles and ran for cover.''
She and other witnesses said a firefight then erupted between Bosnian
and Serbian units, as the personnel carrier blazed in the middle of the
road.
Another UNPROFOR armored vehicle was dispatched to rescue the wounded
and other Egyptian troops who were unhurt, and take them back to the U.
N. headquarters. Meanwhile, the vehicle was left in the road with the
bodies inside it.
The incident ocurred 24 hours after two French troops were wounded by
a mortar shell. It brought to more than 50 the number of UNPROFOR
soldiers wounded since May, most of them in deliberate attacks. Four
members of the force have been killed.
The developments came amid fresh clashes on Sarajevo's northern and
western flanks, the main centers of fighting for 10 days, and sporadic
skirmishes and sniper fire in several downtown neighborhoods, witnesses
said.
Sarajevo radio and Dr. Sead Dezdarovic, a surgeon at the French
hospital, said a Serbian artillery round smashed at about noon into a
passenger car as it crossed an intersection near the former Yugoslav
army's Marshal Tito Barracks near the downtown, killing the two
occupants.
A short time later, he said, another round scored a direct hit on a
public bus close to the same location, killing at least one passenger
and seriously injuring 15 others.
The car and the bus were using a pot-holed backroad that has become a
major pedestrian and vehicular route into the city center because much
of it is shielded by high-rise buildings from Serbian artillery and
snipers.
Serbian forces, armed by the Yugoslav army and backed financially and
politically by neighboring Serbia, have been bombarding and besieging
Sarajevo for almost a half year as part of a campaign to rip a self-
declared state out of the former Yugoslav republic.
Forces loyal to the Bosnian government comprised mostly of Muslim
Slavs, but also including moderate Serbs and Croats, have been waging an
uphill battle to preserve the republic's newly won independence and
territorial integrity.
The attack on the bus prompted an indefinite suspension in the
already vastly diminished public bus service, forcing thousands of
people to walk home after work, Sarajevo radio reported.
It said a total of at least six people were killed and 37 others
injured during the day from Serbian shelling and sniper fire in the
city.
A U.N. official renewed a warning of widespread hunger in Sarajevo
unless action is taken to compensate for the suspension of the U.N.-
organized humanitarian airlift.
The blockade of Sarajevo has left the estimated 500,000 residents and
refugees dependent on U.N. relief, which have been severely scaled back
since the airlift was halted by a Sept. 3 missile attack on an Italian
plane that killed four crewmen.
U.N. High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) logistics chief Dag
Espeland said a Swiss company has offered to lease UNHCR three giant
Ilyushin-76 cargo planes of the Russian airline, Aeroflot, to deliver
food and medicines.
He said the cost would be a relatively cheap $2 million per month,
and that the three aircraft could fly 150 tons of supplies into
Sarajevo's U.N.-controlled airport per day.
``I measured everything today and it would be no problem,'' Espeland
said, adding that he had informed his superiors of the offer.
He said the planes would go a long way to making up for the loss of
the humanitarian airlift.
Espeland said truck convoys from Croatia's port city of Split had
managed only to bring in a daily average of 44 tons of relief, compared
to the 183 tons provided by the airlift.
``We are only getting a drop in the bucket,'' he said, and he renewed
a warning that ``in three weeks, we will start seeing hunger here.''
Positioned on hilltops surrounding Sarajevo, Serbian guerrillas
pounded the city Thursday with tank, howitzer, mortar and anti-aircraft
machine gun fire, targeting both civilian and government forces
positions.
Most of Sarajevo was without electricity or water for its fourth
consecutive day with repairmen being prevented from fixing high-voltage
cables because of the shelling.
Bosnian forces, comprising Muslim Slavs, moderate Serbs and Croats,
blamed Serbs for Thursday's attack but Serbian guerrillas said they were
responding to fire from from Muslim Slav and Croatian forces.
Fighting was reported in the areas of Bihac, Gradacac, Jajce, Doboj,
Srebrenica, Bratunac and Visegrad, the radio said.
Two French U.N. soldiers suffered minor wounds Wednesday from a
mortar round in sporadic shelling and clashes in and around Sarajevo
that prevented work on restoring electricity to the war-ravaged Bosnian
capital.
U.N. Protection Force (UNPROFOR) officials said the mortar shell was
believed to have been a stray round.
It slammed into the yard of the Tvornica Armatura factory, located
near the U.N. headquarters on the western end of Sarajevo, as the two
French soldiers and two local workers were cutting metal sheeting to
protect the Sarajevo airport control tower, they said.
Ukrainian Col. Viktor Bezrouchenko, the UNPROFOR chief of operations,
said one local worker was injured along with the French servicemen.
``None was seriously wounded,'' said Bezrouchenko.
The incident brought to at least 48 the number of UNPROFOR troops
injured since May. Four others have been killed.
Most of the casualties were caused by what U.N. officials have
condemned as deliberate attacks by both warring factions.
Adnan Abdel Razak, the UNPROFOR spokesman, said the French soldiers
were evacuated to Zagreb by a U.N. aircraft that also returned the
UNPROFOR deputy commander, French Gen. Phillipe Morillon, to the
Croatian capital after a four-day visit to plan a 6,000-troop expansion
of the 1,500-man U.N. contingent.
U.N. officials said that before his departure, Morillon held talks
with Serbian military officials about the possible relocation of the U.
N. headquarters to a hotel in the Serb-held western suburb of Ilidza.
The move would fit closely with Morillon's stated goal of deploying
U.N. troops in Ilidza to secure a corridor through which humanitarian
aid could enter Sarajevo through encircling Serbian lines.
Serbian forces, backed by neighboring communist-ruled Serbia, have
bombarded and besieged Sarajevo as part of their more than five-month
campaign to carve a self-declared state out of the former Yugoslav
republic of Muslim Slavs, Serbs and Croats.
Forces loyal to the government, comprised mostly of Muslim Slavs, but
also including moderate Serbs and Croats, are fighting to preserve the
republic's newly won independence and territorial integrity.
novine.21.bale.,
RFE/RL Daily Report
No. 184, 24 September 1992
SUCCESSOR STATES TO THE USSR
TAJIK LEADER CALLS FOR VOLUNTEERS. Acting President Akbarsho
Iskandarov has signed a decree calling for volunteers to join
Internal Affairs troops and Russian units to try to stop the
fighting in Kurgan-Tyube Oblast south of Dushanbe, Interfax
reported on 23 September. The same day ITAR-TASS reported that
about 50,000 refugees from Kurgan-Tyube have gone to neighboring
Kulyab Oblast, where 800,000 inhabitants are reported to be
already on the verge of starvation. Attempts to send food
shipments by road from Dushanbe have been blocked by fighting
along the highway. Ostankino TV on 21 September reported having
learned that Tajikistan's foreign minister planned to ask the UN
General Assembly to authorize UN peacekeeping forces for
Tajikistan. (Bess Brown, RFE/RL, Inc.)
NEW ABKHAZ CEASEFIRE; Shanibov DETAINED. A new ceasefire agreement
was signed on 23 September by Georgian, Abkhaz and Russian
representatives, whereby Abkhaz and Georgian troops would be
withdrawn from the River Bzyb, which is to become a demilitarized
zone, ITAR-TASS reported. The agreement also provides for the
creation of a commission which will begin work on 1 October to
stabilize the situation in Sukhumi; at that time Georgia will
withdraw from the area all its troops except those needed to
protect roads and railways. Meanwhile, Yuri Shanibov, the
chairman of the Confederation of Mountain Peoples of the Caucasus
(the body responsible for sending volunteers to fight in Abkhazia)
has been detained in Nalchik by investigators from the Russian
procurator's office, which last month began proceedings against
him for "endangering the security of the state and spreading war
propaganda," an RFE/RL correspondent reported from Moscow. (Liz
Fuller, RFE/RL, Inc.)
AZERBAIJAN CLAIMS STRATEGIC GAINS IN ADVANCE OF CEASEFIRE.
Azerbaijani forces retook the Nagorno-Karabakh town of Martuni on
23 September and subjected the capital of Stepanakert to aerial
bombardment; fierce fighting was also reported along the
Armenian-Azerbaijani border, ITAR-TASS reported. Commenting on the
19 September meeting at which the ceasefire agreement was
concluded, Azerbaijan Minister of Defense Rahim Kaziev told
ITAR-TASS that until a clear mechanism for enforcing the ceasefire
is worked out, it is premature to claim that the conflict has been
resolved. Russian Defense Minister Grachev told Russian
journalists that one reason why Armenia and Azerbaijan agreed to
the ceasefire was that they are running out of military hardware.
Azerbaijan President Abulfaz Elchibey was quoted last week by
ITAR-TASS as claiming that the war was costing each side 25-30
million roubles per day. (Liz Fuller, RFE/RL, Inc.)
YELTSIN RETURNS DRAFT LAW TO PARLIAMENT. Russian President Boris
Yeltsin has sent back to the parliament a draft law on the
constitutional protection of the power of state institutions,
arguing that the draft violated the Russian constitution, Interfax
reported on 23 September. The parliament's draft envisioned the
creation of "parallel power structures." Yeltsin said that these
bodies would confer executive power on the parliamentary
presidium, a development that he opposed. He recommended that the
matter be reviewed by the Constitutional Supervisory Committee.
The draft further demonstrates the effort by parliamentary speaker
Ruslan Khasbulatov to strengthen his position. (Alexander Rahr,
RFE/RL, Inc.)
KHASBULATOV AGAINST REMOVAL OF GOVERNMENT. Although many
conservative deputies, such as Communist leader Sergei Baburin,
insisted on a vote of no-confidence in the government,
parliamentary speaker Ruslan Khasbulatov told the parliament to
let the team of Acting Prime Minister Egor Gaidar continue
working, ITAR-TASS reported on 23 September. Khasbulatov backed
away from a confrontation with the government after President
Boris Yeltsin publicly declared that he also no longer sought to
abolish the present legislature. Khasbulatov rejected demands by
conservative deputies to convene an extraordinary Congress and
stated that preparations for the next Congress will start, as
required by the constitution, in November-December. (Alexander
Rahr, RFE/RL, Inc.)
SHOKHIN ON IMPORTS, WESTERN LOANS. Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandr
Shokhin said that Russia is having some problems making use of
credits extended by Western nations and international agencies,
the New York Times reported on 24 September. Shokhin, in
Washington with other high level Russian officials to discuss debt
issues, claimed that Russia had not yet drawn on the $1 billion
dollar loan approved by the IMF in August because the interest
payments, at 7.5%, would be too burdensome. Shokhin also said
that at the current low ruble rate of exchange, Western imports
were too expensive for many Russian enterprises despite the
availability of Western financing. (Erik Whitlock, RFE/RL, Inc.)
RUSSIA BUILDS GRAIN RESERVES. The Russian grain reserve, which
will total over 20 million tons, is being divided into federal and
regional "funds," Interfax reported on 23 September. Regional
authorities apparently will send grain procured in their
localities in excess of current consumption and local reserve
requirements to the federal fund. The federal fund will serve as
the reserve for the needs of the army, large cities, and
territories with low local grain production. Any shortfalls in
building the funds will be made up for with imports. The Russian
grain reserve was established by presidential decree in late
August. (Erik Whitlock, RFE/RL, Inc.)
CIVIC UNION COOPERATES. The leaders of the Civic Union, Arkadii
Volsky and Aleksandr Rutskoi, stated at a press conference that
they want to cooperate with the government, ITAR-TASS reported on
23 September. Volsky said that the Civic Union's economic program
should not be regarded as an alternative program. He criticized
the government for refusing to invite leading economists from the
beginning to work on its reform plan and for not having learned
from the Chinese reform experience, which preserved the state
sector. Volsky's economic aide, Iosif Diskin, said that the Civic
Union's economic program seeks first of all to protect key
industries from economic decline and only at the second stage does
it envision measures to stimulate production. (Alexander Rahr,
RFE/RL, Inc.)
MINISTRY OF INDUSTRY CALLS FOR INCREASED MILITARY EXPENDITURES IN
1993. According to a Reuters report of 22 September, Russian
Minister for Industry Alexander Titkin called for a 60% increase
in defense spending in 1993 over planned levels. Titkin reportedly
made the suggestion in an internal government memorandum obtained
by Reuters. The planned 1993 military procurement budget is
reportedly 164 billion rubles, a 10% percent increase over current
levels. Titkin argued that expenditures should increase to 263
billion rubles to prevent plant closures and the loss of up to
800,000 jobs in defense and related industries. In the absence of
such an increase, Titkin claimed that production of such weapons
as the MiG-29, MiG-31 and T-72 tank would have to be halted. (John
Lepingwell, RFE/RL, Inc.)
GROMOV ON RUSSIAN TROOP WITHDRAWAL PLANS. In a speech to the
Russian Supreme Soviet on 22 September, Deputy Defense Minister
Boris Gromov stated that the 14th Army will be withdrawn from
Moldova "only when the situation in the region gets stabilized,"
according to Interfax. He estimated that this might happen in 2
to 3 years. Gromov also repeated Russian plans to withdraw troops
from Lithuania by the end of 1993, and from the other Baltic
states by the end of 1994 if withdrawal agreements are reached.
All but 6000 troops are to be withdrawn from Poland by 15 November
1992, with the rest leaving by the end of 1993. (John Lepingwell,
RFE/RL, Inc.)
SUPREME SOVIET COMMITTEE CRITICIZES LITHUANIAN TROOP WITHDRAWAL
AGREEMENT. The agreement to withdraw troops from Lithuania was
criticized on 22 September by the Russian Supreme Soviet's
Committee on International Affairs for failing to protect Russian
interests and the rights of Russian servicemen in Lithuania,
according to ITAR-TASS. The committee requested that the
agreement be renegotiated. The committee's reaction, together
with the increasing strength of Russian nationalists in the
Supreme Soviet, suggests that the treaty with Lithuania, and
potential treaties with Latvia and Estonia may run into
parliamentary roadblocks and possibly even non-ratification.(John
Lepingwell, RFE/RL, Inc.)
US-RUSSIAN OFFICIALS DISCUSS GLOBAL DEFENSES. On 21-22 September,
US and Russian officials met to discuss potential areas of
cooperation in the development and deployment of early warning
systems and ballistic missile defenses. In a communique issued on
22 September and carried by ITAR-TASS, they reported positive
discussions on topics including the exchange of ideas on global
defense systems, cooperative technical development projects, and
legal bases for cooperation. There was also discussion of a
possible "demonstration experiment" to exchange early warning
information. Despite the positive report, however, the indications
are that two sides are not close to substantive agreements on
joint defenses. (John Lepingwell, RFE/RL, Inc.)
NEW RUSSIAN NAVAL COMMAND APPOINTMENTS. On 22 September, Krasnaya
zvezda reported that to replace retiring officers new personnel
were being appointed to the Russian Navy high command. Admiral
Valentin Selivanov, formerly commander of the Leningrad naval
base, was appointed chief of the main staff. Vice-Admirals Georgii
Gurinov and Vasilii Eremin were both appointed deputy commanders
of the Navy. Vice Admiral Aleksandr Gorbunov was appointed deputy
commander for combat readiness. The announcement indicated that a
substantial restructuring and restaffing of the Navy command is
underway. Interfax on 23 September reported that the controversial
commander of the Black Sea Fleet, Admiral Igor Kasatonov, also may
be appointed deputy commander of the Navy. (John Lepingwell,
RFE/RL, Inc.)
RUSSIA REJECTS SWEDISH SUBMARINE ALLEGATIONS. A spokesman for the
Russian Ministry of Defense on September 23 rejected Swedish
charges that a Russian submarine had entered Swedish waters,
ITAR-TASS reported on 23 September. The spokesman pointed out that
the Swedish Navy had been unable to identify the submarine and
claimed that Russian submarines carry out their training exercises
and combat operations outside the territorial waters of other
states. (John Lepingwell, RFE/RL, Inc.)
PRUNSKIENE DENIES VOLUNTARY COOPERATION WITH KGB. In interviews
given to Literaturnaya gazeta, (No. 39) and Komsomolskaya pravda,
on 16 September, the former prime minister of Lithuania, Kazimiera
Prunskiene, called the verdict of the Lithuanian Supreme Court
confirming her collaboration with the KGB a "politically biased
decision" (See, RFE/RL Daily Report, 15 September). Prunskiene
said that her reports about her scientific contacts abroad that
were discovered in the KGB's archives were signed in her own name;
the agents of the KGB, however, usually had to sign their
"denunciations" (a term that was used in KGB domestic operations)
with their KGB cover name. Prunskiene failed to mention that she
was accused of collaboration not with the KGB's domestic services,
but with the first department of the Lithuanian KGB, which was an
element of the Soviet KGB's foreign intelligence service. (Victor
Yasmann, RFE/RL, Inc.)
KASATONOV FAVORED FOR CRIMEAN PRESIDENCY. Komsomolskaya pravda of
22 September reports that the extraordinary congress of the
All-Crimean Movement of the Electorate for the Republic of the
Crimea has named Admiral Igor Kasatonov, the commander of the
Black Sea Fleet, as its choice for president of the Crimea. The
congress expressed its dissatisfaction with the Crimean
parliament, calling for its early dissolution and new elections.
The congress also demanded that the moratorium on a referendum
defining the Crimea's state status be lifted. (Roman Solchanyk,
RFE/RL, Inc.)
UKRAINIAN GOVERNMENT MEETS ON THE ECONOMY. The Ukrainian Cabinet
of Ministers has met to discuss steps to intensify economic reform
in the country, Ukrainian radio and TV reported on 22 September.
The main speaker was First Deputy Prime Minister Valentyn
Symonenko, who presented an overview of his plan, which is said to
propose that Ukraine abandon the ruble zone in the very near
future. According to the report, the plan demonstrates the
government's determination to take full responsibility for
implementing economic reforms. (Roman Solchanyk, RFE/RL, Inc.)
GEORGIAN RADICAL QUESTIONS LEGITIMACY OF ELECTING PARLIAMENTARY
SPEAKER. The chairman of the Georgian National Independence
Party, Irakli Tsereteli, has demanded that the Georgian Supreme
Court rule on whether the proposal to elect a parliament chairman
by majority vote with no alternative candidate conforms with the
Georgian Constitution, ITAR-TASS reported on 23 September. A court
ruling is expected by the end of this week. (Liz Fuller, RFE/RL,
Inc.)
NAZARBAEV IN FRANCE. Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbaev
arrived in France on 23 September for a three-day state visit,
Western agencies reported. He signed a friendship treaty with
France providing for regular top-level meetings between France and
Kazakhstan and also signed the CSCE Charter. Before ending his
official visit to Germany and traveling to France, Nazarbaev
signed a deal with Daimler-Benz under which the German firm will
assemble buses in Kazakhstan and deliver used Mercedes cars and
trucks to the Central Asian state. (Bess Brown, RFE/RL, Inc.)
BIRLIK, DEMROSSIYA TO ISSUE STATEMENT ON ABUSES IN UZBEKISTAN.
The Democratic Russia Movement and the Uzbek Popular Front
movement Birlik have prepared a statement on human rights abuses
in Uzbekistan, a DemRossiya official told an RFE/RL correspondent
on 23 September. The DemRossiya Coordinating Council has asked
Russian President Boris Yeltsin and the Russian Supreme Soviet to
look into the charges raised in the statement, including the use
of violence against the opposition in Uzbekistan, before Russia
concludes a bilateral treaty with that country. (Bess Brown,
RFE/RL, Inc.)
CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE
CROATIA, BOSNIA ANNOUNCE DEFENSE PACT. International media on 23
September quoted Presidents Franjo Tudjman of Croatia and Alija
Izetbegovic of Bosnia in New York as saying that they have reached
a defense agreement covering the territory of the two republics.
This follows upon previous understandings and agreements reached
earlier this year, but details of the new text are not yet
available. Regular and paramilitary Croatian units alike in
Bosnia and Herzegovina formally follow a policy of good relations
with the Muslims, but there have been some clashes between Bosnian
and Croatian regular forces in recent weeks. The Croatian
authorities blame agents of the ex-Yugoslav military intelligence
for sowing mistrust between what they term "two victims of the
same [Serbian] aggressor." Time alone will tell what, if anything,
the latest Tudjman-Izetbegovic agreement will mean in practice.
(Patrick Moore, RFE/RL, Inc.)
SERBS SHELL BIHAC, SLAVONSKI BROD. Western news agencies on 23
September reported that Serbian artillery hit the hospital in the
besieged mainly Muslim town of Bihac, killing 11 and wounding 20.
Meanwhile in eastern Croatia, almost daily bombardment has
continued for four months against Slavonski Brod and the
surrounding villages. (Patrick Moore, RFE/RL, Inc.)
KOSOVO DEVELOPMENTS. Fehmi Agani, vice president of Kosovo's main
party, the Democratic Alliance, told reporters on 18 September
that Kosovo's Albanian delegation attending the peace talks at the
UN-EC mediated conference on the former Yugoslavia in Geneva will
demand recognition as an independent republic. Kosovo, formerly an
autnomous province within Serbia, is about 90% Albanian. Agani
also said his party received the rump Yugoslav federal
government's 14-point draft program on Kosovo and commented that
Albanian parties will not agree on Kosovo remaining a part of
Serbia. He added that the proposals are only initiatives for
future talks. He did say, however, that his party regards the
government's proposal on lifting all restrictive measures on the
Albanian-language media as encouraging. Belgrade media carried the
report on 20 September. Western agencies report on 23 September
that street names in Pristina have been "Serbianized," and the
city's university has been named after Dositej Obradovic, an
18th-early 19th century Serbian scholar. According to the reports,
Albanian children and their teachers have been barred from
entering schools by Serbian police. Last month federal Prime
Minister Milan Panic ordered all schools opened to Albanians,
despite protests from local Serbs and Serbia's government. (Milan
Andrejevich, RFE/RL, Inc.)
HAVEL SAYS THAT REFERENDUM WOULD NOT HELP SITUATION. Former
Czechoslovak President Vaclav Havel said in an interview with the
Czech daily Mlada Fronta dnes published on 24 September that it is
too late for a referendum on the future of the Czechoslovak
federation. Havel, who was one of the staunchest supporters of a
referendum on Czechoslovakia's constitutional setup, said that the
democratically elected Slovak leadership wants an independent
state and will not allow anything but a "ratification" of the
republic's independence. Even if Czechs vote in favor of a common
state, it will not have any impact on developments. Havel
stressed that Slovaks have the right to be independent and that it
is in the interest of all involved to carry out the division in a
proper way. (Jan Obrman, RFE/RL, Inc.)
BULGARIAN PARLIAMENTARY TROUBLES. Stefan Savov, president of the
National Assembly and leader of Bulgaria's Democratic Party, faces
a no-confidence vote on 24 September. The vote, postponed from 23
September, results from accusations that he has failed to
represent the parliamentary coalition majority even-handedly. His
ouster is being sought by the leaders of the Movement for Rights
and Freedoms, Bulgaria's predominantly Turkish party. They issued
a declaration on 23 September calling for the removal not only of
Savov, but also of Prime Minister, Filip Dimitrov as well as for a
restructuring of the government and a new strategy to stimulate
economic reform. According to the declaration obtained by RFE/RL's
Sofia Bureau, the MRF alleges that the Coordinating Council of the
UDF has often forgotten that the parliamentary majority the
governing Union of Democratic Forces holds in the National
Assembly results from an informal UDF-MRF coalition, which has now
all but fallen apart. Meanwhile, the Bulgarian Socialist Party
has indicated it supports the idea of a restructured Dimitrov
cabinet. (Duncan Perry, RFE/RL, Inc.)
POLAND, HUNGARY AGREE ON FREE TRADE ZONE. Poland and Hungary
intend to create a bilateral free trade zone, possibly as early as
1 January 1993, Western agencies reported. Polish Prime Minister
Hanna Suchocka and her Hungarian counterpart Jozsef Antall reached
agreement on the issue on 23 September, during Suchocka's two-day
official visit to Budapest. Czechoslovakia had been envisaged as a
third partner to the agreement, but its disintegration prompted
Hungary and Poland to press ahead with a bilateral arrangement.
The final agreement, to be signed in November 1992 in Cracow, is
expected to boost bilateral trade, which Antall says has declined
such that trade with Poland now only accounts for 1.5% to 2% of
Hungary's total. Suchocka and Antall signed agreements
eliminating double taxation and facilitating the flow of capital
between the two countries. Antall also urged the EC to provide a
clear outline of the conditions the "triangle" countries would
have to fulfill to become full members of that body. (Louisa
Vinton & Karoly Okolicsanyi, RFE/RL, Inc.)
VISEGRAD TRIANGLE MILITARY LEADERS TO MEET. MTI reports, quoting
government sources, that the Defense Ministers of Poland,
Czechoslovakia, and Hungary will meet on 25 September in Tatranske
Zruby, Czechoslovakia, to discuss European security issues,
including the Yugoslav crisis. (Karoly Okolicsanyi, RFE/RL, Inc.)
LIVE FROM WARSAW: WALESA ON RFE. In a 50-minute live broadcast
from Warsaw on 23 September, Polish President Lech Walesa took
questions from RFE/RL journalists and listeners. Walesa expressed
the hope that the borders between Poland and its neighbors will
cease to divide and instead begin to bring together different
nations. He added that while politicians can create the
conditions for international cooperation, they cannot dictate it.
The interview with Walesa was broadcast by RFE/RL to Belarus,
Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, and Ukraine.
(Louisa Vinton, RFE/RL, Inc.)
SOLIDARITY REFUSES TALKS WITH POSTCOMMUNIST UNIONS. Meeting
behind closed doors in Gdansk on 23 September, Solidarity's
National Commission decided to enter into negotiations with the
government on the "pact on state firms," but "staunchly refused"
to sit at the same table with other trade unions during the talks.
A spokesman charged that the former official OPZZ federation is
more interested in the legitimacy it could gain from sitting at
Solidarity's side than in the outcome of the negotiations. The
Solidarity leadership also rejected a demand from its radical
Mazowsze region for changes in the union's parliamentary caucus.
The region had expressed outrage that some Solidarity deputies had
voted against the motion to dismiss Privatization Minister Janusz
Lewandowski on 18 September. (Louisa Vinton, RFE/RL, Inc.)
BIG OPPOSITION RALLY IN BUCHAREST. Thousands of Romanians marched
through central Bucharest on 23 September to show their support
for Emil Constantinescu, the main opposition candidate in the 27
September elections. Constantinescu is running on the ticket of
the Democratic Convention (DC), an alliance of 18 centrist parties
and organizations. In a rally following the march, DC supporters
called for "true democracy" in Romania and denounced incumbent
president Ion Iliescu as "Bolshevik." Western agencies report that
in his speech Constantinescu stressed the need for "moral rebirth"
and the DC's concern for minority rights in Romania. Geza
Domokos, a prominent member of the Hungarian minority in
Transylvania, also addressed the crowd. (Dan Ionescu, RFE/RL,
Inc.)
ROMANIA'S NSF LEADER ON POST-ELECTORAL STRATEGY. Petre Roman,
leader of the National Salvation Front and former prime minister,
praised his opposition rivals at a press conference on 23
September. Roman said that the DC is likely to win the elections
and to form Romania's first genuinely democratic government since
the 1989 anti-communist revolution. He further pledged his party's
support for the DC in the parliament, even if the NSF is not part
of the next government; but added that the offer was limited to
the period necessary to achieve stability in Romania. Roman
declined to be drawn out on press speculations that he could
become foreign minister in the new cabinet. (Dan Ionescu, RFE/RL,
Inc.)
ESTONIA REBUTS RUSSIAN STATEMENT. The Estonian Foreign Ministry
has rebuked the Russian government for interfering in Estonia's
internal affairs. In a sharply worded statement issued by Tallinn
on 23 September, the Estonian government takes issue with remarks
made by the Russian government's press spokesman Gennadii Shipitko
to ITAR-TASS on 22 September alleging that last weekend's
elections in Estonia ignored the interests of Russian-speakers
there. The Estonian Foreign Ministry "regards [the statements] as
a threat directed at the Republic of Estonia . . . and as an
attempt to influence the activities of the newly-elected Riigikogu
(parliament) and the soon-to-be elected president." (Riina Kionka,
RFE/RL, Inc.)
LANDSBERGIS CONCLUDES VISIT TO BELGIUM. On 23 September Lithuanian
Supreme Council Chairman Vytautas Landsbergis completed a
three-day official visit to Belgium. On 21 September he met with
King Baudouin I and Belgian Senate officials. On 22 September he
participated in ceremonies opening the Lithuanian embassy and gave
a speech at the Royal Institute for International Relations. On 23
September he held talks at NATO headquarters with
Secretary-General Manfred Woerner and urged NATO to send observers
to oversee Russian troop withdrawals and help the Baltic States
establish their own armed forces. He also had meetings with EC
president Jacques Delors and European Parliament chairman Egon
Klepsch. On 24 September he held a press conference on the visit,
broadcast live by Radio Lithuania. (Saulius Girnius, RFE/RL, Inc.)
LITHUANIA TO ABANDON RUBLE ON 1 OCTOBER. On 23 September Prime
Minister Aleksandras Abisala told national television that
Lithuania will abandon the ruble as its currency on 1 October,
replacing it with temporary coupons that can be exchanged for
rubles on a one-to-one basis until that day. Thereafter rubles
will be exchanged as foreign currency in Lithuanian banks. The
coupons will be valid until the introduction of the litas at some
as yet unannounced date. (Saulius Girnius, RFE/RL, Inc.)
UNEXPECTED SUCCESS OF CZECHOSLOVAK ECONOMIC REFORM. According to
Josef Tosovsky, the President of Czechoslovak State (Central)
Bank, Czechoslovak economic reforms have been successful and will
continue even after the country's disintegration. Tosovsky told
reporters in Washington on 22 September that inflation is under
control and the rate will remain lower than 10% throughout the
year; GDP growth is expected to be higher than last year.
Tosovsky said that the country's economy is doing so well that it
will not need to draw on the remaining $285 million of its current
stand-by loan from the IMF. The IMF reportedly anticipated a $600
million balance-of-payments deficit for Czechoslovakia, but it
turns out that the country had a $1 billion surplus for the first
eight months of the year instead. (Jan Obrman, RFE/RL, Inc.)
ITALIAN CONCERN INVESTS IN POLISH STEEL MILL. On 23 September,
the Italian firm Lucchini signed an agreement with trade unions
from the Huta Warszawa steel mill. Officials say the agreement
paves the way for a $300 million investment in Poland's troubled
steel industry. In return for a 51% share in the mill, Lucchini
has granted a six-month moratorium on dismissals and promised
average monthly wage increases of 2 million zloty ($143) over the
coming 18 months. The work force endorsed the agreement almost
unanimously, Polish TV reported. Meanwhile, Deputy Prime Minister
Henryk Goryszewski told an audience of bankers, managers, and
unionists in Poznan that "Poland must be open to foreign capital."
Poland's shortage of domestic resources rules out "capital
autarky," Goryszewski said. (Louisa Vinton, RFE/RL, Inc.)
FOREIGN CAPITAL FLOW TO HUNGARY CONTINUES. MTI reports that in
the first seven months of 1992, $827 million worth of capital came
into Hungary. This year's plan calls for $1.5 billion, but present
trends indicate that at the end of the year final amounts will be
higher. (Karoly Okolicsanyi, RFE/RL, Inc.)
ESTONIA: GOOD WORKS FOR THE JOBLESS. The outgoing Estonian
government adopted a ruling on 23 September saying that the
unemployed may be used in emergency relief works for up to 10 days
each month with a maximum of 80 hours per month, BNS reported.
Labor Minister Arvo Kuddo is quoted as saying that those who
refuse to participate in the program for reasons other than health
will be denied unemployment benefits for a two-week period.
(Riina Kionka, RFE/RL, Inc.)
novine.22.bale.,
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Fighting flares in Bosnia amid international peace efforts
Subject: Relief supplies won't resume until UN gets security guarantees
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Fighting flares in Bosnia amid international peace efforts
Date: 25 Sep 92 12:19:27 GMT
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Hercegovina (UPI) -- Clashes flared in the capital of
Sarajevo and across the newly independent republic Friday as United
Nations and European Community peace mediators planned to investigate
reports of ``ethnic cleansing'' in northwestern Bosnia-Hercegovina,
officials and news reports said.
At least one person was killed and three injured in fighting between
Serbian guerrillas and government forces in the predominantly Muslim
Slav city of Sarajevo, a police spokesman said.
``Aggression is spreading,'' said the Bosnia-Hercegovina government-
run Sarajevo Radio in a reference to Serbian efforts to carve out a
self-declared state and annex it to neighboring Serbia, the dominant
state of the disintegrated six-republic Yugoslav federation.
U.N. special envoy Cyrus Vance and EC peacemaker Lord David Owevn,
the co-chairmen of the Geneva peace talks on former Yugoslavia, arrived
at midday Friday in Banja Luka, the Serb-held town and a major military
base in the northwest of the republic.
Vance and Owen expressed ``deep concern over reports...of ethnic
cleansing'' in the Banja Luka area and decided to personally investigate
these allegations, the Serbian-run Tanjug news agency reported.
In Banja Luka Vance said, ``We heard of ethnic cleansing in the area
of Banja Luka and we will personally ask questions to clarify the
situation.''
Serbian officials dismissed accusations their guerrillas were
``cleaning up'' the Banja Luka area of Muslim Slavs and charged that
Muslims were forcing the Serbs out of the region.
Fighting went on unabated across Bosnia-Hercegovina and in and around
Sarajevo Friday after a Canadian captain and six Egyptian soldiers of
the United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) suffered injuries
Thursday while riding in an armored vehicle outside the capital.
The incident, a second one involving UNPROFOR troops in the past two
days, occurred at Adzici, on the western outskirts of Sarajevo.
Serbs traded accusations with Muslim Slavs of having carried out the
attack on the UNPROFOR vehicle.
But, witnesses agreed that after the explosion that ripped the U.N.
armored vehicle a firefight broke out between Bosnian and Serbian
forces.
Since the UNPROFOR deployed its troops in Bosnia-Hercegovina in May,
four members of the force have been killed and more than 50 soldiers and
officers wounded, most of them in deliberate attacks.
After sporadic clashes overnight, fighting intensified Friday morning
with Serbian guerrillas blasting mortar and howitzer rounds on downtown
Sarajevo and its suburbs.
Shortly after 9 a.m., a mortar shell killed a man in a Sarajevo
street and injured three other people, the radio said.
Large sections of Sarajevo remained without electricity and drinking
water as repair squads could not fix damage due to ongoing fighting.
In a report from the western Bosnian town of Bihac, close to the
border with Croatia, another former Yugoslav republic, Sarajevo Radio
said one person was injured in a Serbian attack on a hospital.
It was the 14th attack in the past month on the hospital in the
predominantly Muslim Slav town of Bihac, the radio said.
On Tuesday, a Serbian tank shell hit a lung disease ward killing 11
patients and injuring another 20 as they were having dinner in the
hospital dining room.
Serbian forces, armed by the Yugoslav army and backed financially and
politically by the communist regime in neighboring Serbia, have been
bombarding and besieging Sarajevo for neaerly six months as part of
their land-grab campaign.
Forces loyal to the Bosnian government comprised mostly of Muslim
Slavs, but also including moderate Serbs and Croats, have been fighting
to preserve the republic's newly won independence and territorial
integrity.
Sarajevo, with an estimated 500,000 residents and refugees, has been
encircled by Serbian forces since early April.
A U.N.-sponsored humanitarian aid airlift was suspended on Sept. 3,
cutting the delivery of much needed relief supplies to the city, when an
Italian cargo aircraft was shot down just outside Sarajevo.
Food and medical supplies trucked to Sarajevo by land convoys are not
sufficient to provide about 200 tons of relief needed per day.
Fighting was reported in the areas of Bihac, Brcko, Maglaj, Tesanj,
Zenica, Tuzla, Olovo, Zavidovic, Breza, Gradacac, Jajce, Doboj, Sarajevo
radio said.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Relief supplies won't resume until UN gets security guarantees
Date: 25 Sep 92 15:55:57 GMT
GENEVA (UPI) -- The United Nations relief airlift of supplies to
Sarajevo is to remain suspended until participating nations have further
security guarantees from the warring factions in Bosnia-Hercegovina and
may never be revived, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said
Friday.
The 19 nations participating in the airlift have told the High
Commissioner for Refugees, Sadako Ogata, they will not resume flying
until she has received additional guarantees from the three rival
factions that the planes will not be fired on.
Refering to the airlift, suspended since Sept. 3, UNHCR spokesman
Sylvana Foa said, ``We're seeking guarantees but there's a limit as to
how far we can go in negotiating military agreements with the Bosnian
factions. We're damned if we do and damned if we don't.''
She spoke as U.N. special envoy Cyrus Vance and EC peacemaker Lord
David Owen flew to Sarajevo for a three-day visit.
A U.N. spokesman, Pierre Mehu, said they planned to visit Banja Luka,
headquarters of the Serbian community in Bosnia and investigate reports
of intimidation and growing tension between Serbs, Croats and Muslims.
Mehu said Owen and Vance would stay in Bosnia-Hercegovina until
Sunday, meeting with Radovan Karadzic, the Serbian leader in Bosnia and
several of his aides.
novine.23.bale.,
RFE/RL Daily Report
No. 185, 25 September 1992
SUCCESSOR STATES TO THE USSR
RUSSIA REFUSES TO SELL WEAPONS TO TAJIKISTAN. In order to end the
fighting between supporters and opponents of deposed President
Rakhmon Nabiev, the government of Tajikistan asked to buy heavy
weaponry from Russia, but Moscow turned the request down, the
deputy chairman of Tajikistan's National Security Committee told
ITAR-TASS on 24 September. The same day inhabitants of Dushanbe
gathered in front of the Supreme Soviet building to protest the
government's inability to stop the fighting. Volunteers from
Dushanbe and mountain raions that support the opposition have
joined a self-defense force organized by inhabitants of Kofirnihon
(formerly Ordzhonikidzeabad) Raion on the Kulyab-Dushanbe road to
stop an armed group from Kulyab that is trying to reach Dushanbe.
The Nurek power station remains in the hands of fighters from
Kulyab. (Bess Brown, RFE/RL, Inc.)
RUSSIAN PARLIAMENT TO DISCUSS FIGHTING IN ABKHAZIA. On 25
September the Russian parliament will debate a draft proposal to
deploy Russian peacekeeping troops in Abkhazia in order to
safeguard the civilian population and the normal functioning of
industry and transport, ITAR-TASS reported. Abkhaz parliament
Chairman Vladislav Ardzinba is quoted as arguing that Russia
cannot remain indifferent to the situation in Abkhazia as some
90,000 Russians live there; he also accused Georgia of violating
virtually all the provisions of the 3 September ceasefire
agreement. A Georgian State Council spokesman threatened on 24
September to begin "a real war" in Abkhazia if all North Caucasian
armed groups fail to comply with the ultimatum to leave the area
by 25 September, Reuters reported. (Liz Fuller, RFE/RL, Inc.)
CONFUSION OVER RUSSIAN-UKRAINIAN TRADE QUARREL. Details
concerning the dispute over trade payments between Russia and
Ukraine remain unclear. At issue is the reversal of an agreement
between Russian Central Bank chief Viktor Gerashchenko and the
Ukrainian government to pay unsettled trade accounts. When the
story first emerged, Russian sources reported that the Gaidar
government had only suspended credits issued to Ukraine as part of
the agreement. On 23 and 24 September, Western sources suggested
that Russia had halted all financial transactions between the two
countries, thus effectively freezing trade. Who owes whom what is
also unclear. Ukrainian Central Bank chief Vadim Hetman, according
to Western sources, claims that Russian enterprises owe Ukraine
360 billion rubles, whereas Ukrainian enterprises owe Russia only
60 billion rubles. Russian observers have given significantly
different figures for outstanding payments. (Erik Whitlock,
RFE/RL, Inc.)
RUSSIAN POLITICIANS QUESTION RESULTS OF WESTERN AID. The Boston
Globe quoted the leader of the Industrial Union, Arkadii Volsky,
as saying on 24 September that the Russian government was
"slavishly following the advice of people from abroad, especially
those who are not taken seriously in their own countries." The
first deputy parliamentary speaker, Sergei Filatov, stated that
"the great value placed on foreign aid, which is not making itself
felt, is in fact the worst mistake [which the government is
making]," according to Interfax on 23 September. Other criticism
of Western assistance recently came from the speaker of the
parliament, Ruslan Khasbulatov, the first deputy prime minister,
Vladimir Shumeiko, and many other conservative deputies.
(Alexander Rahr, RFE/RL, Inc.)
GAIDAR WILL NOT RETREAT. Acting Prime Minister Egor Gaidar told
The Financial Times on 24 September that he will not retreat from
his market reforms approach. He said, however, that he may reach
a compromise with the Civic Union on the issue of military
conversion. He stated that those CIS states which do not want to
remain in the ruble zone will not receive any more credits from
the Russian central bank. He expressed his intention to cooperate
closely with the head of the central bank, Viktor Gerashchenko,
emphasizing that he does not think that the latter wanted to
undermine the government's financial policy. He also told
ITAR-TASS also on 24 September that government structures will be
altered due to new requirements. (Alexander Rahr, RFE/RL, Inc.)
POPOV SAYS REFORM IS HALTED. The leader of the Russian Movement
for Democratic Reforms, Gavriil Popov, told Interfax on 24
September that Russia will try to divide Western countries against
each other by choosing one Western partner, to whom Moscow will
open its markets and resources rather than cooperating with the
entire European community. Popov stated that the IMF reform
program turned out to be unacceptable to Russia and that one must
now think of implementing a different transition concept which
takes into account Russia's unique situation. Popov asserted that
acting Prime Minister Egor Gaidar has already given up on pursuing
his own initial reform program and now is adopting ideas supported
by the leader of the "industrial lobby," Arkadii Volsky.
(Alexander Rahr, RFE/RL, Inc.)
NEW WAGE REGULATIONS FOR RUSSIAN STATE EMPLOYEES. The wages and
salaries of most employees paid directly out of the state budget
will be raised and set under new, simplified regulations, Russian
news agencies reported on 24 September. According to ITAR-TASS,
the new regulations provide for wage indexation, adjusting wages
upwards quarterly to offset inflation to some degree. Interfax
reported that the regulations will be introduced starting in the
fourth quarter of this year and will initially double wages and
salaries from their June 1992 levels. The new regulations, which
Labor Minister Gennadii Melikyan proposed, may affect the earnings
of as many as 15 million Russians. (Erik Whitlock, RFE/RL, Inc.)
ADJUSTMENTS IN RUSSIAN VOUCHER PROGRAM EXPECTED. With only a week
left until the start of the distribution of
privatization-vouchers, the Russian parliament is considering
important changes in the program. Parliament's Supreme Economic
Council will suggest such modifications as allowing citizens to
use their vouchers not only as claims on state enterprise assets,
but also to purchase land and municipal property, according to
Interfax on 24 September. Other changes under consideration are a
ban on the resale of vouchers and an extension of their expiration
date, currently set at 31 December 1993, to the end of 1994.
According to "Novosti" on 18 September, Gosznak began printing the
vouchers last week, and it is reportedly producing 4 million
daily. (Erik Whitlock, RFE/RL, Inc.)
CANDIDATES FOR MOSCOW MAYORAL POST. The names of four politicians
have so far been mentioned as confirmed or possible candidates in
the forthcoming mayoral election, Ekho Moskvy reported on 23
September. Two of them--the liberal economist, Larisa Pyasheva,
and the chairman of the Krasnopresnenski Raion Soviet, Aleksandr
Krasnov--have already declared their candidacies. The other two
candidates are Svyatoslav Fedorov, the distinguished eye surgeon
from the Party of Economic Freedom, and Ilya Konstantinov, the
Secretary of the Christian-Democratic Movement. The latter has
announced that if elected, he will cut foreign aid and establish
order in the city. The present Moscow mayor, Yurii Lushkov, told
Interfax on 24 September that the candidates' announcements about
running for his office were "not serious because neither the
President nor the parliament have yet approved a new mayoral
election. (Alexander Rahr, RFE/RL, Inc.)
KHASBULATOV REINSTATES PARLIAMENTARY OVERSIGHT OF THE MBRF. On 22
September, the opening day of the Russian parliament's new
session, the parliamentary speaker, Ruslan Khasbulatov,
reestablished a parliamentary commission to monitor the activities
of the Ministry of Security of the Russian Federation (the MBRF or
MB, formerly the KGB). Khasbulatov himself closed the commission
down a few months ago. However, the speaker has changed his mind
due to a personal clash with Russian Security Minister Viktor
Barannikov, who had written an message to his employees in the
margins of a manuscript of Khasbulatov's book, Reforming the
Reforms: The Speaker's Thoughts. Barannikov asked his assistant
how Khasbulatov had spent the royalties for the book, citing
information that Khasbulatov had donated the money to the Russian
Assembly and other ultranationalist opposition organizations,
Russian TV reported on 23 September. (Julia Wishnevsky, RFE/RL,
Inc.)
MAJORITY OF RUSSIAN CITIZENS NOSTALGIC ABOUT THE OLD DAYS. 80
percent of the citizens in the Russian Federation questioned in an
opinion poll conducted by the well-known sociologist, Professor
Grushin, say that life before perestroika was better than it is
now. The results of the poll were published in Moskovskaya pravda
on 24 September. According to the poll, 67 percent of the
respondents still favour socialism. 50 percent of the
respondents--the majority of whom are members of the older
generation--have favorable thoughts about Stalin. 72 percent of
those supporting Stalin are Muslims. (Alexander Rahr, RFE/RL,
Inc.)
SUPREME SOVIET PASSES REVISED LAW ON DEFENSE. The Russian Supreme
Soviet on 24 September passed a version of the Law on Defense that
incorporated some revisions requested by President Boris Yeltsin.
According to ITAR-TASS, the new law allows the President to
appoint the Defense Minister, Chief of the General Staff, and
their deputies without the formal approval of the Supreme Soviet.
However, the president will not gain the exclusive right to make
appointments until a new constitution is adopted, leaving some
uncertainty in the appointment process. The law also specifies
that the Supreme Soviet will approve the structure and composition
of the armed forces as recommended by the President, rather than
the Prime Minister. (John Lepingwell, RFE/RL, Inc.)
US OBJECTS TO RUSSIAN SUBMARINE SALE TO IRAN. On 24 September
acting Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger expressed US
concern over Russia's planned sale of three diesel-powered
submarines to Iran, according to Western news agencies. Russian
Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev defended the sale as enhancing
communications with Iran as well as benefitting the Russian
economy. Baltfax and the BBC on 24 September reported that the
first of the Kilo-class submarines had set sail from a Russian
naval base in Latvia where it was undergoing an overhaul and crew
training. The Latvian government has protested the deal and the
presence of Iranian crews several times during the past year.
(John Lepingwell, RFE/RL, Inc.)
LANGUAGE QUESTION IN THE DONBASS. A group of political parties in
the Donbass has issued an appeal to the oblast council
recommending that a local referendum be held on the language
question, Radio Ukraine reported on 23 September. The appeal
states that the people themselves should decide which language
they speak, read, and think in and in which language their
children should be taught. The referendum would decide whether
Russian should become the second state language in the region.
(Roman Solchanyk, RFE/RL, Inc.)
BELARUS TO SPEED NUCLEAR WEAPONS REMOVAL? Interfax on 24 September
reported that President Stanislav Shushkevich has requested the
acceleration of research on the removal of nuclear weapons from
Belarus. Although Belarus is committed to eliminating all nuclear
weapons on its soil within seven years, the instructions
reportedly call for investigating scenarios in which the weapons
could be removed in two to five years. (John Lepingwell, RFE/RL,
Inc.)
BELORUSSIAN FILM DIRECTOR SHOT IN TAJIKISTAN. The noted
Belorussian filmmaker, Arkadii Ruderman, has become a victim of
the civil war in Tajikistan, "Novosti" reported on 23 September.
Ruderman gained fame in 1988 for his documentary exposure of the
attempt by Belorussian communist authorities to play down the
centennial celebration of the Jewish painter Marc Chagall, who was
born in Vitebsk but whose achievements the regime refused to
recognize. For his daring documentaries exposing the ills of the
communist regime, Ruderman won the highest awards at prestigious
Soviet film festivals in 1988 and 1989. In November 1988,
Ruderman was the first Russian TV journalist to interview the then
dissident Czechoslovak politician Aleksandr Dubcek. Ruderman and
his crew visited Tajikistan to make a film investigating the
"artist's role in politics" for the Ostankino TV company,
"Novosti" said. (Julia Wishnevsky, RFE/RL, Inc.)
NAZARBAEV IN FRANCE. On 24 September, the first full day of his
state visit to France, Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbaev
met with state officials and businessmen, and thanked France for
taking in thousands of Kazakhs and Russians who had fled Russia
and Kazakhstan after the 1917 October Revolution, ITAR-TASS
reported. Nazarbaev and French Prime Minister Pierre Beregovoy
signed an agreement on the protection of investments similar to
that signed by Nazarbaev in Germany earlier in the week. Seeking
to persuade businesses to invest in Kazakhstan, Nazarbaev pointed
out his country's rich natural resources--France's ELF-Aquitaine
already has made a deal to develop oil fields in Kazakhstan--and
also its stable political situation and commitment to developing a
market economy. (Bess Brown, RFE/RL, Inc.)
CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE
CAMPAIGNING ENDS IN ROMANIA. The presidential and parliamentary
election campaign ended on 24 September with a televised debate
among the six presidential candidates. During the three-hour live
program, Ion Iliescu defended his political career under former
dictator Nicolae Ceausescu. He stressed that he had broken with
Ceausescu in 1971 because of the latter's attempt to introduce a
Chinese-style cultural revolution in Romania. Recent polls seem
to indicate that Iliescu is regaining ground as the date for
presidential and general elections, 27 September, approaches.
Iliescu's main challenger is Emil Constantinescu of the Democratic
Convention. The other candidates for president are Gheorghe Funar
of the nationalist Party of Romanian National Unity; Caius Traian
Dragomir of the center-left National Salvation Front; Mircea Druc,
former premier of Moldova, running as an independent; and Ion
Manzatu, candidate of the fringe Republican Party. In a separate
development, the US House of Representatives decided on 24
September to postpone a vote on whether to restore Romania's
most-favored-nation status until after the elections. (Dan
Ionescu, RFE/RL, Inc.)
BULGARIAN PARLIAMENTARY PRESIDENT RESIGNS. Stefan Savov,
president of the National Assembly resigned at 17:00 on 24
September, Radio Sofia reports. A replacement must be elected
within 14 days. The action headed off a no-confidence vote called
for the same day and, at least for the moment lessens tension
between the governing Union of Democratic Forces and its informal
coalition partner, the Movement for Rights and Freedoms. The
leader of the latter party, Ahmed Dogan, has pledged not to press
forward with a call for a no-confidence vote on the government in
order to give the UDF time in which to reorganize its cabinet. The
MRF continues to insist on a change in certain cabinet positions,
apparently including the ministries of finance, defense, trade,
and interior. UDF leaders so far appear unwilling to give in.
(Duncan Perry, RFE/RL, Inc.)
GERMANY, ROMANIA AGREE TO EXPEL ILLEGAL MIGRANTS. Western
agencies reported on 24 September that in Bucharest German
Interior Minister Rudolf Seiters and his Romanian counterpart
Victor Babiuc signed an agreement on returning illegal migrants.
The accord, which allows Germany to repatriate rejected
asylum-seekers to Romania even if they do not have identity
documents, was described by Seiters as "an important step forward"
in Germany's struggle to control the flood of illegal immigrants
from Eastern Europe. More than 57,000 Romanian citizens, of whom
some 60% are Gypsies, applied for asylum in Germany from January
to August this year. Germany hopes to sign similar agreements with
other East European countries. In Czechoslovakia, for instance,
CSTK reported on 23 September that more than 21,000 refugees--most
from Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union--have been caught
this year on the German border. Czechoslovakia is a major transit
point for economic refugees heading to Western Europe. (Dan
Ionescu & Jiri Pehe, RFE/RL, Inc.)
SERB STEP UP BOMBING RAIDS ON JAJCE. Reuters on 24 September
reported that Serb warplanes again attacked Jajce in central
Bosnia, which they first bombed on 12 August. This picturesque
town set in the mountains constitutes an important gap, together
with Gradacac and Brcko, in attempts to link up Serbia with
Serbian-held territories in Bosnia and Croatia. Muslim and
Croatian forces are defending all three towns against recently
intensified Serbian pressure. Jajce dates back to at least the
14th century, and was a symbol of Tito's Yugoslavia because he
effectively launched his federalist program there at a conference
in 1943. Elsewhere, the Serbs subjected Sarajevo to heavy
shelling at a time when the UN peacekeepers are considering
leaving the city for safer ground, Western Agencies report.
(Patrick Moore, RFE/RL, Inc.)
PANIC DISCUSSES SITUATION. Milan Panic, Prime Minister of the rump
Yugoslavia, told a group of Yugoslav journalists in Washington on
24 September that his recent activities at the UN "achieved more
than we expected." He described his meeting with the foreign
ministers of the five permanent UN Security Council members as "a
fantastic turnabout," because the ministers openly expressed
support for his peace plan. On the home front, Panic said "I will
never surrender Kosovo," and went on to criticize his detractors
by saying "those who have been accusing me of wanting to give up
Kosovo have, in fact, given everything away, and caused human
losses without saving or changing anything." According to Radio
Serbia, Panic said he finds the world's reactions to Serbian
President Slobodan Milosevic "inexplicable and intolerable" and
that "never before has the world talked about or judged a man in
this way." Nonetheless, the New York Times of 25 September says
Panic is losing patience in Milosevic: "I think I am through with
him. . . . We are on a collision course." Western agencies
report that Panic has sharply criticized past Serbian leaders for
what he calls years of tragic mistakes and decisions. (Milan
Andrejevich, RFE/RL, Inc.)
PATRIARCH AND CARDINAL CALL FOR PEACE TALKS. Western news
agencies on 24 September said that Serbian Orthodox Patriarch
Pavle and Croatia's Cardinal Franjo Kuharic issued a joint
statement in Geneva calling for immediate negotiations between
Croats and Serbs. They condemned all ethnic cleansing and called
for refugees to return home, as well as for the release of all
prisoners and the closing of all camps. Muslim leader Jakub
Selimoski, who had previously called for a meeting of all three
religious leaders, did not attend; Pavle and Kuharic expressed
regret at his absence. (Patrick Moore, RFE/RL, Inc.)
CANDIDATES FOR LITHUANIAN SEIMAS. On 25 September Lietuvos aidas
published the list of 448 candidates in the 71 single-mandate
districts for parliamentary elections on 25 October. The number of
candidates varies from 3 to 11. In 5 districts three current
parliament members, and in 25 districts, two members will be
competing against each other. The most notable race is in
Kaisiadorys District, where former prime minister Gediminas
Vagnorius of Sajudis will run against Lithuanian Democratic Labor
Party chairman Algirdas Brazauskas. Both will undoubtedly be
elected since they are the third and first candidates,
respectively, on their parties' lists. In the 70 multiple-mandate
districts, 743 candidates from 26 political parties and movements
are registered. There will clearly be new deputies since in 11
single-mandate districts no incumbent deputies are competing.
(Saulius Girnius, RFE/RL, Inc.)
CZECHOSLOVAK PARLIAMENT FAILS TO ELECT PRESIDENT. In its fifth
attempt since the beginning of July, the Czechoslovak Federal
Assembly failed to elect a new federal president on 24 September,
CSTK reports. Jiri Kotas, chairman of the tiny Free
Bloc-Conservative party, won only 40 votes in the 300-member
assembly. Since Czechoslovakia is to split into two states on 1
January 1993, the vote was treated as an empty formality by many
deputies after Kotas had been officially nominated by one of the
deputies. (Jiri Pehe, RFE/RL, Inc.)
CZECHOSLOVAK PREMIER WRITES ANTALL ABOUT GABCIKOVO DAM. In a
letter to Hungarian Prime Minister Jozsef Antall on 23 September,
Czechoslovak Prime Minister Jan Strasky argues that the
Czechoslovak-Hungarian dispute over the Gabcikovo-Nagymaros
hydroelectric dam project should be solved with the help of a
European Community commission of experts. Strasky says that
submitting the matter to the International Court of Justice in the
Hague, as proposed by Antall in his letter to Strasky on 18
August, would be "a step backwards." Published by CSTK, the letter
further says that the so-called variant C of the dam project,
pursued by Czechoslovakia after Hungary unilaterally withdrew from
the project, will not, as claimed by Hungary, lead to the
diversion of the Danube on the current Czechoslovak-Hungarian
border, but only to the diversion of some of the river's water.
(Jiri Pehe, RFE/RL, Inc.)
DEMONSTRATIONS AGAINST EXTREME RIGHT IN HUNGARY. MTI and wire
services reported that an estimated 50,000 people demonstrated in
central Budapest on the evening of 24 September against the recent
resurgence of the extreme right-wing nationalism. The rally was
staged by the Democratic Charter, a civil rights group organized
mainly by opposition party members in September 1991, and endorsed
at the last moment by the Association of the Free Democrats, the
leading opposition party. The demonstrators were addressed by the
writer Gyorgy Konrad, one of the leaders of the Association of
Free Democrats, who called on the crowd to defend democracy.
Other speakers said that Hungary cannot be diverted from the path
of peaceful change and called on Prime Minister Antall to make a
clean break with his party's extreme nationalist wing. A similar
rally took place in Miskolc. (Karoly Okolicsanyi, RFE/RL, Inc.)
EAST-CENTRAL EUROPEAN DEFENSE MINISTERS CONFER. The Czechoslovak,
Hungarian, and Polish ministers of defense meet today in Slovakia
to discuss prospects for cooperation in view of the impending
split of Czechoslovakia into two separate states and the
consequent division of its armed forces into Czech and the Slovak
units. (Jan de Weydenthal, RFE/RL, Inc.)
POLAND WANTS TO INCREASE ARMS SALES. Jan Straus, an official in
the Polish Trade Ministry who issues arms export licenses, said at
a 24 September Warsaw news conference that Poland hopes to
increase its exports of arms to developing countries. In a UPI
account of his comments, Straus said that he knows of no case in
which a Polish firm violated the UN arms embargo on sales to
regions where there are conflicts. He said that a total of 51
firms have been licensed to sell arms. Straus revealed that in
years past Poland was ordered by Moscow to export arms to various
countries without receiving payment. He said that Poland plans to
develop its exports to "so-called Third World countries." (Doug
Clarke, RFE/RL, Inc.)
US SENATE PANEL VOTES RESTRICTION ON RUSSIA AID. On 23 September
the US Senate Appropriations Committee approved an amendment by
its chairman, Sen. Robert Byrd, to restrict nonhumanitarian aid to
Russia until all Russian troops are withdrawn from the Baltic
States or a negotiated timetable for their withdrawal is approved,
Reuters reports. Humanitarian aid was defined as food, clothing,
and medicine in order to restrict most of the aid to Russia. Sen.
Patrick Leahy said that he has been told the Administration
strongly opposes the amendment. (Saulius Girnius, RFE/RL, Inc.)
TALKS ON TROOP WITHDRAWAL FROM LATVIA STALEMATED. The latest
round of talks on the withdrawal of Russian troops from Latvia,
held in Jurmala on 22 and 23 September, ended in a stalemate,
Radio Riga reports. The Russian side says Latvia was not
sufficiently forthcoming over its offer to withdraw its troops by
the end of 1994--earlier Moscow had proposed 1999--while
maintaining some strategic installations in Latvia. Russia also
wants Latvia to assume greater responsibility for the welfare of
the active and retired Russian military in Latvia. The Latvian
side simply wants all troops out by fall of 1993. Sergei Zotov,
leader of the Russian delegation, expressed dismay over Latvia's
desire to internationalize the troop withdrawal process and to
bring up the issue at the UN, while Latvia felt offended that the
Russian delegation continues to act as if Latvia joined the USSR
voluntarily. (Dzintra Bungs, RFE/RL, Inc.)
RIGHTS OF ESTONIA'S RUSSIANS ON AGENDA. Vasilii Svirin, Russia's
chief negotiator for talks with Estonia, told reporters that the
next round of talks between the two states would focus on the
rights of ethnic Russians in Estonia. Svirin called that
particular sphere of problems "one of the most difficult" in the
talks. The next round of talks is set for October. BNS reported
Svirin's remarks. (Riina Kionka, RFE/RL, Inc.)
UKRAINE ENDORSES BALTIC STANCE. Ukrainian Foreign Minister
Anatolii Zlenko has confirmed his country's support for Baltic
efforts to achieve a speedy withdrawal of Russian troops from
their territories. Zlenko also told Janis Lovniks, the newly
appointed Latvian chargi d'affaires in Ukraine, that his country
considers the presence of former USSR troops in the Baltic States
to be a violation of international norms, BNS reported on 23
September. (Dzintra Bungs, RFE/RL, Inc.)
EC TO HELP FIGHT BALTIC SEA POLLUTION . On 24 September in
Helsinki the European Community signed a new convention to fight
pollution in the Baltic Sea, Western agencies report. In order to
give the document more weight the Baltic littoral countries
- --Finland, Russia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Germany,
and Denmark--asked the EC to endorse the new convention drawn up
in April to replace a 1974 treaty. The new convention will go into
effect as soon as all the signatory states ratify it. Meanwhile,
these states are already monitoring and trying to curb pollution,
especially with regard to the dumping and incineration of waste
materials. (Dzintra Bungs, RFE/RL, Inc.)
LATVIA NEEDS MONEY TO MAINTAIN PRISONS. Latvia's minister of
internal affairs, Ziedonis Cevers, appealed to businessmen for
funds to be used to maintain various law enforcement facilities,
including prisons. He said that his ministry has not received an
expected 500 million rubles from the state budget, and if the
deficit cannot be covered, certain detention facilities will have
to be closed and some law enforcement activities will have to
stop, Radio Riga reported on 22 September. The reason the ministry
has not yet received its allocation is that payments into the
state budget are coming in more slowly than anticipated. (Dzintra
Bungs, RFE/RL, Inc.)
JEWISH GENOCIDE DAY COMMEMORATED IN LITHUANIA. On 24 September
Lithuania joined Israel in commemorating "Jewish Genocide Day,"
the RFE/RL Lithuanian Service reports. In official ceremonies,
presided over by Supreme Council Chairman Vytautas Landsbergis, 20
crosses--12 posthumously--were presented to people who at great
risk had rescued Jews from certain death during World War II. It
is planned to award more medals in the future. (Saulius Girnius,
RFE/RL, Inc.)
novine.24.bale.,
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Peace envoys cite ``shattering'' image of 'ethnic cleansing'
Subject: Afghan president visits Pakistan
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Peace envoys cite ``shattering'' image of 'ethnic cleansing'
Date: 26 Sep 92 18:59:16 GMT
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Hercegovina (UPI) -- Peace envoys Cyrus Vance and
Lord David Owen said Saturday that witnesses had painted a ``shattering
picture'' of so-called ethnic cleansing by Serbian forces in the ex-
Yugoslav republic of Bosnia-Hercegovina.
Meanwhile, sporadic shelling around the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo
Saturday morning followed a night of fierce clashes across the republic
which left 54 people dead and 285 wounded, Health Ministry officials
said.
In Sarajevo alone, at least 21 people were killed and 104 wounded in
a 24-hour period ending at 1 p.m. Saturday, the ministry said.
Owen and Vance, co-chairmen of an ongoing Yugoslav peace conference,
visited the Serbian-held town of Banja Luka Friday in response to U.N.
reports of rising ethnic tensions in the city. The men later left the
region via Croatia, another former Yugoslav republic.
``We were very troubled by what we saw in Banja Luka,'' Owen told
reporters at the airport in the Croatian capital Zagreb before leaving
for Geneva, Switzerland. ``We heard concrete evidence of ethnic
cleansing.''
During their visit, Owen and Vance met with Catholic, Muslim and
Serbian religious leaders who confirmed people were leaving en masse
last week from the towns of Bosanski Petrovac and Kljuc, about 25 miles
west of Banja Luka in northwestern Bosnia-Hercegovina.
Owen added the reports were later independently confirmed by other
witnesses.
He said several witnesses confirmed accounts of an incident in
Travnik in central Bosnia where 3,000-4,000 people attempted to cross
through the front lines to safety.
``We are only just seeing the full story and it's a shattering one,''
Owen said.
Owen and Vance went to Banja Luka after U.N. officials reported
``nasty harassment'' of non-Serbs by Serbian irregulars had escalated
there.
According to U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees spokesman Michael
Keats, non-Serbs in Banja Luka were losing their jobs and being arrested
for no reason. Owen and Vance said they saw evidence of harassment by
Muslims and Croats as well, but on a much smaller scale.
U.N. officials estimate thousands of refugees have been forced to
leave their homes by Serb militia since the war in Bosnia-Hercegovina
began in April, when Serbian forces launched an attack to pre-empt
international recognition of the former Yugoslav republic.
In an effort to carve a Serbian state from the republic and join it
to a truncated Yugoslavia made up of Serbia and Montenegro, Serbian
guerrillas have captured about 70 percent of the republic's territory.
Bosnian forces opposing the Serbs are mostly comprised of Muslim
Slavs with a smaller number of Croats and moderate Serbs.
In Banja Luka before the war, approximately 68,000 Muslims and Croats
coexisted with the Serb majority in the city of 195,000. Recent
estimates now put the number of Muslims and Croats at between 30,000 and
40,000.
Owen said while the situation in Banja Luka was ``tense,'' he was
optimistic the situation would not get out of control.
In Sarajevo, heavy overnight fighting eased by Saturday morning, with
Sarajevo police reporting relative calm in the predominantly Muslim Slav
city under a Serbian siege for six months.
``There was intermittent shelling coming from Serbian positions and
Serbian snipers continued their activities,'' a Sarajevo police
spokesman said.
Government-run Sarajevo radio accused Serbian forces of using jet
fighters to support infantry assaults on the Muslim Slav-held towns of
Jajce, Maglaj. Gradacac, Doboj and Tuzla.
The radio said Serbian forces stepped up the number of combat flights
from Banja Luka, which is major military base of the Serb-led Yugoslav
army.
It said Serbian jet fighters rocketed and and bombarded with cluster
bombs the central Bosnian town of Jajce, 80 miles northwest of Sarajevo.
The town of Maglaj, about 50 miles southwest of Banja Luka, came under
fire from jetfighters at about 7 a.m. as well as from tank, howitzer and
mortar rounds.
Sarajevo radio reported heavy clashes in the northern town of
Gradacac but gave no details of the fighting.
The combat flights flew from their base in Banja Luka just one day
after Vance and Owen were in the city.
Meanwhile, Sarajevo, Jajce, Gradacac, and Maglaj were running short
of medical supplies, food as well as electricity and fresh drinking
water, the radio said.
An international humanitarian airlift to Sarajevo has been suspended
since Sept. 3, when an Italian cargo plane was shot down over Bosnia-
Hercegovina.
Both Owen and Vance said they would urge nations participating in the
now scaled down humanitarian airlift to Sarajevo to resume flights as
soon as possible.
The U.N. Protection Force has been flying in two test flights a day,
down from the dozens of aid flights to the besieged city earlier this
month.
``With winter coming on, it is simply vital we get people flying the
airlift again,'' Vance said.
Vance and Owen said they had confirmation of a bomb attack on the
road from Split to Dubrovnik in southern Croatia which they said was
designed to delay humanitarian aid convoys destined for Bosnia-
Hercegovina.
Owen said the attack ``could have little other purpose than to delay
the humanitarian aid process.
``We are facing a very large deterioration in the humanitarian
situation and we will both take it up to the highest level in the hope
that we can sort this matter and get something done about it,'' he said.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Afghan president visits Pakistan
Date: 26 Sep 92 00:21:22 GMT
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (UPI) -- Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani
arrived Friday in Pakistan amid speculation that he may meet Bosnian
President Alija Izetbegovic, who is expected to arrive Saturday.
The visit follows media reports from Bosnia that Afghan Mujahideen
fighters were helping Bosnian Muslims in their fight against the Serbs.
Officials in Islamabad said Rabbani, who landed at the northern city
of Peshawar, will begin his official appointments Saturday when he comes
to Islamabad.
It is Rabbani's first presidential visit to Pakistan, which helped
the Afghan resistance in toppling the Soviet-installed regime in Kabul.
Rabbani and other Mujahideen leaders fought their 14-year war against
the communists from Peshawar before returning to Kabul in April this
year after the collapse of the communist government.
Diplomatic sources said Rabbani may meet Izetbegovic, who arrives
Saturday evening but has no meetings scheduled with Pakistani leaders
until Sunday. Both the leaders were to be in Islamabad until Sunday
evening.
Rabbani will go to Iran from Pakistan. Iran has proposed forming an
Islamic force to help the Bosnian Muslims when the Bosnian foreign
minister visited Iran, Pakistan and Turkey, two months ago.
Izetbegovic told Pakistani television in New York Friday he was
``grateful to Pakistan and other Muslim countries for the solidarity you
showed with us.''
Pakistan was one of the first countries to expel Belgrade's
ambassador after Serb rebels attacked Bosnia.
novine.25.bale.,
LOS ANGELES (UPI) -- Serbian nationalists systematically massacred
about 3,000 Muslims in two Bosnian detention camps, secretly cremating
and disposing of the bodies in a rendering plant, the Los Angeles Times
reported Sunday.
The newspaper said the State Department now deems credible eyewitness
reports of the mass killings last May, according to senior U.S.
officials.
``This could have been happening in other places too,'' one State
Department official said, although he doubted that such killings were
taking place today ``given the exposure that has taken place since
August.''
The State Department reports, obtained by American diplomats,
generally confirm and amplify eyewitness accounts of the killings
published last August in New York Newsday.
Officials said the State Departement last week obtained graphic,
first-person accounts of the killings at two Serbian detentian camps
operated at a brick factory and a pig farm near the Bosnian town of
Brcko, about 75 miles north of Sarajevo.
The Brcko killings were carried out under the direction of an
ultranationalist Serb leader known as Vojislav Seselj and one who goes
by the single name Arkan.
Based on the reports, a senior State Department official told the
Times, acting Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger urged the United
Nations last week to establish a commission to investigate the war
crimes in Bosnia.
A State Department official said American diplomats interviewed a
number of former prisoners of the camps at Brcko.
``Many people were killed, in groups of up to 50 at a time,'' the
State Department official said. ``A total of about 3,000 people -- men,
women and children -- were killed in the camps at Brcko.''
The official said at least some of the prisoners were beaten and
tortured before they were killed.
One of the former prisoners at the camp told U.S. diplomats that ``he
several times had to transfer dead people to an animal rendering plant,
where they secretly cremated bodies at night to evade detection,'' the
senior State Department official said.
The two worst detention camps were reported to be a brick factory and
a pig farm in the Brcko area.
After the reports last August, Serbian officials in Bosnia denied any
wrongdoing and escorted Western reporters on a tour of Brcko, insisting
there were no detention camps in or near the city.
But some Serbian officials later acknowledged that thousands of
prisoners were shuttled from one place in Bosnia to another in an effort
to prevent Western human rights officials and journalists from finding
the camps.
novine.26.bale.,
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: State Dept. confirms 3,000 Muslims massacred in Serbian camps
Subject: U.N. says Serbs forced exile of 2,500 from northern Bosnia
Subject: Pilgrims brave Bosnia war hoping for vision of Virgin Mary
Subject: Peace mediators talk with Serbian leaders
Subject: Mourners attacked in Sarajevo, five killed
Subject: U.S. has eyewitness reports of mass executions in Bosnia
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: State Dept. confirms 3,000 Muslims massacred in Serbian camps
Date: 27 Sep 92 16:06:16 GMT
LOS ANGELES (UPI) -- Serbian nationalists systematically massacred
about 3,000 Muslims in two Bosnian detention camps, secretly cremating
and disposing of the bodies in a rendering plant, the Los Angeles Times
reported Sunday.
The newspaper said the State Department now deems credible eyewitness
reports of the mass killings last May, according to senior U.S.
officials.
``This could have been happening in other places too,'' one State
Department official said, although he doubted that such killings were
taking place today ``given the exposure that has taken place since
August.''
The State Department reports, obtained by American diplomats,
generally confirm and amplify eyewitness accounts of the killings
published last August in New York Newsday.
Officials said the State Departement last week obtained graphic,
first-person accounts of the killings at two Serbian detentian camps
operated at a brick factory and a pig farm near the Bosnian town of
Brcko, about 75 miles north of Sarajevo.
The Brcko killings were carried out under the direction of an
ultranationalist Serb leader known as Vojislav Seselj and one who goes
by the single name Arkan.
Based on the reports, a senior State Department official told the
Times, acting Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger urged the United
Nations last week to establish a commission to investigate the war
crimes in Bosnia.
A State Department official said American diplomats interviewed a
number of former prisoners of the camps at Brcko.
``Many people were killed, in groups of up to 50 at a time,'' the
State Department official said. ``A total of about 3,000 people -- men,
women and children -- were killed in the camps at Brcko.''
The official said at least some of the prisoners were beaten and
tortured before they were killed.
One of the former prisoners at the camp told U.S. diplomats that ``he
several times had to transfer dead people to an animal rendering plant,
where they secretly cremated bodies at night to evade detection,'' the
senior State Department official said.
The two worst detention camps were reported to be a brick factory and
a pig farm in the Brcko area.
After the reports last August, Serbian officials in Bosnia denied any
wrongdoing and escorted Western reporters on a tour of Brcko, insisting
there were no detention camps in or near the city.
But some Serbian officials later acknowledged that thousands of
prisoners were shuttled from one place in Bosnia to another in an effort
to prevent Western human rights officials and journalists from finding
the camps.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: U.N. says Serbs forced exile of 2,500 from northern Bosnia
Date: 27 Sep 92 23:37:15 GMT
ZAGREB, Croatia (UPI) -- United Nations officials presented more
accounts Sunday of the forced exile of about 2,500 Bosnians, mostly
Muslims, from northern Bosnia-Hercegovina last week.
Agents of the U.N. High Commission for Refugees who traveled to
central Bosnia-Hercegovina to speak with the victims told U.N. officials
in Zagreb that the refugees, in addition to being terrorized, were
forced to pay for their ``ride into exile,'' said Michael Keats, a UNHCR
spokesman.
The Bosnians, mostly from Bosanski Petrovac in northwest Bosnia-
Hercegovina, were loaded on to 30 buses and trucks and taken to Travnik
in central Bosnia-Hercegovina, about 65 miles southeast of Bosanski
Petrovac.
The Bosnians were forced to pay a local Serb-run ``relocation agency''
for the transport, Keats said.
In Travnik, the people were ``dumped on the front lines between
Muslim and Serb forces,'' then forced to cross 6 miles of ``no-man's
land'' to safety, Keats said.
As they ran across, Serbian snipers shot at them, killing four people
and wounding others, Keats said.
One man arrived in Travnik with his ``nose bashed in and clothes
soaked in blood'' after having been beaten by Serbs, the UNHCR staff
agent told Keats.
Many of the people who fled had ``horror stories'' of beatings and
mass killings that were ``absolutely convincing,'' the staffer told
Keats.
The alleged attacks and forced exodus were in retaliation for the
massacre of 16 Serbs last week by Muslim commandos, the mayor of
Bosanski Petrovac, a Serb, told the UNHCR.
But Serbian authorities denied conducting any reprisal killings,
Keats said
The approximately 2,500 people who fled to Travik are now scattered
around the city. Some are staying outside, some in other people's homes
and others in barns or whatever shelter they can find, Keats said.
There are virtually no more Muslims left in Bosanski Petrovac. They
have all either left in this last mass exodus or fled previously, Keats
said.
``It's either get out or get killed,'' Keats said of the situation in
Bosanski Petrovac.
In addition the UNHCR said it had reports of mass killings in areas
around Bosanski Petrovac.
One man, a Muslim from Orasac, about 19 miles northwest of Bosanski
Petrovac near a U.N. Protected Area in Croatia, told U.N. officials he
hid in a cupboard while Serb-irregulars rampaged through his house.
When he finally came out, he found his grandparents dead on the
floor, six people dead in a house next door and two other handicapped
people with their throats slit in another nearby house.
The man is now under the protection of the French battalion in the U.
N protection force, Keats said.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Pilgrims brave Bosnia war hoping for vision of Virgin Mary
Date: 28 Sep 92 02:08:13 GMT
MEDJUGORJE, Bosnia-Hercegovina (UPI) -- Within earshot of the gunfire
and artillery bombardments of the Yugoslav war, international pilgrims
continue to seek miracles and enlightenment in this village made famous
by the reported sightings of the Virgin Mary.
While the war has deterred about 90 percent of the tourist flow that
once brought up to 5,000 visitors a day, enough still come to pack the
300-capacity community Catholic church wall-to-wall. At a recent mass,
about 200 people spilled outside and heard the service on loudspeakers.
``It's the safest place in the world,'' said Sister Frances Schug, a
nun from Wisconsin in the United States. ``Bombs fell here and they did
not explode.''
According to a well-spread rumor, Croatian police who control the
area have found unexploded artillery shells in the village. The
perpetuators of the tale credit the Virgin Mary with protecting the
town.
``I am convinced there is something special here,'' said Blago
Krlsic, 39, a Croatian Army soldier with a rosary around his neck.
``Look at all the people here. If it weren't special, they wouldn't come
from all over.''
Krlsic is one of many soldiers who come to Medjugorje for confession
and prayer. Visiting the town, he said, makes him ``feel less afraid
when the Serbs are attacking.''
A mass is said in English each day to accommodate the international
crowd that has flocked to this sacred town for the past 11 years.
The pilgrims are drawn to Medjugorje by the story of six children who
saw a vision of the Virgin Mary on a small hill near the village. The
children resisted attempts by villagers and authorities to force them to
recant their story.
Despite official attempts to crush the belief something of great
religious significance was occurring, the children said they continued
to see the apparition and receive messages from it.
As the story spread around the world, pilgrims swarmed to the town in
increasing numbers. The government relaxed its opposition after seeing
the profit generated by the ballooning tourist traffic.
The children have grown. Two of them, Mirjana Dragicevic and Ivanka
Ivankovic, stopped seeing the visions years ago, after claiming to have
received 10 ``secrets'' promised them by the Virgin. They have since
married and have their own children.
The other four claim to have received nine of the secrets and are
still seeing the visions and talking with the Virgin.
Ivan Dragecivic, at 27 is the oldest of the visionaries. He lives on
a nearby farm and returns to Medjugorje daily to speak with Mary in the
upper loft of the community church.
Each day, visiting pilgrims line up outside waiting for Dragecivic to
go to the loft in hopes of being allowed to watch him during his moment
of ecstacy. The loft is too small to accommodate everyone.
On a recent visit, an American woman from Wisconsin pleaded with the
pilgrims to let her send her son through. The 9-year-old boy wore a
baseball cap to cover his bald head.
``Please,'' she begged, ``let him in. He has brain cancer.''
He was allowed through, although somewhat reluctantly, by the others
waiting in line and joined about 50 people in the loft.
Onlookers held their rosaries and watched silently as Dragecivic
kneeled before a giant oil painting of Mary and gazed up with open eyes,
moving his lips as if in a silent conversation with her.
``The most important thing the Virgin Mary said tonight when she
appeared in my prayer...was that she blessed all the people present,''
he said after his five-minute vision was over.
``Mary asked for peace tonight as she does all the time. Tonight
there were no special messages for the world,'' he said. ``The holy Mary
said she was happy and then she talked to me and I talked to her and a
lot of what we said was private.''
The small village, where early pilgrims once were invited into
private homes, has taken on the look of a package tour destination over
the years. Big hotels and restaturants stand where once there were small
farms and markets.
Across the street from the church, the main strip is lined with cafes
and shops that sell Jesus dolls and rosaries in all colors from pearly
white to neon green.
``We can see in the Western world that people don't know how to live
with money,'' said Slavko Barbaric, a priest who arrived in Medjugorje a
few months after the first apparitions were reported. ``We can just hope
and pray that it doesn't taint things here because it can become very
dangerous.''
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Peace mediators talk with Serbian leaders
Date: 28 Sep 92 14:15:11 GMT
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (UPI) -- International mediators Cyrus Vance and
Lord David Owen arrived Monday for talks with Serbian leaders on issues
that included the deployment of fresh U.N. peacekeepers in neighboring
Bosnia-Hercegovina and the resumption of a humanitarian relief airlift
to Sarajevo.
U.N. special enovy Vance and European Community mediator Owen flew
into the Serbian capital of Belgrade from Geneva on a one-day visit to
meet leaders of the rump Yugoslav union of Serbia and Montenegro.
Vance and Owen, the co-chairmen of the Geneva peace conference on the
disintegrated Yugoslav six-republic federation, drove from Belgrade's
Surcin Airport directly to the Palace of Federation for talks with
Dobrica Cosic, president of the truncated Yugoslavia.
They refused to answer reporters's questions as they entered a
conference room for talks with Cosic, a Serbian writer who became
president of the small Yugoslav federation which was forged on April 27.
Col. Gen. Zivota Panic, the chief of staff of the Yugoslav Army,
attended the talks in the Federation Palace.
French Gen. Philippe Morillon, deputy commander of the United Nations
Protection Force (UNPROFOR), and Cedric Thornberry, in charge of
UNPROFOR's civilian affairs, also attended the talks, a Yugoslav
official said.
Generals Panic and Morillon were to have separate talks, the official
said.
The two peace mediators, who last week visited the Croatian capital
of Zagreb and the Serb-held town of Banja Luka in northwestern Bosnia-
Hercegovina, were also scheduled to meet Serbian hard-line President
Slobodan Milosevic before they fly back to Geneva later in the day,
Serbian officials said.
As the peace talks began in Belgrade, reports from the Bosnia-
Hercegovina capital of Sarajevo said fighting flared across the war-
ridden republic.
Serbian guerrillas continued their land-grab campaign to rip off a
self-declared ``state'' from Bosnia-Hercegovina, the former central
Yugoslav republic which comprises 1.9 million Muslim Slavs, 1.4 million
Christian Orthodox Serbs and 750,000 Roman Catholic Croats.
At least five people were injured Monday in the predominantly Muslim
Slav city of Sarajevo as Serbian forces fought sporadic artillery and
infantry battles with Bosnia-Hercegovina forces, that are made up of
Muslim Slavs but also include Croats and moderate Serbs, Sarajevo Radio
said.
Sarajevo has been under a Serbian siege during the past six months
and with approaching cold winter months its 500,000 residents and
refugees lack food and medical supplies.
Officials of the UNPROFOR in Sarajevo said they planned to open road
and railway corridors from Croatia into Sarajevo through the Serb-held
stronghold of Ilidza.
They plan to establish the land corridor into Sarajevo via Ilidza as
soon as possible. A contigent of 6,000 troops are to be deplopyed in
Bosnia-Hercegovina to help the current 1,500 UNPROFOR peacekeepers to
ensure humanitarian aid deliveries.
The war in Bosnia-Hercegovina broke out late in March when Serbian
leaders launched their campaign to capture the ``Serbian republic''
which they declared on 70 percent of the republic.
Muslim Slavs and most Croats oppose the partition of Bosnia-
Hercegovina into ethnic districts.
Serbian guerrillas have been armed by the Serb-led Yugoslav army and
backed financially and politically by communist-ruled Serbia.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Mourners attacked in Sarajevo, five killed
Date: 28 Sep 92 15:53:17 GMT
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Hercegovina (UPI) -- Serbian gunners blasted a
funeral for an elderly woman Monday, killing five people and wounding 20
during a day of artillery and sniper attacks on the beseiged Bosnian
capital.
Serbian forces turned off pumps to the city's water supply Sunday in
Serb-controlled Bacevo on Sarajevo's western outskirts, again leaving
its 400,000 people virtually without water, said Salem Karovic, chief of
the city's water distribution system.
``During the night, they switched off the pumps without previous
announcement,'' Karovic said.
The action, if confirmed, would be a violation of an agreement the
Serbs made one week earlier at peace talks in Geneva not to use water
and electricity as weapons against civilians.
Most of the city's trapped population, already having spent the past
week without electricity, was forced to dip into reserves held in
bathtubs or venture into sniper-lined streets with cans and buckets in
search of the rare water trucks.
Sarajevo's electricity was cut a day after the Geneva agreement,
allegedly by Serbian shells that hit a main cable.
Continued fighting has blocked U.N.-supervised attempts to repair the
lines.
A total of 31 people were killed and 215 wounded in attacks
throughout Bosnia-Hercegovina during the 24-hour period that ended at 10
a.m. Monday, including nine killed and 65 wounded in Sarajevo, republic
officials said.
The count did not include those among the 40 to 50 mourners attacked
about noon Monday by at least two grenades or mortar shells that
witnesses said landed some 10 to 50 yards from them in a cemetery in
Boljakov Potok in the northwest part of the city.
Three mourners died at the cemetery, two others died after being sped
to hospitals in private cars and some 20 others were wounded, officials
said.
Another six civilians were wounded around 1 p.m. Monday when a shell
landed on a street in western Sarajevo.
The shells in Boljakov Potok fell just as the assembled mourners were
awaiting the burial of an elderly woman who had died of natural causes,
said Bezdrob Muharem, who suffered shrapnel wounds to his back and leg.
Muharem, 27, sat afterward on a bench at the city's state hospital
alongside his friend, Ferid, in his 40s, whose wounded right calf and
foot dribbled blood steadily through a white tourniquet.
Ferid stared blankly as hospital workers slapped water on his face
and then, only while being lifted to stretcher, managed to mutter a plea
that doctors not amputate his leg.
The U.N. Protection Force deputy commander has arrived for talks with
the Serbian leadership on opening a corridor through Serbian forces
besieging the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo, U.N. officials said.
French Gen. Phillipe Morillon also was to discuss with Radovan
Karadzic, the Serbian Democratic party chief, the need to end several
days of fighting that virtually have closed the main road linking the
airport with the city, preventing humanitarian aid deliveries, the
officials said Sunday.
Morillon flew in from the Croatian capital of Zagreb as Serbian
artillery pumped intermittent shellfire into the city and Sarajevo radio
announced a republic-wide air raid alert amid reports of Serbian air
attacks around the northern town of Bosanski Brod.
The republic's Health Ministry said that during the 24-hour period
that ended at 1 p.m., at least 34 people were killed and 199 were
wounded across Bosnia-Hercegovina. Of the total, at least 14 people died
and 71 others were wounded in Sarajevo, the ministry said.
In Zagreb, Croatia, meanwhile, U.N. officials released further
confirmation of the forced exile of about 2,500 Bosnians, mostly
Muslims, from northern Bosnia-Hercegovina last week. Michael Keats,
spokesman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees,. says witnesses
told U.N. officials they were forced to pay as much as $66 for their
``ride into exile.''
In Sarajevo, renewed clashes along the airport road between the Serb-
held suburb of Ilidza and Bosnian lines at the western end of the city
prompted Morillon to cancel plans to visit the U.N. mission and drive by
armored car to his meeting with Karadzic in his stronghold of Pale, east
of Sarajevo.
Egyptian Brig. Gen. Hussein Abdul Razek, the UNPROFOR commander for
Sarajevo, told United Press International that the main focus of the
talks would be the establishment of a road and rail corridor from
Croatia's Adriatic port city of Split into Sarajevo through Serbian
lines in Ilidza.
``The intention is to establish a free corridor to allow the free
movement of people, vehicles and humanitarian aid and to reduce the
number of checkpoints,'' Razek said.
UNPROFOR hopes to create the corridor under a plan to expand within
several weeks the 1,500-member multi-national contingent by 6,000 troops
in order to ensure the delivery of humanitarian assistance to war-
stricken areas across Bosnia-Hercegovina.
The conflict erupted in Bosnia-Hercegovina, whose population is
comprised of Muslim Slavs, Serbs and Croats, in late March, when armed
Yugoslav army Serbs launched an offensive to capture a self-declared
state before international recognition of the former Yugoslav republic's
independence.
The partition of the republic is opposed by Bosnian forces comprised
overwhelmingly of Muslim Slavs, but also including moderate Serbs and
Croats.
Razek reiterated that UNPROFOR would not use force to ensure
humanitarian aid deliveries, and said it hoped to broker agreements
between the warring factions to establish supply corridors to other
cities along which U.N. troops would be deployed to monitor the accords.
``UNPROFOR intends to set up observation points to be connected by
patrolling paths,'' he said.
U.N. officials said Morillon would also discuss with Karadzic the
possible establishment at a hotel in Ilidza of an UNPROFOR headquarters
for Bosnia-Hercegovina as part of the coming force expansion. The
Sarajevo sector headquarters would remain at its current location on the
western end of the city, they said.
And, they said, Morillon was to raise the failure of both sides to
respect a cease-fire along the airport road as required under a June 5
agreement that turned Sarajevo airport over to U.N. control.
They said Razek planned to discuss the issue later in the day with a
Senior Bosnian defense officer, Stjepan Siber.
U.N. High Commission for Refugees or UNHCR officials said three days
of fighting in the area of the highway had prevented the transfer of aid
from the agency warehouse at the airport into Sarajevo, which requires
an average of 220 tons of food daily.
UNHCR warehouses have been empty for about a week because convoys
have been able to deliver only an average of 44 tons of food daily since
the Sept. 3 downing of an Italian transport plane prompted the
suspension of the U.N.-supervised airlift.
``If it (fighting near the road) continues to be like this, like it's
been the last few days, the average will go down,'' said one UNHCR
worker.
At least 75 tons of food have been sitting at the airport since
Friday, the worker said.
An estimated 500,000 residents and refugees in Sarajevo depend on U.
N. humanitarian relief because of the almost six-month Serbian blockade
of the capital, which Karadzic wants partitioned into ethnic districts.
Many others areas of the republic have also been cut off from food
and medical supplies by months of fighting.
U.N. officials and aid workers have expressed grave concerns that
time is running out to prepare the war-ravaged republic for the harsh
Balkan winter and that a humanitarian nightmare is in the making.
Karadzic has proclaimed an independent Serbian state on about 70
percent of Bosnia-Hercegovina, although Christian Orthodox Serbs
constitute about 31 percent of the population of 4.4 million.
His forces have been armed by the Serb-dominated Yugoslav army and
backed financially and politically by communist-ruled Serbia, to which
Karadzic eventually hopes to join his self-declared state.
The 1.9 million Muslim Slavs and most of the 750,000 Roman Catholic
Croats oppose the partition of Bosnia-Hercegovina. Some Croats, however,
favor the establishment of separate ethnic regions.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: U.S. has eyewitness reports of mass executions in Bosnia
Date: 28 Sep 92 18:19:37 GMT
WASHINGTON (UPI) -- Credible witnesses have told U.S. officials they
saw Serbian troops slaughter more than 3,000 men, women, and children at
detention camps in the Bosnian town of Brcko last spring, the State
Department said Monday.
Spokesman Richard Boucher said U.S. officials recently received
reports from two individuals who survived the Serbian brutality at Brcko
that 3,000 Bosnian Muslims were executed there during May and June.
Although the administration had been told previously of the mass
executions, he said the fresh reports are the first from witnesses.
``These are the first eyewitness reports we've received of these
killings in the Brcko area,'' Boucher said. ``The previous information
that we had was either second-hand or some of the information that we
had raised questions about its credibility.''
He said the information had been turned over to United Nations
authorities that are investigating Serbian atrocities in Bosnia-
Hercegovina, which has been under siege since March by troops from
Belgrade attempting to annex the nascent republic and ``cleanse'' it of
all Muslims and Croats.
novine.27.bale.,
RFE/RL Daily Report
No. 186, 28 September 1992
SUCCESSOR STATES TO THE USSR
TAJIK FIGHTERS TAKE RUSSIAN TROOPS PRISONER. An operation by law
enforcement agencies to disarm supporters of deposed President
Rakhmon Nabiev, who are from Kulyab Oblast but who have been
fighting in Kurgan-Tyube Oblast, was supposed to have started on
26 September, ITAR-TASS reported. The following day, however, the
same source reported that armed groups from Kulyab had seized four
tanks, an armored transporter, and an armored car from Russian
forces stationed in Kurgan-Tyube, and that they had captured five
members of the Russian unit. According to the commander of the
Russian division, the unit that lost the equipment was surrounded
by some 350 fighters from Kulyab who wanted to obtain more
equipment and weaponry the same way. (Bess Brown, RFE/RL, Inc.)
RUSSIAN PARLIAMENT CRITICAL OF GEORGIA ON ABKHAZIA. Following
discussion on 25 September of the situation in the North Caucasus
and Abkhazia, the Russian parliament issued a statement saying
that it "denounces the policy of the Georgian leadership...and
demands that the government immediately stop combat operations,
withdraw armed units from Abkhazian territory and strictly fulfill
international covenants on human rights." The statement also
called for the "introduction of necessary contingent of
peace-keeping forces" and offered the services of the Russian
Federation as a mediator in the conflict, ITAR-TASS reported on 25
September. (Suzanne Crow, RFE/RL, Inc.)
ANGRY SHEVARDNADZE TO MEET WITH YELTSIN ON ABKHAZIA. Eduard
Shevardnadze, chairman of Georgia's State Council, made an
unscheduled stop in Moscow on his way home from the United Nations
to discuss with Russian President Boris Yeltsin the Russian
parliament's statement on Abkhazia. Shevardnadze was quoted by
Russian TV on 27 September as saying: "I cannot recall any
precedent for such crude, high-handed, and unforgivable
interference in the internal affairs of our Republic."
Shevardnadze described the Russian parliament's actions as
"impudent and overtly aggressive" and said that the future of
Russo-Georgian relations, not just the question of Abkhazia, will
be the subject of his meeting with President Yeltsin; Shevardnadze
added: "My task is to save these relations," ITAR-TASS reported on
27 September. The meeting is scheduled to take place on 28
September. (Suzanne Crow, RFE/RL, Inc.)
STATE OF EMERGENCY DECLARED IN KABARDINO-BALKARIA. At least 20
people were injured in a confrontation between police and
thousands of demonstrators in the Kabardino-Balkar republic in the
North Caucasus on 27 September, Interfax reported. The
demonstrations followed the detention on 23 September of Musa
Shanibov, the chairman of the Confederation of the Mountain
Peoples of the North Caucasus, by investigators of the Russian
procurator's office. Russia had earlier declared unlawful the
activities of the confederation, which has sent volunteers to
Abkhazia to support the Abkhaz against Georgia. Following the
violent protests a state of emergency for two months was declared
in the republic, ITAR-TASS reported. (Ann Sheehy, RFE/RL, Inc.)
WITHDRAWAL OF CONFEDERATION'S VOLUNTEERS FROM ABKHAZIA SUSPENDED.
Abkhazia's separatist leaders said on 27 September that the
pullout of the volunteers sent by the Confederation of Mountain
Peoples of the North Caucasus would be delayed indefinitely
because of Georgia's violations of the ceasefire in Abkhazia,
Interfax reported. Georgia had threatened to remove them by force
if they were not withdrawn by 25 September. (Ann Sheehy, RFE/RL,
Inc.)
NAGORNO-KARABAKH CEASEFIRE APPARENTLY BROKEN. ITAR-TASS reported
on 26 September that Azerbaijani Defense Minister Rakhim Gaziev
ordered his troops to lay down their arms in compliance with a
ceasefire arranged the previous weekend, but there were no
confirmed reports that the ceasefire was actually being observed
by Azerbaijani or Armenian troops in Nagorno-Karabakh. The
agreement, mediated by Russia, called for a ceasefire in
Nagorno-Karabakh for two months, and a truce along the
Azerbaijani-Armenian border for an undetermined period. Also on 26
September, Interfax quoted an Armenian Defense Ministry spokesman
as saying that his country would observe the agreement if the
Azerbaijani side did the same. On 27 September, however, ITAR-TASS
reported that Armenian troops were continuing to attack
Azerbaijani positions along the entire front in Nagorno-Karabakh.
(Bess Brown, RFE/RL, Inc.)
VOLSKY DESCRIBES 13-POINT PROGRAM. Arkadii Volsky, leader of the
Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, outlined his
"anti-crisis" program to an ITAR-TASS correspondent in St.
Petersburg on 26 September. The thirteen points that comprise his
program include refocusing the reform to stabilize production.
Also among Volsky's proposals is the creation of a two-sector
economy for the transition period. The private economy should be
encouraged and receive state support; however, the state should
"reestablish regulation of the development of the economy." For
the state sector, Volsky vaguely described the introduction of a
"new mechanism of management" and a restructuring policy for state
enterprises. With regard to the voucher-privatization program,
Volsky said without modifications existing plans could turn out to
be "a great deception of the workers." (Erik Whitlock, RFE/RL,
Inc.)
VOLSKY PROPOSES NEW UNION. The leader of the Civic Union, Arkadii
Volsky, has proposed the creation of a "Euro-Asiatic" union of six
or seven of the members of the CIS, The Financial Times reported
on 28 September. He obviously meant those of the CIS members
states who signed the agreement on the formation of the
Interparliamentary Assembly. Volsky also visited Kazakhstan in
September and assisted Kazakh entrepreneurs in the organization of
their own industrialists' union. That was a significant step
toward the reestablishment of ties between the Russian and Kazakh
industrial complexes. (Alexander Rahr, RFE/RL, Inc.)
OPPOSITION TO PRIVATIZATION. Conservative deputies made an attempt
in parliament to postpone or hold a nationwide referendum on
privatization. One of the conservative deputies even threw a
handful of vouchers in the face of Deputy Prime Minister Anatolii
Chubais, who is responsible for the privatization program, Western
news agencies reported on 25 September. But parliamentary speaker
Ruslan Khasbulatov called upon deputies to end the debate, saying
that people have certain expectations and that parliament would be
making a mistake if it blocked the voucher plan. Khasbulatov
proposed establishing a special parliamentary committee to monitor
privatization. (Alexander Rahr, RFE/RL, Inc.)
DEMOCRATS SUPPORT RADICAL REFORM.The "Democratic Russia" movement
fears that the Civic Union may push it to the sidelines of the
political arena, thereby depriving it of its popular support in
society, ITAR-TASS reported on 26 September. Leaders of
"Democratic Russia" issued a statement calling for a consolidation
of all democratic forces on the issue of holding a referendum on
private land ownership. They asserted that from the fourteen
factions in the Russian parliament, only two--"Democratic Russia"
and the "Radical Democrats"--support the government's radical
reform course. (Alexander Rahr, RFE/RL, Inc.)
RUSSIA TO CUT OIL EXPORTS TO CIS. Minister of the Economy Andrei
Nechaev disclosed at a news conference in Moscow that Russia is
planning to cut oil exports to other CIS republics by half next
year, according to Western news agencies on 26 September. The
action is intended to maintain domestic and hard-currency export
needs in the face of rapidly falling Russian oil production (at
the rate of a million barrels per day, according to a recent World
Bank study). Nechaev said the overall reduction in exports to the
CIS region would be between 30-40 million tons. The reduction
would be very damaging to the other CIS economies, which are
heavily dependent on Russian supplies. (Erik Whitlock, RFE/RL,
Inc.)
SACHS, LIPTON CRITICIZE IMF. "Something is wrong, seriously wrong,
with the IMF's role in Russia," wrote Jeffrey Sachs and David
Lipton, two US economists advising the Russian government on
economic reform, in The Washington Post on 27 September. The two
claim that the IMF has to increase its presence in Russia and
thereby exert a greater influence on Russian economic policy:
"Without [IMF representatives] in residence... the IMF simply has
not done the things it can to make the difference." The economists
also criticized specific Fund pronouncements and actions,
including not effectively organizing Western aid for Russia and
opposition to separate national currencies in the other CIS
republics. Sachs and Lipton urged the US Congress, which is
considering a $12 billion increase in its contribution to the
Fund, to pressure the IMF into making "fundamental management
changes." (Erik Whitlock, RFE/RL, Inc.)
RUSSIA HALTS SUBMARINE SALE TO IRAN. The Russian government has
decided to halt the sale of three Kilo-class diesel submarines to
Iran due to alleged disagreements over payment. On 25 September,
Vladimir Pakhomov of the Ministry of Foreign Relations, informed
ITAR-TASS that the sale was not currently on the agenda. Also on
25 September, however, the Pentagon confirmed reports that one of
the submarines was already en route to Iran with a training crew
on board, according to Western news agencies. If the submarine
returns to the Russian naval base in Latvia from which it set
sail, it could exacerbate political tensions between Latvia and
Russia. (John Lepingwell, RFE/RL, Inc.)
NAZARBAYEV CRITICIZES UKRAINE OVER NUCLEAR WEAPONS. Kazakh
President Nursultan Nazarbayev criticized Ukraine on 26 September
for vacillating on the elimination of its nuclear arms, Western
news agencies reported. According to Nazarbayev, "Ukraine cannot
say one thing today and do another thing tomorrow." While Ukraine
has reiterated its willingness to eliminate all nuclear weapons on
its territory by the end of the decade, some Ukrainian
parliamentarians have been criticizing the commitment and raising
doubts about it. (John Lepingwell, RFE/RL, Inc.)
SHAPOSHNIKOV CONFIRMS CIS MISSILES REMAIN TARGETED ON THE US. On
25 September, Commander in Chief of CIS forces, Marshal Yevgenii
Shaposhnikov, confirmed that CIS missiles are still targeted on
the United States. In January 1992, President Boris Yeltsin made
several vague promises and assurances that Russian missiles would
not be targeted on US cities, but these statements were discounted
by the military as political in nature and technically
meaningless. Shaposhnikov did confirm that many missiles have been
taken off alert, according to Western news agencies. (John
Lepingwell, RFE/RL, Inc.)
PRIMAKOV PROPOSES MORATORIUM ON FOREIGN ESPIONAGE. The director
of the Russian foreign intelligence service, Evgenii Primakov, has
offered to recall his spies from countries that agree to cease
their intelligence activities in Russia. In an interview with The
Sunday Times on 27 September, Primakov said that such a step must
be fortified by "a government guarantee." He also revealed that
his agency has closed about 30 former KGB stations in Africa and
Far East; because of personnel and budget cuts about half of all
his intelligence officers will be recalled by the end of the year,
he added. Primakov's offer echoed the US-Soviet intelligence pact
proposed by Dr. Georgii Arbatov last year (see RFE/RL Daily
Report, 27 November, 1991). At that time, Arbatov proposed a
reciprocal cessation of agent recruitment by Russia and the United
States, and a concomitant redirection of intelligence resources on
both sides towards analytical work; meanwhile, counterintelligence
forces on both sides would verify that the respective countries
were abiding by the treaty. (Victor Yasmann, RFE/RL, Inc.)
CRIMEA AMENDS CONSTITUTION. The Crimean parliament, meeting for a
two-day session on 24 and 25 September, adopted amendments to its
constitution and approved a state flag and symbols, Ukrinform-TASS
reported on 25 September. The Crimean constitution now states that
the Republic of the Crimea is part of Ukraine, with which it
conducts its relations on the basis of mutually agreed upon laws
and agreements. The Crimea's powers are defined by its
constitution and the Ukrainian law delineating power between Kiev
and Simferopol. The Crimean government will have its permanent
representation in Kiev. Every Crimean citizen is simultaneously a
Ukrainian citizen, and Crimeans reserve the right to have dual
citizenship. (Roman Solchanyk, RFE/RL, Inc.)
YELTSIN, NAZARBAEV, ELCHIBEI ON CIS. Yeltsin's press secretary
said on 25 September that Yeltsin had sent a personal message to
the leaders of the CIS states in advance of the summit meeting in
Bishkek on 9 October in which he proposed that individual CIS
states should move towards integration insofar as they were ready,
ITAR-TASS reported. Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbaev said
he shared Yeltsin's view, ITAR-TASS reported. Nazarbaev said no
one should be dragged into the CIS, and some states could be
associated members and others observers. Azerbaijan's president
Abulfaz Elchibei said on CIS TV on 22 September that he personally
was against Azerbaijan being a member, because it still lacked the
hallmarks of genuine independence, namely a national currency,
army, and gold reserve. Elchibei had said three days earlier,
however, that it was a matter for the parliament to decide. (Ann
Sheehy, RFE/RL, Inc.)
TURKMENISTAN PLACES HOPES ON GAS. The gas pipeline that is to be
built from Turkmenistan to Europe via Turkey will enable
Turkmenistan to break into the world market, Turkmen President
Saparmurad Niyazov said in an interview with the Moscow journal
Svobodnaya mysl, ITAR-TASS reported on 27 September. Niyazov
believes that Turkmenistan can cushion the shock of introducing a
market economy through selling its gas, oil, and cotton. Western
economists have been inclined to agree with him. In the interview
Niyazov also praised his country's stability. (Bess Brown, RFE/RL,
Inc.)
CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE
ROMANIAN ELECTIONS ORDERLY, GOOD TURNOUT. On 27 September
Romanians voted in the second presidential and general elections
after the collapse of Nicolae Ceausescu's regime in December 1989.
The elections came at the end of a relatively calm electoral
campaign, in sharp contrast with the one in May 1990, which was
marred by violence, fraud, and intimidation. There were six
presidential candidates and more than 10,600 candidates from 83
parties and alliances competing for seats in the 471-seat,
two-chamber parliament. An estimated 75% of the 16.4 million
electorate turned out at the 14,000-odd polling stations, under
the eyes of more than 500 foreign and 8,000 domestic observers.
(Dan Ionescu, RFE/RL, Inc.)
ILIESCU LEADS--RUNOFF LIKELY. Preliminary results circulated by
Romanian TV shortly before the polling stations closed at 9:00
p.m. showed incumbent President Ion Iliescu leading with 48% of
the vote over his main challenger, Emil Constantinescu (33%),
running on the ticket of the Democratic Convention (DC), an
alliance of 18 centrist parties and organizations. If accurate,
these projections, based on an exit poll made by the German
Applied Social Research Institute and the Romanian Institute for
Public Opinion Survey, indicate that Iliescu is likely to win the
reelection in a runoff to be held on 11 October. A former
high-ranking communist official, Iliescu appears to have enjoyed
massive support from the less educated, conservative electorate in
rural areas and small towns. The Democratic National Salvation
Front (DNSF), the party supporting Iliescu, is also leading with
27.5% in those projections. The contest for the parliament,
however, seems much tighter, with the DC in second place with 23%
and Petre Roman's National Salvation Front on the third, with 11%.
This suggests that a coalition will be needed to form the next
government. Among the DNSF's possible allies are nationalist and
leftist parties. First official preliminary results are expected
at midday 28 September, while the final outcome will probably not
be known before 6 October. (Dan Ionescu, RFE/RL, Inc.)
FIGHTING CONTINUES IN BOSNIA. International media reported over
the weekend that all contenders are trying to consolidate their
positions before the harsh Balkan winter arrives in October. The
BBC on 28 September quotes Serbian sources as saying that they now
control all of the far eastern part of Bosnia except Gorazde,
while Bosnian media reported Serbian air attacks on Jajce and
Bosanski Brod. Meanwhile, Serbian heavy artillery continued to
pound parts of Sarajevo. (Patrick Moore, RFE/RL, Inc.)
MORE REPORTS ON "ETHNIC CLEANSING" BY SERBS IN BOSNIA. Reuters on
26 September said that EC mediator Lord Owen and his UN
counterpart Cyrus Vance visited Serbian-controlled Banja Luka in
western Bosnia to investigate reports of atrocities. They
described how 3-4,000 Muslim and Croatian refugees were fired upon
and shelled as they tried to cross over to the Bosnian side during
a round of "ethnic cleansing." On 27 September the Los Angeles
Times quoted State Department officials as confirming another
massacre of 3,000 Muslims near Brcko during the summer. They were
killed in groups of 50 at a time, and the bodies were secretly
disposed of. The State Department suggested that Brcko might not
be an isolated case, and Acting Secretary of State Lawrence
Eagleburger said that Washington wants to move quickly on setting
up a commission to investigate Bosnian war crimes. On 28
September the Washington Post cited Serbian police officials in
Banja Luka as confirming a massacre of Muslim male civilians at
Varjanta. The killers appear to have been Serbian police acting
on their own, and police officials said they will be "brought to
justice." (Patrick Moore, RFE/RL, Inc.)
SLOVAK PREMIER WANTS NEW TREATY WITH GERMANY. Czechoslovak media
quoted Slovak Prime Minister Vladimir Meciar on 25 September as
saying that Slovakia wants to renegotiate the Czechoslovak-German
Treaty signed in February 1992 because it does not take into
account all Slovak demands. Slovakia has criticized the fact that
the treaty's preamble disregards the existence of the 1939-45
Slovak State. Czech Prime Minister Vaclav Klaus said on 25
September that he sees no need for renegotiation because a
division of the treaty between the successor states of
Czechoslovakia is simply a technical matter. On 27 September
Slovak Foreign Minister Milan Knazko told CSTK that Slovakia will
conclude a new treaty with Germany after January 1993, when
Czechoslovakia is to split, and that it will do so without a prior
agreement with the Czech Republic. (Jiri Pehe, RFE/RL, Inc.)
NO PLANS FOR "TRIANGLE" MILITARY PACT. Speaking at a press
conference after the meeting of defense ministers of the "Visegrad
Triangle," in Tatranske Zruby, Slovakia, Czechoslovak Defense
Minister Imrich Andrejcak said that Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and
Poland do not plan to conclude a military pact or form a defense
union. Andrejcak said that the three defense ministers had agreed
on new areas of cooperation, such as opening garrisons to mutual
inspections and discussed ways of mutual cooperation after the
breakup of Czechoslovakia. Polish Defense Minister Janusz
Onyszkiewicz said he hopes that military cooperation within the
Visegrad Triangle will continue after Czechoslovakia's breakup.
Pledging to resolve conflicts among themselves by political means,
the three said that the common goal of the Visegrad countries is
gaining membership in the European Community and West European
military structures. Hungarian Defense Minister Lajos Fur ruled
out the possibility that tensions on the Slovak-Hungarian border
could rise significantly and a mobilization of the Hungarian armed
forces could be needed. He said that no military actions have
taken place on the Slovak-Hungarian border and none are planned.
(Jiri Pehe, RFE/RL, Inc.)
HUNGARIAN SMALLHOLDERS' PARTY HAS NEW CAUCUS LEADER. On 26
September the larger faction of the Independent Smallholders'
Party elected a new caucus leader, lawyer Janos Szabo. The party
split earlier this year into two factions: the smaller supported
the party's chairman Jozsef Torgyan and left the coalition, the
larger remains in the coalition. The former faction leader Gyula
Pasztor resigned, saying he wants to spend more time in his voting
district, but it is possible that he had to leave for political
reasons, since he obstructed the reunification of the two
factions. Szabo wants to start talks with the Torgyan faction and
wants to work toward the reunification of the two factions. The
report was carried by MTI. (Judith Pataki, RFE/RL, Inc.)
ZHELEV NOTES STRAINS WITH GOVERNMENT. Bulgarian President Zhelyu
Zhelev, in an interview on Bulgarian Radio on 27 September,
admitted that he has had differences with the ruling Union of
Democratic Forces government, BTA reports. He denied, however,
that he is "at war" with the cabinet. Rather, Zhelev noted that
there has been conflict between the government and the presidency
over the extent of each's authority, as well as over the extent
and pace of reforms. Zhelev was at pains to avoid criticizing the
government--but neither did he express direct support for it.
(Duncan Perry, RFE/RL, Inc.)
COALITION TALKS CONTINUE IN TALLINN. Coalition talks are
continuing in the wake of last week's parliamentary elections in
Estonia, and RFE/RL correspondent reports. The Pro Patria
(Isamaa) election coalition, along with the Moderates and the
Estonian National Independence Party, has formed a bloc comprising
parliamentary majority. Pro Patria is currently negotiating with
potential defectors from other parties to strengthen this bloc
while conducting closed-door talks on forming a government.
Speculation over the composition of the government continues: Pro
Patria leader Mart Laar currently tops the list for prime minister
candidates, Kiel University professor Hain Rebas (from ENIP) has
been mentioned for the Defense Ministry, and deputy speaker to the
Supreme Council. Marju Lauristin (from the Moderates). may be
tapped as Labor Minister. (Riina Kionka, RFE/RL, Inc.)
FINAL LITHUANIAN PRE-ELECTION POLLS. On 26 September newspapers
published the results of political polls conducted by the
Sociological Research Laboratory of Vilnius University (SLVU) and
the Sociological Research Department of Lithuanian Radio and TV
(SDRTV), BNS reports. Election law does not permit publishing any
more poll results before elections on 25 October. According to
SLVU, 67.4% of the voters say that they will vote, while SDRTV
reported a figure of 58.1%. Five parties (Sajudis coalition, the
Democratic Labor Party, the Center Movement, the Christian
Democratic Party, and the Social Democratic Party) would break the
4% barrier needed to gain seats in the proportional voting system,
according to SLVU. The favored candidates for president in both
polls were Vytautas Landsbergis and Algirdas Brazauskas. (Saulius
Girnius, RFE/RL, Inc.)
WALESA EXHORTS IN GDANSK. Polish President Lech Walesa continued
his current campaign to rouse public activism with visits to the
Gdansk shipyard on 25 September and St. Brygida's Church on 27
September. Walesa admitted that Poland has "American prices and
Polish wages," but told Gdansk residents that Poles could attain
American living standards in four years' time--provided everyone
gets down to work and stops expecting the government and the
president to solve all the problems. Walesa repeated his threat
to form a presidential party should a "master plan of reform" not
take effect in six months. (Louisa Vinton, RFE/RL, Inc.)
POLISH GOVERNMENT DEFINES SOCIAL SECURITY MINIMUM. The government
completed work on the fourth of its five priority programs,
"citizens' social security," on 26 September. The program defines
which social services will be guaranteed by the state and which
are the responsibility of local governments, employers, and
individuals. Prime Minister Hanna Suchocka met with
representatives of the 13 smaller trade unions on 25 September to
open talks on the "pact on state firms." She also discussed the
pact with business organizations. Business owners and managers
criticized the proposed pact for guaranteeing only the rights of
employees, an imbalance they said would slow privatization and
impede foreign investment. (Louisa Vinton, RFE/RL, Inc.)
POLAND BARGAINS WITH IMF OVER DEFICIT. Speaking to journalists on
25 September after returning from Washington, Finance Minister
Jerzy Osiatynski reported that a new agreement with the IMF will
be possible only after the 1992 budget is amended to cut spending
and increase revenues. Osiatynski indicated that the IMF is
prepared to accept a raised budget deficit ceiling of 8% of GDP
for 1992 and 6% for 1993, despite having insisted on a 5% limit
earlier this year. The IMF's chief worry, Osiatynski reported, is
not the size of the deficit, but the manner in which it is
financed. He also noted that the 17 countries that funded the $1
billion stabilization fund are to decide by 15 December whether to
allow it to be used to release banks from the bad debts of state
firms. Gazeta Wyborcza ran the report on 25 September under the
headline "They've Taken a Liking to Our Deficit." (Louisa Vinton,
RFE/RL, Inc.)
LITHUANIA, RUSSIA INITIAL AGREEMENTS. In Moscow Lithuania and
Russia initialed three agreements on settling accounts between the
two countries, Radio Lithuania reported on 27 September.
Lithuanian delegation head, Deputy Economics Minister Vytas
Navickas, said that for now firms in both countries can pay each
other in rubles, Lithuanian temporary coupons, or foreign
currency, but no agreement was reached on settling accounts after
Lithuania introduces its currency, the litas. Russia has not
agreed to pay back the money from Lithuania's valuta accounts in
the Vneshekonombank seized last year. The Russian delegation also
did not agree to 31 August 1993 as the final date for the
withdrawal of its troops from Lithuania, suggesting that the
agreements signed on 8 September 1992 may be changed. (Saulius
Girnius, RFE/RL, Inc.)
RUSSIAN DEPUTIES IN ESTONIA PAY FAREWELL VISIT. Three outgoing
Estonian Supreme Council deputies paid a visit to the Paldiski
Naval Base west of Tallinn, BNS reported on 25 September. Genik
Israeljan, Vladimir Lebedev and Nikolai Aksinin met with officers,
who said living conditions at the base are difficult for those
charged with maintaining the nuclear reactors there. Officers
reportedly told the deputies that it would take 10-15 years to
dismantle the reactors, the existence of which Estonian
authorities discovered only last year. The three deputies, who
were not eligible to stand for last week's parliamentary elections
because they are not citizens, called their outing "a farewell
visit" to their constituents. (Riina Kionka, RFE/RL, Inc.)
LATVIA INVITES UN TO RUSSIAN TROOP PULLOUT TALKS. Addressing the
UN General Assembly on 25 September, Latvia's head of state
Anatolijs Gorbunovs invited the UN Security Council to send
observers to negotiations on the pullout of Russian troops.
Gorbunovs, challenging Russia to live up to its earlier promises,
explained that Russia has often changed its position on issues
already agreed upon and that Latvia has not been permitted to
monitor Russian troop movements on its territory. Gorbunovs noted
the "dangerous alteration of the demographic situation" (Latvians
now comprise about 52% of the population) in Latvia that resulted
from the Soviet Union's occupation of Latvia in 1940 and "the
Soviet Union's colonial policies." He rejected Russia's accusation
that rights of minorities are being violated in Latvia, adding
that his country wants to integrate into its citizenry those
immigrants who support Latvian independence; those who find an
independent Latvia unacceptable, however, should leave. Western
agencies carried the story. (Dzintra Bungs, RFE/RL, Inc.)
novine.28.bale.,
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Tensions escalate in Croatia as deadline nears for refugee return
Subject: U.S. has solid information on mass executions in Bosnia
Subject: Peace mediators talk with Serbian leaders
Subject: Talks scheduled Wednesday on ongoing peace efforts
Subject: Serbian Parliament organizes referendum for early elections
Subject: U.N. helicopters fired on by anti-aircraft weapons
Subject: Rocket fire targets Sarajevo business district
Subject: U.N., French troops obtain releases of local U.N. workers
Subject: Yugoslav prime minister meets secretly with Congress,secretary of
state
Subject: Pentagon to resume Bosnia relief flights
Subject: U.N. refugee chief urges prompt troop deployment to Bosnia
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Tensions escalate in Croatia as deadline nears for refugee return
Date: 28 Sep 92 20:05:22 GMT
ZAGREB, Croatia (UPI) -- Tensions are escalating in Serb-seized
Croatian territory as Serbs prepare for the return of thousands of
Croatian refugees to their homes on Oct. 2.
Six thousand Croatian refugees from nine villages in Serb-occupied
areas in eastern Croatia, known as sector East, have declared they will
begin returning to their homes despite danger warnings from the U.N.
Protection Force in the area.
``A climate of intimidation and hostility exists in various locations
on both sides,'' Cedric Thornberry, head of U.N. civil affairs, wrote in
a letter to Ivan Milas, vice president of the government of Croatia and
the government's commission for UNPROFOR.
In response to the announced return, ``Serbs are mobilizing again and
arming themselves,'' Thornberry said.
``We are very concerned about the Croatian deadline,'' he added.
The refugees have asked the U.N. peacekeepers in the area for
protection when they return.
But UNPROFOR has said they cannot guarantee their safety.
``We are a peace-keeping force, not a peace-making force,''
Thornberry said.
UNPROFOR has about 2,000 troops currently in sector East. To make the
situation safe ``we would need nearly ten times'' UNPROFOR's current
force, Thornberry said.
But the refugees, impatient with the numerous unfulfilled U.N.
brokered agreements and the Serbs' unwillingness to disarm, have given
the UNPROFOR an ultimatum.
``If (the UNPROFOR) doesn't tell us on Sept. 29 where we can go back
to and ensure our safety...we will go back anyway in the first days of
October,'' said Josip Kompanovic, assistant commissioner for the
Croatian government for the Beli Mastir municipality.
Beli Mastir is one of four municipalities in the Serbian-occupied
region of Croatia.
Before the war there were about 80,000 Croats who lived in sector
East, now there are only about 3,000-4,000, according to estimates by
the Croatian office for refugees.
Since UNPROFOR sent troops into the Serb-occupied area in March as
part of a peace agreement reached in January during the Serbian-Croatian
war, thousands of Croatian refugees who fled their homes have been
anxious to return.
``People call all the time, we've heard the question, 'when can we
return?' thousands and thousands of times,'' said Josip Esteraher,
assistant general secretary for the Croatian government office for
refugees.
But the area is still not secure because the Serbs have stil not
disarmed in accordance with the peace plan, Thornberry said.
Although they have technically withdrawn their army, soldiers have
re-emerged in sector East as so-called ``special police'' and ``border
police.''
These police are heavily armed with mortars, armored personnel
carriers, anti aircraft weapons, rockets, automatic machine guns and
personal side arms, Thornberry said.
The UNPROFOR stationed about 14,000 troops in four Serb-held areas of
Croatia over a four-month period under the peace plan.
Refugees from other four sectors want to return as well but sector
East was singled out as the first place to start the return since the
UNPROFOR entered it in March.
The announcement by the refugees has provoked panic by the Serbs in
sector East, who fear that the refugees will be backed by the Croatian
Army, Thornberry said.
UNPROFOR representatives said the refugees's ultimatum has not done
much more than irritate the situation and ``set back efforts to create
an appropriate climate for their return,'' Thornberry said.
``There are a lot of extreme minded people in the area...The Serbs
have now started a general mobilization and the security situation has
worsened,'' Thornberry said.
``The Serbs are so scared that they have started to move out old
people and children'' to brace themselves for an attack, Thornberry
said.
Three hundred Croats had been expelled as of Sunday from sector East
in response to the refugees' announcement, said Marko Kvesic,
commissioner for the Croatian government for the Beli Mastir
municipality.
But the Croatian government has said that they will not allow the
refugees to go back armed despite their willingness to do so. ``It's
better to have unhappy people than dead people, if they go in and try to
arm themselves we will go in and try to stop them,'' Zvonko Nogolica,
chairman of the Croatian government's office for the the UNPROFOR said.
``The government won't allow the refugees to go off on any crazy
adventures though we think the refugees are right from a moral point of
view,'' Nogolica said.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: U.S. has solid information on mass executions in Bosnia
Date: 28 Sep 92 19:44:37 GMT
WASHINGTON (UPI) -- Credible witnesses have told U.S. officials they
saw Serbian troops slaughter more than 3,000 men, women, and children
last spring at detention camps in the Bosnian town of Brcko, the State
Department said Monday.
Spokesman Richard Boucher said U.S. officials recently received
reports from two survivors of the Serbian brutality who estimated 3,000
Bosnian Muslims were executed at Brcko during May and June.
Although the administration was told previously of the mass
executions, he said the fresh reports are the first from witnesses.
``These are the first eyewitness reports we've received of these
killings in the Brcko area,'' Boucher said. ``The previous information
that we had was either second-hand or some of the information that we
had raised questions about its credibility.''
He said the information had been turned over to United Nations
authorities that are investigating Serbian atrocities in Bosnia-
Hercegovina, which has been under siege since March by troops from
Belgrade attempting to annex the nascent republic and ``cleanse'' it of
all Muslims and Croats.
The United States has been discussing with its allies at the United
Nations a possible resolution calling for the establishment of a war-
crimes commission to prosecute such abuses of human rights, officials
have said. It would be similar to the one that oversaw the prosecution
of German Nazis at Nuremberg following World War II.
The incident at Brcko would be a candidate for such an investigation.
``We've been discussing a possible resolution with our allies,''
Boucher said. ``The resolution...would establish a war crimes commission
to look into the charges, establish the facts, and prepare for possible
prosecution of individuals who are found guilty.''
Boucher said the administration hopes ``to table such a resolution in
the Security Council soon.''
The two witnesses said the Brcko detention camps in northeast Bosnia-
Hercegovina were operated by Serbian militias and run by a Commander
Arkan and then a Commander Seselj, Boucher said.
The witnesses claimed ``to have witnessed the spontaneous murders of
up to 50 prisoners at a time,'' he said.
One witness told U.S. investigators that he transported bodies of
dead prisoners from a brick factory, which served as a detention camp,
to a local animal rendering plant for cremation, Boucher said.
Both witnesses estimated in separate interviews with U.S. officials
that ``3,000 men, women and children were executed in Brcko in the May-
June period,'' he said.
Information submitted by the administration last week to the United
Nations contains chilling accounts of the reported mayhem at Brcko. It
was given to the United Nations prior to administration interviews with
the two witnesses.
A 38-year-old inmate at a nearby detention camp told investigators
she was taken to Brcko, ``where she saw 10 people being killed every day
with rifle butts and bottles,'' the report said.
The woman said ``two prisoners were required to slap each other. The
one who didn't slap as hard was killed.
``One time I saw them cut off the ears of the weak slapper, then cut
off his nose and then kill him by cutting his throat.''
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Peace mediators talk with Serbian leaders
Date: 28 Sep 92 21:50:54 GMT
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (UPI) -- International mediators Cyrus Vance and
Lord Owen arrived Monday for talks with Serbian leaders on issues that
included the deployment of fresh U.N. peacekeepers in neighboring
Bosnia-Hercegovina and the resumption of a humanitarian relief airlift
to Sarajevo.
U.N. special enovy Vance and European Community mediator Owen flew
into the Serbian capital of Belgrade from Geneva on a one-day visit to
meet leaders of the rump Yugoslav union of Serbia and Montenegro.
Vance and Owen, co-chairmen of the Geneva peace conference on the
disintegrated Yugoslav six-republic federation, drove from Belgrade's
Surcin Airport directly to the Palace of Federation for talks with
Dobrica Cosic, president of the truncated Yugoslavia.
Col. Gen. Zivota Panic, the chief of staff of the Yugoslav Army,
attended the talks in the Federation Palace.
French Gen. Philippe Morillon, deputy commander of the United Nations
Protection Force (UNPROFOR), and Cedric Thornberry, in charge of
UNPROFOR's civilian affairs, also attended the talks, a Yugoslav
official said.
Generals Panic and Morillon were to have separate talks, the official
said.
Vance and Owen, who last week visited the Croatian capital of Zagreb
and the Serb-held town of Banja Luka in northwestern Bosnia-Hercegovina,
also were scheduled to meet Serbian hard-line President Slobodan
Milosevic before they fly back to Geneva later in the day, Serbian
officials said.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Talks scheduled Wednesday on ongoing peace efforts
Date: 29 Sep 92 12:34:25 GMT
GENEVA (UPI) -- The presidents of Croatia and the remnant of federal
Yugoslavia will meet with U.N. and European Community mediators here
Wednesday to discuss the ongoing U.N. peace effort in former Yugoslavia,
a spokesman for the U.N. said Tuesday.
President Franjo Tujman of Croatia and Dobrica Cosic will meet with
U.N. mediator Cyrus Vance and Lord (David) Owen, representatives of the
EC. The two conferred Tuesday with Alija Izetbegovic, President of
Bosnia-Herzegovina.
The flurry of meetings came as the U.N. High Commission for Refugees
warned that ``the point of no return'' has been reached for humanitarian
aid for many people in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
``It's too late for thousands,'' Sylvana Foa, the UNHCR spokesperson
told a news conference. ``We asked in September for relief aid of $282
million and so far all we have is $176 million.
We want hard cash, cash to buy food today -- not pledges, not
earmarked money but cash.``
She said the UNHCR is still maintaining its estimate of 2 million
persons being at risk from starvation in Bosnia-Hercegovina this winter
and said she had no news of a resumption of the U.N. airlift into
Sarajevo, suspended since Sept. 3 following the shooting down of an
Italian plane while on U.N. service.
But later Bosnian President Izetbegovic told a news conference Vance
had told him ``American'' planes would resume flights into Sarajevo
within the next 24 hours and that he took this to mean the airlift would
resume.
Demilitarization of Sarajevo is the only way of making peace talks
between the three warring factions meaningful, the Bosnian president
said.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Serbian Parliament organizes referendum for early elections
Date: 29 Sep 92 15:02:33 GMT
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (UPI) -- The communist-controlled Parliament of
Serbia Tuesday decided to stage a public referendum on Oct. 11 to
determine whether to hold general and presidential elections before the
end of the year.
Parliament, controlled by communists loyal to Serbian President
Slobodan Milosevic, passed a constitutional amendment on holding early
elections by the end of 1992 for parliamentary deputies and the
president of the republic.
Aleksadar Bakocevic, chairman of Parliament, said that despite the
passing of the amendment, citizens have to confirm it by voting in the
upcoming referendum.
Opposition parties accused Milosevic's hard-line regime of initiating
a referendum to delay elections for as long as possible in order to
retain power.
Vuk Draskovic, leader of the Serbian Renewal Movement, said the
ruling Socialist Party of Serbia was doing all in its power to avoid and
delay the elections despite demands by leaders to hold them by the end
of the year.
President of the rump Yugoslav federation of Serbia and Montenegro,
Dobrica Cosic, and his Prime Minister Milan Panic, demanded early
elections on all federal and republic levels.
Cosic and Panic, advocating democratic reforms in the newly forged
two-republic Yugoslav union, want early elections to replace current
pro-communist deputies with liberal delegates who would help in speeding
up changes.
Borisav Jovic, president of the Serbian Socialist Party, commented,
``The Socialist Party of Serbia has no intention to play games.''
Jovic discounted opposition allegations that the referendum is the
manipulation of the ruling party to indefinitely delay elections.
``The Socialist Party wants early elections and is not afraid of
election results,'' he told the Serbian-run Tanjug news agency.
Jovic said he hoped that elections could be held in early December.
The condition for holding early elections is the passing of the
referendum with at least 51 percent of the electoral body. But
opposition leaders warned that the referendum could be easily undermined
as a large portion of ethnic Albanians in Serbia's southern Kosovo
province were not expected to vote.
The opposition also claimed that members of the Serbian Socialist
Party will vote against the referendum to help the ruling party stay in
power.
If the Oct. 11 referendum fails it will take at least six months to
restage another one, at which point elections could be postponed for
some eight months.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: U.N. helicopters fired on by anti-aircraft weapons
Date: 29 Sep 92 16:13:21 GMT
ZAGREB, Croatia (UPI) -- Two United Nations helicopters clearly marked
as U.N. craft were fired at Monday near the Croatian capital Zagreb,
according to U.N. officials Tuesday.
``It is of imense gravity when people open fire on you from the
ground when you are flying peace missions...It's not what we expect,''
Cedric Thornberry, head of the U.N. civil affairs said.
The helicopters, flying to Zagreb from Daruvar in north central
Croatia on a regular daily mission, were not hit and there were no
injuries, according to Thornberry.
When asked for confirmation that it was the Croation army that fired
the anti-aircraft weapons, Thornberry replied, ``Well, it occurred 20
miles from Zagreb airport...and nobody suggests that it was little green
men from Mars.''
The Croatian authorites had been given notification of the
helicopters'departure the day before, according to Thornberry.
The helicopters were flying 45 feet apart at an altitude of 330 feet
in Croatian air space when one of the pilots saw some yellow flashes
coming from the ground and then bursts of smoke and fire between the two
crafts, a statement issued today read.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Rocket fire targets Sarajevo business district
Date: 29 Sep 92 17:23:11 GMT
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Hercegovina (UPI) -- Heavy rocket fire killed at
least three people and wounded 26 others in the war-ravaged downtown
business district Tuesday, and U.N. officials tried to negotiate the
creation of a new corridor for channeling food and other humanitarian
supplies to the Bosnian capital.
The rocket explosions plus sniper fire that wounded three people
Tuesday morning boosted the 24-hour casualty toll that ended at 10 a.m.
to 32 people killed and 212 wounded throughout the republic, including
15 killed and 90 wounded in Sarajevo, officials said.
In neighboring Croatia, U.N. officials said Tuesday that anti-
aircraft gunners opened fire on clearly marked U.N. helicopters. The
incident happened Monday near the capital Zagreb. No one was hit and
there were no injuries, said U.N. civil affairs chief Cedric Thornberry.
Thornberry said the helicopters were flying 45 feet apart at an
altitude of 330 feet in Croatian air space when one of the pilots saw
yellow flashes from the ground and bursts of smoke between the two
craft. Asked if it was Croatian army fire, Thornberry would only say:
``Well, it occurred 20 miles from Zagreb airport...and nobody suggests
that it was little green men from Mars.''
French Gen. Phillipe Morilon, deputy commander of the U.N. Protection
Force (UNPROFOR), arrived in Sarajevo Tuesday and traveled to nearby
Pale for further talks with Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic on
opening a new aid supply corridor to the beseiged Bosnian capital.
The city received its first delivery of humanitarian supplies in four
days -- some 80 metric tons carried in 12 trucks -- but only after a
showdown in which U.N. officials backed by French troops obtained the
release of four Muslim Slav drivers and a local U.N. worker in an eight-
truck convoy detained by Serbian militiamen.
French Col. Patrice Satre, facing the most serious incident to
confront a U.N.-organized aid convoy, rushed to the western Sarajevo
suburb of Ilidza, placed himself and four soldiers in front of the
detainees and refused to allow the Serbs to take them into the Ilidza
police station, said Dag Espeland, the logistics manager for the U.N.
High Commissioner for Refugees.
``This was the worst we've had,'' Espeland said of the incident,
which he said began when Serbian soldiers found a letter belonging to a
local UNHCR worker containing ``words offensive to the Serbs.''
``We have Serbian, Muslim and Croatian drivers,'' Espeland said.
``The Muslims are usually harassed by the Serbs, but they have never
been detained before. Sometimes individuals just start things up.''
Morillon, who visited Karadzic Sunday at his headquarters in Pale and
then met Serb leaders Monday in Belgrade, was seeking guarantees that
would allow expanded road and air deliveries of aid to Sarajevo,
UNPROFOR spokesman Adnan Razek said.
Morillon, as part of the plan, is seeking Serbian approval of a new
Bosnian UNPROFOR headquarters that likely would be placed in Ilidza,
which has been a primary bottleneck for road convoys.
The air deliveries have been cut off since an Italian aid plane was
shot down Sept. 3 west of Sarajevo, and deliveries by truck have been
greatly reduced by the fighting and bad road conditions, leaving the
city facing the imminent onset of winter with about one-fifth of its
estimated daily food needs.
Rocket and sniper attacks from Serbs in the hills surrounding
Sarajevo continued to kill and maim civilians, who represent about 80
percent of the casualties suffered in the Bosnian conflict.
Several rockets fell around 10 a.m. in and around the gutted downtown
shopping district, hitting homes, shops and offices, killing three
people and wounding at least 26 others, officials said. At least three
other people were reported wounded Tuesday morning by sniper fire,
hospital officials said.
Sevala Hasovic, manager of the Magros clothing store, said she was at
his shop when rockets slammed into a nearby building used by the Bosnian
military and showered the pedestrian shopping mall with shrapnel and
glass.
``Me and a colleague, we were sitting inside and suddenly it
exploded,'' Hasovic said as she and several co-workers swept up glass
and rubble. ``Then we heard people screaming.''
Glass shards framed pools of blood on adjacent sidewalk just a few
feet from the flower pots and hand-lettered sign marking the spot where
a mortar shell fell May 27 and killed 18 people waiting in a bread line.
Hasovic condemned Europe for failing to intervene in the crisis.
``We have lost our hope for help from Europe and the world,'' she
said. ``They (Serbs) have simply been destroying the people and the city
for six months.''
Salem Karovic, chief of the city's water distribution system, said
Serbs controlling the area around the city's main water supply at Bacevo
turned off the feed to Sarajevo Sunday night in apparent violation of an
agreement made one week earlier at the peace talks in Geneva.
Razek said UNPROFOR forces were prevented by the fighting from
reaching the site Monday but he hoped to reach the area to investigate
the matter Tuesday. Sarajevo's encircled population of about 500,000
people has been withoutelectricity for more than a week.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: U.N., French troops obtain releases of local U.N. workers
Date: 29 Sep 92 17:51:17 GMT
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Hercegovina (UPI) -- Armed French soldiers intervened
Tuesday to prevent Serbian militiamen from detaining five people in U.N.
employ, including four Muslam Slav workers who were driving trucks in a
U.N. humanitarian relief convoy, U.N. officials said.
During the tense, half-hour standoff in a Serb-held Sarajevo suburb,
the French troops led by their commander shielded the five U.N. workers
while Izumi Nakamitsu, the Sarajevo delegate of the U.N. High
Commissioner for Refugees, negotiated a successful end to the incident,
the officials said.
The officials said the five workers were pulled off a UNHCR-organized
eight-truck humanitarian aid convoy that was halted and searched by
Serbian soldiers outside the Serb-held Sarajevo suburb of Ilidza.
The soldiers found a letter belonging to a local U.N. worker that
contained ``words offensive to the Serbs'' and ordered that they
accompany them to the Ilidza police station, said one U.N. official. Dag
Espeland, the UNHCR's Sarajevo logistics manager, said the Serbs also
detained for questioning four Muslim Slav drivers in the convoy.
He said U.N. officials with the convoy alerted by radio the U.N.
Protection Force (UNPROFOR) headquarters, which dispatched to Ilidza 10
French troops in four armored personnel carriers led by their commander,
Col. Patrice Satre.
Espeland also rushed to Ilidza with Nakamitsu. The French troops were
waiting at the Ilidza police station when the Serbs arrived with the
local U.N. worker and the four drivers, Espeland said.
Satre immediately placed himself and four of his troops in front of
the detainees and refused to alow the Serbs to take them into the police
station.
``He placed his armed men in front of the drivers and (said) they
would not be allowed to be questioned and they were under his
protection,'' recounted Espeland. ``There were about 20 Serbian soldiers
standing around, but they didn't do anything.''
``Col. Satre just stood there for half an hour while Izumi went
inside the station to negotiate with the commander. In the end, they
were allowed to go. They were put into one of the French APCs (armored
personnel carriers) and driven to the (U.N.-controlled) airport,''
Espeland said.
He said the incident was the most serious to have beset a U.N.-
organized humanitarian aid convoy since UNHCR began relying on trucks to
deliver relief to Sarajevo following the Sept. 3 suspension of the
international airlift following the downing of an Italian cargo plane.
``This was the worst we've had. We have Serbian, Muslim and Croatian
drivers. The Muslims are usually harassed by the Serbs, but they have
never been detailed before,'' he said. ``Sometimes individuals just
start things up.''
Serbian police in Ilidza last week arrested three Muslim Slavs who
were driving buses to evacuate foreign students from Sarajevo. The
drivers had been approved by Serbian political leaders to participate in
the evacuation, but U.N. officials still have not been able to obtain
their release.
Serbian forces have been blockading and bombarding Sarajevo for
almost six months in a bid to divide the city into ethnic districts as
part of a drive to carve a separate Serbian state out of the independent
republic of Bosnia-Hercegovina.
Since the airlift suspension, UNHCR has been forced to rely on truck
convoys from the Croatian port city of Split to provide food and
medicine for the estimated 350,000 residents and 150,000 refugees
trapped in Sarajevo.
However, the convoys have been unable to fill the gap left by the
airlift suspension, and UNHCR officials have expressed grave fears of
serious food shortages in coming weeks.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Yugoslav prime minister meets secretly with Congress,secretary of
state
Date: 29 Sep 92 17:51:17 GMT
WASHINGTON (UPI) -- Yugoslav Prime Minister Milan Panic slipped
quietly into Washington Tuesday and is scheduled to meet with Acting
Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger as well as several congressional
officials, his spokesman said.
Spokesman David Calef told United Press International that Panic will
ask Congress to grant a waiver of the stiff sanctions imposed on the
Union of Serbia and Montenegro, the unrecognized successor states to the
former Yugoslavia.
Specifically, Calef said, Panic wants an exemption granted on heating
oil.
He said Panic is concerned about the effect of a heating oil shortage
on ``hospitals and children'' during the brutal Yugoslav winter.
Calef said he will discuss the administration's predisposition to
supporting such a move in the United Nations during his meeting this
afternoon with Eagleburger.
The State Department, which normally includes on its daily schedule
meetings between Eagleburger and heads of state, did not make note of
Tuesday's parley.
Panic travels to New York late in the day to address the Council on
Foreign Relations, Calef said.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Pentagon to resume Bosnia relief flights
Date: 29 Sep 92 18:41:04 GMT
WASHINGTON (UPI) -- The Pentagon said Tuesday U.S. Air Force relief
flights to the besieged Bosnian captial of Sarajevo, suspended since an
Italian relief plane was shot down by a missile, will resume soon.
``We are aware of the urgency of resuming relief flights into the
Sarajevo airport,'' Pentagon spokesman Pete Williams said. ``We will
resume the relief flights. We just need to work out the details of when
specifically we can get them going again.''
He said Washington would set a date for renewing its relief flights
in consultation with the United Nations and other countries
participating in the airlift. It is expected the flights will resume
within a week.
The U.N. relief airlift into Sarajevo, under attack from Serbian
gunners in the surrounding hills for almost six months, began last July.
Flights were suspended early this month when a surface-to-air missile
knocked an Italian relief plane out of the sky, killing the crew.
Investigators were uncertain which side in the ethnic conflict fired the
missile.
Ground convoys have supplied the beleaguered residents since the
shoot-down, although the United States has not been involved.
``The air flights into Sarajevo have turned out to be a very
efficient way of getting an enormous amount of material in quickly,''
Williams said. ``So, if we can resume them, it's something we would like
to do.''
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: U.N. refugee chief urges prompt troop deployment to Bosnia
Date: 29 Sep 92 19:09:11 GMT
UNITED NATIONS (UPI) -- The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees
Tuesday urged governments to speed up deployment of peacekeeping troops
to prevent an alarming increase in the ``ethnic cleansing'' campaign in
Bosnia-Hercegovina.
The high commissioner, Sadako Ogata, said in an appeal to governments
to speed up the deployment of about 6,000 troops to ``prevent the
further deterioration of an already terrible situation.''
Ogata said the latest information received by her organization showed
an upsurge in ``ethnic cleansing'' operations, particularly in the Banja
Luka area in Bosnia-Hercegovina.
``Large numbers of people are being forced out of their homes and
villages and pushed across the front lines towards central Bosnia,'' she
said. ``The reports received from survivors are heartbreaking.''
``I feel that the presence of U.N. Protection Force soldiers would
help contain a number of abuses that are presently being witnessed by
the few foreigners who are present there,'' Ogata said.
The U.N. Security Council on Sept. 14 allowed the deployment of up to
6,000 troops, most of them from NATO countries, to provide security for
food convoys being organized by the U.N. refugee agency, which the is
the leading organization engaged in bringing food and medicine to tens
of thousands of inhabitants displaced by the fighting.
Governments that have pledged to contribute the troops to the
operations have yet to present a plan for the deployment to the Security
Council for its approval.
``The delay, coupled with the suspension of the U.N. humanitarian
airlift to the besieged city of Sarajevo, means tens of thousands if
innocent victims of the war could face a very bleak winter,'' the UNHCR
said.
Reports of the increase in ``ethnic cleansing'' operations coincided
with charges made Monday by the United States, quoting witnesses, that
Serbian troops were responsible for the death of more than 3,000 men,
women, and children last spring at detention camps in the Bosnian town
of Brcko.
U.S. State Department Spokesman Richard Boucher said U.S. officials
recently received reports from two survivors of the Serbian brutality
who estimated 3,000 Bosnian Muslims were executed at Brcko during May
and June.
``These are the first eyewitness reports we've received of these
killings in the Brcko area,'' Boucher said Monda
novine.29.bale.,
NEW YORK TIMES, Tuesday, Seprember 29, 1992.
SARAJEVO, BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA: The Bosnian Government has sent an urgent
appeal to the U.N. Security Council warning that Sarajevo in in "imminent
danger" of falling to besieging Serbian nationalist troops unless Bosnian
forces are exempted from a U.N. arms embargo. The appeal said that Serbian
military moves, including an increase in tank strength in Grbavica, an area
of the city that is barely a mile away from key Government installations
like the presidency, indicated that Sarajevo was facing "what is likely to
be the final assault."
"If our fears are realized, we are unlikely to survive this latest
onslaught on the city." The Government letter said.
The appeal dated on Saturday, came in a letter addressed to the
Security Council by Ejup Ganic, a Vice President who is in charge of the
Government in the absence of Alije Izetbegovic. Mr. Izetbegovic is on a
foreign tour intended to foster support for his beleagured Government, which
has been hanging onto its control of Sarajevo under a six-month siege by the
Serbian forces.
The Bosnian position has been that the arms embargo penalizes only
the Sarajevo Government, since the Serbian forces are fighting with the
backing of the well equipped Yugoslav army.
novine.30.bale.,
(From the Los Angeles Times, September 29, 1992; for fair use only:)
"Rebel Serbs Mock U.N. Mission in Croatia Zones"
By Carol J. Williams, Times Staff Writer
* Balkans: Guerrilla bands keep peacekeeping troops from restoring civilian
control to four `protected areas.'
Karlovac, Croatia -- Just a few miles south of the official crossing into
U.N. Sector North, three unshaven guerrillas present a rival welcome
committee.
Decked out in blue camouflage in an unconvincing attempt to look like
policemen, the Serbian rebels guarding the entrance to what they consider
the Republic of Serbian Krajina have dragged lawn chairs and wooden
sawhorses onto the roadway to create their own checkpoint.
They greet all comers with the muzzles of their machine guns.
"No entrance today," barked one guerrilla, spewing a cloud of brandy breath
and dismissingly waving away a U.N. press pass. Sector North, on this
particular day, is closed "for technical reasons."
Although the Krajina vigilantes are stingy with their explanations, radio
reports of Serbian air attacks on Muslim villages across the nearby Bosnian
border are likely the technicalities prompting them to peremptorily seal
off access to what is supposed to be a demilitarized buffer zone under U.N.
control.
U.N. troops have been patrolling four designated "protected areas" in
Croatia for nearly five months, yet their authority appears to extend only
as far as the nearest Serbian barricade. On occasion, the roving guerrilla
bands even block U.N. troops from moving about, mocking the international
mandate to restore civilian control and the prewar order.
"It's like Wyoming in the 1880s," complained Cedric Thornberry, chief of
civilian affairs for what is now the largest peacekeeping mission in U.N.
history. "The situation is so bad in Sector East that we believe civil
authority has basically disintegrated. Courts do not sit. Police do not
investigate. Sectors South and East are descending steadily into
conditions of anarchy."
While Thornberry singles out the regions closest to Serbia and the coveted
Dalmatian coastline for criticism, conditions in the other two zones are
also woefully short of the objectives set out by U.N. special envoy Cyrus
R. Vance in the deployment plan he drafted with Serbian and Croatian
officials nearly a year ago. Menacing of motorists, looting, armed assault
and the practice known as ethnic cleansing are the pattern of daily life
here, too.
* * *
The lack of U.N. progress in disarming paramilitary forces has prompted
anger and impatience among non-Serbs driven from the region who have been
pinning their hopes on the peacekeepers to make it safe enough to go home.
Croatian officials, who accuse U.N. personnel of protecting Serbian
warlords who rule over one-third of the republic, are threatening to
shepherd masses of refugees back into the volatile area.
Marko Kvesic, deposed mayor of Beli Manastir in the Baranja region of
Sector East, has given the peacekeepers until the end of the month to
fulfill their pledge to help refugees return to their homes.
Noting the need to begin the school year and prepare neglected farmland for
winter, Kvesic plans to lead a mass return to Beli Manastir on Wednesday,
whether the United Nations assists him or not. The Croatian government has
promised support.
"We have asked them [U.N. forces] to show in at least one village their
good will to assist the refugees in returning to their homes. If they are
not able to do this, then you can draw your own conclusions about how we
will respond," said Damir Zoric, deputy chief of the Office for Refugees
and Displaced Persons in Zagreb, the Croatian capital.
Asked how he would bring refugees back to Baranja over U.N. objections,
Zoric replied: "We will march."
Thornberry says he has no intention of bowing to the ultimatum.
* * *
"It is the height of irresponsibility of Croatian government officials,
knowing full well what the situation is in Baranja, to incite the hopes of
desperate people and lead them into a situation that, unless they are very
fortunate, will be one of violent confrontation," Thornberry warned.
But the threatened showdown has put the United Nations in the awkward
position of having to forcibly drive away the very people whose return they
were charged with arranging.
"We will seek to prevent their re-entry. We've warned that conditions are
not secure and that we will put our troops there on the border ... to
protect them from the lunatics inside Baranja who are wanting to shoot
themselves a few Croats," Thornberry said.
U.N. troops are doing what they can to disarm the guerrilla bands
throughout the Krajina, he said, "but there is no answer except the
unexciting one of gradually trying to restore tranquility."
While none of the 600,000 people forced to leave their homes in the
Croatian war zones have been able to move back as a result of the U.N.
deployment, U.N. spokeswoman Shannon Boyd claims that the mission has
achieved some successes.
Fighting that killed 10,000 people last year has dropped off dramatically,
although Croats tend to attribute the fall in casualties to the fact that
Serbs now enjoy almost exclusive control of the regions after having driven
out the Croats, leaving no enemy to fight.
U.N. forces took over control of the Peruca Dam in Sector South in mid-
September, opening one of the floodgates to avert an impending disaster.
Serbian radicals who had been holding the dam for more than a year had been
amassing water to a dangerous level with the intent of rupturing the
structure and flooding the predominantly Croatian lowlands around the city
of Sinj.
Boyd also claimed that U.N. mediators had achieved a breakthrough in
clearing mines and roadblocks from the Belgrade-Zagreb highway and that a
limited reopening of the 250-mile route was imminent.
Only humanitarian aid convoys and the few foreign travelers venturing into
the region would be allowed to use the road that skirts some of the worst
battlegrounds of the wars in Croatia and Bosnia, but Boyd described it as
"a first step." Currently, all traffic between the respective Serbian and
Croatian capitals has to detour through Hungary, tripling what would
normally be a four-hour drive.
The small advances toward restoring public services and a sense of normalcy
to the U.N. zones have been overshadowed by what U.N. officials concede is
a stalemate in disarming and dispersing the guerrilla bands.
Conditions have actually worsened in recent weeks, the U.N. officials
report, with Serbian guerrillas becoming more "assertive."
novine.31.bale.,
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Yugoslav Prime Minister sees Eagleburger, Congressmen
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Yugoslav Prime Minister sees Eagleburger, Congressmen
Date: 29 Sep 92 19:58:01 GMT
WASHINGTON (UPI) -- Yugoslav Prime Minister Milan Panic met privately
Tuesday in separate sessions with Acting Secretary of State Lawrence
Eagleburger and congressional officials to appeal for an easing of U.N.
sanctions before winter strikes.
David Calef, Panic's spokesman, and congressional aides told United
Press International that the prime minister sought the sanctions relief
in a closed meeting with Rep. Dante Fascell, D-Fla., chairman of the
House Foreign Affairs Committee, and other congressional leaders, and
with Eagleburger.
It was the second meeting in a week between Panic, the self-made
American millionaire of Serbian extraction, and Eagleburger and with
leaders of the House committee. He also met last week with members of
the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
The State Department, which normally includes on its daily schedule
meetings between Eagleburger and heads of state, did not make note of
Tuesday's parley.
A senior State Department official was unsure why the meeting was
omitted from Eagleburger's daily schedule.
The official would not discuss details of the meeting but said the
administration had ``not ruled out'' easing the embargo to allow heating
oil shipments to Serbia and Montenegro, the unrecognized successor
states to Yugoslavia.
``It's something we will have to take a look at,'' the official said.
Congressional aides said Panic is orchestrating a lobbying campaign
with U.S. officials in hopes that for ``humanitarian reasons'' they will
ease sanctions imposed on Belgrade for its attempts to annex Bosnia-
Hercegovina and ``cleanse'' it of all non-Serbs.
Calef said Panic is concerned about the effect of a heating oil
shortage on hospitals and children during the brutal Yugoslav winter.
``The main pitch was to try to make an argument with senior members
of Congress on the need to lift U.N. sanctions for humanitarian reasons
so they can import fuel oil,'' a congressional aide who attended the
meetings told UPI under conditions of anonymity.
The aide said Panic ``made a convincing argument'' that he is not
involved in any of the Belgrade-inspired mayhem in Bosnia-Hercegovina.
Panic said he is doing everything he can to stop ethnic cleansing in
which it is estimated thousands of civilians have been slaughtered,
close detention camps and silence the weapons, the aide said.
Panic said he and Belgrade ``have limited influence'' over the
actions of Serbian guerillas in Bosnia-Hercegovina, the aide said, and
is ``saying all the right things.''
``One is left with the nagging doubt as to how much power Panic
really has in Belgrade and to what extent he is being manipulated by
those really in control to plea for sanctions exemptions. The skeptics
among us, or perhaps the realists, wonder how long he will last if he is
successful.''
novine.32.bale.,
RFE/RL Daily Report
No. 187, 29 September 1992
SUCCESSOR STATES TO THE USSR
RUSSIA SENDS REINFORCEMENTS TO TAJIKISTAN AS FIGHTING CONTINUES.
The head of Kurgan-Tyube's city council, Nurali Kurbanov, told a
press conference that hundreds of people, including the city's
chief law enforcement official, were killed on 27 September in an
attack on the city by Tajik forces loyal to deposed President
Rakhmon Nabiev, Interfax, as quoted by Western agencies, reported
on 28 September. Kurbanov also claimed that Russian troops
stationed in Tajikistan were helping the pro-Nabiev forces from
Kulyab Oblast. Tajik Radio was quoted as having said that acting
President Akbarsho Iskandarov had sent a protest to Russia over
the use of Russian tanks by Kulyab forces. The tanks were
supposedly stolen by Kulyab fighters from a Russian unit.
ITAR-TASS reported that additional Russian troops were being sent
to Tajikistan to help those already there defend themselves. (Bess
Brown, RFE/RL Inc.)
YELTSIN-SHEVARDNADZE MEETING ON ABKHAZIA. Following Georgian
State Council Chairman Eduard Shevardnadze's protest on 27
September against the Russian parliament's statements on the
conflict in Abkhazia, Russian President Boris Yeltsin met with
Shevardnadze for talks at the latter's request on 28 September in
Moscow. According to Vyacheslav Kostikov, the Russian president's
press secretary, the two leaders discussed ways to implement the
Russo-Georgian agreement of 3 September on settling the Abkhazian
conflict. Yeltsin and Shevardnadze also agreed to hold regular
talks and scheduled a meeting for 13 October. Shevardnadze said
he was satisfied with the talks. Speaking at a news conference
after the meeting, Shevardnadze said Yeltsin is determined to
follow through on democratic reforms in Russia, ITAR-TASS
reported. (Suzanne Crow, RFE/RL Inc.)
FIRST NORTH CAUCASIAN VOLUNTEERS LEAVE ABKHAZIA. The first group
of fighters sent to Abkhazia by the Confederation of Mountain
Peoples of the North Caucasus left Abkhazia for Groznyi on 28
September, ITAR-TASS reported. About one hundred were flown out in
a Russian plane. The Abkhaz had stated earlier that their
departure had been suspended. (Ann Sheehy, RFE/RL Inc.)
RUSSIAN PARLIAMENT DEBATES LAW REDUCING YELTSIN'S POWER. The
draft law "On the Council of Ministers and the Government of
Russia" is currently being examined by the presidium of the
Russian parliament, Interfax reported on 28 September. The draft
law gives President Yeltsin the right to appoint the prime
minister and other leading cabinet members only with the approval
of the parliament. If the parliament does not approve the
president's candidate, the president will have the right to
appoint an acting prime minister for three months. If the law is
adopted, Yeltsin will loose his present powers to appoint
ministers without the parliament's approval. The presidium of the
parliament also proposed two alternative dates, 15 December and 12
January, for convening the Seventh Congress of People's Deputies.
(Alexander Rahr, RFE/RL Inc.)
CIVIC UNION INCREASES PRESSURE ON THE GOVERNMENT. The three
principal leaders of the Civic Union have increased their pressure
on the government. Russian Vice President Aleksandr Rutskoi told
a youth gathering that some ministers should resign because "their
radicalism gives nothing to society," ITAR-TASS reported on 28
September. Arkadii Volsky, the president of the Russian Union of
Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, urged the government to make way
for a team of industrial managers who understood how to run the
country. Nikolai Travkin, the leader of the Democratic Party,
said that it was necessary to remove from the government State
Secretary Gennadii Burbulis, Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev,
Deputy Prime Minister Anatolii Chubais, and Economic Minister
Andrei Nechaev. All three Civic Union leaders emphasized, however,
that Prime Minister Egor Gaidar should stay. (Alexander Rahr,
RFE/RL Inc.)
VOLSKY PLAYS DOWN DIFFERENCES WITH GAIDAR. Despite his increasing
criticism of specific Gaidar economic policies, Arkadii Volsky,
president of the Russian Union of Industrialists and
Entrepreneurs, seems reluctant to be branded as an anti-reformer.
At a press conference in St. Petersburg, Volsky said that his
group's recently released 13-point "anti-crisis" program is not an
"alternative to the present economic course" of the Gaidar
government, "Vesti" reported on 27 September. "We never set
ourselves the task of creating an alternative program . .
[T]here can be no alternative to a transition to the market,"
Volsky emphasized. (Erik Whitlock, RFE/RL Inc.)
NECHAEV ON FALL IN INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTION. Russian Minister of the
Economy, Andrei Nechaev, told a conference of young business and
political leaders on 28 September that the nation's industrial
production is expected to fall by 20% this year, ITAR-TASS
reported. According to official statistics, last year's drop was
2.2%. Nechaev also disclosed that state orders from the defense
industry this year were cut by 68%. In a subsequent interview with
an ITAR-TASS correspondent, Nechaev said that the government
intended to limit the decline in 1993 to 8%. In a related story,
Nechaev announced that the government had reached a compromise
with the Central Bank on a limit of new credit creation to
increase enterprise liquidity, according to "Novosti" on 27
September. There were few details. (Erik Whitlock, RFE/RL Inc.)
RUSSIAN DEFENSE BUDGET FOR 1993. Russian Economics Minister Andrei
Nechaev on 28 September provided details about the 1993 defense
budget. According to Interfax, defense expenditures will total
between 1.55 and 1.65 trillion rubles in July 1992 prices,
compared to 632 billion rubles in 1992. (Comparing real outlays
is complicated by rapid inflation and the arbitrary pricing
structure of Russian arms.) Most of the increase is due to
personnel and housing construction costs. Procurement spending
has been set at 170 billion rubles, a rejection of the Industry
Ministry's call to increase it by 60%. Weapons production levels
would reportedly remain at the same level as in 1992. (John
Lepingwell)
RUSSIA NEGOTIATING WITH DEBTORS. Russia is making some progress in
settling debts with less-developed countries. According to
Interfax on 28 September, Minister of Foreign Economic Relations,
Petr Aven, announced that India is soon to begin payments on its
$15 billion debt to Russia. Negotiations are also progressing
with Tanzania and Poland. Last week Aven said that less-developed
nations, many of them former Soviet client states, owed Russia
some $142 billion. Aven said he does not expect much of this to
be repaid. Cuba, for example, has officially informed Russia that
it will not pay back its $28 billion debt. Others owing sums of
$10 billion or less, such as Iraq, Angola and Zaire, are in such
bad economic condition that repayment is similarly unlikely. (Erik
Whitlock)
GORBACHEV REFUSES TO TESTIFY AT THE CPSU HEARING. Russian TV
newscasts on 28 September cited a press release made by the
Constitutional Court, which quotes a letter sent to the Court by
former Soviet Communist Party General Secretary, Mikhail
Gorbachev. Asked to testify in the current trial of the party,
which was banned by President Yeltsin after the failed coup of
August 1991, Gorbachev expressed in the letter his "profound
respect" for the court as an important democratic institution, but
added that he will not take part in the hearing, because the two
opposing sides, i.e., those supporting Yeltsin's ban of the party
and those defending the CPSU, are eager to exploit it for their
own political purposes. (On Friday, 25 September, "Novosti"
reported that one of the judges on the Constitutional Court had
declared Gorbachev's refusal to appear contempt of court.
According to the press release, other former Party leaders have
agreed to testify. (Julia Wishnevsky)
..AND PROBABLY WITH GOOD REASON. A 25 September article in the
emigre weekly Russkaya mysl', written by its Moscow correspondent,
quotes Yeltsin's supporters at the CPSU hearing as saying that no
matter what he might say, Gorbachev's testimony may enable his
democratic opponents to diminish the former General Secretary's
popularity in the West by putting him in the dock for the "party's
crimes." Meanwhile, writing in Gudok on 1 September, a
representative of the communist side, Anatolii Salutsky, predicted
that an "unlimited" opportunity for hardliners to question
Gorbachev and Aleksandr Yakovlev in court could bring about
"dramatic political consequences . . . on a world scale." (Julia
Wishnevsky)
CHINA WELCOMES RUSSIAN WITHDRAWAL FROM MONGOLIA. A spokesman for
the Chinese Foreign Ministry on 28 September welcomed the
announcement that all Russian troops have been withdrawn from
Mongolia. ITAR-TASS said that the announcement of the final
withdrawal was made on the previous day. The last troops left in
September. Then Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev had
announced a partial Soviet troop withdrawal from Mongolia in
January 1989, and talks on a complete pullout began in February
1990. At one time there were as many as 70,000 Soviet troops in
Mongolia. (Doug Clarke)
PLUTONIUM REACTOR SHUT DOWN. On 29 September, ITAR-TASS reported
that the second plutonium production reactor near Krasnoyarsk has
been shut down, ending plutonium production for nuclear weapons in
Russia. The Krasnoyarsk site housed two reactors deep underground,
which for 30 years produced the weapons material that allowed the
rapid buildup of Soviet nuclear stockpiles. Specialists at the
site are proposing that it be used to build a prototype small
nuclear reactor that could provide power to remote locations in
Siberia and the north. (John Lepingwell, RFE/RL, Inc.)
INTELLIGENCE SPOKESWOMAN EXPLAINS PRIMAKOV'S PROPOSALS. The
moratorium on foreign espionage offered by the director of the
Russian foreign intelligence service, Evgennii Primakov,(see
RFE/RL Daily Report 28 September) can be realized only if there
are "collective guarantees" by the NATO countries, said the agency
spokeswoman, Tatyana Samolis, ITAR-TASS reported on 28 September.
Even if Great Britain, for example, agrees to cease intelligence
activities in Russia, it will still be able to obtain intelligence
information about Russia from its NATO allies. Therefore, Russia
must receive a collective guarantee from all NATO countries which
have "an integrated military and intelligence structure," she
added. In light of this statement, it is noteworthy that the
Primakov initiative may have the practical effect of dividing
Western military and intelligence services at the time when
European integration is experiencing a crisis over currency and
other issues. (Victor Yasmann, RFE/RL Inc.)
FOKIN TO DETAIL ECONOMIC REFORMS. Ukrainian Prime Minister Vitold
Fokin is scheduled to address the Ukrainian parliament on 29
September, Interfax reported. The parliament is expected to hear
details of the government's new economic program, developed by
First Deputy Prime Minister Valentyn Symonenko. Both Fokin and
President Leonid Kravchuk are also expected to propose changes in
the composition of the government. (Roman Solchanyk, RFE/RL Inc.)
UKRAINIAN STUDENTS DEMAND CHANGES. The Third Congress of the
Ukrainian Students Union (USS) opened in Donetsk on 25 September,
Ukrainian TV reported. The USS is taking part in the campaign for
new parliamentary elections and supports radical economic reforms.
Together with the All-Ukrainian Association of Solidarity with
Toilers (VOST), the USS issued a statement calling for new
elections and the formation of a government worthy of the public's
trust. (Roman Solchanyk, RFE/RL Inc.)
STATE OF EMERGENCY REVOKED IN KABARDINO-BALKARIA. The state of
emergency proclaimed in Kabardino-Balkaria on 27 September was
revoked on 28 September, Radio Mayak reported, and Musa Shanibov,
the president of the Confederation of the Mountain Peoples of the
Caucasus, was released, an RFE/RL correspondent in Moscow was told
by a local official. The state of emergency had been proclaimed
after supporters of the Congress of the Kabardian People staged
violent protests in Nalchik to protest Shanibov's detention on 23
September for his role in the despatch of volunteers to Abkhazia.
Shanibov is to address an extraordinary congress of the
confederation in Groznyi on 2 October. The events in
Kabardino-Balkaria are reminiscent of last year's events in
Chechnya when the Russian authorities also found it necessary to
back down in the face of local resistance. (Ann Sheehy, RFE/RL
Inc.)
RUSSIAN CEASEFIRE OBSERVERS ARRIVE IN BAKU. A first batch of
Russian observers who will monitor a ceasefire in Nagorno-Karabakh
arrived in Baku on 28 September, Azerinform-TASS reported.
Additional observers from Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine are
expected soon. Meanwhile, both the Azerbaijani and Armenian sides
accused each other of violating the ceasefire. On 28 September
Armenpress-TASS quoted a report from Stepanakert stating that
Azerbaijani forces had fired on the road connecting
Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia, but traffic did not stop moving.
Interfax reported the same day that Azerbaijan's minister of
internal affairs had rejected the idea of inviting in CIS troops
for peacekeeping duties in the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute. (Bess
Brown, RFE/RL Inc.)
UZBEK OPPOSITION LEADER ON CRACKDOWN. Uzbek writer Muhammed Salih,
chairman of the tiny opposition Erk (Will) Party, was quoted by
Reuter on 28 September as warning that he will call for street
demonstrations if the Uzbek government crackdown on the opposition
does not stop. Uzbek President Islam Karimov fears that unrest
will spread from neighboring Tajikistan and has taken various
measures to silence and intimidate the opposition in Uzbekistan.
Erk, the only genuine opposition party to be registered, has had
its newspaper closed and its bank account confiscated, according
to Salih. (Bess Brown, RFE/RL Inc.)
CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE
PARTIAL RESULTS IN ROMANIAN ELECTIONS. Latest figures released by
the National Statistics Board on 29 September (as of 3:00 a.m.)
confirm forecasts from exit polls made by a German and a Romanian
survey institute two days before. The partial results, based on
complete counts from roughly 65% of all stations, show the
incumbent Ion Iliescu leading in the presidential race with 47.3%.
He is followed by Emil Constantinescu from the centrist Democratic
Convention (DC) with 31.2%; Gheorghe Funar from the nationalist
Party of Romanian National Unity (PRNU) with 11%; Caius Traian
Dragomir from the National Salvation Front (NSF) with 4.7%; Ion
Manzatu from the Republican Party with 3.1%; and Mircea Druc, an
independent, with 2.8%. Though a runoff between Iliescu and
Constantinescu on 11 October seems inevitable, the former's
reelection appears almost certain. The results also show the
Democratic National Salvation Front (DNSF), the party backing
Iliescu, as leading the vote for the 143-seat Senate with 28.6%
and for the 328-seat Chamber of Deputies with 27.6%. It is
followed by the DC with 18.6% and 18.7%, respectively; the NSF
(10.2% for both); the Hungarian Democratic Union of Romania (9.1%
and 8.9%); the PRNU (8.2% and 7.8%); the Greater Romania Party
(3.7% and 3.8%); the Democratic Agrarian Party (3.3% and 3%); and
the Socialist Labor Party, the reborn communist party (3.2% and
3%). Most analysts see a coalition government looming, and
believe that the DNSF might form a alliance with nationalist and
leftist parties. (Dan Ionescu, RFE/RL Inc.)
NEW WAVE OF "ETHNIC CLEANSING" IN BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA? The 29
September Washington Post quotes international relief officials as
saying that Serbian forces have begun a systematic drive to expel
the remaining 200,000 Muslims from northwestern Bosnia centering
on Banja Luka. The account describes "bombings, burning, torture,
and murder," with one relief worker saying: "there's more of this,
and worse than anyone can imagine." At least four Muslim villages
were destroyed by masked Serbs going "from house to house lobbing
grenades, shooting--killing dozens . . ." during the week that
peace envoys Cyrus Vance and Lord Owen visited the region.
Desperate Muslims are paying Serbs large sums of money to be
allowed to make the dangerous trip to the Bosnian-held enclave of
Travnik, their one chance of escape. Meanwhile, the 29 September
New York Times says that the Bosnian government has again appealed
to the UN Security Council to allow it to buy arms to prevent what
the Bosnians claim is the Serbs' "final assault" on Sarajevo.
(Patrick Moore, RFE/RL Inc.)
CROATIANS DEMAND TO RETURN HOME. Reuter on 28 September and the
Los Angeles Times the following day report that up to 10,000 male
Croats have threatened to march on their former homes in the
Baranja region bordering Hungary. UN peacekeepers are trying to
pressure the Croatian authorities, who may be encouraging the
refugees, to stop what the UN fears could be a massacre if unarmed
civilians walk into areas that have been held by Serbian militias
since the summer of 1991. The Croats are impatient at the UN's
failure to disarm the Serbs and enable the refugees to go home,
and this has become a major issue in the Croatian media and in
politics. The UN has succeeded in opening some formerly Serb-held
areas in the Dalmatian hinterland, but the Croatian authorities
and press warned civilians not to go home until the area has been
cleared of mines. Some 600,000 people have been displaced in
Croatia since local Serbs with the backing of the former Yugoslav
army began taking control of Croatian territory in early 1991.
(Patrick Moore, RFE/RL Inc.)
KOSOVO DEVELOPMENTS. According to Radio Serbia, 19 Kosovo
Albanians went on trial in Pec on 28 September. The defendants,
members of the National Front of Albanians, have been charged by
Serbian authorities with the intention to stage an armed rebellion
to sever the Serbian province of Kosovo from Serbia and set up an
independent state or annex it to Albania. The defendants are
accused of buying foreign-made arms and ammunition and smuggling
them into Kosovo. Other charges include unlawful entry into a
local textile plant and the manufacture of military uniforms
marked with Albanian military insignia. Belgrade Radio reports
that one defendant has confessed that he discussed "the defense of
Kosovo" with Albanian officers during a visit to Albania. He also
admitted smuggling a significant amount of weapons from
Switzerland. Before the trial began, the court denied the defense
attorneys' request to turn the case over to an international
organization. (Milan Andrejevich, RFE/RL Inc.)
TALKS ON THE DIVISION OF CZECHOSLOVAK ARMY. The State Defense
Council, the body supervising Czechoslovakia's defense policies,
met in Prague on 28 September to discuss the division of the
Czechoslovak army. Speaking to reporters after the meeting,
Federal Prime Minister and Defense Council Chairman Jan Strasky
said that the council asked the chairmen of the republican defense
councils to work out details of the army's split. Defense Minister
Imrich Andrejcak was asked to prepare draft agreements on
cooperation between the two new armies after the split. Andrejcak
told CSTK that the federal command of the army will cease to exist
on the day of Czechoslovakia's split. Slovak Prime Minister
Vladimir Meciar walked out of the council's meeting in protest
against what he saw as unacceptable demands by the Czech side that
each republic keep those installations and assets now situated on
its territory. Speaking on Slovak television, Ivan Gasparovic,
chairman of the Slovak parliament, argued that Slovakia could lose
as much as 80 billion koruny if the territorial principle were
applied to the division of the army's assets. (Jiri Pehe, RFE/RL
Inc.)
BULGARIAN ECONOMIC NEWS. European Community Finance Ministers,
meeting in Brussels on 28 September, discussed awarding additional
funds to Bulgaria and Romania. Last week talks between Bulgaria
and the EC moved Bulgaria closer to associate status and trade
terms have been agreed upon, according an RFE/RL correspondent.
Further talks will be held on 15 and 16 October. The Sofia
government hopes for an agreement by year's end while EC leaders
are more reserved, awaiting results of the forthcoming
discussions. Also on 28 September Bulgaria, together with
Australia, Greece, and Luxembourg, signed an agreement to prohibit
money laundering by organized crime. The pact, already signed by
20 other countries but ratified only by Great Britain so far, will
make police detection of illegal money flowing into subscribing
countries easier. (Duncan Perry, RFE/RL Inc.)
PROCEEDINGS STARTED IN 1956 HUNGARIAN KILLINGS. Hungarian TV
reported on 27 September that the Christian Democratic People's
Party (CDPP) has initiated proceedings against those who ordered
soldiers to fire into a crowd at Mosonmagyarovar during the 1956
Revolution. Some 100 died and 200 were injured. A 25-page brief
has been filed at the Gyor-Sopron County chief prosecutor's office
by two lawyers for the CDPP, against the former officials, who not
only have not been punished but currently receive substantial
state pensions. The chief prosecutor turned the case over to the
military court in Gyor. This is the first attempt by a political
party to press legal charges for a crime under the communist
regime but that has not yet been prosecuted. A law allowing
prosecution of such crimes was ruled unconstitutional by the
Constitutional Court earlier this year. The CDPP argues that 1956
offenses constitute war crimes and as such do not fall under the
statute of limitation. (Judith Pataki, RFE/RL Inc.)
MEDIA WAR AT HUNGARIAN TV CONTINUES. According to Hungarian media
reports on 28 September, the president of Hungarian TV, Elemer
Hankiss, has fired Palfy G. Istvan, the progovernment chief
editor of two influential news programs. The decision is expected
to increase the tensions between the government and Hankiss, who
was dismissed earlier this year by Prime Minister Jozsef Antall.
President Arpad Goncz has repeatedly refused to sign Hankiss's
dismissal. Hankiss claims that Palfy's programs were not
objective and failed to live up to "European standards." Only one
progovernment chief editor remains at the state-owned TV. (Judith
Pataki, RFE/RL Inc.)
LITHUANIAN PRIME MINISTER IN WARSAW. Aleksandras Abisala met with
President Lech Walesa and Prime Minister Hanna Suchocka during a
one-day visit to Warsaw on 28 September. It was Abisala's first
foreign visit as prime minister. Agreements were signed on
investment protection, the fight against organized crime, and
border controls. Although both sides presented the visit as a
step forward, the tensions that have slowed work on a bilateral
treaty were also very much in evidence. Polish officials pressed
for more equitable treatment of the Polish minority in Lithuania.
Abisala insisted that Lithuania's policy meets European standards.
For his part, he criticized the position of Poland's Lithuanian
minority and pressed for a reckoning with the past, especially the
Polish occupation of Vilnius in 1920. Lithuania's defense
minister, Audrius Butkevicius, begins a three-day visit to Poland
on 29 September. (Louisa Vinton, RFE/RL Inc.)
LANDSBERGIS AT UNGA. On 28 September Lithuanian Supreme Council
Chairman Vytautas Landsbergis addressed the UN General Assembly.
The speech, broadcast live by Radio Lithuania, focused on the need
for the Russian military to leave the Baltic States. Landsbergis
noted that Russian conservatives were dividing foreign countries
into "inner" and "outer" spheres, with Russia marking out its
"special interests" in the former--states that could be taken over
much as was done in 1939. Landsbergis held talks with UN
Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali that day and on 29
September will meet former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger
and British Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd before returning to
Lithuania in the evening. He cancelled a planned trip to Chicago
on 30 September. (Saulius Girnius, RFE/RL Inc.)
GROMOV ON TROOP PULLOUT FROM THE BALTICS. Russia's Deputy Defense
Minister Boris Gromov told Krasnaya zvezda of 25 September the
pullout of Russian troops by 1 September 1993 from Lithuania is
"by no means synonymous with a readiness to flee." He noted that
specific accords on the withdrawal remain to be ratified. (On 23
September Gromov told Interfax that Russian troops in Estonia and
Latvia are to be pulled out in 1994, though the final date must
still be negotiated.) He pointed out that Russia intends to keep
the presence of its Baltic Fleet in the region. Gromov said that
there are still about 35,000 Russian officers and enlisted men in
Lithuania, over 15,000 in Latvia, and about 24,000 in Estonia.
These figures differ from those recently given by other Russian
officials. (Dzintra Bungs, RFE/RL Inc.)
TROOPS CLASH OVER BUILDING IN KAUNAS. On 28 September, as a group
of unarmed Lithuanian soldiers began to take inventory of a
building in Kaunas that had been used by the Russian army, ten
armed Russian soldiers burst into the building, threw the
Lithuanian soldiers out, and barricaded themselves on the second
floor. The Russians later left the building, Radio Lithuania
reports, but three unarmed officers remained on the second floor.
The first floor is controlled by Lithuanian troops. (Saulius
Girnius, RFE/RL Inc.)
RIGA AVIATION SCHOOL MAY LOSE ITS FOREIGN STUDENTS. BNS reports
that as of 1 October the Riga Aviation University may lose nearly
500 of its foreign students because the Latvian government will
not take over the costs of their stipends--$2-3,000 per student
annually--from Moscow, which sent them for study in Latvia. What
is more, Russia has not paid off its debt of 36 million rubles for
the education of its students over the last academic year nor made
any payments for the first semester of this year. (Dzintra Bungs,
RFE/RL Inc.)
IS RUSSIA PREPARING ESTONIA SANCTIONS? The Russian government
plans to adopt a political resolution regarding relations with
Estonia in the next few days, BNS reports on 28 September, quoting
Interfax. The resolution may well direct the government to
introduce "political and economic sanctions" against Estonia for
its alleged discriminatory treatment of ethnic Russians,
especially with regard to Estonia's parliamentary elections last
week. (Riina Kionka, RFE/RL Inc.)
CONGRESS OF ESTONIA HOLDS FINAL SESSION. The Congress of Estonia
movement held its tenth and final session on 28 September, local
media report. The meeting adopted a resolution stating that
Estonia has restored the constitutional state structure according
to the will of the republic's citizens--this had been the goal of
the alternative parliament ever since it was established in March
1990. (Riina Kionka, RFE/RL Inc.)
POLAND'S COL. KUKLINSKI: HERO OR TRAITOR? The Washington Post of
27 September carried a lengthy report on Col. Ryszard Kuklinski,
the highly-placed Polish officer who spied for the US for 11 years
and revealed the plans for martial law to the CIA before escaping
from Poland in 1981. According to sources quoted in the report,
Kuklinski, who now lives in the US under a false identity,
provided the CIA with 35,000 pages of documents that one
specialist said "virtually defined our knowledge" of Soviet
military plans and equipment. The account has evoked discussion
in Poland because of Kuklinski's foiled attempts to have his 1984
death sentence for treason (later reduced to 25 years
imprisonment) overturned. Defense Minister Janusz Onyszkiewicz
called the case a "moral dilemma" because of the implications
Kuklinski's exoneration could have for the Polish army. (Louisa
Vinton, RFE/RL Inc.)
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RFE/RL Daily Report
No. 188, 30 September 1992
SUCCESSOR STATES TO THE USSR
TENSE SITUATION IN TAJIKISTAN. Tajikistan's deposed President
Rakhmon Nabiev told an RFE/RL correspondent on 29 September that
he had not been beaten up and hospitalized, as had been reported
by the Nega news agency the previous day. The same day, Moscow and
Dushanbe news agencies reported that pro-Nabiev forces from Kulyab
Oblast were still in control of the town of Kurgan-Tyube, an
opposition stronghold, and that the town had sustained major
damage in the fighting. The government in Dushanbe has devised a
plan to disarm the population by buying their illegal weapons, but
local authorities will have to put up the money. An article in
the 30 September issue of Nezavisimaya gazeta draws attention to
the rising crime rate in Tajikistan and reports that leaders of
the opposing sides in the civil war say they have no control over
some 20% of their forces. The same source says that anti-Nabiev
forces in Kurgan-Tyube are being led by radical members of the
Islamic Renaissance Party. (Bess Brown, RFE/RL, Inc.)
STATUS OF BESIEGED RUSSIAN TROOPS IN TAJIKISTAN UNCLEAR. Russian
news agencies reported on 29 September that the Russian military
unit that was besieged near Kurgan-Tyube by fighters from Kulyab
has still not been able to drive off the Tajik fighters trying to
capture Russian arms and equipment. Meanwhile, Western news
agencies reported on 29 September a statement by the Russian
Defense Ministry that a "limited military contingent" of Russian
reinforcements had arrived in Tajikistan to protect Russian troops
already deployed there, their families, and military facilities.
(Bess Brown, RFE/RL, Inc.)
FOREIGN HELP FOR TAJIKISTAN? In a speech to the UN General
Assembly on 29 September, Tajik Foreign Minister Khudoberdi
Kholiknazarov played down the scope of the fighting in his
country, saying that it is presently limited to the center of
Kurgan-Tyube Oblast, an RFE/RL correspondent reported. He appealed
for international help in ensuring that democracy prevails. The
same day Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati told Tajik
Minister of Culture Zakirdzhan Vazirov, on a visit to Tehran, that
Iran is ready to help in working out a peaceful settlement of the
civil war in Tajikistan, Western news agencies reported, quoting
the official IRNA news agency. (Bess Brown, RFE/RL, Inc.)
SHANIBOV'S ESCAPE AND SITUATION IN KABARDINO-BALKARIA. Musa
Shanibov, president of the Confederation of the Mountain Peoples
of the Caucasus, was not released from custody, as earlier
reported, but escaped, Nezavisimaya gazeta reported on 30
September. Shanibov, who had been detained for his part in the
confederation's despatch of volunteers to Abkhazia, returned in
triumph to Nalchik, where he told a meeting of 30,000, reinforced
by delegations from North Ossetia, Checheno-Ingushetia, and
Karachaevo-Cherkesia, that he would continue the struggle for the
independence of the North Caucasus. The meeting called for the
removal of Russian troops from Kabardino-Balkaria and the
punishment of local officials. The article in Nezavisimaya gazeta
gives the impression that the Kabardino-Balkarian authorities are
no longer in charge of the situation. (Ann Sheehy, RFE/RL, Inc.)
UKRAINE REQUESTS SECURITY GUARANTEES, FOREIGN AID. Speaking at
the United Nations on 29 September, Ukrainian Foreign Minister
Anatoly Zlenko said that his country expected "strict
international guarantees" of its national security against any
threat or use of force from nuclear-armed states. In reports of
his remarks carried by Western agencies, Zlenko also urged a
complete ban on nuclear weapons testing. He said that Ukraine
intended to accede to the Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear
Weapons "in the nearest future," but at a subsequent press
conference he claimed Ukraine needed hundreds of millions of
dollars in foreign aid to dismantle its missiles. (Doug
Clarke/John Lepingwell, RFE/RL, Inc.)
SHAPOSHNIKOV WARNS WEST AGAINST INTERFERENCE IN CIS TALKS. At a
conference in Paris on 29 September, CIS Commander in Chief
Evgenii Shaposhnikov warned European countries against interfering
in talks between CIS states over nuclear weapons control.
According to Reuters, Shaposhnikov stated that "when parents have
to make delicate decisions, the advice of third parties . . . can
cause harm." Shaposhnikov argued that Russia should control all
former Soviet nuclear weapons immediately, regardless of their
location. Belarus and Kazakhstan have reportedly partly agreed to
Russian control, while Ukraine wants to exercise administrative
control over nuclear weapons on its territory. (John Lepingwell,
RFE/RL, Inc.)
BRITAIN OFFERS CREDITS TO RUSSIA. UK State Secretary Michael
Heseltine and Russian Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandr Shokhin have
signed an agreement to provide $480 million worth of British
credits for modernizing Russian industrial and transport
facilities, Western news agencies reported on 29 September. The
agreement follows last week's reports of British reluctance to
extend more loans to Russia before coming to an arrangement on
existing overdue payments to British creditors. In a related
story, an IMF official, Ernesto Cata, suggested in Moscow that
current lax fiscal and monetary policies in Russia may endanger
the approval of a $3 billion IMF credit hoped for by the end of
this year. (Erik Whitlock, RFE/RL, Inc.)
RUSSIA SETTING UP MORE CUSTOMS POSTS. Russia will soon increase
the number of customs points on its borders, Interfax reported on
29 September. The sixty-four such posts, up from twenty-four in
mid-June, will be functioning by 1 October along Russia's borders
with the Baltic states, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Georgia. Interfax
cites "experts" claiming that these posts will be "enough to halt"
the illegal export of oil and raw materials. Some Russian
officials have reckoned the value of illegal export of oil and oil
products at over $100 million in the first half of this year
alone. (Erik Whitlock, RFE/RL, Inc.)
GORBACHEV TO FACE TRIAL FOR FAILURE TO TESTIFY? On 29 September,
the Russian Constitutional Court devoted its entire afternoon
session to a discussion of former Soviet General Secretary Mikhail
Gorbachev's refusal to testify at the CPSU hearing (see RFE/RL
Daily Report, 29 September). According to Russian TV, Chairman
Valerii Zorkin viewed the publication of Gorbachev's letter as an
"insult." The judges voted in favor of sending yet another summons
to Gorbachev with a warning of possible "legal consequences" if he
failed to appear. If necessary, the justices would then request
that the Russian General Prosecutor bring criminal charges against
Gorbachev. (Julia Wishnevsky, RFE/RL, Inc.)
GORBACHEV HOLDS A NEWS CONFERENCE. At a press conference held at
the Gorbachev Foundation on 29 September, Mikhail Gorbachev
reaffirmed his earlier decision to ignore the summons to testify
at the CPSU hearing, Russian TV reported. Gorbachev termed the
hearing "a political trial" of seventy-five years of the Soviet
history. He quoted rumors to the effect that the decision to
summon him and his Politburo colleagues to testify at court had
been motivated by a desire to sensationalize a trial that
otherwise would continue to draw little public interest. While
addressing other issues, Gorbachev criticized the government's
privatization program. He also said that if the right moment
comes along, he might form a new political party and become its
leader. (Julia Wishnevsky, RFE/RL, Inc.)
RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTRY DEFENDS SUBMARINE SALE. On 29 September
the Russian Foreign Ministry defended its sale of submarines to
Iran as a "purely bilateral matter," according to Western news
agencies. Despite the Russian government's apparent cancellation
of the sale on 25 September, one submarine is reportedly still en
route to Iran. (John Lepingwell, RFE/RL, Inc.)
SWEDEN'S "PERISCOPE SYNDROME" CRITICIZED. The Russian Foreign
Ministry on 29 September criticized Swedish allegations that a
Russian submarine had intruded into Swedish territorial waters.
Interfax and Reuters reported that the statement called Swedish
Prime Minister Bildt's comments "openly unfriendly towards Russia"
and dismissed Sweden's "periscope syndrome," claiming that Sweden
had no firm evidence that the submarine was Russian. (John
Lepingwell, RFE/RL, Inc.)
RUSSIANS AND AMERICANS COOPERATE ON SPACE PROJECTS. The American
firm McDonnell Douglas and the Russian Academy of Science's
Mechanical Engineering Research Institute announced on 28
September that they would cooperate on a series of space
technology research projects. According to a McDonnell Douglas
press release, the agreement was part of a company initiative to
examine and perhaps utilize Russian expertise in materials,
advanced mathematics, space systems, and extended manned space
flight. (Doug Clarke, RFE/RL, Inc.)
MISSILE DEFENSE TALKS TO RESUME IN OCTOBER. According to Western
agencies on 29 September, US and Russian negotiators will meet
again in Washington in October to continue negotiations over
cooperation in the field of joint early warning and ballistic
missile defense. (John Lepingwell, RFE/RL, Inc.)
HALF OF FORMER SOVIET TROOPS OUT OF GERMANY. Half of the former
Soviet armed forces that were in Germany have left and the
withdrawal remains on schedule for their complete departure by the
end of 1994, the DPA news agency reported on 29 September. Two
hundred and fifty soldiers and civilians have applied for
political asylum in Germany. (John Lepingwell, RFE/RL, Inc.)
DROP IN RUSSIAN ARMS SALES. The daily Nezavisimaya gazeta on 29
September reported that Russia exported $1.55 billion worth of
arms in 1991, resulting in what the paper described as a
thirteen-fold drop in profits when compared with the average level
of Soviet arms exports in the 1980s. The report said that 69% of
the arms sold in 1991 went to the Near and Middle East. The paper
quoted officials as saying that this sharp drop in profits from
arms sales "was an extremely heavy blow" which, when coupled with
shrinking oil exports, led to the bankruptcy of the Bank for
Foreign Economic Relations. (Doug Clarke, RFE/RL, Inc.)
UKRAINIAN PARLIAMENT TO DEBATE ECONOMY. The Ukrainian parliament,
which postponed its debate of the economy because of the visit of
Canada's governor-general to Kiev, will discuss economic reforms
on 30 September, Western news agencies reported. President Leonid
Kravchuk will address the lawmakers, and it is expected that the
embattled prime minister, Vitold Fokin, will also make a
presentation. The opposition is determined to force the
resignation of the present government headed by Fokin. Izvestiya
reported on 29 September that parliamentary speaker Ivan Plyushch
conceded that the government must go. (Roman Solchanyk, RFE/RL,
Inc.)
CIS DEFENSE MINISTERS TO MEET BEFORE BISHKEK SUMMIT. Lieutenant
General Leonid Ivashov stated on 28 September that at a meeting of
Defense Ministers in Bishkek on 7 October, the question of forming
a joint concept of military security will be discussed. ITAR-TASS
reported that the ministers will also reexamine the functioning of
the CIS joint command in light of recent developments, possibly
turning it into a multinational command structure. Ivashov
acknowledged that there remained differences between Ukraine and
the CIS joint command, but noted that there was "positive
movement" in their relations. (John Lepingwell, RFE/RL, Inc.)
STALEMATE IN RUSSIA'S TALKS WITH TATARSTAN. A session of the
collegium of the Russian government on 29 September noted that
Russia's talks with Tatarstan have not been crowned with success,
ITAR-TASS reported. The head of the Russian government's press
center, Gennadii Shipitko, said that Russia was insisting that
Tatarstan was part of Russia, while Tatarstan wanted to be
considered completely independent in the legal sense and to be
treated by Russia according to the norms of international law.
Tatarstan also wanted to decide its own military policy, Shipitko
added, and was opposed to its citizens having Russian as well as
Tatarstan citizenship. (Ann Sheehy, RFE/RL, Inc.)
RUSSIAN REPUBLICS SUPPORT KHASBULATOV. On 28 September a statement
signed by the leaders of most of the republics of the Russian
Federation, in which they expressed their support for the Russian
parliament and its chairman Ruslan Khasbulatov, was made public,
Nezavisimaya gazeta reported on 29 September. The newspaper's
correspondent suggests that the republics have an interest in
preserving an equal balance of power between the Russian
president, parliament, and government, but it also sees the
republics emerging more and more as a fourth force, which could
upset the other three if it is not taken into account. (Ann
Sheehy, RFE/RL, Inc.)
MOLDOVAN PRIME MINISTER ON HIS WESTERN VISITS. Back in Chisinau
from visits to Bonn and Washington, D.C. Moldovan Prime Minister
Andrei Sangheli told the Moldovan media on 27 September that
Germany and Moldova have agreed to open embassies in each other's
capitals and that a German delegation is due in Moldova shortly to
negotiate an intergovernmental political and economic agreement.
In Washington, Sangheli obtained the consent of the International
Monetary Fund for a stand-by agreement with Moldova effective 1
January and for a credit to enable Moldova to purchase feed grain
to offset crop losses caused by drought. (Vladimir Socor, RFE/RL,
Inc.)
MOLDOVAN SOCIAL-DEMOCRATS ON NEED TO BUTTRESS INDEPENDENT
STATEHOOD. At a consultative meeting with President Mircea Snegur
on 29 September, the leaders of Moldova's Social- Democrat Party
said that the opposition Popular Front's campaign for unification
with Romania risks causing a civil war in Moldova, Moldovapres and
ITAR-TASS reported. The Social-Democrats agreed with Snegur on
the need to "buttress Moldovan independence" and develop Moldova
as "a state with the full attributes of sovereignty now and in the
future." The Social-Democrats also reserved the right to criticize
the Snegur administration for any policy errors. (Vladimir Socor,
RFE/RL, Inc.)
CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE
EXPERTS PREDICT MASSIVE DEATHS IN BOSNIA THIS WINTER. The New
York Times on 30 September says that American analysts foresee at
least 150,000 deaths from hunger and exposure in the embattled
republic unless massive relief operations come into effect, while
UN sources predict up to 400,000 deaths in a worst-case scenario.
Winter usually arrives in October and is harsh in what even in
peacetime was one of the former Yugoslavia's poorer regions. The
BBC's "Europe Today" program said that relief flights to Sarajevo
are likely to resume this week as a result of special envoys Cyrus
Vance and Lord Owen having "moved heaven and earth" to persuade
Washington in particular of the urgent necessity to do so.
Finally, it appears that UN representatives have convinced
Croatian officials to work to prevent a planned march by Croatian
refugees to return to their homes in Serb-controlled areas near
the Hungarian border. (Patrick Moore, RFE/RL, Inc.)
BOSNIAN SERBS REJECT MASSACRE ALLEGATIONS. Radio Serbia reports
on 29 September that Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic has
rejected US State Department allegations that Serb forces
massacred 3,000 Bosnian Muslims in a detention camp near the town
of Brcko. Karadzic said the US had been "duped by unsubstantiated
Muslim propaganda" and challenged US President George Bush to
produce the evidence. Karadzic added that if Bush can prove the
massacre took place, he will help arrest the perpetrators and hand
them over for trial. Serb officials in Brcko also denied the US
claims and invited representatives of any international commission
to visit the town as soon as possible. Serb officials added that
in the Brcko area some 1,500 Serbs are being held captive by
Muslims. France has officially requested the UN and EC
immediately to open an investigation. (Milan Andrejevich, RFE/RL,
Inc.)
ALBANIA BLAMES SERBS FOR YUGOSLAV CONFLICT. Addressing the UN
General Assembly in New York, Albanian Prime Minister Alexander
Meksi singled out "malicious Serbian nationalism" as responsible
for the failure to resolve the conflict in the former Yugoslavia,
RTR and Western agencies report. Albania is particularly concerned
that the fighting could spill over into the Serbian province of
Kosovo, which is 90% ethnic Albanian, and is similarly concerned
about the fate of the large number of ethnic Albanians in the now
independent ex-Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. (Charles Trumbull,
RFE/RL, Inc.)
CZECHOSLOVAK PARLIAMENT DEBATES SPLIT. On 29 September 1992, the
Federal Assembly began debating a draft law on possible modes of
division of the Czechoslovak federation. The law, based on
political agreements between Czech Prime Minister Vaclav Klaus and
Slovak Prime Minister Vladimir Meciar, provides for four different
ways of dissolving the federation: a referendum, a Federal
Assembly declaration, an agreement of republican parliaments, and
a secession by one republic. CSTK reports that virtually all
opposition deputies speaking on 29 September criticized the law
and called for a referendum on the split. The debate was
adjourned and will continue on the 30th. (Jiri Pehe, RFE/RL, Inc.)
HUNGARIAN PARLIAMENT DEBATES MINORITIES LAW. According to MTI,
Parliament began discussion of the long awaited law on minorities
on 29 September. The text was prepared in close cooperation with
minority leaders, and its codification took much longer than
expected. The intention of the law is to stop assimilation of
minorities by assuring them collective minority rights and
parliamentary representation. In the draft law under debate in
Budapest, members of minority groups would also retain a number of
individual rights. Collective rights did not figure in the
post-World War II treaties, but Hungary has brought the idea up on
a number of occasions since. Under this concept, an official
representative body would be given legal status to pursue the
interests of an ethic or national group. (Judith Pataki, RFE/RL,
Inc.)
HUNGARIAN-SLOVAK CONTACTS. Hungarian Prime Minister Jozsef Antall
received a delegation of the ethnic Hungarian parties represented
in the Slovak parliament, led by Coexistence Chairman Miklos
Duray, MTI reported on 29 September. The two sides agreed on the
need for good relations between Hungary and an independent
Slovakia and for a mutually acceptable solution to the
disagreements over the Gabcikovo-Nagymaros hydroelectric project
and the sections of the Slovak constitution concerning national
minorities. The same day a delegation of the opposition Alliance
of Young Democrats (FIDESZ) left Budapest for Bratislava for talks
with Slovak Foreign Minister Milan Knazko and other officials and
with representatives of Slovakia's Hungarian minority. The FIDESZ
delegation continues on to Prague for talks with Czech officials.
(Alfred Reisch, RFE/RL, Inc.)
TURKEY RESTRICTS VISITORS FROM BULGARIA. Bulgarian-Turkish
relations received a potential setback on 29 September when Turkey
unilaterally imposed restrictions on Bulgarian citizens seeking to
enter Turkey. The move is intended to reduce the number of
Bulgarian Turks leaving Bulgaria in search of better job
prospects. The Bulgarian Foreign Ministry indicated that no
advanced warning was given and is seeking clarification. Effective
immediately, Bulgarian citizens wishing to enter Turkey must
demonstrate that they have at least $70 for each day of their
stay, or $30 if they are part of an organized tourist group. Those
visiting relatives must pledge to return to Bulgaria. Some
300-350,000 Bulgarian Turks fled to Turkey in 1989 as a result of
a Bulgarian assimilation policy. While perhaps as many as half
later returned, those remaining in Turkey burdening an economy
beset by inflation and high unemployment. In a new wave an
estimated 40,000 have entered Turkey using tourist visas and have
failed to return to Bulgaria. (Duncan Perry, RFE/RL, Inc.)
CONSTANTINESCU TO FIGHT ON. Emil Constantinescu, the presidential
candidate of the centrist Democratic Convention, vowed to continue
his fight for the Romanian presidency despite his clear
second-place position. Constantinescu urged all democratic forces
to block Ion Iliescu's reelection in the 11 October runoff. He
also warned that the parties supporting Iliescu might join into a
dominant political force powerful enough to block moves toward
free market reforms. Meanwhile, the vote counting is moving
forward quickly, and final results are expected much earlier than
originally planned. The latest partial results from 29 September
(9:00 p.m.) are based on complete counts from 92% of all stations.
They show Iliescu leading with 47.6%, followed by Constantinescu
with 30.6% of the votes. (Dan Ionescu, RFE/RL, Inc.)
ILIESCU AIDE CALLS FOR GRAND COALITION. On 29 September Adrian
Nastase, Romanian foreign minister and top Iliescu aide, called
for a broad-based government coalition to include reformists from
the rival National Salvation Front and the Democratic Convention.
Nastase, who is widely tipped as Iliescu's choice to lead the
future cabinet, told journalists that the Democratic National
Salvation Front (DNSF) wants "national reconciliation." Latest
figures released by Romania's National Statistics Board show the
DNSF leading in the legislative elections with 28.6% for the
Senate and 27.7% for the Chamber of Deputies. Nastase was quoted
as saying that "we shall be looking for a government formula that
will not handicap Romania." He was reacting to opposition fears
that a possible coalition of the DNSF, the revived communists, and
the nationalists would polarize the country and harm Romania's
image in the West. (Dan Ionescu, RFE/RL, Inc.)
HOUSE VOTES ON ROMANIA'S MFN STATUS. The US House of
Representatives is expected to vote on 30 September on whether to
restore Romania's most-favored nation trade status, an RFE/RL
correspondent in Washington says. Restoration had been postponed
because members of the Congress wanted to see the results of the
Romanian elections. On 29 September Assistant Secretary of State
Thomas Niles said that the elections appeared to have been
conducted freely and fairly. Romania's opposition fears that
restoration of MFN status now might send the wrong signal, and
influence both the presidential runoff and the building of a
coalition government. (Dan Ionescu, RFE/RL, Inc.)
POLISH ECONOMIC PLANS. The government met a legal deadline by
submitting its draft economic program for 1993 to the parliament
on 30 September. The program's central aim is to open a period of
sustained economic growth. Priorities are promoting the private
sector, defending fiscal stability, and reducing interest rates.
Half of any increase in GDP is earmarked for investment spending.
According to Polish TV, the final draft of the economic program
rejected earlier proposals to tax interest income and accelerate
the zloty's devaluation. Meeting in closed session, the cabinet
also agreed to ask the parliament to increase the 1992 budget
deficit ceiling from just over 65 to 80-82 trillion zloty. Deputy
Prime Minister Henryk Goryszewski said that across-the-board
spending cuts are necessary, but none of them will be drastic.
(Louisa Vinton, RFE/RL, Inc.)
POLAND'S COALITION PARTNERS BICKER. Any final decision on the
shape of the revised 1992 budget was put off pending a "political
meeting" of the government coalition parties on 30 September. The
coalition partners failed on 29 September to agree on a common
assessment of Jan Krzysztof Bielecki's 1991 government, the
subject of an upcoming Sejm vote. This is a sensitive topic, as
Bielecki and some of his ministers serve in the current cabinet.
Rivalry over ministerial posts is also fraying tempers, as
ideological conflicts emerge between the two main coalition
partners, the liberal UD and the conservative ZChN. Deputy Prime
Minister Henryk Goryszewski (ZChN) recently demanded the removal
of a "proabortion" deputy health minister (UD), while several ZChN
deputies called for the ouster of the Civil Rights Spokesman (UD)
because of his legal challenges to religious education in schools.
Prime Minister Hanna Suchocka admitted to Radio Z on 29 September
that she had also faced pressure over appointments from her own
party, the UD, but that the coalition was functioning adequately.
(Louisa Vinton, RFE/RL, Inc.)
DUTCH PRIME MINISTER LAUDS POLISH REFORMS. Dutch Prime Minister
Ruud Lubbers praised the Polish government's commitment to
economic reform at the start of a two-day visit to Poland. Lubbers
held talks with Prime Minister Hanna Suchocka on 29 September and
is to meet with President Lech Walesa on 30 September. Lubbers
pledged to encourage increased Dutch investment in Poland.
According to PAP, he added that "it is better to export Dutch
capital to Poland than to import Polish labor to Holland." He
predicted that the Dutch parliament will ratify Poland's
association agreement with the EC by year's end. The EC's internal
problems will not mean "closing the community" to new members, he
said, but full integration will have to wait until EC members
settle differences over the pace of unification. (Louisa Vinton,
RFE/RL, Inc.)
RUSSIA WARNS BALTS AGAINST "ETHNIC CLEANSING." Russia's delegation
to the UN General Assembly on 29 September warned Estonia and
Latvia against pursuing a policy of "ethnic cleansing," BNS
reports. Upon returning to Moscow from New York, Russian Foreign
Ministry press spokesman Sergei Yastrzhembsky told reporters that
his government is concerned about policies toward non-Balts in
Estonia and Latvia that could lead those two states "to slide down
the slope to the practice of ethnic cleansing." Last spring and
summer, the Russian Foreign Ministry used the term "apartheid" to
describe the Baltic stance toward nonlocal ethnics. The same day
Russian Prime Minister Egor Gaidar told Interfax that the question
of sanctions against the Baltic States is to be resolved "either
tomorrow or the day after tomorrow." He added that Russian policy
toward these states will be conducted in light of their success in
finding solutions to their "human rights problems." (Riina Kionka
& Dzintra Bungs, RFE/RL, Inc.)
LITHUANIAN-POLISH MILITARY TALKS. On 29 September Lithuanian
National Defense Minister Audrius Butkevicius began an official
three-day visit to Poland at the invitation of his Polish
counterpart Janusz Onyszkiewicz, Radio Lithuania reports. The two
discussed the formation of joint work groups to deal with military
problems and creating greater mutual cooperation. Butkevicius also
held talks with National Security Bureau head Jerzy Milewski and
placed a wreath at the monument in Gruenwald, commemorating the
1410 Lithuanian-Polish victory over the Teutonic knights. On 30
September he will visit Cracow. (Saulius Girnius, RFE/RL, Inc.)
WORK OF LATVIAN GOVERNMENT TO BE REASSESSED. Diena reported on 29
September that the work of the government will probably be
reassessed by the Supreme Council the week of 5 October. The
legislature has asked each minister to submit for evaluation a
detailed report of his performance. Minister of State Janis
Dinevics said that he does not rule out the possibility that the
legislators might ask for the resignation of some members of the
government. The day before Diena reported that Supreme Council
Deputy Janis Kinna of the Farmers Union also supports the notion
of reevaluation of the government's performance, but neither his
party, nor three others--the Latvian Social Democratic Workers
Party, the Liberal Democratic Party, and the People's Party--are
calling for a resignation of the government at this time.
(Dzintra Bungs, RFE/RL, Inc.)
novine.34.bale.,
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Serbs carry out 'ethnic cleansing' operation in Bosnian capital
Subject: Croatians trying to cross into Serb territory are held back
Subject: Fischer loses game 12, rematch chess score at 5-3, 2 draws
Subject: Weapons shortage spurs home-grown arms industry in Sarajevo
Subject: 6 face federal charges for sending weapons to Yugoslavia
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Serbs carry out 'ethnic cleansing' operation in Bosnian capital
Date: 30 Sep 92 19:54:44 GMT
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Hercegovina (UPI) -- Serb forces evicted up to 200
non-Serbs from their houses in a resumption of ``ethnic cleansing''
operations in the Bosnian capital Wednesday, ordering them on short
notice to vacate their homes and cross into Bosnian-controlled
territory, U.N. and Bosnian officials said.
A U.N. source said the Red Cross estimated 150 people were forced
from their homes in Grbavica in the southern part of Sarajevo, while a
Bosnian police source estimated 200 people were involved, making it the
largest such expulsion in the 6-month-old seige of the Bosnian capital.
Some of the family members, taken to a police station after crossing
by foot from the northern side of the Miljacka River, said they were
given 10-minute warnings to pack their belongings and leave.
``It's happened a couple of times'' previously but on a smaller
scale, said Sonata Kreso of the Bosnian International Press Center, who
said most of those expelled in the incident of ``urban ethnic cleansing''
were women and the elderly.
Bosnian officials said they knew no reason for the incident, but they
speculated it might indicate that Serbian militiamen are preparing for
the start of the harsh Balkan winter.
Those expelled from the area along the Serbian front lines were
mostly Muslim Slavs, who made up about half of the city's pre-war
population of 500,000 people, police said.
The expulsions came amid sporadic shelling and sniper attacks in the
Bosnian capital. At least 24 people were killed and 165 wounded in
Bosnia-Hercegovina in the 24-hour period that ended at 10 a.m.
Wednesday, including seven killed and 54 wounded in Sarajevo, republic
health officials said.
The city's hospital ran out of the diesel fuel needed for its
electrical generator about 1 p.m. and doctors were forced to perform
surgery for a while under the light of a bulb connected to an automobile
battery.
``We were hurried by the people running the generator to finish
operations because we would soon be in complete darkness,'' said Dr. Edo
Jaganjac, a doctor on duty at the hospital, shortly before the fuel ran
out.
A spokesman for the U.N. Protection Force in Sarajevo, Adnan Razek,
said UNPROFOR later supplied the hospital with 4 to 5 tons of diesel
fuel.
UNPROFOR's Sarajevo commander, Egyptian Brig. Gen. Hussein Abdel
Razek, also met Bosnian Serb leaders for several hours Wednesday at
their military headquarters in Lukavica, just south of the Bosnian
capital, to continue seeking agreements allowing the restoration of
electricity and water and protection for utility workers.
``It still needs a political push, but we agreed to start a meeting
of experts on both sides, hopefully beginning tomorrow,'' Adnan Razek
said afterward.
The city's electricity supplies were cut a week-and-a-half ago, and
the water supply to most of the city has been out since Sunday night.
The developments in Bosnia came as President Franjo Tudjman of
Croatia and President Dobrica Cosic of the new two-republic Yugoslavia
opened a round of talks in Geneva with international peace mediators.
Former U.S. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance was the U.N. mediator and
Britain's Lord David Owen represented the European Community. Security
was tight at the site.
``All I can tell you is that the talks were constructive and were
going on through lunch and the afternoon,'' said Fred Eckhard, a
spokesman for the United Nations. Vance and Owen also met earlier with
Radovan Karadzic, the leader of Serbian forces fighting for a separate
state in Bosnia-Hercegovina.
Prime Minister Milan Panic, the Belgrade-born U.S. citizen and
millionaire drug manufacturer who became the leader of the new Yugoslav
federation, returned home from a visit to the United States Wednesday
and tried to portray his trip as an overwhelming success.
Panic, speaking to a news conference, claimed he had gained support
of the United States to partially lift the U.N. sanctions so Serbia and
Montenegro could import oil needed for the harsh winter. He also claimed
his nation was still a member of the United Nations because of his
efforts during a meeting of the General Assembly.
``The most important thing we came back to tell you is that we are
still a member of the United Nations,'' Panic said. Later he added that
another important result was that ``the United States first showed open
support for the new Yugoslav government.''
``There is a new position of the United States toward Yugoslavia, of
course positive, which was determinantly negative before,'' said Panic.
Despite his claims, Panic failed to convince the United Nations to
name his Serbia-Montenegro federation as the legitimate successor of the
former Yugoslavia. The U.N. General Assembly refused to seat Panic's
federation and ordered it to apply for membership if it wanted to belong
to the world body.
Officials of the U.S. administration neither supported nor rejected
Panic's request to lift sanctions so oil could be shipped to Belgrade.
U.S. officials said the proposal was an idea to study, reiterated their
support for the U.N. sanctions and said any change in the sanctions
would have to be approved by the U.N. Sanctions Committee.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Croatians trying to cross into Serb territory are held back
Date: 30 Sep 92 22:47:19 GMT
ZAGREB, Croatia (UPI) -- About 1,000 Croatians attempted to cross into
Serbian-occupied areas in the municipality of Osikek in eastern Croatia
Wednesday, but were blocked by United Nations and Croatian civil
authorities.
The Croatians, many of whom have been homeless since last October,
had been putting pressure on the U.N. Protection Force (UNPROFOR) in the
area for weeks to allow them to return to their homes.
But because the Serbian side has not disarmed in the so-called U.N.-
sector East, in compliance with U.N. brokered peace agreements, UNPROFOR
said it was far from safe.
``It's heavily mined there, everything is destroyed, there is no
electricity, there is no water, how can you live there?'' a Russian
UNPROFOR commander said Tuesday in Osijek to the unarmed Croatians in an
emotional plea for them to turn back at the border of the territory.
``Wait a little bit, we will find an agreement, we are reasonable
people, we've done our part so far, please be patient,'' Branimir
Glavas, president of the municipality of Osijek said to the refugees.
The refugees apparently ignored an agreement reached Tuesday between
the Croatian government, UNPROFOR and representatives of the U.N. High
Commission for Refugees.
Under the agreement the representatives of the refugees agreed to
withdraw a previous ultimatum given to UNPROFOR.
Beli Manastir and Osijek are two of the four Croatian municipalities
in sector East, which are partly or wholly Serbian occupied.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Fischer loses game 12, rematch chess score at 5-3, 2 draws
Date: 1 Oct 92 00:59:01 GMT
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (UPI) -- Former world chess champion Bobby
Fischer lost the 12th game of his controversial rematch with former
Soviet grandmaster Boris Spassky Wednesday.
Fischer, who was playing with black figures and used a kingside
Indian defense, surrendered after 54 moves of the game that lasted
almost six hours.
Experts say that Fischer made a fatal mistake in his eigth move, and
then lost too much time trying to improve his position. The result is
now 5-3 for Fischer, with four draws.
The first player to achieve 10 victories will win a $3.35 million
prize, while the loser will have to be content with $1.65 milllion.
The first half of the rematch began Sept. 2, at the southern Adriatic
resort of Sveti Stefan in the rump Yugoslav union of Serbia and
Montenegro. After Fischer's fifth victory, the set was transferred to
Belgrade.
On Fischer's request, the players were separated from the audience by
a large glass wall. Therefore, no statements could be obtained from
either player.
Fischer, 49, faces a maximum of 10 years in prison and a fine of up
to $250,000 for ``knowingly and willingly'' defying a U.S. Treasury
Department order not to play in the truncated Yugoslav federation.
The order endorsed the U.N. sanctions that ban all financial and
economic transactions with the Serbia-dominated union for its
involvement in the war in neighboring Bosnia-Hercegovina.
Fischer publicly spat on the Treasury's order at a news conference on
the eve of the first game.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Weapons shortage spurs home-grown arms industry in Sarajevo
Date: 1 Oct 92 02:08:07 GMT
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Hercegovina (UPI) -- In a dark, back-alley workshop
thick with the cloying aroma of gun oil, Becir Skrijel remains true to
the centuries-old artisan traditions of Sarajevo.
But Skrijel does not produce the intricate filigree jewelry, fine
woolen carpets or bright copperwork for which the Bosnian capital gained
reknown throughout the Balkans.
He makes bombs.
The bespectacled metalsmith is part of a network of craftsmen
scattered throughout the city who have turned their skills to inventing
and producing homemade munitions for the outgunned defenders of
Sarajevo.
The weapons reportedly work well. But, they come nowhere close to
compensating for the massive stockpiles of modern military hardware
supplied to encircling Serbian forces by the Serb-dominated Yugoslav
army and communist-ruled Serbia.
Still, with Bosnia-Hercegovina included under a U.N.-ordered
international ban on weapons sales to the republics of former
Yugoslavia, local arms makers believe theirs is an important
contribution to the war effort.
Their main sources of explosives are the Serbian artillery, tank and
mortar shells that fail to detonate as they bounce down Sarajevo's
streets or thud into parks and buildings.
``We are happy when the aggressor sends us a shell that doesn't
explode,'' said Skrijel, 58. ``There is a unit of experts that collects
them and brings them here.''
But because Sarajevo's desperate circumstances mandated innovation,
Skrijel has not limited his labors to the conventional.
His inventions have included Coca-Cola bottle gasoline bombs that
burst on impact after being launched from mortar-like contraptions
powered by automobile suspension springs compressed by foot-operated
levers.
Skrijel also produces anti-personnel mines loaded with shrapnel the
Serbs themselves blasted into the city.
And, his longtime hobby of collecting World War II small arms has
served him well in the repair and improvement of vintage arms that
Sarajevo's defenders have been forced to utilize.
``I like weapons, but not for killing. I like the mechanisms that
make them work,'' explained Skrijel, who ran a metal-forging and foreign
car repair shop before the war.
His statement was underscored by the assortment of rifles, machine
guns and pistols lying in various stages of disassembly on a table in
his cluttered workshop in Sarajevo's Muslim Slav-dominated old Turkish
quarter.
Some weapons date to the end of the last century. Even so, said
Skrijel, all would be cannibalized for spare parts or repaired with
homemade replicas and sent up to the front lines.
``Out of 20 old ones, we can make 12 to 15 new ones,'' he said,
holding a German-made Mauser pistol manufactured in 1898. ``This one is
going to be fixed.''
Among the scattered metal flotsam was most of a 7.9 mm Mauser machine
gun, the bolt embossed with the tiny eagle clutching a swastika in its
talons -- the symbol of Nazi Germany.
``This is the best machine gun ever made,'' said Skrijel. ``They are
still using this design for the NATO pact.''
Also awaiting his ministrations were World War II-era Russian machine
guns, British-produced Stens and Lee Enfields, and a 1935 Italian-made
Beretta machine gun that required a new spring to stop it from firing
when jolted.
``Time had its effects and a spring wore out. The owner was running
and he fell. The gun fired by itself and the man in front received three
bullets in his backside. But, he lived,'' recounted Skrijel with a grin.
Bombs, however, are the main business of Skrijel, his son, and three
assistants.
Working at top speed, the five each day can produce about 50 of the
rocket-propelled grenades that Skrijel considers the best of the
homemade weapons he has designed.
``Our fighters can throw a bomb up to 30 meters. But, the problem is
that the aggressor has tanks and armored cars, and with this method, you
cannot do much harm,'' he explained.
``So, we came back here to think about how we could make something
that could go 200 to 300 meters. What we did was weld a small rocket
onto the bottom of an empty grenade before we fill it with TNT.''
The TNT is obtained from dud shells, which he and his team open by
using a lathe to shave down their steel walls to paper thinness.
They then tap the shells gently on a block of wood in much the same
way that a cook cracks open an egg.
The yellow resin-like explosive is pried out in chunks, which the
workmen grind into a powder by rolling it between a pipe and a steel
surface. The powder is then poured into the grenade bodies.
The final step is inserting a detonator, the fuse of which remains
outside the bomb. The fuse must be lit with matches or a lighter just
before the device is launched from the muzzle of a rifle using a blank
cartridge to ignite the rocket.
Skrijel said he first learned of the weapons' effectiveness from a
Serbian television broadcast.
``They were interviewing a wounded Serbian fighter who said the
Bosnian army was using some secret, but very dangerous equipment,'' he
recounted. ``The fighter said, 'We don't hear it, but it explodes over
our heads. We don't even have time to blink. Probably they are using
something forbidden and imported from the West.'''
Despite his obvious enthusiasm for his work, Skrijel said he was
anxious to stop producing instruments of death and return to his old
trade.
``I was forced to learn this,'' he said sadly. ``Nobody believed that
this could happen to us.''
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: 6 face federal charges for sending weapons to Yugoslavia
Date: 1 Oct 92 06:04:21 GMT
CHICAGO (UPI) -- The Justice Department Wednesday charged six people
with conspiring to ship firearms and ammunition to the former
Yugoslavia, reportedly for Serbian nationals who had been fighting the
communist regime even before the current Bosnia-Hercegovina war.
U.S. Attorney Fred Foreman announced indictments in the case,
alleging the suspects conspired between April 1991 and October 1991 to
violate the Arms Export Control Act and various federal firearms laws.
The charges stemmed from the seizure of more than 300 firearms and
thousands of rounds of ammunition in 1991 at O'Hare International
Airport. Authorities found the weapons and ammunition hidden in an air-
freight shipment being sent from O'Hare.
Suspects indicted Wednesday included licensed arms-dealer Richard
Tylkowski, 65, as well as his son, Timothy; Bajro and Avdo Hukic; Jovica
Jovanovic and Alexander Nikolic.
Foreman said authorities charged the Tylkowskis with receiving and
possessing five unregistered, Mac-11 9mm fully automatic machine guns.
The Justice Department also indicted the elder Tylkowski for
allegedly filing false reports of firearms sales, as well as making
false statements to federal agents in an attempt to conceal the alleged
conspiracy.
Authorities indicted the other four suspects on violation of the Arms
Export Control Act, as well as on conspiracy counts.
novine.35.bale.,
Noted U.S. Pediatrician Disturbed by Visit With Yugoslavian Children
By PAUL RAEBURN
AP Science Editor
NEW YORK (AP) - A 5-year-old boy who swats at imaginary flies
after having watched his older brother's mutilated body decay is a
tragic example of the Balkan civil war's effect on children, a
UNICEF emissary said Wednesday.
Dr. T. Berry Brazelton, who recently returned from a four-day
trip to the war-shattered republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina and
neighboring Croatia, said the children are so deeply scarred they
could erupt with a repetition of the violence and torture they've
witnessed.
``No treatment will help until this terrible war has been
brought to an end,'' Brazelton said in an account of the trip,
sponsored by the United Nations Children's Fund.
Brazelton is a pediatrician at Harvard Medical School and is
widely known for his books and television programs of advice to
parents.
The violence and torture has no justification, so ``there's no
way the children can make sense of it,'' he said in an interview.
``That calls up primitive feelings in children, feelings it's their
fault, that if I were a good kid this wouldn't be happening to
me.''
Brazelton was asked by UNICEF to help devise a program of
emergency care for the children of the civil war in what was once
Yugoslavia.
With Brazelton's help, UNICEF's director James Grant said he was
able to get the warring parties to agree to a ``week of
tranquillity'' in November to allow blankets, clothes and food to
be shipped to the children.
Previous efforts at a truce have stalled, but Grant said UNICEF
has arranged brief truces in places like El Salvador, Sri Lanka,
Uganda and Iraq.
``It's worth a try, and both the regular leaders and the leader
of the Bosnian Serbs and his principal assistants have agreed,''
Grant said. ``I talked to them all on this mission, and we'll
see.''
Brazleton said that when the Serbs invaded, the 5-year-old boy's
family was lined up and his older brother's hands were cut off in
front of them. The brother was shot and left in the street in front
of the family's home.
The brother's pregnant wife was then brought before the family.
``Her belly was opened by a long cut, which allowed her fetus to
fall out and hang by its cord,'' Brazelton wrote. She was hanged.
Flies swarmed over her, her fetus and the boy's brother, who
were left to lie in front of the family. For days the boy remained
glued to the window, before the family escaped to a refugee camp,
where Brazelton met them.
``Ever since they escaped,'' Brazelton wrote, ``this child has
been screaming about flies at night, brushing them away all day
long.''
AP-NY-10-01-92 1403EDT
_____________________________________________________________________________
Red Cross Mounts Operation to Evacuate Prisoners from Bosnian Camp
GENEVA (AP) - The Red Cross today mounted an operation to
evacuate more than 1,500 people released from a Bosnian detention
camp.
A convoy of 35 buses and ambulances picked up 1,560 former
prisoners outside the Serb-run camp in Trnopolje and were expected
to reach the Croatian town of Karlovac later today, said a
spokeswoman for the International Committee of the Red Cross.
The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees operates a refugee camp
in Karlovac.
The warring factions in Bosnia-Herzegovina agreed at a London
peace conference in August to close down detention camps.
Pictures of starving inmates in some of the most notorious camps
shocked the world and brought back images of Nazi-style
concentration camps.
The Red Cross has visited about 12,000 prisoners. The agency
tried to enforce the Geneva conventions, which include standards
for treatment of detainees during armed conflicts.
More than 10,000 people have been killed since fighting broke
out in Bosnia after Muslims and Croats voted on Feb. 29 to secede
from Serbia-led Yugoslavia, sparking a rebellion by Serbs.
Serbs have been blamed for waging the most severe ``ethnic
cleansing'' campaigns to drive out other groups from captured
areas.
novine.36.bale.,
RFE/RL Daily Report
No. 189, 1 October 1992
SUCCESSOR STATES TO THE USSR
UKRAINIAN PRIME MINISTER RESIGNS. Ukrainian Prime Minister Vitold
Fokin offered his resignation on 30 September, Ukrinform-TASS and
Western news agencies reported. The announcement was made by
President Leonid Kravchuk in his address to the parliament.
Kravchuk asked Fokin to stay on until a new head of government is
appointed. Fokin was quoted as saying that his decision to resign
was dictated by his desire to ensure peace and consensus in the
country, and added that his economic program would continue in his
absence. Fokin also blamed constant attacks by the media for his
decision to resign; as he told Reuters: "This has been brewing for
a long time and I see no sign of it ending." Meanwhile, Vyacheslav
Chornovil, the leader of the opposition Rukh movement, declared
that Fokin's departure was "a victory for reform and democracy in
Ukraine." (Roman Solchanyk, RFE/RL Inc.)
UKRAINIAN PARLIAMENT SEEKING WAY OUT OF CRISIS. Heated debate,
broadcast live by Radio Ukraine, continued in the Ukrainian
parliament on 1 October following the resignation of Prime
Minister Vitold Fokin. It confirmed not only the deep economic
crisis in which Ukraine finds itself, but also the crisis in
government and the division of political powers. Amid calls for
the creation of a government of national conciliation, numerous
deputies argued that the entire Cabinet of Ministers should resign
along with Fokin, leaving the new prime minister freedom to create
a new government capable of accelerating reforms. Rukh's leader
Vyacheslav Chornovil on 30 September called on President Kravchuk
to assume control of the government until the end of the year.
(Bohdan Nahaylo, RFE/RL Inc.)
SHAPOSHNIKOV CALLS FOR RUSSIAN "STATEHOOD" FOR NUCLEAR WEAPONS. In
a 30 September Krasnaya zvezda article, CIS Marshal Shaposhnikov
suggested that the existence of nuclear weapons on the territory
of four former Soviet republics would complicate the
implementation of the START treaty. He proposed giving nuclear
weapons their own "statehood," which would be Russian. This move
would presumably entail greater Russian operational and
administrative control over the weapons. Shaposhnikov noted that
Belarus and Russia are close to agreement on this point, while
Kazakhstan is drawing nearer. (John Lepingwell, RFE/RL Inc.)
UKRAINE REJECTS INCREASED RUSSIAN CONTROL OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS.
Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk rejected CIS Marshal
Shaposhnikov's call for increased Russian control over nuclear
weapons in a speech to the Ukrainian parliament on 30 September,
as reported by Interfax and Western news agencies. Kravchuk
stated that Ukraine "does not want to keep its fingers on the
nuclear button, but it should give the world community guarantees
that the nuclear weapons stationed on its territory will not be
used by a third state." While reiterating Ukraine's determination
to become a non-nuclear state, his remarks reaffirmed Ukraine's
commitment to maintaining substantial control over the weapons and
their elimination. Kravchuk also rejected the idea of Ukraine
joining any CIS defense alliance. (John Lepingwell, RFE/RL Inc.)
SHAPOSHNIKOV RENEWS CALL FOR JOINT CIS MILITARY. In an article in
Krasnaya zvezda on 30 September, CIS Marshal Evgenii Shaposhnikov
urged closer CIS military cooperation. Criticizing US attempts to
create a "unipolar world," Shaposhnikov warned of a possible new
North-South confrontation and called for the CIS to act as a
"stabilizing counterweight" between the North and South. To
strengthen the military role of the CIS, Shaposhnikov called for a
joint military structure, possibly including mixed troop
formations made up of units from the CIS states. He also called
for the CIS states to coordinate policies on military personnel to
prevent rising disparities between the national armies and
subsequent unrest within the military. (John Lepingwell, RFE/RL
Inc.)
MUSLIM LEADERS REACT TO SHAPOSHNIKOV'S REMARKS. The Co-Chairman
of the Caucasus Supreme Religious Council, Sheikh Muhammad
Karachai, said on 30 September that many Russian leaders were
infected with an anti-Islamic virus, an RFE/RL correspondent
reported from Moscow. Karachai was reacting to a statement by CIS
commander Evgeniy Shaposhnikov to Krasnaya zvezda, in which
Shaposhnikov said a system of collective security for the CIS
could counter growing Islamic influence. Karachai, who was
attending an international Islamic conference in Moscow, said
Russian leaders would have to face the reality that Muslims seek
ways of unification. However, Salman Musaev, a Muslim official
from the Caucasus, and the Kazakh mufti Aslanbek Abdurakhman Ali,
who were also attending the conference, rejected the idea of a
political union between the Central Asian states and other Islamic
nations. (Ann Sheehy, RFE/RL Inc.)
RUSSIAN REINFORCEMENTS ARRIVE IN TAJIKISTAN. Reinforcements for
the Russian troops stationed in Tajikistan have arrived in
Dushanbe and taken control of the city's airport; Tajik fighters
who had been besieging Russian troops in the southern part of the
country have ended their blockade, Western and Moscow agencies
reported on 30 September. A Tajik security official said that
roads into Dushanbe have been put under strict control to prevent
arms being brought into the city. Acting President Akbar
Iskandarov appealed to both CIS leaders and the UN to help stop
the fighting, because Tajikistan's government cannot do so. The 30
September issue of Megapolis-Ekspress speculates that the
commander of the CIS troops in Tajikistan, Major-General
Mukhriddin Ashurov, might be named to the vacant post of Minister
of Defense. (Bess Brown, RFE/RL Inc.)
MORE REFUGEES IN DUSHANBE. Refugees from the fighting in southern
Tajikistan are flooding into Dushanbe, Western and Moscow agencies
reported on 30 September, and hundreds of refugees from
Kurgan-Tyube, the opposition stronghold, are picketing the Russian
ambassador's residence demanding an end to Russian interference in
Tajikistan. They are presumably reacting to rumors that the
Russian forces have given weaponry and equipment to supporters of
deposed President Rakhmon Nabiev. Russian military sources insist
that pro-Nabiev fighters from Kulyab Oblast forcibly seized
equipment from the Russian troops to use in their battles in
Kurgan-Tyube. According to the 30 September issue of
Megapolis-Ekspress, law enforcement officials of the ministry of
internal affairs and National Security Committee who are supposed
to stay neutral in the interregional fighting are getting involved
on the side of their region of origin. (Bess Brown, RFE/RL Inc.)
KULYAB PEACE DEMANDS. The 30 September issue of
Megapolis-Ekspress lists demands made of the government in
Dushanbe by pro-Nabiev forces in Kulyab Oblast that would have to
be met before the Kulyab fighters would agree to lay down their
arms. One of these demands, the appointment of Communist economist
Abdumalik Abdullodzhanov as prime minister, has already been met.
Other demands include the removal of prominent opposition figures
from the government: Deputy Prime Minister Davlat Usmon of the
Islamic Renaissance Party, Tajik Radio and TV Chairman Mirbobo
Mirrakhimov of Rastokhez, and deputy National Security Committee
Chairman Davlat Aminov. The Kulyab forces would also like to see
Akbar Turadzhonzoda removed from his post as the highest-ranking
Muslim clergyman in Tajikistan. (Bess Brown, RFE/RL Inc.)
VOUCHER PRIVATIZATION BEGINS TODAY AMID UNCERTAINTY. The Russian
government will launch its mass privatization program today by
beginning to issue vouchers to each Russian citizen. The
distribution process is scheduled to last three months. The
vouchers represent claims on state assets which will be auctioned
off beginning some time next year. Western news agencies on 30
September catalogued the problems confronting the program. The
major obstacles include: delays in printing and delivering the
vouchers; delays in state enterprises transforming themselves into
public share companies; outstanding questions about which state
assets the vouchers can be traded for; and confusion among the
Russian people over how the voucher program works. (Erik Whitlock,
RFE/RL Inc.)
CONTROVERSY OVER VALUE OF RUSSIAN VOUCHERS. Issued with a face
value of 10,000 rubles, the real value of the vouchers to its
holder has been a focus of heated political debate. The real
value of any given voucher will be decided by the "market" in
which a holder chooses to trade. The holder may participate
directly in auctions for state assets, in which case the value
will depend on the bidding process for the assets. Holders may
trade their vouchers for shares in an investment fund, in which
case the value to holders depends on the quality of investment
decisions the fund makes. Finally, if holders sell their vouchers
for cash, the value will depend on supply and demand on this
"secondary" market. In the uncertain economic conditions in
Russia, it is very hard to predict the outcome of any of these
choices. (Erik Whitlock, RFE/RL Inc.)
SHEINIS DEFENDS ABKHAZIA STATEMENTS. Russian parliamentarian
Viktor Sheinis told a press conference on 30 September that the
documents adopted by the parliament the previous week (on 25
September) were fully in accord with international norms.
According to international law, Sheinis said, "the protection of
human rights is not an internal affair and Russia, like any other
state, can raise the question of human rights, wherever they are
violated." On the question of arms controlled by forces in
Russia's Transcaucasian Military District, Sheinis said that under
no circumstances should Russia transfer these weapons to Georgian
authorities, ITAR-TASS reported. (Suzanne Crow, RFE/RL Inc.)
CRIMEAN SEPARATISTS "REORGANIZE." The Republican Movement of the
Crimea (RDK), which has spearheaded the drive for Crimean
independence, has reconstituted itself as the Russian Movement of
the Crimea (RDK), Radio Ukraine reported on 29 September. The name
change was announced in a statement saying that the old RDK had
been rendered "illegal" by the recent changes to the Crimean
Constitution, that is, by the Crimean parliament's compliance with
Kiev's demand that the peninsula bring its constitution and laws
in line with the Ukrainian Constitution. The new RDK maintained
that the Crimea's future lies in its union with the CIS, even if
the latter is restricted to Russia. (Roman Solchanyk, RFE/RL Inc.)
CONSTITUTIONAL COURT STILL DEMANDS TESTIMONY OF GORBACHEV, FALIN.
In response to summons from the Russian Constitutional Court,
Valentin Falin, the former chief of the International Department
of the CPSU Central Committee, who is now receiving medical
treatment in Germany, listed seven conditions which the court
would have to meet before he would agree to testify, "Novosti"
reported on 30 September. These included full reimbursement for
round-trip airfare and other expenses related to his trip to
Moscow. Moreover, according to Western agencies on 30 September,
Falin said that he would testify only if former CPSU Secretary
General Mikhail Gorbachev did the same. ITAR-TASS reported on 30
September that the court was willing to pay for Falin's airfare,
but that it rejected Falin's linking his testimony to that of
Gorbachev. Also on 30 September, Reuters reported a statement by
the court chairman, Valery Zorin, that he might have to order
"executive authorities" to ensure Gorbachev's appearance. On
October 1, the court will receive testimony from former USSR Prime
Minister Nikolai Ryzhkov, who has criticized Gorbachev for the
latter's refusal to testify. (Julia Wishnevsky, RFE/RL Inc.)
SITUATION IN KABARDINO-BALKARIA NORMALIZING. ITAR-TASS reported
on the morning of 30 September that the situation in
Kabardino-Balkaria was normalizing. The agency said that the
Executive Committee of the Congress of the Kabardinian people had
disassociated itself from the movement's fighters who were
demonstrating, and that labor collectives were supporting the
president and government. Roadblocks had been removed from all
roads and the airport. However, supporters of the Confederation of
the Mountain Peoples of the Caucasus and the fighters were
preparing to hold a new meeting demanding the resignation of the
president of the republic. Krasnaya zvezda of 30 September
expressed concern that those meeting included more and more
volunteers returning from Abkhazia. (Ann Sheehy, RFE/RL Inc.)
GAIDAR VISITS AZERBAIJAN, ARMENIA. A Russian government
delegation headed by Prime Minister Egor Gaidar travelled to Baku
on 30 September. Gaidar met with Azerbaijani President Abulfaz
Elchibey and signed a number of bilateral economic agreements,
ITAR-TASS reported. In a letter addressed to Russian President
Boris Yeltsin, Elchibey expressed the hope that the visit marked
the beginning of a new chapter in Azerbaijani-Russian relations.
Gaidar then travelled to Erevan for talks with President Levon
Ter-Petrossyan and Prime Minister Khosrow Arutyunyan. According to
Interfax, Armenian officials requested that Russia create an air
defence system on Armenian territory. (Liz Fuller, RFE/RL Inc.)
RUSSIAN BORDER TROOPS TO LEAVE GEORGIA BY MAY 1994. The head of
Georgia's Central Border Protection Administration, Colonel Otar
Gumberidze, told Interfax that an agreement has been reached
whereby Russian border troops will be withdrawn from Georgia
beginning in 1993; the withdrawal will be completed by 7 May 1994.
Gumberidze conceded that at present Georgia is "physically unable"
to protect its border with Turkey and has proposed that Russia and
Georgia jointly finance protection of that section of the frontier
for the time being. (A similar arrangement has been concluded
between Russia and Azerbaijan over protection of the frontier
between Iran and Azerbaijan). (Liz Fuller, RFE/RL Inc.)
MORE FIGHTING IN WESTERN GEORGIA. Clashes are continuing in
western Georgia between Georgian National Guard contingents and
supporters of ousted president Zviad Gamsakhurdia. Georgian
forces retook the town of Khobi last week and on 30 September
repulsed an attempt by Gamsakhurdia's supporters to occupy the
police station in Senaki; four of the attackers were killed in an
ensuing gunfight, according to ITAR-TASS. (Liz Fuller, RFE/RL
Inc.)
CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE
COSIC, TUDJMAN SIGN ACCORD. Radios Croatia and Serbia report on 30
September that Croatia's President Franjo Tudjman and Dobrica
Cosic, president of the rump Yugoslavia, signed a joint 8-point
declaration in Geneva. The agreement calls for the withdrawal of
the federal Yugoslav army from Croatian Prevlaka Peninsula,
strategically located on the Croatian-Montenegrin border. The
federal forces are to leave by 20 October, thus removing the
threat of renewed attacks on Dubrovnik and formally achieving the
withdrawal of the federal army from Croatia. Prevlaka would be
demilitarized and placed under UN supervision. The leaders also
renewed pledges to use their influence to end fighting in Bosnia,
condemned "ethnic cleansing," reiterated existing commitments that
borders can not be changed by force, and agreed to consider the
normalization of relations between the Republic of Croatia and
Yugoslavia (Serbia-Montenegro). (Milan Andrejevich, RFE/RL Inc.)
SERB REACTIONS. On 29 September, before the accord was signed,
Col. Miodrag Miladinovic, the federal commander at Prevlaka,
reportedly warned that his troops would defend the peninsula,
which protects the key naval base in the Bay of Kotor, with force
"if the politicians lose it." Upon hearing of the signing of the
Tudjman-Cosic accord, Bozidar Vucurevic, the Serb leader from
eastern Herzegovina, was said to have called it "harmful to
Herzegovina's Serbs," because Croatian forces are now in a better
position to penetrate Serb-controlled areas. Ultranationalist
Serb leaders like Vojislav Seselj have allegedly described plans
to withdraw the federal forces from Prevlaka as "shameful and
treasonous." Radio Serbia carried the reports. (Milan Andrejevich,
RFE/RL Inc.)
ETHNIC CLEANSING COMES TO SARAJEVO. The BBC on 1 October quoted
Muslim refugees as saying that armed Serbs had systematically
forced them to flee their homes in two Sarajevo suburbs the
previous day. They were given as little as 15 minutes to prepare,
and one woman told the BBC that she was raped before she could
reach Muslim lines. The Serbs have been trying to split Sarajevo
into two for some time. In Washington, the Senate voted to
approve up to $50 million in military aid to the Bosnian
government, whose forces are greatly outgunned by the Serbs, but
the measure is unlikely to be approved by the House or the White
House, the Los Angeles Times says on 1 October. Meanwhile in
Geneva, international mediators Cyrus Vance and Lord Owen
announced on 30 September that leaders of the two sides have
agreed to start talks on demilitarizing the Bosnian capital under
the good offices of UNPROFOR. (Patrick Moore, RFE/RL Inc.)
CZECHOSLOVAKS HOLD FINAL DEBATE ON SPLIT. The Czechoslovak
parliament held its final debate on 30 September on a draft law on
the division of Czechoslovakia, with most opposition deputies
rejecting the law and calling for a referendum on the issue. The
parliament is to vote on the law on 1 October. Commenting on the
prospective split of the country, former Czechoslovak President
Vaclav Havel told CSTK that a referendum on whether Czechoslovakia
should split does not make sense any longer. He said he could not
imagine a referendum in Slovakia which would decide anything.
Havel, however, suggested that a referendum could be held to
ratify the split. In the evening of 30 September, Havel met for
dinner with Czech Prime Minister Vaclav Klaus. Speaking to
reporters afterwards, Klaus rejected the idea of a ratification
referendum. He said that "the referendum issue is a game the
opposition parties are playing" and that it is useless to "waste
energy on referendum arguments." (Jiri Pehe, RFE/RL Inc.)
SLOVAK PRIME MINISTER ON ARMY, FOREIGN RELATIONS. Vladimir Meciar
told the Slovak Press Agency on 30 September that Slovakia will
establish its own ministry of defense. Meciar also said that,
with the exception of Hungary, Slovakia's relations with other
countries are good. He argued that the relations with Hungary
could improve but that, like Slovakia, Hungary must take steps in
that direction. The Slovak premier further said that he was
unhappy about a letter which he received on 30 September from
Hungarian Prime Minister Antall in which, in Meciar's words,
"Antall accused Slovakia of violating Hungary's borders and
threatening Hungary's sovereignty." Meciar also defended the
performance of his government during the first 100 days in office
against sharp criticism from opposition parties. (Jiri Pehe,
RFE/RL Inc.)
HUNGARIAN DEMOCRATIC FORUM POSTPONES CONVENTION. According to
MTI, the ruling party will hold its fourth national meeting at the
end of January and not at the end of November as planned. The
presidium of the party denied that the meeting was postponed for
political reasons--i.e., because of the controversy surrounding
the pamphlet written by one of the forum's vice presidents, Istvan
Csurka. Rather, they say, more time is needed to concentrate on
parliamentary work. (Judith Pataki, RFE/RL Inc.)
RECOUNT IS CALLED IN ROMANIAN VOTE. Romania's electoral bureau
said on 30 September that some 3.6 million votes had to be
declared void because people failed to understand the complicated
ballot papers. Rompres quoted a Romanian official as saying that
13.6% of votes cast for the Chamber of Deputies were annulled,
along with 12.9% for the Senate, and 4.8% for the presidency. In a
communiqui broadcast by Radio Bucharest on 30 September, Romania's
Central Electoral Bureau called for a recount within 24 hours. The
Democratic Convention, an alliance of the main opposition forces,
pointing to the unusually high number of invalid ballots,
expressed serious doubts about the accuracy of counting
procedures. The counting will now probably take several more
days. (Dan Ionescu, RFE/RL Inc.)
ILIESCU CALLS FOR COALITION. On 30 September President Ion Iliescu
called for a government of national unity to cope with Romania's
"grave problems." Speaking at a press conference, Iliescu
expressed hopes that his Democratic National Salvation Front and
the centrist Democratic Convention could find "a platform of
minimal understanding." He suggested that a wide-based coalition
might include all political groups in the new parliament. Another
alternative mentioned by Iliescu was that of a cabinet of
technocrats accepted by all parties in parliament. Iliescu also
described fears of a slowdown in economic reforms after his
party's victory as unfounded, but added that reforms should be
made "tolerable." (Dan Ionescu, RFE/RL Inc.)
HOUSE REJECTS MFN TRADE STATUS FOR ROMANIA. The US House of
Representatives rejected on 30 September by a 283 to 88 vote the
restoration of most-favored-nation trade status to Romania. There
was no debate before the vote, which had been delayed because some
members of the Congress wanted to see the results of the
elections. Romania is currently the only East European country
which does not enjoy the MFN status, which grants low tariffs to
exports to the United States. (Dan Ionescu, RFE/RL Inc.)
ANOTHER SETBACK FOR POLISH MASS PRIVATIZATION. The Sejm voted on
30 September to postpone any decision on whether to send the
government's mass privatization program to committee, pending an
official reckoning of the costs of the program. Privatization
Minister Janusz Lewandowski said the program would be
self-financing, thanks to World Bank and EC assistance and fees
paid by participants. But objections as to costs missed the
point, he added, as mass privatization aims to improve the
performance of 600 selected firms and rapidly broaden private
ownership. Indeed, finances do not seem to have been the real
concern of the program's opponents; their zeal for healthy state
budgets is sporadic. Although the Sejm may still approve further
work on the plan, the vote for postponement--172 to 147 (20
abstentions)--showed the parliamentary weakness of the government
coalition and the potential strength of the state industry lobby.
Mass privatization has been in the planning stage in Poland for
two years. (Louisa Vinton, RFE/RL Inc.)
SEJM DEBATES DEFENSE INDUSTRIES. Sejm deputies also urged the
government to save Poland's defense industries, which lost
virtually their entire market with the dissolution of the Warsaw
Pact. Defense Minister Janusz Onyszkiewicz reported on 30
September that 3 trillion of Poland's 26.5 trillion zloty defense
budget is earmarked for equipment purchases in 1992. Domestic
purchases will amount to 2 trillion zloty. The defense budget has
been cut by nearly 60% since 1986, Onyszkiewicz noted, severely
limiting state support for defense industries. Industry Minister
Waclaw Niewiarowski said that planned restructuring would reduce
military production to 19% of the 1988 level and eliminate 27,000
jobs. Of the 80 existing defense plants, only 28 would remain.
Many deputies urged the government to expand international arms
sales and exact payment for deliveries made to the former Soviet
Union. (Louisa Vinton, RFE/RL Inc.)
HUNGARIAN BUDGET SENT TO PARLIAMENT. On 30 September, Finance
Minister Mihaly Kupa presented next year's budget to the
parliament. A deficit of 180-185 billion forint is anticipated.
Kupa said two items are expected to spark debate: the introduction
of a double-level value-added tax system and a change in the
distribution of tax revenues between national and the local
governments. Until now, this income was divided equally, but now
local governments are to receive only 30% . Kupa said the new tax
law is also ready to be sent to parliament. (Judith Pataki, RFE/RL
Inc.)
BANKING REFORM IN BULGARIA. On 30 September, as part of the
government's economic reconstruction program, 22 of Bulgaria's
commercial banks were merged. The resulting corporation, the
United Bulgarian Bank (UBB), will commence operations in January
1993. UBB assets are estimated at 18 billion leva ($788 million)
according to Western sources. The move is the first step in the
direction of privatizing Bulgarian banking, a process expected to
take up to three years. The next banking merger is expected to be
between Bulgaria's two largest financial institutions, the
Economic Bank and Mineral Bank, which between them are expected to
control over one third of the country's banking business. (Duncan
Perry, RFE/RL Inc.)
BULGARIA MAY FACE ENERGY CRISIS. The consequences of an incident
at the Kozloduy nuclear power plant last week, when short circuits
caused a brief fire, could lead to severe power rationing
Bulgarian officials warned on 30 September. Plant spokesman Yordan
Yordanov first told Western agencies that a single 440-megawatt
reactor would be operating during the next two months, though he
later said experts are investigating a temporary solution that
would allow a 1000-megawatt unit to be connected to the power grid
within two weeks. In the meantime the Bulgarian National Electric
Company has signed contracts for emergency electricity supplies
from Ukraine and Moldova. (Kjell Engelbrekt, RFE/RL Inc.)
LITHUANIA, RUSSIA SIGN MUTUAL ACCOUNTING AGREEMENT. On 30
September in Moscow Lithuanian Deputy Prime Minister Bronislavas
Lubys and his Russian counterpart Aleksandr Shokhin signed an
agreement on settling accounts between the two states after 1
October, when Lithuania leaves the ruble zone and introduces its
temporary coupons, Radio Lithuania reports. A similar agreement
was also signed for the time when Lithuania introduces its
currency, the litas. A further protocol provides for the settling
within a month of all bills for goods and services made prior to 1
October 1992. (Saulius Girnius, RFE/RL Inc.)
ESTONIA'S FIRST BANKRUPTCY. A regional court in Estonia declared
a merchandising company bankrupt on 30 September, marking the
first bankruptcy in Estonia in the postwar period. The case
against Norten, Ltd. is the first in what is expected to be a
series of suits the government will bring in compliance with new
bankruptcy regulations, which took force on 1 September. As of
that day, Estonian companies owed the state some 235 million
kroon, BNS reports. (Riina Kionka, RFE/RL Inc.)
MAYOROV PROTESTS TREATMENT OF MILITARY. Diena reported on 28
September about letter of protest addressed to the Latvian
government by Col. Gen. Leonid Mayorov, commander of the
Northwestern Group of Forces, demanding a halt to what he terms as
provocative behavior of Latvian authorities against the Russian
military. Mayorov also threatened that the army would use all
means at its disposal to protect its own interests. The letter was
prompted by Latvian efforts to monitor the movements of Russian
military around several buildings in Riga and Jurmala that have
been turned over to the Latvian authorities--but not yet
vacated--by the military. One incident specifically mentioned in a
report by Latvijas Jaunatne on 25 September involved attempts of
the Latvian Home Guard to verify the documents of Mayorov's second
in command, R-Adm. Shestakov. (Dzintra Bungs, RFE/RL Inc.)
RUSSIA STEPS UP VERBAL ATTACKS ON BALTS. On 30 September Russian
Vice President Aleksandr Rutskoi urged Belgium to help defend the
rights of Russians in the Baltic States. According to Interfax,
Rutskoi made the statement to visiting Belgian Foreign Minister
Willy Claes, who responded that Russia should remove its troops
from the Baltic States. Rutskoi, in turn, said Russia wants to
remove the troops, but has no place to house them. Meanwhile,
Lithuanian Supreme Council Chairman Vytautas Landsbergis was
quoted by Interfax as saying that Moscow is carrying out a new
"Cold War" against the Baltic States. Landsbergis told reporters
in Vilnius that Russian Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev is leading
a campaign against the Balts in talks in various international
forums. (Riina Kionka, RFE/RL Inc.)
novine.37.bale.,
RFE/RL Daily Report
No 190, 2 October 1992
SUCCESSOR STATES OF THE USSR
UKRAINIAN PARLIAMENT VOTES OUT CABINET. The Ukrainian parliament on
1 October overwhelmingly approved a motion of no confidence in the
cabinet of ministers, Western agencies reported. The decision
followed Prime Minister Vitold Fokin's request to step down as head
of government the day before. Ukrainian lawmakers gave President
Leonid Kravchuk ten days to appoint a new prime minister, who then
will work together with the President to form a new cabinet. The
fall of Fokin and his cabinet was the result of constant charges by
the opposition that the government was failing to implement
economic reforms in the country. (Roman Solchanyk, RFE/RL Inc.)
KRAVCHUK VS CENTRALIZED CIS. Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk
told parliament on 30 September that Ukraine will never allow
itself to be subordinated to any kind of centralized CIS
structures, Ukrinform-TASS reported. Kravchuk said that these kinds
of ideas are currently being propagated, and that they are oblique
references to recent proposals for tighter CIS integration made by
Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbaev. At the same time,
Kravchuk emphasized that as in the past, the closest possible ties
will be maintained with Russia. (Roman Solchanyk, RFE/RL Inc.)
ADMIRAL KASATONOV REASSIGNED FROM BLACK SEA FLEET. Interfax on 1
October reported that the commander of the Black Sea Fleet, Admiral
Igor Kasatonov, has been reassigned to the position of first deputy
commander of the Russian Navy. The report indicated that a
Russian-Ukrainian group of officers would assume command of the
fleet in accord with a Russian-Ukrainian agreement to place the
fleet under joint command until the end of 1995. The removal of
Kasatonov had long been demanded by the Ukrainian government, which
recently accused him of illegally selling off fleet assets to
private concerns. (John Lepingwell, RFE/RL Inc.)
RUSSIAN DEFENSE MINISTRY AFFIRMS KURIL WITHDRAWAL PLANS. Japan's
Kyodo news service reported on 30 September that the Russian
government has reaffirmed its commitment to withdraw all Russian
troops from the disputed Kuril islands. In a written reply to a
query from Kyodo, the Russian Defense Ministry stated that the
withdrawal, announced by President Yeltsin in May, will start after
"politicians' decisions." No timetable was given for the
withdrawal, although earlier Russian-Japanese talks had specified a
one to two year time period. The Russian Defense Ministry has in
the past opposed any such withdrawal. (John Lepingwell, RFE/RL
Inc.)
RUSSIAN SUBMARINE SALE TO IRAN STILL ON? A Russian submarine is
still sailing to Iran, the Washington Post reported on 2 October,
despite Russian indications that the submarine sale was cancelled.
The Post article indicated that the submarine was nearing the
English Channel en route to the Persian Gulf. In response to the
Russian sale, the US Senate on 1 October attached an amendment to a
foreign aid bill that would cut assistance to Russia if it sells
arms to Iran, Western news agencies reported. While the final bill
must still be coordinated with the House of Representatives, the
amendment was a sign of the seriousness with which the arms sale
was being viewed. (John Lepingwell, RFE/RL Inc.)
CONTINUED STRIFE IN TAJIKISTAN. Fighting continued in southern
Tajikistan on 1 October, ITAR-TASS reported, and the Russian
division stationed there was taking additional measures to protect
its equipment, some of which supporters of deposed President
Rakhmon Nabiev have already stolen or otherwise acquired. Troops of
the Tajik Ministry of Internal Affairs and prison administrators
issued an ultimatum to the government and party leaders that they
will release the inmates of correctional institutions if attacks on
them are not stopped; armed groups have been raiding prisons in
order to obtain arms from the guards. Meanwhile, Russian border
guards reported more battles with persons seeking to cross the
Tajik-Afghan border illegally. (Bess Brown, RFE/RL Inc.)
ABKHAZ FORCES LAUNCH NEW OFFENSIVE, TAKE STRATEGIC TOWN. A
spokeswoman for the Abkhaz Supreme Soviet told an RL/RFE
correspondent in Moscow on 1 October that the withdrawal from
Abkhazia of volunteers from the North Caucasus had been suspended
because Georgian troops were attempting to advance on Gudauta,
where the Abkhaz leadership is currently based. Abkhaz and North
Caucasian troops subsequently launched an attack on the coastal
town of Kolkhida, ten kilometers south of Gagra, using tanks and
rocket launchers, and took the town, inflicting heavy casualties on
Georgian troops; they then advanced towards Gagra. The Georgian
State Council convened an emergency session to discuss the
situation. Whether State Council Chairman Eduard Shevardnadze
attended the session is unclear; all scheduled sessions had been
cancelled on 29 September because Shevardnadze was sick, according
to ITAR-TASS. (Liz Fuller, RFE/RL Inc.)
RUBLE PLUNGES ON CURRENCY EXCHANGE. The ruble lost nearly 22% of
its value against the dollar in narrow trading on the Moscow
Interbank Currency Exchange on 1 October, Interfax reported. The
dollar rose from 254 rubles to 309 rubles. The fall in the value
of the ruble was generally attributed to fears of very high
inflation (an annual rate of over 2,000% is expected in 1992) or
hyperinflation. Acting Russian Central Bank Chairman Viktor
Gerashchenko blamed the pending increase on the price of
energy-carriers. Government adviser Aleksei Ulyukayev promised
that the government would take unspecified joint measures with the
Russian Central Bank to stabilize the exchange rate of the ruble,
ITAR-TASS reported. And writing in Trud, Deputy Prime Minister
Vladimir Shumeiko called on the West to expedite the $6 billion
stabilization fund to "correct" the ruble exchange rate. (Keith
Bush, RFE/RL Inc.)
RUSSIAN RUBLE TO BE INTRODUCED? The Acting Chairman of the Russian
Central Bank, Viktor Gerashchenko, told Interfax on 1 October that
while his bank favored the retention of the ruble zone, Russia may
have to introduce its own monetary and currency unit if other CIS
governments insist on pursuing different economic policies and fail
to agree upon and to coordinate policies. He called for clear
government agreements on the size of credit emission in the ruble
zone and on regulating credits provided to importers of Russian
goods. Many observers believe that the ruble zone exists only on
paper and that "Russian rubles" are already distinct from "Moldovan
rubles" or "Kazakh rubles." (Keith Bush, RFE/RL Inc.)
OTHER CURRENCY DEVELOPMENTS. Belarus replaced the ruble on 1
October with a special coupon system in areas near the Lithuanian
and Ukrainian borders, ITAR-TASS reported. A Belarusian National
Bank official explained that the move was made because the
introduction of non-ruble currencies in Lithuania and Ukraine could
prompt an unwanted influx of rubles into Belarus. Lithuania
replaced the ruble on 1 October with temporary coupons that will be
used until the new Lithuanian currency, the litas, is introduced,
Reuters reported. And Moldovan Economics Minister Sergiu Certan was
quoted by Interfax on 1 October as saying that it would be a
mistake to introduce a national currency now when Moldova is in an
economic crisis. (Keith Bush, RFE/RL Inc.)
GORBACHEV ATTACKS YELTSIN. Former CPSU Secretary General Mikhail
Gorbachev told journalists that he is thinking about creating his
own political party as part of a political comeback, but he added
that the time for this was not yet right, Nezavisimaya gazeta
reported on 30 September. He called President Boris Yeltsin "a
loss," arguing that terrible mistakes had been committed in foreign
and economic policies. He said Yeltsin's privatization plan was a
"deception." He also criticized Yeltsin for not responding to
Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbaev's proposal for tighter
integration of CIS member states. Gorbachev recommended that
President Yeltsin and other Russian leaders welcome Gorbachev
advisors like Aleksandr Yakovlev into the inner circle of
government decision-makers. (Alexander Rahr, RFE/RL Inc.)
FILATOV SUPPORTS YELTSIN. First deputy parliamentary speaker
Sergei Filatov has joined forces with the democrats and called for
an expansion of President Boris Yeltsin's executive powers. In an
interview with Stolitsa (no. 38) he warned that parliamentary
speaker Ruslan Khasbulatov is violating the constitution and
seeking to create an administrative-command system in parliament,
thereby restricting the rights of the deputies. He argued that the
president should be given the right to dissolve at least part of
the legislature, since parliament has the right to impeach the
president. He noted that at the moment, the balance of power in
Russia is distorted to the disadvantage of the executive branch.
(Alexander Rahr, RFE/RL Inc.)
RYZHKOV TESTIFIES AT THE CPSU TRIAL. Speaking at the CPSU hearing
in the Constitutional Court on 1 October, former USSR Prime
Minister Nikolai Ryzhkov denied receiving instructions from the
Communist Party leadership, Russian TV reported. Since the
abrogation of the provision in the Soviet Constitution on the
leading role of the Communist Party, Ryzhkov said that he answered
only to the USSR President and his Presidential Council. However,
Ryzhkov said that Gorbachev, who had combined the post of the CPSU
General Secretary with that of the President, had often mixed up
these two roles. Ryzhkov denied that the CPSU was the sole cause
of the country's crisis. He said that immediately following the
election of Boris Yeltsin to be Speaker of the Russian parliament
in 1990, the CPSU in fact ceased to be the governing party, since
its largest component, the Russian communists, became an opposition
movement and could not act in the party's traditional manner.
Ryzhkov also denied any wrongdoings by his government during the
Chernobyl nuclear accident in 1986. (Julia Wishnevsky, RFE/RL
Inc.)
TWO CHERNOBYL REACTORS TO BE RESTARTED? The director of the
Chernobyl nuclear energy station told Reuters on 1 October that two
of the station's four reactors will be restarted soon. The No. 3
reactor will be restarted in October and the No. 1 in November to
meet increased demands for electric power in winter. Official
pronouncements on whether the Chernobyl reactors will be
recommissioned have been inconsistent and contradictory. The
current intention appears to be that all power generation at the
Chernobyl station shall be halted at the end of 1993 (see The
Guardian, of 10 September). (Keith Bush, RFE/RL Inc.)
KGB EXTERNAL SURVEILLANCE CODE MADE PUBLIC. The voice of the right
nationalist opposition, Den, (Numbers 37-39) has published the
complete instructions of secret surveillance methods employed by
the former KGB. The document describes the techniques and equipment
used by the KGB in overt and covert monitoring of its victims and
opponents. The weekly obtained the instructions from former KGB
officers, which left the agency because of "chaos and uncertainty
prevailing in the present state security organs." Giving its own
reason for the publication, Den wrote that the instructions can be
used in support of the so-called "patriotic resistance" and
underground activities in case pro-Western forces attempt to impose
a direct dictatorship". (Victor Yasmann, RFE/RL Inc.)
SENATE RATIFIES START TREATY. On 1 October the US Senate ratified
the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) which calls for Russian
strategic to be reduced to approximately 6000 nuclear warheads,
Western news agencies reported. The agreement must still be
ratified by Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus. Kazakhstan has ratified
the Lisbon protocol, which commits the former Soviet republics to
observe the treaty. A second US-Russian agreement to reduce
Russian warhead levels to approximately 3,000 by the year 2003 has
not yet been formalized as a treaty. (John Lepingwell, RFE/RL Inc.)
UKRAINE PLANS TO RATIFY START TREATY. In Washington on 1 October,
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Anatoly Zlenko said he hoped that
Ukraine would ratify the START treaty but noted that there were
many opponents of ratification. Zlenko also met with U.S. Secretary
of Defense Richard Cheney to seek US assistance in dismantling
ex-Soviet nuclear weapons in Ukraine, according to RFE/RL
correspondents' reports. (John Lepingwell, RFE/RL Inc.)
MILLENNIUM OF CHRISTIANITY IN BELARUS. The Belarusian Orthodox
church,the largest in the republic,is concluding celebrations of
its thousand year anniversary in Belarus, Radio Minsk reported on
29 September. In addition to special church services, an
international conference in the Academy of Sciences was held, as
well as a festive gathering in Minsk attended by state leaders.
Speaking to journalists, Belarusian Metropolitan Filaret rejected
accusations that the church is an instrument of Russian
imperialism, arguing that priests are now encouraged to use the
Belarusian language in sermons. However, the Belarusian eparchy is
still a part of the Moscow Patriarchate.(Alexander Lukashuk, RFE/RL
Inc.)
ROMANIAN, MOLDOVAN PRESIDENTS ON MOLDOVAN STATEHOOD. Challenged by
an interviewer to speak out for the unification of Romania and
Moldova, Romanian President Ion Iliescu told ECO Magazin (see the
September-October 1992 issue , RFE/RL Inc.) that pro-unification
propaganda in Romania "has backfired in Moldova, and not just among
the Russian-speakers but among the Romanian Moldovans themselves.
During the last two years one has witnessed there a movement away
from unification...The [Moldovan] people's reservations on the
issue of unification have grown." Moldovan President Mircea Snegur
in turn told visiting Hungarian journalists on 30 September, as
cited by Moldovapres, that "Moldova's independence is the choice of
its people and no one has the right to conduct a policy opposing
that choice...The existence of a Moldovan independent state is in
the interest of all its neighbors, including Romania. (Vladimir
Socor, RFE/RL Inc.)
CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE
CZECHOSLOVAK PARLIAMENT REJECTS LAW ON MODES OF SPLIT . . . On 1
October the Czechoslovak Federal Assembly failed to pass a law on
the modes of dividing the country. CSTK reports that in each
chamber of the parliament the measure fell just short of the
required three-fifths majority. The law would have allowed the
federation to be dissolved without a referendum, which would
represent only one four possible courses; the others would be a
Federal Assembly declaration, an agreement by the republican
parliaments, or unilateral declaration by one of the republics.
Currently, secession by one republic based on the results of
referendum held in that republic is the only "constitutional" way
of dissolving the country. (Jiri Pehe, RFE/RL Inc.)
. . AND ADOPTS RESOLUTION ON UNION. The Federal Assembly
approved a resolution calling for legislation to create a
"Czech-Slovak Union," which would replace the current federation.
The resolution proposes a union consisting of a president,
legislature, and governing council. The resolution was approved
when deputies representing Vladimir Meciar's Movement for a
Democratic Slovakia banded together with opposition parties in
voting for the resolution. Czech Prime Minister Vaclav Klaus
opposes the idea of the union. CSTK reports him as saying that the
union "is not in the interest of the citizens of the Czech
Republic, and we will not create it by any means." Klaus also
sharply criticized the Movement for a Democratic Slovakia for
supporting the resolution. (Jiri Pehe, RFE/RL Inc.)
ETHNIC CLEANSING CONTINUES APACE IN BOSNIA. The 2 October New York
Times reports at length on the ethnic cleansing of some Muslim
neighborhoods in central Sarajevo by Serb militants under the
paramilitary leader known as Arkan. Their actions are in violation
of pledges made by Serbian leaders at the London Conference in late
August to halt the practice. The Washington Post adds that
detention camps continue to operate despite similar promises by the
Serbs to close them, although 1,500 Muslims were taken by 35 buses
from the Trnopolje camp to Croatia on 1 October, the first such
evacuation of inmates. Some of these refugees told reporters about
massacres at the camp, including one of 125 Muslim men between 14
and 40 from the village of Hambarina near Prijedor in northwest
Bosnia. Trnopolje has since been turned into "a kind of gruesome
sanitized tourist attraction" for foreign visitors, but experts
know of at least 21 other camps and suspect that many more exist
unknown to the outside world. (Patrick Moore, RFE/RL Inc.)
SITUATION TENSE IN EASTERN CROATIA. A Russian colonel serving with
UNPROFOR in Sector East near Osijek, Croatia, persuaded some 1,000
refugees not to continue a march to reclaim their homes in what is
now Serb-held territory. Croatian politicians and the media have
widely accused UNPROFOR, which they expected to return Serb-held
areas to Croatian control, of helping to consolidate the Serbs'
hold there instead. Osijek's outspoken mayor Branimir Glavas told
Reuters that "patience is at an end." Meanwhile, international
media said on 30 September that UN Secretary-General Boutros
Boutros-Ghali warned in a report that ghting could resume in Sector
East, given the determination of the Croats and the presence of
lawless armed bands of Serb militias, estimated at 16,000 men. One
UN official called the situation "profoundly insecure." (Patrick
Moore, RFE/RL Inc.)
PANIC RETURNS TO BELGRADE AFTER US VISIT. Milan Panic, Prime
Minister of the rump Yugoslavia, told reporters in Belgrade on 30
September that his trip to the US was "incredibly successful." He
said the US was supportive of his peace efforts and that his
request for oil imports for humanitarian purposes would be met on
time, i.e. before the winter. Panic described the Tudjman-Cosic
talks in Geneva, as positive and expressed hope that their
agreement will ease the way to a final peace agreement with
Croatia. Regarding Kosovo, Panic said Pristina University must be
opened to the Albanians and that a solution must be found to
reinstate "the several hundred professors" who were dismissed by
Serbian authorities. Panic also reiterated his call for democratic
elections and a free press. He proposed the "division" of Serbian
TV, with its first channel presenting the views of the federal
government and the second channel those of the Serbian government.
Over the past three years, Serbian opposition parties have waged an
intense struggle against the Socialist domination of TV editorial
policies. Radio Serbia reported Panic's remarks. (Milan
Andrejevich, RFE/RL Inc.)
ROMANIA'S OPPOSITION CHARGES ELECTORAL FRAUD. The Democratic
Convention , an alliance of 18 centrist parties and organizations,
stated on 1 October that it had "irrefutable proof" of manipulation
of election results in at least one county--Dolj. The DC said it
would ask prosecutors to annul the election and order a new vote
there. Rompres quoted other instances of possible fraud from the
Prahova and Dimbovita counties, where electoral officers had
reportedly campaigned in the polling stations and spoiled ballots
vanished before they could be verified. Meanwhile, the DC launched
a drive to win the rural vote for Emil Constantinescu, its
candidate in the 11 October presidential runoff. (Dan Ionescu,
RFE/RL Inc.)
ROMANIA REACTS TO MFN VOTE. President Ion Iliescu expressed
bitterness over the vote in the US House of Representatives against
restoration of most-favored-nation trade status for Romania. Radio
Bucharest quoted him as saying that the decision "protracts the
discrimination to which Romania is unfairly subjected." Iliescu
accused Hungarian-born US Congressman Tom Lantos of having
"misinformed" the House on the situation in Romania. In a separate
statement, the Foreign Ministry said that the House vote
demonstrates both "a lack of understanding" for the changes in
Romania and the "virulence of the anti-Romanian lobby in the US."
(Dan Ionescu, RFE/RL Inc.)
PRESSURE INCREASING ON BULGARIAN GOVERNMENT. Osman Oktay,
Secretary of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF, RFE/RL
Inc.), said in an interview with RFE/RL on 1 October that his party
is considering lodging a vote of no confidence against the UDF
minority government next week. According to Oktay, the UDF should
initiate a "joint analysis" of the present political situation with
the MRF or risk standing alone in parliament. He also warned that
the MRF has lost confidence in Prime Minister Filip Dimitrov.
Meanwhile, President Zhelyu Zhelev told RFE/RL that the UDF cabinet
under Dimitrov has gradually been isolating itself in Bulgarian
politics. (Kjell Engelbrekt, RFE/RL Inc.)
OECD RECOMMENDS DEBT REDUCTION FOR BULGARIA. In a report released
in Paris on 2 October, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation
and Development suggests that Bulgaria be offered a "substantial
cut" in both its principal foreign debt and interest burden,
Western agencies report. Without debt reduction, the report
argues, Bulgaria can neither expect a significant inflow of foreign
capital, nor will it be able to consolidate its economic
achievements and speed up structural reforms. After a vote passed
by the National Assembly last Friday, Bulgaria will be paying some
25% of the interest due for the last six months of 1992. (Kjell
Engelbrekt, RFE/RL Inc.)
HUNGARIAN PROSECUTOR REFUSES TO INVESTIGATE 1956 KILLINGS. The
head of the Military Prosecutor's Office in Gyor, Gyula Varadi,
says that the killings did not constitute war crimes and after 15
years, in 1971, fell under the statute of limitations. Members of
the Christian Democratic People's Party initiated proceedings
against those who ordered soldiers to fire into a crowd at
Mosonmagyarovar during the 1956 revolution. Some 100 died and 200
were injured. A CDPP representative says that he will appeal the
decision. Defense Minister Lajos Fur commented that the killings
should be considered war crimes and called it "unacceptable to
close a case involving mass murder even if it took place 36 years
ago," MTI reported on 1 October. (Edith Oltay, RFE/RL Inc.)
WALESA VISITS FSM PLANT. Polish President Lech Walesa visited the
headquarters of the plant in Bielsko-Biala on 1 October. Walesa
said he is fulfilling an election campaign pledge to help solve
economic problems. He urged workers to take responsibility for
their own fate. Citing unofficial sources, Polish TV reported that
the president made Fiat's initiation of its formal takeover of the
plant a condition of his visit. The final agreement between Poland
and Fiat is now prepared, the TV report said, and will be signed in
a few days, to take effect on 1 October. PAP reports that the
plant's enormous debts were the sticking point in talks with Fiat,
and that the state treasury has stepped in to guarantee nearly 2.5
trillion zloty ($180 million, RFE/RL Inc.) in debts. (Louisa
Vinton, RFE/RL Inc.)
SEJM GRUDGINGLY APPROVES BIELECKI'S PERFORMANCE. By a margin of
181 to 167 (25 abstentions, RFE/RL Inc.), the Polish Sejm voted on
2 October to accept the performance of Prime Minister Jan Krzysztof
Bielecki's government, which left office nearly a year ago. The
vote had no legal implications, but offered an occasion for a test
of strength between the opposition and the current government.
Bielecki and two of his ministers now sit on the cabinet. The Sejm
budget commission had recommended a disapproval vote, charging that
Bielecki had caused a "collapse of public finances." Bielecki
argued that no one could accuse him of shirking decisions and that
a budget deficit of under 4% of GDP was hardly a catastrophe. The
Center Alliance, which has been balancing between government and
opposition, supported Bielecki, a move that may signal readiness to
join the ruling coalition. (Louisa Vinton, RFE/RL Inc.)
ABISALA ON POLISH-LITHUANIAN RELATIONS. At a press conference on 1
October Lithuanian Prime Minister Aleksandras Abisala said that
results of his recent trip to Poland were better than he expected,
BNS reports. The talks were "correct, open, and friendly," and for
the first time the problems of Lithuanians in Poland were discussed
at a high level raising hopes that more attention will be paid to
them. Polish Internal Affairs Minister Andrzej Milczanowski will
visit Lithuania on 2 October. He noted that the ministries of
justice should speed up the preparation of an agreement on legal
assistance and that a planned visit by Polish businessmen should
improve economic and trade cooperation. (Saulius Girnius, RFE/RL
Inc.)
COUNCIL OF EUROPE CRITICIZES ESTONIA. Members of the Council of
Europe's Parliamentary Assembly have criticized Estonia for not
having allowed noncitizens to vote in the national elections.
According to Estonian delegation member and former deputy speaker
of the Estonian Supreme Council Marju Lauristin, quoted by BNS on 1
October, even the conservatives "attacked us very sharply. The
psychological attack against Estonia has proved fruitful." The
Council of Europe delegation that monitored last week's election
has not yet filed its official report. (Riina Kionka, RFE/RL Inc.)
RUSSIA DENIES ANTI-BALT CAMPAIGN. Foreign Ministry spokesman Sergei
Yastrzhembsky told BNS on 1 October that reports of an aggressive
anti-Baltic Russian diplomatic campaign in the spirit of the Cold
War are unfounded. "Such a campaign is just out of the question,"
Yastrzhembsky said, adding that the Baltic response to Russia's
concern over the plight of Russians living in the Baltic "reminds
me of the former Soviet Union's reaction to criticism for its
violations of human rights." Earlier this week, Yastrzhembsky said
that the way Estonia and Latvia are currently treating non-Balts
could lead to a policy of "ethnic cleansing" along Serbian lines.
(Riina Kionka, RFE/RL Inc.)
LATVIAN REPLY TO MAYOROV. In response to the protest note of Col.
Gen. Leonid Mayorov, commander of the Northwestern Group of Forces,
concerning Latvia's efforts to monitor the movements of Russian
military personnel in Riga and Jurmala, the Foreign Ministry
expressed regret about the inconvenience caused to R-Adm.
Shestakov when he was briefly detained and asked to show his
documents. The ministry pointed out that the guardsmen were acting
on valid instructions and said that monitoring would continue. The
incident occurred during the latest round of Latvian-Russian talks
on troop withdrawal in which Shestakov participated, local media
reported on 30 September. (Dzintra Bungs, RFE/RL Inc.)
NATO NAVAL DELEGATION IN LATVIA. On 1 October eight ships from five
NATO member states arrived in Riga for a five-day visit. During
their stay, members of the NATO delegation are to get acquainted
with Latvia's defense and security situation, including the
problems resulting from the continued presence of Russian naval
forces. The arrival coincided with a conference on Latvia's defense
policies, plans, training facilities, and future plans for foreign
diplomats and specialists held by Latvia's Ministry of Defense.
(Dzintra Bungs, RFE/RL Inc.)
FUTURE OF "NORTHERN TOWN" IN VILNIUS. The city government is
engaged in discussions on the future of Vilnius's so-called
Northern Town, 60 hectares of land now housing the 107th Motorized
Rifle Division of the Russian army, BNS reported on 1 October.
According to the 8 September agreement on troop withdrawal, the
Russian troops should depart from the territory by 30 November.
All fences, barracks, garages, and other worthless structures will
be demolished and replaced by a modern social and commercial center
with offices, conference halls, hotels, and restaurants. Since
Lithuanian firms will be unable to build everything on such a huge
territory, foreign investment is being sought. Depending on the
pace of foreign investment, the project should begin in 1993.
(Saulius Girnius, RFE/RL Inc.)
novine.38.bale.,
=====================================================================
F E R A L T R I B U N E
_____________________________________________________________________
U broj! U broj! 392 El Splitt, 19. ruJNA 1992.
_____________________________________________________________________
U Grudama potpisan povijesni dokument:
HRVATSKA PRIMLJENA U BOSNU I HERCEGOVINU
GRUDE, 23. IX (Od naseg posebnog sagolja) - Pobjedonosni mars hrvatske
diplomacije svjetskom poyornicom i njena puna afirmacija na medjuna-
rodnom planu nastavljeni su danas u Grudama, gdje je dr. Franjo Tudjman
medjusobno potpisao dokument kojim je Republika Hrvatska - nakon
uclanjenja u sve vaznije svjetske organizacije, od Ujedinjenih naroda do
"atomskog lobija" -- primljena i u sastav Bosne i Hercegovine.
Ovom povijesnom trenutku bio je nazocan i sam predsjednik Republike
Hrvatske koji je potpisavsi dokument, srdacno pruzio sebi lijevu ruku --
kako je rekao - "od srca", nakon cega je, po strogom protokolu prijema u
ovu medjunarodnu organizaciju, predsjednik HZ Herceg-Bosne Mate Boban
uklonio perut sa Predsjednikova sakoa i glasno zajecao od srece. Doktor
Franjo Tudjman je potom obavio smotru Bruna StoJica, a specijalni vod
Hrvatskog vijeca obrane i drustvene samozastite u obliznjem je kaficu
"Kod Dzeme" ispalio sesnaest pocasnih plotuna iz raznog pjesackog
naoruzanja.
Upitan za znacenje prijema Hrvatske u sastav BiH, dr. Tudjman je
novinaru "Tomislava" odgovorio da prijem Hrvatske u BiH znaci da je ona
primljena u sastav Bosne i Hercegovine i da on govori hrvatski a ne
kineski dok je na pitanje novinara Hrvatskog radija, postaje Split,
odgovorio da "hvala Bogu, dobro, samo malo aritmija srca, ali to nije
nista novo", dodavsi na potpitanje istog novinara da "u redu, puna je
obaveza, ali ona to bolje podnosi".
Ovim cinom, zavrsio je dr. Tudjman, Republika Hrvatska postaje
punopravna clanica Bosne i Hercegovine sa svojim pravima i nuznostima.
Formalno verificiranje ove odluke ocekuje se na prvom sljedecem
zasjedAnju Hrvatskog vijeca sigurnosti, kada ce se raspravljati i o
prijedlogu nekih zemalja clanica o izbacivanju Bosne iz sastava
Bosne i Hercegovine.
novine.39.bale.,
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Subject: Another draw for Fischer and Spassky
Subject: Eagleburger: Yugoslav no-fly- zone decision imminent
Subject: Serbian economy suffers effects of war, U.N. sanctions
Subject: Serbian forces hammer Bosnian towns with artillery, mortar fire
Subject: UN hopes to resume aid flights Saturday
Subject: Bosnia-Hercegovina prisoners freed in Croatia
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Subject: Another draw for Fischer and Spassky
Date: 1 Oct 92 21:42:42 GMT
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (UPI) -- The 13th game of the controversial
Fischer and Spassky Yugoslav re-match ended in a draw Thursday after
more than five hours of play.
Former world chess champion Bobby Fischer, playing with white pieces,
offered to draw after 45 moves. His longtime rival, former Soviet
grandmaster Boris Spassky, accepted almost immediately.
The game was Sicilian defense. Fischer is still leading by 5-3, and
needs another five wins to get the $3.35 million prize.
This was the fifth draw, and the 13th game of the match that started
on Sept. 2, in Przno, near the plush Montenegrin resort of Sveti Stefan
in the southern Adriatic. After the 11th game, the set was moved to Sava
Congress Center in the Serbian capital of Belgrade.
Fischer, who withdrew from public competition after he won the world
championship title from Spassky in Rejkyevik in 1972 lost the first
Belgrade game Wednsday.
His comeback was marred by a possible $250,000 fine and a maximum of
10 years in jail for ``knowingly and willingly'' defying the U.S.
Treasury Department's order not to play in the rump Yugoslav union of
Serbia and Montenegro.
The order endorsed U.N. sanctions against the truncated federation
because of Serbia's role in the war in neighboring Bosnia-Hercegovina.
But Fischer publicly spat on the U.S. Treasury document at the news
conference on the eve of the match.
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Subject: Eagleburger: Yugoslav no-fly- zone decision imminent
Date: 1 Oct 92 23:08:28 GMT
WASHINGTON (UPI) -- Acting Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger
said Thursday the administration must decide within days whether to
support a ban on Serbian military flights over Bosnia-Hercegovina.
Eagleburger told reporters a sense of urgency results from the
circulation among the U.N. Security Council of a draft ``no-fly''
resolution.
U.S. officials say the draft resolution calls on nations
participating in the possible ban to ``interdict'' any Serbian military
flights over Bosnia-Hercegovina, which Belgrade is seeking to annex and
``cleanse'' of all Muslims and Croats.
Eagleburger said there are different views in the government on the
subject because ``it implies certain military commitments.''
``We have to be very careful about...where they may lead,'' he said.
``We will clearly have to make up our minds in the course of the next
few days.''
Eagleburger and top members of the national security team met with
President Bush to review the issue. Others meeting with the president
were James Baker, the former secretary of State and now White House
chief of staff;, CIA Director Robert Gates; Secretary of Defense Dick
Cheney; national security adviser Brent Scowcroft; and Gen. Colin
Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
``We have nothing to announce,'' spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said.
The United States and its allies agreed in principle at a conference
on the crisis in Yugoslavia last month to establish a no-fly zone, but
there have been no firm results.
The administration several months ago offered its air and naval
assets to ensure the delivery of humanitarian aid to Sarajevo. But Gen.
Colin Powell,chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and other
administration officials have expressed reservations about sending U.S.
troops into an open-ended military conflict with no set objective.
Humanitarian flights have been suspended since a shoulder-fired,
surface-to-air missile downed an Italian cargo plane last month.
Investigators have been unable to detemine which of the many warring
factions fired the missile.
It is believed that jet fighter patrols would discourage military
action -- from the ground or from the air -- against relief flights.
The risk to U.S. fliers, however, has never been underestimated, a
Pentagon official said Thursday.
``I don't believe we've ever felt since the operation started in July
that the safety of these missions could be guaranteed,'' Pentagon
spokesman Pete Williams said.
He said the United States is now ready to resume flights, and that
planes would be equipped with ``defensive measures'' to guard against
attack.
Eagleburger said Belgrade has given general assurances that the
flights could proceed unhindered. He said, however, that Belgrade's
``assurances are not necessarily always to be relied upon.''
There is a critical need to stockpile supplies as another brutal
Yugoslav winter approaches.
The CIA estimated this week that 150,000 people in the former
Yugoslavia could die this winter unless urgent action is taken.
As a result of winter's onset, and despite the risk, Eagleburger said
``we've simply got to provide humanitarian assistance or we're going to
have a lot of people starving to death.''
The Serbians as well, who are beginning to feel the pinch of sweeping
U.N. sanctions, fear that winter will exact a heavy toll.
Prime Minister Milan Panic asked Eagleburger and congressional
leaders this week to ease the embargo to allow for the purchase of
heating oil.
Eagleburger said he promised Panic he would consider the request.
The secretary of state said the administration would support
Belgrade'srequest to the U.N. sanctions committee if children, schools
and hospitals suffer the effect of heating-oil shortages, if Serbia has
no domestic production capacity, and if it is not diverted for other
uses.
Then, he said, ``we ought to let it come in.''
Serbian Foreign Minister Ilija Djukic said Thursday in New York that
he had ``submitted a formal request to the sanctions panel for the
importation of heating oil.''
Based in part on Eagleburger's assurances, Djukic expressed
confidence that the exemption would be granted.
``Nobody will let something terrible to happen in the winter to
innocent people,'' he said.
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Subject: Serbian economy suffers effects of war, U.N. sanctions
Date: 2 Oct 92 02:08:10 GMT
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (UPI) -- What used to be a prosperous, booming
Yugoslavia, has turned into a gloomy Serbia with soup kitchens,
hospitals lacking supplies to treat patients and lengthy lines of
motorists waiting for gasoline, unavailable for days at a time.
Yugoslavia's economy slipped deep into crisis two years ago when the
communist leadership of Serbia, the dominant state of the six-republic
federation, prevented economic reforms that should have led the now
defunct multi-ethnic country to a free-market economy.
With harsh economic sanctions imposed earlier this year by the United
Nations on Serbia for its involvement in the ongoing war in the former
Yugoslav republic of Bosnia-Hercegovina, citizens of Serbia are feeling
the pain of economic and political isolation.
Serbia's economic woes are best measured by the 5-mile-long gasoline
lines, the reopening of soup kitchens for the first time since World War
II and the hopeless situation in local hospitals, which are on the verge
of turning out patients for the lack essential medical supplies.
The U.N. sanctions, imposed May 30, bar all trade, financial
transactions and oil imports.
``I've been trying to buy gas for the past two weeks,'' said Srdja
Adamovic, a 28-year-old taxi driver. ``Even though I have managed to buy
gas coupons on the black market, there is no gas at the pumps to buy.
``The only way to get gas these days is to buy it directly on the
black market at five German marks a liter and even then one risks buying
some type of mixture which may damage the engine.''
For the most part, citizens of Belgrade are resigned to parking their
cars and using public transportation. But the lack of gasoline has
caused a 40 percent cut in bus schedules, leaving people stranded and
frequently late for work.
Although sanctions imposed on the truncated Yugoslavia are not
supposed to affect the import of medical supplies, the overall situation
has contributed to a major crisis in public health care.
``The situation is really terrible in the hospitals,'' said Jasminka
Maksimovic, a nurse at Bezanijska Kosa Hospital in Belgrade.
``If not in critical condition, patients who have an appointment for
an operation have to provide all essential medical supplies needed,
including anaesthesia, infusion, surgical stitching thread, dressing
material, etc.,'' Maksimovic said.
``The total cost of simple appendix operation stands about 5,000
dinars (dlrs 110) while an average paycheck of a nurse is only 28,000
dinars (dlrs 75),'' she said.
Because of hyperinflation, which now runs about 3 percent a day,
hospitals have been financially unable to provide a balanced diet for
their patients.
``We have not been able to provide meat for our patients for the past
three months,'' said Maksimovic, adding that patients mostly are served
vegetable soup, potatoes and milk.
Soup kitchens have been reopened in Belgrade but can feed only 650
people a day while up to 10,000 are in need of warm meals. With
insufficient funds from the government, the Red Cross of Serbia says
that it is taking donations from private organizations.
Red Cross officials estimated there were more than 500,000 refugees
in Serbia, of which only 150,000 are registered.
``About 95 percent of the refugees have found shelter with friends
and family,'' said Belgrade Mayor Slobodanka Gruden, president of the
Red Cross of Serbia.
``But because of the increasingly difficult economic situation in the
nation and the inability of families to withstand the financial burden,
we expect the registration of 'new' refugees to jump drastically,'' said
Gruden.
Despite the efforts of international and domestic humanitarian
organizations to distribute aid and provide housing for refugees in
Serbia, it is apparent that many will be left without adequate help this
winter.
A recent housing agreement between the United Nations High Commission
for Refugees and the Serbian and Yugoslav Red Cross organizations will
provide shelter for only 8,000 refugees in the coming months.
The UNHCR has provided $5.19 million from various donor countries as
part of a first-phase housing project for refugees in Serbia.
``To be very honest, this is a drop in the ocean of needs as we have
in Serbia half a million refugees,'' said Belgrade based UNHCR
representative Judith Cumin.
Meanwhile, Serbia's factories are idle and its industry is rapidly
disintegrating, with 70 percent of the workers either on ``forced leave''
or jobless.
``Only a half million people will hold jobs toward the end of the
year,'' said trade union leader, Danilo Popovic, adding that three and
one-half million people will be jobless.
But the end of Bosnia-Hercegovina's bloody ethnic war is nowhere in
sight as leaders of all three ethnic groups are unwilling to compromise,
perpetuating the wrath of the international community and its
stranglehold on Serbia's desperate economy.
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Subject: Serbian forces hammer Bosnian towns with artillery, mortar fire
Date: 2 Oct 92 12:49:51 GMT
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Hercegovina (UPI) -- Artillery battered this besieged
Bosnian capital Friday as its war-weary residents anxiously awaited
resumption of humanitarian aid flights and restoration of water and
electricity.
U.S. officials said the U.N.-organized flights, suspended a month ago
after an Italian transport plane was shot down, could resume as early as
this weekend.
Acting U.S. Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger said the main
players in the conflict had given guarantees of safety for such flights.
A U.N. official said two U.S. planes and one British plane were ready
in Zagreb, awaiting orders to depart.
Members of the U.N. Protection Force in Sarajevo agreed to accompany
utility workers to water and electricity plants into Serb-controlled
areas west of the capital to help restore supplies that have been cut
for several days.
But the Bosnian head of the city's water supply said he knew of no
mechanical failure at the pumping plant in nearby Serbian-controlled
Bacevo, and U.N. officials questioned the Serbian commitment to
restoring utilities.
Bosnian Vice President Ejub Ganic again urged the world community in
general and the United States in particular to make a commitment to end
Serbian military aggression.
Ganic said he was encouraged by possible U.S. action on resuming the
aid flights and talk in Congress of providing Bosnian military aid, but
said he remained pessimistic about U.S. policy.
Temperatures dipped Friday morning to 40 degrees in Sarajevo, where
aid supplies were arriving by truck at about one-fifth the minimum level
necessary, as estimated by U.N. officials.
Residents with no oil were chopping down trees in parks and along
roadsides to cook food and to store for winter fuel.
``It looks like we are facing the biggest disaster ever,'' Ganic
said. ``America will be a great nation if they can stop this.''
The artillery attacks from Serbian forces in the hills overlooking
Sarajevo continued Friday. Tank shells, mortar rounds and grenades were
fired on the city from Vogosca, a suburb behind the hills north of the
capital, and from Borija, a neighborhood on a hill to the east of the
city.
Radio reports said Serbian forces attempted an infantry attack across
the bridge at Vrbanja, crossing the Miljacka River running through
central Sarajevo, but were pushed back by Bosnian defenders.
Ground fighting also was reported morning in Bosnian-controlled Stup
on the western fringe of Sarajevo.
Sarajevo's two main hospitals reported Friday that at least five
people were killed and 105 injured during attacks on the city thursday.
Maglaj, a city about 75 miles north of Sarajevo, on Thursday suffered
its worst day of the conflict, with artillery fired repeatedly into
civilian and industrial areas, the radio said.
Jajce, in central Bosnia-Hercegovina, and Gradacac, in the
northeastern part of the republic, also faced aerial and artillery
bombardments, Sarajevo radio said.
Fighting also was reported in the northern bosnian city of Bosanski
Brod.
A total of 1,360 prisoners from a serbian-run camp in Trnopolje in
northwest bosnia-hercegovina were sent Thursday in a convoy of 35 buses
to karlovac in croatia, sarajevo radio reported.
The United States announced Thursday it would resume the airlift and
the other 18 participating countries have previously stated they would
follow suit if the U.S. began.
Serbian forces are fighting to carve a separate homeland out of
territory in the predominantly Muslim Slav republic of Bosnia-
Hercegovina. Some moderate Serbs and Croats have joined the Muslim Slavs
in trying to retain the territorial integrity of the newly independent
republic.
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Subject: UN hopes to resume aid flights Saturday
Date: 2 Oct 92 16:33:08 GMT
GENEVA (UPI) -- The United Nations hopes to resume its relief airlift
to Sarajevo Saturday provided the various warring factions in Bosnia-
Hercegovina give assurances they will not shoot at the planes, a U.N.
spokesperson said Friday.
Sylvana Foa, spokeswoman for the U.N. High Commission for Refugees
said provided there are no hitches and that assurances of cooperation
from Serbs, Muslims and Croats on the ground have been received, the
airlift could start again Saturday.
The U.S. has already said it is prepared to provide planes, she said.
``We have said we are going to start this weekend with U.S. planes,
but we had to give the various factions 24 hours notice and we're doing
that today,'' Foa said Friday.
Initially only U.S. planes will be used, as other countries initially
involved in the airlift are still fitting their planes with devices
designed to deflect anti-aircraft fire or rockets and may not be ready
to start flying this weekend, Foa said.
The airlift has been on hold since Sept. 3 when an Italian plane
flying for the U.N. was shot down by unidentified rocket fire.
The 19 nations have since demanded the U.N. provide them with
guarantees that the warring factions on the ground will not repeat the
incident.
The United Nations High Commission for Refugees said millions of
persons face starvation in Bosnia-Hercegovina this winter unless the
food situation is drastically improved.
Friday Foa and Michele Mercier, spokeswoman for the International
Committee of the Red Cross said not only food aid is needed, but aid for
refugees liberated from prison camps in Serbian-held areas of Bosnia-
Hercegovina.
The ICRC brought out 1,651 detainees from some of these camps
Thursday Mercier said ``and some of them were in pitiful condition.''
Negotiations are continuing with representatives of the Serbian
faction in Bosnia-Hercegovina to obtain access to other camps in the
area, she said.
Asked whether the ICRC has full access to all camps in the area or is
just being allowed to visit a sampling of them, Mercier said: ``An
honest answer to the question is no, we don't have full access. We are
not confident we are getting full information (on prisoners), we have
never had assurances that we are being allowed full access, nor
notifications of lists of people being held or even where the camps are.
In a word, we are not confident that we have the right access.''
Foa said UNHCR operatives on the ground report the refugee situation
in the Bajna-Luka region is worsening rapidly.
``We have people coming up to U.N. vehicles and pounding on the doors
and pleading with us to get them out,'' she said. ``For the 200,000 non-
Serbs there it's a situation of sheer terror.''
Latest ICRC figures show a total of 1,976,914 persons registered as
being displaced persons inside former Yugoslavia, of whom 681,000 are in
Bosnia-Hercegovina itself.
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Subject: Bosnia-Hercegovina prisoners freed in Croatia
Date: 2 Oct 92 16:40:06 GMT
KARLOVAC, Croatia (UPI) -- Some 1,560 prisoners from a Serb-run
detention camp in northern Bosnia-Hercegovina experienced their first
day of liberty in months Friday after being freed Thursday night.
The prisoners, the largest single group yet to be released, arrived
in a convoy of 35 buses late Thursday night in Karlovac, about 25 miles
southeast of the Croatian capital Zagreb.
The convoy had made a 12-hour overland journey from a camp in
Trnopolje, northern Bosnia-Hercegovina, where the prisoners had been
held.
Looking relatively healthy, many carrying small plastic bags of
clothing and other belongings, the mostly Muslim Slav detainees were not
allowed to speak with reporters but were quickly shuffled into a former
Austrian army barracks for registration.
``We are very very happy that these people who have been living under
very bad conditions are now out and alive,'' said Lars Nielsen, field
coordinator for the U.N. High Commission for Refugees, which organized
the evacuation jointly with the International Committee of the Red
Cross.
The release came two weeks after 68 prisoners were flown to Britain
in what was planned to be the start of the release of all prisoners in
detention camps in the embattled former Yugoslav republic.
The prisoners' release was agreed under the terms of the London peace
talks on Yugoslavia. Under the agreement, all camps were to be closed
``without delay'' and humanitarian aid organizations such as the Red
cross and the UNHCR were to be given ``free and immediate'' access to
the camps.
But representatives of the Bosnia-Hercegovina government claimed
those released Thursday were groomed for their release. Trnopolje is one
of the only camps where journalists have been allowed free access for
the last two months.
``Journalists were allowed to visit because it is a much better
better situation there, the prisoners were actually prepared for visits,
'' said Borogovar Musadik, coordinator of department for the research
and discovery of war crimes for the Bosnian government.
``You see the prisoners are eating and sleeping and that is not the
case in other camps,'' Musadik said.
Following their release, the prisoners were to be supervised by the
UNHCR in the former Austrian barracks. The Croatian government has given
the organization two weeks to find another location for the ex-
prisoners.
The Croatian government says it cannot accept the refugees as it is
already overburdened with about 650,000 refugees who have fled from the
war-torn region. It has closed its borders to all trying to escape the
conflict.
The UNHCR is trying to find another country which will take the
refugees but has no prospects yet.
The UNHCR and the ICRC now have access to 31 camps run by all sides
of the conflict, but say they are not allowed access to several areas in
eastern Bosnia-Hercegovina which are in Serbian controlled territory.
Since the London conference, two other camps, Omarska and Keratin
have been closed but the whereabouts of many of the detainees are
unknown.
novine.40.bale.,
NEWSWEEK, October 5, 1992
-------------------------
HELP FROM THE HOLY WARRIORS
Inside a secret military camp: how mujaheddin fighters are
training Bosnia's Muslims
Until the mujaheddin arrived last June, Alma Halep rarely stepped
inside a mosque. Like most Bosnian's Muslims, the 16-year-old
girl had a lot more in common with her ethnic Serb and Croat
neighbours than her Islamic "brethren" from the Middle East. War
has changed her habits. Now she prays the traditional five times
a day at a mosque in Travnik, the central Bosnian town where she,
her mother and her younger brother fled after Serbs destroyed
their home nearby Turbe. Besides religious instruction, the
visitors from the east are offering military assistance. "They
are very good men," says Alma, tucking a few strands of blond
hair under the blue scarf that covers her head. "In our country,
some of the men don't want to be killed and are afraid to fight."
As for mujaheddin, "They are the only ones who have come here to
help us."
They have come from a host of Islamic countries -Iran, Turkey and
Saudi Arabia, among them - to fight a holy war. As they explained
to a NEWSWEEK reporter who went inside a secret training camp and
spoke with their elusive leader Abu Abdul Aziz, they are
supporting a struggle for survival because no one else will. The
European Community, the United Nations and the United States have
all ignored Bosnian pleas for military intervention. In the
absence of Western help, someone must keep the heavily armed
Serbs from "killing the Muslims like sheep," argues a uniformed
mujaheddin from the Middle East (he won't say what country). "I
am just doing what I can," he says, tugging his thick black beard
while lounging outside the Travnik headquarters of the Muslim
Forces, an offshoot of the Bosnian Army. Like other Islamic
volunteers, he came to train Bosnian Muslims, provide them with
money for small arms and fight side by side with them on the
front line against the Serbs.
The Islamic warriors began to trickle into the Travnik area this
summer, first posing as journalists, then appearing more openly
in locally purchased camouflage jackets and pants. Today there
are said to be 200 or 300 mujaheddin around the town and an
additional 200 or so in the central part of the republic. Their
training camps put Muslims, who were poorly prepared for war,
through two weeks of boot camp plus religious indoctrination. In
the final two days mujaheddin instructors lead groups of 15 to 20
Muslims in exercise near the front. "Nobody can stop the people
who come here from the Middle East or Turkey to help the Bosnian
People," says former Yugoslav Army Col. Emir Redzic, who now
commands the Muslim Forces in Travnik. "You can't keep them from
coming."
Few Bosnians would want to. "They are very good fighters," says
Osman Sekic, a 46-year-old woodworker from Visenjevo. "They have
no fear for their lives." Local soldiers who have fought with the
mujaheddin are impressed with their bravery and their ability to
strike terror in the hearts of Serbian fighters, who cringe at
the sound of war cries to Allah. The Islamic warriors are admired
as martyrs. "They came here to be killed," says Elis Bektas, a
22-year-old platoon leader in the Bosnian Army and former
philosophy student. "For them there is no going back." Small
villages like Mehurici are enormously grateful to Islamic
warriors whose secrecy they jealously protect. "The mujaheddin
don't exist here," insists a local man.
But when mujaheddin commander Aziz drives through Mehurici in his
new black four-wheel-drive Nissan, the town turns out for him.
Children wave, old people turn and smile, and other villagers
approach with invitations to weddings and parties. Aziz, who
arrived in Bosnia three months ago, has little time for
celebration. He heads up the road to a field outside town and
parks his vehicle. As he pulls off his black plastic sandals and
reclines on a couple of vividly colored prayer rugs, two Bosnian
Muslims jump out of the Nissan and take up positions 10 yards to
either side, scanning the terrain with their AK-47s. Now 50, the
red-bearded Aziz claims to be a veteran of holy wars in Africa,
Kashmir, the Philipinnes and Ahghanistan. "I come from Islam," he
says guardedly. People who know him in nearby Travnik say his
home is Saudi Arabia, where his wife and nine children see very
little of him.
The warlord spends part of his time proselytizing. Every day,
with the help of a translator, Aziz teaches the Koran and Islamic
tradition to a class of 15 children, 8 to 13 years old. But his
main purpose isn't pedagogical or humanitarian. "We are not here
to bring supplies like food and medicine," he says, a silver
revolver gleaming from his waistband. "There are a lot of
organisations that can do that. We bring men." How many?
"Enough." They come from Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Pakistan, Sudan,
Afghanistan, Iran and Syria, say villagers. Seventeen of his men,
Aziz admits have been killed in the conflict; he expects many
more will die. "It will be a long war if the United Nations and
the United States don't do anything," he suggests. "If the
Muslims in Bosnia are not secure, we will fight until they get
their freedom."
No marriage: While Bosnians want their freedom, they worry about
the price. Some fear the mujaheddin haven't shown their real
extremist side. "If they want to offer people religion, culture
and language, that's good," says 27-year-old Zafir, a Muslim from
Travnik who asked that his last name not be used. "But if they
insist on it, that's not good." Bektas, the platoon leader, is
concerned the mujaheddin really fighting for Islam, not Bosnia.
"It's good for us that they are here," he says. "But after the
war, who knows?" So far, at least, locals have been more eager to
embrace Kalashnikovs than the Koran: men still drink beer
unmolested, and women have resisted the chador - as well as
several proposals of marriage from Arab fighters.
But Croatians aren't taking any chances. The mujaheddin must pass
through their borders to enter Bosnia; Croat dealers control the
arms flow. Zagreb has tolerated the Islamic warriors - except
when it's expedient not to, as in the recent seizure of an
Iranian 747 loaded with guns or the slaying of six Saudi Arabians
by Croats who stole the weapons being brought to local Muslims.
The Croats may be sometimes allies of the Bosnians in the war
against the Serbs. But they may not hesitate to use the threat of
an Islamic state to turn against their Muslim neighbours.
Tom Post with Joel Brand in Travnik
NEWSWEEK, October 5, 1992
_
|-| /-\ |_ |_| |< {"God protect us from ceasefires. It seems that
whenever we have a ceasefire, the level of
fighting goes up." Major Lewis Mackenzie,
UN Commander in Sarajevo}
novine.41.bale.,
NEW YORK TIMES, Sturday, October 3, 1992.
BUSH'S BOSNIA REMARK: HALTING A `CRUEL WAR'
WASHINGTON, Oct. 2. (Reuters) - Followinf are excerpts from a
statement issued today by President Bush on steps to ease the violence in
Bosnia and Herzegovina and Elsewhere in the former Yugoslav federation:
All Americans, and people of compassion everywhere, remain deeply
troubled by the cruel war in Bosnia and broader turmoil in what was
Yugoslavia. We took several important initiatives in August, and today I am
announcing further steps to help ease the conflict.
The United States has been working intensively with other concerned
nations to contain the conflict, alleviate the human misery it is causing,
and exact a heavy price for aggression.
This international effort has produced some results. The recent London
Conference set up an international mechanism for addressing all aspects of
the Yugoslav problems and put in motion an active negotiation . The tenuous
truce in Croatia is holding. ... The U.N. trade embargo has idled roughly
half the industry of Serbia, whose leaders bears heavy responsibility for
the aggression in Bosnia.
Our demand that the Red Cross be given access to detention camps has
begun to yield results, and the release of detainees has now begun. The U.N.
resolution we obtained to authorize "all necessary measures" to get relief
supplies into Bosnia has led to the creation of a new U.N force to be
deployed for that purpose.
We will continue to honor our pledge to get humanitarian relief to the
people of Sarajevo and elsewhere in Bosnia. To this end, I have directed the
Secretary of Defense to resume American participation in the Sarajevo airlift
tomorrow morning. I wish I could say that there is no risk of attack these
flights, but I cannot, although we are taking precautions.
Still, the savage violence persists in Bosnia. Despite agreements
reached at the London Conference, Bosnian cities remain under siege, the
movement of humanitarian felief convoys is still hazardous, and innocent
civilians continue to be slaughtered. At London the parties agreed to a ban
on all military flights over Bosnia. Yet the bombing of defenseless
population centers has actually increased. This flagrant disregard for human
life and for clear agreement requires a response from the international
community, and we will take steps to see that the ban is respected.
Now, a new enemy is about to enter the battlefield: winter. Some weeks
ago, I asked for an assesment of the effects that the combination of war and
winter could inflict on the suffering people of Bosnia. The answer was
profoundly disturbing: thousands af innocent people... could perish from
cold, hunger, and disease.
Anticipating this danger, the United States has been working with
other nations and with U.N. to mount a major expansion ao the international
relief effort and to support the tireless negotiations of U.N. and E.C.
envoys Cyrus Vence and David Owen, to get the fighting stopped...
I have decided to take a number of further steps:
First, having authorized a resumption of U.S. felief flights into
Sarajevo, I am prepared to increase the U.S. share ot the airlift.
Second, we will make available air and sea lift to speed the deployment
of the new U.N. force needed immediately in Bosnia to protect relief convoys.
The United States will also provide a hospital and other critical support for
this force.
Third, the U.S. will furnish $12 million in urgently needed cash to
the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees for the purpose of accelerating
preparations for the winter. This in addition to the $85 million in financial
and material support we have already commited.
Fourth, we will offer U.N. and the Red Cross help in transporting and
carring for those who are being freed from detention camps. We have already
provided $6 million for this purpose.
Fifth, in cooperation with our friends and allies, we will seek a new
U.N. Securitu Council resolution, with a provision for enforcement, banning
all flights in Bosnian airspace except those authorized by the U.N. If asked
by the U.N., the U.S. will participate in enforcement measures.
novine.42.bale.,
Vjesnik 5.10.
Mate Boban
Tragovi razaranja
MARIO MARUSIC
RAZGOVOR S MATOM BOBANOM, PREDSJEDNIKOM HRVATSKE ZAJEDNICE HERCEG-BOSNA
Muslimani odustaju od unitarne drzave
Ponavljajuci politicku opciju: nezavisna drzava BiH, s jednakim pravom
hrvatskog naroda na nju, Mate Boban ocjenjuje da su se pregovori s
Muslimanima pomakli s mrtve tocke. O zimskom pre (....) pristao bi na
njega samo ako ne ugrozava hrvatski nacionalni interes. Tvrdi da ce
vojni rasplet u Posavini uslijediti vrlo brzo (....)
Razgovarajuci s Matom Bobanom koji nas ljubazno, makar se nismo
najavili, prima u hotelu "Intercontinental" tek sat prije polijetanja za
Split, postaje nam jasno da hrvatska i muslimanska strana u ratom zahva-
cenoj drzavi ipak nisu na samom pocetku, kada je o dogovorima rijec, ali
da jos uvijek nema koraka "od t (....) postici kompromis oko buduceg
ustavnog ustroja Bosne i Hercegovine. Hrvatska strana ostaje dosljedna,
u beskraj ponavljajuci i ne odustajuci od teze da Bosnu i Hercegovinu
mogu ciniti samo tri naroda kao konstitutivni i suvereni dijelovi te
zemlje. Muslimanska strana vise nije onako cvrsto ukopana u stavu o uni-
tarnoj drzavi. Ocito, predstoji jos puno, puno koraka.
U drugoj tocci Dodatka sporazuma o prijateljstvu i suradnji potpisanog u
Americi izmedju Hrvatske i BiH iznova se naglasava potreba jacanja
napora na iznalazenju politickog rjesenja za prestanak rata i provedbu
nacela o ustrojstvu Republike BiH kao ravnopravne i cjelovite zajednice
triju konstitutivnih naroda. Ocito, razgovori Boban - Silajdzic u hotelu
"Intercontinetal" dio su tih napora.
"O cemu ste, gospodine Bobane, razgovarali i s kakvim rezultatom?"
- Da, sastali smo se u Zagrebu, ja predvodeci delegaciju Hrvata, a
Silajdzic na celu muslimanske delegacije. Razgovarali smo o trenutnim
zbivanjima u nasoj zajednickoj domovini, o medjusobnim odnosima i,
naravno, razlikama u vidjenju ustavnog ustroja BiH nakon rata. Razgovor
je posluzio kao priprema za razgovore izmedju predsjednika Hrvatske dr.
Tudjmana i predsjednika Predsjednistva BiH Izetbegovica. Nasa je poli-
ticka opcija jasna: nezavisna drzava BiH, s jednakim pravom hrvatskog
naroda na nju. Unutar takve drzave hrvatski narod mora biti konstitu-
tivan, s najbitnijim elementima suverenosti, sto znaci da hrvatski narod
mora biti tako organiziran da moze osigurati svoju drzavotvornost u BiH
i trajno pravo na oplemenjivanje svih narodnosnih cimbenika hrvatskog
naroda, od gospodarskih i kulturnih, do politickih i upravnopravnih.
"U kantonu?"
- Mi ne upotrebljavamo taj izraz. U hrvatskoj nacionalnoj jedinici,
dakle u odredjenom prostoru.
"Kakva je muslimanska opcija, u cemu se razlikujete?"
- Razlika je u tome sto je muslimanska strana odustala od konstitucije
BiH kao drzave sastavljene od tri konstitutivne jedinice, hrvatske,
muslimanske i srpske, u opravdanoj bojazni da netko od trojice ne bi
nekada pomislio na izdvajanje i razbijanje BiH. Medjutim, pravo naroda
na samoopredjeljenje je trajno, nepotroseno, pa je to iluzoran argument
jer se on moze dogoditi uvijek i u svako vrijeme, i bez obzira kako
drzava bila konstituirana. Ali, hrvatskom narodu ne vjerovati, povijesno
je sljepilo. Hrvatski narod svoje pravo na BiH nikada i nikome ne zeli
pokloniti. BiH je prije svega domovina hrvatskog naroda, prije svih i
svakoga. Danas je drzava tri naroda. To je pitanje od globalnog znacaja
za hrvatski narod, temelj svega.
"Je li vam Haris Silajdzic povjerovao?"
- Morate pitati njega. Ne vjerujem da mi vjeruje.
"Jeste li se usprkos tome dogovorili?"
- Dogovorili smo se da moramo trajno razgovarati kako bismo na kraju
ipak dosli do trajne osnove ustavnog ustroja BiH.
"Do kada cete razgovarati?"
- Do trenutka kada i nama drugi budu priznali narodno hrvatsko pravo na
BiH, kako i mi priznajemo drugima.
"Ipak, netko mora poceti popustati da bi se krenulo s mrtve tocke. Je li
u Zagrebu bio start?"
- Pocelo je. Uvjeren sam da je koncepcija unitarne gradjanske drzave kod
muslimanskog politickog rukovodstva uocena kao nerealna, ma koliko
zeljena bila. To je taj prvi korak.
"Potpuno je odbacena koncepcija unitarne drzave?"
- Moram u to vjerovati. Kako razgovarati ako ne vjerujete? Ja smatram, a
mislim da ce i oni doci do toga, da ne moze postojati nikakva BiH osim
uredjene na nacin jednakih prava sva tri naroda.
"Cak i da se dvojica uspiju dogovoriti, sto je s trecim?"
- Pa vrijednost hrvatsko-muslimanskog dogovora i jest u tome sto ce, kao
racionalan i objektivan, prisiliti trecega na razum i na prestanak
agresije, zlocina i svih zala i namjerama sto ih je tako jasno ekspli-
cirao pred cijelim svijetom. To je put politickog rjesenja krize i rata
u u BiH.
"Kako ste reagirali na prijedlog sto je, navodno, dosao iz "Izetbegovi-
cevih redova" o "zimskom ratnom snu"?"
- Ne znam za taj prijedlog, nas nitko o tome nista nije pitao, niti nam
je sto predlagano, ali u ratu koji je tako jasno definirao namjere
agresora, zlocinca, i namjere hrvatskog naroda kao zrtve koja se brani,
dakle u tom ratu hrvatski narod ne zna za zimu, ljeto, proljece ni
jesen. Mi cemo jednostavno svoje pravo ostvariti, i to prije svega poli-
tickim sredstvima, budemo li mogli, ali ako nam drugi natovare druge
oblike rjesavanja tog pitanja, prihvatit cemo ih.
"Vjerujete da se srpska i muslimanska strana mogu dogovoriti o zimskom
prekidu rata?"
- Ja bih bio sretan da se na bilo koji nacin i na bilo koje vrijeme
zaustavi rat, ali, kazem, nikada pod uvjetima da hrvatski nacionalni
interes bude ugrozen. Mislim da je, kad ste to vec spomenuli, veoma
vazna cinjenica da u BiH Hrvati imaju naspram agresoru liniju fronte
duzu od 300 kilometara.
"U dodatku Sporazuma govori se o zajednickoj obrani od agresije, usklad-
jivanju obrambenih napora izmedju dviju suverenih drzava, Hrvatske i
BiH. Sto to konkretno znaci?"
- BiH je, kao i Hrvatska, napadnuta, a agresija se, i zbog geostrateskog
polozaja, moze djelotvornije suzbiti zajedno. Vi znate da je najveci dio
zlocina protiv Hrvatske pocinjen s prostora BiH, sto potvrdjuje
prethodnu tvrdnju. Zato je taj dodatak Sporazuma izmedju drzava Hrvatske
i BiH oplemenjen novom, rekao bih, institucijom, Odborom za koordi-
niranje obrane. Hrvatska je delegirala svoja tri predstavnika, a BiH ce
ovih dana izabrati svoja tri clana.
"Tko su hrvatski clanovi?"
- Generali Janko Bobetko i Slobodan Praljak, te Vice Vukojevic.
"Vec rade?"
- Ne, jer jos nisu poznata tri bosanskohercegovacka clana. Odbor ce
imati puno posla, a osnovna ce mu zadaca biti sukladnost obrane od
agresora dvije napadnute drzave.
"U dodatku Sporazuma pise da ce dvije drzave zajednicki zatraziti uki-
danje embarga na izvoz oruzja u BiH i Hrvatsku. Hoce li biti sto od
toga?"
- Obje strane to trajno traze. I ja sam osobno uvijek, kao predstavnik
hrvatskog naroda iz BiH, pred predstavnicima UN na konferencijama o BiH
to trazio.
"Odgovor ne stize?"
- To su tek pokusaji informiranja svjetske javnosti o neravnopravnosti
napadaca i napadnutih. Ne vjerujem da ce uvaziti nas zahtjev. Ali treba
ga postavljati.
"Kakav ce biti vojni rasplet u Posavini?"
- Ako se, u skladu s odlukom o zaustavljanju rata u BiH na Londonskoj i
Zenevskoj konferenciji vrlo brzo ne pronadje politicko rjesenje, mi
tocno znamo kako cemo to vojno zavrsiti. U nasu korist.
"Kada?"
- Rekao sam, vrlo brzo.
"Jesu li rijeseni problemi na relaciji HVO - HOS?"
- Ti problemi bili su jednostrani, odnosno, nije HVO imao problema s
HOS-om vec HOS sa HVO. Ali, rijec je o marginalcima koji su se uspro-
tivili svehrvatskom BiH organiziranju protiv agresora kroz postrojbe
HVO. Marginalna je to pojava koja je sama od sebe nestala. U BiH vise ne
postoji HOS. Svi momci, pretezno veoma hrabri hrvatski vojnici, shvatili
su gdje im je mjesto i vratili su se u postrojbe HVO.
"Sto biste izvukli kao najznacajniji dio dogovora s muslimanskom delega-
cijom?"
- Dogovor o zajednickom prijedlogu buduceg ustavnog ustroja BiH. Nas
politicki cilj je konzistentan, konstantan i poznat svakome u svijetu i
ocijenjen je kao realan, moguc, moralan i etican. Mi cekamo, naglasava
Mate Boban.
novine.43.bale.,
Vjesnik 5.10.
Slika zlocina koja je obisla svijet
NEOPISIVA ZVJERSTVA U LOGORIMA KOD PRIJEDORA
Zemlja masovnih grobnica
Prema svjedocenjima slucajno prezivjelih logorasa, poslije 2. kolovoza,
odmah nakon pocetka medijske kampanje protiv logora, zvjerski je ubijeno
vise desetaka tisuca logorasa Omarske, Trnopolja, Keraterma
Price logorasa koji su samo slucajem prezivjeli, medjusobno se podu-
daraju u rekonstrukciji masakra nakon otkrica logora. U tome nam je
posebno pomogao razgovor s Fikretom, cija je slika iza zice logora Kera-
term obisla svijet. Ipak, mozaik stravicnih slika jos ni priblizno nije
kompletan.
Poslije 2. kolovoza, odmah nakon pocetka medijske kampanje protiv
logora, ubijeno je vise desetaka tisuca logorasa. U prvim danima kolo-
voza ubijani su posebno "stari" logorasi u najtezem stanju - da bi se
sklonili od ociju svjetske javnosti. U kamione i autobuse potrpani su i
odvezeni deseci tisuca logorasa. Na stanicama tih konvoja izvlaceni su
iz autobusa i ubijani mladici koji su tretirani kao zdraviji i koji bi
se uskoro mogli oporaviti.
Posljednja saznanja govore da se na podrucju planine Vlasic u sredisnjoj
Bosni i Hercegovini, kod sela Donji Koricani, a na putu od Skender
Vakufa prema Travniku, na mjestu poznatom kao Koricanska stijena, nalazi
masovna grobnica logorasa iz logora oko Prijedora. Svjedoci procjenjuju
da je na toj lokaciji zakopano od 3000 do 5000 ljudi.
Vojni izvidjaci Vojske BiH bili su svjedoci zatrpavanja tijela oko 750
ljudi samo u jednom danu. Tijela su zatrpavana bagerima u fortifika-
cijske objekte i rovove za topove koji su prethodno uklonjeni. Stradali
su uhvaceni civili i mnogi logorasi iz konvoja koji su isli iz podrucja
Prijedora, Banje Luke, Kljuca, Mrkonjica i Skender Vakufa. O kakvom je
karakteru i razmjerima genocida rijec, najvise govore mjesta odakle su
konvoji kretali.
Trnopolje, naselje nedaleko od Prijedora, pretvoreno je u kombinaciju lo
(....) sluzile su kao mucionice, a logorasi su bili na otvorenom i
opkoljeni zicom. Jedan dio stanovnistva, odnosno nesto zena i staraca,
bili su u kucama izvan zice radi poslova potrebnih zlikovcima. Ovaj
logor sluzio je cetnicima posebno za izivljavanje nad zenama i maloljet-
nicama.
Muskarci su uglavnom sluzili za skupljanje leseva svojih susjeda po
okolnim selima i njivama. Jedna grupa je samo u jednom danu skupila i u
masovnu jamu zakopala 700 tijela. Mjesto jame je kraj puta prema Pri-
jedoru, na rubu sume Gaj, pored gostionice koja se zove "Evropa". U
samom Trnopolju nalaze se masovne grobnice gotovo pored svake kuce sa
pet, deset, ili 20 tijela.
Omarska, rudarski kompleks nedaleko od Prijedora, pretvoren je u logor
smrti krajem svibnja, kada je tu dovedeno oko 3000 ljudi da bi se taj
broj povecavao i do 12.000 ljudi. Ljudi su u jednom razdoblju bili
smjesteni u metalne tornjeve za utovar rude po katovima, 300 na svakom
od cetiri kata. Dnevno se gusilo oko 20 ljudi.
Odmah po pristizanju prvog transporta iz Kozarca ubijeno je 60 ljudi.
Tih prvih dana strijeljano je i 20 milicionara iz Prijedora koji nisu
Srbi. Tijela su kamionom odvezena u nepoznatom pravcu.
U toku aktivnog postojanja logora u vremenu od tri mjeseca svakodnevno
je ubijeno deset do dvadeset ljudi, cija tijela su odvozena i dijelom
ili u potpunosti zakopavana na lokacijama rudnika: Otvoreni kop Jezero,
Stari rudnik Tomasica, Novi kop Buvac, jezero kod brane Medjedja.
Keraterm, tvornica kod Prijedora, pretvorena je u logor smrti kada i
Omarska. Tome logoru pristup inozemnih promatraca i novinara nikad nije
omogucen. U cetiri logorske prostorije uvijek je bilo smjesteno oko 3000
ljudi.
Zna se pouzdano da je 27. srpnja ubijeno 190 ljudi tako sto je u pros-
toriju pusten plin. Kada su logorasi posli prema izlazu, cuvari su
otvorili vatru iz protuavionskih mitraljeza i iz neposredne blizine,
tako da su meci bukvalnokomadali ljude. Tada je na mjestu ubijeno oko
145 ljudi a oko 45 ranjenih pusteno da iskrvari. Nakon toga tijela su
potrpana u kamione i odvezena u nepoznatom pravcu.
Kada su ocekivali posjet novinara, 5. kolovoza, cetnici su 120 logorasa
(....) logor Omarsku. Prema tvrdnjama prezivjelih iz te grupe, odmah na
putu je zaklano devet, a dio je ubijen u Omarskoj. Samo deset iz te
grupe dospjelo je do Manjace. Istog dana u "radnu jedinicu" odvedeno je
25 ljudi i nikada se vise nisu vratili niti su se u nekom logoru
pojavili. Takodjer toga dana deset autobusa logorasa odvezeno je za
Trnopolje. Zadnji autobus koji je stigao u sumrak zadrzan je na pisti
logora Trnopolje i mnogi logorasi su maltretirani te ubijani ili kasnije
podlegli ranama.
Obaveza svih medjunarodnih institucija i subjekata je da hitno istraze
sva ta stratista, posebno "Koricanske stijene" i upoznaju svjetsku jav-
nost o tim stravicnim zlocinima.
MUSADIK BOROGOVAC
Autor je clan grupe za istrazivanje genocida pri Uredu za humanitarnu
pomoc i izbjeglice Republike BiH u Zagrebu
novine.44.bale.,
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Subject: Serbian leaders beat the drums of war
Subject: Red Cross, U.N. appeal for end to ethnic violence
Subject: U.S. aid flights reach Sarajevo
Subject: Humaniatarian-aid flights to Sarajevo resume
Subject: W.H.O. cites 'desperate race against time'
Subject: Bombardment of Sarajevo intensifies
Subject: Bosnian Serb leader warns against ``no-fly'' zone proposal
Subject: U.N. readies vote on war-crimes commission for former Yugoslavia
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Subject: Serbian leaders beat the drums of war
Date: 2 Oct 92 18:36:38 GMT
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (UPI) -- The leader of Serbian forces occupying
parts of Croatia threatened Friday to launch another war if the new
Yugoslav federation recognizes Croatia, and he defended the brutality of
the conflict, saying this ``kind of ethnic war cannot be ended until one
side is utterly exterminated.''
Goran Hadzic, the leader of ethnic Serbs in Croatia, said that Serbs
would ``have no choice but (to) fight for their lives'' if the newly
forged federation of Serbia and Montenegro recognized the neighboring
republic of Croatia, which views Hadzic's forces as aggressors.
``If Croatia is recognized, its authorities would treat us as rebels,
and we will have to fight them,'' Hadzic told reporters in Belgrade.
The statement came in reaction to the first session of negotiations
in Geneva between Yugoslav President Dobrica Cosic and Croatian chief of
state Franjo Tudjman.
Pressed by the U.N. sanctions imposed on the two-republic Yugoslavia,
the authorities in Belgrade have recently started talking peace with
neighboring Bosnia-Hercegovina, which is beseiged by Serbian forces, and
Croatia, which is under U.N. protection after an earlier war.
Hadzic, answering questions from reporters, initially denied recent
claims that Serbian militiamen had been killing Croatian and Hungarian
civilians.
``But, let's face it: This kind of ethnic war cannot be ended until
one side is utterly exterminated,'' he said. ``I am sorry, but that is a
fact of life,'' he added.
Hadzic then admitted that ``some members'' of his militia ``were
involved in the war crimes,'' but he said most of the alleged
attrocities were commited by the other side in order to discredit the
Serbs.
In another development, the leader of the Serbs from Hercegovina,
Bozidar Vucurevic, said that his men are ready to attack the Yugoslav
federal army if it tries to pull out its heavy weapons around the region
of the historic Adriatic port of Dubrovnik.
Cosic and Tudjman agreed in Geneva Thursday that the army should
retreat from its positions around and south of Dubrovnik by Oct. 20.
``The federal army is not retreating -- it's running away'', Vucurevic
told the Belgrade-based Tanjug news agency from his mountain stronghold
of Trebinje, 20 miles north of Dubrovnik.
``The runaways will be allowed to take their food rations and their
water-bottles with them. If they try to take their weapons, we will
fight them,'' he said.
The self-proclaimed president of ``Serbian Hercegovina'' said that
the Serbs would not be happy if failed to get a piece of the Dalmatian
coast.
Vucurevic accused the leadership of the new Yugoslav federation of
deceiving the Serbs in Hercegovina.
``They started a war, and now they want us to finish it,'' he said
bitterly.
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Subject: Red Cross, U.N. appeal for end to ethnic violence
Date: 3 Oct 92 17:26:21 GMT
GENEVA (UPI) -- The International Red Cross and the U.N. High
Commission for Refugees appealed jointly Saturday for an end to ethnic
violence in Bosnia-Hercegovina and admitted humanitarian efforts to stop
it have had little effect.
Cornelio Sommaruga, president of the International Committee of the
Red Cross, and Sadako Ogata, director-general of the UNHCR, issued the
appeal at a joint news conference.
They said atrocities continue despite repeated appeals to the three
ethnic groups involved in the fighting in Bosnia-Hercegovina and on-the-
ground intervention by the two humanitarian organizations and others.
Sommaruga said, ``The most basic principles of international
humanitarian law continue to be ignored in the field,'' despite repeated
promises by leaders of the Muslim, Serb and Croatian factions in Bosnia-
Hercegovina that human rights would be respected.
Ogata said reports from her own staff showed thousands of prisoners
have been ill-treated and many have disappeared or been summarily
executed in camps as part of Serbian so-called ``ethnic cleansing''
efforts. Sommaruga said this was true even in camps visited by the Red
Cross.
``Acts of vengeance and indiscriminate attacks have been carried out
on a massive scale, and entire regions are inaccesible to humanitarian
organizations for months,'' Sommaruga said.
Both Sommaruga and Ogata said tens of thousands of minority groups
are still at the mercy of ``ethnic cleansing.''
They also said claims by the leaders of the Muslim, Croat and Serbian
groups in Bosnia-Hercegovina that the atrocities are carried out by
undisciplined guerrilla groups simply do not hold water.
They repeated the call made at the London conference on Yugoslavia
for humanitarian organizations to be given unrestricted access to all
civilian victims and for the unconditional release of all prisoners.
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Subject: U.S. aid flights reach Sarajevo
Date: 3 Oct 92 18:47:55 GMT
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Hercegovina (UPI) -- A U.S. transport plane made two
deliveries of humanitarian aid to the besieged Bosnian-Hercegovina
capital Saturday, ending a one-month gap that has seen food supplies
dwindle to a fraction of U.N.-established minimums.
Meanwhile in Strasbourg, France, Yugoslav peace negotiator Lord David
Owen compared the Serbian ``ethnic cleansing'' campaign, in which
Muslims have been killed in Bosnia-Hercegovina, to the Holocaust that
killed millions of Jews during World War II. He added Europe could not
talk of unity and at the same time turn its back on former Yugoslavia.
Also Saturday, Serbian jets made bombing runs on the Bosnian towns of
Zenica, Tesanj and Gradacac, and Serbian forces in the hills overlooking
Sarajevo made sporadic artillery attacks on the city, Sarajevo radio
reported.
In Zenica, the biggest steel producing town in Bosnia-Hercegovina,
jets made two bombing runs on steel production facilities, causing heavy
damage to a key part of the plant, the radio said.
In Tesanj, warplanes made seven bombing runs between 9:25 a.m. and
12:45 p.m., using heavy rockets, napalm and air-to-ground rockets,
causing an unknown number of injuries and several fires, it said.
Gradacac was bombarded from the air at 9:25 a.m., it said.
Artillery fights also were reported in Doboj and in southern Bosnia-
Hercegovina in and around Mostar.
Sarajevo suffered sporadic shelling throughout the day, including
anti-aircraft machine-gun and sniper fire. At least five people were
injured by the attacks in Otes, in the southern part of the capital.
A total of 24 people were reported killed and 198 wounded across
Bosnia-Hercegovina, including 10 killed and 80 injured in Sarajevo, in
the 24-hour period that ended at 10 a.m. Saturday, republic health
officials said.
Sarajevo radio also claimed Saturday that large numbers of Serbian
fighters were deserting their military units, particularly in
northwestern Bosnia-Hercegovina, but the reports could not be
immediately verified.
Serbian forces began fighting last spring to carve a separate
homeland out of territory in the predominantly Muslim Slav republic of
Bosnia-Hercegovina. Some moderate Serbs and Croats have joined the
Muslim Slavs in trying to retain the territorial integrity of the newly
independent republic.
A Serbian siege of Sarajevo prompted U.N. relief efforts, which
resumed Saturday -- one month after the air bridge was suspended because
of the downing of an Italian relief plane over Croatian-controlled
territory west of Sarajevo.
Five U.N.-organized relief flights had been expected Saturday in
Sarajevo, with three U.S. and two French deliveries scheduled to bring
food and electrical equipment, said a spokesman for the U.N. High
Commission for Refugees.
But only one U.S. plane made two deliveries -- once from Frankfurt,
Germany, and a second after reloading in Zagreb -- before bad weather
stopped further flights. The deliveries included several thousand pounds
of ``Meals Ready to Eat,'' pre-prepared meals usually used by U.S.
troops.
``Obviously, because of the tense situation in Bosnia, there is some
risk involved in these flights,'' said Capt. Mike Rein, spokesman for
the U.S. effort at Rhein Mein Air Base in Germany.
``But the U.S. in coordination with the U.N. has decided that this
effort is so important and the need for food is so critical, that even
with the risk, the flights will continue -- unless and until it becomes
too dangerous, at which time they will be suspended again,'' Rein said.
The two planned French flights were canceled for unknown reasons. ``I
wish someone would tell us'' why, said UNHCR spokesman Michael Keats in
Zagreb. ``It is very confusing today.''
Nevertheless, U.N. Protection Force spokesman Adnan Razek in Sarajevo
said the city could now expect as many as 20 flights a day to begin
reaching the capital.
Also Saturday, the first relief ground convoy in three days -- a nine-
truck convoy from Split -- reached Sarajevo, the UNHCR said.
Razek also said utility workers trying to restore the city's water
and electricity supplies under U.N. protection made progress and could
possibly have water running again in the city within hours.
Both water and electricity have been out in most of the city for
between one and two weeks.
Salem Karovic, chief of the city's supply system, said Saturday he
also was facing a new problem with a lacked the diesel fuel necessary to
bring water tanker trucks into the city.
Meanwhile in France, Owen -- the EC peace negotiator for the former
Yugoslavia -- told the European Parliament that the European Community
could not ignore the violence in Bosnia-Hercegovina and continue
blithely toward unification.
``Those that believe that it is morally acceptable that Europe turn
its back on what is happening in the former Yugoslavia, with the
argument that they should work things out without us, should abandon the
idea of European construction,'' Owen said.
Owen also compared ``ethnic cleansing'' in Bosnia-Hercegovina,
especially the systematic killing of Bosnian Muslims by Serbs, to the
Holocaust that killed millions of Jews during World War II.
``This time the victims are Muslim, and we should be aware of the
fact that Muslims live in the four corners of the earth, and they will
keep in their memories what we let their brothers be submitted to,''
Owen said.
Owen, who spoke at the opening debate of the 27-country parliament of
the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, France, also said Europe should
back the principle of no acquisition of land by force and of ensuring
minority rights.
The Council issued a statement condemning the ``ethnic cleansing'' in
the republics of the former Yugoslavia, and refusing to recognize the
breakup of territory based on ethnic criteria.
In a new conference later, Owen said his most urgent mission with U.
N. counterpart Cyrus Vance was to succeed in efforts to demilitarize
Sarajevo and its surroundings.
Evoking the approaching winter, often harsh in the former Yugoslav
republics, Owen said ``We need to find the the conditions, even if it
takes time, to re-establish a co-existence,'' between ethnic groups.
The Council called for all member countries to bring the aid
necessary to the former Yugoslav populations, without which ``hundreds
of thousands of people would die.'' In addition, the council called for
a ban on all flights except for those carrying humanitarian aid over
Bosnia-Hercegovina.
The European body also supported Owen's idea to create a board for
the protection of the human rights for European countries not members of
the Council.
Owen also said one of his next tasks with Vance was to persuade the
Belgrade government of Serbia and Montenegro to recognize another ex-
Yugoslav republic, Croatia, and respect its borders. He said that would
be ``a real message addressed to the Serbs in Croatia and elsewhere.''
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Humaniatarian-aid flights to Sarajevo resume
Date: 4 Oct 92 01:03:50 GMT
ZAGREB, Croatia (UPI) -- Humanitarian-aid flights to Sarajevo resumed
Saturday after weeks of interruption caused by fierce fighting in the
besieged Bosnia-Hercegovina capital.
Two U.S. planes arrived without incident at Sarajevo's U.N.-
controlled main airport, bringing radar equipment and 10 tons of relief
supplies from Frankfurt, Germany.
However, Peter Kessler, spokesman for the United Nations High
Commission for Refugees, said officials scrubbed a planned third flight
by one of the planes because of bad weather.
Two French planes had also been scheduled to fly into Sarajevo
Saturday from the Croatian city of Split, but cancelled at the last
minute.
UNHCR did not give a reason for the delay.
Hundreds of thousands of civilians in Sarajevo have been trapped
without adequate food and medicine for months by fighting between
Serbian guerrillas and Bosnia-Hercegovina's predominently Muslim Slav
army.
The Serbian fighters oppose independence from communist Yugoslav,
while the Muslim Slavs favor it.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: W.H.O. cites 'desperate race against time'
Date: 5 Oct 92 15:22:48 GMT
GENEVA (UPI) -- Tens of thousands of lives are at stake in a
``desperate race'' against the coming winter in ex-Yugoslavia, the World
Health Organization (WHO) warned Monday.
Sir Donald Acheson, WHO delegate in Zagreb, said the U.N. health
agency alone will need $40 million in the next seven months for
medicines and medical equipment.
Besides such regular medicines as antibiotics and insulin, drugs are
urgently required for mental disorders caused by the trauma of
hostilities, he said.
``The lives of tens of thousands of people in the former Yugoslavia
re at stake in a desparate race against time: winter is coming,'' Sir
Donald told a news conference.
Ex-Yugoslavia, he noted, has one of the most severe winter climates
in all of Europe and that the ``health crisis will cost many more lives
than the conflict itself.''
There are 300,000 people without shelter, support or health services
in Bosnia and Hervzogovina, the WHO official said.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Bombardment of Sarajevo intensifies
Date: 5 Oct 92 12:47:57 GMT
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Hercegovina -- Serbian forces in the hills
overlooking Sarajevo unleased one of the heaviest assaults in their six-
month seige of the Bosnian capital Monday, firing scores of artillery
rounds that heavily damaged or set fire to apartment buildings, an
electrical utility and a television transmitter.
The attacks began with sporadic overnight grenading throughout the
city, particularly in the southwestern area of Dobrinja, and escalated
into a heavy downtown attack, using grenades, mortars and tank fire.
Between 50 and 100 injured people were brought during the morning to
the city's main Hosevo hospital complex, mostly from the center of the
old town section and Pero Kosoric Square, a front-line area just south
of the Miljacka River, a hospital official said.
The city's state hospital, which said it handled only nine patients
during a relatively quiet day Sunday, said at 11 a.m. Monday it already
had 20 patients and more were arriving.
Thick black smoke poured from a downtown business office of
Elektroprivreda, BVsnia-Hercegovina's main electricity supplier,
blotting out the early morning sun while loud explosions continued to
thunder around it.
``The damage is so big that the building probably wont be there
anymore,'' said Slobodan Primorac, deputy to the general manager at
Elektroprivreda. ``After the fire was started, we counted 12 phosphorus
grenades (designed to start fires), and supposed that altogether about
20 of them hit the building.''
Monday morning's barrage on the capital came from Serbian-controlled
areas of Vraca, a hilly area in the southern part of the city, and
nearby Ozrenska Street, Sarajevo radio reported.
The mortars, grenades and tank shells repeatedly hit Pero Kosoric
Square, killing and injuring an unknown number of people, the radio
said.
The bombardment also hit numerous apartment buildings along
Darovalaca Krvi Street, setting them on fire, it said.
Sporadic sniper firing into the city also began around 7 a.m., the
radio said.
The downtown Holiday Inn, which houses many foreign journalists, also
was hit around 8:15 a.m. on the fifth floor, facing south toward
Grbavica, and set on fire.
Two journalists working for the French television network TF-1 were
slightly injured by flying glass on the ground floor, said Amra Abadzic,
a translator for the Reuters news agency.
Rockets hit and set fire to the the downtown offices of the Post
Telegraph and Telephone building and a nearby tobacco factory, Sarajevo
radio said.
The attack on the telephone exchange building caused unknown damage
but no reported injuries, said Enes Arnautovic, general director of PTT
in Ssarajevo.
Bosnian Vice President Ejub Ganic said Sunday that Serbian forces
apparently were embarking on a new campaign to wipe out major economic
targets that could be left in areas they fail to control.
Houses around the offices hit Monday morning in Sarajevo also were
badly damaged and burning, Sarajevo radio said.
The television transmitter on Hum Hill, to the north of the city,
also took a direct hit, it said.
Around 9 a.m. a water truck that brought water daily to Pofalici, in
the north-central part of the city, was directly hit while driving along
a road, it said.
Vogosca, a northern suburb of Sarajevo also suffered a heavy grenada
attack during the morning, Sarajevo radio said.
Commercial gas supplies to the city went out around 9 p.m. Sunday
evening. A gas company worker said officials traced the outage to a
break in a substation and planned to investigate the cause monday.
Electricity and water supplies to Sarajevo, which have been out for
between several days and several weeks across the city, remained out
despite continued efforts by U.N. protection force troops to accompany
repair crews to damaged facilities.
Sarajevo radio said electricity had been restored to the citys main
wellfield and pumping station in the Serbian-controlled western suburb
of Bacevo, allowing service to be resumed in the adjacent serbian-
controlled city of Ilidza, but it said the lines serving Sarajevo
remained badly damaged.
Telephone service inside the city, which was partially disconnected
Saturday because of a lack of fuel for electricity generators, was
restored Monday. But Arnautovic said the telephone company only had
enough diesel fuel to run the system for another two days.
Dr. Bakir Nakas, director of the state hospital, said Monday morning
that his facility had enough diesel fuel for run its generators for
another four hours and the Kosevo complex had enough for another seven
hours.
Elsewhere in Bosnia-Hercegovina, the small town of Olovo, just north
of Sarajevo, was hit by some 850 rounds of artillery fire over a 24-hour
period ending Monday morning, Sarajevo radio reported.
And the village of Mionica in Gradacac, in northeastern Bosnia-
Hercegovina, was hit by an estimated 2,000 grenades in a two-hour period
beginning at 4 a.m. monday, the radio said. The area had been suffering
almost daily aerial bombing.
Maglaj, northwest of the capital, also came under another round of
heavy attacks, the radio said.
The heavy attacks followed a rainy and relatively quiet weekend and
came one day before the head of the newly formed UNPROFOR operation for
Bosnia-Hercegovina, was due to visit Sarajevo and meet again with
Bosnian Serb leaders.
French Gen. Phillipe Morillon planned a Tuesday visit the Bosnian
Serb headquarters in nearby Pale and travel wednesday to the Serbian
capital Belgrade.
Topics for the meeting were expected to include the new headquarters
for the republic's UNPROFOR command. UNPROFOR officials were hoping to
place it in Ilidza, which would help break a main bottleneck for
humanitarian aid convoys reaching Sarajevo by land.
A 10-truck convoy orgnanized by the U.N. High Commission for Refugees
brought another 100 tons of food aid to SWrajevo on Monday, but workers
were prevented by the heavy shelling from unloading, said Marc Vachon,
the UNHCR's chief of logistics at the Sarajevo airport.
Three U.N.-organized aid flights also reached the city Monday morning
and another four flights were expected, but French crews canceled four
scheduled flights because of the weather, Vachon said.
The three flights that arrived in the morning -- two American and one
Canadian -- brought two loads of food aid and more equipment for the
radar system being installed at the airport, he said.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Bosnian Serb leader warns against ``no-fly'' zone proposal
Date: 5 Oct 92 21:59:19 GMT
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (UPI) -- Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic
warned Monday that he would pull out of internationally brokered peace
talks if the United Nations approves a proposal to close the airspace
over war-torn Bosnia-Hercegovina to all but humanitarian aid flights.
The Tanjug news agency in a dispatch from Geneva said Karadzic's
warning was in a letter he sent to the U.N. Security Council, which was
expected to consider the ``no-fly'' zone proposal late Monday in New
York.
The 12-nation European Community and the United States agreed in
principle at an international conference on the Yugoslav crisis held in
London in August to support a U.N. resolution banning all flights over
Bosnia-Hercegovina except those delivering humanitarian aid.
In a statement last week President Bush said that the United States
will seek a new U.N. resolution of a ``no-fly'' zone , ``banning all
flights in Bosnian airspace except those authorized by the U.N,'' adding
that the United States would participate in the enforcement of measures
if asked by the U.N.
The proposal would require warplanes of the nations participating in
the U.N.-sponsored humanitarian airlift to Sarajevo to interdict flights
by military planes supplied to Karadzic's forces by the Serb-dominated
Yugoslav army.
Serbian aircraft have been used extensively in the Serbian drive to
rip a self-declared state out of the former Yugoslav republic of Muslim
Slavs, Serbs and Croats, reportedly making daily bombing runs in support
of Serbian ground forces.
Tanjug quoted Karadzic's letter as saying that if the ``no-fly'' zone
was instituted, the Serbian leader would withdraw from peace
negotiations being brokered in Geneva by the United Nations and the EC
between the warring factions.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: U.N. readies vote on war-crimes commission for former Yugoslavia
Date: 6 Oct 92 00:03:22 GMT
UNITED NATIONS (UPI) -- The Security Council is prearing to vote
Tuesday on resolutions to establish a war-crimes commission and to
declare the Prevlaka peninsula in the former Yugoslavia a demilitarized
zone.
The 15-nation panel also is considering a third resolution over
establishing a ``flight interdiction (zone) for military aircraft'' in
Bosnia-Hercegovina in an effort to ground the Serbian air force.
The so-called ``no-fly zone'' in Bosnia-Hercegovina, supported mostly
by the United States, has not met unanimous support from other Western
nations because it would be difficult to implement. Those nations said
Serbian forces would retaliate against U.N. peacekeeping troops if the
zone is set up.
Serbian leader Radovan Karadzic warned in a letter on Monday to
Secretary-General Boutros Ghali that if the council voted in favor of
the ``no-fly zone,'' he would pull out of the London conference on the
former Yugoslavia.
``In the event that the Security Council decides to override the
negotiated agreement several days ago, I must regretfully inform you
that we will immediately withdraw from the London conference and close
our mission in Geneva,'' Karadzic said.
Karadzic said the exclusion zone for air traffic would be
``unacceptable'' because it would give strategic advantage to Bosnian
Muslims, ``which will be in breach of another London conference decision
on the delivery of humanitarian aid.''
Western diplomats said the air exclusion zone would be difficult to
implement and they have been trying to reach a compromise whereby the
zone would be implemented in two stages, with the imposition of the zone
first and military enforcement if Serbian forces did not comply with it.
In a private meeting Monday, the Security Council agreed on a text
for setting up the war-crimes commission. It first will call on Ghali to
collect within 30 days all information related to human rights
violations and ``grave violations'' of the 1949 Geneva Convention on the
protection of civilians during war time in the former Yugoslavia.
The council would call on Ghali to set up an impartial commission of
experts to ``examine and analyze'' all information received. The experts
are asked to obtain information themselves or by other means and to
present to the secretary-general the evidence of those violations.
British U.N. Ambassador David Hannay said he expected the council to
adopt the war-crimes commission resolution unanimously. He said the
council's 15 members would also support the second resolution declaring
Prevlaka peninsula a demilitarized zone and demanding the withdrawal of
heavy weapons from the neighboring regions in Croatia and Montenegro.
Several members of the council said the establishment of the war-
crimes commission would be the first step toward bringing to trial those
responsible for the reported execution of Muslim Slavs in Bosnia-
Hercegovina.
The next step would be setting up a tribunal.
novine.45.bale.,
Los Angeles Times
Oct 5, 1992
... The United Nations Protection Force said it expressed consternation to
the Croatian government after two U.N. helicopters came under fire while
approaching Zagreb on a medical evacuation mission Friday.
It said its director of civil affairs, Cedric Thornberry, had written to
Croatian Vice President Ivan Milas asking what steps the government was
taking to prevent any further such occurrences.
Both helicopters landed safely and without damage at Zagreb airport. A similar
attack last Monday was later blamed by Croatia on a soldier opening fire
without orders. ...
novine.47.bale.,
New Yorker, Oct. 5/1992
NEWS FROM HELL
by Anna Husarska
SARAJEVO
FIRST, the flak jackets. They come in many sizes, colors, and weights.
The ones for ladies are shorter than the gents'. The latter have an
additional flap in the front, a "quick-draw groin protector," or
"tongue," which can be pulled down or unfolded for extra protection.
The really good jackets (the genuinely bulletproof ones) are made of a
material called Kevlar and come fitted out with a pair of H.V.P.s, or
high-velocity panels. These are concave ceramic plates for the chest
and back which weigh a lot but give real protection against sniper
bullets. Lying down in any sort of H.V.P.-equipped gear is a bad idea;
you may end up like a beetle on its back. Almost all the jackets close
with Velcro straps, so at the start of any press conference in some
relatively safe building here there is a terrible rasping noise as
up to forty journalists tear their straps open. The main trick is to
close them around the waist tightly so that the jacket sits on the
hips (great for elimination of love handles) instead of hanging
heavily on the shoulders (a real back killer). Some models have high-
standing collars; others have smaller ones, a la Mao; and still others
are cut like old-fashioned men's underwear vests, and these are
particularly appreciated by cameramen, because the Kevlar shoulder
pads of the standard ones are too bulky and unstable to provide a good
"platform" for a camera. A label on the H.V.P. lists all the different
impacts (single and multiple) that the panel will stop.
-- Picture: A page found in the burned-out National Library in
Sarajevo. --
ny.zipnovine.48.bale.,
The following is the text of the joint declaration signed by
Dr. Franjo Tudjman and Mr. Dobrica Cosic, and witnessed by Mr.
Cyrus Vance and Lord David Owen in Geneva on September 30, 1992.
JOINT DECLARATION
Meeting under the auspices of the Co-Chairman of the International
Conference on the Former Yugoslavia in Geneva, the undersigned
Presidents wish to announce the following:
1. The two Presidents reaffirmed the commitments of the
International Conference in London on the inviolability of existing
borders, other than through changes reached by peaceful agreement,
and agreed to intensify work towards the normalization of relations
between the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the Republic of Croatia,
on the basis of mutual recognition. All questions concerning
succession of the former SFRY will be resolved within the framework
of the International Conference or, as appropriate, bilaterally.
2. Authorities of the Republic of Croatia and the Federal
Republic of Yugoslavia, in close collaboration with the United Nations
Protection Force, will undertake urgent, joint measures to ensure the
peaceful return to their homes in the United Nations Protected Areas
of all persons displaced therefrom who so wish. To that end they
propose the prompt establishment of a quadripartite mechanism -
consisting of authorities of the Government of Croatia, local Serb
representatives, representatives of UNPROFOR and the UNHCR - to assure
that this process moves forward. Equally, Serb and Croat people
formerly residing on the territory of the Republic of Croatia and the
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia should have the right to return in peace
to their former homes. Agreement was reached with regard to more
resolute action concerning the return of displaced persons to their
homes, and to allowing for a voluntary and humane resettlement of those
persons wishing to do so between the two States.
3. The two Presidents agree that the Yugoslav Army will leave
Prevlaka by October 20, 1992 in accordance with the Vance Plan.
Security in the area will be resolved by demilitarization and the
deployment of the UN Monitors. The overall security of Boka Kotorska
and Dubrovnik will be resolved through subsequent negotiations.
4. The two Presidents agree to establish a Joint Interstate
Committee for the consideration of all open issues and for the
normalization of relations between the sovereign Republic of Croatia
and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. In order that a durable peace may
be established as soon as possible, particular attention will be
given to normalizing traffic and economic links.
5. The two Presidents confirm their conviction that all
problems between their two States must be settled peacefully. They
pledge their best efforts to this end. In that connection, they will
exert all their influence towards a just, peaceful solution of the
current crisis enveloping Bosnia and Herzegovina.
6. The two Presidents declare their total condemnation of
all practices related to "ethnic cleansing," and commit themselves to
helping reverse that which has already happened. They also declare
that all statements or commitments made under duress, particularly
those relating to land and property, are wholly null and void. They
urge all concerned parties to cooperate fully, promptly and
unconditionally with current efforts, in particular by the ICRC and
the UNHCR, to free all detainees, close all detention centers, and
assure safe passage of former detainees to secure and safe areas.
They further urge all parties to facilitate the safe delivery of all
humanitarian assistance.
7. The two Presidents welcome the early stationing of
international observers on airfields in their respective countries as
a confidence-building measure.
8. The two Presidents agree to meet again on October 20 with
the Co-Chairman. They express their gratitude to the Co-Chairman for
convening today's meeting.
novine.49.bale.,
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Serbian attack leaves Sarajevo in flames
Subject: Yugoslav Army announces retreat from Prevlaka
Subject: Serbian President Milosevic meets Bobby Fischer
Subject: U.N. troops allow Bosnian refugees into Croatia
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Serbian attack leaves Sarajevo in flames
Date: 6 Oct 92 14:33:25 GMT
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Hercegovina (UPI) -- Serbian forces bombarded
Sarajevo with artillery, tank and machine-gun fire Tuesday, a day after
one of the most vicious assaults in their six-month seige destroyed
offices and apartment buildings, leaving dozens of civilians dead and
thousands homeless.
Streams of the screaming and crying homeless were forced after a day
of relentless bombing to flee their flaming homes with only handfulls of
possessions.
They fled overnight through the rain of artillery to cross the
Miljacka River from front-line apartments in southern Sarajevo.
The apartments, blasted head-on by tanks and artillery only a few
hundred feet away, included five 20-floor buildings along Pero Kosoric
Square whose multi-story infernos lit up the skies across the bosnian
capital throughout the evening.
The city's three main hospitals said at least 19 people died and they
treated 175 injured people, many of them burned.
At least eight residential buildings and four office buildings were
set on fire or destroyed during the day-long attack Monday by Serbian
forces in the hills ringing the strangled Bosnian capital.
The republic's health officials, in their daily casualty count, said
at least 34 people were killed and 241 injured across Bosnia-Hercegovina
in the 24-hour period that ended at 10 a.m. Tuesday, including 25 killed
and 133 injured in Sarajevo.
Some 2,800 to 3,000 people were estimated to have been left homeless
from the assault on Pero Kosoric Square, said Bejadin Abdulovski,
commanding officer of Bosnian defense forces for the neighborhood.
``Everybody was down in the basement screaming,'' said Jasmina
Jusubasic, who had lived on the top floor of one of the gutted 20-story
buildings with her mother and 5-year-old daughter.
The two women, who arrived Tuesday with three handbags seeking help
at a small hotel a few streets back from the river, sat trembling and
weeping while nursing some food and coffee and trying to telephone a
friend.
The grandmother, her hair tied under a shawl, shook and wrung her
hands each time another boom of artillery fire rang out in the
background. Her granddaughter, Ira, sat between the women playing
quietly with some candy bars given to her by a hotel worker.
Jusubasic said many of the 500 people who lived in her apartment were
hiding in the basement when the smoke from the fires above started
seeping in through the vents.
In panic, the people began smashing tiny windows about 3-feet-by-2-
feet wide and tried pushing themselves through. Some could not make it
and remained inside, Jusubasic said.
The grandmother, Semsa Solaja, said she believed at least six people
in the building died, including ``one person everyone could hear inside
screaming but nobody could do anything about.''
Jusubasic said the explosions were intensified when flames began
falling onto a Bosnian military headquarters stationed between two of
the apartment buildings, as well as when the fire caught ammunition
apparently kept inside private residences.
People trying to fight the fires in the square, named after a Serbian
World War II military hero, carried buckets of water from the river in a
futile bid to compensate for the city's lost water supply.
At least two fires were still burning inside apartment buildings
Tuesday morning and workers were unable to provide exact figures on
casualties and homeless. But Abdulovski said only about 50 of the 900
apartments in the five 20-story buildings on Pero Kosoric square were
still usable.
Those treated at the city's hospitals monday included a 10-year-old
girl whose arm was amputated and a 17-year-old boy who lost both legs,
doctors said.
The city's two main hospitals said they were operating Tuesday in the
dark because they lacked diesel fuel to run generators. Both said they
had run out of all but a handful of sterile instruments being saved for
absolute emergency cases.
The larger of the two facilities, the Kosevo complex, despite
problems, reported nine births overnight, five girls and four boys,
Sarajevo radio reported.
Sarajevo residents have been without water and electricity for
between several days and several weeks, despite continued efforts by U.
N. troops to guarantee the safety of utility workers trying to make
repairs.
City electricians have received commitments from Serbian forces to
visit only one of 16 locations they believe need repair work, Sarajevo
radio said Tuesday.
An official with Sarajevo's commercial gas utility said workers
believe a line break that has cut off supplies to the city for the past
two days is located in Serbian-controlled territory and the utility was
seeking a U.N. escort to investigate.
Elsewhere Tuesday, the city of Jajce, in the central part of Bosnia-
Hercegovina, came under fire around 7 a.m. from 120mm mortars, 155mm
artillery and tanks, Sarajevo radio reported. The shooting was aimed
throughout the town and hit a mosque, a Catholic church and civilian
structures, causing an unknown number of casualties, the radio said.
Tesanj, in the central part of the republic, suffered an artillery
barrage and an infantry attack Tuesday that was beaten back by Bosnian
defenders, Sarajevo radio said.
Defenders in Bihac, in the far northwestern part of the republic near
the border with Croatia, also fought off a Serbian infantry attack, the
radio said.
Infantry battles and artillery attacks also were reported in various
areas of the Zenica region, in the central part of the republic, causing
an unknown number of casualties, the radio said.
An uneasy calm came Tuesday to Bugojno, west of Sarajevo, after
several days of heavy fighting and aerial bombardments that destroyed a
major industrial complex, the radio said.
The U.N. Security Council also was planning to vote Tuesday on three
matters concerning the yugoslav conflicting, including a U.S. proposal
for banning military flights over bosnia-hercegovina. the other two
resolutions would establish a war crimes commission and declare the
Prevlaka peninsula in the former Yugoslavia a demilitarized zone.
Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic threatened Monday to pull out of
the ongoing peace talks in Geneva if the United Nations accepts the
flight ban, although he reportedly later said he would accept such a
restriction if Bosnian attacks on his forces are halted.
French Gen. Phillipe Morillon, commander of the U.N. protection
forces new Bosnian operations, flew Tuesday into Sarajevo to begin a
two-day visit to the area. He planned to meet bosnian government leaders
in downtown Sarajevo and visit the bosnian serb headquarters in nearby
Pale before traveling Wednesday to the Serbian capital Belgrade.
Another 12 U.N. High Commission for Refugees relief flights were due
to arrive Tuesday in Sarajevo, although Izumi Nakamitsu, head of the
operation, said the day's steady rain might force many cancellations. No
truck convoys were due in the city tuesday, she said.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Yugoslav Army announces retreat from Prevlaka
Date: 6 Oct 92 14:40:19 GMT
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (UPI) -- The army of rump Yugoslavia Tuesday
reaffirmed its intention to withdraw from Croatia's disputed Adriatic
peninsula of Prevlaka within the next two weeks.
The announcement, carried by the official Tanjug news agency, came
just hours before the U.N. Security Council was scheduled to vote on a
resolution declaring Prevlaka a demilitarized zone and placing it under
U.N. observation.
The army of the union forged by Serbia and Montenegro said that its
units and equipment would be ``transferred'' by Oct. 20 from the
peninsula and the surrounding region as required by a Sept. 29 pact
reached in Geneva between Yugoslav President Dobrica Cosic and his
Croatian counterpart, Franjo Tudjman.
But the army warned that should Croatia violate the agreement to
create a demilitarize zone on the peninsula, it would ``use all of its
potential to defend'' the main Yugoslav navy base at adjacent Boka
Kotorska Bay.
Prevlaka is a 1.5 mile-long stony finger of Adriatic coast that
controls the entrance to Boka Kotorska Bay, where most of the Yugoslav
fleet is located.
It has been the subject of a bitter dispute because it is located
just inside the border of Croatia, whose secession from former
Yugoslavia last year ignited a civil war.
The Yugoslav army used the peninsula's strategic importance as a
major justification for its year-long siege of Croatia's port city of
Dubrovnik and occupation of a 100-mile-long swath of coastline
stretching south from the famed Adriatic resort to Prevlaka.
During talks in Geneva with Tudjman, Cosic agreed to order the
Yugoslav army's withdrawl from Prevlaka on condition that it was
declared a demilitarized zone and placed under U.N. observation.
The agreement was met by a wave of protests by Serbian extremists,
who claimed that the surrender of Prevlaka would jeopardize Yugoslavia's
strategic interests, and they accused Cosic of treason.
There had also been speculation that the army would refuse to leave a
50-year-old military base on Prevlaka.
Political analysts saw the army's announcement as a clear sign that
senior generals support ongoing efforts by Cosic and Yugoslav Prime
Minister Milan Panic to restore peace to former Yugoslavia.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Serbian President Milosevic meets Bobby Fischer
Date: 6 Oct 92 17:12:52 GMT
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (UPI) -- Communist President Slobodan Milosevic
of Serbia met Tuesday with former world chess champion Bobby Fischer as
the grand master took a two-day break from his historic rematch with his
Russian arch-rival, Boris Spassky.
The authoritarian Serbian leader used the meeting to launch a new
attack on U.N. economic sanctions slapped on his republic for
underwriting the Serbian territorial conquests in neighboring Bosnia-
Hercegovina.
``I am glad that our country is in the position to be the host of
such a significant chess match between Fischer and Spassky...especially
at a time when our nation is under an unjust blockade,'' Milosevic was
quoted by the official Tanjug news agency as telling the American chess
wizard.
The Fischer-Spassky match has been extensively publicized by
Milosevic's regime in a bid to counter the international isolation and
economic devastation wrought to Serbia by the U.N. sanctions.
The May 30 blockade included an oil, air and trade embargo and banned
financial transactions with Serbia and its tiny protege, Montenegro.
Despite the prohibition, Fischer and Spassky agreed to play a $5
million rematch of their 1972 world champiomship at the invitation of a
private Belgrade banker, Jezdimir Vasiljevic.
The U.S. Treasury Department ordered Fischer not to play, but he
publicly spat on the document at a news conference on the eve of the
opening game at the posh Adriatic resort of St. Stefan in Montenegro.
The pair have played 15 games -- beginning in St. Stefan and then
moving to Belgrade -- of which Fischer has won five and Spassky three.
They were to resume the match on Wednesday after a two-day break.
By the time Fischer was 14, he was U.S. chess champion. A year later
he became the youngest grandmaster in chess history.
He captured the world's attention by defeating Spassky and becoming
the first American ever to hold the title of world champion on Sept. 1,
1972.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: U.N. troops allow Bosnian refugees into Croatia
Date: 6 Oct 92 17:40:55 GMT
ZAGREB, Croatia (UPI) -- Soldiers from the U.N. Protection Force have
set up a tent city for about 400 Muslims who fled from war-torn Bosnia-
Hercegovina over the weekend into the Serbian-occupied area of Croatia
that is now under U.N. protection.
The action was taken by the Danish battalion of the U.N. force even
though the Croatian government has closed its border to refugees because
of a lack of resources to cope with the flood of people. The refugees
came across the border on foot Friday night during the first heavy rains
of winter.
``It's not something we normally do but their lives were threatened,''
said a U.N. official who refused to be identified. ``Croatia certainly
was not going to take them in. The Danish battalion felt compelled to
act in a humanitarian way...Of course we weren't going to turn them
back.''
The military unit established a tent camp for the 400 refugees in the
town of Vojnic, which is located in the Serbian-occupied area of Croatia
that is currently under the supervision of the Danish battalion of the
U.N. force.
The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees has asked the Croatian
government to house the refugees temporarily but has not received a
reply.
``We are beholden to the mercy of the Croatian government,'' said
Michael Keats, spokesman for the UNHCR in the Croatian capitol, Zagreb.
Croatia is already home to about 650,000 refugees, who make up about
10 percent of the republic's current population. In mid-September the
Croatian government changed it's policy toward refugees.
Previously the republic allowed refugees if they had a letter of
guarantee from people in Croatia that they would house and feed them.
But the policy was abused Croatian government officials said.
``People would give out guarantee letters freely, then after a few
days the refugees would show up at shelters saying: 'Please take us. We
need a bed and food. The people can't take care of us anymore,''' said
Josip Esteraher, a spokesman for the Croatian government's office for
refugees.
Now the refugees can only come into Croatia if they are en route to
other countries.
``We can't afford it any more. Other countries have to help,''
Esteraher said.
Housing and feeding the people takes up about 20 percent of the state
budget, Esteraher said.
This latest incident is indicative of a larger problem that the UNHCR
will be facing soon, Keats said. The UNHCR estimates there are
approximately 250,000 people who want to leave Bosnia-Hercegovina but
they are caught in a ``Catch-22'' situation because there is nowhere for
them to go, Keats said.
They are often forced to become refugees in their own republic, Keats
said.
At the end of September, Serbian forces transported about 2,500
people, mostly Muslims from northwest Bosnia-Hercegovina, to Travnik in
central Bosnia-Hercegovina.
There they were forced to run across the front lines to Muslim-held
territory while the Serbs fired shots at them. Four people were killed.
``In northern Bosnia there is a whole stretch of people who just want
to get out, but the question is what are you going to do with them,''
Keats said.
novine.50.bale.,
HU.N. SAYS SARAJEVO CHILDREN ON BRINK OF STARVATION
By Philippe Naughton
GENEVA, Oct 5, Reuter - A United Nations health expert
warned on Monday that large numbers of Sarajevo children
would begin dying of starvation by the end of this month
unless an international airlift to the city was beefed up
immediately.
Two days after the airlift's hesitant resumption, U.N.
advisor Sir Donald Acheson said the Bosnian capital's needs
were greater than ever before as winter approached.
``The fuse is beginning to burn and unless 240 tonnes
of food get into Sarajevo every day...you will see children
dying of starvation by the end of October,'' Acheson,
Britain's former public health chief, told a news
conference.
``We have a situation which requires action today. We
have no time for delays.''
The U.N.-run airlift was suspended on September 3 after
an Italian cargo plane was downed in a missile attack.
Despite security guarantees from the warring factions, only
three of the 19 countries originally involved have agreed to
resume flights.
Acheson, who himself travelled with the ill-fated
Italian crew two days before they were killed, said the
airlift during the summer averaged between 190 and 220
tonnes of food a day.
With the mountain city already hit by fog and winter
snows expected soon to hamper flights further, he said
Sarajevo needed 480 tonnes a day for the next month to build
up reserves for the worst of the winter.
Instead, its 380,000 besieged residents had been
getting only around 40 tonnes of food a day for the past
month, all of it via difficult road convoys.
Citing a report by British nutritionist Philip James,
who compared the siege of Sarajevo with the siege of
Leningrad in World War Two, he added: ``At this rate of food
supply children and adults will enter a state of profound
semi-starvation with children dying within three to four
weeks.
``Adult men and women will lose five to eight kilos per
week and become severely deficient within eight weeks.
Previous siege experience suggests an escalating mortality
within two weeks of the clear signs of starvation, e.g. leg
swelling.
``If food stocks run out in ten days time and road
supplies continue at the current rate then the population
will enter a critical state by mid-November,'' he added.
Acheson, the official public health advisor to the
UNHCR office in Zagreb, said there were various ways round
the shortfall, including the use of large Russian Ilyushin
cargo planes capable of carrying 40 tonnes at a time.
He also renewed an appeal for trucks to expand road
convoys into Sarajevo. The UNHCR, which currently has 80
trucks on the road in the former Yugoslavia, says it needs
at least 200 just for food convoys and as many as 500 to
implement a full ``winterization'' programme.
According to the UNHCR, as many as 400,000 people could
perish because of the cold in former Yugoslavia this winter.
Acheson's warning was echoed by Lord Owen, the co-
chairman of the month-old Yugoslav peace conference in
Geneva. Owen told reporters on Monday it was a ``great
sadness'' that plans to provide winter shelter for refugees
and displaced persons was so far behind.
Owen, who is trying to persuade the three warring
factions to agree to the demilitarisation of Sarajevo, said
large-scale starvation could only now be avoided if
hostilities were ended.
``People will die of cold this winter in substantial
numbers, letting alone from lack of food. The crucial
question is the military one,'' Owen said.
novine.51.bale.,
CHARITY LEADER CONDEMNS ``COWARDICE'' OVER YUGOSLAVIA
STRASBOURG, France, Oct 5, Reuter - The head of a
leading French medical charity blasted Western policy on the
former Yugoslavia on Tuesday, accusing political leaders of
effectively condoning atrocities through ``cowardice and
resignation.''
``The lesson for any budding dictator...is: massacre,
deport, purify, build concentration camps -- do what you
want as long as you let a few humanitarian convoys in,''
said Rony Brauman, head of Medecins sans Frontieres (MSF).
``Humanitarianism in these conditions is no more than a
mask for political inaction, the modern name for cowardice
and resignation,'' Brauman said in an outspoken speech to
accept the Council of Europe's Human Rights prize.
MSF has been among leading non-governmental agencies
bringing relief to Bosnia-Herzegovina since the beginning of
the republic's inter-ethnic war in April. It has sent in 20
tonnes of medical equipment alone.
Brauman did not say what he though the West should do
to stop the bloodletting between Serbs, Moslems and Croats.
Western leaders have resisted calls for full-scale
military intervention to halt what they see as Serb
aggression, saying the goals of such an operation were too
unclear and very difficult to achieve.
Brauman's predecessor at MSF was Bernard Kouchner, now
French Humanitarian Aid Minister and one of the architects
of the West's humanitarian airlift to Bosnia. They have long
been critics of each other's methods.
novine.52.bale.,
Lawrence Eagleburger - MacNeil-Lehrer Tuesday 6. October
Newsmaker interview:
M-L: I have just received raport from the Security Council just adopted resolu-
tion establishing the first ever war crimes committee to investigate the all-
eged attrocities in the former Yugoslavia. Is that an important step?
Eagleburger: Oh yes, I think it is. It is the proposal we introduced in the
Security Council. And it has two purposes: one is to establish the facts on
what is going on in the past in terms of war crimes, and it is also I hope,
a warning to those in Yugoslavia who have been commiting these acts that they
better watch out from now on, because it will be people watching them. So
hopefully it will have a deterent effect as well.
M-L: How close is the United nations now to improving the no-fly zone over
Bosnia.
Eagleburger: Well ther is still a debate gonig on, we have proposed a
resolution
which would call for a no-fly zone and at a same time said if it is violated
the force may be used to police it. There was a good bit of a debate in the
Security Council with the number of the other permanent members of the
SC not particularly enthusiastic about moving to the enforcment stage , at
least at first. So we are still in the informal debate with the number of the
SC members, we will be looking at this again tomorow, but it is clasic case of
that everybody needs to remember. This is multilateral institution and we have
to be in a aggrement with all the parties and we are not quite there yet.
M-L: tell me exactly the purpose of this no-fly zone.
E: there are I think several purposes. the fact of the matter is that the
Bosnian Serbs have been flying attack flights for some time now, they have
benn in efect threatening the air zone where the humanitarian flights were
coming in. It is more than a nuisance, it is very serious problem, and at
the London conference about a month ago supposedly, everybody agreed that
there will be no more such flights, but as is often the case and in this
particular situation, the Bosnian Serbs are not carrying out their commitments
so we think it is now time for the SC to mandate that and to make it clear
in the same time that if the SC demand is not met, that there will be force
to make sure that it is. There is still debate on that second part of it.
M-L: Bosnian Serbs said today through their foreign minister mr Buha, that
they will imediately stop military flights, and that is been interpreted
as effort to head off this no-fly zone move in the UN. Do you believe
them this time?
E: I believe that it is an attempt to head off the resolution, they also
qualify it by saying if the Bosnian Moslems or Croats took advantage of
this to attack, then they would return again it's so fuzzy that you can't
be particularly certain of how serious they are, but they are wery clearly
worried by ehat is going on in the SC. I think they want to try to head off
the SC resolution on the basis of to much past history. I wouldn't put too
much creedence in their words.
M-L: Now there is a difference, isn't there, in intention this time and that is
actualy to protect some of the Muslim people in Bosnia from Serbian attack.
Whereas previous US policy was to protect (use force if neccesaru) to protect
relief supplies.
E: well certanly that would be part of the consequence yes. You have to put
it in two pieces. First of all there is the question of flying and what it
does to threaten humanitarian flights, in addition there is no quetion,
that if you impose a no-fly zone, it means that the Bosnian Serbs can't use
their aircraft to attack the Bosnian Muslims. That is correct.
M-L[ I gather from the reports today, that the British and the French would
rather that there were two stages : you declare a no-fly zone and then
observers on the ground see whether that is being observed before you move
to the stage which you want US wants, of immediately having patroling flights
to monitor and observe. Is that fair?
E: yes, that is fair representation of their view against ours, and I dont
know if we are having any argument of puting observers on the ground in this
airfields, and so forth. They can I suppose watch the planes take off and land
and hopefully that would have some deterent effect. But we feel very strongly
that it is important for the SC to make it clear that its resolutions are to be
obeyed. As I said earlier this is the multilateral institution. We will have to
debate with the our collegues in the SC, and probably will have to come to some
compromise.
M-L: They are apparently worried that the French , who have troups on the
ground
and the British who will, might have those troups retaliated against by the
Serbians, whereas the US has no troups on the ground to be retaliated against.
E: Look. There is no question that the decision that the president finaly
made to go to no-fly zone with some theeths in it, is in fact the tough
decision. And there is no argument that we had debate within the US government
we are now having debate with some of our allies. there is no question at all
that moving to this step has some consequences with it as well and they are
a lot of heavy chested ....newspaper editors who dont seem to recognize that
it is a comlicated problem, and there are consequences to our alies. The
president decided I think rightly that the situation in and around Sarajevo
is disatruous now ,that we need to move hard and fast to prevent it becoming
worse , but I can understand the argument of the French and the British
or anyone else saying : look there are consequences with this that we need
to pin through.
M-L: Some reports are suggesting Mr. Bush have changed his policy because
he was being pressured by the governor Clinton who was urging more US
involvment. Is that the reason the President changed his policy.
E: No no, ......
M-L: It is also being suggested that the administration was sensitive
to apparent inconsistency with policy in Iraq, where a no-fly zone was
.... in, Us planes together with the British and French and some other
planes have been enforcing that. Why you were willing to do it in the Iraq,
where there is not obvious .... danger to civilians , why not do it in
Yugoslavia? Were you sensitive to that argument?
E: There is no question. We are very sensitive to the Muslim world view,
that the west is permiting the killing of Muslims in Bosnia and Herzegovina
while acting differently in Iraq. The situation is totaly different. So I
mean it is very clear you can impose a no-fly zone in Iraq for totaly different
reasons, but the point nevertheless ... is that the Moslem world looks on the
gas more and more as the Moslems in Bosnia and Herzegovina are killed, and
that there is no question at all that this waights heavily on the president
and on of all of us who tried to think through this problem. Again the situa-
tion is totaly different but the fact of the matter is Moslems are being killed
in Bosnia Herzegovina. And this government is trying to demonstrate to the
Moslim world we care about it, and want to do something about it.
M-L: So president is now prepared to put American war planes into the sjy
ower Bosnia if the UN asks for it.
E: Again I dont want to commit the president, but It seems to me that
is fairly obvious that if in fact the no-fly zone were passed with the
teeth in it that we want, the president would be prepared to contribute
to the enforcemtn od the no-fly zone, Yes.
M-L: And if the Serbian planes interfiered would they be shot down?
E: Again I dont want to speculate other than to say that you can assume
the US would be prepared to make sure that the no-fly zone was carried out
and I suppose if that requires the use of force, we would be prepared to do
that.
M-L: Moving to the other piece of the situation which has so many people
so concerned with, particularly with winter advancing . What is the US
doing to increase the quantity or proportion of relief suplies actually
reaching?
E: It is a tough problem. And again, as winter comes about it is going
to be much tougher to get the food in by plane becouse the airport is
fogged over most of the time. One, we are trying to get as much by air
as we can all being virtualy US is almost alone in flying aircraft in it
at this point, and if not alone we are contributing the major part.
Trying roads ... doignour best...
M-L: And the US will be prepared to use force to in some way in conjuction
with other countries to protect those road convoys?
E: Again you are asking me to make commitment for the president. The fact
of the matter is we have already SC resolution which says all necessary
means to assure that humanitarian aids reach there. It is a decision
for the Secretary General of the UN and the UNPROFOR as to what that
force might be, obviously we will be ready to support whatever the decision
is.
M-L: Briefly mr Secretary, does US government believe these very alarming
estimates of how many people men, women and children, would starve
this winter if some solution isnt found
E: Believe is probably the wrong word. We are prepared to accept as potentialy
possible that a very substantial deaths this winter through starvation if
food and medicine does not get to these people. It could be a herendous
problem and we are doing everything we can to make sure it doesnt happen
M-L: Secretary Eagleburger, thank you for joining us.
novine.53.bale.,
RFE/RL Daily Report
No. 191, 5 October 1992
SUCCESSOR STATES TO THE USSR
HEAVY FIGHTING IN ABKHAZIA. On 2 October some 3,000-4,000 Abkhaz
National Guardsmen and volunteers from the North Caucasus captured
the town of Gagra after heavy fighting with the 200 Georgian
troops there; some 100 people were killed, Western agencies
reported. The Georgian State Council announced plans to mobilize
40,000 reservists. State Council Chairman Eduard Shevardnadze flew
to the Abkhaz capital, Sukhumi, where he told journalists that
while Georgia had complied with the 3 September ceasefire
agreement, Abkhaz forces had consistently violated it with the
support of the Russian parliament. He vowed that Georgia would
retake Gagra. Meeting in Tbilisi on 3 October in Shevardnadze's
absence, the Georgian State Council voted to seize all former
Soviet military equipment on Georgian territory. Also on 3
October, Shevardnadze's helicopter was fired upon as he travelled
to Sochi for talks with Russian military officials. Gagra was
reported calm on 4 October, but a representative of the State
Council told AFP that the Abkhaz were committing "atrocities"
against the civilian population. Georgian reinforcements were
dispatched to the towns of Gantiadi and Leselidze, between Gagra
and the Russian frontier. The State Council appealed to NATO
Secretary-General Manfred Woerner and to the CSCE to help calm the
situation, according to AFP. Addressing a rally in Sukhumi,
Shevardnadze called on the Georgian population of Abkhazia to
participate in the 11 October parliamentary elections which he
termed the key to stabilizing the situation in the republic. (Liz
Fuller, RFE/RL, Inc.)
GRACHEV WARNS GEORGIA ABOUT ARMS SEIZURES. Russian Defense
Minister General Pavel Grachev on 4 October warned Georgia that
any attempts to take control of Russian military equipment in the
republic could lead to armed clashes between Russian and Georgian
forces. Grachev was responding to the recent Georgian State
Council's decision to seize all Russian arms stationed in Georgia.
ITAR-TASS quoted Grachev as saying that this decision was "a
flagrant breach of earlier agreements" and that he had given
orders to all Russian troops to prevent any forcible seizure of
military facilities. Russian and Georgian authorities had
previously worked out arrangements for the transfer of some
Russian military equipment to the republic. In August, the
Russians announced that the 10th Motorized Rifle division in
Akhaltsikhe, stationed along the Turkish border, would be
disbanded and its equipment handed over to Georgia. However, on 17
September the Russian Defense Ministry charged that Georgian units
were attacking Russian troops and civilians, and warned that its
forces reserved the right to fight back. (Doug Clarke, RFE/RL,
Inc.)
WESTERN CORRESPONDENTS VISIT TAJIKISTAN WAR ZONE. Reports on 2,3
and 4 October from Western correspondents visiting Kurgan-Tyube
and other locations in southern Tajikistan provide some
confirmation of charges made earlier by opponents of deposed
President Rakhmon Nabiev that Russian forces stationed in the
country are helping pro-Nabiev fighters. The pro-Nabiev forces
from Kulyab Oblast have severely damaged the town of Kurgan-Tyube,
and thousands of refugees from there were reported to be making
their way to Dushanbe. In an interview on Tajik Radio on 4
October, Tajik Deputy Prime Minister Davlat Usmon, a leader of the
Islamic Renaissance Party, compared the role of Russian troops in
Tajikistan with that of Soviet troops in Afghanistan and accused
the Russians of siding with forces opposed to the present Tajik
government. (Bess Brown, RFE/RL, Inc.)
EXPERIMENTAL LAND SALES IN RUSSIA. President Yeltsin has signed a
decree "On Carrying Out an Experiment in Moscow Oblast in 1992 in
Auctioning Off Plots of Land for Housing Construction," ITAR-TASS
reported on 2 October. Officials in the Ramenskoye raion will be
authorized to auction plots of land to residents of Moscow and the
Moscow oblast for housing construction. They will be asked to
submit reports within one month on the results of the experiment.
The State Committee for Land Reform is expected to use the results
to help determine land values in any future widespread land
privatization. (Keith Bush, RFE/RL, Inc.)
RUSSIA TO TIGHTEN CONTROL OF HARD- CURRENCY EARNINGS. Russian
First Deputy Foreign Trade Minister Sergei Glazyev told Parliament
on 2 October that the government would soon require state
enterprises to sell all of their hard-currency earnings to the
state, Interfax and Radio Rossii reported. At present, state
enterprises must sell half of their hard-currency earnings to the
state at the going market rate. Glazyev did not specify when the
proposed measure would take effect. He told Interfax that firms
had stashed away some $3.5 billion in foreign bank accounts, while
an additional $1.5 billion was "outside government control." It is
thought that anticipation of this move was a factor in last week's
decline in the exchange rate of the ruble. (Keith Bush, RFE/RL,
Inc.)
KRAVCHUK APPOINTS ACTING PRIME MINISTER. Ukrainian President
Leonid Kravchuk on 2 October appointed Valentyn Symonenko as
acting prime minister, Ukrinform-TASS and Western news agencies
reported. The move follows the resignation of Vitold Fokin and the
parliamentary vote of no confidence in his government. Symonenko,
who was appointed Kravchuk's representative in Odessa earlier this
year, subsequently was named first deputy prime minister. His
appointment came after Volodymyr Lanovyi, the market-oriented
minister of economics and deputy prime minister, was sacked by
Kravchuk. (Roman Solchanyk, RFE/RL, Inc.)
RUSSIA, UKRAINE CONCUR ON FORMER USSR DEBT. Russian Prime
Minister Egor Gaidar and Ukrainian President Kravchuk announced in
Kiev on 3 October that their countries would accept responsibility
for their individual shares of the $70-$80 billion debt of the
former Soviet Union, but no more. The two nations are thereby
rejecting the concept of "joint and several" responsibility for
the debt to which they agreed with Western creditors last
December. The concept of "joint and several" responsibility
basically means that in case of non-payment on the former Soviet
debt by one or more of the republics, the remaining republics must
make up the difference. This decision by Russia and Ukraine may
cause further problems in upcoming negotiations over debt
repayment with Western creditors. (Erik Whitlock, RFE/RL, Inc.)
RUSSIAN-UKRAINIAN AGREEMENT ON TRADE ISSUES. Gaidar's visit to
Kiev also produced an agreement between Russia and Ukraine on
resolving their current trade dispute. Few details were provided.
Western news agencies quoted Gaidar as saying simply that the
agreement would contribute to "normalizing uneasy relations
between the two countries." The recent dispute concerns
outstanding payments between Ukrainian and Russian enterprises for
imports. Russian unilateral actions to stem the growth of this
indebtedness has significantly hampered already floundering trade
between the two states. The documents signed by Gaidar and acting
Ukrainian Prime Minister Valentin Symonenko also appear to include
provisions for the introduction of a new Ukrainian national
currency. (Erik Whitlock, RFE/RL, Inc.)
DEMOCRATS AND CIVIC UNION SEARCH FOR CONSENSUS. Representatives of
the "Democratic Russia" movement and the Civic Union have met to
discuss economic reform and decided to set up groups of joint
experts of various political groups to monitor and advice the
government on reform, DR-Press reported on 4 October.
Representatives of the Civic Union suggested that an invitation be
extended to members of a right-wing group opposed to the group of
experts, but the democrats rejected the idea. Members of the Civic
Union said that the Arkadii Volsky's "thirteen point program,"
which had been published in Izvestiya on 13 September, was not the
official economic program of the Civic Union. (Alexander Rahr,
RFE/RL, Inc.)
GORBACHEV BARRED FROM FOREIGN TRAVEL. ITAR-TASS quoted on 2
October a press release issued by the Russian Constitutional Court
concerning its request that the Russian Foreign Ministry along
with the Ministry of Security (formerly the KGB) ensure the
appearance in the Court of former CPSU Secretary General Mikhail
Gorbachev. The request was made in response to Gorbachev's
refusal to testify at the communist party hearings "and in the
connection of his scheduled trip abroad." ITAR-TASS quoted the
Constitutional Court as stating that the aforementioned ministries
had taken "appropriate measures" to stop Gorbachev from going
abroad. On 6 October, Gorbachev was supposed to begin a visit to
South Korea; according to The Los Angeles Times of 4 October,
after the authorities withdrew his passport, Gorbachev informed
the Koreans that the trip had to be postponed. Gorbachev
reportedly had plans to visit several Latin American countries; he
also was to visit Berlin to receive that city's honorary
citizenship on 6 November. (Julia Wishnevsky, RFE/RL, Inc.)
YELTSIN SIGNS DECREE ON GOVERNMENT. President Boris Yeltsin has
signed a decree on the reorganization of the government, ITAR-TASS
reported on 2 October. It abolishes the ministry of architecture,
construction and housing management, the ministry for industry and
twenty-two state committees. Six new state committees, including
one for industrial policy, will be created. Twenty-six other
ministries will be reorganized and a new post of deputy prime
minister for agriculture will be established. The former State
Committee for Procurement (Gossnab) will be transformed into a
share holding company called Roskontrakt. Yeltsin signed the
decree before the parliament concluded its discussions on a new
law on the government, which may cause new friction. In an
apparent effort to minimize anticipated negative political
reaction, Prime Minister Gaidar told an ITAR-TASS correspondent on
24 September that the current governmental structure was hurriedly
thrown together in a moment of crisis as the Soviet Union was
falling apart. The planned restructuring, he said, is simply an
attempt to "instill order, [and] define functions and
competence... [in] the hierarchy of agencies." (Alexander Rahr &
Erik Whitlock, RFE/RL, Inc.)
CRIMEAN MEJLIS TO HOLD EMERGENCY SESSION. Crimean Tatar leaders
are calling for an emergency session of their parliament, the
Mejlis, Interfax and Western news agencies reported on 4 October.
The action follows a clash between Tatars and Crimean authorities
after the latter ordered the removal of temporary houses built by
the Tartars in the southern town of Alushta. More than 50 people
were reported injured. (Roman Solchanyk, RFE/RL, Inc.)
EXTRAORDINARY CONGRESS OF MOUNTAIN PEOPLES OF THE CAUCASUS. The
two-day extraordinary congress of the mountain peoples of the
Caucasus held in the Chechen capital Groznyi to discuss the
situation in Abkhazia ended on 4 October, ITAR-TASS reported. Its
final declaration calls on the official leaders of the North
Caucasian republics to denounce the federal treaty that governs
their relations with Russia as not in accord with the interests of
the peoples of the North Caucasus. It also recommends that
political organizations and movements in the republics demand that
the leaderships strive for real independence, recognize the
independence of Chechnya, Abkhazia, and South Ossetia, and create
joint forces of regional security. If the republican leaderships
refuse to do this, the confederation threatens to organize mass
protests demanding their resignations. The congress also demanded
the immediate withdrawal of all Russian troops from the region.
(Ann Sheehy, RFE/RL, Inc.)
CONFEDERATION OF MOUNTAIN PEOPLES RENAMED. The congress decided
to rename the Confederation of the Mountain Peoples of the
Caucasus the Confederation of the Peoples of the Caucasus in the
hope that the local Cossacks and others would join it. In an
interview with ITAR-TASS on 3 October, the confederation's
president, Musa Shanibov, said that although Chechnya was the
standard-bearer of freedom in the region, he still believed that
the other 15 peoples who are members of the confederation should
for the time being continue to link their fate with Russia to
avoid a conflagration. A session of the confederation's parliament
is due to take place in two weeks' time. (Ann Sheehy, RFE/RL,
Inc.)
PRESIDENT OF KABARDINO-BALKARIA CRITICIZES RUSSIA. Valerii Kokov,
president of Kabardino-Balkaria, told Russian journalists on 4
October that Russia's policy towards the North Caucasus was
"inadequate," and lacking in an understanding of the situation,
ITAR-TASS reported. He said that the arrest in Nalchik of Musa
Shanibov, the leader of the Confederation of the Mountain Peoples
of the Caucasus, had been illtimed. The arrest sparked off
round-the-clock protests meetings in Nalchik that are still
continuing. Interfax reported on 4 October that protesters were
still awaiting a response from the republican government to their
demands that Russian MVD troops withdraw and that Kokov resign.
(Ann Sheehy, RFE/RL, Inc.)
POLL ON POLITICAL PARTIES IN AZERBAIJAN. On 3 October Interfax
cited the results of a poll conducted by the Baku Center for
Sociological Studies which indicates that the ruling Azerbaijan
Popular Front is the most popular political organization in
Azerbaijan, with a rating of 37.2 per cent among an unspecified
number of respondents in the cities of Baku and Sumgait. The
radical National Independence Party of Azerbaijan, headed by
Etibar Mamedov, was second with 26 per cent. Among the
Azerbaijani leadership, Iskander Gamidov, the pan-Turkist Minister
of Internal Affairs, is supported by 58.7 per cent of those
polled, followed by Defense Minister Ragim Kaziev (50 per cent,)
and Nakhichevan parliament Chairman Geidar Aliev (39.5 per cent).
No rating was listed for President Abulfaz Elchibey. (Liz Fuller,
RFE/RL, Inc.)
OIL INDUSTRY DEVELOPMENTS. Azerbaijan has signed a preliminary
agreement with Pennzoil, Remco, and Pennzoil Caspial to develop
oil and gas deposits in the Guneshli offshore field in the Caspian
Sea, Turan, RIA, and The Wall Street Journal reported on 2
October. The Western companies are expected to invest $2.5 billion
during the next 10 years. Russia's top corruption investigator was
quoted by Trud on 2 October as saying that corruption in the oil
industry is "alarming" and that only one-quarter of the value of
exported oil is repatriated. And the governor of Tyumen oblast
told Reuters on 2 October that his oil industry will fight to keep
its 20% share of oil revenues. (Keith Bush, RFE/RL, Inc.)
KYRGYZ VICE PRESIDENT VISITS TAJIKISTAN. Kyrgyzstan's Vice
President Feliks Kulov was the first representative of a CIS state
to visit the war zone in southern Tajikistan, Tajik acting
President Akbarsho Iskandarov told Interfax on 2 October. The
following day Kulov told Interfax that the issue of a peacekeeping
force for Tajikistan will be raised at the CIS summit on 9
October, and Tajik leaders will present plans for the deployment
of peacekeepers. The opposing sides in the conflict agreed to
support the deployment of a CIS peacekeeping force, according to
Kulov, but want it to be made up of troops from a neutral state.
(Bess Brown, RFE/RL, Inc.)
CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE
BOSNIAN UPDATE. International relief flights began again to
Sarajevo on 3 October, following a one-month break after an
Italian cargo plane was shot down by a shoulder-launched missile
of undetermined origin. The thick Sarajevo fog forced a delay in
additional relief flights on 3 October, but the BBC said that the
first plane had brought new radar equipment to enable the airport
to stay open throughout the fog season. The New York Times quoted
President George Bush as calling Serbian bombing attacks in Bosnia
a "flagrant disregard for human life" and supporting a ban on all
flights in that republic except those authorized by the UN. In
Strasbourg EC special envoy Lord Owen told an RFE/RL correspondent
that the effects of ethnic cleansing by Serbian forces will
eventually be undone by "persistent application of principle . . .
not over months but over years." Finally, Reuters quoted UN High
Commissioner for Refugees Sadako Ogata and the chief of the
International Committee of the Red Cross Cornelio Sommaruga as
condemning ethnic cleansing, including what Ogata referred to as
encouraging "rape of women of another ethnic group." (Patrick
Moore, RFE/RL, Inc.)
ALLEGATIONS OF SYSTEMATIC ASSAULTS ON MUSLIM WOMEN. Western news
agencies on 2 October quoted Bosnian Serbian leaders as denying
recent media reports that their fighters are systematically raping
Muslim women, and military liaison officer Momo Starcevic promised
to punish any guilty parties. On 25 September the Zagreb weekly
Globus reported on a particular incident in which 40 Muslim young
women from one village said they had been gang-raped by Serbs over
a period of several days. One of the men told them it was part of
a policy to wipe out the Muslim nation. Globus further reported
that a team of UN gynecologists examined the women, confirmed
their stories, and concluded that such mistreatment appears to be
a "war strategy . . . [ordered] from the top." The story was not
corroborated, however. (Patrick Moore, RFE/RL, Inc.)
ATMOSPHERE IN CZECHOSLOVAK COALITION DETERIORATING. After
deputies of Slovak Prime Minister Vladimir Meciar's Movement for a
Democratic Slovakia (HZDS) supported a resolution of the leftist
opposition in the federal parliament on the creation of a Czech
and Slovak Union on 1 October, Czech officials charged Meciar with
breaking earlier agreements between the coalition partners. Czech
Prime Minister Vaclav Klaus published a statement on 2 October in
which he said that he feels betrayed. He said the HZDS's shift of
position is dangerous "for the future of democracy in our
country." After an emergency session of the Czech government on 3
October, Klaus made it clear that he has no intention of
postponing scheduled meetings with the Slovak government to
discuss further steps of dividing the country, despite Meciar's
urging to do so. Klaus also said that Czechoslovakia will cease to
exist on 1 January 1993, thus indicating that he will not take
into consideration the federal parliament's proposal on creating a
union between the two republics. Former President Vaclav Havel
supported the Czech government's view; he was quoted by CSTK on 3
October as saying that a union would only prolong the agony. (Jan
Obrman, RFE/RL, Inc.)
CIVIC MOVEMENT BECOMES A PARTY. Delegates to a special congress of
the Civic Movement, one of the heirs to the Civic Forum, which
toppled the Czechoslovak communist regime in November 1989, voted
on 4 October to transform the movement into a political party.
Delegates abolished the movement's collective, open membership and
replaced it with a fixed structure. Before the elections of June
1992, the Civic Movement was a dominating political actor on the
federal level and in the Czech Republic, but it failed to win
enough support in the elections to be represented in either the
Czech or the federal parliaments. Former Foreign Minister Jiri
Dienstbier was elected the party's chairman. He said the party's
goal is to form a liberal, nonsocialist alternative in today's
political scene. (Jan Obrman, RFE/RL, Inc.)
FINAL RESULTS IN ROMANIAN PRESIDENTIAL RACE. On 4 October the
Constitutional Court released the final results of the 27
September presidential race. Incumbent President Ion Iliescu won
47.34% of the votes, followed by Emil Constantinescu, candidate of
the centrist Democratic Convention, with 31.24%; Gheorghe Funar of
the Party of Romanian National Unity (10.88%); Caius Traian
Dragomir of the National Salvation Front (4.75); Ioan Manzatu from
the fringe Republican Party (3.05%); and Mircea Druc, a former
prime minister of Moldova who ran as an independent (2.75%).
Radio Bucharest quoted the president of the court as saying that
the share of invalid votes (4.65%) was "normal." A runoff between
Iliescu and Constantinescu is scheduled for 11 October. (Dan
Ionescu, RFE/RL, Inc.)
CONSTANTINESCU CRITICIZES VOTE COUNTING. The same day Radio
Bucharest broadcast a statement by Constantinescu criticizing what
he termed "confusion and lack of transparency" surrounding the
vote counting. Constantinescu spoke of "serious irregularities"
and stressed that roughly one in ten votes for the parliament had
been declared invalid. He appealed to the authorities to show "a
maximum of fairness" in staging the runoff for presidency, and
challenged his rival Ion Iliescu to at least three debates to be
broadcast live by Romanian radio and television. (Dan Ionescu,
RFE/RL, Inc.)
FUNAR BECOMES INTERIM PRESIDENT OF HIS PARTY. The National
Council of the Party of Romanian National Unity (PRNU), the
political arm of the nationalist "Vatra Romaneasca" (Romanian
Hearth) organization, announced on 3 October that Gheorghe Funar
was appointed the party's interim president at a council meeting
in Cluj-Napoca. Funar placed third with almost 11% of the votes
in the presidential race, while his PRNU was also third in the
parliamentarian elections. Before appointing Funar, the council
"suspended" former party president Radu Ciontea and "discharged"
another four leaders. It also appointed a delegation including
Funar to conduct talks in Bucharest on the building of the next
government, Radio Bucharest said. (Dan Ionescu, RFE/RL, Inc.)
IN POLAND, GAIDAR AGREES TO ZERO-SUM DEBT SETTLEMENT. Mutual debt
claims were the focus of talks between Russian Prime Minister Egor
Gaidar and Polish officials in Warsaw on 2 October. Gaidar and
Polish Prime Minister Hanna Suchocka signed agreements on
investment protection and cross-border cooperation. Gaidar
pledged that Poland will be able to buy as much oil from Russia as
it can afford in 1992 and 1993. Russia supports the idea of a
"zero-sum settlement" of mutual debt claims, he said. President
Lech Walesa earlier told Gaidar that Poland insists on a zero-sum
solution. Polish TV reported that Poland owes Moscow $1.5 billion
and 5 billion transfer rubles, while Russia owes Poland $300
million and 7 million transfer rubles. A joint commission was
formed to settle the question. Gen. Leonid Kovalev announced
that the withdrawal of Russian combat troops from Poland will
conclude by the end of October, two weeks ahead of schedule.
Walesa said that Poland wants good relations with Russia, but with
respect for the principles of partnership and democracy. (Louisa
Vinton, RFE/RL, Inc.)
POLISH MASS PRIVATIZATION MOVES FORWARD. Poland's mass
privatization program survived an important test on 2 October,
when the Sejm voted down a motion to throw out the government's
draft legislation. PAP reported that the vote on rejecting the
legislation outright was 146 to 180, with 17 abstentions. The vote
on the mass privatization program, which aims to privatize 600
selected firms and distribute shares in 20 national investment
funds to the general public, had been delayed because the Sejm
demanded an official reckoning of the expected costs.
Privatization Minister Janusz Lewandowski reported that the
program would begin to pay for itself as soon as the first million
citizens paid their minimal participation fees. Some 10-20
million Poles are expected to take part in the mass privatization
program. (Louisa Vinton, RFE/RL, Inc.)
POLAND PLANS DEFENSE ACCORDS WITH NEIGHBORS. Defense Minister
Janusz Onyszkiewicz told a press conference on 2 October that
Poland plans to sign military cooperation agreements with Germany,
Russia, Ukraine, and Lithuania in the near future. These
agreements will resemble those Poland has already concluded with
Hungary, France, and Latvia. Onyszkiewicz added that the defense
ministry will not take an official stance on the issue of Col.
Ryszard Kuklinski, the Polish officer who spied for the CIA for
eleven years. There were many "question marks" about Kuklinski's
behavior, Onyszkiewicz said, adding that Kuklinski had access only
to those Warsaw Pact operational plans that involved the
participation of Polish armed forces. (Louisa Vinton, RFE/RL,
Inc.)
SLOVENIAN ELECTIONS IN DECEMBER. Slovenia's first multiparty
parliamentary and presidential elections since declaring
independence from Yugoslavia in June 1991 will be held on 6
December. A second round is scheduled on 20 December for
candidates failing to win more than 50% of the vote. There are
currently eight presidential candidates, including the current
president, Milan Kucan. Kucan, a former chairman of the Slovenian
League of Communists, won in a run-off election in April 1990
during Slovenia's first multiparty elections since 1938. Recent
polls show that Kucan is the republic's most popular politician.
Radio Slovenia carried the report on 1 October. (Milan
Andrejevich, RFE/RL, Inc.)
HUNGARY TO RESTORE NAGYMAROS LANDSCAPE. The Hungarian government
approved a plan to restore the landscape at Nagymaros, the
Hungarian section of the joint Hungarian-Czechoslovak
Gabcikovo-Nagymaros hydroelectric power project, MTI reports. If
parliament votes to accept the plan in the coming weeks, work on
restoring the landscape can begin next spring and is expected to
take two and a half years. The major work involves removing the
dam, filling the Danube river bed, and making the river navigable.
Costs are estimated at over 7 billion forint. State Secretary in
the Ministry of Transportation, Communications, and Water
Conservation Zsolt Rajkai said that normal operations of the
Gabcikovo dam on the Slovak side should not cause problems, but a
peak operation raises the danger of flooding for both sides.
Hungary started construction at Nagymaros in 1977 but pulled out
of the joint project in 1989 because of environmental concerns.
(Edith Oltay, RFE/RL, Inc.)
ALBANIAN ECONOMY ON VERGE OF COLLAPSE. A study appearing in
Business Eastern Europe, the weekly of the private consulting
group, Business International, says industrial output in Europe's
poorest country will likely drop by 17% this year to a level only
35% of what it was in 1990, at the time of the fall of the
communist regime. Only one-third of the 300 largest enterprises
are operating, unemployment in industry is at 50% and rising, and
inflation, currently at about 220%, could shoot up as well.
Foreign aid to Albania remains vital, the report says. At the
same time Reuters reports that during a 3 October visit, Prime
Minister Alexander Meksi secured an additional $30 million in
emergency aid from Italy, the main donor nation to Albania, and
established formal bilateral economic relations. (Charles
Trumbull, RFE/RL, Inc.)
OIL SPILL IN BELARUS APPROACHING LITHUANIA. On 3 October the
Lithuanian Environmental Protection Department reported that
nearly 200 tons of oil, spilled into the Nemunas River when a
deranged person pried open oil containers at a furniture factory
70 kilometers from Grodno, are approaching Lithuania, BNS reports.
Only a small portion of the Nemunas bank has been contaminated and
workers at Druskininkai, Alytus, and Prienai have built barriers
of hay to prevent the further spread of the contamination.
(Saulius Girnius, RFE/RL, Inc.)
SKINHEADS ATTACK GERMANS IN CRACOW. Three German truck drivers
were attacked by skinheads in Nowa Huta, near Cracow, on the night
of 1 October. One of the Germans died as a result of injuries
suffered in the attack. Cracow police apprehended a group of 10
teenage suspects and placed four under arrest. About 100 skinheads
waged a battle with police in the center of Cracow on the night of
2 October. One policeman was seriously injured. Prime Minister
Hanna Suchocka expressed "deep sorrow and regret" at the incident,
according to PAP. Hundreds of horrified Cracow residents placed
flowers and lit candles at the site of the attack. (Louisa Vinton,
RFE/RL, Inc.)
novine.54.bale.,
RFE/RL Daily Report
No. 192, 6 October, 1992
SUCCESSOR STATES TO THE USSR
GEORGIAN MILITIA CHIEF ISSUES ULTIMATUM TO RUSSIAN TROOPS.
Georgian State Council deputy chairman Dzhaba Ioseliani, the
commander of the Mkhedrioni militia, issued an ultimatum to Russian
troops and volunteers from the North Caucasus fighting in Abkhazia
to leave by 15 October or be driven out by force, Western agencies
reported. Meanwhile a Georgian counter-offensive aimed at retaking
Gagra was repulsed by the Abkhaz. A Georgian military helicopter
was shot down near Gagra. The Georgian State Council press office
claimed that it was shot down by two Russian jets, while the
Russian Defense Ministry denied any involvement and suggested that
it was brought down by a ground-to-air missile launched by Abkhaz
separatists. Following a meeting with the leadership of the
Transcaucasus Military District, Georgian State Council chairman
Eduard Shevardnadze claimed in a radio address that Russian troops
in Abkhazia have formed a military government there and are no
longer obeying commands. Shevardnadze further charged that
"reactionary forces" in Russia are supporting Abkhaz separatism,
but warned that Georgia should not break off relations with Moscow
given the presence of "healthy democratic forces" there. (Liz
Fuller, RFE/RL, Inc.)
WHILE FOREIGN MINISTER TRIES CONCILIATORY APPROACH. Addressing a
news conference in Moscow on 5 October, Georgian Foreign Minister
Aleksandre Chikvaidze said that his top policy priority was saving
Georgian-Russian relations, which date back centuries and must not
be allowed suddenly to collapse, ITAR-TASS reported. Chikvaidze
also stated that nothing can prevent the holding of the
parliamentary elections scheduled for 11 October, "even if they
take place against a background of artillery fire." (Liz Fuller,
RFE/RL, Inc.)
SITUATION IN TAJIKISTAN. More than 1,000 refugees from southern
Tajikistan gathered in front of the parliament building in Dushanbe
to demand the removal of Russian troops from the region, Interfax
reported on 5 October. Acting president Akbarsho Iskandarov told
the refugees that the status of the troops will be determined when
agreements are signed with the Russian Federation; the same day he
told Interfax that the Tajik government is not strong enough to
disarm the armed bands that have been fighting each other in the
southern part of the country, and Deputy Chairman of Tajikistan's
National Security Committee Jurabek Aminov commented that the
government is getting weaker while the armed groups are getting
stronger. (Bess Brown, RFE/RL, Inc.)
RUSSIAN TROOPS IN TAJIKISTAN CONFINED TO BASES. All Russian forces
in Tajikistan were confined to their bases as of 5 October,
Svyatoslav Nabzdorov, Chief of Staff of the Russian troops in
Tajikistan, told Interfax the same day. Nabzdorov said that an
agreement to this effect had been reached with the various Tajik
factions the previous day. The only exception is the Russian
troops guarding the Nurek dam and hydroelectric station. National
Security Deputy Chairman Aminov told a Reuter correspondent on 5
October that Leninabad Oblast in the north, which has stayed out of
the fighting so far, has created its own defense force, as has the
self-proclaimed Autonomous Republic of Gorno-Badakhshan in the
Pamirs. (Bess Brown, RFE/RL, Inc.)
MOLDOVAN FOREIGN MINISTER CALLS FOR UNITED NATIONS ACTION ON
MOLDOVA. Addressing the UN General Assembly on 1 October, Moldovan
Foreign Minister Nicolae Tiu urged the dispatch of UN ceasefire
monitors and human rights rapporteurs to the Dniester, where, he
claimed, "pro-communist imperial forces, the military-industrial
complex, and the upper ranks of the ex-Soviet army have launched a
veritable war...seeking to tear off Moldova's eastern area."
Characterizing Russia's 14th Army in eastern Moldova as "an army of
occupation . . . and a permanent source of tension and conflict,"
Tiu noted that Russia is obstructing the negotiations on its
withdrawal. Endorsing a proposed resolution on the withdrawal of
Russian troops from the Baltic States, Tiu urged the General
Assembly to add the issue of Russian troops in Moldova to that
debate. (Vladimir Socor, RFE/RL, Inc.)
"DNIESTER" INSURGENTS BUILD UP MILITARY STRENGTH. "Dniester
Republic President" Igor Smirnov has appointed Colonel Stanislav
Khazheev as "minister of defense" of the would-be republic,
DR-Press reported from Tiraspol on 2 October. On the same date,
the age limit for officers serving with the "Dniester" forces was
raised from 50 to 60 years of age to enable more Russian veterans
to join the insurgent forces with full salaries and benefits.
Interviewed by Western correspondents on 29 September, as cited by
Moldovapres, Smirnov disclosed that the "Dniester" forces currently
comprise 35,000 men and that arms procurement would continue
despite the ceasefire agreement. Komsomolskaya Pravda had reported
from Tiraspol on 24 September that Russian Cossacks are being
enrolled in the "Dniester republic"'s newly formed "army" and
"border guards." (Vladimir Socor, RFE/RL, Inc.)
MOLDOVA NEGOTIATES WITH GAGAUZ ON TERRITORIAL AUTONOMY. Moldovan
President Mircea Snegur and a Gagauz delegation headed by "Gagauz
republic Supreme Soviet Chairman" Mikhail Kendigelyan conferred in
Chisinau on 1 October, Moldovapres reported. It was Snegur's
second meeting with Gagauz leaders in the space of less than two
weeks to discuss a draft law on Gagauz territorial autonomy,
prepared by a joint commission of the Moldovan parliament and
government. In an apparent attempt to facilitate a deal, the Gagauz
leaders on 28 September dismissed their most intransigent
colleague, Ivan Burgudji, from his posts of "director of internal
affairs" and commander of the "Gagauz defense forces." The
dismissal followed a riot in Comrat against Burgudji and his guards
who have long made themselves unpopular among ordinary Gagauz.
(Vladimir Socor, RFE/RL, Inc.)
LIGACHEV ADDRESSES CONSTITUTIONAL COURT. Addressing the Russian
Constitutional Court hearings on the CPSU on 5 October, former CPSU
CC Politburo member Egor Ligachev, condemned Yeltsin's ban on the
Party as unconstitutional. ITAR-TASS reported that the main part
of Ligachev's speech was devoted to criticism of the current
situation in Russia. The country's current problems were the result
of the disbandment of the CPSU, Ligachev maintained. The former
Communist Party leading hard-liner accused Mikhail Gorbachev of
destroying the Party and said the policies of the former Soviet
president opened doors to "anti-communism and national separatism."
ITAR-TASS reported the same day that the Constitutional Court again
summoned Gorbachev to attend the hearings and fined him for 100
rubles for ignoring earlier summons. (Vera Tolz, RFE/RL, Inc.)
GORBACHEV FOUNDATION CRITICIZES TRAVEL BAN. The Gorbachev
Foundation issued a statement on 3 October criticizing the order
barring Mikhail Gorbachev from leaving Russian territory, The order
was issued by the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs in response
to Gorbachev's refusal to attend the Constitutional Court
Hearings,Russian television and Western news agencies reported.
"Novosti," said the foundation found the involvement of the Minstry
of Security in the affair particularly worrisome. Its statement
noted that such a ban "contradicts the Russian Constitution and
international law," and suggested that the incident might mark the
rebirth of the old Soviet technique of denying civil rights to
political dissenters. According to The Los Angeles Times of 4
October, Gorbachev had asked in vain to be kept informed of all
"concrete measures" taken against him, and for information about
the laws permitting such measures. (Julia Wishnevsky, RFE/RL,
Inc.)
PROVISIONAL AGENDA FOR CIS SUMMIT AGREED. A meeting of the foreign
ministers of CIS states in Moscow on 5 October agreed on a
provisional agenda of 20 items for the CIS heads of state and of 24
items for the CIS heads of government for their joint summit
meeting in Bishkek on 9 October, Interfax reported. The first item
will be the draft CIS charter. The draft agenda also includes a
number of economic and defense issues as well as regional
conflicts. Among these are harmonizing economic legislation,
progress in forming an economic arbitration council, and creating a
consultative and coordinatory economic council. Most of the items
have been on the agenda of earlier summits, and only limited
progress can be expected this time as well. Russia's acting
premier Egor Gaidar, for instance, said that Russia will not be
rushed into creating the economic council, advocated by Kazakhstan
president Nursultan Nazarbaev, for fear of accusations of imperial
ambitions. (Ann Sheehy, RFE/RL, Inc.)
YELTSIN SIGNS LAW ON DEFENSE. Russian President Boris Yeltsin
signed the Law on Defense on 5 October, the Interfax news agency
reported. The law sets out the basic structure and principles of
organization of the Russian Armed Forces. Yeltsin and the Supreme
Soviet had clashed over the right of the President to appoint
senior military commanders without consulting the Supreme Soviet
(see the Daily Report 25 September 1992), but a compromise was
reached allowing the President the exclusive right of appointment
after a new Russian constitution is ratified. (John Lepingwell,
RFE/RL, Inc.)
NAZARBAEV PROPOSES ASIAN SECURITY CONFERENCE. Kazakhstan's
President Nursultan Nazarbaev took his proposal for an Asian
counterpart to the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe
to the United Nations General Assembly on 5 October, an RFE/RL
correspondent reported. Nazarbaev has been raising the idea of an
Asian security organization since 1991; on 2 October his press
secretary announced that the presidents of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,
Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Turkey, Pakistan and Iran will meet in
Alma-Ata at the end of October or beginning of November to begin
the process of creating an Asian security system patterned on the
CSCE. Nazarbaev said that talks with China and Russia about
membership are already underway. (Bess Brown, RFE/RL, Inc.)
RUSSIAN ARMY FACES PERSONNEL, EQUIPMENT PROBLEMS. The Deputy
Commander of the Russian Ground Forces for Armaments, General
Colonel Sergei Maev, reported that the Russian army faces serious
equipment and repair problems. In an interview in Krasnaya zvezda
on 3 October, Maev complained of a 30% personnel shortfall and
stated that 70-75% of Russian equipment was outdated. He attributed
this to Russia's inheritance of the second-echelon military
districts, which held older equipment than the districts in Ukraine
and Belarus. Additional difficulties are caused by the fact that
40%, in the case of armor 80%, of repair facilities are located
outside Russia. Maev warned that it would require a "serious state
program" to correct these deficiencies. (John Lepingwell, RFE/RL,
Inc.)
RUSSIAN SHIPS JOIN GULF PATROL. On 5 October two Russian naval
vessels arrived in the Persian Gulf to join the international
peace-keeping forces in that region. ITAR-TASS identified the
ships as the "Admiral Vinogradov"--a "Udaloy"-class anti-submarine
guided-missile destroyer--and the tanker "Boris Butoma." The report
said that the commander of the Russian force would meet with a US
naval officer on 6 October to be briefed on naval operations in the
Gulf, but stressed that the Russian ships would be responsible only
to Admiral Felix Gromov, the Russian Navy's commander-in-chief. The
news account also emphasized that the Russian ships had no nuclear
weapons onboard. (Doug Clarke, RFE/RL, Inc.)
RUSSIAN DEFENSE DELEGATION VISITS SOUTH KOREA. Russian First
Deputy of Defense Andrei Kokoshin led a delegation of military
officers, academicians, and defense industrialists to South Korea
on 4 October in what ITAR-TASS described as the first such visit in
history. Kokoshin was quoted as telling the agency that the visit
testified to "Russian's serious intentions to activate its policy
in the Asia-Pacific region." During their five-day visit the
Russians planned to meet with officials of the South Korean defense
department and leading businessmen. Kokoshin noted that "favorable
opportunities exist for the development of industrial cooperation
between Moscow and Seoul, including the fulfillment of the Russian
defense industry's conversion program." (Doug Clarke, RFE/RL, Inc.)
RUSSIAN-AMERICAN SPACE COOPERATION. A Russian cosmonaut will fly
in the American space shuttle and an American astronaut will be
lifted to the Russian Mir space station by a Soyuz rocket according
to plans announced on 4 October by the directors of the US and
Russian space agencies. According to UPI, the agreements for these
joint efforts were signed that day in Moscow. Two Russian
cosmonauts will travel to Houston latter this month to start
training for a November 1993 space shuttle mission. Two American
astronauts will train in Russia for a 1995 flight to the Mir space
station. In each case, only one person will eventually make the
space trip. (Doug Clarke, RFE/RL, Inc.)
SUBMARINE SALE DOES NOT HALT AID PACKAGE. The US House of
Representatives passed the $417 million aid package for the
republics of the former Soviet Union and sent it to President Bush
for his signature despite concerns over the recent Russian sale of
diesel submarines to Iran. Western agencies on 2 October reported
that the US State Department announced that day that it had been
officially informed that Russia intended to go ahead with the sale.
The House approved the aid bill 232 to 164. Opposition to the
measure was based chiefly on the submarine sale and even several of
the bill's supporters admitted that they were troubled by the deal.
(Doug Clarke, RFE/RL, Inc.)
WHAT IS A KARBOVANETS? The karbovanets, as described by Interfax,
would be similar to the existing Ukrainian coupons that have
circulated since the beginning of this year. The difference
between the coupons and the karbovanets appears be twofold: 1) the
former is used only for cash settlements while the latter may be
also as a unit of account in non-cash settlements; and 2) the
karbovanets, as they are exchanged for rubles, are intended
gradually to "cycle" the ruble out of circulation. (Erik Whitlock,
RFE/RL, Inc.)
UKRAINE TO HAVE NEW PARALLEL CURRENCY THIS MONTH? According to a
representative of the Russian State Committee on Cooperation with
CIS Nations, Sergei Dubinin, Ukraine will introduce a new currency
this month, Interfax reported on 5 October. The "karbovanets" will
temporarily circulate together with the ruble at a fixed 1:1
exchange rate. The measure represents an attempt to avoid the
economic shock associated with a sudden shift to a new exclusive
currency that would likely flood Russia with Ukrainian rubles. The
introduction of the "hrivnya," which will presumably replace the
ruble, karbovanets and Ukraine's other quasi-money, coupons, as
Ukraine's exclusive currency, is scheduled for the end of this
year. (Erik Whitlock, RFE/RL, Inc.)
NALCHIK RALLY ENDS. The protest meeting that had been going on for
more than a week in the center of Nalchik, the capital of
Kabardino-Balkaria ended late on 4 October after the government
agreed to meet some of the protesters' demands, Interfax and
ITAR-TASS reported on 5 October. Interfax quoted Zantemira
Gubochikova, deputy chairwoman of the opposition Congress of the
Kabardinian People as saying that the government had agreed to most
of her movement's demands. She said the government agreed to remove
special militia units from government buildings, give the congress
airtime on local TV on a weekly basis, and halt trials of those who
volunteered to fight Georgian forces in Abkhazia. The government
also agreed to remove a military unit from the capital within in
one month but rejected the demand for the resignation of the
republic's president. (Ann Sheehy, RFE/RL, Inc.)
CRIMEAN TATARS DEMONSTRATE. Crimean Tatars blocked roads leading to
Simferopol, the capital, and demonstrated in front of the offices
of the procurator general on October 5, a spokeswoman reported to
RFE/RL. The main demand of the protestors is the release of
Crimean Tatars taken into custody after a clash with the
authorities several days ago. About 50 people were hurt in the
incident when authorities tried to remove homes built by the
Crimean Tatars on the property of state farms. A special session
of the Mejlis, the Crimean Tatar parliament, is scheduled to meet
on 6 October to discuss the situation. (Roman Solchanyk, RFE/RL,
Inc.)
CIVIC CONGRESS OF UKRAINE OPENS IN DONETSK. The Civic Congress of
Ukraine convened in Donetsk on 3 October, ITAR-TASS and DR-Press
reported. Delegations from 18 oblasts and the Crimea are taking
part. The group favors a federal structure for Ukraine and official
status for the Russian and Ukrainian languages in the Donbass
region. (Roman Solchanyk, RFE/RL, Inc.)
CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE
EC REBUFF FOR "TRIANGLE" COUNTRIES. European Community foreign
ministers met for the first time with their counterparts from the
Visegrad triangle of Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia on 5
October in Luxembourg, Western agencies report. The current EC
president, British Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd, told the three
countries that no timetable can be set for full membership in the
EC. Hurd told a news conference that the EC "sympathizes with the
wish of our friends here to become full members," but that economic
uncertainties stood in the way. The triangle countries had
requested in September that the EC agree to open negotiations on
full membership in 1996, with a view to their joining the community
by the end of the century. A formal reply to this request is due at
an EC summit in December. (Louisa Vinton, RFE/RL, Inc.)
KLAUS AND MECIAR TO MEET TODAY. Czech Prime Minister Vaclav Klaus
and his Slovak counterpart Vladimir Meciar agreed to hold a meeting
of their respective parties, the Civic Democratic Party and the
Movement for a Democratic Slovakia, today in Moravia, after Meciar
unilaterally cancelled talks between the Czech and Slovak
governments that were scheduled for today. The Slovak Prime
Minister argued that after the rejection of a constitutional
amendment by the federal parliament that would have set the modes
for the division of the country, senior officials of the two
coalition partners should return to the drawing board. Indicating
that the main topic of the talks will be budgetary matters, Klaus
said on 5 October that it will not be possible to force the
parliaments to adopt a federal budget similar to those of the past
three years, CSTK reported. He added that because of that, the
basis for a common state will automatically cease to exist on 1
January 1993. Klaus also said that he has a "document necessary for
the declaration of the independence of the Czech Republic" ready.
He did not say if and when he would use it. (Jan Obrman, RFE/RL,
Inc.)
RUNOFF CAMPAIGN OPENS IN ROMANIA. Campaigning for the 11 October
runoff for presidency started on 5 October with messages broadcast
by the two candidates. The contest is between Romania's incumbent
president Ion Iliescu, a former high-ranking communist official,
and Bucharest University rector Emil Constantinescu, candidate of
the centrist Democratic Convention. Iliescu rejected public doubts
about the fairness of the 27 September first-round voting as well
as charges that he is opposing reforms. He directed a particularly
vehement attack at Nicolae Manolescu, the president of the Party of
Civic Alliance, whom he accused of "flunkyism towards circles
hostile to Romania" and of obeying "overseas patrons." In his
address, Constantinescu reiterated that if elected he would respect
the constitution and the will of the nation. (Dan Ionescu, RFE/RL,
Inc.)
WEST SHOULD LEARN "LESSON" FROM ROMANIAN VOTE. Foreign Minister
Adrian Nastase, who had recently been appointed vice president of
Ion Iliescu's Democratic National Salvation Front, said at a press
conference on 5 October that the West should view the Romanian
election results as "a lesson" and that it needs "a new strategy
toward Romania." Nastase claimed that the withholding of aid by the
West helped communists and radical nationalists in the 27 September
elections. He added that last week's rejection by the US House of
Representatives of most-favored-nation trade status for Romania
will only boost support for Iliescu. Nastase, who has been
widely-tipped as Romania's next prime minister, suggested that an
independent would make a better choice for that position. (Dan
Ionescu, RFE/RL, Inc.)
YUGOSLAV AREA UPDATE. The BBC said on 5 October that Sarajevo has
been subjected to renewed, particularly intense shelling from
Serbian positions. Over the weekend, the Serbs began consolidating
their hold on several Sarajevo districts following the expulsion of
many of their Muslim inhabitants the previous week. Elsewhere,
Western news agencies report that the three warring sides in Bosnia
have agreed to release all civilian and military prisoners by the
end of the month as part of an agreement brokered by the Red Cross.
Finally, AFP quotes Croatian President Franjo Tudjman as saying
that he and President of Serbia-Montenegro, Dobrica Cosic, have
agreed to "voluntary and civilized transfers" of populations of
unspecified size and duration. (Patrick Moore, RFE/RL, Inc.)
JARUZELSKI, KISZCZAK TESTIFY IN 1981 SHOOTINGS. Former Polish
party chief Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski was interrogated by the
Katowice prosecutor on 5 October in an investigation into the
martial law killings of nine miners in the Wujek mine. Special ZOMO
troops opened fire on striking miners there on 16 December 1981.
Questioned as a witness, Jaruzelski accepted "moral responsibility"
but no blame for the shootings. Former Internal Affairs Minister
Czeslaw Kiszczak was questioned as a suspect in the case on 1
October. The prosecutor charges that Kiszczak's coded message to
local officials authorizing the use of force, including firearms,
to clear the mine jeopardized the miners' lives. Kiszczak contends
the shots were fired in the heat of battle. In a different case,
the Warsaw prosecutor told PAP on 5 October that Adam Humer, chief
investigator for the dreaded security ministry from 1945 to 1956,
had admitted to murdering "suspects" during interrogation and
secretly burying their corpses in the woods. Zycie Warszawy
reports that Humer is the first former security official to face
charges under a new law that lifts the statute of limitations on
Stalinist crimes. (Louisa Vinton, RFE/RL, Inc.)
SOVIET COMBAT HELICOPTER VIOLATES POLISH AIRSPACE. A police
spokesman in Krosno reported on 5 October that a MI-8 combat
helicopter of Soviet origin had violated Polish airspace over
Ustrzyki Dolne and Ustjanowa, towns near Poland's border with
Ukraine, on 3 October. The helicopter, adorned with a red star,
made two low passes over buildings in Ustrzyki before departing in
the direction of the border. The Polish border guard in Przemysl
confirmed the report, adding that investigations are continuing.
Ukrainian military officials denied that any air force operations
had taken place in the area. (Louisa Vinton, RFE/RL, Inc.)
CANADIAN GOVERNOR GENERAL IN HUNGARY. Ramon John Hnatyshyn held
talks in Budapest on 5 October with President Arpad Goncz and Prime
Minister Jozsef Antall. The goal of the official visit is to expand
bilateral ties between the two countries. The talks focused on
economic ties, Canada's participation in the 1996 Budapest World
Fair, and the situation in the former Yugoslavia. Antall urged
that Western countries adopt a comprehensive strategy aimed at
strengthening East Central Europe's new democracies. Goncz
expressed concern about a possible spread of the Yugoslav crisis
and said that future peace treaties should guarantee the exercise
of minority rights. (Edith Oltay, RFE/RL, Inc.)
SATELLITE TV FOR HUNGARIANS ABROAD. Spokeswoman Judit Juhasz says
the Hungarian government has set up the Hungaria Television
Foundation to finance a satellite station to convey Hungarian
cultural values, provide an objective view of Hungary, cultivate
relations between peoples, and help minorities in other countries
preserve their Hungarian identity. Hungaria TV is to start
transmission three hours a day on 1 November. Programs will deal
with politics, culture, entertainment, and religion, with special
emphasis on education. The station will be overseen by a 13-member
board of trustees consisting of prominent Hungarian cultural
figures, including the writer Sandor Csoori. State subsidies will
amount to 300 million forint this year and 2 billion next year, but
the station is expected to be self-financing by 1997. MTI and
Radio Budapest carried the story. (Edith Oltay, RFE/RL, Inc.)
MORE POLICEMEN IN HUNGARY. Minister of the Interior Peter Boross
told a press conference that this year 2500 new police posts have
been filled and 500 additional policemen are to be hired next year.
Pointing out that public security is becoming a number one
political issue in Hungary, Boross said that the increase in police
personnel has the population's support. Boross stressed the
importance of keeping the police force free of any political
influence. As in all East European countries, the number of crimes
in Hungary has sharply increased in the freer atmosphere brought
about by democratization. (Edith Oltay, RFE/RL, Inc.)
ZHELEV-DIMITROV RIFT DEEPENS. In an interview on Bulgarian radio on
5 October, Bulgarian Prime Minister Filip Dimitrov accused
President Zhelyu Zhelev of knowingly telling lies about him and his
UDF government. Dimitrov, who did not go into detail, was
apparently referring to Zhelev's account of the background to their
differences in yesterday's issue of 24 chasa. Dimitrov said the
timing of such statements make him believe Zhelev has joined what
he termed a "purposeful and premeditated" campaign aimed at
destabilizing the government. The UDF cabinet has been at odds
with Zhelev since he launched sharp criticism of some aspects of
government policies in late August. (Kjell Engelbrekt, RFE/RL,
Inc.)
BULGARIA, UKRAINE SIGN ACCORDS. During a seven-hour visit by the
Ukrainian president to Sofia, Leonid Kravchuk and Bulgarian
President Zhelyu Zhelev signed a treaty of friendship and
cooperation as well as bilateral agreements on trade, cultural
exchange and defense matters, BTA and ITAR-TASS report. The
friendship treaty confirms the territorial integrity of the two
states and calls for peaceful settlement of disputes and respect
for human rights. Zhelev told a press conference that he is pleased
with Ukrainian authorities' attitude toward resolving the problems
of the some 240,000 ethnic Bulgarians in their country, saying
there was no need for a special minority clause in the agreements.
Kravchuk noted that Ukraine will soon open an embassy in Sofia.
(Kjell Engelbrekt, RFE/RL, Inc.)
BULGARIAN SCHOOL STRIKE. On 5 October Bulgarian teachers went on
strike to demand higher pay. BTA reports that some 70% of all
teachers participated on the first day of the strike, forcing some
3,500 of the country's 4,500 schools to close. The teachers' unions
are dissatisfied with the general 26% salary increase offered in
the second half of 1992 and demand an agreement in principle that
will put their salaries at 10% above the average. They are also
seeking more public resources to improve schools. (Kjell
Engelbrekt, RFE/RL, Inc.)
STIPENDS FOR LATVIAN STUDENTS INCREASED. On 30 September the
Latvian Supreme Council adopted a resolution raising the amount of
financial aid available to students at institutions of higher
learning, BNS reports. The monthly state scholarship of 1140
rubles had been less than the official minimum wage of 1500 rubles.
Students may now apply for interest-free loans in an amount up to
1.5 times the state stipend in addition to the free scholarship
itself. The loans, to be repaid eight years after graduation, are
available to full-time students in the last two years of their
studies who are Latvian citizens. Other loans are available for
needy and disabled students. (Dzintra Bungs, RFE/RL, Inc.)
novine.55zandric,
> The authoritarian Serbian leader used the meeting to
> launch a new attack on U.N. economic sanctions slapped on
> his republic for underwriting the Serbian territorial
> conquests in neighboring Bosnia- Hercegovina.
"PUSKINOVO NJET"
Boris Spaski se nije odazvao pozivu da prisustvuje
jucerasnjem prijemu kod predsednika republike Srbije.
Sahovski Puskin, uprkos insistiranjima novinara, nije
zeleo da obrazlozi svoju odluku. Nezvanicno se saznaje
da Spaski jednostavno nije zeleo da tako provede
slobodan dan.
Borba,7. oktobar
:>>>>>>>>>>!!!!!
novine.56.bale.,
Eagleburger Says U.S. Pressing `No-Fly' Zone in Bosnia
By GENE KRAMER
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - The United States is concerned about the
killing of Muslims in Bosnia-Herzegovina and is pressing allies to
enforce a ban on military flights there, says acting Secretary of
State Lawrence Eagleburger.
``We are very sensitive to the Muslim world's view that the West
is permitting killing of Muslims in Bosnia-Herzegovina while acting
differently in Iraq,'' where ``no-fly'' zones have been declared,
Eagleburger said in a television interview Tuesday.
A no-fly zone would halt Serbian or Bosnian Serbian air attacks
against U.N. humanitarian flights in the war-torn former Yugoslav
republic. Bosnia has no combat planes. Eagleburger said it would
also mean the Serbians can't use their aircraft to attack Bosnian
Muslims in their policy of ``ethnic cleansing.''
More than 14,000 people have been killed in Bosnia since Bosnian
Serbs rebelled against a vote in February by majority Muslims and
Croats to secede from Yugoslavia. Serbs, initially backed by the
Yugoslav army, have seized about two-thirds of Bosnian territory.
Informal closed debates on the flight ban are under way with
Britain, France and other U.N. Security Council members,
Eagleburger said, predicting the result could be a compromise
involving first trying measures short of using force to enforce the
ban.
``We had a debate in the U.S. government about it and are having
a debate with some of our allies,'' he said on public television's
``MacNeil-Lehrer NewsHour'' program.
The situations are ``totally different,'' Eagleburger said, but
the United States nevertheless recognizes that ``the Muslim world
looks on aghast as more and more Muslims are killed. There is no
question that this weighed heavily on (President Bush) and all of
us ... and this government tried to demonstrate to the Muslim world
that we care about that and want to do something about that.
``The president has decided, and I think rightly so, that the
situation in and around Sarajevo and Bosnia is so disastrous now we
need to move hard and fast to prevent it from becoming worse,''
Eagleburger added. ``But I can understand the French, British or
anyone else'' with ground troops in the area wanting to think
through the consequences.
Eagleburger disputed a suggestion that the decision resulted
from pressure from Bill Clinton, Bush's Democratic campaign rival,
for stronger U.S. intervention. ``We have been debating this and
... with all respect to the governor, he had nothing to do with
it,'' he said.
novine.57.bale.,
Women, Children Speak of Terrors of Ethnic Cleansing
By JOHN DANISZEWSKI
Associated Press Writer
TRAVNIK, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) _ Hasnija Halilovic
said the Serb fighters came in the night, wearing black
masks.
They lined up about 200 Muslim women and children at
gunpoint in three rows between a Muslim home and piled the
house's contents nearby, she recalled.
Then both the furniture and the house were set ablaze.
For four hours, with fires in front of them and behind,
the women and children stood helpless, screaming and
pleading for their lives. They cried. They choked on the
smoke. Their captors taunted them, threatening to shoot.
Finally, they were let go.
``No one was killed, but they were beating us,'' said
Mrs. Halilovic, 60, her blue eyes ablaze with anger.
The scene occurred two weeks ago in Kljuc, a northern
Bosnian town where thousands of Muslims from surrounding
areas have been herded into a ghetto since last spring.
Now, in another example of the process known as ``ethnic
cleansing,'' the last Muslims are being expelled by Serb
occupiers from their land and sent to Travnik, one of the
few remaining Muslim-held cities in Bosnia.
A key part of ethnic cleansing is to instill terror, and
the Serbs in Kljuc succeeded.
Mrs. Halilovic's daughter-in-law, Zijada, said the shock
sent her into labor. The infant at her breast, Rashid, was
born the next day.
Dressed in a green scarf and five layers of shirts,
sweaters and skirts, Mrs. Halilovic stood Sunday with about
1,000 other bedraggled figures outside a decaying secondary
school, now their temporary home in Travnik.
On this bleak, rainy day, they waited for their daily
meal: rice.
This front-line Muslim city, squeezed into a narrow
mountain valley adorned with a dozen minarets, has become a
main refuge for people forced from their homes in Serb-
controlled areas of Bosnia.
The city is patrolled by Croatian and Muslim troops,
including units of the ``Muslim Forces'' who affect the
bravado of Middle Eastern guerrillas by wrapping their heads
in traditional headdresses.
An occasional rifle-toting volunteer from the Middle
East or North Africa also can be seen in the streets,
lending credence to Serb claims that ``mujahedeen'' from
Islamic countries are fighting on the Muslim side. But such
foreigners resolutely refused to talk to journalists.
There are now about 25,000 refugees in Travnik, normally
a city of 35,000, said Meris Zulic of the humanitarian
organization Merhamet. If the Serbs complete the ethnic
cleansing around Banja Luka, capital of the self-proclaimed
Serbian Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina, 80,000 more Muslims
and 40,000 Croats could join them, he said.
There already are shortages of food, shelter, toilets
and clean water. With winter fast approaching, officials
worry about bitter cold and disease.
Travnik has not been shelled recently, but nearby areas
have been bombed, said Zeir Krnjic, a Muslim forces
commander.
Mrs. Halilovic and other veterans of ethnic cleansing
described their exodus from Serb-held areas as brutal.
After their night between the flames, the women and
children holed up for another week in the crowded Muslim
quarter of Kljuc.
Then, on a Thursday, about 3,000 Muslims from Kljuc and
surrounding villages were put into 10 buses and eight
trucks.
As they were put aboard, they were beaten by about 150
soldiers who demanded money or stole from their meager
belongings, Mrs. Halilovic said.
``Then they were shooting at the trucks,'' she said.
``One truck didn't arrive at all and we don't know what
happened to those people.''
At the frontier of Serb-controlled territory, she said,
the refugees were ordered to abandon their remaining
belongings and told to start walking over mountainous
terrain toward Travnik, about 12 miles away.
After five hours on a treacherous track with steep
cliffs, they reached a unit of Croatian soldiers.
Details of such journeys are impossible to verify, but
they mesh with accounts from numerous other refugees and
Western journalists who have traveled with them.
Zulic said large groups of such people have been
arriving every two or three days since May, despite promises
of Bosnia's Serbs to curb ethnic cleansing.
Croats and Muslims also have been accused of purging
areas of other ethnic groups, but the Serbs have been
condemned internationally most often.
He said he knows that at least 10 people traveling in
Mrs. Halilovic's group died because the Serb side later
offered to trade their bodies for a group of Serbs in
Travnik.
NO-FLY ZONE RESOLUTION AT A GLANCE
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 7, Reuter - Following are the key
elements in a draft Security Council resolution banning
military aircraft over Bosnia-Herzegovina. The document,
obtained by Reuters, was approved by the United States,
Britain and France on Wednesday.
The document
-- Establishes a ban on military flights, excluding any
aircraft relating to U.N. operations or supporting them.
-- Requests U.N. forces to monitor compliance,
including placing observers on airfields, wherever
necessary.
-- Requests U.N. forces to set up an inspection
mechanism to make sure all flights to and from Bosnia do not
violate Security Council resolutions.
-- Calls on all states to take measures to help U.N.
forces, including technical monitoring and ``other
capabilities.''
-- In case of violations, the council would pledge to
``consider urgently'' further measures to enforce the ban.
REUTER EL BRO BN
Reut18:34 10-07
Serbs Shell Other Towns After Capturing Key City in
Northern Bosnia
By JOHN DANISZEWSKI
Associated Press Writer
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) _ Serb fighters were
reported cleaning out the last pockets of resistance in a
northern strategic city on Wednesday, and they widened their
offensive with intensified shelling throughout the region.
The lightning capture of Bosanski Brod on the Croatian
border was a major victory for the Serbs, who are seeking to
set up their own republic within Bosnia possibly as a
prelude to linking up with Serbia.
The Serbian advances mean they have taken control of 70
percent of Bosnia in the 7-month-old civil war, and their
offensive sought to gain further territory before winter.
More than 14,000 people have been killed in Bosnia since
Bosnian Serbs rebelled against a vote in February by
majority Muslims and Croats to secede from Serbian-dominated
Yugoslavia.
The fall of Bosanski Brod, the last major government-
held town in northern Bosnia, apparently was part of a
Serbian offensive aimed at occupying more Bosnian territory
before winter sets in.
There was major shelling in Sarajevo in what the city's
radio called a ``hellish'' morning.
But there was major fighting in the north, according to
Croatian radio reports:
_Heavy Serb artillery blasted the region around Zupanja,
35 miles east of Slavonski Brod.
_The city of Gradacac was hit by hundreds of missiles
and cluster bombs.
_Serb forces 12 miles north of Gradacac were caught in a
Muslim-Croat pincer, forcing them to retreat and leave 10
artillery pieces behind.
Elsewhere, Serb missiles targeted Bihac, a Bosnian
border town just 40 miles south of Zagreb, Croatia's
capital. Maglaj, 60 miles north of Sarajevo, was bombed by
Serb warplanes. Mostar, 100 miles southwest of the Bosnian
capital, was rocked by artillery barrages.
The Serbs had significantly improved their position with
the capture on Tuesday of Bosanski Brod, widening the
corridor between the territories they control in eastern and
western Bosnia.
Officials in Slavonski Brod, a Croatian city across the
Sava River, speaking on condition of anonymity, said small-
arms fire and the boom of artillery continued to sound from
the neighboring Bosnian town late Wednesday.
They said Serb troops apparently were moving from house
to house, firing machine gun bursts inside and throwing in
hand grenades to clean up last pockets of suspected
resistance.
AP photographer Zoran Bozicevic said dozens of houses
set on fire by the Serb invaders blazed in Bosanski Brod. A
high-rise apartment building still burned Wednesday morning.
The bridge across the Sava River was blown up before
dawn Wednesday, destroying what for months had been a path
to relative safety for tens of thousands of refugees.
Just hours before its destruction, at least 5,000
refugees and Muslim-Croat forces used the bridge to flee the
Serb advance.
The Serb offensive appeared aimed at eliminating the
entire Bosnian enclave along the river border. The enclave
threatened the supply routes running from Serbia proper to
areas held by Serb rebels in western Bosnia and central
Croatia.
A Croatian army spokesman in Zagreb told The Associated
Press on Wednesday that Croat-Muslim defenders, under
constant air and artillery attack for six days, were
withdrawn to save lives.
Slavonski Brod on the Croatian side teemed with Bosnian
troops Wednesday. Some soldiers were withdrawn Tuesday night
by a small ferry from a village just west of Bosanski Brod.
In Sarajevo, shells landed near the presidency building
and in the city's new section. One landed about 100 yards
outside a stadium where a funeral was under way.
Sarajevo radio called it ``one of the most hellish
mornings since the beginning of the war.''
In Geneva, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said
three U.S. and two French relief flights landed at Sarajevo
airport. But they supplied only a fraction of the 200 tons
of food needed daily by the besieged city's 500,000
residents.
Without more food, children are expected to start dying
from starvation next month, U.N. officials say.
The situation of tens of thousands of Sarajevans
preparing for winter worsened Tuesday, when natural gas
supplies used by many to heat homes were cut. Running water
and electricity already have been unavailable for weeks in
many sections.
BOSNIAN SERBS MOP UP AFTER BIG MILITARY VICTORY
By Paul Holmes
SLAVONSKI BROD, Croatia, Oct 7, Reuter - The Bosnian
Serb army mopped up on Wednesday after seizing the key
northern town of Bosanski Brod in their biggest military
victory in three months.
Thousands of people retreated in panic across the Sava
river to the neighbouring town of Slavonski Brod inside
Croatia before the Bosnian Serbs captured Bosanski Brod late
on Tuesday and a bridge linking the two centres was blown
up.
A senior source close to Croatian President Franjo
Tudjman said Croatia feared Serb forces would now turn their
attention to central Bosnian targets such as Tuzla and
Zenica.
Each side accused the other of destroying the road and
rail bridge, which was Croatia's last fixed link under its
control across the Sava into northern Bosnia.
The Serbs' victory consolidates their hold on a
strategic corridor across northern Bosnia linking Serbia
proper in the east with the Krajina area of Croatia taken by
Serb fighters in their war with Croatia last year.
The Bosnian Serbs have been fighting for six months
against a shaky coalition of Bosnian Moslems and Croats
whose supporters voted for independence at a referendum,
leading to international recognition for an independent
state whose capital is the besieged city of Sarajevo.
Fierce fighting erupted again in Sarajevo on Wednesday.
Tanjug reported heavy infantry duels in Novo Sarajevo, with
the most intense combat in the Moslem-held Hrasno area.
Heavy artillery and mortar fire broke out in the old town,
Dobrinja and the centre of Sarajevo.
At Slavonski Brod, some Croatian national guardsmen
manning an anti-tank cannon cursed Tudjman as they withdrew
from a position near the shattered bridge.
``Damn Tudjman. I voted for him. Look what he's done
for this town, and the Croats over there (in Bosnia),'' one
soldier said.
The Bosnian Serb army said in a statement hundreds of
Croat and Moslem soldiers had been killed in the Serbs'
final assault on the city, their bodies littering lawns and
city squares.
Slavko Bilandzija, the Croatian military police chief
for Slavonski Brod, said 250 people, including civilians as
well as Croat and Moslem soldiers, had been killed in the
last few days in air attacks and artillery bombardments to
soften up resistance before the final assault.
The Croatian Defence Council for northern Bosnia (HVO)
said 8,000 Bosnian Serb troops had been killed in the drive
to take the town, and 60 enemy tanks had been destroyed and
21 planes shot down.
Bilandzija said his men watched Serb fighters blow up
the steel bridge early on Wednesday morning, whereas the
Bosnian Serb army said it was destroyed by retreating
Croatian forces.
Virtually every window in three 11-storey apartment
blocks near the bridge was blown out by the force of the
blast.
Bilandzija said 10,000 people, mostly civilians had
fled to Slavonski Brod on Tuesday, crossing the bridge or
grabbing boats or barges.
``There was complete chaos,'' he said, adding that said
some elderly Moslems and Croats who had been unwilling to
flee remained on the Bosnian side of the river.
He said Serb forces on Wednesday had used loudhailers
to shout messages across the Sava to Croatian forces that
they would not attack Slavonski Brod.
Witnesses said the Serbs shouted: ``Don't shoot at us.
We're not shooting back. We got what we wanted.''
Bilandzija said: ``There are no guarantees that they'll
stick to that. They might use this (time) to do their
looting, then they'll start shooting again.''
There was no official Croatian government comment on
the fall of Bosanski Brod. The senior source close to
Tudjman said he was deeply worried but was determined not to
get Croatia openly involved in the war in Bosnia.
novine.58.bale.,
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Serbs to ground jetfighters in Bosnia-Hercegovina
Subject: U.N. sets up war-crimes commission for former Yugoslavia
Subject: Sarajevo doctors say psychological wounds hardest to treat
Subject: Bridge blown up after Serbs capture key town
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Subject: Serbs to ground jetfighters in Bosnia-Hercegovina
Date: 6 Oct 92 20:54:30 GMT
BELGRADE (UPI) -- Bosnian Serb leaders said Tuesday Serbian forces
would ``immediately'' ground their air force in Bosnia-Hercegovina but
warned they would resume combat flights if predominantly Muslim Slav
forces tried to take advantage of the decision, the Serb-run Tanjug news
agency reported.
The ``foreign minister'' of the self-declared Serbian state in
Bosnia-Hercegovina, Aleksandar Buha, said that leaders of the Bosnian
Serbs, in Geneva for peace talks on former Yugoslavia, agreed Tuesday
evening to ``stop military flights.''
``This decision goes into effect immediately,'' Buha told Tanjug in a
telephone conversation and added that ``it will remain in effect as long
as the other side does not use it to gain a military advantage.''
Buha said Serbian forces would ``resume flights if the enemy misuses
our agreement.''
Radovan Karadzic, self-styled president of the Bosnian Serb state,
Monday warned his delegation would quit the internationally-sponsored
peace talks in Geneva if the U.N. Security Council approved a proposal
to create a ``no-fly'' zone for combat aircraft over the newly
independent republic of Bosnia-Hercegovina.
Serbian forces have been using Soviet-made MiG jetfighters and other
aircraft supplied to them by the Serb-led Yugoslav army in missions
supporting their ground forces fighting against Bosnia-Hercegovina
government forces.
Bosnian government forces are comprised of mostly Muslim Slavs but
also include some Croats and moderate Serbs.
Karadzic has declared a Serbian state on about 70 percent of the
republic's territory. The 1.4 million Serbs in Bosnia-Hercegovina make
up about 31 percent of the population.
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Subject: U.N. sets up war-crimes commission for former Yugoslavia
Date: 6 Oct 92 23:49:21 GMT
UNITED NATIONS (UPI) -- The U.N. Security Council decided unanimously
Tuesday to establish a war-crimes commission to study charges of severe
human rights violations in the former Yugoslavia and to prosecute those
who may be charged in an international court.
The council said the commission, to be composed of ``impartial
experts,'' will ``examine and analyze'' all information obtained by them
or through investigation or efforts by organizations other than the
United Nations to uncover executions or human rights abuses in the
Balkans.
The council adopted the resolution forming the war-crimes commission
with a 15-0 vote after calling on governments and international
organizations to provide within 30 days ``substantiated information'' on
alleged human rights violations in the territory of the former
Yugoslavia.
The commission was charged to provide concluding proofs that
``violations of Geneva Conventions and of other international
conventions on human rights had been committed in the territory of the
former Yugoslavia.''
The council asked Secretary-General Boutros Ghali to name the experts
on the commission and to make a report on the panel's findings. It did
not specify the next step to be taken, but diplomats said they have been
considering calling for a trial of those responsible for human rights
violations.
``It doesn't make any sense if the commission would not lead to a
trial,'' Venezuelan U.N. Ambassador Diego Arria said.
U.N. officials said legal steps would be taken to establish a
tribunal similar to the Nuremberg trials, the records of which were
deposited to the care of the United Nations.
In Geneva, a special investigator for the U.N. Commission for Human
Rights, former Polish Premier Tadeusz Mazowiecki, said he will make a
second visit to Bosnia-Hercegovina, Croatia, Kosovo and other parts of
the former Yugoslavia to continue his investigation.
Mazowiecki will begin his 10-day visit in Sarajevo on Oct. 12.
Mazowiecki's first trip to Bosnia-Hercegovina in August resulted in a
harsh report condemning all warring factions for violating human rights.
Serbian forces in Bosnia-Hercegovina have been accused of carrying
out ``ethnic cleansing'' to gain territories occupied by Muslim Slavs or
Croats, thus driving hundreds of thousands of people out of their
destroyed homes.
The Serbs also were alleged to have tortured and killed Muslims in
detention centers and prisons, but Serbian leaders denied the charges.
The United States last month said it has evidence that at least 3,000
Muslim men, women and children were executed in May and June in Serb-run
detention centers near the Bosnian town of Brcko.
By another vote of 15-0 the council decided also to demilitarize the
Prevlaka peninsula in the Adriatic Sea which had been used by Belgrade's
Yugoslav army to attack Croatia's port city of Dubrovnik and control
navigation on a 100-mile-long coastline.
In the resolution on the Prevlaka peninsula, the council asked that
Croatia and Montenegro withdraw their heavy weapons and to cooperate
with monitors from the European Community.
In Belgrade Tuesday the official Tanjug news agency announced that
the army of rump Yugoslavia reiterated its intention to withdraw from
the disputed peninsula within the next two weeks.
The army of the Serbia-Montenegro federation said that its units and
equipment would be ``transferred'' by Oct. 20 from the peninsula and the
surrounding region as required by a Sept. 29 pact reached in Geneva
between Yugoslav President Dobrica Cosic and his Croatian counterpart,
Franjo Tudjman.
But, the army warned that should Croatia violate the agreement to
create a demilitarize zone on the peninsula, it would ``use all of its
potential to defend'' the main Yugoslav navy base at adjacent Boka
Kotorska Bay.
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Subject: Sarajevo doctors say psychological wounds hardest to treat
Date: 7 Oct 92 02:08:07 GMT
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Hercegovina (UPI) -- On any given day at the bombed-
out state hospital, doctors may face several dozen shrapnel injuries,
close a half-dozen bullet wounds and perhaps amputate three or four
limbs.
But for each torn-open leg or blown-away arm bleeding onto the cots
of the ground-floor emergency unit, Dr. Mirza Cisic, a
neuropsychiatrist, says he and his staff, squeezed into a tiny third-
floor office, handle more than twice as many injuries to the mind.
``The surgeons are doing the physical work, and we have to save the
brain and the soul,'' said his colleague, Dr. Momir Smitran, sitting
with Cisic and wearing a white lab coat. ``And that is a lot more work.''
The dozen or so people sitting quietly in the dark, bomb-scarred
hallway outside their office are but a small part of the problem.
For outside the office, where residents of Sarajevo still survive the
daily rain of artillery shells and random sniper attacks, doctors feel
the number of such victims is at least 10 times as great.
``Generally speaking, we must say there is no family in Sarajevo that
has not been damaged or destroyed psychologically,'' Cisic said.
The doctors offer both individual and group therapy, but they lack
normal diagnostic and basic rehabilatative tools, such as videotapes of
prosthesis patients designed to give hope to those who just lost limbs.
But thousands of those needing treatment, including those with pre-
existing mental problems, simply never find help.
``They feel the situation is hopeless, with not much chance that it
will be improved,'' Cisic said. ``They do not come and report here
because this place is always under grenade and sniper fire.''
Cisic, who is old enough to recall World War II, sees little
comparison even to wartime London or Dresden because those cities were
not cut off from the outside world and the aerial blitzes at least came
with some warning.
``This is six months of daily shelling,'' he said.
``Here you just walk down the street and suddenly a shell is falling
on you,'' Smitran said. ``When there is an air alert, it does not get
any attention -- people just keep walking on the street.''
``Now (the city) is one big concentration camp,'' Cisic said. ``The
inhabitants are in a hopeless situation, not only for their vital living
functions, but because their existence remains in doubt.
``I personally don't know what to bring my family, how to feed them.''
Perhaps ironically, one release from the tension could be found in
the impish grin and beaming brown eyes of 40-year-old Nermin Tulic,
sitting on a cot tucked away in the darkness of an elevator waiting area
a couple floors below the psychiatrists' office. Tulic, a well-known
Shakespearean actor in the city, was standing outside his home June 10
when a mortar grenade fell from the sky and exploded between his legs.
He said his doctors tried everything to save at least one of the
legs, but could not.
``I thought of suicide -- they took the knives and forks away from me
-- I was trying to die,'' Tulic said, playfully wiggling his scarred
stumps beneath an unbuttoned pink shirt.
``But then when I put in perspective what is behind me and what is in
front of me,'' he said, recalling the sudden change of heart he had
about two months ago. ``I thought that I have a girl 14 months old, that
my wife is pregnant -- she had another girl just 40 days ago -- and that
with good rehabilitation -- I can expect to resume about 80 percent of my
activities.''
Tulic said the turning point came when, after days of struggling, he
finally learned the trick of sitting up straight without his legs.
``At that point a micro-switch flipped in my brain, and I did in one
night what some people take two weeks to do,'' he said.
Tulic rejected any thought of bearing hatred for the rest of his life
``because I will never meet the man, the animal, the beast who shot
this grenade.''
Cisic and Smitran, perhaps better than anyone else in the city,
understand the psychological as well as military warfare being waged by
Serbian forces against the civilian population, but are no better able
to comprehend why.
``They are the most sadistic, psychopathic type of violations,''
Cisic said, doubting he could even give a professional recommendation
that those shooting the guns from the hills above Sarajevo could be held
legally responsible.
``It would be an understatement to say these are people with
diminished capacity. And in a normal process, they couldn't even be
prosecuted,'' he said. ``They would be put in an asylum.''
Early in the Bosnian phase of the Yugoslav conflict the Serbs opened
the doors of a Sarajevo asylum for non-criminal patients, Cisic said.
More than 100 residents were evicted, some wearing only their pajamas.
Some of the patients have been returned to hospitals for treatment,
he said. Others are believed among those still walking the streets.
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Subject: Bridge blown up after Serbs capture key town
Date: 7 Oct 92 16:41:04 GMT
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Hercegovina (UPI) -- The military defeat of Muslim
Slav and Croat forces after the fall of the key border town of Bosanski
Brod was compounded Wednesday when Serbian forces blew up a strategic
bridge near the town, Sarajevo radio reported.
The Serbian attack on the bridge effectively cut the only road link
connecting northern Bosnia-Hercegovina with Croatia, further isolating
Bosnian forces.
According to the report, a coalition of Croatian and Muslim Slav
defenders fled the town north across a bridge into the Croatian town of
Slavonski Brod and Serbian forces following behind them blew up the
bridge.
The explosion was so heavy it blew out the remaining windows and door
frames on nearby multiple-story apartment buildings, Croatian radio
said.
Occupying Serbian forces began robbing those properties still
standing and fires broke out in numerous buildings including the post
office, oil refinery and apartment buildings, it said.
The fall of Bosanski Brod, the only major town on Bosnia-
Hercegovina's northern frontier with Croatia not to have been captured
by the Serbs, consolidates Serbian control of a strategic corridor
running from the border of Serbia, in the east, across the top of
Bosnia-Hercegovina, to the Serb-held stronghold of Banja Luka and
surrounding Serb-controlled areas of the republic's northwest.
Aside from being territory claimed for the self-declared Serbian
state in Bosnia-Hercegovina, the corridor is essential for the delivery
of military, food and fuel supplies from communist-ruled Serbia to
Serbian forces throughout the region and headquartered in Banja Luka.
From Banja Luka, such supplies are also fowarded across the nearby
Croatian border to sustain Serbian forces based in Knin, the
headquarters town of the self-declared ``Republic of Serbian Krajina''
proclaimed in areas of Croatia captured by Serbs during the civil war
last year.
Control of Bosanski Brod will allow Serbian artillery to hit towns in
central Croatia, across the Sava River, including Slavonski Brod, a
major industrial center. Bosanski Brod had been linked to Slavonski Brod
by the bridge that was blown up.
The fall of now devastated Bosanski Brod came seven months after
Serbian forces in Bosnia-Hercegovina opened their war in the town for
control of territory in the breakaway Yugoslav republic.
Serbs since then have captured more than 70 percent of the former
Yugoslav republics' territory despite representing only 31 percent of
its pre-war population.
Bosanski Brod before the war had about 34,000 residents, 41 percent
of whom identified themselves in a 1991 census as Croats, 34 percent
Serbs and 12 percent Muslim Slavs.
Serbian fighting in recent months was concentrated on cutting the
land route through the Muslim Slav-dominated northeast into the large
Serbian-controlled northwest as part of an overall plan to create an
``ethnically purified'' greater Serbia.
In Sarajevo Wednesday Serbian forces in the hills overlooking the
city unleashed a series of artillery assaults on the capital, hitting
numerous apartment buildings and other civilian targets and killing at
least three people and wounding 25 others.
Sporadic shooting throughout the night in Sarajevo was broken open
around 5 a.m. Wednesday when Serbian forces opened fire throughout the
city, using 120mm mortars, 155mm artillery guns and tanks, Sarajevo
radio said.
The new part of the city came under the heaviest fire, from Serbian
tank positions in the southern area of Vraca, it said.
Three apartment buildings were burning on Ivana Krndelja Street south
of the Miljacka River, and a tobacco factory was burning on the north
side, the radio said.
Apartments in the Cengic Vila complex in the center of the new part
of the city also were hit early Wednesday, killing at least one person,
Sarajevo radio said.
Another civilian apartment complex further west, Alipasino Poljine,
just across the street from the city's United Nations Protection Forces
(UNPRFOR) headquarters, also was hit, the radio said.
Serbian infantry forces, moving under the cover of grenade fire from
the western suburb of Ilidza, attempted an advance into Stup but were
pushed back by Bosnian defenders, the radio said.
Serbian forces based in Poljine also shot artillery and tank fire
Wednesday morning into the northern suburb of Vogosca and onto the road
connecting it with Sarajevo, it said.
In Split, Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic met Bosnian Croat
leader Mate Boban to discuss improved military cooperation and visited
Bosnian refugee camps around the Croatian port city, Sarajevo radio
reported.
Heavy fighting also was reported Wednesday throughout Bosnia-
Hercegovina, particularly in the Muslim Slav-dominated areas of the
republic's northeast.
Sarajevo radio reported heavy fighting Wednesday across central
Bosnia- Hercegovina, including artillery fire and infantry attacks on
the towns of Gradacac, Doboj, Tesanj and Gracanica.
Heavy artillery and infantry attacks also were reported Tuesday and
Wednesday closer to Sarajevo, in the towns of Breza, Olovo and Ilijas,
Sarajevo radio said.
Srebrenica, on the eastern border with Serbia, and Jajce, in the
central part of the republic, also saw more fighting and artillery
attacks, the radio said. One woman was killed and six were injured since
tuesday in Jajce, it said.
Artillery attacks were reported against civilian regions of Mostar,
southwest of Sarajevo, although the heavy fighting of previous days
appeared to have eased, Sarajevo radio said.
Also Wednesday, French Gen. Phillipe Morillon, commander of the
UNPROFOR new Bosnian operations, was due to meet Bosnian Serb leaders at
their headquarters in Pale, just outside Sarajevo, before traveling
later to the Serbian capital Belgrade.
U.N. troops have been trying for several days to escort utility
workers into Serbian-controlled areas to restore sarajevos water and
electricity supplies, but Morillon and Ganic conceded after their
meeting little progress was likely while the fighting continued.
Morillon said UNPROFOR troops would continue trying to help utility
workers reach the areas where repairs are necessary but Ganic,
frustrated by week- long outages of water and electricity, asked
UNPROFOR to say clearly what it can and cannot do.
Serbian forces on the eve of Morillon's arrival launched one of the
most devastating assaults in their six-month seige of Sarajevo,
destroying rows of offices and apartment buildings, and leaving dozens
of civilians dead and thousands homeless.
Earlier Tuesday, Serbian forces bombarded Sarajevo with artillery,
tank and machine-gun fire, a day after one of the most vicious assaults
in their six-month seige destroyed offices and apartment buildings,
leaving dozens of civilians dead and thousands homeless.
Streams of the screaming and crying homeless were forced after a day
of relentless bombing to flee their flaming homes with only handfuls of
possessions.
novine.59.bale.,
RFE/RL Daily Report
No. 193, 6 October, 1992
SUCCESSOR STATES TO THE USSR
YELTSIN: RUSSIAN FORCES TO DEFEND THEMSELVES, RAILROADS, IN
ABKHAZIA. Abkhaz forces continued to advance north from Gagra and
took the villages of Leselidze and Gantiadi early on 6 October,
and they now control a 65 kilometer stretch of coastline from the
Russian border south almost as far as Sukhumi. Speaking to
journalists in Tbilisi, Georgian State Council Chairman Eduard
Shevardnadze accused Russian troops stationed near Gudauta of
transferring ultra-modern technology to the Abkhaz forces,
ITAR-TASS reported. Russian President Boris Yeltsin told the
Russian Supreme Soviet that Russia would not stand by while
Russian citizens' interests were being trampled on; nor would
Russian troops hesitate to defend themselves if attacked.
Although he claimed that Russian forces remained neutral,
President Yeltsin told deputies that "we will not pull our
[military] contingent out [of Abkhazia], because it is necessary
to take control of the railroad on the territory of Abkhazia, from
the Russian-Abkhazian border to the Abkhazian-Georgian border--the
entire line, which runs along the seaside," ITAR-TASS reported.
According to Western agencies, Yeltsin also stated that Russian
control of the railroads were vital, since they were key to
communications between Russia and Armenia. Yeltsin also stated
that he would meet on 13 October with Shevardnadze, Abkhaz
parliament Chairman Vladislav Ardzinba and North Caucasian
representatives to discuss the Abkhaz situation; however, his
statement about Russian interests in Abkhazia is tantamount to an
assertion that Abkhazia is not part of Georgia. The UN Security
Council has expressed concern over the Abkhaz crisis and may send
observers to monitor the situation there. (Liz Fuller, RFE/RL,
Inc.)
YELTSIN'S CHANGE OF ECONOMIC COURSE? In an address to the Russian
parliament on 6 October, carried in full on Russian TV, President
Yeltsin distanced himself from the rigorous reform plan espoused
by acting Prime Minister Egor Gaidar and his administration. He
criticized Gaidar, Aven, Nechaev, and Titkin by name, which
suggested that all or some of them might soon be replaced or
choose to resign. Yeltsin sought to deflect public dissatisfaction
from himself by blaming excessive emphasis on macroeconomic
strategy at the expense of the social safety net. He proposed a
redefinition of economic reform strategy to concentrate on:
fighting inflation; restructuring industry; completing
privatization; accelerating land reform; and stimulating
competition by means of an effective demonopolization policy.
(Keith Bush, RFE/RL, Inc.)
POLITICAL ASPECTS OF YELTSIN'S SPEECH. Russian President Boris
Yeltsin indicated in his speech to the parliament that he may
consider allying himself with the Civic Union. Yeltsin's analysis
of the economic situation coincided with criticism recently made
by leaders of the Civic Union. In the second part of the speech,
Yeltsin emphasized the need to root out corruption and crime with
an iron fist--another demand frequently made by the Civic Union.
He also suggested that the "Democratic Russia" movement and the
Civic Union may, in the future, constitute a two-party system in
Russia. (Alexander Rahr, RFE/RL, Inc.)
GAIDAR REJECTS CRITICISM. In a brilliant and largely unrepentant
speech, acting Prime Minister Egor Gaidar explicitly rejected the
burden of Yeltsin's criticisms and restated his opposition to the
policies advanced by the Civic Union. He savaged the implicit
calls to take the Chinese path of authoritarian central control
together with a large private sector. He ridiculed those who now
wished to slow the pace of privatization after criticizing his
administration earlier for moving too slowly. He condemned the
process of nomenklatura privatization and continued protectionism.
He gave a surprisingly positive progress report on conversion, and
he reassured deputies that state farms would not be phased out in
the near future. (Keith Bush, RFE/RL, Inc.)
YELTSIN ANNOUNCED STRENGTHENING OF MVD, ANTI-CORRUPTION MEASURES.
In his address to the Russian parliament on 6 October, Boris
Yeltsin revealed that his administration recently has increased
the MVD personnel by 50,000 men; he also suggested increasing MVD
personnel by another 50-100,000 men contingent on parliamentary
approval. The Russian president also proposed using the Army to
combat crime and tighter gun control legislation. The package of
anti-corruption measures includes new registration requirements
for non-state commercial firms and foundations, and the revision
of property transferred to them by the state bodies, as well as a
direct ban of business activities conducted by government
officials. (Victor Yasmann, RFE/RL, Inc.)
KINKEL, KOZYREV WARN OF NATIONALISM. The German and Russian
foreign ministers warned against rising nationalism in Europe
following meetings in Moscow on 6 October. The German foreign
minister, Klaus Kinkel, said the two countries must strive to
prevent nationalist violence -- whether in southern Europe, the
Caucasus or elsewhere. In a speech to mark the opening of the new
Germany Embassy in Moscow, Kozyrev remarked that the building
should not contain within its walls any of the "phantoms" which
were threatening post-communist Europe, Interfax reported. The
Russian Foreign Ministry had expressed concern in September over
right-wing violence in parts of Germany. Kinkel is scheduled to
meet Russian President Boris Yeltsin on 7 October. (Suzanne Crow,
RFE/RL, Inc.)
"DNIESTER" LEADERS GREETED BY RUSSIA. "Dniester republic" leaders
in eastern Moldova celebrated on 2 and 3 October the bicentennial
of the founding of their would-be capital Tiraspol as a military
settlement of the Russian Empire. Russian Foreign Minister Andrei
Kozyrev sent a message of greetings to the "Dniester" leaders on
the occasion, and Russian Vice president Aleksandr Rutskoy sent a
personal representative, Col. Gen. Shkenakin, who addressed the
celebratory rally in Tiraspol, DR-Press reported on 3 October.
The event is the latest in a series of recent Russian gestures of
overt political and economic support to the "Dniester republic"
which can only complicate the domestic political situation of
Moldovan President Mircea Snegur, who is staking his popularity on
cooperation with Russia for a peaceful resolution of the Dniester
conflict. (Vladimir Socor, RFE/RL, Inc.)
YELTSIN NOT IN FAVOR OF NEW "UNION." In his speech to the Russian
parliament said that Russia's attitude towards the Commonwealth
was unchanged. Russia was for the strengthening of relations on a
treaty basis and was not seeking the creation of any kind of new
"union." Yeltsin reiterated that relations with the CIS states
should take account of the specific features of each state, but he
maintained that there should nonetheless be some common norms of
behavior. In particular, Russia would insist at the Bishkek
summit that states wishing to stay in the ruble zone jointly work
out the rules and submit to them. (Ann Sheehy, RFE/RL, Inc.)
GORBACHEV AGREES TO MEET CONSTITUTIONAL COURT OFFICIALS. Former
CPSU Secretary General Mikhail Gorbachev said he would agree to
meet informally with Russian Constitutional Court officials, but
would continue to refuse court orders to testify at its hearings
on the CPSU. The Russian media quoted Gorbachev as saying on 6
October that he objected to attempts to transform the
Constitutional Court into "a stage for political trials." On 6
October, President Yeltsin criticized Gorbachev for ignoring the
summons to appear at the hearings. The Russian president accused
Gorbachev of showing "disrespect for the state of law, the
Constitutional Court and for Russian statehood," ITAR-TASS
reported. (Vera Tolz, RFE/RL, Inc.)
INTELLIGENTSIA NOSTALGIC FOR GORBACHEV? On 27 September, Mikhail
Gorbachev was met with the longest wave of applause while
attending the hit of the theater season: the performance of the
nineteenth century classic, Aleksandr Griboedov's Woe from Wit, in
the Moscow Arts Festival, Izvestiya reported on 28 September.
Meanwhile, Literaturnaya gazeta (No. 40), the weekly read
primarily by the intelligentsia, reprinted without comment an
article from the Times of London saying that Yeltsin is just as
unpopular among the Moscow intellectual elite as were any of the
communist tyrants; the article also stated that the Russian
intelligentsia compared President Yeltsin unfavorably with former
Secretary General Gorbachev. (Julia Wishnevsky, RFE/RL, Inc.)
KASATONOV CRITICIZES JOINT CONTROL OF BLACK SEA FLEET. President
Yeltsin on 5 October signed a decree formally appointing Admiral
Kasatonov First Deputy Commander of the Russian Navy, although he
will temporarily continue as Commander of the Black Sea Fleet,
according to Interfax. On 6 October, Kasatonov held a press
conference at which he criticized plans for joint
Russian-Ukrainian control of the fleet. Kasatonov claimed that a
joint command system with one fleet commander and one Russian and
one Ukrainian deputy commander would work, but that Ukraine's
proposal for having two captains on one ship would reduce combat
readiness. (John Lepingwell, RFE/RL, Inc.)
UKRAINE TO SELL URANIUM FROM NUCLEAR WEAPONS? In a meeting with US
Under-Secretary of State Frank Wiesner, Foreign Minister Boris
Tarasyuk proposed that the US buy enriched Uranium originating
from the nuclear warheads located in Ukraine. The US has already
agreed to buy up to $5 billion worth of Uranium from disassembled
Russian warheads. Since Ukraine has no warhead disassembly
facilities, the US has proposed buying the material from Russia
after disassembly there, and paying Ukraine for its share. But
Ukraine claims that the warheads belong to it and wants to sell
the material directly, according to an Interfax report on 6
October. It is unclear how much Uranium would be in the warheads,
as modern weapons are more likely to contain Plutonium. (John
Lepingwell, RFE/RL, Inc.)
RUSSIA DENIES PLUTONIUM FUEL PROPOSAL TO JAPAN. Russian Deputy
Minister of the Nuclear Power Industry Nikolai Egorov has denied
reports that he proposed a joint project with Japan that would use
Plutonium from Russian nuclear weapons as fuel for Japanese
reactors. According to an ITAR-TASS report of 5 October, Egorov
claimed that the project was merely an "unofficial proposal."
Egorov also stated, according to AFP on 5 October, that warhead
dismantling was taking place in 4 locations: Chelyabinsk-70,
Arzamas-16, Sverdlovsk-44 and Zlatoust. In Washington on 6
October, the Defense Department reported it had agreed to help
design a storage facility in Russia for nuclear material from the
dismantled weapons, according to Western news agencies. (John
Lepingwell, RFE/RL, Inc.)
CHIEF OF RUSSIAN GENERAL STAFF PROMOTED. The chief of the Russian
general staff and first deputy minister of defense, Viktor
Dubynin, was promoted to general of the Army in a decree signed by
President Yeltsin on 5 October. (John Lepingwell, RFE/RL, Inc.)
UPCOMING CIS SUMMIT. Sapurmurad Niyazov, president of
Turkmenistan, has announced that he will not be attending the CIS
summit in Bishkek on 9 October, Interfax reported. Turkmenistan
will be represented instead by the chairman of the republic's
parliament. Turkmenistan is against the creation of any
coordinating bodies which will be one of the major topics of
discussion at the summit. The Azerbaijan parliament is to discuss
Azerbaijan's membership of the CIS on 7 October, and the outcome
is likely to determine whether or not the Azerbaijani president,
Abulfaz Elchibei, attends the summit. The Moldovan president
Mircea Snegur is to attend, although the Moldovan parliament has
still not ratified the CIS treaty. (Ann Sheehy, RFE/RL, Inc.)
AKAEV ON CIS SUMMIT. At a press conference in Bishkek on 6
October, Kyrgyz President Askar Akaev said that the authority of
the CIS was undermined by the fact that many decisions were not
implemented not only because the decisions themselves were
imperfect, but because of the amorphous nature of the CIS's
structures, ITAR-TASS reported. Akaev said that the planned
establishment of a consultative coordination economic council and
economic court was extremely important to arrest economic decline
in the CIS states. The creation of the council seems unlikely,
however, given President Yeltsin's reluctance to force the issue,
presumably out of a desire not to antagonize Ukraine. (Ann
Sheehy, RFE/RL, Inc.)
CRIMEAN TATARS CLASH WITH POLICE IN SIMFEROPOL. On 6 October,
Crimean Tatars occupied the Simferopol Supreme Soviet building in
an effort to obtain the release of Tatars detained in a clash with
police in Alushta on 1 October, a spokeswoman for the Crimean
Tatar parliament told an RL/RFE correspondent in Moscow.
According to the spokeswoman, police wounded some of the
protesters when they used clubs, water cannon, tear gas, and
firearms against them; these charges were not, however, confirmed
by Crimean officials. The spokeswoman also reported that 5,000
Tatars were holding a rally in the Simferopol central square, and
that Mustafa Dzemilyou, chairman of the Crimean Tatar parliament,
urged demonstrators to establish self-defense units to resist
Crimean authorities. (Hal Kosiba, RFE/RL, Inc.)
MOLDOVA REQUESTS U.N. ATTENDANCE AT TROOP TALKS WITH RUSSIA. In
successive messages addressed to U.N. Secretary-General Boutros
Ghali on 2 and 5 October, reported by Moldovapres, President
Mircea Snegur and Foreign Minister Nicolae Tiu requested that the
U.N. delegate observers to attend the Moldovan-Russian
negotiations on the withdrawal of Russia's 14th Army stationed in
eastern Moldova. Noting that the negotiations conducted over the
last two months have seen "only very little movement," the
Moldovan leaders asked that the U.N. delegates "give an impetus to
the talks," "see them through to their completion," and
"participate in the verification of the withdrawal of Russian
forces from Moldova once agreement has been reached." (Vladimir
Socor, RFE/RL, Inc.)
MAJOR OIL PIPELINE DAMAGED IN GEORGIA. The main oil pipeline from
Azerbaijan to the Black Sea has been badly damaged near the
south-west Georgian town of Lanchkhuta, some 50 kilometers from
the terminal at Batumi; a 30 meter high fountain of oil is gushing
from the leak, RIA reported on 6 October. The cause of the damage
was not specified. (Liz Fuller, RFE/RL, Inc.)
CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE
SECURITY COUNCIL TO SET UP WAR CRIMES COMMISSION. In a unanimous
vote on 6 October, the UN body voted to set up a commission to
collect evidence of war crimes in the former Yugoslavia, the first
such group to be established since the end of World War II. The
aim of the measure is to prevent further violence by letting the
perpetrators know they will be held responsible for their actions.
The 7 October New York Times says that the commission will
probably look for concrete violations of the 1949 Geneva
conventions dealing with prisoners of war and with civilians in
war zones, as well as for violations of the principles established
during the Nuremberg trials of Nazi leaders. The BBC pointed out,
however, that the measure is a preliminary one and lacks any clear
means of enforcement. Reuters on 6 October nonetheless quoted
Russian ambassador to the UN Yulii Vorontsov as saying that "if
more teeth will be needed, they will be added." (Patrick Moore,
RFE/RL, Inc.)
SERBS TAKE STRATEGIC BOSNIAN TOWN. International media reported on
6 October that Serbian forces occupied Bosanski Brod in the middle
of northern Bosnia opposite Croatia. It is a major strategic loss
for both Bosnia and Croatia, and considerably strengthens the land
corridor connecting Serbia with Serbian enclaves in the two
neighboring republics. This leaves Brcko and Gradacac as among
the few remaining towns held by Croatian and Muslim forces in
northern Bosnia. (Patrick Moore, RFE/RL, Inc.)
WILL BOSNIAN SERBS SUSPEND MILITARY FLIGHTS? On 6 October in
Geneva, representatives of the self-proclaimed Serb Republic of
Bosnia-Herzegovina agreed to suspend military flights over
Bosnia-Herzegovina. The decision comes one day before the UN
security council is scheduled to discuss the setting up of a
"no-fly" zone over Bosnia, which Bosnian Serbs oppose. Aleksa
Buha, "foreign minister" of the Serb republic, stated the
suspension will take effect immediately but warned "If the other
side takes advantage of our decision, the flights will be
resumed." He explained the Serb delegation has agreed to suspend
military flights in line with the London conference determination
that humanitarian aid must not be used to the detriment of any of
the sides in the conflict. Radio Serbia carried the report.
(Milan Andrejevich, RFE/RL, Inc.)
BOSNIAN SERBS ON THE FUTURE SHAPE ON BOSNIA. Buha also said that
at the talks on Yugoslavia in Geneva the Serbs reiterated their
views on the future constitutional system of Bosnia-Herzegovina,
which call for the establishment of a community of three national
states. Most economic, political, and security functions would be
regulated by the individual national units, while transportation,
energy, the ecology, and human rights would be handled jointly
from Sarajevo. Buha also talked about plans to divide Sarajevo
into Serb and Muslim parts. Meanwhile, on 6 October, Sarajevo Serb
leaders established a body, the "City Assembly of Serb Sarajevo,"
for the administration of the part of the city they control. Radio
Serbia carried the reports. (Milan Andrejevich, RFE/RL, Inc.)
HUNGARY AND THE EMBARGO. Janos Nagy, deputy commander of the
Customs and Excise Office, reported that 10 to 12 trucks a day try
to cross the border with rump Yugoslavia carrying goods in
violation of the UN embargo. He said that customs officers have
also held up two freighters on the Danube and 117 railway
deliveries since the embargo was imposed on 1 June. Nagy said
that Hungarian customs officers are doing everything in their
power to implement the embargo and make others observe it too,
Radio Budapest and MTI report. (Edith Oltay, RFE/RL, Inc.)
REPUBLICAN PREMIERS CONFIRM CZECHOSLOVAK BREAKUP. An eight-hour
meeting between the leaderships of the Civic Democratic Party
(CDP) and the Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (MDS) held on 6
October in the Moravian town of Jihlava resulted in the signing of
an agreement by the Czech and Slovak Prime Ministers, Vaclav Klaus
and Vladimir Meciar. Both leaders made it clear that the main
purpose of the meeting was to reestablish trust between the
republican leaderships after Meciar's MDS joined the opposition to
vote for establishing a commission on creating a Czech and Slovak
Union in the federal parliament. The document signed in Jihlava
basically confirms earlier agreements between the two parties,
saying that Czechoslovakia will cease to exist on 1 January 1993.
It also states that a series of treaties specifying the bilateral
relationship between the two new states, would go into effect on
that day. At a press conference following the meeting, Klaus and
Meciar said that further debates on a "union" were unrealistic.
Revoking statements made earlier this week, Meciar also said that
the question of whether there should be a federal budget for 1993
"was not an issue." The two republican leaders also agreed to
establish special commissions to deal with open questions such as
the distribution of federal property. The agreement does not
define specific terms for Czechoslovakia's split. (Jan Obrman,
RFE/RL, Inc.)
ANTALL MEETS HUNGARIAN PARTY LEADERS FROM SLOVAKIA. Prime
Minister Jozsef Antall held talks on 6 October with coalition
leaders from Coexistence, the Hungarian Christian Democratic
Movement, and the Hungarian People's Party. The talks focused on
political developments in the Czech and Slovak republics and the
situation of the Hungarian minority in Slovakia. Antall
reiterated that his government has no intention of isolating
Slovakia and seeks to promote its integration into Europe. Antall
and the party leaders agreed, according to MTI, "that the
situation of the Hungarian minority in Slovakia should be settled
. . considering the principle of self-government." The party
leaders from Slovakia advocated the convening of an international
conference on East Central Europe to discuss the problems of
democratic transformation and the protection of minority rights.
(Edith Oltay, RFE/RL, Inc.)
ROMANIAN ELECTORAL RESULTS. On 7 October, after a recount of
nullified votes, the Central Electoral Bureau released the final
results of the 27 September parliamentary elections. In the
Chamber of Deputies the Democratic National Salvation Front (DNSF)
received 27.71% of the votes followed by the Democratic Convention
of Romania (DCR) with 20.01%; the National Salvation Front (NSF),
with 10.18%; the Party of Romanian National Unity (PRNU), with
7.71%; the Hungarian Democratic Federation of Romania (HDFR), with
7.45%; the Greater Romania Party (GRP), with 3.89%; and the
Socialist Labor Party (SLP) with 3.03%. In the Senate the DNSF is
the strongest party, with 28.29%, followed by the DCR (20.16%);
the NSF (10.38%); the PRNU (8.12%); the HDFR (7.58%); the GRP
(3.85%); the Democratic Agrarian Party (3.30%) and the SLP
(3.18%). (Michael Shafir, RFE/RL, Inc.).
ROMANIAN CENTRAL ELECTORAL BUREAU MEMBER RESIGNS IN PROTEST.
Tudor Florescu, who represented the Convention of Social
Solidarity party on the Central Electoral Bureau, resigned in
protest against what he termed "information . . . leading me to
the conviction that the elections were not correct," Rompres
reported on 6 October. (Michael Shafir, RFE/RL, Inc.)
CONSTANTINESCU ON THE HUSTINGS. Answering listeners' questions in
the campaign for the second round in Romania's presidential
elections, DCR candidate Emil Constantinescu said that in the
future Romania must be integrated into NATO military structures.
He also said that the decision of the US Congress not to approve
the MFN status for Romania was legitimate and follows from the
failure of the country's leadership to convince Congress of its
genuine commitment to reform. Constantinescu again denied that he
had been a member of the nomenklatura under Ceausescu's regime.
(Michael Shafir, RFE/RL, Inc.).
POLISH GOVERNMENT COMPLETES PLAN FOR AGRICULTURE. The Polish
cabinet put its seal of approval on the last of the government's
five priority action plans, "opportunities for the village and
agriculture," on 6 October. Prime Minister Hanna Suchocka is
scheduled to present a full report on the government's plans to
the Sejm on 9 October. The government proposes maintaining
guaranteed minimum prices on grain and milk; the gradual
replacement of preferential credits for farmers with credits
earmarked for modernization and investment; the privatization of
food processing industries; and the imposition of new duties to
protect Polish farmers from competition from subsidized EC
imports. Agriculture Minister Gabriel Janowski stressed that
individual family farms would remain the foundation of Polish
agriculture. (Louisa Vinton, RFE/RL, Inc.)
TALKS OPEN ON POLAND'S "PACT ON STATE FIRMS." Tripartite
negotiations on the government's proposed "pact on state firms"
among employers, unions, and the labor and finance ministers
opened on 6 October. The former official OPZZ federation and 11
other national unions took part in morning sessions; Solidarity,
which has refused to sit at the same table with the postcommunist
unions, attended in the afternoon. Eight unions, including the
OPZZ and Solidarity '80, walked out of one of three thematic
working groups, arguing that the government had been late in
providing them with its outline economic plan for 1993. This
seemed a pretext designed to show the unions' mettle in
confronting the government. The dual structure of the talks
impeded progress, PAP reported, as the government was unable to
provide an immediate response to union counterproposals. (Louisa
Vinton, RFE/RL, Inc.)
SOFIA REQUESTS HIGHER EXPORT QUOTA FROM THE EC. In the next round
of negotiations on an association agreement with the European
Community, scheduled for 15-16 October, Bulgaria will ask to be
granted higher export quotas, according to Deputy Trade Minister
Svetoslav Daskalov. In an interview with Die Presse published on 6
October, Daskalov explained that the new Bulgarian position cites
the country's fine political record, which has also been
arian border guards,
reportehat some 900,000 foreigners have been turned back at the
border in the past 12 months, a year after increased border
controls took effect in Hungary. The foreigners lack travel
documents or money to finance their stay in Hungary. The great
majority--some 798,000--were Romanian citizens, 27,000 came from
the CIS states, 25,000 were Poles, 17,000 were Bulgarians, and the
remaining 33,000 came from the Third World. MTI carried the
report. (Edith Oltay, RFE/RL, Inc.)
MASS GRAVES FOUND IN ALBANIA. Six mass graves with the remains of
as many as 2,000 bodies have been discovered in Shkoder, ATA and
foreign agencies report. About 40 bodies of opponents of Albania's
communist regime have been identified by a joint committee of
former political prisoners and police, but the process is slow and
difficult because the former regime falsified records to hide
evidence of the killings. Shkoder, a predominately Catholic city
in the northwest of the country, was a center of resistance to
communism after World War II. (Charles Trumbull, R.)
RUSSIA WANTS TO KEEP SKRUNDA WARNING RR. On 6 October at the
Baltic Security Conference in Salzburg spred by the RFE/RL
Research Institute, Russian First Deputy Fon Minister Fedor
Shelov-Kovedayev stated that Russia wants to maintain access to
the Skrunda ballistic missile early warning radar station in
Latvtated that the Skrunda radar is "not object of
discussion" with Russia. (John Lepingwell, RFE/RL, I
novine.60.bale.,
New York Times: October 7.
Danas nam John Burns kroz price o Kemalu Kurspahicu, Fuadu
Kovacevicu i Vladimiru Staki prica o nevjerovatnom kontinuiranom
izlazenju sarajevskog casopisa Oslobodjenje. Izmedju ostalog Vladimir
Staka kaze: " Moji srpski korijeni su irelevantni, najmanje u ovom.
Sta je vazno je to sto se ovdje desava, a to je jednostavno. Grad u
kome zivim, grad u kojem sam rodjen, je teroriziran od militarista.
Svaki dan gledam najstravicinje stvari - djecu iskasapljenu arti-
ljerijskim granatama i mortarima, ljude sa raznesenim nogama, ljude
koji su vec izgubili majke i oceve, njihove kcerke i sinove."
Paul Lewis iz UN javlja detalje rezolucije o ratnim zlocinima.
Izmedju ostalog kaze da bi se sudjenja trebala odvijati u Bosni ili
nekoj drugoj balkanskoj drzavi. Rezolucija definise tri skupa inter-
nacionalnih zlocina:
1. Zlocini protiv mira, koji ukljucuju planiranje ili
vodjenje "rata-agresije ili vrsenje povrede inter-
nacionalnih ugovora, dogovora ili sporazuma";
2. Ratni zlocini koji ukljucuju zlostavljanje civila
ili ratnih zarobljenika;
3. zlocini protiv covjecnosti, koji ukljucuju "ubistva,
istrebljivanje, porobljavanje, deportaciju ili druge
nehumana djela ucinjena nad bilo kojom civilnom popu-
lacijom".
U danasnjem New York Times-u takodje mozete naci i tekst UN
rezolucije: "A War-Crimes Board for the Balkans".
novine.61.bale.,
The New York Times
Op-Ed, Thursday, October 8, 1992, page A35
Why Generals Get Nervous
By Colin L.Powel,
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Dateline: Washington.
There has been a spate of commentary recently
over the use of American military force to deal with the
vexing problems of an untidy post-cold war world. The mili-
tary has been criticized for being too reluctant to use force.
In a recent editorial, for example, The New York Times
suggested that the military has a "no can do" attitude and
asked whether America is getting a fair return on its defense,
investment.
The editorial even reached back to the famous exchange
between President Lincoln and General McClellan urging the
Civil War. Lincoln, frustrated with McClellan's slowness in
engaging the enemy, told him, "If you don't want to use the
Army, I should like to borrow it for a while."
Let me respond by reviewing a little more recent history.
During the past three years U.S. armed forces have been used
repeatedly to defend our interests and achieve our political
objectives. In December 1989, a dictator was removed from
power in Panama. In that same month, when a coup threatened
to topple democracy in the Philippines, a limited use of force
helped prevent it.
In January 1991, a daring night raid rescued our embassy
in Somalia. That same month, we rescued stranded foreigners
and protected our embassy in Liberia. We waged a major war in
the Persian Gulf to liberate Kuwait. Moreover, we have used
our forces for humanitarian relief operations in Iraq,
Somalia, Bangladesh, Russia and Bosnia. American C-130
aircraft are part of the relief effort in Sarajevo.
All of these operations had one thing in common: they
were successful. There have been no Bay of Pigs, failed desert
raids, Beirut bombings, and no Vietnams. Today, American
troops around the world are protecting the peace in Europe,
the Persian Gulf, Korea, Cambodia, the Sinai and the western
Sahara.
Unwilling to use the armed forces? Tell that to our
troops who are constantly being deployed to accomplish these
missions. Americans know they are getting a hell of a return
on their defense investment, even as the critics shout for
imprudent reductions that would gut the armed forces.
The reason for our success is that in every instance we
have carefully matched the use of military force to our
political objectives. President Bush, more than any other
recent President, understands the proper use of military
force. In every instance, he has made sure that the objective
was clear and that we knew what we were getting into. We owe
it to the men and women who go in harm's way to make sure that
their lives are not squandered for unclear purposes.
Military men and women recognize more than most people
that not every situation will be crystal clear. We can and do
operate in murky, unpredictable circumstances. We offer a
range options. But we also recognize that military force is
not always the right answer. If force is used imprecisely or
out of frustration rather than clear analysis, the situation
can be made worse.
Decisive means and results are always to be preferred,
even if they are not always possible. So you bet I get
nervous when so-called experts suggest that all we need is a
little surgical bombing or a limited attack. When the desired
result isn't obtained, a new set of experts then comes forward
with talk of a little escalation. History has not been kind
to this approach.
The crisis in Bosnia is especially complex. Our policy
and the policy of the international community have been to
assist in providing humanitarian relief to the victims of that
terrible conflict, one with deep ethnic and religious roots
that go back a thousand years. The solution must ultimately
be a political one. Deeper military involvement beyond hu-
manitarian purposes requires great care and a full examination
of possible outcomes. That is what we have been doing.
Whatever is decided on this or the other challenges that
will come along, Americans can be sure that their armed forces
will be ready, willing and able to accomplish the mission.
Finally, allow me to set the record straight on President
Lincoln's frustration with General McClellan. Lincoln's
problem with McClellan was that McClellan would not use the
overwhelming force available to him to achieve a decisive
result. Lincoln had set out clear political objectives.
McClellan acted in a limited, inconclusive way.
We have learned the proper lessons history, even If
some journalists have not.
novine.62.bale.,
RFE/RL Daily Report
No. 194, 8 October 1992
SUCCESSOR STATES TO THE USSR
GEORGIA ACCUSES RUSSIA OF SUPPLYING ABKHAZ FORCES.
Georgian reinforcements were sent to Sukhumi on 7 October in
anticipation of an attack by Abkhaz forces. Georgian
security officials charged that Russia had begun airlifting
military equipment out of Georgia from a military airfield
near Kutaisi, and was sending ultra-modern T-72 and T-80
tanks to the Abkhaz, Western agencies reported. Russian
Defense Minister Pavel Grachev told Interfax that the tanks
originated from "another state located to the north of
Abkhazia"; a Ukrainian spokesman denied involvement.
President Yeltsin telephoned Georgian State Council Chairman
Eduard Shevardnadze on 7 October; their conversation was
described by ITAR-TASS as "extremely sharp and frank."
Georgian First Deputy Foreign Minister Tedo Dzhaparidze
submitted a formal request to the UN Security Council to
address the Abkhaz crisis. (Liz Fuller, RFE/RL, Inc.)
RUSSIAN CABINET DELAYS ADOPTION OF ECONOMIC
RESTRUCTURING PLAN. At a cabinet meeting on 7 October,
Russian President Boris Yeltsin reiterated some of the main
points of his speech to the parliament on 6 October.
According to Interfax, he emphasized priority for a better
social safety net and the preservation of Russia's "unique
industrial and scientific potential" (read
"defense-industrial complex"). After listening to Yeltsin's
statement, the cabinet decided to delay consideration of the
economic restructuring plan for 1993 that had been drawn up
by Economics Minister Andrei Nechaev. Nechaev was one of four
cabinet ministers who were sharply criticized in Yeltsin's
speech to the parliament. (Keith Bush, RFE/RL, Inc.)
YELTSIN WARNS ESTONIA, LATVIA ON TROOP WITHDRAWALS.
President Boris Yeltsin stated on October 7 that no troop
withdrawal agreements will be signed with Estonia and Latvia
until they provide greater "minority rights" for Russians.
Yeltsin accused the two states of gross violations of the
rights of their Russian minorities, and stated that
negotiations with Estonian and Latvian representatives had
been fruitless, according to an Interfax report. He urged
Estonia and Latvia to adopt legislation similar to that of
Lithuania, with which Russia recently concluded a troop
withdrawal agreement. (John Lepingwell, RFE/RL, Inc.)
GENERAL SAYS RUSSIAN MILITARY MUST PROTECT RUSSIANS IN
FORMER USSR. Col. General Vladimir Toporov, a Russian deputy
defense minister, told ITAR-TASS on 7 October that "the
Russian military must guarantee the safety of Russian
citizens and take them under its protection." He was
justifying the presence of Russian troops in Tajikistan. He
said that "Russian-speaking people" were hostage to all the
inter-ethnic conflicts on the territory of the former Soviet
Union, and the military could not be indifferent to their
fate. (Doug Clarke, RFE/RL, Inc.)
SHAPOSHNIKOV ON DEFENSE MINISTERS' MEETING AT BISHKEK.
According to an Interfax report of 7 October, CIS Commander
in Chief Shaposhnikov is pleased with the results of the
meeting of the CIS defense ministers held in Bishkek.
Shaposhnikov reported that two draft agreements had been
prepared, one creating a "doctrine for the collective
security of the CIS states" and the other reorganizing the
CIS command structure. No agreement has yet been reached on
the control of nuclear weapons, however, and the issue will
be referred to the heads of state for discussion. According
to an article in Nezavisimaya Gazeta on October 8,
Shaposhnikov says he is prepared to immediately transfer all
nuclear launch codes to the Russian Defense Ministry if the
other CIS nuclear states agree. (John Lepingwell, RFE/RL,
Inc.)
UKRAINE BALKS ON CIS NUCLEAR ARMS ACCORD. Ukrainian
negotiators at the preparatory meeting for the 9 October CIS
summit in Bishkek, Kirgyzstan have balked at the proposals
for creating a framework of common agencies to be in control
of the CIS strategic nuclear forces. Interfax reported on 7
October that this means the proposal for pooling the nuclear
arsenal of the former USSR will have to be taken up by the
CIS presidents. Last month Ukrainian President Leonid
Kravchuk rejected a call for increased Russian control over
nuclear weapons. (Doug Clarke, RFE/RL, Inc.)
YELTSIN ON KURIL ISLANDS. Interfax reported on 7 October
a statement by President Yeltsin that a significant change in
the hitherto intransigent Japanese position on the Kuril
islands may be possible. Specifically, Yeltsin said that
there were some in Japan who were now proposing a formula
whereby a peace treaty would be signed and, subsequent to
that, the 1956 Soviet-Japanese agreement would become the
basis for a resolution of the dispute over the islands. The
1956 agreement made Russian recognition of Japanese
sovereignty over two of the four islands (Shikotan and
Habomai) a precondition for the signing of a peace treaty. If
true, such a proposal would mark a major reversal in Tokyo's
position. Yeltsin said he would visit Japan under such
conditions. (Stephen Foye, RFE/RL, Inc.)
EXPORT DUTIES TO REPLACE EXPORT QUOTAS IN RUSSIA.
Russian Minister of Foreign Economic Relations Petr Aven told
the cabinet meeting on 7 October that export quotas will be
abolished for most goods beginning in 1993, ITAR-TASS
reported. Export quotas will be maintained only for oil and
petroleum products, gas, some non-ferrous metals, and
chemical products. The main method of controlling exports
will be through export duties. Aven said that duties will be
gradually decreased and will be abolished when Russian
industry adapts to world prices for raw materials and energy
resources. (Keith Bush, RFE/RL, Inc.)
RUSSIAN OIL EXPORTS TO CIS DEFAULTERS TO BE CUT? At a
Moscow meeting of Russian oil producers on 7 October, Deputy
Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin warned former Soviet
republics who were in arrears with payments for oil
deliveries that they could face a cut-off of oil shipments if
they did not pay their bills by 12 October, Interfax
reported. In the future, pre-payments will be required for
Russian oil shipments. Chernomyrdin said that the Russian
fuel and energy complex was owed 640 billion rubles at the
beginning of October and that CIS members were responsible
for "a substantial part" of this debt. Economics Minister
Andrei Nechaev had earlier predicted that Russian oil exports
to the former Soviet republics would be halved next year.
(Keith Bush, RFE/RL, Inc.)
REPATRIATION OF HARD CURRENCY TO RUSSIA. Acting Russian
Central Bank Chairman Viktor Gerashchenko was quoted by
Interfax on 7 October as approving a government plan to
repatriate hard currency stashed away by Russian enterprises
in foreign bank accounts. The plan is to take effect on 1
January 1993, but its details have not been disclosed.
Economic Adviser Aleksei Ulyukaev told the latest edition of
Literaturnaya gazeta that while export revenues amount to
some $3 billion a month, only $300 million is sold each month
on Russian currency exchanges. (Keith Bush, RFE/RL, Inc.)
PARLIAMENT FAILS TO APPROVE BILL ON FORMING GOVERNMENT.
The Russian parliament did not approve after an initial
reading a draft law on "the Council of Ministers--Government
of the Russian Federation," ITAR-TASS reported on 7 October.
The agency said deputies decided to set up a working group to
revise the draft. President Yeltsin wants to limit the
parliament's ability to overrule presidential appointments to
ministerial posts. The parliament wants greater authority in
the selection and approval of ministers. ITAR-TASS quoted a
statement by the chairman of the parliament's legislative
committee, Mikhail Mityukov, that the draft left a leading
role to the president in forming the government, but did not
allow him to take over the post of prime minister. Current
regulations provide for such a possibility. Mityukov said
the draft called for the prime minister to be appointed or
removed only with parliamentary approval. (Vera Tolz,
RFE/RL, Inc.)
YELTSIN TRANSFERS CONTROL OF GORBACHEV FOUNDATION
PREMISES. On 7 October, President Yeltsin signed a decree
handing over a five-building complex previously used by the
Gorbachev Foundation to the newly established Russian
Federation Financial Academy, according to "Novosti."
Interfax reported that the foundation will be allowed to rent
part of the space in question. On 6 October, Yeltsin had
criticized "some of the newly founded foundations" for
"occupying premises that are too spacious for them." After
Gorbachev resigned his post as USSR president, Yeltsin
confiscated Gorbachev's apartment and country house; later,
he replaced Gorbachev's limousine with a smaller car. Both
the Gorbachev Foundation and the limousine were part of
Gorbachev's retirement settlement. On 30 September, while
announcing that he might make a political comeback, Gorbachev
had called Yeltsin "a loss" and the latter's privatization
plan "a deception." (Julia Wishnevsky, RFE/RL, Inc.)
KINKEL AND ETHNIC GERMANS. On the second and last day of
his visit to Moscow German foreign minister Klaus Kinkel
discussed the problem of the Russian Germans with President
Yeltsin, ITAR-TASS and Western agencies reported on 7
October. Yeltsin assured Kinkel that he was personally
devoting great attention to the problem and that the
political will was there to reestablish German autonomy on
the Volga, but there were economic difficulties and
opposition from non-Germans living in the area. At a meeting
with the leaders of three Russian-German associations, Kinkel
said that the state of relations between Germany and Russia
would depend to a large extent on the resolution of the
problems of the Germans in Russia. (Ann Sheehy, RFE/RL, Inc.)
CIS DELEGATION LEAVES TAJIKISTAN. A delegation of
representatives of the presidents of Armenia, Kazakhstan,
Russia, and Uzbekistan headed by Kyrgyzstan Vice President
Feliks Kulov left Tajikistan on 8 October, Khovar-TASS
reported. The delegation had two days of intensive talks
with the republic's leadership, political parties, army
commanders, the Muslim kadi, and then visited Kurgan-Tyube
and Kulyab. Kulov said that all sides had agreed to the
introduction of peace-keeping forces, and the results of the
visit would be presented to the CIS summit in Bishkek. (Ann
Sheehy, RFE/RL, Inc.)
ASSIGNMENTS FOR SECURITY OFFICIALS IN STATE APPARATUS.
President Yeltsin has established an administrative framework
through which high-ranking KGB, MVD, and military officers
may be assigned as consultants and advisors to other
government and state institutions without leaving active
service, according to a presidential edict published in
Rossiiskaya gazeta, on 29 September. In explaining the
measure, the edict cites personnel cuts among senior officer
corps in the Russian Ministries of Security, Interior
Affairs, and Defense. Although the officers will obtain
positions as consultants and advisers, they will be not
demobilized and will retain dual subordination to the civil
government and their appropriate ministries. (Victor
Yasmann, RFE/RL, Inc.)
TENSION IN THE CRIMEA. Ukraine has deployed National
Guard units in the Crimea in response to the rising tension
there between the Crimean Tatars and local authorities,
Ukrinform-TASS reported on 7 October. Crimean Tatar
demonstrators attempted to storm the parliamentary building
in Simferopol. According to the report, those taking part in
the attack were armed. In the meantime, the Crimean Tatar
Mejlis has called for a "mobilization of all forces" and
ordered all Crimean Tatars serving outside the republic to
return to the Crimea and join self-defense units. The
conflict, which stems from the destruction of Crimean Tatar
homes on the territory of a local state farm, is scheduled to
be discussed by the Crimean parliament on 8 October. (Roman
Solchanyk, RFE/RL, Inc.)
STUDENT ACTION IN KIEV. The Union of Ukrainian Students
(SUS) on 6 October marked the second anniversary of the 1990
student hunger strike by putting up a tent city in the
Ukrainian capital's central square, Ukrainian television
reported. The students are demanding new parliamentary
elections in the spring of 1993 and Ukraine's withdrawal from
the CIS. Interfax quotes a student leader as saying that the
students are also supporting President Leonid Kravchuk's
stand against closer integration of the CIS member states.
(Roman Solchanyk, RFE/RL, Inc.)
AZERBAIJAN NATIONAL COUNCIL VOTES AGAINST CIS
MEMBERSHIP. Azerbaijan's National Council, which is
functioning as the country's supreme legislative body pending
new parliamentary elections, voted on 7 October by 43 votes
to one against membership of the CIS, the Turan news agency
reported. Former President Ayaz Mutalibov had signed the
Alma-Ata agreement in December, 1991, but it was never
ratified by the Azerbaijani parliament. Azerbaijan will
nonetheless send an observer to the Bishkek summit. (Liz
Fuller, RFE/RL, Inc.)
LEFT-BANK MOLDOVANS DEMAND REINSTATEMENT OF LATIN
ALPHABET. In most of Moldova's area on the left bank of the
Dniester, controlled by insurgents of the Russian minority,
Moldovans continue to protest against the reimposition of the
Russian alphabet in place of the Latin used in "Moldovan"
(i.e. Romanian) language schools. School teachers and
pupils are in the third week of a protest strike in schools
in Grigoriopol and Slobozia raions. Parents from those as
well as Dubasari and Rabnita raions have addressed appeals
with thousands of signatures to the United Nations and to the
US and Russian embassies in Chisinau urging the reinstatement
of the Latin alphabet and of Moldovan school textbooks and
the dispatch of human rights investigators to
insurgent-controlled areas. (Vladimir Socor, RFE/RL, Inc.)
CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE
BOSNIA UPDATE. International media and Radio Serbia
report on 8 October that the US has agreed to a
British-French proposal calling for a UN resolution to ban
all Serbian military flights over Bosnia-Herzegovina. The
draft stops short of calling for the shooting down of
violators but rather creates a two-stage process for
enforcement. If the Serbs continue to fly combat planes, the
Security Council will "urgently" consider further measures,
presumably authorizing use of Allied warplanes to enforce the
ban. The draft also provides for extensive monitoring. The
Security Council is expected to take a vote on the new draft
resolution on 9 October. Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic
told UN-EC negotiators in Geneva that the Serb air force has
suspended sorties on the condition that the Bosnian Muslims
halt their military offensives; he described the draft
resolution as "pointless." Meanwhile, talks between the three
warring parties about the demilitarization of Sarajevo opened
in the besieged city, but no details have been made
available. On 7 October, Teheran radio quoted Iran's
spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as saying that the
West should allow Iran to send fighters to help Bosnian
Muslims. (Milan Andrejevich, RFE/RL, Inc.)
SANCTION TEAM ARRIVES IN ROMANIA. A communiqui released
by the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs on 7 October
quoted by Radio Bucharest says the first team of
international observers of sanctions against the former
Yugoslavia has arrived in Romania and begun its work. The
team comprises two US experts. It will be followed by another
American team as well as a Turkish and an Austrian team.
(Michael Shafir, RFE/RL, Inc.).
ESTONIAN PRESIDENT'S MAIDEN SPEECH. In his first speech
to the new Estonian State Assembly (Riigikogu) on 6 October,
widely reported in the local press, President Lennart Meri
called for a "rapid, orderly and complete" withdrawal of
foreign military forces from Estonian territory. Meri
highlighted the need to speed market reforms, saying economic
hardship will end when the Estonian people "begin to believe
in [their] own strength and begin to stand on [their] own two
feet." Meri, who was elected president on 6 October in a
59-31 vote in parliament, also stressed that Estonia is a
Rechtsstaat, saying that the state "guarantees citizens'
rights to all its citizens, and human rights to all peoples."
(Riina Kionka, RFE/RL, Inc.)
ESTONIAN PARLIAMENT ENDS TRANSITION PERIOD. The State
Assembly on 7 October declared the end of the transition
period to full independence declared on 30 March 1990, BNS
reports. In a resolution restoring constitutional state
powers, the parliament announced legal continuity between the
interwar republic and the current state, and accepted the
resignation of Prime Minister-in-Exile Heinrich Mark. Next
week, President Lennart Meri is expected to announce his
choice of prime minister, who will, in turn, form the new
government. (Riina Kionka, RFE/RL, Inc.)
SUCHOCKA AT NATO. After meeting with NATO Secretary
General Manfred Woerner in Brussels on 7 October, Polish
Prime Minister Hanna Suchocka predicted that Poland will be
able to join NATO before it manages to gain full membership
in the EC. In a speech to NATO ambassadors, Suchocka said
that the Visegrad triangle countries appreciate the contacts
they have had with NATO since the fall of communism, but that
Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia expected in time to be
given "increasingly substantial commitments leading to
integration with the Atlantic security system." Full
membership is the eventual goal. Suchocka also met with King
Baudouin of Belgium. She is to meet with EC leaders on 8
October. (Louisa Vinton, RFE/RL, Inc.)
NATO DOES NOT FEAR CZECHOSLOVAK DISINTEGRATION. Gen.
Dieter Clauss, deputy commander in chief of NATO forces in
Europe, told reporters in Prague on 7 October that Czechs and
Slovaks have to decide themselves if they want to live in one
or two states. He said that the division of the Czechoslovak
armed forces is being carried out in a "civilized and
democratic manner." Clauss made it clear that NATO is
preparing to establish "intensive cooperation" with both new
armies. CSTK quoted him as saying that if the relationship
between the future Czech and Slovak armies will be good, than
there was ample room for cooperation with NATO. Gen. Clauss
is on a three-day official visit to Czechoslovakia. (Jan
Obrman, RFE/RL, Inc.)
US OFFICIAL ASSURES SLOVAKIA OF CONTINUED AID. Robert
Hutchings, a special State Department adviser on assistance
to Eastern Europe, told Slovak cabinet members on 7 October
that he expects aid to Slovakia to continue at current levels
after Czechoslovakia's dissolution, Reuters reports.
Hutchings, who is leading a nine-member US delegation to
Slovakia, discussed various projects with Slovak government
members, including the creation of jobs in small and
medium-sized businesses and the conversion of arms production
sites. (Jan Obrman, RFE/RL, Inc.)
MECIAR ON MINORITIES IN SLOVAKIA. Slovak Prime Minister
Vladimir Meciar said in an interview with the Hungarian
section of Slovak Radio on 6 October that ethnic minorities
are an integral part of Slovak society. He said that
minorities enjoy the same rights and have the same
obligations as the rest of the population and added that they
should in fact have "even wider rights in order to preserve
their identity." The prime minister said he believes that
such extended rights for minorities are embedded in the new
Slovak constitution, which went into effect on 1 October.
Meciar also said that the Hungarian minority has the right to
receive education in its native language but that the
introduction of Hungarian-language universities is impossible
for economic reasons. Representatives of the 600,000 ethnic
Hungarians living in Slovakia have criticized the new Slovak
leadership for not taking into account their interests. (Jan
Obrman, RFE/RL, Inc.)
ANTALL CONFERS WITH AUSTRIAN CHANCELLOR. Hungarian Prime
Minister Jozsef Antall met his Austrian counterpart Franz
Vranitzky in Eisenstadt, Austria, to discuss the details of a
Hungarian-Austrian economic agreement, Radio Budapest
reports. Hungary seeks to expand exports of farm products to
Austria by 10% and to increase the quota of Hungarian workers
allowed to work in Austria. The leaders told a press
conference that the economic agreement will be worked out by
the end of the year. The agreement is especially important
for Hungary since Austria is its largest Western trading
partner. (Edith Oltay, RFE/RL, Inc.)
ILIESCU'S PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN. Answering questions
from the public on 6 October, incumbent Romanian president
Ion Iliescu said in a live broadcast on Romanian TV that the
next phase of price rises scheduled for 1 January should be
postponed until the spring. Iliescu denied that Romania's
foreign relations have been adversely prejudiced by a
"communist" image cast by himself and the country's policies.
At a rally in Cluj on 7 October, Iliescu was evidently
courting the nationalist vote backing mayor Gheorghe Funar,
who was eliminated from the presidential contest after the
first round of voting. (Michael Shafir, RFE/RL, Inc.).
ROMANIA'S PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES DEBATE ON TV. A debate
on television on 7 October between Iliescu and challenger
Emil Constantinescu turned into an acrimonious attempt to
discredit each other's records. Iliescu reiterated his
accusation that Constantinescu had been a member of the
nomenklatura, accused him of having changed his mind on the
monarchy and of now posing as a republican, and claimed that
Constantinescu refused to endorse Romania's definition as a
"national" state. Constantinescu, in turn, said Iliescu was
posing as a past "dissident" and was "mystifying" his record
under Ceausescu and covering up the events that followed
Ceausescu's overthrow, which resulted in many unclarified
deaths. (Michael Shafir, RFE/RL, Inc.)
MORE BULGARIAN EX-COMMUNIST LEADERS ON TRIAL. On 7
October a trial opened against former Prime Minister Georgi
Atanasov and former Minister of Economy and Planning Stoyan
Ovcharov, both charged with embezzlement, Western agencies
report. Atanasov and Ovcharov are accused of having granted
210,000 leva (roughly $70,000 at the time) to 42 orphans
whose parents fought as communist partisans in World War II.
When the orphans received the money, in 1989, the youngest of
them was 45 years old. Atanasov, who is also being
investigated for using public funds to support Third World
communist regimes, told reporters the trial is politically
motivated. (Kjell Engelbrekt, RFE/RL, Inc.)
LATVIAN GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTS TO THE LEGISLATURE. This
week the Latvian Supreme Council is evaluating the
performance of the government, the first time that the entire
government has to account for itself to the legislators. The
review was called in response to widespread dissatisfaction
with the overall situation in Latvia and calls for the
dismissal of some ministers, most notably Janis
Jurkans--Foreign Affairs, Ziedonis Cevers--Internal Affairs,
and Viktors Skudra--Justice. On 6 October the performances of
the agriculture, forestry, and finance ministries were found
to be to be satisfactory, though not without fault, Diena
reports. (Dzintra Bungs, RFE/RL, Inc.)
LITHUANIAN PARLIAMENT SESSIONS. On 6 and 7 October the
Lithuanian parliament was to meet in its last sessions before
the elections to the Seimas on 25 October, but decided
instead to meet on 12 October to discuss the projects for the
new constitution, Radio Lithuania reports. Parliament
approved a law on regulating average wages in Lithuania, but
will have to vote on it again when there is a quorum. It is
unclear if this will happen during the current parliament
session. The government was obligated to issue a decree on
the mechanics of regulating the wages until 15 October.
Parliament also passed a decision amending its 9 April
decision on state assistance to individuals for housing in
cities. Individuals seeking such aid are required to file by
15 November. (Saulius Girnius, RFE/RL, Inc.)
LANDSBERGIS STATEMENT ON TROOP WITHDRAWAL. On 8 October
Radio Lithuania presented a statement by Lithuanian
parliament chairman Vytautas Landsbergis on the withdrawal of
Russian troops from Lithuania. He noted that in the past
month the withdrawal of the army has proceeded in an orderly
manner, placing importance on the removal of the 107th
Division from Vilnius--considered to signal the beginning of
the formal withdrawal process. He said, however, that some
Russian military leaders spoke of instructions from Moscow to
postpone the handing over of installations. He did not know
who had issued these instructions, but hoped that the Russian
Defense Ministry would abide by the agreements on the
withdrawal that it signed on 8 September and not yield to
delay tactics advocated by some conservatives in the Russian
parliament. (Saulius Girnius, RFE/RL, Inc.)
LATVIAN DEFENSE MINISTRY ON SOVIET VETERANS
ORGANIZATION. On 6 October the ministry issued a statement
criticizing the activities of the Association for the Defense
of Veterans Rights, led by retired Col. Albert Lebedev,
former deputy chairman of Interfront, which actively opposed
Latvia's independence. This organization, which joined the
Russian Officers' Society earlier this month, reportedly
works under the auspices of the Northwestern Group of Forces
and cooperates with groups that want to topple the Yeltsin
government in Russia and destabilize Latvia. It has also
disseminated unfounded claims of human rights violations in
Latvia, Diena reports on 6 October. The Latvian Ministry of
Defense concluded that the organization's activities "cannot
be assessed as anything other than interference by the
Russian Army in Latvia's internal affairs." (Dzintra Bungs,
RFE/RL, Inc.)
PRIVATIZATION OF ARABLE LAND IN HUNGARY. Minister of
Agriculture Elemer Gergatz predicted that some 80% of the
total arable land will be privately owned by the end of the
year or at the latest by next March, MTI reports. Speaking
at a conference on agriculture in Debrecen, Gergatz stressed
that the government attaches special significance to
returning land to its rightful owners when compensating
victims of communism. He forecast that of the 6.5 million
hectares of arable land in Hungary less than 1 million will
remain under state ownership and that there will be a million
new landowners when the compensation process is completed.
Finance Minister Mihaly Kupa told the conference that the
debts of agricultural cooperatives should be cancelled so
that the new owners are not burdened by the debts accumulated
during the communist era. (Edith Oltay, RFE/RL, Inc.)
POLISH COURT SIDESTEPS ABORTION RULING. The
Constitutional Tribunal opted not to rule on the
constitutionality of abortion restrictions contained in the
Polish medical association's new "code of medical ethics."
The civil rights spokesman had asked for a ruling on the
grounds that the code, which forbids doctors to perform
abortions except when a woman's life is in danger or the
pregnancy results from a crime, conflicts with Polish law,
which permits abortions in other circumstances. After the
new ethical code took effect, many hospitals ceased
performing abortions because the medical association can
revoke the licenses of doctors who violate the code. The
tribunal concluded on 7 October that legal rather than
ethical norms were its proper jurisdiction. It nonetheless
alerted the Sejm to contradictions between the law granting
doctors the right to self-regulation and laws defining
permissible medical practices. (Louisa Vinton, RFE/RL, Inc.)
novine.63.bale.,
BOSNIAN GOVERNMENT PULLS BACK FROM TALKS WITH SERBS
By Robert Evans
GENEVA, Oct 8, Reuter - Bosnia's Moslem-led government
has pulled back from direct U.N.-brokered talks with rebel
Serbs near Sarajevo following the insurgents' capture of a
strategic town, diplomatic sources said on Thursday.
At the same time, Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic
dropped a threat to withdraw from international peace
efforts in former Yugoslavia if the United Nations imposed a
ban on military flights over Bosnian territory.
The face-to-face talks, to be mediated on the spot by a
top United Nations military commander and aimed at an
agreement on demilitarisation of Sarajevo, Bosnia's battered
capital, had been scheduled for Wednesday.
But in the face of the fall on Tuesday of Bosanski Brod
on Bosnia's river border with Croatia and an insurgent
onslaught on the Sarajevo suburb of Hrasno they failed to
materialise, according to the sources.
``There is no doubt the government side felt it could
not go into direct negotiations with the Serbs on the edge
of Sarajevo at this point in time,'' said one source
following developments in former Yugoslavia.
There was no confirmation of the report from the Geneva
conference on former Yugoslavia, but spokesman Fred Eckhard
said Wednesday's contacts had been in separate meetings
involving the two main sides to the Bosnian conflict.
First General Philippe Morillon of the U.N.'s UNPROFOR
protection force in Bosnia had met with Moslem and Croat
military commanders, who form a loose alliance, and then
separately with Serb representatives.
Eckhard said the co-chairmen of the conference, Cyrus
Vance of the U.N. and the European Community's Lord Owen,
still hoped all three Bosnian groups would sit down ``at one
table'' next Monday when another round of contacts was
scheduled.
Agreement on the talks emerged last week after a visit
to Geneva by Bosnia's president Alija Izetbegovic, who had
resisted direct negotiations since Serbs took up arms in
April to bar the republic's independence as a unitary state.
Izetbegovic, a Moslem, told Vance and Owen he would
agree to the discussions in a bid to achieve some relief for
the 380,000 people of Sarajevo who have been surrounded by
ring of rebel Serb artillery for over six months.
Karadzic, who has been in Geneva for the past week,
told reporters on Thursday his forces were not laying siege
to the city. ``We are simply protecting our Serbian suburbs
from Moslem (government) attack,'' he said.
Last weekend he had threatened to walk out of the
Geneva conference if the U.N. Security Council adopted a
``no fly'' resolution intended to keep his air force on the
ground. The Bosnian government has no planes of its own.
Talking to reporters invited to his conference office
at Geneva's Palais des Nations, he indicated that he had
convinced other leaders of the self-styled Serbian Republic
of Bosnia-Herzegovina that a walk-out would be unwise.
``I had discussions with representatives of our
Assembly (parliament) and explained to them that we should
stay at the conference anyway because we are approaching a
cessation of hostilities and a ban on flights would be
meaningless,'' he said.
``I suggested we should stay because we can achieve
deep political goals and a cessation of hostilities. But the
Serbs are very angry about this resolution because it gives
a strategic advantage to the Moslems,'' he declared.
The rebel leader said his planes -- left behind by the
Serb-dominated Yugoslav army when it withdrew from Bosnia
earlier this year -- had not been in operation for several
days. ``We will comply with our own decision not to fly,''
he added.
The U.N. Security Council was expected to discuss a
draft resolution banning military flights on Thursday and
vote on it on Friday.
The United States, Britain and France agreed on
Wednesday to a resolution banning the flights, although it
does not provide for immediate enforcement. Washington had
pressed for a stronger resolution.
Under the compromise, the Security Council would have
to adopt a second resolution authorising enforcement in case
of violations.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
BOSNIA PREPARES TO DEFEND REMAINING TOWNS AGAINST SERBS
By Kurt Schork
SARAJEVO, Oct 9, Reuter - Serbs are attacking an
important Bosnian town and the embattled republic's
president said he was bracing for a fight to defend
remaining strongholds from what appears to be a fresh
Serbian onslaught.
Serbs intensified attacks on Gradacac, the most
northerly town to remain in Moslem hands, after taking the
strategic northern town of Bosanski Brod on Tuesday, and
Bosnians fear it could be the next to fall.
The fall of Bosanski Brod sealed Serbian control of the
Posavina region of north Bosnia and put the Serbs within a
few hundred metres (yards) of Croatia.
Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic told reporters on
Thursday night he had been in Bosanski Brod on Monday, and
had rushed to Zagreb to meet Croatian President Franjo
Tudjman, his ally, to try to head off its collapse.
``There was nothing we could do,'' Izetbegovic said in
the Croatian port of Split before returning to Bosnia. ``It
was the first time we tried to do something together but it
didn't work...It was too late.
``Now Gradacac is in a very difficult position,'' he
said.
Government-controlled Sarajevo radio reported that
people in Gradacac were sheltering in basements as artillery
shells and mortars set fire to homes, the hospital and
public buildings.
It said at least seven people had been killed and 12
wounded in the attack.
The radio also said Serb forces had attacked Maglaj and
other Moslem communities in north and central Bosnia.
The Belgrade-based Tanjug news agency reported
unsuccessful efforts by Moslems to break out of areas in
which they were encircled.
Casualty figures issued by Sarajevo's Medical Crisis
Centre on Thursday said 15,284 Bosnians had been killed in
fighting in the former Yugoslav republic since the conflict
began in April.
In Belgrade, French General Philippe Morillon,
commander of U.N. forces in Bosnia, said he was ``no saviour
nor a magician'' who could stop the fighting in Bosnia.
``I am convinced that absolutely no military solution
is possible in Bosnia,'' he said.
His comments echoed those of America's top soldier
General Colin Powell who again cautioned on Thursday against
the use of U.S. military force in Bosnia.
``The solution must ultimately be a political one,''
Powell, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said.
``Deeper military involvement beyond humanitarian
purposes requires great care and full examination of
possible outcomes. That is what we have been doing.''
Bosnia's U.N. ambassador on Thursday called for Islamic
states to send troops to deliver relief supplies to his
country immediately and said any ``no-fly zone'' for Serb
aircraft over Bosnia must be backed by military force to be
effective.
Muhamed Sacirbey lashed out at Western European nations
for taking so long to get their troops into Bosnia, and
urged Moslem states to do the job instead.
The United States, Britain and France have compromised
on a Security Council draft resolution, expected to be
adopted on Friday, that would establish a no-fly zone for
military aircraft but would not immediately enforce it with
fighter planes.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
Serb Rebels Press Attacks in Northern Bosnia; Iran Issues
Threat
By JOHN DANISZEWSKI
Associated Press Writer
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) _ Flush with victory
over the stunning capture of a strategic city, Serb rebels
pounded government-held towns in northern Bosnia on
Thursday, prompting threats of foreign intervention.
The Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, was relatively quiet.
Repair crews set out to restore cut utilities to the city
and its surroundings, and a senior U.N. general warned that
the U.N. troops escorting them would return fire if the
crews were attacked.
Near Bosnia's northern border with Croatia, Serb
artillery pounded the towns of Gradacac and Maglaj with
``destructive howitzer shells, particularly incendiary
ones,'' and attacked them by air, Bosnian radio said.
On Wednesday, Serb planes dropped cluster and napalm
bombs on Maglaj and the towns of Tesanj and Teslic, all in
an area 60 to 90 miles north of Sarajevo, the radio said. It
said 12 people were killed and 50 wounded in Maglaj on
Wednesday. The reports could not be independently confirmed.
At the United Nations Thursday, diplomats said the
Security Council would approve a resolution Friday banning
military flights over Bosnia in an effort to stop Serb air
attacks. But they said there would be no immediate
authorization of military action against planes violating
the ``no-fly'' zone.
The United States has pressed for military enforcement
of the zone, and President Bush offered last week to send
military planes to police Bosnian air space. But Britain and
France said enforcement could prompt Serb attacks on U.N.
peacekeepers and aid convoys.
Bosnia's U.N. ambassador, Muhamed Sacirbey, called for
immediate enforcement of the flight ban, the first by the
United Nations. He said the Serbs are flying 50 to 60
sorties daily.
The Serbs have 40 aircraft, left when the Yugoslav
federal army withdrew earlier this year. The Bosnian
government forces have none.
The resurgent fighting in the north followed a major
Serb victory late Tuesday, when Serb units overran Bosanski
Brod, once thought firmly in the control of Bosnian
loyalists.
The city's capture means Serb fighters now control 70
percent of Bosnia. The Serbs apparently are trying to gain
more territory before they are forced to dig in for the
winter.
More than 14,000 people have been killed in Bosnia since
the republic's Serbs rebelled against a vote in February by
majority Muslims and Croats to secede from Serbian-dominated
Yugoslavia. The Bosnian Serbs want their own republic,
possibly as a prelude to uniting with Serbia.
Bosnian radio said 10 villages in the Brcko area were
retaken by government forces Thursday, causing ``confusion''
in Serb ranks.
The latest Serb advance prompted warnings of possible
military intervention from abroad.
Iran's Islamic Republic News Agency said the country's
Revolutionary Guards were ready to help Bosnia's
``defenseless Muslims.'' It quoted the Iranian leader,
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as saying that ``if Western
governments are unable to stop the massacre of Muslims
there, then they should allow our young Muslim combatants to
give the Serbs their dues.''
NATO's secretary-general, Manfred Woerner, said that if
the United Nations decided military intervention was
warranted, the alliance likely would follow suit. Germany's
mass-circulation Bild newspaper quoted Woerner as saying
such a move would require approval from the 16 NATO members.
Also Thursday, U.N. officials said the United States
would provide a military field hospital for Bosnian war
victims, the first time U.S. personnel would participate in
the U.N. peacekeeping operation.
The hospital, to be staffed by 300 Americans, is to be
in Zagreb, Croatia, according to U.N. officials who spoke on
condition of anonymity. The Pentagon said it had no other
details.
Gen. Philippe Morillon, commander of U.N. peacekeepers
in Bosnia, held talks this week with Serbian, Croatian and
Bosnian military leaders on restoring disrupted electricity,
gas and water supplies to Sarajevo.
At a news conference Thursday, Morillon said he asked
the warring sides to ``at least temporarily end
hostilities'' where the utility repairs were to take place,
and warned that his troops would return fire if crews were
attacked.
``We are racing against time because of the coming
winter,'' he said.
A critical water shortage that is causing cases of
dysentery has been blamed on the lack of electricity to
operate pumping stations.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
DUMAS SAYS U.N. WAR CRIMES GROUP COULD LEAD TO COURT
PARIS, Oct 7, Reuter - French Foreign Minister Roland
Dumas said on Thursday that a U.N. commission created to
investigate crimes against humanity in the former Yugoslavia
opened the way for a permanent international criminal court.
Dumas was commenting on a Security Council resolution,
adopted unanimously on Tuesday, which created a commission
to investigate crimes against humanity such as murder,
torture and ``ethnic cleansing.''
``This decision, unprecedented since the creation of
the U.N., opens the way for the setting up of a permanent
international criminal court,'' Dumas told reporters.
Dumas, who gave no further details on such a court,
said: ``The resolution which decided on an international
investigation commission is a considerable step as far as
human rights are concerned.''
In a letter to U.N. secretary-general Boutros Boutros-
Ghali, released to the media, Dumas offered investigators
for the commission and said French peace-keeping troops in
Yugoslavia would also be at its disposal if needed.
``The international community must shed all the
necessary light on the massacres and ``ethnic cleansing'
processes which revolt the conscience of humanity,'' Dumas
wrote.
novine.64.bale.,
Serbs in Body Armor Stage Attack, Reportedly Routed by Bosnia
Forces
AP Photos SAR101,ZAG101-2
By JOHN DANISZEWSKI
Associated Press Writer
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) - Serbian troops wearing body
armor attacked a central district of Sarajevo today but were
defeated in close-quarter fighting, a Bosnian commander said.
Zaim Backovic, the deputy commander of the Bosnia-Herzegovina
army, said it was the first such assault involving armored forces
in the Bosnian fighting that began in February after the republic
voted to secede from the Yugoslav federation.
``We would shoot them with bullets and they would fall down and
get up two minutes later. We are calling them `turtles,''' Backovic
told The Associated Press.
But Backovic said the Serbs wore helmets and armor-plating on
their torsos and arms, but that the Bosnian forces defeated them
with rifle-launched grenades. His report could not be independently
confirmed.
``There are many dead turtles out there today,'' he said,
putting the toll at 100. Bosnian casualties were reportedly light.
Today's fighting occurred in the Grbavica and Hrasno
neighborhoods in this multi-ethnic city of a half-million Serbs,
Croats and Muslims, the commander said.
More than 14,000 people have been killed in Bosnia since the
republic's Serbs rebelled against a vote in February by majority
Muslims and Croats to secede from Serbian-dominated Yugoslavia.
Bosnian Serbs want their own republic, possibly as a prelude to
uniting with Serbia.
In other developments today:
-Bosnian Serbs began new mass expulsions of non-Serbs this week
around the northern city of Banja Luka and opened at least one new
camp where thousands were rounded up, the U.N. High Commissioner
for Refugees said.
So-called ethnic cleansing, designed to drive Slavic Muslims and
Croats from Serb-controlled areas in Bosnia, seems to be reaching a
climax, said Sylvana Foa, a spokeswoman for the refugee agency.
``The expulsion of people form these areas is being carried out
systematically and with enormous repression,'' she said.
She said about 6,500 victims of ethnic cleansing are reportedly
being held in a field surrounded by barbed wire at Kotor Varos,
about 20 miles south of Banja Luka.
-Two Egyptian peacekeeping soldiers were slightly injured by a
mortar round at their Camp Beaver site near the Sarajevo airport,
which has come under sporadic shelling but is used to bring in
emergency medical and food supplies to Sarajevo.
-The Oslobodjenje daily reported today that Serb MiG-21s on
Thursday flew heavy attacks on Gradacac in northeastern Bosnia.
Other northern cities were also attacked by warplanes.
``After they took Bosanski Brod, it is to be expected that they
are going to push harder to take Gradacac,'' the paper said,
referring to Tuesday's surprise capture by Serb forces of the last
major government stronghold on the Bosnian-Croatian border.
The air strikes came after Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic
had said in Geneva that Serb forces would stop using warplanes,
provided they are not attacked.
At the United Nations, Security Council diplomats said they were
determined to ground Serbian warplanes, and the council was
expected to approve a ban on military flights today.
Also on Thursday, Karadzic said Serb and Croat forces in Bosnia
were close to a truce. But he denied an Oslobodjenje report that
suggested Serbs were able to take Bosanski Brod because Croat
fighters gave up its defense under an alleged secret deal between
Croatia and Serbia.
novine.65.bale.,
Seminar by George D. Kenney
USC, Oct. 9, 1992
Organized by Political Science Students Council and Muslim Public Affairs
Association.
Kenney also acknowledged help from Bosnian Action Committee and Jewish
Community Relations Committee.
About 40+ people were present, most of them with the hearth warming accents.
Speaker was introduced by representatives from the Muslim and Jewish groups,
the later informing the audience that both of them have names that mean
"peace," respectively in Arabic and Hebrew.
Mr. Kenney was born in 1956, studied in Seattle and Chicago, noted for his
study of Asia, worked in Kinshasa, Marseille and State Department.
He spoke briefly, no more than 5-10 minutes, than took questions from the
audience. He described himself as not being an expert in Yugoslavia, serving
on that desk for 7 months before the resignation. The audience responded
with questions reflecting their despair, anger or self-righteousness, which
almost turned the atmosphere at times to "razgovore ugodne naroda slovinskoga."
The moderators had to intervene twice, not with much skill. Mr. Kenney
at times had quite a red face. This posturing and tense attempts for
self-control had one true moment, when one polite, older woman in a nice
dress said, ``... we always listen about Serbs and Croats, but what did
Muslims do to Serbs to deserve this?'' (Silence.)
Here are excerpts from some of his statements that reflect more personal
experience on his part.
(on his view of the situation) `` Serb radicals were no more than 15% of
Bosnian Serbs. They imposed themselves on the rest.''
(on his frustration with State Department) ``I would draft material for
M. Tuttwiller. (It was she who was doing the policy for most of the time
I was there.) The senior bureaucrats would remove my strong words, for
example on starvation problem that I saw coming already in April. They did
not want to see it. I was hoping to generate greater public pressure, they
wanted to avoid it. They would say, `we can't trust these reports, we don't
have anybody on the ground.' Or I would describe the shelling as Serbian
shelling. They would like to say it was mutual. Of course it was, Bosnians
were defending themselves from Serbian attacks. M. Tuttwiller sided with me
on that. Every morning I would talk to Embassy for half-hour, and every
morning we had reports on human rights abuses. You would expects to see
500-1000 such reports by now in State Department files. But now, we came
forward with 31! Again, it is an attempt not to generate public reaction."
(on US policy) ``People in State Department thought that Yugoslavia was
a good experiment in communism, and they thought they should support it.
They also had understanding for Serbian interest since they are the largest
group there... It was difficult to find the proper logic and to spell it
out. I know, as I was writing these public statements, and I know they make
no sense."
(lobby in the State Department) ``They are secondary, direction comes from
the White House. The most effective is Greek-American lobby. Croats are
somewhat effective. Serbs are trying but people don't take seriously what
they say."
(what bothers him) ``The appearance of some things. Former ambassador in
Yugoslavia, I think it was successor to Eaglburger, Jack Skl...??, works
as a consultant for Panic's business. He can call Eaglburger at home!
Also former Senator T??... They both made US to allow for this exception
to embargo that Panic requested... To have Panic there was a mistake, everybody
realized that. It was forced by Eaglburger... Panic sais all the right
things, but in the meantime Serbs go along with their military conquest.
(what Clinton might do) ``His advisers are more interventionist minded.''
(what Bush might do) `` Nothing before the elections unless he is absolutely
desperate. After election, Dole will not feel obliged any more to be a
good boy and obey the President. He has support of some other senators, both
republicans and democrats, conservative and liberal. They would press. If
public pressure from different group is mounted, if Bush realizes that he
can profit from that, he would turn around and do something.''
(what does he think would be the solution) `` To achieve balance of
forces. Every military support to Bosnia, let fighting go on until the balance
on the ground is reached! Most of Serbian troops are young, undisciplined
soldiers, often drunk. They are now in rupture of killing, enjoying the power
they have, but they would crumble under serious pressure. This is not only
my view, many analysts think the same. Then, Serbian military in Serbia should
realize that they may loose all their capability, hardware, airports, power...
God, Dutch Air Force could ground Serbian Air Force! I think that
in the short run fighting would intensify, but there will be recovery of
territory. Everyone involved realized that nothing is to be achieved by
negotiations that go on now.''
(supply of arms and men from Iran, etc) ``US would prefer it is not happening.
This trade is expensive. If it goes through Croatia, Croatia gets a cut...''
(press in US) ``They are important... they were after me after my resignation,
as they saw what I saw, but they could not tell, they do not have access. I am
vehicle for the press now.''
(Germany) ``There are historical ties between Germany and Croatia. Gensher was
very important for Croatia. But someone should keep pressuring and controlling
Croatian government. Tudjman is certainly not democrat, there are problems
with the freedom of press, minorities, true intentions in Bosnia.''
(on Izetbegovic) ``I met him. He is a sincere, moderate man, a visionary man.''
(after someone read a sentence from Izetbegovic's book, `... islam from
Morocco to Indonesia...') ``This is not position of the Bosnian government.
When was it written? (answer: in 1972, re-printed in 1990) This is not where
he will lead Bosnia.''
The meeting broke off after about hour and a half.
Comment:
If one wants to be harsh, Mr. Kenney appears as a classical bureaucratic
moron. He knows Washigton, and he knows the ropes, and that is about it.
It seems he likes power and decision making, and it comes natural to him
to play tough foreign policy. (``Like a police at home'', he said.)
He started by stressing the moral issue, killing and deportation of civilians,
but there is no doubt on my mind that he has no compassion for these people.
Rather, this appears as an ``issue'' that came across his desk, and it was
perceived as a good vehicle for his advance, an excersize in influenze in
``generating public pressure.'' Naturally, some people in Bosnia may profit
from that. He keeps his crusade in a different forum, but the issue is the
same, most likely because it is something that can identify him for public
and not-so-public eyes.
novine.66.bale.,
Yugoslav Strongman Uses New Strategy to Hang Onto Job (Belgrade)<
By Carol J. Williams
(c) 1992, Los Angeles Times
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia _ In a move befitting his
reputation as a cunnin g political tactician, Serbian
President Slobodan Milosevic appears to have hit on a formula
for staying in power by turning voter apathy and confusion to
his advantage.
Milosevic has been under pressure from Yugoslav
Prime Minister Milan Panic to call early elections and to
allow the Serbian people to rethink their support for the
nationalist regime that has led them to ruin.
The Serbian president reportedly promised Panic
and Yugoslav Presiden t Dobrica Cosic that he would submit to
a vote before the year's end as a condition for their
agreement to lead the new Yugoslavia that Milosevic created
from the last two republics of the shattered Balkan federation.
Milosevic's popularity has been waning since May,
when the United Nat ions slapped Serbia and Montenegro with
severe sanctions for their role in fomenting deadly warfare
in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The latest opinion polls in Serbia
show Milosevic and the Socialists trailing any potential
opposition coalition headed by Panic or Cosic. Less than two
years ago, Milosevic won a five-year mandate with more than
two-thirds of the vote.
But fearful now of defeat, Milosevic has sought to
stall the election and cleverly masked his evasion with a
veneer of popular support.
The Socialist Party of Serbia led by Milosevic has
scheduled a little-publicized referendum for Sunday asking
voters whether they support or oppose early elections.
The catch, clearly understood by Milosevic, is
that the ballot needs a 50 percent turnout to be valid; that
is a virtually impossible hurdle to surmount considering the
splintered, resentful and increasingly apolitical electorate.
``If there is not satisfactory turnout, he
(Milosevic) can claim that most of the people say elections
are unnecessary,'' said Vojislav Kostunica, head of the
opposition Democratic Party of Serbia.
And by putting the election itself up to a vote,
the delay gains respectability as the preference of the people.
In the troubled remains of Yugoslavia, where the
poorly organized opp osition routinely sends mixed signals to
supporters, turnout has been low recently even for broadly
publicized elections. The May 31 vote to seat a new federal
Parliament was said to have had a 52 percent turnout. But
most opposition parties accused the victorious Socialists of
massive fraud to squeak past the threshold for validation.
Thanks to the virtual absence of campaigning,
Sunday's vote is expect ed to fall far short of the minimum
turnout. The 2 million Albanians in Kosovo Province, who
account for 20 percent of Serbia's population, boycott all
elections in protest of the Serb-imposed police state they
have endured for more than three years.
Milosevic's Socialist Party has been transmitting
the subtle message to supporters that the best contribution
they can make is to stay home.
And the opposition, sensing defeat, has refused to
organize any movem ent to get out the vote.
``The referendum has been so underpublicized that
it's obvious the republican government and regime do not want
it to succeed,'' complained Vladeta Jankovic, head of the
DEPOS opposition coalition. ``This is simply another attempt
to prolong the uncertainty and create confusion. This regime
has survived by creating confusion.''
Jankovic insists elections must be held both in
Serbia and on the fed eral level as soon as possible because
``the only alternative to elections is a social explosion and
civil war. No one in his right mind, not even the Socialists,
can want that.''
Others disagree. They see Milosevic as
power-hungry and desperate eno ugh to risk bloody fratricide
rather than submit his resignation and call an election.
``If they block elections in Serbia, we will
probably have war, predominantly in Kosovo Province, and the
establishment of dictatorship,'' warned Dragan Veselinov,
head of the Farmers' Party based in Serbia's multiethnic
province of Vojvodina.
While Milosevic appears poised to elude elections
in the Serbian repu blic with the referendum doomed to
failure, voting for a new federal leadership is being held up
by other means. An election law submitted by Panic is
suffering a Balkan-style filibuster in the Yugoslav
Parliament, where Milosevic's Socialists and other
nationalist parties have a monopoly on power due to
opposition boycott of the last election.
Panic has spoken out forcefully for early
elections in the hopes that Milosevic would be ousted and a
new slate of leaders would prompt the United Nations to lift
the sanctions that have choked off gasoline and heating oil
and worsened hyperinflation, which is raging beyond a 100,000
percent annual rate.
But Panic, an American millionaire who left his
pharmaceuticals empir e in July to take the political helm in
his troubled homeland, failed to challenge Milosevic on the
referendum scandal.
David Calef, Panic's spokesman, said that the
prime minister did not consider the referendum to be in
violation of a reported agreement he had with Milosevic for
early elections. ``But it seems superfluous to have an
election to decide if we should have an election,'' Calef
said of Panic's position. ``This is not what democracy is all
about.''
Bosnian Lists Atrocity Claims, Pleads for Help From World Muslims<
By Trevor Rowe
Special to The Washington Post
UNITED NATIONS _ Two days after the U.N. Security
Council created a ``commission of experts'' to investigate
alleged war crimes in Bosnia, Bosnian Ambassador Muhamed
Sacirbey Thursday submitted what he said were 32 first-hand
accounts of mass murder, torture and other atrocities
committed by the Serb nationalist side in Bosnia's
six-month-old factional war.
Sacirbey also appealed to Islamic countries to
help defend his Slavic Muslim-led government against Serb
forces that now control about 70 percent of the republic and
to use military means if necessary to deliver relief supplies
to beleaguered civilians. Speaking to reporters, Sacirbey
charged that Western countries had been too slow to respond
to pleas for support against Serb aggression and that little
had been done despite two U.N. resolutions authorizing
international military action to guarantee humanitarian aid
shipments.
Sacirbey cited a CIA estimate that up to 147,000
civilians could die in Bosnia this winter if aid shipments
are not stepped up, while a U.N. ``worst case'' estimate put
the figure at up to 400,000 _ most of whom would likely be
Muslim refugees or those under siege by Serb militiamen in
isolated enclaves. He said that rather than working through
U.N. relief officials in Bosnia, Islamic countries should
proceed under U.N. Resolution 770, which calls on countries
to take ``all measures necessary,'' including the use of
force, to deliver aid. There has been no formal response to
the appeal so far.
Among the atrocity allegations Sacirbey submitted
to the new commissi on was a statement from a 34-year-old
Muslim named Fadahija Hasanovic, who said he had been
interned at a makeshift Serb prison camp in the town of
Karakaj, where at least 20 of 700 prisoners crammed into a
building had died of suffocation.
Hasanovic said the prisoners were beaten regularly
and that many were summarily executed. ``We would hear rifle
fire, screams and cries,'' he said. ``Then my turn came. ...
They forced us against the wall and started shooting
immediately. Before that I took my cousin Sejdo by the hand.
It was a miracle that I stayed alive, I pretended to be dead
among the killed neighbors. When (the Serbs) went to get a
new group of captives, I got away crawling.''
According to a resolution adopted Tuesday, the new
U.N. commission is to provide U.N. Secretary General Boutros
Boutros-Ghali with its conclusions on such allegations, and
he in turn is to make recommendations for any possible
further action _ including, diplomats say, establishment of a
Nuremberg-style War Crimes Tribunal.
Another atrocity allegation submitted by Sacirbey
was from a woman na med Tima Dautovic, identified as a
28-year-old Muslim housewife. In the town of Krinjaca, she
asserted, Muslim men were taken by Serb security forces ``to
a hall where they were beaten for 4-5 hours, while we the
women and children were listening to their cries and screams
for help. There was blood on the walls of the hall.
``After that (the (Serbs) took out 35 grown men _
age 17-70 _ and ... shot them. None of them survived. Women
were raped and tortured in other ways. A dozen boys age 14-15
were taken in the direction of Zvornik after which we heard
nothing of them.''
There have been countless allegations of
atrocities by all sides in t he Bosnian warfare, but most
have been impossible to verify independently. Nevertheless,
U.N. officials and representatives of international relief
organizations in Bosnia have noted the consistent pattern of
such claims against Serb militiamen and prison guards and
have called for a comprehensive investigation.
While there was little corroborating evidence for
the atrocity accoun ts Sacirbey offered Thursday, most of the
signatories expressed a willingness to testify before the
commission. Last week, the U.S. government submitted what it
called ``reliable'' information to support claims of Serb
atrocities in Bosnia.
Columbus Discovered America _ But Where?
By Boyce Rensberger
(c) 1992, The Washington Post
Everybody knows that Christopher Columbus
discovered America on this day in 1492 _ exactly 500 years
ago. Nobody, however, knows for sure exactly where he found it.
Columbus' log, which might be expected to answer
the question, has be en lost for centuries. An ``abstract''
made by a 16th-century Spanish friar is thought to be a
fairly accurate copy of the key parts and it says the
explorer's first landfall was a small island that the
inhabitants called Guanahani.
Unfortunately, Columbus never bothered to say
exactly where the islan d was or to describe it in detail.
And, although he gave it Spanish Christendom's most-sacred
name _ San Salvador _ he stayed there just three days and
never returned.
Columbus' mission was, of course, to find gold and
once he satisfied himself that there was none on Guanahani,
the abstract says he sailed to another island that the
``Indians,'' as he called them, assured him had gold. He
called that one Santa Maria but it, too, like all the others
he would visit, was goldless. And again he wrote down only a
sketchy description of the island and the path he sailed.
Working his way down a hierarchy of names,
Columbus dubbed the third island for King Ferdinand of Spain
and the fourth for Queen Isabela. Island five he named for
Prince Juan but in the log Columbus often called it by its
Indian name _ Cuba. His descriptions make it clear this is
the Cuba of today. It is one of the few unmistakable points
of contact between the real world and the abstract of the log.
And it is from this part of Columbus' voyage,
experts agree, that his torians must reckon backwards to find
Guanahani, site of the historic first step into the New World.
The loss of the original log is a major historical
disappointment. Co lumbus presented it to Isabella on his
return. She had a scribe in Barcelona make a copy for
Columbus and nobody knows what happened to the original.
Unfortunately, the Barcelona copy is also missing.
It is thought to h ave remained in the Columbus family until
the explorer's ne'er-do-well grandson Luis inherited it. He
probably sold it, as he did most of the family's possessions
to finance his extravagant lifestyle.
The only known clues to where Columbus first
landed come from a third -hand version of the log. Before
Luis inherited the Barcelona copy, a Dominican friar named
Bartolome de Las Casas hand-copied the part that dealt with
the landfall and the travels among the islands, apparently
for use in writing his History of the Indies.
This copy, which survives today, is known as the
Diario and its vague ness _ presumably reflecting Columbus'
vagueness _ has allowed at least nine islands to be advanced,
usually with more fervor than evidence, over the last few
centuries as the true Guanahani. All are among or near
today's Bahama islands but they are scattered over a range of
450 miles.
As each of the theorists has pointed out, errors
could have crept int o the copying process at each stage. In
fact, each theory requires that the Diario contain one or
more specific errors. This is because there is no island that
fits perfectly into the sequence of islands and sailing tracks.
To make the case for an island, its adocate must
argue that Las Casa s or the Barcelona scribe wrote, for
example, ``northwest'' when Columbus meant ``southwest'' or
perhaps that somebody wrote the word ``miles'' when he should
have written ``leagues'' (which are about three times longer)
or vice versa. As a result, the effort to find Guanahani has
been riven by arguments among the advocates of various
islands _ arguments that may never cease.
Indeed, the Diario contains many abbreviations,
struck-out words and inserted notes. Nobody knows whether Las
Casas made these to correct his copying errors or to
reproduce corrections Columbus made or, in the worst case, to
change Columbus' words to conform to what Las Casas thought
he knew to be correct. Several times in the Diario the friar
notes that Spanish was not the native language of the
Italian-born explorer.
Early in this century, opinion converged so
confidently on Watlings I sland _ which had first been
advocated in the 18th century _ that in 1926 it was
officially renamed San Salvador. In 1942 most remaining
debate withered when the influential Harvard historian Samuel
Eliot Morison pronounced flatly that Watlings was the real
Guanahani.
In the 1980s the debate began anew and was joined
in 1986 by Joseph J udge, then the number-two editor at
National Geographic magazine and now retired. He announced he
had ``demonstrated conclusively'' that the landfall was
Samana Cay, a 9-mile-long patch of uninhabited sand 65 miles
southeast of Watlings.
Judge did it by running the Diario's track
backward from the Ragged I slands, a string of islets that
Columbus passed _ and, for once, described well _ on the leg
that ended in Cuba. The Ragged Islands are the first place
Columbus reached whose position all debaters agree upon.
Judge's finding confirmed a theory first advanced in 1882 by
Gustavus Fox, who had been Abraham Lincoln's assistant
secretary of the Navy.
Judge's case won over Robert Fuson, a University
of Florida geographe r who had championed Grand Turk Island,
220 miles away. ``The only one to change his mind in the
whole history of this debate is Bob Fuson,'' Judge said.
Other current debaters stand fast. Arne Molander,
a Gaithersburg, Md. , engineer, argues for Egg Island, 240
miles northwest of Samana. He insists Columbus was a
``latitude sailor,'' meaning that he sailed due west, keeping
to the same latitude as his jumping off place in the Canary
Islands and that this would have brought him to Egg. Steven
W. Mitchell, a California State University geologist, likes
Conception Island, a spit of land only two or three miles
long. He says the Diario ``accounts precisely'' for the
entire track from it to the Ragged Islands.
The debate has even attracted a new combatant. At
a symposium last sp ring at the annual meeting of the U.S.
Naval Institute in Annapolis, Keith Pickering, a Watertown,
Minn., computer programmer, revived an old case for the two
Plana Cays, suggesting Columbus somehow considered them one
entity.
Still, by most accounts, the leading contenders
are Watlings and Sama na. Watlings looks good to some because
it is the only place to which Columbus' forward track points
if only the clues in the Diario _ daily compass headings and
distances traveled _ are laid out end to end. Samana looks
good to others because the backward track from Cuba and the
Ragged Islands require the Diario to contain the fewest
errors _ just one.
Judge argues that the true forward track from
Spain cannot be deduced from headings and distances alone
because there would have been winds and currents that pushed
Columbus sideways. ``The fact that the uncorrected forward
track goes to Watlings means that can't be the island,''
Judge said. His colleagues at the Geographic estimated that
the other forces pushed Columbus southward just enough to
bring him to Samana.
Other evidence from the Diario includes sketchy
descriptions of islan ds _ written in an archaic form of
Spanish whose meanings are debated.
For example, the journal describes Guanahani as
having ``una laguna e n medio muy grande.'' This seems to say
the island has a very large laguna in the middle. Watlings
Island has a big lake in the middle of the island and Samuel
L. Morison, the late historian's grandson who also argues for
Watlings, says ^laguna@ is the old Spanish word for a lake.
Judge says that if Columbus meant lake, he would have used
the word ^lago@. He thinks Columbus was referring to the
lagoon, or bay, that exists in the middle of Samana's long
coastline.
Besides, if Morison wants ^laguna@ to mean lake,
Judge notes, Columbu s couldn't have been describing Watling
because it has 20 sizable lakes and Columbus would not have
written of just one ^laguna@.
And so the arguments continue. With no new source
of evidence, the de baters are condemned to mining and
massaging the vagueness of the Diario, which, if it is an
accurate copy of an accurate copy, would seem to indicate
that Columbus cared less about the site of his first landfall
than any of them do today. ^End adv for mon oct 12<
Army Sex Scandal in N.Y. Leads to Discharge of 4 Officers, 1 Soldier
By Letta Taylor
(c) 1992, Newsday
A sex scandal at the Fort Drum Army base in
upstate New York has led to the discharge of four officers
and one enlisted man, Army officials said Thursday.
The officers resigned _ and were subsequently
discharged _ after bein g charged with having consensual sex
with a subordinate female enlisted soldier in 1991 at the
upstate Army facility, Army spokesman Maj. Hiriam Bell Jr.
said.
A videotape, uncovered during the investigation,
showed ``a number of '' the officers having sex with the
female enlistee, Bell said.
In another aspect of the investigation, Spec.
Marlon L. Pass agreed t o a discharge after being charged
with rape and attempted rape in separate incidents involving
the female enlisted soldier and a second female enlisted
soldier from July 1991 to April 1992, Bell said. No criminal
charges are pending against Pass.
The officers and soldier agreed to be discharged
between Sept. 21 and Oct. 2 in lieu of any further
disciplinary action, Bell said. If convicted in a
court-martial, they could have faced five years in military
prison.
Also Thursday, Bell said that the Army had
confiscated two other sex videotapes involving the male
officers. Bell refused comment on those tapes except to say
anyone involved in them had been investigated.
No action will be taken against the two females,
who cooperated in th e investigation, Bell said. The women
could not be reached for comment.
Second Lt. Brian G. Preston, one of the four
officers who resigned, s aid that he considered the Army's
actions ``unjust'' and said that the officers were being made
scapegoats for larger military sex scandals, including one in
which Navy aviators allegedly harassed 26 women at the
Tailhook convention last fall.
The Army's actions were ``racist'' because all
five people who were discharged are black, he said. ``I feel
that in this particular case, black officers ... and a black
soldier were singled out,'' Preston said.
Preston refused to elaborate. But sources close to
the case said that investigators had failed to pursue reports
that the female soldier had had sex with white officers.
Bell denied any racism and said that the Army
would have investigated any allegations that might violate
military code _ especially assault or sex between superiors
and subordinates.
The sources also said the the videotape only
involved two of the four officers who resigned and that those
officers _ along with the female enlisted soldier _ didn't
even know that one of the men was taping them. The sources
also said that the woman hadn't pressed charges against the
officers, which Bell confirmed was true.
Preston also said that he felt he had not been
fairly represented by the Army's legal defense service and
questioned why Pass got the same treatment as the four
officers when he was charged with rape rather than consensual
sex.
Asked why the Army agreed to discharge Pass rather
than prosecute him for a crime as serious as rape, Bell said
that the decision was ``not capricious'' and added: ``It met
our needs for punishment and deterrence and it met the
victim's needs for privacy.''
The other officers and Pass either could not be
reached or refused co mment. The Army's defense lawyers
refused comment.
Originally, six officers had been investigated for
alleged consensual sex with the first female soldier. A fifth
officer received a letter of reprimand and no action was
taken against the sixth officer, Bell said.
novine.67.bale.,
RFE/RL Daily Report
No. 195, 9 October 1992
SUCCESSOR STATES TO THE USSR
SUKHUMI RESIDENTS FLEE EXPECTED ABKHAZ ATTACK. Up to
20% of the population of the Abkhaz capital, Sukhumi, have
fled in anticipation of an attack by Abkhaz forces, according
to a Georgian Red Cross official quoted by Reuters. An
Abkhaz representative in Moscow denied that an attack on the
town was imminent. Georgian and Abkhaz forces engaged in
shelling and small arms fire in northern Abkhazia, and two
Georgian soldiers were killed when their armored car was
destroyed by a landmine. The UN Security Council called for
an immediate halt to the fighting and compliance with the 3
September ceasefire agreement, and voted to send an observer
mission to Georgia next week. A request by Georgian Foreign
Minister Aleksandre Chkheidze for NATO observers to monitor
the Georgian elections was rejected on the grounds that other
organizations are better qualified to do so. The First
International Congress of Abkhaz in Lykhny addressed an
appeal to the UN to support Abkhaz self-determination and to
impose sanctions on Georgia, AFP reported. (Liz Fuller,
RFE/RL, Inc.)
CIS SUMMIT STARTS. The CIS summit in Bishkek started on
9 October with a joint session of the heads of state and
heads of government, ITAR-TASS reported. All ten member
states are participating, and Georgia and Azerbaijan have
sent observers. ITAR-TASS said that it had been decided to
postpone the adoption of a declaration on obligations in the
field of human rights until a CIS summit in Minsk on 8
December. After two hours of discussion, agreements on
coordinating economic legislation, the creation of an
international TV company, the mutual recognition of property
rights, and cooperation in ensuring stability on the
Commonwealth's external frontiers were said to be ready for
signing. Progress on the other items on the agenda seems to
have been more limited. Agreement was reached in principle
to create an intergovernmental bank for the ruble zone, and
the CIS charter was given its first reading only. ITAR-TASS
reported that an agreement on creating a Consultative
Economic Working Commission (presumably a less tightly knit
body than the planned consultative-coordinating economic
council) would be adopted together with the charter at the
next summit, and that it had been agreed to sign a document
on the "course of the formation" of the economic court. (Ann
Sheehy, RFE/RL, Inc.)
CIS HEADS OF STATE TO DISCUSS NUCLEAR WEAPONS CONTROL.
In Bishkek today, a proposal by CIS Commander in Chief
Shaposhnikov to give Russia sole control over launch codes
and the dismantling of nuclear weapons will be discussed,
Interfax reported on 8 October. Russian Defense Minister
Grachev claims that Belarus supports the proposal and will
dismantle its weapons within three years, rather than the
seven previously agreed. Kazakhstan has agreed on both
control and dismantling issues. Ukraine rejects the proposal
completely. On 8 October, Ukrainian President Kravchuk stated
that Ukraine did not desire sole launch authority for its
nuclear weapons, but insisted that it be able to veto any
launch order from the Russian or CIS command. Kravchuk
claimed that the proposal would complicate ratification of
the START treaty. Ukraine has also been reluctant to allow
the removal of the weapons to Russia for dismantling. It
seems likely that the summit will produce a split decision,
with Kazakhstan and Belarus handing over control to Russia,
while Ukraine refuses, introducing even greater uncertainty
into the nuclear control system, and increasing tensions
between Russia and Ukraine. (John Lepingwell, RFE/RL, Inc.)
DETAILS OF CIS DRAFT TREATY ON DEFENSE AND COLLECTIVE
SECURITY RELEASED. According to Interfax reports of 8
October, the signatories agree to defend each other from
external threats, in accordance with decisions by the CIS
Council of Heads of State. The "United Armed Forces" of the
CIS would apparently include strategic nuclear weapons as
well as conventional forces. The draft agreement was
initialled by nine states on 8 October, excluding Moldova and
Ukraine. Azerbaijan initialled the treaty but is unlikely to
sign it in the wake of its decision not to join the CIS.
Ukraine claims that the treaty makes sense only until all its
nuclear forces are dismantled. The treaty's provisions on
nuclear forces are unclear: to be consistent with new CIS
proposals on nuclear weapons, Russia would presumably assign
strategic nuclear forces to the CIS command in the event of
an emergency. (John Lepingwell, RFE/RL, Inc.)
CIS PEACEKEEPERS FOR TAJIKISTAN. Following two days of
talks mediated by a CIS delegation headed by Kirgiz
Vice-President Felix Kulov, the Tajik Supreme Soviet agreed
provisionally on 8 October to the Kirgiz proposal to send
peacekeepers to separate the warring sides in south-west
Tajikistan, Radio Moscow reported. Interfax quoted acting
Tajik President Akbar Iskandarov as stating that only Kirgiz
peacekeeping troops would be acceptable and not contingents
from other CIS states. (Liz Fuller, RFE/RL, Inc.)
SUBSIDIES RAISED ON IMPORTED GRAIN. The Russian
ministries of finance and economics have announced an
increase in the subsidy paid on imported grain from 80% to
95%, Interfax reported on 8 October. An unnamed finance
ministry official was quoted as saying that, at current
exchange rates (334 rubles to the dollar) and without a
subsidy, bread baked with imported grain would retail at 100
rubles a kilo instead of the current 44 rubles a kilo,
"putting it out of reach of Russian citizens." This
development could revive earlier proposals by Vice President
Rutskoi that Russian farmers be paid in hard currency for
their grain sales to the state. (Keith Bush, RFE/RL, Inc.)
FORMER SOVIET REPUBLICS FACING OIL CUTBACK. In an
interview with an RFE/RL correspondent on 8 October, the
deputy head of the Finance Department of the Russian Fuel and
Energy Ministry elaborated on Russia's 7 October warning on
oil shipments. Evgenii Lelenkov said that Ukraine, Belarus,
and Kazakhstan are in arrears with payments for past oil
deliveries and face reductions in supplies starting 12
October. The Baltic states were also said to owe Russia money
for past deliveries of fuel and energy, but they enjoy
positive overall trade balances with the Russian Republic.
(Keith Bush, RFE/RL, Inc.)
PARLIAMENTARY RESOLUTION CRITICIZES RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT.
On 8 October, the Russian Supreme Soviet passed a resolution
criticizing the way the government was currently implementing
economic reforms. The resolution described the government's
work as unsatisfactory, and called on the government to
present within a month a series of measures to combat the
crisis in the country. ITAR-TASS reported that the document
was initially approved by a vote of 124 to 29. There were
seven abstentions and 70 deputies were absent. Later the same
news agency said that the voting procedure was deemed
improper; consequently, the resolution was annulled and the
deputies will discuss it again today. The Supreme Soviet
also decided that the Congress of Peoples Deputies would meet
on 1 December. The agenda will include the government's
reform policy, a new Russian Constitution, and a debate on
whether to prolong President Yeltsin's special powers. (Vera
Tolz, RFE/RL, Inc.)
KOKOSHIN DELEGATION LEAVES KOREA, VISITS CHINA. At the
end of an historic five-day visit to South Korea, a Russian
military delegation headed by First Deputy Defense Minister
Andrei Kokoshin arrived in Beijing on 8 October. ITAR-TASS
quoted Kokoshin as saying the his delegation would continue
the work begun during the August visit of Chinese Defense
Minister Qin Jiwei to Moscow. "Our program
includes...discussions on a wide range of issues concerning
our expanding cooperation with China, and the resolution of a
whole set of practical questions," he added. (Doug Clarke,
RFE/RL, Inc.)
POLICE BLOCK EMPLOYEES OF GORBACHEV FOUNDATION. All
Russian TV newscasts ascribed great prominence on 8 October
to the police blockade of the Gorbachev Foundation and to
Gorbachev's subsequent press conference. Gorbachev condemned
the blockade of his research institute as "a stupid and
arbitrary action," and alleged that Yeltsin's treatment of
Gorbachev might be a test for Russian society generally and a
sign of an impending dictatorship. Within hours of the
issuance of Yeltsin's decree transferring the Foundation's
premises to a Russian financial school, some thirty armed
police officers surrounded the five-building complex to stop
200 foundation employees from entering their offices. The
only employee whom the police did not dare to stop, the
foundation's vice-president, Aleksandr Yakovlev, termed the
action "the lawlessness without limits, like the 1917
[Bolshevik] revolution." (Julia Wishnevsky, RFE/RL, Inc.)
ITALIAN FOREIGN MINISTER INSISTS ON GORBACHEV VISIT.
According to the ITAR-TASS and the DR Press on 8 October, on
5 October the Italian foreign ministry instructed its embassy
in Moscow to issue a formal note to the Russian foreign
minister, Andrei Kozyrev, in view of last week's confiscation
of Mikhail Gorbachev's travel documents due to his refusal to
testify in the Constitution Court. The note cited Russian
obligations to respect internationally recognized democratic
norms, as provided by the conference on security and
cooperation in Europe, of which both countries are members,
and stated Italy's expectations that Gorbachev's visits
abroad, including his planned visit to Italy scheduled to
start in the mid-October, will take place as expected. At his
press-conference held on 8 October, Gorbachev said that he
would rather go to prison then testify at the CPSU the
Constitutional Court hearings. (Julia Wishnevsky, RFE/RL,
Inc.)
FALIN REJECTS THE CHARGE OF MISUSE OF FUNDS. Valentin
Falin, former head of the CPSU Central Committee
International Department, on 8 October began his testimony at
the Constitution Court hearings on the CPSU. Earlier, Falin
refused to break off his lecture tour in Germany unless the
Constitutional Court compensated him for expenses; the court
met this condition. Falin is a prime suspect in the
government's investigation of alleged CPSU embezzlement of
public funds to subsidize "fraternal" (communist) parties
abroad after the failed coup of August 1991. According to
Falin, the CPSU always compensated the state bank with rubles
for the hard currency it borrowed to support foreign
communists. Falin added that the same system of the ruble
compensation existed for Soviet trade unions, the Komsomol,
the USSR Academy of Sciences, and other such bodies. Falin
also denied that the Party had ever supported terrorists,
apart from PLO fighters who, he maintained, are not regarded
"terrorists" in today's Russia. (Julia Wishnevsky, RFE/RL,
Inc.)
RUSSIAN SPACE PROGRAM SAID TO BE ON THE MEND. Oleg
Lobov, the chairman of the presidential Council of Experts,
told ITAR-TASS on 8 October that the Russian space program
"is pulling out of a crisis." He said he became convinced of
this conversion of the aerospace complex. Lobov added that it
was not true that Russia had lost its scientific and
technical potential in this important field. The previous
day, Valentin Stepanov, the director-general of the general
engineering department in the ministry of industry, told a
Moscow press conference that he hoped the Buran space shuttle
would be launched again in November. The 36 meter long Buran
has been into space only once--an unmanned flight in November
1988. It is carried aloft by the giant Energiya booster
rocket. (Doug Clarke, RFE/RL, Inc.)
YELTSIN ORDERS SPECIAL UNITS TO FIGHT CRIME AND
CORRUPTION. President Yeltsin has ordered the establishment
of an inter-branch commission under the aegis of Russian
Security Council to combat organized crime, ITAR-TASS
reported on 8 October. It will coordinate activities of the
ministries of interior, security, and defense, as well as the
state customs committee and the federal service for export
and currency control. Under the direction of Vice President
Alexander Rutskoi, the commission includes the first deputy
of the speaker of parliament, Sergei Filatov, State Secretary
Gennadii Burbulis, and the secretary of the security council,
Yurii Skokov. The same decree authorized fast reaction teams
in the MVD. Yeltsin's decision to establish these special
units is probably the result of pressure from the Russian
political right and the public's general dissatisfaction over
rising crime. (Victor Yasmann, RFE/RL, Inc.)
"RUKH" SUPPORTS CRIMEAN TATARS. "Rukh" has adopted a
resolution condemning the authorities for the attack on the
Crimean Tatar settlement in Krasnyi Rai on 1 October, "Mayak"
and DR-Press reported on 8 October. The destruction of the
Crimean Tatar homes on the territory of a state farm there
has resulted in an escalation of the conflict. "Rukh" calls
the actions of the authorities a continuation of the genocide
against the Crimean Tatars. (Roman Solchanyk, RFE/RL, Inc.)
AZERBAIJAN TIGHTENS SECURITY ON IRANIAN FRONTIER.
Azerbaijan has deployed tanks, armored cars and additional
frontier troops along its border with Iran following a decree
by Azerbaijani President Abulfaz Elchibey imposing a state of
emergency in the Dzhalilabad and Yardymly raions in
south-east Azerbaijan, according to an AFP report from Tehran
quoting travellers. An Azerbaijani presidential spokesman
said the move was intended to prevent the smuggling of drugs
and contraband across the frontier. On 6 October ITAR-TASS
reported a recent increase in frontier violations, including
some by "groups of armed horsemen." (Liz Fuller, RFE/RL,
Inc.)
CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE
SERBS INCREASE PRESSURE IN NORTHERN BOSNIA.
International media reported on 8 October that Serbian
aircraft bombed Gradacac, Orasje, and Maglaj, which were also
hit with incendiary shells. The towns are among the few
still controlled by Croatian and Muslim forces along the
strip linking Serbia with ethnic Serb enclaves in Croatia and
western Bosnia. Meanwhile, an RFE/RL correspondent reports
from the UN that Bosnia's ambassador presented that body with
a list of alleged atrocities committed by the Serbs. He
appealed to Islamic countries for aid, even if they have to
supply protection for their missions themselves. Ambassador
Mohamed Sacirbey added that Turkey, Pakistan, and Malaysia
said they are willing to do this. Malaysia earlier had made a
blanket offer of asylum for any Muslim refugees forced to
flee "ethnic cleansing." (Patrick Moore, RFE/RL, Inc.)
BULGARIA WANTS UN OBSERVERS ON ITS WESTERN BORDER.
Bulgaria, through its UN Ambassador Slavi Pashovski, has
officially requested the deployment of UN military observers
on its territory, an RFE/RL correspondent reports. On 8
October Pashovski told the General Assembly that the conflict
in ex-Yugoslavia might be more easily contained if the UN
presence in the region were increased. He said Bulgaria
would also accept a UN mission to monitor the application of
sanctions against Serbia and Montenegro. Over the last few
days observers and customs officials sent by the EC and the
CSCE have been stationed along Bulgaria's western border and
in its Danube ports. (Kjell Engelbrekt, RFE/RL, Inc.)
CZECHOSLOVAK PARLIAMENT APPROVES POWER-SHARING LAWS.
The Federal Assembly passed two constitutional amendments
aimed at transferring federal powers to the Czech and Slovak
Republics. The first amendment reduces the number of federal
ministries from 15 to 5 (foreign affairs, defense, interior,
economics, and finance). The remaining ministries will cease
to exist and their jurisdictions will be assumed by the
corresponding republican ministries. A second bill was first
rejected and refereed to an arbitration panel but a
compromise version was eventually approved. It will give the
republics the power to investigate "crimes against the
security of the state" and transfer state media institutions
to the republics. It also ends the federal monopoly on film.
(Jan Obrman, RFE/RL, Inc.)
SUCHOCKA PRESENTS GOVERNMENT PROGRAM. Three months after
taking office, Prime Minister Hanna Suchocka presented her
government's full economic program to the Sejm. Poland most
needs "a sense of order" and "clear prospects for growth,"
she said on 9 October. After three years devoted to
transforming its economic system, Poland now has the chance
to open a period of steady economic growth. The goal--to
double national income in 10 years' time--could be met under
certain conditions: legal stability and a strong state;
increased domestic spending on investment; an influx of
foreign capital; reduction of Poland's foreign debt; lasting
social peace; and courage and self-confidence. Suchocka
warned, however, that economic growth will require limiting
consumption for the coming five years and that real wages can
not grow faster than production. Suchocka's address preceded
a debate on the government's economic plan for 1993. (Louisa
Vinton, RFE/RL, Inc.)
POLAND PRESSES FOR EC MEMBERSHIP TIMETABLE. On the
second day of her visit to Brussels, Polish Prime Minister
Hanna Suchocka urged the European Community to set a fixed
timetable for full membership for the countries of the
Visegrad triangle. Suchocka also pressed for better access
to EC markets and authorization to use the $1 billion
stabilization fund to finance Poland's budget deficit and
enact banking reform. Speaking to the European Parliament on
8 October, Suchocka said that Poland, Czechoslovakia, and
Hungary "do not insist on rapid acceptance, but we would like
to be taken into account in the construction of the European
union." The EC's response was noncommittal; commissioner
Frans Andriessen commented that "today was not a day to be
specific." On her return to Warsaw, Suchocka nonetheless
expressed confidence that Poland would join the EC within ten
years and NATO even sooner. She added that Poland had
restored its image among EC countries as a bulwark of
stability in Eastern Europe. (Louisa Vinton, RFE/RL, Inc.)
LAST DEBATE BEFORE ROMANIAN PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION. In a
four-hour television program on 8 October, incumbent
president Ion Iliescu and challenger Emil Constantinescu
debated mainly economic issues. Constantinescu attacked the
record of the Iliescu administration and asked viewers to
consider whether there are any grounds to assume that things
will improve in the next four years. He presented a program
for economic redress and said a social moratorium was
necessary for the economy to be put on the right path.
Iliescu reiterated his views on economic "restructuring,"
saying that the state must have instruments for intervention
when necessary, and attacked the Constantinescu's program,
calling it "liberal idealism." (Michael Shafir, RFE/RL, Inc.)
COMPOSITION OF THE ROMANIAN PARLIAMENT. The Central
Electoral Bureau announced the first-cut distribution of
seats in the parliament elected on 27 September. The final
distribution will be established after the centralization of
the results at country level according to a complicated
system. At this stage, the Chamber of Deputies will comprise
Democratic National Salvation Front (DNSF)--117 seats;
Democratic Convention of Romania (DCR)--82; National
Salvation Front (NSF)--43; Party of Romanian National Unity
(PRNU)--30; Hungarian Democratic Federation of Romania
(HDFR)--27; Greater Romania Party (GRP)--16; Socialist Labor
Party (SLP)--12. In the Senate the seats will be distributed
as follows: DNSF--49; DCR--34; NSF--18; PRNU--14; GRP-6;
Democratic Agrarian Party--5; and SLP--5. Meanwhile, the DCR
says it will contest the results of the parliamentary and
presidential elections. The decision was announced in an
official statement published in the daily Dreptatea on 8
October. DCR campaign manager Ilie Paunescu told Reuters that
the protest will be filed because of "the large number of
annulled votes, fraud attempts, and major irregularities."
(Michael Shafir)
KING MICHAEL REQUESTS VISA TO VISIT ROMANIA. Exiled
king Michael has asked the embassy in Bern to issue a visa
for a visit to Romania accompanied by his family. Teodor
Melescanu, secretary of state at the ministry of foreign
affairs, said in an interview with Radio Bucharest on 8
October that Romania's official position remains that in
principle there are no objections to visits by the royal
family, but only after the end of the present elections. He
added that the government's willingness to grant entry
permits referred to visits for pilgrimages, family
commemorations and similar occasions. Other problems
connected with what he termed "the clarification of the
relationship between the royal family and Romania" must await
the formation of the new government. (Michael Shafir).
ROMANIAN CULTURAL CENTER OPENS IN BUDAPEST. Romanian
Minister of Culture Ludovic Spiess said at the opening
ceremony on 8 October that "in Budapest today Romania opens a
new door to Europe" and "an opportunity for dialogue that the
two countries urgently need." A Hungarian cultural center
opened in Bucharest on 1 October. Spiess and his Hungarian
counterpart Bertalan Andrasfalvy expressed the hope that the
cultural centers will promote closer cooperation between the
two countries. MTI carried the report. (Edith Oltay,
RFE/RL, Inc.)
POSSIBLE COMPROMISE ON THE MEDIA FRONT IN HUNGARY.
Representatives of Hungary's three opposition parties told a
press conference following talks with President Arpad Goncz
on 8 October that they are willing to make "sound
compromises" to end the country's media war. They agreed to
enter into discussions with the government on the appointment
of new radio and TV chiefs as well as the package of laws on
the media. The opposition parties have until now insisted
that the appointment of heads of radio and TV be discussed
only after the enactment by parliament of the media laws.
The government dismissed the radio and TV chiefs months ago,
but they remain in their posts because President Goncz
refused to approve the dismissals. Quarrels between the
government and the opposition over control of the media have
for the past two years blocked the passing of much needed
laws on the media. (Edith Oltay, RFE/RL, Inc.)
LAAR NAMED ESTONIAN PREMIER. As expected, Estonian
President Lennart Meri on 8 October named Pro Patria chairman
Mart Laar as his candidate for prime minister. Laar, 32, told
reporters that Estonia needs to be more "energetic" in its
dealings with Russia. Laar also said speeded up market
reforms will be among his first tasks, Rahva Haal reports on
9 October. Laar's appointment will be put to a vote in
parliament on 19 October (Riina Kionka, RFE/RL, Inc.)
PARLIAMENTARY COMMISSIONS FORMED. Ten parliamentary
commissions have been officially registered in the newly
elected Estonian State Assembly, Rahva Haal of 9 October
reports. With one defection from Secure Home, Pro Patria is
by far the largest faction, with 30 seats. Other factions
include the Central faction (15); the Moderates (12); the
Estonian National Independence Party (11); and the Royalists
(8). The election coalition Secure Home has split over
ownership policy into two separate factions--the Coalition
Party Alliance (8) and the Rural Union Alliance. (Riina
Kionka, RFE/RL, Inc.)
ETHNIC COMMUNITIES DELEGATION IN LITHUANIA. On 7
October representatives of the Federation of Ethnic
Communities of Europe held talks with the Lithuanian Supreme
Council's Citizens' Rights and Nationality Affairs Commission
as well as the Foreign Affairs Commission, Radio Lithuania
reports. The latter's chairman Vidmantas Povilionis said
that the delegation learned that Lithuania has already passed
laws regulating the status of all minorities and not just
some as is the case in many European countries. Povilionis
suggested that Lithuania's laws could be a model for other
countries. The delegation visited the Tatar mosque in Kaunas
and the Russian cultural center in Vilnius. On 9 September
the delegation will have a meeting with Prime Minister
Aleksandras Abisala and hold a press conference before
departing. (Saulius Girnius, RFE/RL, Inc.)
WESTERN DIPLOMATS: HUMAN RIGHTS OBSERVED IN LATVIA. BNS
reported on 7 October that Western diplomats told the press,
that, despite Russian allegations, the rights of
Russian-speakers in Latvia are not being violated. British
ambassador Richard Samuel said that the Latvian government
wants to observe human rights of all minorities and has not
noticed any examples of violation of those rights. US embassy
press attachi James Kenny said that as far he is concerned,
the Baltic States are observing human rights and noted that
in response to US queries, Russia has failed to provide facts
about claims of human rights violations. German ambassador
Count Hagen von Lambsdorf pointed out that a distinction
should be drawn between human and civil rights. Other
diplomats noted that while human rights were being observed
in Latvia, some problems were caused by the way the Latvian
authorities are handling the citizenship and language issues.
(Dzintra Bungs, RFE/RL, Inc.)
REFERENDUM ON LITHUANIAN CONSTITUTION. On 8 October
Supreme Council Chairman Vytautas Landsbergis held a press
conference devoted to the new Lithuanian constitution, Radio
Lithuania reports. After long negotiations the constitution
projects presented by the Sajudis coalition and a parliament
commission had been reconciled, he said, and the parliament's
presidium had decided to call a special session of the
parliament on 12 October to approve the holding of a
referendum on the constitution on 25 October, when elections
to the Seimas will be held. The Seimas would be empowered to
approve the final version of the constitution. The draft
calls for the direct election of the president for a
five-year term. The president would offer a candidate for
prime minister that the Seimas would have to approve. The
prime minister would, in turn, offer candidates for his
cabinet that the president would approve. The prime minister
would then present the cabinet and his program for the
approval of the Seimas. (Saulius Girnius, RFE/RL, Inc.)
RAVNOPRAVIE DEPUTIES DENY COOPERATION. In response to
Latvian Defense Ministry's protest concerning the
anti-Latvian activities of the Association for the Defense of
Veterans Rights, several deputies of the Ravnopravie faction
of the Latvian Supreme Council denied their affiliation with
the pro-Russian and pro-Soviet organization, while others did
admit to contacts with it and similar organizations, such as
the Russian Citizens Association, saying that they need to
maintain contacts with their voters, Diena reported on 7
October. Ravnopravie deputies are mostly Russian-speakers and
originally supported the idea that Latvia should remain a
part of the Soviet Union. (Dzintra Bungs, RFE/RL, Inc.)
BALTIC COOPERATION ON ENERGY. During a meeting in Riga
on 6 October, Baltic ministers responsible for fuel and
energy coordinated their policies on how to cope with the
expected shortages this fall and winter. They decided that
the Latvian port of Ventspils and the Lithuanian port of
Klaipeda would be available for common use to receive and
channel further emergency energy aid resources from abroad;
similarly, the port of Riga would be used to receive gas from
abroad. Estonia agreed to discount electricity exports to
Latvia in exchange for the use of Latvia's gas reservoirs,
BNS reported on 7 October. (Dzintra Bungs, RFE/RL, Inc.)
novine.68.bale.,
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Fighting hampers U.N. peacekeepers work in Sarajevo
Subject: Vance, Owen to visit Moscow
Subject: Fighting reported in six cities of Bosnia-Hercegovina
Subject: U.S. may send field hospital to Bosnia-Hercegovina
Subject: 'Ethnic cleansing' almost over, says U.N. spokesperson
Subject: Serbia and Croatian forces reportedly strike secret deal
Subject: Chess champ Kasparov says he'd face Fischer for 'clean money'
Subject: Security Council bans military flights over Bosnia-Hercegovina
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Fighting hampers U.N. peacekeepers work in Sarajevo
Date: 8 Oct 92 15:50:59 GMT
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (UPI) -- The newly appointed U.N. commander in
Bosnia-Hercegovina Thursday expressed his determination to restore water
and electricity supplies to the Serb-beseiged capital of Sarajevo and
said U.N. soldiers would fire to protect themselves and repair crews.
``We need absolute guarantees of a cease-fire, at least in these
locations where these workmen will be working,'' French Gen. Phillipe
Morillon of the U.N. Protection Force (UNPROFOR) said, refering to local
technicians on whom depend repairs to Sarajevo's war-damaged utility
systems.
Asked at a news conference what UNPROFOR escorts for the repair teams
would do if they were fired upon, he replied: ``We have come here not to
fight, but to help in bringing about peace to Bosnia-Hercegovina.
``However, we are ready to open fire to eliminate threats, but
without engaging in retaliation actions. We are entitled to self-
defense, legitimate defense to protect the lives of our people and those
of repair squads,'' he said.
An estimated 350,000 residents and 150,000 refugees are trapped with
little water and no electricity in Sarajevo by a more than six-month
siege by Serbian extremists fighting to rip a self-declared state out of
the former Yugoslav republic of Muslim Slavs, Croats and Serbs.
Morillon was appointed Sept. 30 as the commander in Bosnia-
Hercegovina of the multinational UNPROFOR as part of a major expansion
in the contingent ordered by the U.N. Security Council as part of an
effort to bolster humanitarian aid operations.
He has previously asserted that he was determined to end the blockade
of Sarajevo, which has left its predominantly Muslim Slav population
dependent on U.N.-organized food and medical aid.
Morillon held talks on the issue on Wednesday in Sarajevo and in
Pale, the main Serbian stronghold to the east of the city, where he said
he was told that local commanders would be responsible for ensuring the
safety of U.N.-protected utility repair teams.
``I'll ask all sides involved in the war to comply with the Serbian
promise'' and hold local commanders responsible for cease-fire
violations, said Morillon.``I became aware how a tragic sitution is in
Sarajevo with no electricity and no water.''
``Our first priority is to restore electricity and water in Sarajevo,
'' Morillon said. ``What is needed is protection for local civilian
technicians in their repair work. I got assurances of such protection in
my talks yesterday from both the Bosnian and Serbian leaders.''
But, he warned the task would be difficult, saying, ``General
Morillon is not a magician or savior. We have to work step by step.''
He said that half of the 30 utility repair missions attempted in the
past month in the Sarajevo area had to be abandoned because of fighting.
Under the recent U.N. Security Council decision, UNPROFOR in Bosnia-
Hercegovina is to be expanded from a 1,500-strong force to more than 6,
000 men, all from the North Atlantic Treay Organization countries.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Vance, Owen to visit Moscow
Date: 8 Oct 92 16:14:18 GMT
GENEVA (UPI) -- The United Nations and European Community mediators,
Cyrus Vance and Lord David Owen, were due to fly to Moscow Friday to
talk with government leaders on the continued fighting in Bosnia-
Hercegovina, a U.N.spokesman said Thursday.
A meeting with President Boris Yeltsin is ``hoped for, but not yet
scheduled,'' spokesman Fred Eckhard said.
The mediators plan to return to Geneva Sunday to resume meetings
Monday with representatives of the three warring factions in Bosnia-
Hercegovina.
The visit to Moscow, Eckhard said, is one of a number of trips Vance
and Owen have planned to neighboring countries which have an interest in
the fighting in the former Yugoslavia. They have already been to Greece.
Thursday Vance and Owen met with former Polish Premier Tadeusz
Mazowiecki, the U.N.-appointed investigator into human rights violations
in the former Yugoslavia.
Mazowiecki, who has produced a report sharply criticizing conditions
in Bosnia-Hercegovina, leaves Monday for a trip to various former
Yugoslav republics including Kossovo, Serbia and Montenegro.
Eckhard said of the continued fighting in the north of Bosnia-
Hercegovina, ``it doesn't help the search for peace here (in Geneva) to
have things heating up on the ground.''
He said Vance and Owen are determined that the peace process, as
outlined by the August London conference, will see any territorial gains
made illegally reversed in a final settlement.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Fighting reported in six cities of Bosnia-Hercegovina
Date: 8 Oct 92 19:48:54 GMT
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Hercegovina (UPI) -- Fighting raged across north and
central Bosnia-Hercegovina Thursday, with Serbian militiamen and
government forces clashing in half a dozen cities just two days after a
major border town fell to the Yugoslav-army armed guerrillas, Bosnian
officials and radio reported.
Warring factions in the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo appeared to be
regrouping after three days of fierce fighting, but sporadic clashes
killed at least one and wounded 26, including two Egyptian U.N. soldiers
hit when their headquarter came under mortar fire, officials said.
Health officials in the newly independent republic, which erupted in
warfare after ethnic Serbs launched a campaign to carve a separate
nation out of the country, said at least 37 people were killed and 190
wounded in 24 hours of fighting that ended at 10 a.m., about one third
of them in the capital.
Heavy fighting raged Thursday in five cities north and northwest of
the capital, officials and Sarajevo radio said. Clashes were reported in
Bugojno, Bihac, Jajce, Doboj and Gradacac as Serbian forces pressed
their advantage following the capture of the key northern border town of
Bosanski Brod.
The lull in fighting in Sarajevo came after three days of heavy
shellfire that devastated several high-rise apartment and office
buildings in the capital as Serbian forces tried to advance from the
south. Bosnian forces counterattacked at three bridges along the
Miljacka river and stopped the advance, Bosnian military sources said.
Unconfirmed Bosnian reports said up to 150 Serbian fighters were
killed in the offensive thrust after they were drawn into an ambush and
attacked by Bosnian troops firing rocket-propelled grenades and machine
guns.
Serbian forces Thursday also attempted several infantry advances on
Bihac under the cover of heavy artillery fire that hit locations from
the center of town out to the suburbs, Sarajevo radio said. It claimed
the attackers had been turned back by Bosnian defenders. At least two
people were killed and 11 wounded in the fighting, the radio said.
The latest fighting came as Serbian forces tightened their grip on
Bosanski Brod after a seven-month campaign that led late Tuesday to the
fall of the strategic city along the Bosnian border with Croatia.
The capture of the city and the destruction of the bridge over the
Sava River cut a major supply link used by Bosnian troops, comprised
mostly of Muslim Slavs but including some Croats and Serbs.
Bosnian vice president Ejub Ganic said Thursday thousands of Serbian
troops involved in the battle for Bosanki Brod were being moved to
Gradacac, which Sarajevo radio said came under heavy fire Thursday.
Officials of the U.N. Protection Force said Thursday the commander of
UNPROFOR's new republic-wide operation, French. Col. Phillipe Morillon,
failed during his two-day visit to Sarajevo to arrange a joint meeting
of the warring factions to discuss humanitarian and other logistical
issues.
Both Bosnian and Serbian officials were particularly interested in
winning UNPROFORs increased commitment to help restore water and
electricity supplies in and around the capital, UNPROFOR spokesman Mik
Magnusson said.
UNPROFOR troops have been escorting some utility workers trying to
identify problems and make repairs but have been deterred by constant
fighting and recurring damages, Magnusson said.
``We are ready to open fire to elimate threats'' when protecting
utility crews, ``but without engaging in retaliation actions,'' Morillon
told a news conference Thursday in Belgrade.
``We are entitled to self-defense, legitimate defense to protect the
lives of our people and those of repair squads,'' he said.
The outages have been particularly severe at Sarajevo's hospitals,
where surgeons said they have been forced to operate by candlelight and
have been prevented from properly sterilizing equipment.
UNPROFOR Thursday provided the city's two main hospitals with enough
diesel fuel to run their electricity generators for about four or five
days, and the U.N. High Commission for Refugees was planning to try
loading two tanker trucks with fuel in the Croatian-controlled town of
Kiseljak, 25 miles northwest of Sarajevo, and driving them to the
Bosnian capital.
Two Ukrainian soldiers from UNPROFOR volunteered to drive the trucks
after getting commitments that all warring parties would allow them to
pass, said Marc Vachon, the UNHCR's Sarajevo logistics officer.
``If we are shot at tomorrow, you will hear it wherever you are in
town,'' Vachon said. ``You will hear the kaboom.''
None of eleven scheduled UNHCR humanitarian aid delivery flights
reached the city Thursday, although 24 trucks arrived with some 200 tons
of food and other supplies, Vachon said.
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Subject: U.S. may send field hospital to Bosnia-Hercegovina
Date: 8 Oct 92 20:04:42 GMT
UNITED NATIONS (UPI) -- Secretary-General Boutros Ghali informed the
U.N. Security Council Thursday that the United States has agreed to
contribute military personnel to the U.N. peace force in the former
Yugoslavia.
Ghali said Spain and other countries have also agreed to send
military contingents in order to strengthen the current U.N. Protection
Force, whose task has been to provide security to food convoys and other
humanitarian operations to civilians trapped by the civil war.
A U.S. official said in Washington that the administration is
``actively considering'' setting up a field hospital in Zagreb, Croatia,
as part of the UNPROFOR operations. The official said the final decision
could come as early as Thursday from the Pentagon.
``The president (Bush) has pretty much ruled out sending out ground
troops to Bosnia,'' the official said.
The United States has rejected the idea of committing ground troops
to the war that had been ravaging the Balkan republic since April for
fear that it would be drawn into the fighting. It has provided military
aircraft for the food airlift to Sarajevo, however.
The Security Council has allowed Ghali to strengthen UNPROFOR by at
least 6,000 troops, most of them coming from NATO countries. Those
countries have agreed also to pay for the costs of maintaining the
military contingents in Bosnia-Hercegovina.
``I propose that Spain and the United States of America be added to
the list of member states contributing military personnel to UNPROFOR,''
Ghali said.
Canada, France and Britain said they will send each an infantry
battalion to Bosnia-Hercegovina. Countries that will also contribute
military components to UNPROFOR are Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium,
Portugal and Norway.
A U.N. spokesman said those countries have already sent an advance
military team to the region to study the deployment of the additional
force. UNPROFOR currently has about 14,000 troops based in Croatia and
1,600 in Sarajevo where they have been providing security to the
international airport for the humanitarian airlift.
The additional troops to UNPROFOR came at a time when the Security
Council was considering a ban on military flights over Bosnia-
Hercegovina in an effort to ground the Serbian air force. The ban will
not apply to U.N. and humanitarian flights.
A compromise resolution apparently reached by the United States,
France and Britain, which was circulated to governments in the Security
Council, would ``establish a ban on military flights in the air space of
Bosnia-Hercegovina.''
The draft resolution would ask UNPROFOR to monitor compliance with
the ban on military flights and to place observers at air fields
throughout the former Yugoslavia. UNPROFOR would be asked to draw up a
mechanism for approval and inspection of non-military flights.
The draft made no mention of an enforcement measure. Diplomats said
the Security Council would have to take a stronger measure, like
ordering UNPROFOR to shoot down violators, if the ban was not complied
with.
In a related development, the Bosnian ambassador to the United
Nations, Mohammed Sacirbey, sent to the Security Council documents
pertaining to grave human rights violations in his country, including
testimonies by witnesses on the destruction of properties, tortures and
killings.
The documents were requested by the council on Tuesday so they can be
analyzed by a war-crimes panel that was set up by the council with the
purpose of bringing to trial those charged with violations of Geneva
conventions on war crimes.
The panel will be comprised of a number of ``impartial experts'' to
be named by the U.N. secretary-general. Ghali was requested to collect
information related to the human rights violations in the former
Yugoslavia within 30 days from Tuesday.
Sacirbey told a news conference Thursday that the council's war-
crimes panel was ``not entirely up to standard'' set up for the
Nuremberg process, which was created by allied countries in 1943 to
prosecute Nazi leaders involved in the extermination of Jews in Europe.
Sacirbey proposed a series of legal measures in order to prosecute
those guilty of human rights violations by setting up a war-crimes
commission for Bosnia-Hercegovina, ``which should work closely with
governmental authorities to secure apprehension and arrest of suspected
war criminals.''
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: 'Ethnic cleansing' almost over, says U.N. spokesperson
Date: 9 Oct 92 11:44:11 GMT
GENEVA (UPI) -- Certain parts of northern Bosnia-Hercegovina are ``in
the final stages of ethnic cleansing'' with non-Serb populations fleeing
anywhere to escape further atrocities, the U.N. High Commission for
Refugees said Friday.
``Some really horrible things are happening,'' UNHCR spokesperson
Sylvana Foa told a news conference. ``I think we are in the final stages
of ethnic cleansing and the sooner peace-keeping troops can get into
northern Bosnia-Hercegovina the better.''
Foa said the situation was deteriorating rapidly in the region of
Bagna-Luka, where 200,000 people, mostly Muslims but including some
Croats, were fearful of attack by Serbian guerillas. In the region of
Kotoruaros, 6,500 people are camped in an open field in rapidly
deteriorating weather conditions waiting for international relief
organizations to evacuate them, Foa said.
The UNHCR had reports that refugees seeking to join the group have
been dragged from buses by armed men and taken away to an unknown
destination, she said.
In the town of Kljuc between as many as 4,000 Muslim refugees have
been told to get out of town by Friday, Foa said.
Meanwhile, she said, Germany has announced it will rejoin the supply
airlift to Sarajevo Saturday once its planes were fitted with anti anti-
aircraft devices.
The UNHCR had 11 flights scheduled into Sarajevo for Friday by U.S.,
Canadian, and French planes, making 26 since the airlift resumed nearly
a week ago. So far they have brought in 1,127 tons of food, ``nowhere
near what we need,'' Foa said.
The UNHCR governing council was winding up a weeklong meeting with 43
donor countries Friday designed to increase financial support for its
operations in former Yugoslavia.
In a related development, former U.S. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance
and Lord David Owen, the U.N. and European Community mediators in former
Yugoslavia, flew to Moscow for two days of meetings with government
officials, including a hoped-for session with President Yeltsin.
They will be back in Geneva Monday for resumption of talks with the
three warring factions in Bosnia-Hercegovina, said their spokesman, Fred
Eckhard.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Serbia and Croatian forces reportedly strike secret deal
Date: 9 Oct 92 15:26:14 GMT
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herecegovina (UPI) -- Serbian and Croatian forces in
Bosnia-Hercegovina have agreed to a cease-fire, a senior Serbian leader
said Friday, adding new fuel to speculation of a secret deal to
partition the war-torn former Yugoslav republic at the expense of its
Muslim Slavs.
The truce was announced at a news conference in the Serbian
stronghold of Banja Luka by Col. Bogdan Subotic, the ``defense minister''
of the self-declared Serbian state that Serbian forces have been
fighting to capture.
Subotic was quoted by the Serbia-based Tanjug news agency as saying
that the cease-fire was ``unconditional.''
There was no mention in the Tanjug dispatch of when it became
effective or confirmation that it had gone into effect.
The announcement came a day after Radovan Karadzic, the ``president''
of the self-declared Serbian state, said in Geneva that he and
representatives of the majority of Bosnia-Hercegovina's Croatian
community were close to reaching a truce accord.
Leaders of the republic's Muslim Slavs, Serbs and Croats have been
meeting in Geneva in internationally mediated negotiations on ending the
war that erupted when Serbian forces launched an offensive in late March
to capture their self-declared state.
The development added new fuel to mounting speculation that Serbia
and Croatia have secretly agreed to partition Bosnia-Hercegovina into
autonomous ethnic regions, a plan opposed by Muslim Slavs, the largest
community in the newly independent, former Yugoslav republic.
``I think there is a deal,'' said a Western diplomat who closely
tracks developments in Bosnia-Hercegovina from Belgrade, the capital of
Serbia.
Such speculation began in May with the first of at least two meetings
held in Austria between Karadzic, whose forces are financed and armed by
Serbia's communist regime, and Mate Boban, the leader of the Bosnia-
Hercegovina branch of the Croatian Democratic Union of President Franjo
Tudjman of Croatia.
Forces armed by Croatia and loyal to Boban this summer took control
of the Croat-dominated region of Western Hercegovina. He then declared
the area part of an ``Autonomous Croatian Community of Herceg-Bosna.''
The announcement of the cease-fire came as Bosnia-Hercegovina's
Muslim Slav president, Alija Izetbegovic, held a second day of talks
with local Croatian leaders in Western Hercegovina in an apparent bid to
preserve what had been an alliance against the Serbs and prevent the
division of the republic.
Sarajevo radio said that Izetbegovic, dressed in a military uniform,
told a news conference Thursday in the main Western Hercegovina town of
Mostar that he wanted to ``contribute to better cooperation between the
Muslim and Croatian peoples in the struggle against the common enemy,
but also to the building of a sovereign state of Bosnia-Hercegovina.''
Izetbegovic continued his tour Friday with meetings in the
predominantly Croat town of Konjic, the radio said.
The Bosnian government of Muslim Slavs, moderate Serbs and Croats
opposes the breakup of the republic, seeking to preserve its territorial
integrity and independence, international recognition of which it won in
early April.
Fears of a Serb-Croat deal to divide the republic were renewed
following a meeting last week in Geneva between Tudjman and Dobrica
Cosic, the ultra-nationalist president of the rump Yugoslav federation
forged by Serbia and its tiny dependent, Montenegro, in April.
Cosic on Friday signaled an apparent about-turn in Serbian policy
when he called for direct negotiations between Tudjman's regime and
Serbian rebels who captured 35 percent of Croatia in the civil war
ignited by the republic's June 1991 declaration of independence from the
former Yugoslav federation.
Speculation of a Serb-Croat agreement on Bosnia-Hercegovina riose
further with the sudden capture Tuesday by Serbian forces of Bosanski
Brod, a Croat-controlled town of immense strategic importance because of
its location on the Sava River border between northern Bosnia-
Hercegovina and Croatia.
``Bosanski Brod fits in. It appears the Croats just pulled out,''
said the Western diplomat.
Bosanski Brod had been connected to Croatia by the only Sava River
bridge left standing, thereby providing the main route for arms and
supplies from Zagreb to the coalition of Croatian and Muslim Slav forces
fighting in northern Bosnia-Hercergovina.
The Serbs blew up the bridge on Wednesday morning after Bosanski Brod
was abandoned by well-supplied and experienced Croatian and Muslim Slav
units that had withstood seven months of Serbian land and air attacks.
The fall of the town consolidated the Serbs' control of a vast swath
of territory claimed for their self-declared state and providing a vital
supply corridor running from the border of Serbia, across the northern
tier of Bosnia-Hercegovina to western areas of Croatia captured by
Serbian forces during last year's civil war.
Meanwhile, fighting flared in northern Bosnia-Hercegovina while
clashes eased in and around the capital of Sarajevo.
Serbian forces intensified their infantry and artillery attacks on
the predominantly Muslim Slav-Croat town of Gradacac and Sarajevo radio
described the situation there as ``critical.''
``Fierce clashes'' were under way in the Muslim Slav town of Brcko,
the radio said.
It was mostly calm in Sarajevo with sporadic fighting and
intermittent shelling echoing across the city.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Chess champ Kasparov says he'd face Fischer for 'clean money'
Date: 8 Oct 92 20:43:29 GMT
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (UPI) -- World chess champion Gary Kasparov
said Thursday he would be willing to face America's ``living legend''
Bobby Fischer over a chess board, but only for ``clean money not paid
for by Serbian propaganda.''
Kasparov, the 29-year-old Azerbaijani who captured the chess title in
1985, took the swipe at Fischer after enduring a barrage of criticism
from the former world champion, who has repeatedly disparaged Kasparov's
play and insulted him by calling him ``an outright crook,'' a ``creep''
and ``a liar.''
The current chess champion's turn to reply came during a news
conference in the Argentine capital after being quizzed about the
possibility of a game with Fischer, who is currently involved in a
Serbian-sponsored re-match of his 1972 title bout with former world
champion Boris Spassky.
``If the public thinks there should be a match, and if there is clean
money not paid for by Serbian propoganda and there is a country willing
to host, I think it can be done,'' Kasparov told the news conference.
The reigning world champ admitted he was surprised by Fischer's
recent return to the public eye after 20 years, saying: ``I never
thought he would come back. He was always the maximum world champion,
like a living legend.''
He described the prospects of a match with Fischer as ``a
hypothetical possibility,'' but said with the return of the erratic
Fischer ``anything is possible.''
While downplaying the possibility of a match, Kasparov engaged in his
own bit of psychological warfare, saying he was not very impressed by
Fischer's play so far during the re-match, in which Fischer leads
Spassky 6-3.
``The quality shown up to now is not very high. Really it is sad that
it has to be that way,'' Kasparov said. ``Maybe there is a miracle and
Fischer can return to play strong, but since he retired, chess has
evolved quite a bit and it will be difficult for him to catch up.''
Kasparov criticized Fischer for choosing to hold the match in the
Yugoslav capital while that country is still backing a war with its
neighboring republics. Fischer ignored U.S. warnings that the match
would violate U.N. sanctions against Serbia and spat on a Treasury
Department order barring him from play.
Kasparov denied Fischer's repeated allegations that his world
championship matches with Anatoli Karpov were rigged.
``In order to fix 144 matches, you would have to have graduated in
Hollywood,'' Kasparov said, smiling. ``You can plan good moves, but not
the errors, and with Karpov we committed a lot that time (in 1985).
Fischer's words show his mental conditions are not very healthy.''
Kasparov said that while he hoped to continue improving his game, he
found little motivation.
``It is difficult to push yourself after having won all the
tournaments over nearly 10 years.''
He said his only slight motivation was a possible match against
Fischer or a computer.
Next year, Kasparov will defend his title against the winner of a
match between English Grandmaster Nigel Short and Dutch champion Jan
Timman.
``I would bet on Timman to win,'' Kasparov said.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Security Council bans military flights over Bosnia-Hercegovina
Date: 9 Oct 92 18:47:14 GMT
UNITED NATIONS (UPI) -- The U.N. Security Council Friday imposed a ban
on military air traffic over Bosnia-Hercegovina and said it will take
measures to enforce the ban if it is violated.
The council said the ban, which took effect immediately, excluded
flights by the U.N. Protection Force and humanitarian organizations.
It decided to post observers at air fields throughout the former
Yugoslavia to monitor compliance with the ban.
The resolution imposing the military air ban was adopted by a 14-0
vote, with China abstaining.
It was adopted after the United States, Britain and France reached a
compromise stating the ban will be carried out in two stages with U.N.
and European Community observers monitoring the air space in the first
step.
The council said, ``in the case of violations, (it will) consider
urgently the further measures necessary to enfore this ban'' in the
second stage.
Britain and France first balked at the idea of an air exclusion zone
for fear that it would be difficult to implement and would put U.N.
peacekeeping troops on the ground at risk.
``Anybody who believes that the ban can be flouted is going to get a
bad surprise,'' British U.N. David Hannay told reporters.
Hannay and U.S. Ambassador Edward Perkins said the Security Council
will meet again to discuss an enforcement measure for the ban if it is
violated. Hannay said the monitoring process would involve the use of
radar-carrying planes such as AWACs.
``Our vote in favor of the current resolution reflects our view that
in the case of violations it binds the council to further action,''
Perkins told the council before the vote.
Perkins urged the parties in the Yugoslav conflict to abide by the
ban and to remove from the council ``the need to consider further
enforcement measures resulting from non-compliance.''
``If, however, the current resolution is violated, my government will
move to seek adoption by the council of a further resolution mandating
enforcement of a no-fly zone over Bosnia-Hercegovina,'' Perkins said.
novine.69.bale.,
U.N. RESOLUTION IMPOSING NO-FLY BAN OVER BOSNIA
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 9, Reuter - Following is the text
of resolution 781 (1992), adopted by the Security Council on
Friday, banning military flights over Bosnia-Herzegovina.
THE SECURITY COUNCIL,
REAFFIRMING its resolution 713 (1991) and all
subsequent relevant resolutions,
DETERMINED to ensure the safety of humanitarian flights
to Bosnia and Herzegovina,
NOTING the readiness of the parties, expressed in the
framework of the London Conference, to take appropriate
steps in order to ensure the safety of humanitarian flights
and their commitment at that Conference to a ban on military
flights,
RECALLING in this context the Joint Declaration
(S/24476) signed in Geneva on 30 September 1992 by the
Presidents of the Republic of Croatia and the Federal
Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro), and in
particular paragraph 7 thereof,
RECALLING FURTHER the agreement reached on air issues
in Geneva on 15 September 1992 among all the parties
concerned in the framework of the working group on the
London Conference on confidence-building measures (S/24634),
ALARMED at reports that military flights over the
territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina are none the less
continuing,
NOTING the letter of 4 October 1992, addressed to the
President of the Security Council from the President of the
Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (S/24616),
CONSIDERING that the establishment of a ban on military
flights in the air space of Bosnia and Herzegovina
constitutes an essential element for the safety of the
delivery of humanitarian assistance, and a decisive step for
the cessation of hostilities in Bosnia and Herzegovina,
ACTING pursuant to the provisions of resolution 770
(1992) aimed at ensuring the safety of the delivery of
humanitarian assistance in Bosnia and Herzegovina,
1. DECIDES to establish a ban on military flights in
the air space of Bosnia and Herzegovina, this ban not to
apply to United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) flights
or to other flights in support of United Nations operations,
including humanitarian assistance;
2. REQUESTS UNPROFOR to monitor compliance with the ban
on military flights, including the placement of observers
where necessary at air fields in the territory of the former
Yugoslavia;
3. FURTHER REQUESTS UNPROFOR to ensure, through an
appropriate mechanism for approval and inspection, that the
purpose of flights to and from Bosnia and Herzegovina other
than those banned by paragraph 1 above is consistent with
Security Council resolutions;
4. REQUESTS the Secretary-General to report to the
Council on a periodic basis on the implementation of this
resolution and to report immediately any evidence of
violations;
5. CALLS UPON States to take nationally or through
regional agencies or arrangements all measures necessary to
provide assistance to UNPROFOR, based on technical
monitoring and other capabilities, for the purposes of
paragraph 2 of this resolution;
6. UNDERTAKES to examine without delay all the
information brought to its attention concerning the
implementation of the ban on military flights in Bosnia and
Herzegovina and, in the case of violations, to consider
urgently the further measures necessary to enforce this ban;
7. DECIDES to remain actively seized of the matter.
novine.70adzem,
Odakle stižu članci objavljeni ovde? Ponekad odštampam zanimljive
tekstove i delim društvu da se malo šire informišu, ali ne umem da
im objasnim odakle sve to dolazi.
novine.71.bale.,
Council Imposes No-Fly Zone in Bosnia, Hints at Future
Military Enforcement
By VICTORIA GRAHAM
Associated Press Writer
UNITED NATIONS (AP) _ The Security Council on Friday
banned all military flights over Bosnia in an effort to
ground Serbian warplanes, but it gave no orders to shoot down
violators of the ``no-fly zone.''
In what amounted to a stern warning and veiled threat,
the council rejected for now enforcement measures such as
aerial patrols or military action against invading aircraft.
But it hinted at future enforcement, saying it would
urgently consider ``further measures necessary to enforce
this ban'' in case of violations.
U.S. Ambassador Edward J. Perkins said if the resolution
is violated, ``my government will move to seek adoption by
the council of a further resolution mandating enforcement.''
The 15-nation council voted 14-0, with China abstaining,
to create the air-exclusion zone effective immediately in the
former Yugoslav republic, which has been besieged by Bosnian
Serb forces backed by the Belgrade government.
It was the first time the council has imposed such a
zone on a member state's territory. But the United States,
Britain and France recently imposed a no-fly zone in
southern Iraq, backed by orders to shoot down invading
aircraft, and are conducting air patrols over northern Iraq.
The Bosnian ban covers all military flights, except for
U.N. and humanitarian missions.
The Serbs have about 40 aircraft left by the Yugoslav
army when it withdrew from Bosnia earlier this year.
Bosnia's Muslim-led defense forces, who have lost more than
two-thirds of the republic to Serbs, have no aircraft.
The zone will be watched by U.N. ground monitors at
military airfields in the Balkans, assisted by aerial
surveillance outside the borders of Bosnia Croatia and
Serbia-Montenegro.
``Anyone who thinks they can flout this ban without
being found out will be badly surprised,'' British
Ambassador David Hannay said. ``And anyone who thinks that
having been found out no action will be taken also will be
badly surprised.''
But Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali hinted in a
letter to the council that he might oppose enforcement on
grounds it could jeopardize U.N. peacekeepers in Croatia and
Bosnia.
He expressed concern that there was no agreement among
combatants on a comprehensive ban on military flights.
Bosnian Serbs, he said, so far have indicated willingness
only to suspend military flights that would coincide with
humanitarian flights.
Chinese Ambassador Jin Yongjian said his government
abstained in part because China objected to the future use
of force.
Bosnian Ambassador Muhamed Sacirbey was skeptical the
ban would be respected. He said force was needed to show the
Serbs that the world body is serious.
So far, Sacirbey said, the United Nations has issued
only resolutions and condemnations ``and therefore their
words, their ultimatums in the eyes of Serbian extremists
are not worth very much.''
_____________________________________________________________________________
Bosnia Beginning Trials for Ethnic Serbian `War Criminals'
By JOHN DANISZEWSKI
Associated Press Writer
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) _ With his close-cut
hair, bony face and deferential manner, Zdravko Grujic looks
more like the waiter he once was than a convicted war
criminal.
On Friday, in the dock of a shell- and bullet-pocked
courtroom, the 39-year-old Grujic, an ethnic Serb, was
sentenced to 10 years in prison by a five-judge panel for
betraying his country and possessing a weapon without
permission.
There have been 60 war-crimes trials held since Sept. 1
by the military court of Bosnia-Herzegovina in besieged
Sarajevo. Another 118 trials are planned, said Senad Kreho,
a 32-year-old lawyer acting as president of the military
court.
Authorities say any Bosnian Serb who takes up arms
against the elected Muslim-led government is a traitor and a
criminal.
Grujic was captured May 30 wearing a Serbian uniform,
clutching a semi-automatic rifle and carrying two hand
grenades.
But he says he is a hapless victim, pressed into the
Serbian rebel forces under threat that his house would be
destroyed and his relatives killed unless he agreed to
fight. He said he was taken prisoner near Bosnian lines when
he went to help a neighbor whose house was burning.
``I didn't know it was forbidden to have a gun. I swear
I didn't know!'' he protested during an interview shortly
after his trial. The two burly guards sitting across the
table from him couldn't help laughing.
``I am a prisoner of war, not a criminal,'' Grujic
asserted. ``I did not fire one bullet. My hands are not
bloody.''
Grujic, married and with an elderly mother, was a waiter
in the cafe in Sarajevo's Central Hotel before the war. Now,
he is incarcerated a short distance away in a former army
barracks converted into a military prison and court complex.
Of his court-appointed lawyer, he said: ``For over 20
years I was serving him coffee.''
In the four months since his capture, Grujic said his
weight has dropped from 185 pounds to 130 pounds because of
the prison diet and because of ``fretting'' about his
situation. Interviewed in the presence of guards, he said he
no complaints about his treatment.
But that weight drop is not all that unusual in Sarajevo
where most of the population has lacked reliable food
supplies since the siege of the Bosnian capital began in
April.
The court is located uncomfortably near one of the
fiercest battle zones in Sarajevo, and bullets and shrapnel
frequently fly through the windows, leaving holes in the
curtains and pockmarks in the plaster.
``This is crazy hell, madness totally,'' Grujic said.
``Somebody has to stop this. Even in my cell I am a little
bit frightened.''
Judges for the military court were transferred from the
civil courts. Every five-judge panel has at least one ethnic
Serb and one ethnic Croat to ensure fairness, said Kreho,
the court's president.
The trials vary in length depending on the number of
witnesses and evidence, he said.
``They have the opportunity to defend themselves. They
have a jury in the court. They are innocent until proven
guilty,'' he said, adding that he hopes international
observers will come to see the proceedings.
The trials are public, and the laws applied are the same
as those of the old republic of Yugoslavia, he said.
Eighty percent of the cases involve charges of illegal
weapons possession, he said, with the remaining 20 percent
``serving in the aggressor army, murder, robbery.'' Some
cases involve homicide by Bosnian soldiers shooting members
of their own units.
Although the maximum penalty for treason is death, Kreho
said the court does not intend to impose it.
Grujic's sentence is one of the stiffest so far. After
three years, with good behavior, he will be eligible for
parole.
He said he is still hoping to have the 10-year sentence
reduced on an appeal in the next few weeks.
Even if he is freed or traded to the Serbian side in a
prisoner exchange, Grujic said, he will never again pick up
a gun.
``I would prefer it if they killed me. I would cut off
my hand so I could not hold a gun.''
_____________________________________________________________________________
LAST MOSLEM-HELD TOWN IN NORTH BOSNIA BOMBARDED
By Stephen Nisbet
BELGRADE, Oct 9, Reuter - The last Moslem-held town in
north Bosnia came under intense air and artillery attack by
Serb forces on Friday hours before the U.N. Security Council
banned military flights over the republic.
The stepped-up attack on Gradacac, reported by Bosnian
radio, came as the United Nations spoke of new horrors of
ethnic cleansing taking place in the region.
``Hell in Gradacac,'' declared the radio, adding that
waves of enemy planes blasted the town with bombs and air-
to-ground missiles in a 40-minute barrage soon after midday.
It said eight dead and 30 wounded had been counted so
far, but other bodies could not be pulled from wreckage
while artillery of the Serb rebel army still pounded the
town.
The attacks were not confirmed by the Serbs, who issued
conflicting statements about a ceasefire agreed with the
Croats, their other foe in the six-month civil war.
The Bosnian Serb army press centre in Banja Luka,
quoting Serb defence minister Bogdan Subotic, said the
ceasefire had begun at midnight on Thursday.
But Bosnia's rebel Serb leader Radovan Karadzic said in
Geneva that no official ceasefire had been signed.
``We haven't signed any document yet although we have
been talking about this for a few weeks,'' he told Reuters.
``Our assembly (parliament) has announced its platform
for cessation of hostilities with the Croats and Moslems. It
looks like the Croats have agreed and that it has
happened.''
He added: ``But nothing is signed. There is maybe just
an agreement at a local level.''
A spokesman in Zagreb for Croatian President Franjo
Tudjman and a senior Bosnian Croat politician in Geneva said
they knew nothing of such a ceasefire.
Mariofil Ljubic, a Croat and a member of the Moslem-led
Bosnian government delegation to the Geneva conference on
former Yugoslavia, told Reuters:
``All ceasefires are good, but the main thing is that
there must be a ceasefire throughout Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Ljubic, a vice-president of the Bosnian parliament,
added: ``There can be no deals between two peoples of the
republic against the third.''
Ceasefires are frequently called and just as frequently
broken in the war pitting Serbs against Croats and Moslems,
who voted at a referendum earlier this year to back Bosnia's
birth as a sovereign state with a seat at the United
Nations.
Subotic's statement about a ceasefire will heighten --
perhaps deliberately, some diplomats think -- suspicions
that Serbs and Croats did a deal to allow the Serbs to take
the north Bosnian town of Bosanski Brod on Tuesday night.
Bosanski Brod, just across the Sava river from Croatia,
had been heavily defended, and some diplomats wondered
whether the Croats agreed to give it up against the promise
of territorial concessions elsewhere by the Serbs.
In New York, the U.N. Security Council, in a blow
against Serb air supremacy in Bosnia-Herzegovina, barred
military flights over the republic but without authorising
fighter patrols to enforce the ban.
A resolution imposing the no-fly zone, adopted by a
vote of 14 in favour and none against, with only China
abstaining, opens the way for possible combat patrols at a
later stage if the ban is ignored.
Giving details of continuing ethnic cleansing in
Bosnia, Sylvana Foa, spokeswoman for the U.N. High
Commissioner for Refugees, said thousands of Moslems and
Croats were being brutally pushed from their homes.
Foa described this as ``the last stages of ethnic
cleansing'' in northern Bosnia.
``The situation in Banja Luka and surrounding areas is
deteriorating rapidly with regard to ethnic cleansing,'' Foa
said. ``The expulsion of people from these areas is being
carried out systematically with enormous repression. Really
horrible things are happening.''
_____________________________________________________________________________
Serbs Launch New Ethnic Purges; U.N. Creates `No-Fly' Zone
By JOHN DANISZEWSKI
Associated Press Writer
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) _ Rebel Serbs
reportedly carried out air attacks on two Bosnian cities
Friday even as the U.N. Security Council imposed a ban on
military flights over the former Yugoslav republic.
In voting Friday to establish a ``no-fly'' zone over
Bosnia, the Security Council rejected enforcement measures
such as aerial patrols or orders to shoot down violators.
Rebel warplanes bombed the northern Bosnian town of
Gradacac eight times, Croatian radio said. It said air
attacks also were carried out in the northern town of Jajce,
which has been without power and water for three months.
Elsewhere in Bosnia, rebel Serbs launched a new round of
ethnic purges in the north and drove thousands of Muslims
and Croats from their homes, U.N. officials said.
With winter approaching, the push to bring food and
water to Sarajevo has taken on added urgency. For a second
day, U.N. troops escorted utility crews trying to restore
electricity and water service.
But bad weather hampered the week-old international
airlift of food. Only four flights were able to land in
Sarajevo on Thursday, a fraction of what is necessary to
stave off starvation and sickness.
``The people are living in miserable conditions,'' said
Mik Magnusson, spokesman for the U.N. peacekeepers in
Sarajevo. ``You have no heating. Food is extremely limited
now.''
``Many people clearly have nothing and are living on the
handouts from neighbors, maybe a bit of sugar,'' he said.
``There is no running water and no toilet facilities and no
electricity.''
More than 14,000 people have been killed in Bosnia since
Serbs rebelled against a vote in February by majority
Muslims and Croats to secede from Serbian-dominated
Yugoslavia.
The Serbs are trying to carve out their own republic
within Bosnia, possibly as a prelude to uniting with Serbia.
The Muslim-led government in Sarajevo wants to preserve
a single state with decentralized authority. Croats, while
nominally accepting the Muslim-led government, also seek
greater autonomy.
Although the three warring groups have been accused of
purging areas they control of other ethnic groups, the
international community has blamed the Serbs most for
creating concentration camps and committing atrocities.
In Geneva, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said
Bosnian Serbs began new expulsions of non-Serbs this week
around the northern city of Banja Luka and opened a camp 20
miles south of there.
Spokeswoman Sylvana Foa said 6,500 ethnic Croats and
Muslim Slavs driven from Serb-controlled areas reportedly
were being held in an open field surrounded by barbed wire.
She said about 20,000 non-Serbs had fled the city in recent
days.
``The situation in Banja Luka and surrounding areas is
deteriorating,'' she said in Geneva. ``The expulsion of
people from these areas is being carried out systematically
and with enormous repression.''
She said the camp is apparently a transfer point for
people being loaded on buses headed for Travnik, a city to
the south controlled by Bosnian government forces.
The director of the Bosnian government's refugee bureau
in Croatia, Mosadik Borogovac, said 50 to 100 people were
killed after being taken from a bus en route to Travnik. He
said young men who could be drafted into the Bosnian army
are routinely killed in areas that are ``ethnically
cleansed.''
In the town of Kljuc, Serbs gave the remaining 4,000
people _ mostly Muslims and some Croats _ 24 hours to get
out of town Thursday, triggering a mass dash to Travnik, Foa
said.
Many Bosnian Muslims fear Croatia and Serbia will carve
up Bosnia, and they dread any agreement between Bosnian
Croats and Bosnian Serbs.
On Friday, the defense minister for Serbian rebels in
Bosnia, Col. Bogdan Subotic, announced an ``unconditional
cease-fire'' between ethnic Croats and Serbs in southeastern
Bosnia.
But in Geneva, Aleksa Buha, foreign minister for Bosnian
Serbs, said there was no truce. International mediators
demand that Muslims be a party to any agreement.
In the Croatian capital, Zagreb, U.N. civil affairs
officer Cedric Thornberry said all three sides would meet
Monday in Sarajevo. It would be the first meeting of all
three sides since June.
Fighting was reported in several Bosnian cities Friday.
The Bosnian Health Ministry said 32 people were killed and
147 wounded in scattered fighting throughout Bosnia-
Herzegovina during the previous 24-hour period.
novine.72.bale.,
STATE DEPARTMENT TRAVEL INFORMATION - Bosnia-Hercegovina
============================================================
Bosnia-Hercegovina - Warning
October 7, 1992
U.S. citizens are warned not to travel to Bosnia-Hercegovina for
any reason, due to the ongoing civil war. Additional information
can be found in the Department of State's Consular Information Sheet
on Bosnia-Hercegovina.
No. 92-001
Bosnia-Hercegovina - Consular Information Sheet
October 7, 1992
Warning: The Department of State has a Travel Warning for
Bosnia-Hercegovina. U.S. citizens are warned not to travel to
Bosnia-Hercegovina for any reason, due to the ongoing civil war.
U.S. Assistance: The U.S. has not yet opened an Embassy in
Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia-Hercegovinia. The United States
Information Service (USIS) Center formerly located in Sarajevo is
closed. U.S. citizens who choose to visit or remain in
Bosnia-Hercegovina despite the warning can register at the U.S.
Embassy in either Belgrade or Zagreb and obtain updated information
on travel and security. U.S. Embassy assistance is limited,
however, due to conflict in the area, lack of communications and
reduced Embassy staffing. The U.S. Embassy in Belgrade is located
at Kneza Milosa 50; telephone 645-655. The U.S. Embassy in Zagreb
is located at Andrije Hebranga 2, tel 444-800.
Entry Requirements: At the present time, Bosnia-Hercegovina entry
permission is granted at the border on a case-by-case basis.
Areas of Instability: A state of war resulting in deaths,
destruction, food shortages and travel disruptions affecting roads,
airports and railways make travel to all parts of Bosnia-Hercegovina
extremely hazardous. Travel to Sarajevo, Mostar and the religious
shrine at Medjugorje, is particularly dangerous.
Medical Facilities: Health facilities are minimal or non-existent;
most medicines are unobtainable. Further information on health
matters can be obtained from the Centers for Disease Control's
international Travelers hotline on (404) 332-4559.
Crime Information: General lawlessness and deteriorating economic
conditions have brought an increase in crime. Adequate police
response in the event of an emergency is doubtful. Anti-American
sentiments run high in many parts of the country, particularly in
Serbian-dominated areas.
Currency Regulations: It is impossible to use credit cards or to
cash traveler's checks.
Other Information: Roadblocks manned by local militias are
numerous. These militia groups frequently confiscate relief goods
and trucks, and may otherwise behave unprofessionally.
Registration: U.S. citizens visiting or remaining in
Bosnia-Hercegovina, despite the Warning, can register at either the
U.S. Embassy in Belgrade or in Zagreb and obtain updated information
on travel and security within the area.
No. 92-009
novine.73.bale.,
ANALYSIS: What If Columbus Had Never Stumbled Upon America?
By Richard O'Mara
(c) 1992, The Baltimore Sun
What if the legend is true and St. Brendan of
Clonfert and his Irish monks did discover the New
World?
Would we be speaking a remnant of the Gaelic
tongue, reading illumina ted manuscripts in Latin instead of
Elmore Leonard in paperback? Would our inheritance from such
pious founders have left our society softer, gentler than it
has turned out to be?
Probably not.
Suppose the Norsemen had stayed. They left signs
of their presence, s tony monoliths in places like Maine.
Would we have inherited Viking inclinations? Would pillage be
acceptable behavior _ generally, that is, not just on Wall
Street?
Again, probably not. Which only goes to prove that
H.M. Tomlinson was wrong when he wrote, in ``The Sea and the
Jungle,'' that the way things turn out can always be
discerned in their genesis. You never can tell what will
happen.
Consider Christopher Columbus. If the New World
had been named with reference to Columbus' navigational
skills, it would have been called the Lost World.
Some discoverer. He never even knew where he was.
Until he died, afte r four voyages, he still thought he was
in Asia. He blundered around the Caribbean asking the way to
Chipangu. Take me to the Great Khan! The Caribs smiled
indulgently. He thought he found the Japanese in Cuba.
The question of what might have come to pass in
the Americas had Colu mbus never landed has not been asked
much amid the arguments surrounding the approach of the 500th
anniversary of the Discovery.
The revisionists are trying to convince everybody
that he introduced a cataclysm, nothing less, that he was bad
juju. Indigenous people were wiped out by the millions.
Africans were brought in and enslaved. The land was raped,
the forests cut down, the atmosphere despoiled. What's to
celebrate?
The traditionalists look around at all that has
been built up: the gr eat cities, the high culture, the
scientific achievements, beauty contests, Velcro. They don't
understand the cranky questions. What cataclysm? they ask. So
we made a few mistakes. So we put a hole in the ozone. So
what if the rain forest is a little sickly?
Is that a reason not to take the day off?
A new word has emerged from the debate. It is
Eurocentrism. Did Europ eans discover the New World? What
about the indigenous people? Do their perspectives command no
respect? Obviously, they came here long before any European.
They discovered this part of the planet first. You would
think that in these days of rampant multiculturalism they
would get some of the credit for it, or blame.
Nobody seems to have had the curiosity to ask what
might have eventua ted had Columbus not come upon Watling
Island early on the morning of Oct. 12 a half-millennium ago.
Suppose his caravels had sunk in a storm, with all hands
lost? Suppose the shock discouraged Europe from further
costly expeditions out our way? Would things have turned out
better for all concerned?
It is at least worth thinking about.
The pre-Columbian civilizations, without the
Spanish interruption, mi ght have gotten along quite nicely,
advanced to the wheel, devised an alphabet, maybe even given
up the practice of human sacrifice and cannibalism, all those
barbecues at the pyramid. The Plains Indians in North America
might have invented firearms on their own and annihilated the
buffalo before anybody ever arrived.
This is not sour cynicism, just a necessary
corrective to the prevale nt noble-savage idealism that
encourages the notion of the Indian as a being perfectly
attuned to nature. There's little reason to believe Indian
people, given the same technological capacities available to
the Europeans, would not have used them as recklessly.
Which is not to suggest they would have used them
more recklessly.
Still, maybe it's not fair to speak against the
ancient Indians, even those who had unspeakable practices,
such as the Caribs, who used to descend on their neighbors,
the peaceful Arawaks, ``to steal their women and castrate and
fatten their young men for food.'' (J.M. Cohen, ``The Four
Voyages.'') They didn't invite Columbus here. They didn't ask
to be discovered.
But neither Columbus nor Amerigo Vespucci, who
later explored the ent ire East Coast of South America, ever
saw its centers of civilization. ``Everywhere it was the
same: no ports, no cities. Naked Indians,'' wrote the
historian German Arciniegas.
How were they to know that unlike in Europe, where
cities grew on the coasts and by rivers, here they developed
inland, in the Yucatan, in the Andes Mountains and on the
high plains of Mexico. And what cities they were. Cortes, in
1519, recalled nothing in Spain to equal the Aztec capital,
Tenochtitlan. Francisco Pizarro had the same humbling
experience in the Inca empire's Cuzco. It was more glittering
than any city of 16th-century Europe.
So there was a lot of potential here, and it is
hard to believe that left to develop on its own it would not
have advanced, become better able to defend itself had the
encounter with Europe been postponed.
In 1492, two powerful civilizations dominated the
New World: the Azte c in Mexico and the Inca in Peru.
Everything else, from Patagonia to Alaska, to the forests of
the Amazon and those of the Eastern seaboard of North
America, was primitive by comparison.
They were good at mathematics (calendars and
astronomy), engineering (roads, buildings, canals, bridges,
terrace farming), and more important, political organization
over vast areas. The Aztecs knew what the wheel was; it was
evident in their toys, though they never exploited it. The
Incas did brain surgery.
The prospect of a delayed, or even missed,
encounter between the Euro pean explorers and the New World
raises other questions: What would life have been like here?
And there? What would we both have had to get along without?
Europeans would have been denied the delights of
the potato, the exqu isite tastes of corn, tomatoes and
chocolate. They would have been spared the inconvenience of
syphilis and the deadly pleasures of tobacco, but they would
have been denied quinine for their fevers. They would have
had no rubber for the wheels of their future vehicles. They
would have avoided the curse of cocaine but been denied
pineapples, red beans or chili.
And what would we Americans have missed out on?
Much. We would have b een ignorant of cows, horses, pigs,
chickens, sheep and donkeys. We would not know the taste of
bananas, rice, mangoes, peaches, apricots, apples, pears,
oranges, grapes (no wine!), olives, lemons, garlic, onions.
We would have no wheat. No roses.
Also, had no one come, this would probably be
written in Nahuatl.
The people on both sides of the oceans were
enriched by the Discovery . It changed both worlds. Like it
or hate it, it can't be undone. And it is a bit perverse to
heap all the blame for the grief it brought upon the head of
Christopher Columbus, without giving him the credit for the
good that came of it.
It is not easy to honor Columbus. He was obsessed
with gold and socia l advancement. He was inhumane (``They
would be good servants ... '' he wrote of the generous,
welcoming Arawaks, some of whom he kidnapped.) And he was
dishonest: He cheated Juan Rodriguez Bermeo out of his reward
for sighting the New World first.
But Columbus was more a force of nature than a
man, and to blame him for all that ensued is like shouting at
the storm that ruins your picnic. It is a futile gesture.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bosnian Muslims Flee Renewed Serb Sweep (Trnopolje, Bosnia)
By Mary Battiata
(c) 1992, The Washington Post
TRNOPOLJE, Bosnia _ Serb forces have stepped up
what appears to be a final drive to sweep the remaining
Muslim population out of northern Bosnia-Herzegovina, setting
off a mass exodus that has filled the Trnopolje detention
camp with 3,500 civilians only days after it was evacuated of
its male Muslim prisoners.
``Some really horrible things are happening. I
think we are in the fi nal stages of ethnic cleansing in
northern Bosnia,'' Sylvana Foa, spokeswoman for the U.N. High
Commissioner for Refugees, said in Geneva on Friday.
In the town of Kotor Varos, about 65 miles
northwest of the Bosnian c apital, Sarajevo, 6,500 Muslim
civilians are gathered in an open field, behind barbed wire
and under deteriorating weather conditions, hoping
international agencies will evacuate them, according to U.N.
officials.
In Kljuc, 30 miles farther west, Serb authorities
gave the town's rem aining 4,000 Muslims 24 hours to leave
the area. Panicked Muslim families, many of them burned out
of nearby villages last summer, were said to be using every
available vehicle to get out, U.N. officials said.
Foa said the situation also was ``deteriorating
rapidly'' in the Serb-stronghold city of Banja Luka, where
200,000 people, mostly Muslims, are fearful of violent
attacks by local Serb forces.
A U.N. official said at least 16 buses of mostly
women and children h ave left the Kotor Varos camp for
Muslim-controlled Travnik, about 30 miles to the southeast,
since Tuesday. Unconfirmed reports said 60 men attempting to
join the group were dragged off one bus by armed Serb guards
and taken to an unknown destination, according to U.N.
officials. At least 188 Muslim men and boys were pulled from
a similar convoy on Aug. 21 and executed by Serb police.
Serb authorities here at Trnopolje, near the
Serb-controlled town of Prijedor, 130 miles northwest of
Sarajevo, insisted late last week that Trnopolje is an ``Open
Reception Center.'' They said the Muslims flocking here are
leaving home of their own volition and are simply looking for
an easy way to depart Bosnia for Western Europe.
``This is an El Dorado for them. They think this
is a guaranteed way to go abroad. Many people have closed
their houses and apartments in order to come here,'' said
Pero Crguz, an official from the local branch of the Serbian
Red Cross, which is administering the camp and has no
affiliation with the International Committee of the Red Cross.
A tour of the camp revealed the Muslims to be
living in conditions of medieval squalor, openly fearful of
the uniformed and plainclothes Serb police who keep the camp
under constant surveillance.
Asked why they had left their homes and come to
Trnopolje in the past week, several Muslim adults pantomimed
guns pointed at their heads and drew fingers across their
throats.
``Prijedor, genocide,'' whispered one man.
``Prijedor, finished,'' whispered another.
One agitated young woman followed a visitor
around, saying over and o ver, ``Help us. Help us.''
Adults interviewed at the camp said they had been
burned out of their villages this past summer by Serb forces
and had taken shelter since then with relatives in Prijedor
while trying to arrange transit out of the area.
Last Monday, they said, armed Serbs entered Muslim
neighborhoods in P rijedor and began shooting guns and
demanding that the Muslims leave.
Prijedor and Banja Luka are considered the
strongholds of militant Bo snian Serb authority and have been
the headquarters of the six-month campaign of terror against
Muslims known as ``ethnic cleansing.''
Targets of that campaign have included the old
Muslim quarter of Prij edor, which was burned on May 30, and
a string of Muslim towns outside Prijedor known as Kozarac,
which was surrounded by Serb tanks and artillery in late May
and destroyed.
The Trnopolje camp is in an abandoned school
complex on the edge of a village by the same name. Until it
was emptied on Oct. 1, it was part of a group of Serb-run
detention camps in the Prijedor area.
The camp was evacuated under the supervision of
the International Red Cross as part of an agreement by all
parties in the Bosnian conflict to close the camps. Now it is
run by Crguz, of the Serbian Red Cross, who sits in the
kitchen of an abandoned house, surrounded by burly
plainclothes police.
Most of the camp's residents live outside in
Dickensian squalor. Duri ng heavy rain and hail last week,
they attempted to keep themselves dry under small pup tents
improvised from blankets and thin plastic sheeting. Many
residents are sick, and they complain of bad sanitation and
not enough food and water.
The relatively fortunate 300 people who are
squeezed inside the schoo l building have arranged their few
belongings around blankets laid over thin piles of straw. A
thick pall of wood smoke hangs over the dingy,
concrete-walled room. There appear to be only eight toilets
in the entire compound.
The Muslims fleeing to Trnopolje and other points
are unlikely to fin d safe haven soon. International agencies
worried about abetting ethnic cleansing are not sure how much
to help them, and most countries in Europe remain
unenthusiastic about offering asylum to hundreds of thousands
of refugees.
Austria, Germany, France, Britain and Denmark
continue to press for accommodation of the Bosnians in safe
places near the Bosnian border, in the hope of avoiding the
creation of a Bosnian population in permanent exile.
That scenario points to the neighboring former
Yugoslav republic of C roatia. But last month, Croatia,
already burdened with 700,000 Croat and Muslim refugees from
Bosnia _ about 17 percent of Croatia's total population _
formally closed its borders to all Bosnian refugees except
those in transit to third countries.
The Croatian government also has refused to allow
the construction of any new refugee shelters on its soil and
is suggesting that donor money be used to rebuild and
repopulate Croatian villages destroyed during Croatia's war
last year with the Yugoslav army and local Serbs.
Croat-dominated communities in western
Herzegovina, the southern part of the Bosnian republic, have
turned down U.N. requests to establish Muslim refugee centers
within their borders and have refused to allow U.N.
deliveries of aid.
With the doors to Western Europe closed, Bosnia's
terrified Muslims h ave only one escape route left: down into
central Bosnia, across front lines, and into besieged and
overcrowded Muslim-controlled towns such as Travnik. Serb
authorities already are charging steep prices for limited
protection on that journey.
Because the 10,000 Muslims now massing at
Trnopolje, Kotor Varos and Kljuc are technically not
prisoners or detainees, they do not fall under the mandate of
the International Red Cross, although that agency continued
last week to deliver food supplies for about 1,000 people to
the Trnopolje camp.
But the increasing desperation of the Muslims, and
the widening scale and sustained violence of Serb-sponsored
ethnic cleansing, has convinced many U.N. and International
Red Cross field officers that humanitarian principles must
now override any worries about aiding the Serbs'
``cleansing'' policy.
``Ethnic cleansing has been accomplished _ it is a
fact. Everyone wan ts to get out,'' said Beat Schweizer, an
International Red Cross representative in Banja Luka. ``Now
the international community has got to find a solution to
this problem.''
novine.74.bale.,
U.S. Expanded Role to Save Aid to Bosnia, Eagleburger Says (Washn)
By John M. Goshko
(c) 1992, The Washington Post
WASHINGTON _ U.S. efforts to bar Serb aircraft
from flying over Bosni a have gone beyond the limits the Bush
administration tried to set for military involvement in the
Balkans civil war, but the move was approved reluctantly to
protect delivery of humanitarian aid, acting Secretary of
State Lawrence S. Eagleburger said.
``The principal focus of our policy for some
months has been what do you do to get humanitarian assistance
there,'' Eagleburger said in an interview. ``There is a
relationship between the no-fly zone (mandated by the U.N.
Security Council on Friday) and the provision of humanitarian
assistance, particularly if you consider that the Bosnian
Serbs have been using aircraft to tail planes in and out and
using them against roads where you're trying to get trucks in
with humanitarian supplies.''
``So if you ask, does it go beyond the major
thrust of our policy bec ause we're telling the Bosnian Serbs
that they can't use their aircraft for any purpose at all,
the answer is yes,'' he said. ``It's qualitatively different
from what we've been doing specifically with regard to
humanitarian assistance.''
The United States took the lead in pressing the
Security Council to establish the no-fly zone and initially
argued for tougher action than the council was willing to
take. In the resolution adopted Friday, the council turned
aside a U.S. offer to use American warplanes to enforce the
air ban and said questions of enforcement should be deferred
until there is evidence of whether the Serbs are obeying the
order to halt flights over Bosnia.
However, said Eagleburger _ who spent seven years
as a diplomat in Yugoslavia, four of them as U.S. ambassador
_ President Bush decided to seek the no-fly zone only after
he concluded that disruption of U.N. relief operations could
mean death during the coming winter for thousands of Bosnian
Muslims displaced or besieged by Serb irregular forces that
have occupied about 70 percent of Bosnia.
Bush's decision capped a heated debate among his
senior advisers abou t whether greater involvement in the
fighting that has shattered the former Yugoslav federation
would expose the United States to the same kind of military
frustration and political dissension that it suffered during
the Vietnam War of the 1960s and 1970s and the Lebanon
intervention of a decade ago.
Gen. Colin L. Powell, chairman of the joint chiefs
of staff, argued p ublicly that military force should be used
to achieve decisive victories and said he opposed intervening
in Bosnia because it meant using limited measures to pursue
political goals that were not clearly defined. In the end,
Bush sided with Eagleburger and other senior officials who
argued for the no-fly zone.
``I don't think it's all unhealthy that everybody
understands there i s a major debate _ not dispute but
debate _ that's going on in the U.S. government about the use
of force as it applies to Yugoslavia,'' Eagleburger said.
``It relates to the imperatives of trying to stop
an awful slaughter now when we see winter coming and a lot of
people potentially about to starve to death, contrasted
against the very real serious military questions that any
military plan has got to ask. ... I don't find it the least
bit bothersome that there was a disagreement between various
parts of this government about what we ought to do, and the
no-fly zone issue raises those kind of questions.''
``That does not mean, nor should it imply, that
anything else comes a fter that,'' he said in acknowledgment
of how memories of Vietnam and Lebanon haunt policymakers
trying to decide how the United States should approach the
Yugoslavia situation.
``There is the concern of the military, and
perfectly justified, that you do X and it doesn't work and
then well we've got to do X plus Y. There are some of us who
are old enough to remember we did that a couple of times, and
it got us into a mess,'' he said. ``(The no-fly zone) is not
a commitment to something else.''
Serbian Patriarch Blames `Atheistic' Military Leaders
For Violence (Washn)
By Rick Allen
(c) 1992, The Washington Post
WASHINGTON _ Serbian Orthodox Patriarch Pavle of
Belgrade, visiting t he United States for the first time,
blamed what he called atheistic Serbian, Muslim and Croatian
military leaders for the bloody ethnic violence that now
racks the former Yugoslav federation.
Patriarch Pavle also reminded local Serbian
Orthodox church members w ho gathered in St. Sophia Greek
Orthodox Cathedral in Washington this past week of the
Serbian people's troubled past.
That history includes, he said, the ``500-year
oppression under the T urkish yoke,'' when the Ottoman Empire
controlled Serbia and many converted to Islam. He also
mentioned Serbia's ``new martyrs,'' the thousands of people
who died at the hands of pro-Nazi Croatian secret police 50
years ago.
But the patriarch, the spiritual leader of 12
million Serbian Orthodo x Christians worldwide, including
about 2 million in the United States, urged Serbs to act
``uprightly'' during the present conflict.
Before coming to the United States on Oct. 1, the
patriarch met with Cardinal Franjo Kuharic, the Roman
Catholic primate of Croatia to issue a joint appeal to
secular leaders for an end to the violence. They also
condemned the practice of ``ethnic cleansing'' and the
``blasphemous destruction of all prayer and holy places,
Christian and Muslim.''
Serbians and some Americans of Serbian descent
have criticized Wester n leaders and the media for playing
down a complex history of mutual antagonisms among ethnic
groups. They say Serbia, therefore, has been unfairly
isolated and branded the aggressor in the eyes of the world.
Speaking through a translator, Patriarch Pavle,
78, echoed this perce ption to local Orthodox faithful. ``We
have no one in whom we can turn to for help ... so we turn to
our Orthodox brothers,'' he said.
The patriarch told listeners at St. Sophia that
all Serbians must be like their ancestors, acting as ``true
humans ... not inhumanely.''
In an interview later, the patriarch acknowledged
that resentments be tween ethnic groups in the former
Yugoslav federation are especially bitter and deep, and he
said he tells members of his own church:
``The church of Christ always calls all people to
peace. She never ca lls anyone to revenge. In the Holy Bible,
God himself says, `Mine is revenge. I shall pay it back.' It
will be God who does the judging.''
At the same time, Patriarch Pavle said Serbs
should not be ``passive. '' In a letter earlier this year to
Britain's Lord Carrington, who headed the European peace
effort in Yugoslavia, the patriarch said Serbia must protect
Serbian lives and Serbian territories ``by every legitimate
means,'' including ``armed defense.''
``But defending ourselves from evil, doesn't allow
us to commit crime s or atrocities,'' he said.
Patriarch Pavle deplored the current military
leadership in Serbia an d the newly independent republics.
``The leaders of the Serbians, Muslims and Croatians were all
Tito's generals before, and under the influence of an
atheistic ideology. And for that reason they came out so
easily to that inhuman desire to fight the war,'' he said.
Eurocentrism: Columbus' Lasting Gift to Black Nation (Santo Domingo)
By Ron Howell
(c) 1992, Newsday
SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic _ In the
Dominican Republic, where a majority of the people are said
to be of black ancestry, critics charge President Joaquin
Balaguer of elaborate denials of the country's African
heritage.
The controversy takes on significance Monday, as
the Dominican Republ ic commemorates the epic voyage of
Christopher Columbus to the New World, a holiday known
throughout Latin America as the Day of the Race, referring to
the ethnic mix in their countries.
Many Latin American countries, such as Mexico,
boast of their mestizo background and celebrate that mixture
of Indian and European roots planted 500 years ago. But the
Dominican Republic is largely a mulatto nation, a blend of
African and white, and there have been increasing protests of
alleged anti-black bias on the part of Balaguer, who is said
to be of ``pure'' Spanish stock.
Dominicans are a people with gradations of color
ranging from black t o white. The darker people tend to be
found in the poorest neighborhoods, while in the professional
classes, lighter mulattoes predominate.
``It is very evident that this is a country of
blacks and mulattoes, but the government ... wants to exalt
the cultures of Europe and not say anything about the African
roots. Everything is Spain, Spain, Spain. Balaguer is a
racist, and in addition to that, he is an elitist,'' said
Nicolas Guevara, the dark-complexioned coordinator of the
Committee for the Defense of Neighborhood Rights.
The committee has opposed the government's
relocation of thousands of poor families to make way for
tourist-oriented projects such as the multimillion-dollar
Columbus Lighthouse dedicated last week.
The first floor of the seven-story lighthouse,
which serves as an international museum, presents exhibits
from Spain, the United States and Japan. Displays from Latin
America and the Caribbean are on the upper levels, said one
of the architects, Adrian Ganan.
Balaguer, 86, has spent considerable intellectual
energy downplaying African influence on the Dominican
Republic. In his 1983 book, ``The Island Inside Out,''
Balaguer cites evidence denying that Dominican dances such as
the merengue have African elements, arguing instead that they
are ``exclusively associated ... with Spanish culture.''
He goes further, maintaining that descendants of
Africans have had a deleterious impact on New World
societies, from the United States to the Caribbean, because
of their alleged oversexuality. ``The black,'' Balaguer
writes, ``giving himself over to his instincts and without
the restraints of a higher level of conduct imposed by all
countries on reproduction, will multiply rapidly almost as
species of vegetables do.''
Given the historical importance of the
quincentenary, Dominicans are discussing their past as never
in recent memory. Some suggest the controversy surrounding
the spending on the lighthouse, coupled with Balaguer's
emphasis on European over African and Indian heritage, may
have an effect on the next presidential election in 1994.
Columbus arrived on the island of Hispaniola,
which the Dominican Rep ublic shares with Haiti, on his first
voyage in 1492 and established the New World's first colony
in the name of the queen and king of Spain and the Roman
Catholic Pope.
Forced into slavery by the Spaniards, the native
population of perhap s a million Arawak Indians died off by
the middle of the 1500s. Some were slaughtered, others
committed suicide and many died from disease.
Before the Indians disappeared completely,
Bartolome de las Casas, a Spanish priest, protested
vigorously against their mistreatment. In his desperate
attempt to save the lives of the natives, he and others
advocated the importation of African slaves, who were thought
to be stronger and more suited to the back-breaking rigors of
labor in the tropics.
Although the number of African slaves was
relatively small, Spaniards cohabited with blacks at a
greater rate than the British did in their colonies,
historians say, producing mixed-race descendants.
Then, 304 years later the Dominican Republic began
to import laborers from predominantly black islands of the
West Indies. More recently tens of thousands of black
Haitians poured into the Dominican side of the island in
search of menial work. The result is the largely mixed black
and white population of 7.3 million that is the Dominican
Republic today.
Sensitive to the emotion-packed controvery, Pope
John Paul II, who is visiting the Dominican Republic through
Wednesday, is planning to meet separately with black and
Indian groups during his stay, church officials have said.
Debate Rages Over Columbus Role
By Barbara Vobejda
(c) 1992, The Washington Post
On this much, all agree:
In the early morning darkness of Oct. 12, 1492,
the sailor posted as lookout on the Pinta cried out
``Tierra!'' The cannon was fired, signaling the sea-weary
crews on the Nina and the Santa Maria that their long voyage
was over. At daylight, the Captain General, Christopher
Columbus, the Admiral himself, was taken ashore in his
longboat, where he met the naked people.
That momentous landfall, the meeting of two
worlds, would forever cha nge the course of history.
The agreement ends there.
Virtually all else about Columbus and his
extraordinary voyage across the Atlantic is now the subject
of a deeply emotional and often vitriolic debate that has
drawn in racial and ethnic groups, scholars, religious
organizations, political commentators, educators and
environmentalists.
As the nation celebrates the 500th anniversary of
Columbus's arrival in the Americas on Monday, the explorer's
legacy poses a vexing predicament:
Should we revere him, as most of us were taught in
elementary school, as the Great Discoverer, a hero of
enormous courage and vision?
Or should we, as many now argue, recognize him as
the exemplar of Old World arrogance and rapacity, a greedy
seafarer who stumbled upon the New World, then went on to
exploit the indigenous people, condoning violence and slave
trading, ultimately opening the door to what would become
centuries of crime against American Indians?
The current dispute has taken on such fervor,
scholars say, because i t is really about something more _ a
larger struggle over our national identity, an identity that
is inextricably entwined with the image of Christopher
Columbus.
``We reconstruct him about every 50 years,'' said
Helen Nader, a hist orian at Indiana University. ``Because he
represents us, when we begin to see ourselves in a different
way, then we have to reconstruct him to fit us.
``Now, we're finding it very hard to figure out
what our national cha racter is, so it's hard to figure out
what we want him to be.''
The controversy falls roughly into three factions:
those who believe that celebrating Columbus glorifies a
colonial, racist past; those who want to protect the
traditional, venerable view of Columbus; and those who view
the entire debate as an attack on Western civilization.
The national discomfort is ubiquitous, extending
from the discredited Quincentenary Jubilee Commission, whose
former chairman resigned amid charges that he steered
contracts to friends, to the lackluster 500th anniversary
celebration _ once expected to be bigger than the nation's
bicentennial but now unlikely to extend beyond a handful of
annual Columbus Day parades.
The tensions have erupted between American Indians
and Italian Americ ans. And they have rippled through every
corner of our popular culture, producing a wave of films
(''1492: Conquest of Paradise'' and ``Christopher Columbus:
The Discovery''), scholarly treatises, novels (Louise Erdrich
and Michael Dorris: ``Crown of Columbus''), television
specials, essays and revised curricula.
For most Americans, however, the overwhelmingly
positive view of Colu mbus is deeply entrenched. A recent
Associated Press poll, for example, showed that 64 percent of
those surveyed said they see Columbus as a hero. Just 15
percent see him as a villain and, to 9 percent of the
population, he is both.
For President Bush, who issued a Columbus Day
proclamation earlier th is month, the hero image prevails.
Columbus, he proclaimed, was ``one man who dared to defy the
pessimists and naysayers of his day.'' His voyage ``provides
us the timeless lessons about faith and courage ... and about
the rewards of cultural and commercial exchange among
nations.''
Nonetheless, most mainstream scholars acknowledge
that Columbus was responsible for terrible acts against the
native people he encountered.
Robert Royal, author of ``1492 And All That:
Political Manipulations of History,'' writes that Columbus
kidnapped natives, failed to restrain violent men under his
command and required Indians to pay a heavy tax in gold.
There were mitigating factors, he said, but nevertheless,
``he should have simply known that some of these things were
wrong.''
At the same time, Royal contends that Columbus was
motivated not so m uch by personal greed as an evangelical
desire to spread Christianity.
Conspicuously muted in the national debate is the
sense of the cultur al milieu from which Columbus emerged. By
contemporary standards, the 15th century was a brutal period
in Europe and elsewhere. Royal and others say that Columbus's
actions actually compare favorably to standard practice in
much of civilization at the time, including to many of the
colonists who served under him when he administered the
island of Hispanola.
The story of Columbus, said Royal, ``is not like
the conquest of Mexi co or the Aztecs by Cortes.''
Many historians hasten to point out that the
native tribes of the Ame ricas also maintained brutal
practices, including human sacrifice and cannibalism. The
rule of the Aztecs, Incas and Mayas, writes historian Stephan
Thernstrom, ``was as cruel and exploitative as anything
Europeans were guilty of in the New World.''
Most of the debate today, Royal says, has less to
do with new informa tion about the past than it does
``current politics and current interest groups.''
Ultimately, he says, ``it's deeply unfair to load
on Columbus's shoul ders ... postmodern discontents.''
Kirkpatrick Sale, author of a new book entitled
``Conquest of Paradis e: Christopher Columbus and the
Columbia Legacy,'' disagrees, saying ``there is no other way
to look at history than with the eyes of the present, no
other way to understand the past than through our knowledge
of the present.''
Over time, the dimensions of this debate _ villain
versus hero _ have clearly widened. But William McNeill, a
leading historian and retired University of Chicago
professor, argues that Americans have always managed to yank
Columbus out of context and fashion him as a symbol for the
times.
``A balanced, neutral or sensible treatment of
Columbus has never bee n part of our national iconography,''
he said.
novine.75milan,
> Odakle stižu članci objavljeni ovde? Ponekad odštampam zanimljive
> tekstove i delim društvu da se malo šire informišu, ali ne umem da
> im objasnim odakle sve to dolazi.
Kako odakle, pa sa SEZAM-a! ;)
Šalu na stranu, to .bale. skida sa raznih agencijskih servisa.
Naime, mnoge svetske agencije, pa čak i naš siroti TANJUG preko
SEZAM-a (i to ovih istih brojeva pa razne novine i radio-stanice
mrze nas što "visimo" po SEZAM-u jer ne mogu da dobiju vezu kada
hoće da skinu "taze" vesti pred emisiju ili prelom, a mi mrzimo
njih jer povećavaju promet i vreme potrebno da se priključiš na
SEZAM), distribuiraju svoje vesti. Konačno, uz svaku vest ti stoji
čija je, tj., sa čijeg ticker-a je skinuta. To se, u principu, i to
debelo plaća - TANJUG, recimo uzima 1/2DM do 2DM po vesti i 3DM po
minuti "kačenja" - ali ako ide u redistribuciju. Ovako ti je fraj,
štampaj i deli ortacima, samo nemoj da se pojavi u nekim novinama
pod firmom "sa SEZAM-a".
Pl poz M
novine.76.bale.,
A Funeral, A Hospital _ Another Miserable Day in Sarajevo
By JOHN DANISZEWSKI
Associated Press Writer
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) _ Eight-year-old Darko
Vapetic lay in his hospital cot Sunday after surgery for
shrapnel wounds, calling for his parents. No one at the
Children's Surgery Clinic had the heart to tell him they
wouldn't be coming.
The boy's parents were killed in the same shelling that
almost took off his leg.
Across town, the Islamic faithful buried one of the
republic's senior Muslim religious leaders, a 32-year-old
imam struck down in the doorway of his house by another shell.
It was a typically miserable day in Sarajevo.
Weeks after leaders of Bosnia's Serb rebels promised to
put their artillery around Sarajevo under international
supervision, mortar shells still rain down on civilians with
deadly regularity. Ripping up flesh and families, they leave
an aftermath of tears and funerals.
Hadzi Abdulah Celebic, deputy president of Mesihat, the
Islamic spiritual community of Bosnia-Herzegovina, was buried
under mournful gray skies in the tree-shaded yard of the
Carina Mosque.
In a ceremony attended by more than 400 men _ soldiers,
police, fellow imams, even a Bosnian rock star _ he was
buried a little more than 24 hours after a shell hit just as
he left his home to minister to Egyptian U.N. peacekeeping
troops camped nearby.
His wife suffered only minor injuries, but their 5-year-
old daughter was fighting for her life in a hospital.
Old women watched the burial through iron-grill windows
in the mosque's stone outer wall, clutching handkerchiefs as
tears streamed down their cheeks.
Cebelic had been chosen as a leader during time of war
precisely because of his youth and energy. A professor of
theology, speaker of three languages, a brilliant future _
and now he was gone.
``You can tell how I felt about him by looking at my
face,'' said an elderly imam, his eyes red from crying, after
the hourlong service. ``This was a great man.''
``He was the kind of man who could organize whatever he
touched,'' said Celebic's brother-in-law, Hajdar Plakalo.
At the Children's Surgery Clinic, Dr. Mirjan Lomas was
sorting through more misery.
On Saturday evening, shells hit a tight cluster of stone
houses in a neighborhood near the city orphanage, which now
houses refugees. Four children were killed and 12 others were
badly wounded, including eight who required amputations.
``It was more than usual, more children killed than
usual, but we've had worse days,'' said Lomas, a six-year
veteran of the hospital, rubbing his hands across his balding
head.
According to Bosnia's health ministry, 16 people died and
118 were wounded in Sarajevo from Saturday to Sunday.
``The casualty figures wouldn't tell you that it was a
bad day,'' said Lomas. ``It's just that we had more children
than usual.''
Among the survivors was young Darko, crying softly in his
cot, unaware of the greater blow to come.
Across the aisle, Sinan Karic hovered protectively over
his 5-year-old daughter Mirkva. He stroked her cut forehead
tenderly, explaining that the shell had landed while she
played in front of her house.
All the children hit were either inside their homes or
playing in the yard, said Dr. Sadeta Begic-Kapetanovic.
Because of the shelling, the city's children are never
allowed to wander far, she said.
Lomas said it is getting harder and harder for his staff
to function. Because buses have all but stopped running, they
walk miles in the autumn rains to get to work.
There is no electricity service and often no fuel for the
hospital's auxiliary generator, meaning the staff must work
by candlelight. During their long shifts, the 10 doctors and
15 nurses have no warm food. Begic-Kapetanovic said they
usually share a loaf of bread and, if they are lucky, some
tinned meat.
Water is also shut off, and supplies of medicines and
bandages are low. Mortars frequently fall on the hospital
complex itself.
All but a few of the 50 young patients are war casualties.
``We did have optimism. But day by day it's running
out,'' said Lomas. ``We're getting more melancholy and losing
hope.''
novine.77.bale.,
New York Times: October 11.
US WEIGHTS SENDING ARMS TO MUSLIMS IN BOSNIA
Final decision is delayed until after the election
by Eric Schmitt
Washington,Oct. 10 -Pentagon and State Departmant
officials are exploring the idea of sending arms to the
outgunned Muslims in Bosnia, but such intervention is opposed
by senior officials and complicated by by the
Administration's hesitation to make a major reversal in
policy so close to the Presidental election.
The Administration is caught between Washington's
reluctance to involve American military forces in the Balkan
conflict and its goal of ending what President Bush last week
called "a flagrant disregard for human life" in the Bosnian
fighting.
Because of fears that such intervention would exacerbate
the fighting , Acting Secretary of State Lawrence S.
Eagleburger and Gen. Colin L. Powell , Chairman of the joint
Chiefs of Staff , opose supp- lying arms to the bosnians.
Administration officials who favor sending weapons to
Bosnians say that any decision about changing course on
Balkan policy has been delayed until after the Presidential
election. And any such effort would require washington to
persuade the UN to lift its arms embargo on the area. The
Administration's policy dilemma comes at a time when american
intelligence officials say that a Security Council decision
on Friday to ban combat flights over Bosnia would make only a
marginal diffe- rence in reducing civilian casualties.
The CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency have
concluded that tanks , artillery and other weapons the Serbs
control on the ground are more than sufficient to prevent any
change in the balance of power , Administration officials said.
"Even if there's a no-fly zone , it won't make a
substantial change in the battlefield balance," said one
administration official. "It's largely a political signal
that international community has put the Serbs on notice."
Proponents of the UN resolution approved on Friday say
that the flight ban is essential in ensuring the safe
delivery of relief aid as well as a first step toward ending
hostilities. The ban does not include any enforcement action,
althought the US says it will introduce a new resolution to
that effect if it detects violations.
Just a day after the UN resolution banning military
flights over the area was approved, there were reports of
violations. But serbian forces denied the charges , and the
United States European Command said today it had no
information to confirm reports of Serbian air attacks.
The Serbian forces in Bosnia have about 24 Orao and
Galeb combat planes that had reportedly been flying as many
as 30 missions a day, dropping cluster bombs and other
munitions , according to Administration officials.
"These aircraft are so inefficient that most anything
they could do from the air , the Serbs could do with
artillery and tanks on the ground," said an Administration
official.
Based in Serbian-controlled Banja Luka ,Serbian
commanders have used the combat aircraft for three main
purposes ,Administration officials said.
The planes have attacked factories in northern Bosnia in
efforts to cripple what remains of the republics' industry.
serbian planes have has also provided support for Serbian
ground forces to attack position in Croatia and Bosnia.
Finally, Serbian aircraft have been used effectively as"
weapons of intimidation"to strafe and bomb civilian centers ,
Administration officials said.
The Bosnian forces have no combat aircraft.
What steps the international community takes next in
Bosnia depend on the whether the Serbs honor the flight ban,
the officials said. President Bush said last week that the US
was ready to use its military forces to enforce the ban , but
did not specifically commit American aircraft.
Friday's resolution represents a compromise between
President Bush , who favored an immediate ban with teeth in
it, and britain and France who sought to maintain UN
neutrality in Bosnia to avoid the risk of turning the Serbs
against peacekeeping forces there.
Mr. Bush signed into law this week a foreign aid bill
that authorizes the White House to transfer $50 million in
American military equipment to Bosnia if the UN sanctions are
lifted. The White House has not indicated whether it would
send the arms to Bosnia.
A senior State department official said recently that
arming the Bosnians "is a much more complicated question
that it appears to be."
"I'm not shure you could ship a tank into Bosnia
tomorrow and expect somebody to know how to drive it." the
official said.
novine.78.bale.,
Date: 10 Oct 92 20:30:22 GMT
MOSCOW (UPI) -- Russian Foreign Minister Andrei
Kozyrev met with international mediators on former Yugoslavia
Saturday and broached the possible easing of sanctions
against Serbia and Montenegro for humanitarian reasons this
winter.
Kozyrev met U.N. mediator Cyrus Vance and European
Community negotiator Lord David Owen Saturday to discuss
efforts to end the conflict in Bosnia-Hercegovina, where the
war has been blamed primarily on Serbians backed by the
hard-line government in Belgrade.
``We've discussed the question of weakening a bit
sanctions against Yugoslavia, or Serbia and Montenegro, as
they face winter,'' Kozyrev told reporters after the
meeting. ``It mainly concerns the humanitarian situation in
those republics.''
There was no indication, however, of a serious move
to ease the sanctions. Owen repeated longstanding
international conditions for lifting the sanctions that the
Serbians have refused to meet, including recognition of
Bosnia-Hercegovina and other former Yugoslav republics,
serious efforts to stop the fighting by Serbians and
recognition of Albanian minority rights in the Kosovo region
of Serbia.
While Russia supported U.N. economic sanctions
against the rump Yugoslav republics of Serbia and Montenegro,
the Moscow government is also trying to appear fair to vocal
Russian conservatives who complain the Kremlin should not
abandon its former friends in Belgrade.
``We discussed the necessity of a balanced approach
toward the problem, recognition of the fact that there are no
angels there,'' Kozyrev said. ``Croatia, the Muslim community
and other forces demand a lot of work as well.''
novine.79.bale.,
Date: 10 Oct 92 20:16:32 GMT
SARAJEVO (UPI) -- A Ukrainian member of U.N. forces
in Sarajevo was killed and three others were injured Saturday
when their armored personnel carrier hit a landmine while
traveling to Sarajevo airport, U. N. and Serbian officials
said.
The troops assigned to the U.N. Protection Force
apparently lost their way on a well-traveled route to the
airport when they hit the mine planted a month earlier by
Serbian forces, said Capt. Indic Milenko, a Serbian liaison
officer at UNPROFOR headquarters in Sarajevo.
UNPROFOR spokesman Mik Magnusson said one Ukrainian
soldier was killed and three other Ukrainian soldiers inside
the armored vehicle were injured, one seriously,.
The two less seriously injured soldiers were flown
later in the day to Zagreb while the third remained in
surgery at UNPROFOR headquarters and was expected to be flown
out of the city on Sunday, Magnusson said.
Milenko said the personnel carrier hit the mine
sometime after 11 a. m. near the Energoinvest facility on the
western frontline of the Bosnian capital.
He said Serbian forces had probably placed the mine a
month ago but said UNPROFOR troops should have known to avoid
the area.
``They completely missed their way to the airport,''
Milenko said of the Ukrainian troops. ``It's not a new road
(to the airport). It was probably a mistake by the Ukrainian
driver.''
Another Serbian liaison officer with UNPROFOR was
quoted by the Serbian-controlled Tanjug news agency as saying
Muslim Slav forces fired on the armored carrier while Serbian
forces helped pull the Ukrainians from the vehicle.
Magnusson said the landmine detonated when the
Ukrainian personnel carrier tried to avoid an obstacle in the
road in the vicinity of Stup section of Sarajevo. The
UNPROFOR troops were traveling to the airport from the
Ukrainian base at the Marshal Tito barracks.
He said he could not comment on whether the
Ukrainians were traveling outside the normal route to the
airport.
Five peacekeeping troops have been killed and more
than 50 wounded in the Yugoslav conflict since May.
novine.80.bale.,
Date: 11 Oct 92 15:37:35 GMT
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Hercogovina (UPI) -- Croat-Muslim
forces Sunday held a short stretch of roadway captured in two
days of heavy fighting, severing a strategic land corridor
connecting Serbia with Serb-held areas of northwestern
Bosnia-Hercegovina, news reports and Western witnesses said
Sunday.
Bosnian Vice President Ejup Ganic said the government
was considering pulling out of peace talks in Geneva after
confirming reports that Serbian jets staged attacks during
the fighting for the corridor in violation of a U.N.-imposed
ban on military flights over the republic.
``We are considering that very seriously,'' said
Ganic, who complained that the U.N. ban lacked any
enforcement means. ``Certainly some moves will be made.''
Representatives of the republic's Muslim
Slav-dominated government and its Croatian and Serbian
communities have been meeting in Geneva under U.N.- and
European Community-mediation in negotiations aimed at ending
the war ignited by a more than 6-month-old Serbian drive to
capture a self-declared state.
Sarajevo radio said the Bosnian administration of
Muslim Slavs, moderate Serbs and Croats planned to boycott
U.N.-mediated talks set for Monday in Sarajevo with Serbian
negotiators on restoring electricity and water supplies to
the extremist Serb-encircled capital.
Stjepan Siber, the vice commander of the Bosnian
army, was quoted as saying that U.N. officials have done
nothing to end Serbian disruptions in the services that
contravened an agreement under which both sides undertook not
to use water and electricity as weapons against civilian
populations.
Bosnian military officials declined comment on
reports Croat-Muslim forces Saturday captured a slice of
territory near the Serb-held town of Brcko, cutting a road
used by Serbian forces to truck vital supplies from Serbia to
their northwestern stronghold of Banja Luka, from where some
are then forwarded to Serb-held areas in western Croatia.
Western journalists who arrived in Belgrade from the
area Saturday night said that Croat and Muslim fighters
captured a 2-mile stretch of road near the village of Gorica,
3 miles west of Brcko on the Sava River border between
Bosnia-Hercegovina and Croatia.
They said the fighting forced them to make a massive
detour that took them across the Sava River into an area of
central Croatia protected by U.N. peace-keeping troops.
SRNA, the official organ of the self-declared Serbian
state, confirmed that Croatian and Muslim Slav fighters
attacked Serbian positions near Brcko Friday night with
infantry and artillery and cut the corridor.
Tanjug, the official news agency of Serbia-controlled
rump Yugoslavia, said that traffic through the corridor
remained ``closed for security reasons.''
Heavy fighting reportedly persisted Sunday in the
region, particularly around Gradacac, which has been targeted
since last week by a Serbian offensive.
Bosnian officials and media reports said Gradacac was
one of three Muslim Slav-dominated towns attacked Saturday by
Serbian warplanes a day after the U.N. Security Council
declared the military flight ban over Bosnia-Hercegovina.
Sarajevo radio said Serbian jets dropped 30 cluster
bombs Saturday evening on areas held by Muslim Slav and
Croatian fighters near Brcko.
Eleven people were killed and 32 wounded, it said.
There was no independent confirmation of the report but Ganic
said the violations were confirmed by both the Bosnian and
Croatian governments.
The U.N. resolution authorized only humanitarian and
U.N. flights and called for international monitors at all
airfields in the six republics of former Yugoslavia.
But it lacked a mechanism to enforce the ban on
flights by warplanes supplied the Serbs by the Yugoslav army.
Croatian and Muslim Slav forces do not have jet fighters.
At least 53 people were killed and 260 wounded across
Bosnia- Hercegovina in the 24 hours that ended at 10 a.m.,
including 11 dead and 118 wounded in Sarajevo, republic
health officials said.
The victims included three children killed and 13
wounded, many seriously, when Serbian shellfire struck a
Sarajevo orphanage Saturday, officials said. One dead child
was a resident of the orphanage and most of the others were
neighborhood children playing outside the building, they said.
novine.81.bale.,
Date: 10 Oct 92 21:04:35 GMT
BELGRADE (UPI) -- A senior leader of Serbia's ruling
communist party Saturday rejected opposition charges that a
regime-sponsored referendum on early presidential and
assembly elections was merely a scheme for avoiding a test of
the mandate of hard-line President Slobodan Milosevic.
In a related development, the main party of the
independence-seeking ethnic Albanian majority in Serbia's
restive province of Kosovo called for a boycott of Sunday's
vote.
``I expect a positive result in Sunday's referendum
on the constitutional amendment that would open the way for
early elections,'' Nebojsa Covic, the president of the
Belgrade chapter of Milosevic's Socialist Party of Serbia,
told a news conference.
The amendment would allow the holding of early
elections for president and the republic's 250-seat Assembly
before the end of the year.
Voters were to cast ballots at 9,500 polling stations
across Serbia and first results were expected Monday, said
Zoran Djumic, a spokesman for the Serbian election commission.
Covic denied opposition charges that the referendum
plan was rammed through the legislature by the communist
majority in a bid to avoid a challenge to Milosevic, who led
his party to a five-year term in a landslide victory in
December 1990.
``After the referendum, we shall have elections,''
Covic asserted.
Opposition leaders have argued the referendum was a
master political stroke by the regime in a mounting power
struggle pitting Milosevic against federal Prime Minister
Milan Panic and his chief ally, Dobrica Cosic, the president
of the truncated Yugoslav federation forged by Serbia and its
tiny dependent, Montenegro.
Milosevic launched an unprecedented attack on Panic
and Cosic in a television interview broadcast Saturday. He
said all federal institutions in the rump Yugoslav union of
Serbia and Montenegro ``must act in the interests of Serbia,
not the other way around.''
Milosevic accused Panic of receiving orders from the
White House, saying, ``His coxswain is in Washington.''
Panic, a naturalized U.S. citizen and self-made
millionaire, regards the ouster of Milosevic and his party as
the prime requisite for the lifting of sanctions imposed on
the two republics by the United Nations for their support for
the Serbian territorial conquests in neighboring
Bosnia-Hercegovina.
The sanctions have deeply aggravated the raging
economic chaos and social discontent first unleashed in
Serbia by the dissolution of the former Yugoslav federation
and last year's war in Croatia, and then fueled further by
the current conflict in Bosnia-Hercegovina.
Recent public opinion polls have shown a significant
swing of support away from Milosevic to Panic and Cosic.
But, for the early elections amendment to pass, more
than 50 percent of Serbia's 7 million registered voters must
turnout for the balloting and more than half must vote for
the measure, something that regime's critics charge Milosevic
was well aware of when he hit on the idea of the referendum.
``Experience teaches us that it is very difficult to
reach 51 percent of voters in situations when only about 60
percent of the electoral body (normally) goes to polling
stations,'' said Vesna Pesic, the president of the Reformist
Party of Serbia.
The boycott announcement by the Democratic Alliance
of Kosovo, representing the province's 2 million ethnic
Albanians, was expected to deprive the referendum of the
votes of up to 20 percent of the republic's electorate.
Opposition leaders pointed out a referendum was not
required, as Milosevic could have called early elections
simply by dismissing the Assembly and resigning.
By holding the referendum, they said, Milosevic
avoided a step that would have been regarded as an admission
of responsibility for the republic's economic convulsions and
international isolation.
And, in case the amendment is approved, Milosevic
will maintain control of the state election apparatus, police
and mass media throughout the electoral campaign.
Milosevic's party and the opposition still have to
agree on guidelines and a law for early elections for the
138-member Chamber of Citizens of the Yugoslav Parliament.
Date: 11 Oct 92 11:46:12 GMT
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (UPI) -- Voters went to the
polls Sunday in a referendum on holding early elections that
the opposition claims is a scheme to avoid a test of the
mandate of hardline President Slobodan Milosevic.
Polls opened at 7 a.m. but there were no immediate
reports of a trend in turnout, amid cold and heavy rain in
the Serbian capital.
Voters were to cast ballots at 9,500 polling stations
between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. across Serbia, and first results
were expected Monday, said Zoran Djumic, a spokesman for the
Serbian election commission.
Nebojsa Covic, the president of the Belgrade chapter
of Milosevic's Socialist Party of Serbia, said Saturday, ``I
expect a positive result in Sunday's referendum on the
constitutional amendment that would open the way for early
elections,''
The amendment would allow early elections for
president and for the republic's 250-seat Assembly before the
end of the year.
Covic denied opposition charges that the referendum
plan was rammed through the legislature by the communist
majority to avoid a challenge to Milosevic, who led his party
to a five-year term in a landslide victory in December 1990.
``After the referendum, we shall have elections,''
Covic asserted.
Opposition leaders have argued that the referendum
was a political move by the regime in a mounting power
struggle pitting Milosevic against federal Prime Minister
Milan Panic and his chief ally, Dobrica Cosic, the president
of the rump Yugoslav federation of Serbia and its tiny
dependent, Montenegro.
Panic, a naturalized U.S. citizen and self-made
millionaire, regards the ouster of Milosevic and his party as
the prime requisite for the lifting of sanctions imposed on
the two republics by the United Nations for their support for
the Serbian territorial conquests in neighboring
Bosnia-Hercegovina.
The sanctions have aggravated the economic chaos and
social discontent first unleashed in Serbia by the
dissolution of the former Yugoslav federation and last year's
war in Croatia, and fueled further by the conflict in
Bosnia-Hercegovina.
Recent public opinion polls have shown a significant
swing of support away from Milosevic to Panic and Cosic.
But, for the early elections amendment to pass, more
than 50 percent of Serbia's 7 million registered voters must
turn out to vote and more than half must vote for the
measure, something that the regime's critics charge Milosevic
was well aware of when he proposed the referendum.
``Experience teaches us that it is very difficult to
reach 51 percent of voters in situations when only about 60
percent of the electoral body (normally) goes to polling
stations,'' said Vesna Pesic, the president of the Reformist
Party of Serbia.
A call Saturday by the Democratic Alliance of Kosovo
for a boycott of Sunday's vote was expected to deprive the
referendum of the votes of up to 20 percent of the republic's
electorate. The Alliance represents the province's 2 million
ethnic Albanians.
Opposition leaders pointed out that a referendum was
not required as Milosevic could have called early elections
simply by dismissing the Assembly and resigning.
By holding the referendum, they said, Milosevic
avoided a step that would have been regarded as an admission
of responsibility for the republic's economic convulsions and
international isolation.
And, in the case that the amendment is approved,
Milosevic will maintain control of the state election
apparatus, police and mass media throughout the electoral
campaign.
Milosevic's party and the opposition still have to
agree on guidelines and a law for early elections for the
138-member Chamber of Citizens of the Yugoslav Parliament.
Date: 11 Oct 92 13:55:03 GMT
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (UPI) -- Voters in Serbia cast
ballots Sunday in a referendum on holding early presidential
and assembly elections but federal leaders vowed there would
be elections no matter the outcome of what is widely viewed
as a scheme by the republic's ruling communists to retain
power.
The 12-hours of polling began at 7 a.m. and the
republic Election Commission reported that 35 percent of the
more than 7 million qualified voters had cast ballots by
mid-day amid rainy, chilly weather.
The communist-controlled panel said the results would
be known on Tuesday.
In the opposition stronghold of Belgrade, voting
appeared brisk, with lines of mostly middle-aged and elderly
residents waiting to cast their ballots.
Reports from the restive province of Kosovo confirmed
a boycott by the independence-seeking ethnic Albanian
majority to protest repressive Serbian rule condemned by
Western governments and human rights groups as one of
Europe's worst human rights crises.
The referendum asked voters to approve or reject a
constitutional amendment that would authorize early elections
before the end of the year for the republic's presidency and
250-member assembly.
But, opposition leaders charged that the referendum
was merely a scheme devised by Milosevic and his Socialist
Party of Serbia to avoid a test of the five-year mandates
they won in December 1990 as demanded by their main rivals,
federal Prime Minister Milan Panic and his chief ally,
Dobrica Cosic, the president of the rump Yugoslav union
forged in April by Serbia and Montenegro.
The referendum, opposition leaders pointed out,
required a hard-to- achieve turnout of more than 50 percent
of the electorate to be legitimate and the amendment could
only pass with the support of the same proportion of
registered voters, something considered almost impossible.
A defeat would prohibit the holding of another
referendum for six months.
Casting their ballots at separate times in Belgrade's
posh residential neighborhood of Dedinje, Panic and Cosic
vowed that early elections would be held in Serbia no matter
the outcome.
``If the referendum in Serbia fails, then we shall
act under another possibility, dissolve the Assembly and act
according to the constitution of Serbia,'' said Cosic, a
70-year-old former communist censor-turned- popular author
and ultra-nationalist.
Asked if there would be early federal elections,
Panic replied: ``Absolutely, and there will be a Serbian one
as well.''
``If there is a need, we will find another way to go
to the polls,'' said Panic, 62, a Belgrade-born naturalized
U.S. citizen and multi- millionaire businessman.
Neither man elaborated on their statements.
Both believe that the ouster of Milosevic and his
party is the prime requisite for the lifting of U.N. economic
sanctions imposed on Serbia and Montenegro in May for
underwriting the Serbian territorial conquests in the
neighboring former Yugoslav republic of Bosnia-Hercegovina.
The sanctions, which included an embargo on oil
imports, have gravely exacerbated economic chaos triggered by
the breakup of former Yugoslavia and Milosevic's support for
last year's Serbian uprising in Croatia and the ongoing
land-grab in Bosnia-Hercegovina, both of which are viewed as
components of a plan to create a ``Great Serbia.''
Recent public opinion polls have showed a significant
drop in support for Milosevic as Serbian citizens
increasingly blame him for the lack of gasoline, shortages of
milk, flour, and cooking oil, raging inflation, widespread
plant closings, rising unemployment and international
isolation.
``I shall vote in favor of the early elections
because we need changes,'' said Tvrtko Grgurevic, a
61-year-old engineer, as he waited to vote in Belgrade's
Vracar area. ``It is a high time that the situation calms
down, that we reach peace. There is no need for people to
wage war.''
But, Milosevic sounded a defiant note in a television
interview Saturday night, saying: ``If I had to do it all
over again, I would do the same.''
He launched a vicious attack against Panic and Cosic,
a onetime ally, saying the former took his orders ``from
Washington. We'll see about the other one.''
Opposition leaders said the referendum was not
required, as Milosevic could have called early elections
simply by dismissing the Assembly and resigning.
But by using the referendum, they said, Milosevic
avoided a step that would have been regarded as an admission
of responsibility for Serbia's deep woes.
And, they pointed out, in case the amendment was
approved, Milosevic would be able to maintain control of the
state election apparatus, police and mass media throughout
the electoral campaign.
Milosevic's party and the opposition still have to
agree on guidelines and a law for early elections for the
138-member Chamber of Citizens of the Yugoslav Parliament.
novine.82.bale.,
Declassified 1976 CIA Report Saw Soviet Buildup for War
By Don Oberdorfer
(c) 1992, The Washington Post
The most controversial intelligence estimate of
the Cold War era, aut horized in 1976 by then-CIA Director
George Bush, depicted sharply growing danger from a Soviet
Union bent on gaining military superiority over the United
States as part of preparations to fight World War III.
According to the top secret report written by
critics of previous est imates, the Soviet Union's
willingness to pursue policies of detente and to negotiate
strategic arms limitations were secretly aimed at furthering
``unilateral advantages'' over the United States in the
military field. Many of the drafters of the report went on to
oppose ratification of the SALT II arms control treaty and
advocate greatly expanded U.S. military programs.
The so-called Team B report by conservative
experts who were given unprecedented access to U.S. secrets
created a storm of controversy when its existence became
known through news leaks in late 1976. The classified
document touched off a congressional investigation and led to
disputes that still continue about its validity, its impact
on U.S. views of the Soviet Union and Bush's attitude toward
it.
Early this month, the CIA quietly declassified
both the Team B report and its own official National
Intelligence Estimate of 1976 on Soviet strategic forces,
often known as the Team A report. Without any announcement,
the agency sent the controversial documents to the National
Archives, where they became available last week.
CIA spokesman Mark Mansfield said that the
documents were declassifie d because of a new CIA policy of
providing increased access to historical materials and that
the White House had nothing to do with the Team B decision.
Freedom of Information Act requests had been filed
with respect to Te am B documents by the National Security
Archive, a nonprofit research institute, and Anne Cahn, who
is writing a book on the Team B episode, had filed a lawsuit.
But Mansfield described the release as essentially unrelated
to either.
The reports provide direct evidence of the heated
intelligence debate s of the mid-1970s about Soviet military
programs and, especially, about Soviet intentions. The Team A
report is replete with internal dissents from the State
Department, which took a less alarmed view of the Soviet
buildup, and from Air Force and other military agencies,
which felt the Team A report had not expressed strongly
enough the seriousness of the Soviet threat.
The Team B report has even more foreboding views
of the Soviet Union than it was thought to contain at the
time. For example, the report raised the specter of ``a
relatively short-term threat cresting, say, in 1980 to 1983''
as Soviet military power grows at a faster rate than that in
the West. The CIA was chastised for not taking seriously such
a threat, which never appeared.
The CIA also declassified a letter from Director
Bush calling the Tea m B exercise ``a worthwhile experiment''
and saying the conservative views ``did have some effect'' on
U.S. intelligence.
At the same time, seeming to straddle the conflict
over the unusual procedure, Bush denied that the official CIA
estimate of Soviet strategic forces had been ``shaped by
pressure from the Team B.''
U.S. intelligence estimates of Soviet military
strength and intention s, while available only to a select
group of top officials during the Cold War, undergirded the
governmental debate about how the United States should react
and provided the rationale for massive American military
programs. All sides considered the estimates of great
importance.
Team B, headed by Harvard professor Richard Pipes,
was established in early 1976 by Bush at the recommendation
of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. The
board was disturbed by allegations that U.S. intelligence had
consistently underrated Soviet military programs and asked
for a ``competitive analysis'' by an outside group with
access to U.S. secrets.
The 10 Team B members included such conservatives
as Paul H. Nitze, l ater the Reagan administration's arms
control negotiator, and Paul Wolfowitz, currently
undersecretary of defense for policy. The team, according to
its declassified report, was ``deliberately selected from
among experienced political and military analysts of Soviet
affairs known to take a more somber view of the Soviet
strategic threat than that accepted as the intelligence
community's consensus.''
novine.83.bale.,
NPR - Monday, October 12, 1992.
National Public Radio (NPR), said that Serbs used
aviation to bomb northern bosnian cities Brcko and Gradacac.
Serbs denied those allegations, but some U.N. observers
confirmed that there were some activities on the Banjaluka
Airport.
After capturing northern Bosnian town of Bosanaski
Brod, Serbs seemed to hold the land corridor which connects
the territories under the Serbian control with rump
Yugoslavia securely. But now this corridor is cut, there are
Croatian and Muslim troops on the road. All the traffic
stopped, there is a mile long line of vechiles on both sides.
Some Serbs are trying to escape to Serbia to spend long and
cold winter there, because the winter can be pretty rough
without food and heating.
NPR also said the Muslims and Croatians rejected the
Serbian offensive near Gradacac.
novine.84.bale.,
New York Times: October 12.
SARAJEVO'S GRIEF SEEMS EXHAUSTED WHEN 3 MORE CHILDREN DIE
By JOHN BURNS
SARAJEVO, B&H,Oct.11 - Samra Kapetanovic lay dead in the
Sagrdjia mosque today, a 16-year-old girl who went looking for
her little sister when the shells started falling and ran into
a mortar instead.
Beside her, in the darkness of the morgue in the mosque's
basement, were a boy of 10 and a girl of 5 who died in the same
flash of high explosives.
The death of three children in the lunchtime blast on Sa-
turday on Dvarska street, and the wounds suffered by 10 other
children , including three amputations, made the front page of
Oslobodjenje, the city's principal newspaper.
Children playing in the clearing between three apartment
blocks was a precious token of normality in a situation that
has become increasingly grotesque. More than 600 children have
been killed in the six month siege , and nearly 800 children
are listed as missing and are likely to be dead. People seem
hardly able to react anymore when still more children die.
The 20-year-old man knocking on the door of the main city
morgue at midafternoon was perhaps not typical, since his pur-
pose, in walking several miles through streets sooden with
driving rain was to see if his mother was in any of the morgues.
She had failed to come home three days ago after going out to
buy bread. When somebody produced a flashlight and played it
over the faces of the dead , it became clear the woman was not
at the morgue, and the young man was relieved.
But the bitterness of his experience showed through when
another visitor explained that he, too, had come in search of
somebody , a teenager killed in Dvarska Street, and that he
wanted to know more about her so he could write about her death.
"Why do you bother?" the young man said, in a reaction
increasingly common among the 400 000 people trapped by the
siege. "Do you think the world realy cares?"
The reaction is of one of a population numbed by what they
have endured, and by the conclusion, after months of hoping
that outside powers would intervene to halt the killing and
destruction, that the hope is finally lost.
At mid-summer, a foreign reporter could hardly pause on
a street corner here without having a stranger approach to
ask about the likelihood of US intervention.
In the 24 hours that followed the death of Samra Kapeta-
novic, nobody- not among the stunned survivors at the scene,
not at Kosevo Hospital where the surviving children where
taken, nor up the stairs off Dvarska Street where Fajko and
Izeta Kapetanovic, Samra's parents struggled with bereavement
- nobody spoke of outside help.
Instead, everywhere, there was bitterness and desperation
coupled with the sense that whatever lies ahead, it is something
Sarajevo will have to face substantially alone.
"We know that we must fight this by ourselves," said
Samir, the dead girl's 19-year-old brother, on furlough from
Bosnian Army unit.
"But tell me this: why won't you at least lift the arms
embargo, so that we have the means of defending ourselves?
Or do you want us to end up fighting with our bare hands?"
The call for an end to the arms embargo is voiced more
often even that the pleas for the UN headquarters here to do
something about the cutoff of electricity and virtually all
running water. Serbs who are besieging the city have promised
to help restore power and water, but UN commanders say Serbian
forces have found one way after another to block repairs.
The atack in which Samra kapetanovic died provided a
study in how degraded the most basic services have become.
with most of the ambulances destroyed, the wounded children
had to wait while some of the few private cars still running
were flagged down.
At the hospital, one amputation took place under an oil
lamp because an acute fuel shortage had forced the shutt-down
of the diesel generators. Doctors and nurses moved about with
candles. Supper consisted of a cup of watery chocolate or
lemonade and a slice of bread.
"As you can see , our situation is terrible, just terrible"
said Mufid Lazovic, the43-year-old pshysician in charge of the
children care.
Back on Dvarska Street , the mourning for the children
had begun to the tattoo of continuing mortar fire. But explosions
loud enough to make others jump seemed inaudible to mrs.
Kapetanovic, 38, who sat in the darkness, wailing as she clutched
a pile of her dead daughter's clothes.
"Oh, my Samra," she cried."She was running to help.Oh God
why are we punished so?"
holding fast to her mother was the dead girl's 11-year-old
sister, samira. She had been outside playing when the first
mortar fell in the neighborhood, sending Samra, a quiet, a
studious girl who had hoped to be nurse ,running into the street
Samira was uninjured.
Amid her weeping, she offered her own eulogy."she wanted to
save me , but now she's dead." Samira said. "I wish it could
have been me."
novine.85.bale.,
New York Times , October 12
Presidential Debate - 1992
Question: Mr. President, how can you watch the killing in Bosnia and the
"ethnic cleansing", or the starvation and anarchy in Somalia, and not want
to use America's might, if not America's military to try to end that kind
of suffering?
Bush: Ann, both of them are very complicated situations. And I vowed some-
thing, because I learned something from Vietnam, I am not going to commit
U.S. forces until I know what the mission is, till the military tell me it
can be comppleted, until I know how they can come out. We are helping, Ame-
rican airplanes are helping today on humanitarian relief for Sarajevo. It
is America that's in the lead in helping with humanitary relief for Soma-
lia. But when you got to put somebody else's son or daughter into war, I
think you've got to be a little bit careful and you have to have -- be
sure that there's a military plan that can do this. You have ancient
ethnic rivalries that have cropped up as Yugoslavia has dissolved, or
getting dissolved, and it isn't going to be solved by sending in the 82nd
Airborne. And I'm not going to do that as Commander in Chief.
I am going to stand by and use moral persuasion of the United
States to get satisfaction in terms of prison camps -- and we're making
some progress there -- and in terms of getting humanitarian relief in
there. And right now, as you know, the United States took the lead in a
no-fly operation up there in -- a no fly order up in the United Nations.
We're working through the international organizations. That's one thing I
learned by forging that tremendous and highly successful coalition against
Saddam Hussein, the dictator. Use -- work internationally to do it. I'm
very concerned about, I'm concerned about ethnic cleansing. I'm concerned
about attacks on Muslims, for example, over there. But I must stop short
of using American force until I know how those young men and women are going
to get out of there, as well as get in -- know what the mission is and define
it. And I think I'm on the right track.
Question: Are you designing a mission -------
Moderator: Ms. Ann, sorry, time is up. We have to go to Mr. Perot for a
one-minute response.
Perot: I think, if we learned anything, in Vietnam it's you first commit
this nation before you commit the troupsto the battlefield. We cannot send
our people all over the world to solve every problem that comes up. This
is basically a problem of European Community. Certainly we care about the
people, we care about the children, we care about the tragedy. But it is
inappropriate for us, just becasue there's a problem somewhere around the
world, to take the sons and daughters of working people and make no mistake
about it, our all-volunteer armed force is not made up of the sons and
daughters of the beautiful people, it's the working folks who send their
sons and daughters to war, with a few exceptions. It's very unlike World
war II when F.D.R.'s sons flew missions, everybody went. It's different
world now and very important that we not just, without thinking it through,
just rush to every problem in the world and have our people torn to pieces.
Moderator: Mr. Clinton, one minute.
Clinton: I agree that we cannot commit ground forces to become involved
in the quagmire of Bosnia or in the tribal wars of Somalia. But I think
that it's important to recognize that there are things to be done short
of that and that we do have interest there. There are after all, two
million refugees now because of the problems in what was Yugoslavia, the
largest number since World War II. And there may be hundreds of thousands
of people who will starve or freeze to death in this winter. The United
States should try to work with its allies and stop it. I urged the president
to support this air cover and he did and I applaud that. I applaud the no-fly
zone and I know that he's going back to the United Nations to try to get
authority to enforce it. I think we should stiffen the embargo on Belgrade
Government and I think we have to consider whether or not we should lift
the arms embargo now on the Bosnians since theye are in no way in a fair
fight with a heavily armed opponent bent on ethnic cleansing. We can't
get involved in the quagmire but we must do what we can.
...
novine.86.bale.,
SERBS STEP UP OFFENSIVE ON NORTHERN BOSNIAN TOWN
By Kurt Schork
SARAJEVO, Oct 12, Reuter - Bosnian Serbs stepped up
their offensive on the northern Moslem stronghold of
Gradacac on Sunday, Bosnian and Croatian radio said.
The radio stations reported that seven people were
killed and 12 wounded, but they gave no details of the
casualties other than to say that the first two killed were
civilians.
The Serb rebels threw reinforcements into the fray,
seeking to establish military dominance across northern
Bosnia that would help destroy Moslem dreams of a unitary
Bosnian state.
Croatian radio said the Serbs launched a three-pronged
infantry attack on the town, while the Sarejevo-based
Bosnian station said the assault failed to crack Gradacac's
defences.
Croatian radio said air raid sirens were sounded and
Serb aircraft were sighted but did not attack, unlike on
Saturday when it reported heavy air bombardment in violation
of a U.N. Security Council ban on military flights over
Bosnia.
The Bosnian Serbs denied they were flying combat
missions and accused those who alleged the contrary of
trying to provoke the West into military intervention
against them.
According to Croatian radio, shelling was intense on
the west and northwest frontline while the town centre was
also pounded.
A desperate local commander of Bosnia's army threatened
to put cisterns full of chlorine on front lines near
Gradacac, risking a major environmental disaster, unless
Serbs halted their attacks, Bosnian radio said.
Zeljko Knez, regional commander in the northeast town
of Tuzla, warned, without elaborating, of horrific results
as far away as Croatia, Hungary and Austria if the chlorine
containers were hit in a Serb artillery attack.
Tanjug news agency said fighting continued late on
Sunday in the area around Brcko 30 km (20 miles) east of
Gradacac, where it said Moslem and Croat forces were
attacking Serb positions.
It said a corridor of mostly Serb-controlled land
across the northern end of Bosnia had been broken by the
fighting and one convoy of travellers and refugees was
backed up for several kilometres (miles) waiting for roads
to reopen.
In Serbia, people voted on Sunday in a referendum on
whether to allow early presidential and parliamentary
elections which the opposition hopes will oust hardline
nationalist President Slobodan Milosevic.
An electoral office spokesman said unofficial estimates
from several polling stations put voter turnout at between
40 and 55 per cent. A majority of registered voters must
vote in favour in order to pass the necessary constitutional
amendment.
The war in Bosnia began after its Serbs rebelled
against international recognition of the former Yugoslav
republic as an independent state and occupied some 70 per
cent of its land.
Croats control most of the rest while Moslems, Bosnia's
largest ethnic group, hold only Sarajevo and some other
pockets.
In Sarajevo, Bosnian military commanders turned down a
plan for them to meet their Serb foes face-to-face on
Monday.
Mik Magnusson, senior United Nations political affairs
officer, said the Bosnian presidency had declined to attend
tripartite talks, also involving Bosnian Croats, because of
the failure to restore water and power supplies to the city.
Sarajevo has been without water or electricity for
weeks because of war damage, and some United Nations-
escorted utility crews on repair missions in the past week
have been fired on despite assurances by Bosnian Serb
leaders that their side would launch no such attacks.
The tripartite talks were intended to establish a
``mixed military working group'' to handle practical issues
such as the security of flights and truck convoys carrying
relief supplies as the United Nations Protection Force
expands its presence in Sarajevo.
novine.87.bale.,
BOSNIANS REFUSE TALKS WITH SERBS IN SARAJEVO
By Kurt Schork
SARAJEVO, Oct 11, Reuter - Bosnian military commanders
have said they will not attend talks with their Serb foes on
Monday because water and power have not been restored to
Sarajevo.
``The Bosnian presidency notified us their
representatives are unable to attend the talks because their
conditions -- water and electricity in Sarajevo -- have not
been met,'' said Mik Magnusson, senior United Nations
political affairs officer in the besieged Bosnian capital.
``We hope they will change their minds,'' Magnusson
added.
Sarajevo has been without water or electricity for
weeks because of war damage to pipes and power lines.
Some U.N.-escorted utility crews on repair missions
around the city over the past five days were fired on
despite assurances by Bosnian Serb leaders last week that
their side would launch no such attacks.
Bosnian radio said the decision not to attend
tripartite talks with their Croat allies and Serb opponents
had been relayed to the U.N. Protection Force (UNPROFOR) in
a message from General Stepjepan Siber, deputy commander of
the Bosnian army.
General Philippe Morillon, UNPROFOR deputy commander,
attempted to host a similar tripartite meeting at Sarajevo
airport last Wednesday, but both Bosnian and Serb officials
refused to attend at the last minute.
Morillon returned to Sarajevo late on Sunday afternoon
and immediately began working towards the first face-to-face
meeting among the three combatants since the fledgling
Bosnian state erupted in civil war last April.
The talks are intended to establish a ``mixed military
working group'' to handle security and coordination issues
in and around Sarajevo as UNPROFOR expands its presence in
the area.
Serb officials withdrew from Wednesday's scheduled
meeting because of protocol issues. The Bosnians said
participation was impossible so long as Sarajevo remained
without basic utility services.
The third party to the talks, the Bosnian Defence
Council (HVO) is a Croat organisation. Nominally an ally of
the Bosnian government, it frequently pursues its own
political and military agenda.
U.N. officials say the general wants to focus on
practical issues, such as the security of flights and truck
convoys carrying relief supplies into Sarajevo.
novine.88.bale.,
SERBS SHELL AND BURN VILLAGES IN NORTHERN BOSNIA
By Paul Holmes
KOTOR VAROS, Bosnia, Oct 12, Reuter - Thousands of
Moslems and Croats are being driven out of northern Bosnia
by Serb forces in systematic shelling and burning that has
reduced entire villages to deserted wastelands.
Hundreds of homes have been razed around Kotor Varos, a
Serb-controlled ethnically mixed town 35 km (20 miles)
southeast of the Bosnian Serb stronghold of Banja Luka.
Rebel Serb commanders who gave three Western reporters
access to the area at the weekend say their aim is to crush
by all means remaining resistance to their control by
heavily outgunned Moslem and Croat fighters in villages and
woods.
Although the authorities deny they are driving
minorities out, we saw substantial evidence during a two-day
visit to Kotor Varos to support U.N. assertions that Serbs
are involved in ``the last stages of ethnic cleansing'' in
northern Bosnia.
Jakotina, a settlement of six hamlets -- five Croat and
one Moslem -- in hills a few km (miles) southwest of Kotor
Varos, was taken by Serb forces 12 days ago, according to
Major Milorad Vulin, commander of the Bosnian Serb Knesevo
brigade.
Only three houses remain intact. Of an original
population of 800 in Jakotina, just 16 people, all Croats
and all female, are still there, under armed guard and
waiting to leave.
``See that house? There was a sniper there,'' said
Vulin, pointing to a burned-out shell on the slope of a
hill.
What about the other torched houses around it?
``There were fighters in those as well.''
Vulin took us to Jakotina when we asked for evidence of
Serb claims that Moslem and Croat fighters had dug
underground bunkers in private houses in villages around
Kotor Varos.
We saw only defensive slit trenches and dugouts around
one of the Jakotina hamlets. Hundreds of square metres
(yards) of hilltop grassland in front of one shallow ditch
had been burned to deny the hamlet's defenders cover.
Further down the valley, four abandoned houses in the
village of Sokoline burned fiercely on Saturday night.
Columns of smoke rose on Saturday in the Moslem village of
Vranic.
``We are destroying their shelters and bunkers...so
there is nowhere for them (Moslem and Croat fighters) to
come back and stay,'' said Lieutenant Colonel Dusan
Novakovic, commander of the Bosnian Serb Kotor Varos
brigade.
``We have adopted the rules of guerrilla war. Our units
are in every forest and behind each bush,'' he said.
On Sunday, Serb forces rained tank shells on Vecici, a
Moslem village where 1,200 people -- civilians as well as
fighters -- have been trapped under siege for four months.
Nedjeljko Djekanovic, leader of the Serb martial law
authorities in Kotor Varos, said the Vecici villagers had
been given until next Thursday to surrender their weapons
and leave northern Bosnia or face a full military assault.
``They can go wherever they want as long as it not on
the territory of the Bosnian Serbian Republic,'' said
Djekanovic.
``This applies to people carrying arms and to all
people who want to go. Whoever wants to stay has to accept
the legal state of the Serbian republic.
``We are going to liberate the entire territory and we
will destroy every house which shows resistance.''
Djekanovic confirmed that up to 2,000 Moslems and
Croats who had come down from villages around Kotor Varos
had joined Serb-organised bus convoys last week to Travnik,
in Moslem-held central Bosnia, in return for payment in hard
currency.
Several sources said the refugees massed in fields in
the hamlet of Sibovi waiting for the convoys, of seven to
eight buses a day, but there was no evidence of an organised
camp.
Authoritative Bosnian Croat sources said that of 21,000
Moslems and Croats who lived in the Kotor Varos district
with 14,000 Serbs during peacetime, only 4,500 remained.
They said the nightmare began when Serb special units
from Banja Luka came to Kotor Varos on June 11 to depose the
elected local authorities and round up males aged between 14
and 60. The Croat mayor, Anton Mandic, was still under
arrest.
Sylvana Foa, spokeswoman for the U.N. High Commissioner
for Refugees in Geneva, said last week that many of the
remaining 200,000 Moslems and Croats in northern Bosnia were
being given deadlines by Serb forces to leave the area.
``What we feel is that we are now in the last stages of
ethnic cleansing,'' Foa said.
novine.89.bale.,
RFE/RL DAILY REPORT
No. 196, October 12, 1992
SUCCESSOR STATES TO THE USSR
FIGHTING CONTINUES IN ABKHAZIA. Two Georgian civilians were killed
and three wounded when Abkhaz troops opened fire on a Georgian
helicopter on 11 October, ITAR-TASS reported. Abkhaz defense
ministry forces also claimed to have shot down a Georgian
fighter-bomber over northen Abkhazia. Speaking to reporters in
Tbilisi, Georgian State Council Chairman Eduard Shevardnadze cast
doubt on his participation in the meeting planned for 13 October
between Russian President Boris Yeltsin, Abkhaz Parliamentary
Chairman Vladislav Ardzinba and himself. (Liz Fuller, RFE/RL Inc.)
SUMMIT PRODUCES MIXED RESULTS ON NUCLEAR WEAPONS CONTROL. CIS
Commander-in-Chief General Shaposhnikov on 9 October stated that
Belarus had concluded an agreement with Russia on nuclear weapons
control, while in Kazakhstan on 10 October Presidents Yeltsin and
Nazarbaev signed an agreement containing unspecified provisions on
nuclear weapons. Ukraine rejected Shaposhnikov's proposal that
Russia control all former Soviet nuclear weapons. Negotiations
between Ukraine and Russia over nuclear control are to take place
within the next month. The summit appears to have codified the
transfer of control over Russian, Belarussian, and Kazakh nuclear
weapons to the Russian Strategic Rocket Forces, with Shaposhnikov
retaining a role in mediating between the Russian and Ukrainian
defense ministries. The results of the summit were reported by
Interfax and Western news agencies. (John Lepingwell)
UKRAINIAN POSITION AT CIS SUMMIT. Ukraine's overall position at the
CIS summit in Bishkek was, according to President Leonid Kravchuk,
to develop exclusively as an independent state, Ukrainian TV
reported on 9 October. This was reflected in its refusal to sign
the agreement on setting up a consultative economic committee. The
Ukrainian delegation signed only five of the fifteen documents,
with numerous reservations and additions based on its unwillingness
to participate in any centralized structures. (Roman Solchanyk,
RFE/RL Inc.)
SIX CIS STATES TO CREATE COMMON BANK. Although the CIS states could
not agree on creating a supranational economic policy-making body
at last week's Bishkek summit, six of the countries have decided to
establish a common bank, The Los Angeles Times reported on 10
October. The bank would initially settle interstate trade payments,
but later, according to Russian Central Bank Chairman Viktor
Gerashchenko, it would take on the functions of a central bank
controlling the issuance of currency and credit in the ruble zone.
The creation of such a supranational central bank is considered an
essential measure for achieving economic stability within the ruble
zone. The six states that have agreed to remain within the zone are
Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan and Armenia,
according to Interfax on 9 October. (Erik Whitlock, RFE/RL Inc.)
AKAEV ON CIS. In an interview carried by Reuters on 11 October,
Kyrgyzstan President Askar Akaev is quoted as saying that his state
could soon leave the CIS, which he described as a temporary
grouping. Akaev said the Commonwealth was needed to slow down the
negative consequences of the collapse of the Soviet Union, but
Kyrgyzstan felt it should cease to exist politically in the near
future. Economic links between the member-states should be
retained, however. Akaev said the four Central Asian republics
would have to rely on Russia for the foreseeable future to stop
their economies collapsing, but all would go their own way once
they could stand on their own feet. (Ann Sheehy, RFE/RL Inc.)
PARLIAMENT APPROVES DRAFT LAW ON FORMING GOVERNMENTS. On 9 October,
the Russian parliament approved after a single reading a draft law
on how future governments would be formed. According to ITAR-TASS,
the draft revokes President Yeltsin's right to appoint the cabinet
of ministers directly. The draft gives the parliament the right to
approve the president's choice for prime minister. Parliamentary
commissions will have a final say in the selection of government
ministers. Some further revisions to the draft were suggested at
the parliamentary session on 9 October. The parliament will return
to discuss the draft later this week. (Vera Tolz, RFE/RL Inc.)
FURTHER DELAY REQUESTED IN RUSSIAN DEBT REPAYMENT. Russian Minister
of Foreign Economic Relations Petr Aven told Interfax on 9 October
that at the end of October, Russia will probably ask for a
two-month delay in repaying its debt to Western creditor nations.
(Many observers feel that Russia will be unable to repay more than
a token share of its convertible-currency debt for the next three
to five years, RFE/RL Inc.). Aven spoke of the difficulties
involved. If, for instance, the debt repayment deferred from 1992
is carried over to 1993, then the total debt repayment due that
year will amount to some $40 billion. Yet, he predicted, Russia
will have a negative balance of payments in 1993 of some $4-5
billion. (Keith Bush, RFE/RL Inc.)
MANDATORY SALES OF HARD-CURRENCY EARNINGS DEFERRED. In what appears
to be a separate interview with Interfax on 10 October, Aven said
that Russia is not yet ready to introduce the mandatory sales by
state enterprises of 100% of their convertible currency earnings.
(Such a move was announced as "imminent" two weeks ago and the call
was repeated by President Yeltsin on 6 October). The minister
explained that, although such a measure is necessary, it cannot be
implemented at the present time because of the "full absence of
bank control over the outflow of currency to the West," and owing
to "the wild fluctuations of the ruble [exchange] rate." (Keith
Bush, RFE/RL Inc.)
FACE VALUE OF PRIVATIZATION VOUCHERS. The Russian parliament
adopted a resolution on 9 October to the effect that the state must
guarantee the face value of privatization vouchers for three years,
Interfax reported. (Their face value is 10,000 rubles, but they
were marked down to 6,100 rubles on the first day of trading on 1
October on the Moscow stock exchange). The resolution specified
that a privatization check may be used to buy, among other things,
apartments and land. (Keith Bush, RFE/RL Inc.)
PARLIAMENT AGAIN APPROVES RESOLUTION ON GOVERNMENT. The Russian
Supreme Soviet again passed a resolution criticizing the way the
government was implementing its economic reforms, Russian news
agencies reported on 9 October. On 8 October deputies approved the
resolution, but the vote was annulled after the voting procedure
was deemed improper. The resolution calls on the government to
present within one month a series of measures to combat the
country's economic crisis. It also gives the Russian central bank
one month to present a monetary stabilization plan. On 9 October,
Komsomolskaya pravda published an interview with the speaker of
parliament, Ruslan Khasbulatov, who said he was against the
dismissal of the Russian government at the present time. (Vera
Tolz, RFE/RL Inc.)
YAKOVLEV CONDEMNS CPSU AND PREESENT RUSSIAN AUTHORITIES. In a 45
minute address to the Constitutional Court on 9 October, former
Politburo member Aleksandr Yakovlev condemned both the ideology and
practicies of the Soviet communist party, which, Yakovlev said, had
always been based on violence and deception. There were always
reformers in the world communist movement, Yakovlev said, recalling
Valentin Plekhanov's dispute with Lenin, the 1968 "Prague Spring,"
and Gorbachev's perestroika. However, Yakovlev noted, these
reformers had always been in the minority, and their reactionary
opponents had always succeeded in crushing them. The current
Russian government is not entirely democratic either, since it
bears traces of "neo-Bolshevism," Yakovlev stated, recalling how he
had passed the police cordon to enter his office in the Gorbachev
Foundation only one day earlier. Yakovlev's speech was broadcast on
Russian TV during its report on the CPSU hearings late last night.
(Julia Wishnevsky, RFE/RL Inc.)
COMMUNISTS HOLD CONFERENCE IN MOSCOW. Communists from twelve former
Soviet republics opened a conference in Moscow on 10 October aimed
at preparing for a restoration congress of the now-banned Communist
Party, Interfax reported. According to the agency, 252 delegates
attended. The speakers at the gathering accused the former CPSU
leadership of treachery for allowing the party to disintegrate.
Some communists objected to the conference being held at the
present time. Co-chairman of the parliamentary group, "Commmunists
of Russia," Gennadii Sasenko, said he feared the conference would
have a negative effect on the current hearings in the Russian
Constitutional Court on the legality of Boris Yeltsin's ban of the
CPSU. (Vera Tolz, RFE/RL Inc.)
POLTORANIN ACCUSES GORBACHEV FOUNDATION OF IMPROPRIETIES. In an
interview with Western correspondents on 10 October, Russian Deputy
Prime Minister Mikhail Poltoranin attempted to justify the police
seizure of the Gorbachev Foundation and the confiscation of its
property by claiming that it had leased out space on its premises
to make money in spite of its stated scholarly goals. He also said
that the foundation was "...a second Zurich, a Bolshevik centre
from which he [Gorbachev] watches to see how he can start firing
the Aurora guns at the present authorities to launch another coup."
Poltoranin promised to publish information about in inappropriate
leasing of space, which, he added, "smells of millions of rubles."
(Julia Wishnevsky, RFE/RL Inc.)
RUSSIANS, CHINESE DISCUSS MILITARY COOPERATION. Russian Deputy
Defense Minister Andrei Kokoshin--the highest ranking civilian in
the Russian defense establishment--met with Chinese Defense
Minister Qin Jiwei in Beijing on 9 October. The ITAR-TASS account
of their meeting said the two officials announced their intention
to contribute to the further development of relations between their
two ministries "on the basis of mutual benefit and equality." The
report also said that Russo-Chinese working groups carried out
negotiations on military cooperation between the two countries.
(Doug Clarke, RFE/RL Inc.)
CEREMONIAL ROLE FOR ADMIRAL CHERNAVIN. Admiral Vladimir Chernavin,
recently the commander-in-chief of the Soviet Navy, welcomed
military attaches on 9 October to a Moscow exhibit on the Russian
Navy in his new role as honorary president of the Naval Center.
Chernavin was quoted by ISAR-TASS as saying that the Russian Navy
was passing through a hard period "due to obvious reasons." He
added that Russia had always been a great sea power and would
always have a navy "worthy of its grandeur." Although Chernavin had
been the head of the interim CIS Navy following the breakup of the
Soviet Union, Admiral Feliks N. Gromov was appointed to lead the
Russian Navy in August of this year. Three of the four former
Soviet fleets have been claimed by Russia while the fourth--in the
Black Sea--is shared between Russia and Ukraine. (Doug Clarke,
RFE/RL Inc.)
RUSSIAN MILITARY OVERTURES TO THE UAE. Colonel General Vladimir M.
Semenov, the commander-in-chief of the Russian ground forces, led a
Russian military delegation that arrived in Abu Dhabi, the capital
of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on 8 October. In an ITAR- TASS
account the following day, Semenov was quoted as saying at that his
first visit to an Arab country was a "friendly business trip." He
said that his delegation would draw up proposals for promoting
military cooperation between Russia and the UAE. While the Gulf
Arab states have long been dependent on Western nations for their
military equipment, Abu Dhabi reportedly ordered a number of
Russian infantry combat vehicles earlier this year. (Doug Clarke,
RFE/RL Inc.)
UKRAINIAN STUDENTS' DEMANDS. Ukrainian students, who have set up
their a tent city in Kiev's central square, are demanding Ukraine's
immediate withdrawal from the CIS, a parliamentary decision on new
parliamentary elections in the spring of 1993, and the naming of a
new prime minister and government only after the decision on
parliamentary elections has been made, SR-Press reported 11
October. (Roman Solchanyk, RFE/RL Inc.)
GEORGIAN ELECTIONS. Georgia's Central Electoral Commission
estimated that about 65% of the electorate voted in parliamentary
elections on 11 October, Western agencies reported. No voting took
place in eight districts in northern Abkhazia occupied by Abkhaz
troops, in South Ossetia or in three raions in Mingrelia, which is
a bastion of support for ousted President Zviad Gamsakhurdia, thus
excluding some 10% of Georgia's population. Thirty-six individual
political parties plus three blocs representing a further eleven
are competing for 234 parliamentary seats on a mixed
party-list/majority basis. Eduard Shevardnadze, standing unopposed
for the post of parliament chairman, is expected to receive the
minimum 30% of the vote needed to win. (Liz Fuller, RFE/RL Inc.)
MOLDOVA CONCERNED OVER RUSSIAN PEACEKEEPERS' BIAS. Major Trofim
Stefan, spokesman for the Moldovan side of the Joint Control
Commission supervising the peacekeeping troops in eastern Moldova,
told an RFE/RL correspondent that Moldova is concerned by the
Russian side's increasingly open bias in favor of the "Dniester"
insurgents. In violation of the ceasefire convention, the
insurgents maintain armed units and arms stockpiles in the
disengagement zone. They have seized by force the Moldovan
prosecutor's office and courthouse in Bendery, and have entrenched
themselves in several Moldovan villages around Bendery on the right
bank of the Dniester. The Russian peacekeepers openly condone these
violations. The Moldovan leadership, which has gambled on
cooperation with Russia in settling the conflict, is reluctant for
political reasons to publicize its growing concern over the Russian
peaceekepers' partiality. (Vladimir Socor, RFE/RL Inc.)
CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE
UN BANS FLIGHTS OVER BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA. International media
reported on 9 October that the Security Council adopted Resolution
781 banning all flights over Bosnia except UN flights engaged in
humanitarian missions. Only the Serbs have aircraft, and Serbian
planes reportedly had been shadowing UN flights to sneak up on
Bosnian and Croatian positions. The resolution did not, however,
specify any penalties or means of enforcement. The BBC on 10
October quoted Bosnian radio as claiming that the Serbs were
continuing to attack Gradacac and other northern Bosnian towns by
air in defiance of the ban. (Patrick Moore, RFE/RL Inc.)
CONFUSION OVER DEVELOPMENTS IN NORTHERN BOSNIA. Gradacac, Brcko,
Orasje, and other centers came under renewed Serbian attack in an
apparent effort to consolidate the land corridor across northern
Bosnia linking Serbia with Serb-held enclaves in Bosnia and
Croatia, the BBC reported on 10 and 11 October. Serbian sources
denied that they were using air power in defiance of the UN ban,
Reuters reported on 10 October. Elsewhere, speculation continues
that the Croat surrender of Bosanski Brod on 6 October might have
been part of a Croatian-Serbian deal to enable each side to
consolidate its holdings. According to this theory, Croatian and
international media said, current fighting around Gradacac and
Orasje is aimed at providing an escape route for Croat troops which
have been defending Gradacac. On 11 October, Croatian President
Franjo Tudjman told the VOA that he continues to favor setting up
ethnically based cantons as the best political arrangement for
Bosnia, but Muslim critics charge that cantonization after months
of ethnic cleansing would be tantamount to partition. (Patrick
Moore, RFE/RL Inc.)
SECOND ROUND IN ROMANIA'S PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS. Romanians went to
the polls on 11 October to elect the country's president. Ion
Iliescu, the candidate of the Democratic National Salvation Front,
who was backed by 47.34% of the voters in the first round on 27
September, faced the candidate of the Democratic Convention of
Romania, Emil Constantinescu, who was then endorsed by 31.24%.
Western agencies reported that an unofficial exit poll conducted by
the Pro-Democratia association at 222 voting stations indicated
Iliescu would win the election with approximately 58% of the votes
and 42% of the vote would go to Constantinescu. According to the
Central Electoral Bureau, participation in the elections was 75.6%,
slightly below the 76.2% voter turnout on 27 September. (Michael
Shafir, RFE/RL Inc.)
SEJM ACCEPTS GOVERNMENT ECONOMIC PROGRAM. Prime Minister Hanna
Suchocka survived another parliamentary test on 9 October when the
Sejm voted, 171 to 159 with 8 abstentions, to send the government's
economic policy guidelines for 1993 to committee. The vote followed
thirteen hours of acrimonious debate, during which even the
coalition parties criticized the government's program. In her
opening speech, Suchocka said that Poland could achieve steady
economic growth on certain conditions: if wage controls were
retained, government spending on social benefits was limited to a
minimum, and resources were channeled to investment rather than
consumption. She stressed the need to assess Poland's situation
honestly. "The fact that we are entering the path of economic
growth does not mean that we can expect rapid improvement in living
standards," she concluded. (Louisa Vinton, RFE/RL Inc.)
POLAND REVISES BUDGET: BIGGER DEFICIT, HIGHER TAXES, SPENDING CUTS.
Meeting on 10 October, the government agreed on revisions to the
1992 budget that would raise the deficit from the planned level of
65.5 trillion zloty ($4.7 billion) to almost 82 trillion zloty
($5.9 billion). Also proposed were across-the-board spending cuts
of 3.5%, increased sales taxes, and reduced indexing of pensions to
inflation. Income taxes on the highest earners would rise to 50%.
An additional 6% tax would be imposed on imports to protect
Poland's balance of payments. "If the Sejm does not accept these
revisions," Finance Minister Jerzy Osiatynski warned, "we won't
have money for anything but wages and pensions." Although the IMF
has signaled initial acceptance of the government's plans, fierce
criticism of planned spending cuts and new taxes is to be expected
from the opposition parties. (Louisa Vinton, RFE/RL Inc.)
CZECH AND SLOVAK GOVERNMENTS AGREE ON CUSTOMS UNION. The two
republican governments met on 10 October near Prague to discuss the
post-Czechoslovak relationship between the Czech Republic and
Slovakia. According to news agencies, Czech and Slovak Prime
Ministers Vaclav Klaus and Vladimir Meciar agreed to introduce a
customs union between the two republics and, at least initially,
keep a common currency. According to a spokesman for the Slovak
government, the two Prime Ministers discussed the possibility of
keeping a single currency until 30 June 1993. Meciar said after the
talks that trade exchanges between the two republics would continue
unhindered after the dissolution of the country. Klaus made it
clear that the setting up of a common market seemed to be "beyond
our technical, organizational, and legislative possibilities" and
that the republics would adopt only partial accords on labor and
capital movement. Representatives of the two governments also said
that while there are no territorial demands between the two
republics, the issue of citizenship remains controversial. The
Slovaks have proposed dual citizenship which Prague has
categorically rejected. All agreements between the governments must
be approved by the respective republican parliaments. (Jan Obrman,
RFE/RL Inc.)
SERBIA'S REFERENDUM ON EARLY ELECTIONS. Radio Serbia reported on 11
October that more than half of Serbia's eligible voters cast
ballots in a referendum to determine whether a constitutional
amendment should be adopted to allow for early general and
presidential elections. Results are expected on 13 October. More
than 50% of Serbia's 7 million voters must approve the referendum
if elections are to take place by the end of December. A poll
published by the Belgrade daily Politika on 7 October showed 68% of
those questioned favored early elections. Current law stipulates
that the mandate of Serbia's parliament expires in 1994 while
President Slobodan Milosevic's runs out in 1995. The referendum
does not effect the scheduling of elections either at the federal
level or in Montenegro. Milan Panic, Prime Minister of rump
Yugoslavia told reporters Serbia must approve the amendment if the
republic wants the UN-imposed sanctions lifted. He added that if
the voters rejected early elections he would "find another way to
have the elections." Belgrade's state-controlled media largely
ignored the event until this weekend. According to Radio Croatia,
Kosovo's Albanian majority boycotted the balloting. (Milan
Andrejevich, RFE/RL Inc.)
CARDINAL GLEMP IN ROMANIA. The Polish primate, cardinal Glemp,
arrived in Bucharest on 9 October for a three-day visit. Glemp, who
is the guest of the Roman-Catholic bishop of Iasi, Petru Gherghel,
participated in services in several Catholic churches in the
Suceava county , met representatives of the Polish minority in
Romania, and visited Iasi. Radio Bucharest said Prime Minister
Theodor Stolojan and Foreign Affairs Minister Adrian Nastase would
receive the Polish primate before his departure. (Michael Shafir,
RFE/RL Inc.).
SLOVAK FOREIGN MINISTER DISMISSES COMPLAINTS OF ETHNIC HUNGARIANS.
Slovak Foreign Minister Milan Knazko was quoted by CTSK on 9
October as having said after a meeting with French Foreign Minister
Roland Dumas in Paris that he had never seen a specific example of
abuse of the Hungarian minority in Slovakia. Knazko reportedly told
Dumas that "increasing nationalism from Budapest" had caused
members of Slovakia's ethnic minorities to protest "some sort of
fictitious violations of their rights." He said that minority
demands in Slovakia were aimed at the destruction of the civil
society and the state. (Jan Obrman, RFE/RL Inc.)
WEU FACT-FINDING MISSION IN ROMANIA. A delegation of the West
European Union (WEU) arrived in Romania on 11 October on a
fact-finding mission focusing on Romania's compliance with the UN
embargo on trade with the rump Yugoslav state, Western agencies
reported. The delegation will spend five days in Romania speaking
with government officials and touring the common border with rump
Yugoslavia, as well as the 200 kilometer stretch of the Danube
river that runs through the country. (Michael Shafir, RFE/RL Inc.).
BULGARIA REGRETS EC'S TOUGHENING. Bulgaria's negotiations toward an
association agreement with the European Community are being
hampered by individual EC states' economic problems, Bulgarian
officials told Reuters on 11 October. Deputy Prime Minister and
chief negotiator Ilko Eskenazi said some EC members were "extremely
jealous" regarding their positions in sectors such as textile,
agriculture and metals, the areas in which Bulgaria is considered
to be most competitive. Last Tuesday the EC cut its original offer
on farm imports, a decision which contradicted a June declaration
speaking about the need for boosting economic ties with Eastern
Europe. (Kjell Engelbrekt, RFE/RL Inc.)
LATVIAN DEFENSE MINISTRY PROTESTS RUSSIAN FLIGHTS. During the first
8 days of October Russian military aircraft based in Latvia
violated Latvia's flight regulations 18 times, an official of the
Latvian Defense Ministry told Radio Riga on 9 October. The Latvian
Foreign Ministry had sent protest notes over previous flight
violations and he pointed out that the attitude of the Northwestern
Group of Forces leadership seems to be hardening toward Latvia as
shown by recent statements saying that they would abide only by the
results of Russian-Latvian negotiations, not the resolutions of the
Latvian authorities. (Dzintra Bungs, RFE/RL Inc.)
NWGF OFFICERS: MORATORIUM ON WITHDRAWAL FROM THE BALTICS. Col.
Vitalii Kandalovsky told Diena of 9 October that the Coordination
Council of the Baltic Officers Organizations has called upon the
Russian government to suspend the pullout of troops from the Baltic
States. The organization represents both active Russian and retired
Soviet officers in the Baltic States. Kandalovsky said that his
organization was dissatisfied with the unresolved "social problems"
awaiting the officers when they are transferred to Russia and with
the way the Russian army property is being sold private
individuals. The organization has also asked the Russian court to
examine the validity of the accords on troop withdrawal from
Lithuania. While in Riga, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Vitaly
Churkin commented on the officers' declaration, saying the
government decides on troop pullouts, and that public organizations
could merely express their views, BNS reported on 10 October.
(Dzintra Bungs, RFE/RL Inc.)
ESTONIA REJECTS RUSIAN CONDITIONS FOR TROOP WITHDRAWAL. Ministry
official told reporters on 10 October that Russia is breaking its
promises by demanding that troop withdrawals be linked to human
rights. Toivo Klaar, chief of the MFA Political Department, told
ETA that Russia had repeatedly assured Estonia that withdrawals
were not linked to Estonia's treatment of its substantial Russian
population. Last week, Russian President Boris Yeltsin said the
forces would not be withdrawn until Russian residents' rights were
guaranteed. Estonia maintains that such guarantees are already in
place. (Riina Kionka, RFE/RL Inc.)
GASOLINE SALES STOPPED IN LITHUANIA. On 10 October sales of
gasoline to private and state motor vehicles in Lithuania were
stopped except for ambulances, police, firemen, prosecuting bodies,
National Defense Ministry, food delivery, and some other special
services, Radio Lithuania reports. The sole exception will be six
hard-currency stations operated by the Lithuanian-Finnish joint
venture "Litofinn Service" that will sell a liter of gasoline for
$.82 and of diesel fuel for $.62. The move is unlikely to halt all
vehicle traffic since many individuals, learning from the Soviet
economic blockade in 1990, have stored gasoline in their garages.
(Saulius Girnius, RFE/RL Inc.)
HUNGARIAN-AUSTRIAN DEPORTATION AGREEMENT. Hungarian and Austrian
Interior Ministers signed a deportation agreement in Salzburg on 10
October, Hungarian radio reported. The agreement had been sought by
Austria, but Hungary could not sign before it had similar
agreements with its other neighbors. An agreement was recently
concluded between Hungary and Romania. Both agreements stipulate
that illegal immigrants and refugees can be sent back to the
country of their origin. (Karoly Okolicsanyi, RFE/RL Inc.)
BULGARIAN SCHOOL STRIKE ENDS. After a one-week strike that
virtually paralyzed Bulgarian schools, teachers' unions on 10
October announced they had struck a deal with government
negotiators. According to Bulgarian and Western agencies, an
agreement was reached through "mutual concessions." Although no
details have yet been released, reports say teachers will receive a
substantial salary increase. (Kjell Engelbrekt, RFE/RL Inc.)
MACEDONIAN DENAR DEVALUED. The parliament of the Republic of
Macedonia, meeting in extended session on 9 October, devalued its
currency, the denar, by 67%, reports an RFE/RL correspondent in
Skopje. The measure, intended to restore economic stability and
save the largely successful antiinflationary program put in place
on 26 April 1992. The program became necessary as a result of the
legislature's July decision, made under pressure from the trade
unions, to allow up to 50% wage hikes, thus initiating a new cycle
of inflation. (Duncan Perry, RFE/RL Inc.)
novine.90.bale.,
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Subject: Federal leaders say referendum will not force elections
Subject: Published report says U.S. considering arms for Bosnia
Subject: Game 18 a draw in Fischer-Spassky series
Subject: Bosnians to boycott U.N.-brokered military chiefs meeting
Subject: Ethnic Albanians protest Serbian education policies, repression
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Federal leaders say referendum will not force elections
Date: 11 Oct 92 13:55:03 GMT
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (UPI) -- Voters in Serbia cast ballots Sunday in
a referendum on holding early presidential and assembly elections but
federal leaders vowed there would be elections no matter the outcome of
what is widely viewed as a scheme by the republic's ruling communists to
retain power.
The 12-hours of polling began at 7 a.m. and the republic Election
Commission reported that 35 percent of the more than 7 million qualified
voters had cast ballots by mid-day amid rainy, chilly weather.
The communist-controlled panel said the results would be known on
Tuesday.
In the opposition stronghold of Belgrade, voting appeared brisk, with
lines of mostly middle-aged and elderly residents waiting to cast their
ballots.
Reports from the restive province of Kosovo confirmed a boycott by
the independence-seeking ethnic Albanian majority to protest repressive
Serbian rule condemned by Western governments and human rights groups as
one of Europe's worst human rights crises.
The referendum asked voters to approve or reject a constitutional
amendment that would authorize early elections before the end of the
year for the republic's presidency and 250-member assembly.
But, opposition leaders charged that the referendum was merely a
scheme devised by Milosevic and his Socialist Party of Serbia to avoid a
test of the five-year mandates they won in December 1990 as demanded by
their main rivals, federal Prime Minister Milan Panic and his chief
ally, Dobrica Cosic, the president of the rump Yugoslav union forged in
April by Serbia and Montenegro.
The referendum, opposition leaders pointed out, required a hard-to-
achieve turnout of more than 50 percent of the electorate to be
legitimate and the amendment could only pass with the support of the
same proportion of registered voters, something considered almost
impossible.
A defeat would prohibit the holding of another referendum for six
months.
Casting their ballots at separate times in Belgrade's posh
residential neighborhood of Dedinje, Panic and Cosic vowed that early
elections would be held in Serbia no matter the outcome.
``If the referendum in Serbia fails, then we shall act under another
possibility, dissolve the Assembly and act according to the constitution
of Serbia,'' said Cosic, a 70-year-old former communist censor-turned-
popular author and ultra-nationalist.
Asked if there would be early federal elections, Panic replied:
``Absolutely, and there will be a Serbian one as well.''
``If there is a need, we will find another way to go to the polls,''
said Panic, 62, a Belgrade-born naturalized U.S. citizen and multi-
millionaire businessman.
Neither man elaborated on their statements.
Both believe that the ouster of Milosevic and his party is the prime
requisite for the lifting of U.N. economic sanctions imposed on Serbia
and Montenegro in May for underwriting the Serbian territorial conquests
in the neighboring former Yugoslav republic of Bosnia-Hercegovina.
The sanctions, which included an embargo on oil imports, have gravely
exacerbated economic chaos triggered by the breakup of former Yugoslavia
and Milosevic's support for last year's Serbian uprising in Croatia and
the ongoing land-grab in Bosnia-Hercegovina, both of which are viewed as
components of a plan to create a ``Great Serbia.''
Recent public opinion polls have showed a significant drop in support
for Milosevic as Serbian citizens increasingly blame him for the lack of
gasoline, shortages of milk, flour, and cooking oil, raging inflation,
widespread plant closings, rising unemployment and international
isolation.
``I shall vote in favor of the early elections because we need
changes,'' said Tvrtko Grgurevic, a 61-year-old engineer, as he waited
to vote in Belgrade's Vracar area. ``It is a high time that the
situation calms down, that we reach peace. There is no need for people
to wage war.''
But, Milosevic sounded a defiant note in a television interview
Saturday night, saying: ``If I had to do it all over again, I would do
the same.''
He launched a vicious attack against Panic and Cosic, a onetime ally,
saying the former took his orders ``from Washington. We'll see about the
other one.''
Opposition leaders said the referendum was not required, as Milosevic
could have called early elections simply by dismissing the Assembly and
resigning.
But by using the referendum, they said, Milosevic avoided a step that
would have been regarded as an admission of responsibility for Serbia's
deep woes.
And, they pointed out, in case the amendment was approved, Milosevic
would be able to maintain control of the state election apparatus,
police and mass media throughout the electoral campaign.
Milosevic's party and the opposition still have to agree on
guidelines and a law for early elections for the 138-member Chamber of
Citizens of the Yugoslav
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Published report says U.S. considering arms for Bosnia
Date: 11 Oct 92 17:19:58 GMT
NEW YORK (UPI) -- Pentagon and Defense Department officials are
weighing the idea of sending arms to Muslim Slavs in war-torn Bosnia-
Hercegovina, but some top administration officials are opposed, The New
York Times reported Sunday.
The Bush administration is hesitant to change its policy toward
Bosnia so close to the Nov. 3 presidential election, the newspaper said.
Washington is also reluctant to involve the U.S. military in the
conflict in the former Yugoslav republic, the report said.
The Times said Acting Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger and
Gen. Colin Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and other
senior administration officials oppose sending arms to Bosnia. They fear
such intervention would escalate the fighting, the newspaper said.
However, administration officials are also torn by the need to end
the conflict in the Balkans, which President Bush last week described as
``a flagrant disregard for human life.'' The Muslim Slavs in Bosnia-
Hercegovina are heavily outgunned by Serbians seeking to carve a Serb
state out of the fledgling nation and annex it to the Yugoslav
federation of Serbia and Montenegro.
Bush signed into law this past week a foreign aid bill that
authorizes $50 million in military aid to Bosnia once a U.N. arms
embargo on the troubled area is lifted.
However, there remain obstacles to sending arms to Bosnia.
``Administation officials who favor sending weapons to Bosnians say
that any decision about changing course on Balkan policy has been
delayed until after the presidential election,'' the Times said. ``And
any such effort would require Washington to persuade the United Nations
to lift its arms embargo on the area.''
Meanwhile, U.S. intelligence officials said the ban imposed Friday by
the U.N. Security Council on military air traffic over Bosnia really
does not mean much in terms of reducing civilian casualties. Tanks,
artillery and other ground weapons controlled by the Serbs are enough to
prevent a shift in the balance of power, they said.
However, the Times said these officials see the ``no-fly'' zone as
essential for the safety of flights carrying humanitarian relief and as
a first step in the peace process.
``It's largely a political signal that the international community
has put the Serbs on notice,'' the newspaper quoted one administration
official as saying.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Game 18 a draw in Fischer-Spassky series
Date: 11 Oct 92 21:26:00 GMT
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (UPI) -- Former world chess champion Bobby
Fischer and longtime rival Boris Spassky played to a draw in the 18th
match of their controversial chess series.
Fischer, who played black in a ``queen's gambit accepted'' strategy,
offered the draw after Spassky's 36th move. He retains a 7-games-to-3
lead in the series, just three victories away from wrapping it up.
``This game was quite unimaginative. I think both Fischer and Spassky
should be satisfied with the outcome,'' said Aleksandar Matanovic, a
Yugoslav chess expert.
It was the eighth draw in Fischer and Spassky's $5 million match,
which started Oct. 3 in the plush Adriatic resort of Sveti Stefan. The
series was moved to Belgrade after three weeks.
The next game is scheduled for Wednesday.
Fischer still faces a $250,000 fine and a maximum 10 years in jail
for playing the match in the rump Yugoslav union of Serbia and
Montenegro.
The U.S. Treasury Department warned before the series that Fischer
would violate the U.N. ban on economic and financial transactions with
Yugoslavia if he competed. The sanctions were introduced because of
Serbia's role in the war in neighboring Bosnia-Hercegovina.
Fischer literally spat on the department's cease-and-desist order
during a news conference on the eve of the match, Sept 2.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Bosnians to boycott U.N.-brokered military chiefs meeting
Date: 12 Oct 92 14:06:38 GMT
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Hercegovina (UPI) -- The government accused Serbian
forces Monday of new violations of a U.N.-imposed ban on military
flights over Bosnia-Hercegovina amid conflicting reports on fighting for
a land corridor of vital importance to the Serbs on the northern flank
of the former Yugoslav republic.
In another development, the Bosnian government reportedly planned to
boycott talks called in Sarajevo between the warring factions by U.N.
officials to discuss humanitarian operations and the restoration of
electricity and water supplies to Sarajevo.
Sarajevo radio said Stjepan Siber, the Bosnian army vice chief, sent
U.N. Protection Force Gen. Phillipe Morillon a letter in which he
accused the French commander of being duped by Serbian promises not to
use water and electricity as weapons against civilian populations.
The radio, quoting government allegations, said Serbian warjets made
25 to 30 sorties Sunday over central and northern Bosnia-Hercegovina in
a second consecutive day of violations of a ban on military flights
declared Friday by the U.N. Security Council.
The council authorized only U.N. and humanitarian flights, but
provided no enforcement mechanism.
There was no independent confirmation of the Sarajevo radio report.
Serbian officials have denied their Yugoslav army-supplied warjets have
violated the ban, but Western reporters this weekend observed
overflights of northern Bosnia-Hercegovina by at least a half-dozen
Serbian aircraft.
Bosnian and Croatian forces do not possess military planes.
Serbian forces claimed that they succeeded in reopening the land
corridor linking Serbia with Serb-held areas of northwestern Bosnia-
Hercegovina after their units recaptured a stretch of road seized Friday
by Croat-Muslim Slav fighters in the village of Gorica, near the Serb-
held northeastern town of Brcko.
``As of this morning, traffic has been restored and vehicles are
driving without problems,'' said a Serbian statement carried by Tanjug,
the official news agency of the Serbia-controlled rump Yugoslav
federation.
Serbian forces ``destroyed four enemy tanks,'' said the statement,
which added that Serbian positions were shelled overnight by regular
Croatian army units that crossed the Sava River into Bosnia-Hercegovina
from Croatia.
State-run radio in the Croatian capital of Zagreb, however, claimed
that units of the Croatian Defense Council, the main Croatian
paramilitary force fighting in Bosnia-Hercegovina, maintained their grip
on the Gorica area despite heavy fighting, and that the corridor
remained cut.
The corridor comprises territory claimed as part of a self-declared
state that Serbian forces have been fighting to conquer since the runup
to international recognition of Bosnia-Hercegovina's independence from
the defunct six-republic Yugoslav federation in early April.
The partition of the republic is opposed by Muslim Slavs, moderate
Serbs and Croats loyal to the Bosnian government.
The corridor is of extreme importance to the Serbs because it is the
only efficient way they can transport large amounts of military and
other supplies from Serbia, their main political and economic patron, to
Serb-held areas in northwestern Bosnia-Hercegovina and western Croatia.
The talks between military representatives of the warring factions
called by Morillon at the U.N. headquarters in Sarajevo were aimed at
advancing humanitarian aid operations, including U.N.-assisted efforts
to reconnect water and electricity supplies to the beleaguered Bosnian
capital.
The supplies have been cut for weeks to most of the city, and the
natural gas mains were disconnected within the past week, prompting
citizens to chop down trees and rip apart wooden furniture in frantic
preparations for winter.
Telephone service, which had continued to work within the city and
some of its suburbs, was cut Monday morning in western areas.
Telephone officials blamed previous outages on shortages of diesel
fuel for generators.
The U.N. High Commission for Refugees said 16 aircraft were scheduled
to arrive during the day with 160 tons of food and medical supplies as
part of the international humanitarian airlift to Sarajevo.
Four trucks bearing 30 tons of aid were also expected from Croatia's
Adriatic port city of Split, the agency said.
Sarajevo enjoyed one of its quietest nights. The calm was broken in
the morning by sporadic artillery fire and sniper attacks.
Soldiers attached to the U.N. headquarters launched a search for a
sniper after the gunman wounded a man waiting at the building's front
gate.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Ethnic Albanians protest Serbian education policies, repression
Date: 12 Oct 92 15:38:09 GMT
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (UPI) -- About 30,000 ethnic Albanians staged a
peaceful one-hour march Monday in the Kosovo provincial capital of
Pristina to protest the hard-line rule of the communist regime of Serbia
and demand the right to formulate their own educational programs,
witnesses said.
The witnesses, reached by telephone, attributed the lack of incidents
to the very small number of Serbian police deployed for the first
demonstration held in months in the restive nominally autonomous
southern province.
The protest began at midday outside Pristina University, with some
30,000 ethnic Albanian students and teachers shouting slogans, including
``Open schools for us'' and ``Police keep out of our schools,'' the
witnesses said.
The protesters, holding their fingers aloft in ``V'' for victory
signs, marched down the main street of Pristina, some 200 miles south of
Belgrade, before dispersing peacefully, witnesses said.
Similar protests were also reportedly held in towns across Kosovo,
home to 1.7 million ethnic Albanians and some 200,000 Serbs.
The demonstrations were called by ethnic Albanian opposition parties
to demand the right to replace with one of their own an educational
curriculum imposed last year by Belgrade.
Ethnic Albanians contend Belgrade's curriculum is overly weighted
toward Serbian history and literature. They regard its imposition as
part of the hard-line tactics of Serbia's communist regime to repress
their demands for independence for Kosovo.
Tens of thousands of ethnic Albanian high school and university
students and teachers declared a boycott of classes to protest the
Serbian educational curriculum. Serbian authorities responded by
shutting down schools across the province and suspending ethnic Albanian
teachers and professors.
The regime of President Slobodan Milosevic has been condemned by
Western governments and international human rights groups for employing
some of the most repressive steps still in effect in Europe to maintain
its grip on Kosovo, cherished by Serbs as the ``cradle'' of their
centuries-old culture and religion.
In July 1990, Milosevic took total control of the provincial
administration, dissolving the assembly and government and replacing
virtually all ethnic Albanian officials, enterprise managers, and other
professionals with Serbs from Serbia.
novine.91.bale.,
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: First referendum results suggest early Serbian elections unlikely
Subject: U.N. commander optimistic after meeting Serbs
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: First referendum results suggest early Serbian elections unlikely
Date: 12 Oct 92 20:50:18 GMT
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (UPI) -- A constitutional amendment that would
require communist President Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia to call early
presidential and assembly elections was almost certain to fail because
of an insufficient voter turnout in a weekend referendum, incomplete
returns showed Monday.
The amendment's failure would represent a major setback for Yugoslav
Prime Minister Milan Panic and federal President Dobrica Cosic and force
them to intensify an ongoing power struggle with Milosevic, whose ouster
they view as the main condition for the lifting of chaos-fueling U.N.
economic sanctions.
``Milosevic may win this particular skirmish and now it is up to them
(Panic and Cosic) to figure out how to crank up the pressure,'' said a
Western diplomat.
``The referendum failed because people are tired of the people who
designed it, not because they don't want radical changes,'' said
Svetozar Stojanovic, a chief advisor to Cosic, in an interview given to
independent Studio B Television late Monday.
``We've got to have the early elections, and we will find a
constitutional way to allow them,'' he said, clearly blaming Milosevic's
regime for the failure.
Announcing incomplete returns from Sunday's referendum, the republic
Election Commission said that only 46 percent of the voters in 181 of
Serbia's 190 electoral districts cast ballots.
Under Serbia's communist-authored constitution, more than 50 percent
of the 7 million-strong electorate must turn out for a referendum to be
legitimate.
An Election Commission spokesman said final results would be known on
Tuesday.
The vast majority of the ballots counted by late Monday afternoon
favored the constitutional amendment that would authorize early
elections for Serbia's president and 250-seat Assembly before the end of
this year, he said.
Reports from the tense province of Kosovo showed that most voters
among the independence-seeking 2 million-strong ethnic Albanian majority
boycotted the referendum to protest Belgrade's repressive rule.
Ethnic Hungarians from Vojvodina province also boycotted the
referendum, and so did Muslim Slavs from the troubled region of Sandzak,
the Election Commission spokesman said.
Opposition leaders argued for weeks that Milosevic hit on the
referendum as a scheme to avoid a test of the five-year mandate he won
in December 1990 polls that also saw his Socialist Party of Serbia win a
massive majority in the republic assembly.
They contended that Milosevic was well aware of how difficult it
would be to obtain a turnout of more than 50 percent and that he was
also knew that passage of the constitutional amendment would require the
approval of more than half the electorate.
Opposition leaders said that had he really favored early elections,
Milosevic could have simply dismissed the Assembly and resigned.
Milosevic has also obstructed efforts by Panic and Cosic to hold
early polls for the federal Parliament by using the massive communist
majority he controls to block approval of a new election law.
Early elections are being demanded by Panic, a Belgrade-born
naturalized U.S. citizen, and his chief ally, Cosic, as a way of ending
Milosevic's grip on power and advancing their efforts to free Serbia
from the U.N. sanctions imposed for its support for the Serbian
territorial conquests in adjacent Bosnia-Hercegovina.
The sanctions, which became effective May 30 and included an oil
embargo, have fueled raging economic havoc in Serbia and its tiny
dependent, Montenegro, which forged a union in April to replace the
defunct six-republic Yugoslav federation.
Many observers have expressed fears that without the safety valve of
early elections, seething anti-government discontent could explode into
civil strife in Serbia and Montenegro.
Panic and Cosic, who played a key role in Milosevic's ascent to power
five years ago, on Sunday vowed to see that early elections are held in
Serbia irrespective of the outcome of the referendum.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: U.N. commander optimistic after meeting Serbs
Date: 12 Oct 92 20:43:19 GMT
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Hercegovina (UPI) -- The U.N. military commander for
Bosnia-Hercegovina met Serbian leaders Monday and said he won their
support for a permanent land corridor to bring humanitarian supplies
into Sarajevo.
French Gen. Phillipe Morillon, in a somewhat upbeat assessment after
a morning of talks also attended by Croat military chiefs, said he
expected the city's electricity and water to be restored within days or
perhaps hours.
Morillon, facing reporters in a city highly skeptical of such
promises after enduring more than six months of siege, insisted he was
willing to take the Serbian commitments at face value and declined to
discuss any deadlines or ultimatums.
``I hope I am not being a dreamer...I believe that every interlocutor
facing me is sincere,'' said Morillon, named this month to head the U.N.
Protection Forces republic-wide operation.
Morillon also said he was not in a position to confirm or deny
reports that Serbian warplanes have repeatedly violated the ban on
flights over Bosnia-Hercegovina imposed Friday by the U.N. Security
Council.
Bosnians boycotted what would have been the first scheduled UNPROFOR-
supervised meeting of military leaders of their republic's three main
warring factions, contending that U.N. forces have done too little to
restore Sarajevo's utility supplies.
Fighting was reported to be relatively light Monday throughout
Bosnia-Hercegovina.
Serbian forces, however, said they had recaptured a key land link in
the northern part of the republic that Bosnian forces had cut over the
weekend.
The Bosnians, meanwhile, accused Serbian forces of again violating
the U.N. flight ban.
Sarajevo Radio, which relays official Bosnian reports, said Serbian
forces made 25 to 30 flights Sunday over the central and northern parts
of the republic, violating for a second straight day the U.N. flight
ban.
Separately, the Red Cross made plans to run two land convoys to carry
women, children and the elderly out of Sarajevo, Serbian and Bosnian
media said.
The convoys destined for Split and Belgrade were scheduled to leave
sometime after Wednesday, Sarajevo radio said.
Morillon said Serbian military leaders at the talks Monday agreed to
a further series of daily meetings at which the three warring factions
will discuss matters such as the delivery of humanitarian aid.
He said he was pushing first for guarantees to allow the delivery of
humanitarian supplies through the western Sarajevo suburb of Ilidza, the
city's only reliable access route during winter.
Ilidza has been the scene of some of the heaviest fighting around the
capital as Serbian and Bosnian forces vie for control of the winter
route.
Morillon said he proposed that the United Nations take control of the
route and then establish checkpoints at which the warring factions could
ensure only non-military goods were being allowed to pass.
``Without this condition, peace can never be established,'' he said.
He gave no timetable for reaching an agreement on opening the
corridor, but said it was particularly crucial as cold weather moved
into the region.
Bosnian Vice President Ejub Ganic, whose side refused to participate
in the talks before the city's utilities are restored, suggested before
the meeting that Morillon should resign to demonstrate to the world
community that he has been given an impossible mission.
Morillon said he realized the ``vicious circle'' he faced and said he
and everyone else involved in the conflict ultimately had to wait for
success from the U.N.- and European Community-mediated Yugoslav peace
talks now taking place in Geneva.
``The real location where the definitive solution will be found is
Geneva,'' he said.
UNPROFOR spokesman Mik Magnusson said several of the UNPROFOR-
escorted trips by utility workers to locations needing repair work have
been successful, although he reported one case Friday in which a local
Serbian commander controlling the area of Moscanica, northeast of the
capital, refused to permit work at a water pumping facility.
Water and electricity supplies have been cut off for weeks to most of
the city, and Sarajevo's natural gas supplies were disconnected during
the past week.
Sarajevo's citizens have been chopping down trees and ripping apart
wooden furniture in a frantic bid to prepare for winter.
Telephone service, which has continued to operate within the city and
some of its suburbs, was cut off Monday morning in western areas of
Sarajevo.
Telephone officials have previously blamed the outages on shortages
of diesel fuel necessary to run generators, although the outages have
repeatedly occurred in lines affecting the UNPROFOR headquarters and U.
N. officials have suggested it may be designed to win fuel deliveries.
The U.N. High Commission for Refugees said it expected Monday to
receive 16 relief flights into Sarajevo, carrying about 160 tons of
supplies, and another four trucks, carrying 30 tons.
The UNHCR's Sarajevo operation on Sunday received about 280 tons of
humanitarian aid which arrived by plane and land convoy. It is the first
time it has surpassed its daily goal since aid flights resumed on Oct.
3.
A Serbian forces statement said Monday the land corridor near Brcko
in northeastern Bosnia-Hercegovina, recaptured from Bosnian forces over
the weekend, was open to traffic, allowing the movement between Serbia
and Serb-controlled enclaves in western Bosnia-Hercegovina and Croatia.
Serbian guerrillas, in clashes over the weekend against Bosnian
forces made up mainly of Muslim Slavs but also including Croats and
moderate Serbs, ``destroyed four enemy tanks'' during their assault to
recapture the small road section at Brcko, it said.
The Serbian statement said forces of the ``regular Croatian army''
entered Bosnia-Hercegovina from neighboring Croatia and ``overnight
opened intermittent artillery fire'' on Serbian positions outside Brcko
and the villages of Grbavica, Grcica and Gorica.
Two civilians were injured in Grcica, the statement said.
Sarajevo radio, after being quiet on the matter over the weekend,
only Monday confirmed the Bosnian military's short-lived weekend success
in cutting the land corridor at the village of Gorica in Brcko.
It also said that Serbian forces to the west of Brcko made several
failed infantry attempts to establish control of a corridor between
Doboj and Teslic, and fired grenades overnight throughout the region.
Artillery attacks and fighting also was reported Monday around the
northern towns of Maglaj, Gradacac, Bihac and Tuzla, and along the
southern Bosnian front lines in Capljina.
At least 36 people were killed and 146 injured across Bosnia-
Hercegovina in the 24-hour period ended at 10 a.m. Monday, including six
killed and 20 injured in Sarajevo, republic health officials said.
The victims included four children in the capital who were killed,
and another 12 injured, many seriously, when a shell exploded Saturday
near an orphanage.
novine.92.bale.,
RFE/RL Daily Report
No. 197, October 13, 1992
SUCCESSOR STATES TO THE USSR
RUSSIA CALLS FOR ABKHAZ CEASEFIRE; YELTSIN-SHEVARDNADZE SUMMIT
POSTPONED. On 12 October, the Russian government issued a statement
characterizing the fighting in Abkhazia as a threat to the entire
North Caucasus, and called for an immediate, unconditional
ceasefire in the region, ITAR-TASS reported. Western news agencies
quoted a Russian presidential spokeswoman as stating that the
three-way talks between Shevardnadze, Yelstsin and Abkhaz
parliament Chairman Vladislav Ardzinba scheduled for 13 October had
been postponed because the necessary documents are not ready.
Shevardnadze cast doubt on Ardzinba's participation; he went on to
blame Russian generals acting on their own initiative for
exacerbating the bloodshed in Abkhazia. (Liz Fuller, RFE/RL Inc.)
GEORGIA, UKRAINE PROTEST RUSSIAN USE OF NAVY IN ABKHAZIA. Ukraine's
naval command reported on 12 October that Russia had dispatched
nine ships of the Black Sea Fleet to positions off Abkhazia without
consultation, despite the agreement to share command of the fleet.
The deployment is reportedly under the personal command of Admiral
Kasatanov, Commander of the Black Sea Fleet. Initially the ships
were to provide security during a planned shipboard meeting between
Yeltsin and Shevardnadze, but the deployment continued even after
the summit's cancellation. Georgia protested an incident in which
two Russian warships sailed into Sukhumi harbor, which is still
under Georgian control, and reportedly pointed their guns at the
city while ignoring attempts to communicate by local officials,
according to Reuters. (John Lepingwell, RFE/RL Inc.)
RUSSIANS SEIZE GREENPEACE SHIP. Russian border troops seized the
Greenpeace ship "Solo" off the arctic island of Novaya Zemlya the
morning of 12 October. ISAR-TASS reported that the ship was on a
mission to inspect what Greenpeace labeled a "nuclear graveyard" in
the Kara Sea where 15 atomic submarines and 17,000 drums of nuclear
waste had been dumped. The Russians claim the vessel was within
Russian territorial waters at the time, although Greenpeace claims
that it was 23 miles outside the Russian 12-mile limit. (Doug
Clarke, RFE/RL Inc.)
KRAVCHUK SELECTS NEW PRIME MINISTER. Leonid Kuchma, head of the
Yuzhmash concern that produced Soviet tactical nuclear missiles,
says that Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk has asked him to form
a new cabinet, Reuters reported on 13 October. "I have received an
official invitation [from Kravchuk] but want to think about this
overnight," Kuchma is quoted as saying. Kuchma's name had surfaced
in the press earlier as a possible choice for the prime minister's
post. Various political parties have proposed the candidacies of
Volodymyr Lanovyi, Volodymyr Chernyak, Ihor Yukhnovsky, Volodymyr
Pylypchuk, Ivan Plyushch, and others. On the morning of 13 October,
Kuchma fielded questions in parliament on the policies he would
adopt. (Roman Solchanyk, RFE/RL Inc.)
SHAPOSHNIKOV ON RESULTS OF BISHKEK SUMMIT. In a 12 October press
conference reported by ITAR-TASS and Interfax, CIS
Commander-In-Chief Shaposhnikov stated that he was satisfied with
the summit's decision to agree on a joint military security concept
as well as a new structure for the CIS command. The CIS command
will take on responsibility for peacekeeping operations within the
CIS, coordinating operational and mobilization preparations,
military-scientific research, and coordinating the interaction of
the military commands of the member states. Shaposhnikov will also
be developing a military "concept" that will function like a
doctrine for the CIS military. (John Lepingwell, RFE/RL Inc.)
COMMANDER OF CIS STRATEGIC DETERRENT FORCES REMOVED. General Yuri
Maksimov was removed from his position at the Bishkek summit, and
his responsibilities are to be shared between CIS
Commander-in-Chief Shaposhnikov and the Commander of the Russian
Strategic Rocket Forces (SRF), General Smirnov, according to
Interfax reports of 10-12 October and Nezavisimaya gazeta of 8
October. The move eliminates a duplication between the CIS and
Russian military command structure and recognizes the fact that all
command, control, and support elements, for the SRF, apart from
those in Ukraine, are under Russian control. The move is also
consistent with Shaposhnikov's aim to entrust all nuclear weapons
control to Russia, a proposal which Ukraine blocked at the summit.
(John Lepingwell, RFE/RL Inc.)
KHASBULATOV CALLS FOR POLTORANIN'S DISMISSAL. Russian Supreme
Soviet Chairman Ruslan Khasbulatov has asked President Boris
Yeltsin to dismiss Deputy Prime Minister Mikhail Poltoranin,
Interfax reported on 12 October. In a letter to Yeltsin,
Khasbulatov said that Poltoranin should be fired because of
comments he made last week, which Khasbulatov said were aimed at
inciting anger against him. Poltoranin, who is also Russian
Information Minister, accused Khasbulatov on 9 October of
attempting to "provoke a social explosion in Russia" by trying to
take over Izvestiya. He was also quoted, in Izvestiya, as saying
that Khasbulatov was "undermining the stability of Russia." (Keith
Bush, RFE/RL Inc.)
BELARUSIAN PESSIMISM OVER RUBLE ZONE. Two top Belarusian government
officials expressed doubts whether their country would stay within
the ruble zone. Prime Minister Vyacheslav Kebich told a press
conference in Minsk on 12 October that, although Belarus remains
interested in maintaining a single currency zone, it may have to
introduce its own currency, if the "purchasing power of the ruble
falls further," Belinform-TASS reported. The Interfax account of
the same conference portrayed Belarusian withdrawal from the
currency zone as a foregone conclusion, however, quoting the
Belarusian speaker of parliament, Stanislav Shuskevich: "It will be
difficult for us [to rapidly introduce our own currency], but I'm
afraid we must. . ." Shuskevich did not disclose when this might
happen. (Erik Whitlock, RFE/RL Inc.)
OTHER RUBLE ZONE DEVELOPMENTS. On 12 October, several reports
appeared on the use of the ruble in former Soviet republics.
According to ITAR-TASS, Tajikistan announced that it has decided to
retain the ruble as its national currency and that it has agreed to
maintain a single monetary policy with Russia. Kyrgyz President
Askar Akayev told Reuters that Kyrgyzstan will leave the ruble zone
by 1995 and introduce its own currency. And the new Azeri minister
of finance, Salekh Mamedov, told Azerinform that he believed that
the manat should be the only unit of currency in Azerbaijan and
that the ruble should be withdrawn from circulation. (Keith Bush,
RFE/RL Inc.)
SECOND 29TH CP CONGRESS IN SPRING 1993. Leaders of the banned CPSU
said on 12 October that they will hold a congress next spring aimed
at renewing the party in an alliance across the former USSR,
ITAR-TASS reported. Konstantin Nikolaev, the president of the
organizing committee for the congress, was quoted as saying that
the meeting would mark an attempt to convene a successful 29th
Party Congress. Nikolaev also said that his committee has decided
to reestablish the Komsomol. An attempt to convene a Communist
Party congress earlier this year was largely unsuccessful when the
authorities refused to allow the party to rent a hall in Moscow and
when few attended the meeting at an obscure location outside the
city. (Keith Bush, RFE/RL Inc.)
GORBACHEV DOES NOT FEAR ARREST. Interviewed by French TV on 10
October, Gorbachev said he does not fear arrest due to his current
dispute with the Russian authorities. The government has not
completely "lost its head," Gorbachev explained. He also denied as
"crazy" the government's claim that he planned a Leninist-style
political comeback. Earlier that day, the Moscow newspaper Kuranty
reportedly published the government audit papers which document
that the Gorbachev foundation had indeed leased space to Russian
and Western businessmen. However, according to "Vesti," the
government knows about similar pratices by hundreds of other
organizations, and yet it does not seize their buildings. It is
noteworthy that no Russian TV newscast has yet informed their
respective audiences about protests by the French and Italian
governments against the Russian government's treatment of
Gorbachev. (Julia Wishnevsky, RFE/RL Inc.)
NATO DOUBTS ALL TACTICAL NUCLEAR WEAPONS WITHDRAWN FROM RUSSIAN
NAVY. According to an AFP report of 12 October, NATO officials are
concerned that Russia is not fulfilling a commitment made by the
USSR in October 1991 to withdraw all sea-based tactical nuclear
weapons. The report noted that NATO officials are likely to express
their concern at a meeting of the NATO Nuclear Planning Group on
20-21 October. Russia has withdrawn all tactical nuclear weapons
from the other former republics, including any stationed with the
Black Sea Fleet, but sea-based tactical systems might remain on
board the Baltic, Northern, and Pacific Fleets. (John Lepingwell,
RFE/RL Inc.)
MOSCOW CONFERENCE ON CONVERSION. The Russian Institute of Strategic
Research will hold a conference in Moscow on October 14-16 to
discuss the problems associated with the conversion of military
factories to civilian output, according to an ITAR-TASS report of 7
October. Entitled "Conversion and Cooperation," the gathering is
being held at the initiative of the Russian parliamentary committee
for defense and security. The plenary meetings will examine
military, strategic, financial, and social problems connected with
conversion. (Doug Clarke, RFE/RL Inc.)
YELTSIN ANNULLS EDICT ON FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE AFFILIATION. In an
unusual step, President Yeltsin cancelled the change of the name of
the foreign intelligence service of the Russian federation, which
was envisaged in his edict on the reorganization of the government,
published by Rossiiskaya gazeta on 7 October. The new name was
expected to be "the Russian federal service for foreign
intelligence." The title implies that the agency will become an
agency of the executive branch of government. On 9 October,
however, Rossiiskaya gazeta published Yeltsin's new edict, which
left intact the old name and stressed that the foreign intelligence
is subordinated directly to the Russian president. According to the
law, the agency will also be accountable to the parliament.
Yeltsin's retreat reflects the ungoing political struggle for
control over the spy agency: the law on foreign intelligence
adopted in July includes provisions for accountability of the
foreign intelligence agency to the legislative and judicial
branches. (Victor Yasmann, RFE/RL Inc.)
RUSSIANS SEEK EMPLOYMENT ABROAD. According to Interfax on 10
October, figures from the migration department of the Russian
Ministry of Labor suggest that about 100,000 Russians have already
found jobs abroad independently, without any mediation on the part
of the state. Other studies carried out by the Ministry suggest
that a further 1.5 million want to emigrate and 4.5 million are
seriously considering this option. The Ministry is concerned to
control this emigration process in order to protect the interests
of Russian workers abroad, and is attempting to set up
intergovernmental agreements to this effect. According to Interfax
on 9 October, such "organized" labur migration is seen as one way
of easing prospective reform-related unemployment. Particular
reference is made to employment opportunities abroad for skilled
specialists from defence industry enterprises. (Sheila Marnie,
RFE/RL Inc.)
CRIMEAN TATAR MEJLIS RULED UNCONSTITUTIONAL. An extraordinary
session of the Crimean parliament ruled on 8 October that the
Crimean Tatar Mejlis and the Organization of the Crimean Tatar
National Movement (OKND) are unconstitutional bodies, Nezavisimaya
gazeta reported on 10 October. The Mejlis and the OKND are
characterized as having taken a confrontational course towards the
local authorities from the time that they were established. The
stand taken by the Crimean lawmakers has, in essence, been
supported by Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk and the Crimean
parliamentary speaker, Mykola Bahrov. The two met in Kiev on 12
October and condemned an "extremist group" acting in the name of
the Mejlis. Kravchuk added that he would cooperate only with the
legally elected organs of power in the Crimea, which is bound to
exacerbate already strained relations between Kiev and the Crimean
Tatars. (Roman Solchanyk, RFE/RL Inc.)
SHEVARDNADZE ELECTED GEORGIAN PARLIAMENT CHAIRMAN. Officials of the
Georgian Central Electoral Commission told Western journalists on
12 October that according to preliminary estimates, Eduard
Shevardnadze received approximately 90% of the votes cast in the
previous day's elections. Speaking on Georgian TV on the night of
11 October, Shevardnadze professed to be "ashamed" at the figures,
according to the Iberia News Agency. No information is yet
available on the composition of the new parliament, but Prime
Minister Tengiz Sigua, Mkhedrioni militia leader Dzhaba Ioseliani
and Defense Minister Tengiz Kitovani all won election as
independent candidates, ITAR-TASS reported. (Liz Fuller, RFE/RL
Inc.)
RUSSIAN-AZERBAIJANI SECURITY AGREEMENT SIGNED. Russian President
Boris Yeltsin and Azerbaijan President Abulfaz Elchibey signed an
agreement in Moscow on 12 October on mutual security and friendly
relations, Western agencies reported. Under the terms of the
agreement, both sides recognize each other's sovereignty and
undertake to respect human and minority rights. Yeltsin and
Elchibey also discussed bilateral concerns including the situation
in Nagorno-Karabakh. (Liz Fuller, RFE/RL Inc.)
KYRGYZ PARLIAMENT TO DISCUSS PEACE-KEEPING FORCE FOR TAJIKISTAN.
The Kyrgyz parliament is to hold an extraordinary session on 14
October to discuss the deployment of about 400 peace-keeping troops
in Tajikistan, ITAR-TASS and Interfax reported on 12 October.
Kyrgyz Vice President Feliks Kulov told Interfax in Dushanbe that
troops from Kazakhstan are also to be sent. He said the main task
of the peacekeeping forces is not to disarm the warring groups, but
to give Tajikistan's leadership the opportunity to strengthen its
power structure and law enforcement agencies and to stabilize the
economic situation as winter approaches. An RFE/RL correspondent
was told in Bishkek that the troops could be airlifted to
Tajikistan on 15 October. (Ann Sheehy, RFE/RL Inc.)
CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE
ILIESCU ELECTED PRESIDENT. Emil Constantinescu the candidate of the
Democratic Convention of Romania, has conceded defeat in the second
round of the presidential elections held on 11 October. With the
vote counted in nearly 99% of the polling stations, the Central
Electoral Bureau said on 12 October that incumbent president Ion
Iliescu, who was backed by the Democratic National Salvation Front,
has won 61.27% votes and Constantinescu was endorsed by 38.73%
votes. In remarks carried by Radio Bucharest Constantinescu
congratulated Iliescu and said he hoped the president would "fulfil
his great role with honour." Iliescu said that he intended to put
the country's social and political life on a decent, dignified and
normal path through dialogue and collaboration with all political
parties represented in the parliament. (Michael Shafir, RFE/RL
Inc.)
ROMANIAN COALITION TALKS. Foreign affairs minister, Adrian Nastase,
has been chosen by the Democratic National Salvation Front (DNSF)
to conduct negotiations on forming a new coalition government,
RFE/RL's correspondent in Bucharest reported on 12 October.
Nastase, who is a vice-president of the DNSF, has already begun
discussions with the seven parties that won seats in the Chamber of
Deputies in the 27 September elections. Corneliu Coposu, the
president of the Democratic Convention of Romania, said in an
interview with Radio Bucharest on 12 October that the convention
would not join the government, its position being that of a
"constructive opposition." On the same day, the daily Evenimentul
zilei reported that Mihai Botez, an exiled antiCeausescu dissident,
might head the new government. However, Reuter said that Botez's
relatives in Bucharest stated he was unlikely to accept, even if
the reports of the offer were true. (Michael Shafir, RFE/RL Inc.)
MAZOWIECKI COMPLAINS OF "TOO MUCH INDIFFERENCE" OVER BOSNIA. UN
human rights envoy and former Polish prime minister Tadeusz
Mazowiecki returned to the Yugoslav area for a second visit on 12
October, Reuters said. He again attacked human rights abuses by all
sides and especially criticized European countries for failing to
take in enough Bosnian refugees, particularly those newly freed
from detention camps. Mazowiecki said that the human rights
situation has worsened in the former Yugoslavia since his first
trip there in August. Besides Bosnia and Croatia, he will visit
Kosovo, Vojvodina, and the Sandzak. (Patrick Moore, RFE/RL Inc.)
MASS PROTESTS IN KOSOVO. Radio Serbia reported on 12 October that
more than 50,000 Albanians demonstrated peacefully in Pristina,
Urosevac and other Kosovo towns for nearly 90 minutes. The ethnic
Albanian majority is boycotting schools and Pristina university to
protest the Serbianization of the curriculum since 1990. Radio
Croatia reported that 100,000 took part in the protests and that
Serb police clashed with protesters in Pec. Radio Croatia reports a
large number of Serbian army reservists were mobilized on 10 and 11
October. Serbian officials say the mobilization was ordered as a
precautionary measure after Rexhep Osmani, Education Minister of
the self-proclaimed Kosovo Albanian government, was released from
prison on 9 October. Osmani helped organized the rallies and told
Radio Croatia that the protests would continue. (Milan
Andrejevich, RFE/RL Inc.)
WILL THERE BE EARLY ELECTIONS IN SERBIA? According to preliminary
results of an 11 October referendum to determine whether a
constitutional amendment should be adopted to allow for early
general and presidential elections, the proposal has apparently
failed to win enough support. Though nearly 96% of the ballots cast
backed early elections, approval required the support of more than
half of Serbia's 7 million eligible voters. Only 3.1 million
eligible voters went to the polls, according to a Radio Serbia
report. (Milan Andrejevich, RFE/RL Inc.)
SMALL BUSINESS CONGRESS OPENS IN WARSAW. On 12 October President
Lech Walesa and Prime Minister Hanna Suchocka attended the opening
session of the 19th World Congress of Small Business, held for the
first time in Eastern Europe. A thousand delegates from 61
countries are participating. In his address, Walesa emphasized the
symbolic importance of staging the congress in Poland, where
pioneering economic reforms had led to a boom in private
production. Poland's minister for private enterprise, Zbigniew
Eysmont, told PAP on 8 October that the contribution of small and
medium-sized private businesses to national income had risen from
6% to 20% in the past three years. (Louisa Vinton, RFE/RL Inc.)
HUNGARY'S 1993 DEFENSE BUDGET. Pending approval by parliament,
Hungary's defense expenditures will be raised some 10% to 66
billion forint in 1993, MTI reported on 11 October. The amount,
while covering the army's day-to-day needs, is not enough to
maintain its combat and operational capability at the present
level. The pay of conscripts, military students, and low-earning
regular soldiers and civilian employees will be raised; 10.9
billion forint are to be spent on the maintenance of the military's
assets (worth 660 billion forint) and 1.9 on repairs, with emphasis
on ground and air force units. Because of budget restrictions,
pilots will be able to fly only 60 to 65 hours instead of the
present 80 to 85. Essential parts to be obtained from the former
Soviet Union cannot be purchased next year for the lack of the
necessary 3 billion forint. (Alfred Reisch, RFE/RL Inc.)
CSURKA SPEAKS OUT AGAIN. The controversial Vice President of the
ruling Hungarian Democratic Forum party, Istvan Csurka, repeated
his extreme views in an interview in the latest edition, 12 October
1992, of the German news-magazine Der Spiegel. Csurka said that his
idea of a Hungarian living space was not equivalent to the German
Lebensraum concept, because his objective was not to expand but to
protect the existing living space of Hungarians. Csurka said that
the Slovak constitution did not recognize the rights of the
Hungarian minority there which suggested that the Hungarian
minority was in danger. Responding to the charge that his views
that because of their alleged links with the Kadar-era nomenklatura
and the international finance and bank world, the Jews were the
eternal and sworn enemy of Hungarians, Csurka said,"this is not
something I have invented but a fact." (Karoly Okolicsanyi,
RFE/RL Inc.)
RUSSIAN EMIGRATION FROM THE BALTICS IN 1992. According to data of
the Russian Migration Service, emigration of ethnic Russians from
Estonia and Latvia is increasing, but decreasing from Lithuania.
Some 17,000 Russians are reported to have left Estonia (9300--up
from 8200 for all of 1991) and Latvia ( 8,500 as compared with
13,000 for all of 1991) during the first six months of 1992. About
6000 people left Lithuania during this period, as compared with
10,000 for all of 1991. Migration Service Director Tatiana Regent
claimed that Baltic policies on citizenship were responsible for
these figures. The data also showed that in 1989, 1990, and 1991,
all three Baltic States registered more people leaving for Russia
than settling in the Baltics: for Estonia, the respective net
emigration figures are 582, 4300, and 4164; for Latvia--546, 3900,
and 5838; and for Lithuania--1136, 5000, and 4379, BNS and
ITAR-TASS reported on 9 and 10 October. (Dzintra Bungs, RFE/RL
Inc.)
LITHUANIA TO BE ACCEPTED TO COUNCIL OF EUROPE. On 9 October
parliament deputy Jonas Tamulis, one of Lithuania's observers at
the Council of Europe session in Strasburg, said that Lithuania
would become a member of the council at its next session in 1993,
Radio Lithuania reported. The EC had set two conditions for
membership: holding of new elections to the parliament and the
adoption of a new Constitution. The new Seimas will be elected on
25 October with run-offs two weeks later. The Lithuanian parliament
is holding a special session on 12 October that is expected to
approve the holding of a referendum on the Constitution on 25
October. (Saulius Girnius, RFE/RL Inc.)
RUSSIA TO RESUME OIL SUPPLIES TO LITHUANIA. After meeting with
Lithuania's Premier Aleksandras Abisala, Russia's Acting Prime
Minister Egor Gaidar told the press on 12 October that they had
made progress in working out a mechanism for settling accounts
between their countries. He noted that while some 10 billion rubles
from Lithuania had not been received by Russian oil suppliers,
Russia owed Lithuania sums estimated at 6-10 billion rubles.
Russia's Vice Premier Aleksandr Shokhin told the press that Russia
would adhere to the prearranged quotas of oil and gas to Lithuania;
until a system of payments acceptable to both sides was in place,
Lithuania would have to pay Russia for oil and gas products in hard
currency. His Lithuanian counterpart Bronislavas Lubnys expressed
satisfaction with the conditions agreed in Moscow, Baltfax reported
on 12 October. (Dzintra Bungs, RFE/RL Inc.)
IMF POSITIVE ABOUT LATVIA'S ECONOMIC POLICY. After a week-long
visit to Latvia, International Monetary Fund experts gave a
positive assessment of the economic policy pursued by the Latvian
government, a spokesman for Latvia's Finance Ministry told BNS on
12 October. Latvia is to receive the second installment of the IMF
loan as soon as IMF experts make certain corrections in the
memorandum defining Latvia's economic policy until the end of this
year. The IMF loan of $70,000,000 is being dispersed to Latvia in
four installments. (Dzintra Bungs, RFE/RL Inc.)
RUTSKOI THREATENS ESTONIA. Russian Vice-President Alexander Rutskoi
reiterated Russia's threat to impose economic sanctions on Estonia
unless it altered its citizenship laws. According to Reuter, citing
BBC on 12 October, Rutskoi's major objection was the language
requirement. Last year Estonia officially set minimum competence at
some 1,500 words, approximately the level of a three-year-old
native speaker. (Riina Kionka, RFE/RL Inc.)
ESTONIAN DEFENSE FORCES DON'T TRUST GOVERNMENT. Four of sixteen
units of the Estonian Defense Union (Kaitseliit) have announced
they will henceforth take orders only from the President, not the
Ministry of Defense. According to Paevaleht of 12 October, the
units made the decision because they do not trust the Ministry
leadership. Reacting to the announcement, outgoing deputy Defense
Minister Hannes Walter told reporters it was time for Estonia to
subsume all armed units under full state control, saying that any
other initiatives could be dangerous both in domestic and foreign
terms. (Riina Kionka, RFE/RL Inc.)
UNEMPLOYMENT CONTINUES TO RISE IN LATVIA. Diena reported on 7
October that in the period from 1 January to 6 October, 19,130
persons had become unemployed (the previous week the number was
18,588) or about 1.3% of the total labor force of about 1,477,000.
Unemployment benefits are being received by 16,988 persons. Some
70% of the jobless are women and the rate of unemployment is rising
the fastest in Riga where already 5,334 persons are getting
unemployment benefits. (Dzintra Bungs, RFE/RL Inc.)
POLISH UNEMPLOYMENT GROWTH SLOWS. Poland's Main Statistical Office
announced on 9 October that 2,498,500 people (13.8% of the work
force) were unemployed at the end of September. Although this
amounts to an overall increase over August, unemployment declined
in six voivodships and remained unchanged in three others.
One-third of the registered unemployed have lost their benefits,
and 43.3% have been seeking work for over a year, PAP reported.
Deputy Labor Minister Michal Boni told journalists on 9 October
that unemployment should cease rising in 1994. Active methods of
fighting unemployment are having some effect: the number of people
who found work through employment offices rose 50% from August to
September. (Louisa Vinton, RFE/RL Inc.)
POLISH FOREIGN MINISTER IN HUNGARY. Hungarian radio reported that
Poland's Foreign Minister, Krysztof Skubiszewski, arrived in
Budapest, to coordinate the views of the countries of the Visegrad
Triangle before the forthcoming EC summit in London. Skubiszewski
also dicussed issues related to a free-trade-zone agreement between
Poland, Hungary and Slovakia, which is to be signed on 30 November
1992 in Krakow. (Karoly Okolicsanyi, RFE/RL Inc.)
CZECH PREMIER VISITS FRANCE. On 12 October, Czech Prime Minister
Vaclav Klaus was on a one-day visit to France, where he met with
French officials and opposition leaders. Speaking to journalists
after his meeting with French Prime Minister Pierre Beregovoy,
Klaus said that he had reassured French leaders that the breakup of
Czechoslovakia would be peaceful. After his return from France,
Klaus told CSTK that the possibility to talk to French leaders was
important because "everyone in Western Europe is afraid of the
symptoms that have accompanied the disintegration of former
Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union." (Jiri Pehe, RFE/RL Inc.)
150,000 FOREIGNERS LIVE IN CZECHOSLOVAKIA WITHOUT PERMISSION. The
12 October issue of Rude pravo, quoting police sources, said that
150,000 foreigners live in Czechoslovakia without official
permission and another 22,000 have been detained by police trying
illegally to enter Germany. CSTK reported on 12 October that the
Czech Ministry of Internal Affairs had received 1480 applications
for Czech citizenship in the previous six weeks. Fifty-five of the
applicants were citizens of the Slovak Republic. In a related
development, Marian Calfa, a Slovak politician who served as
Czechoslovak Prime Minister from December 1989 to June 1992, said
in an interview published in the 12 October issue of the Prague
daily Blesk that he would probably apply for citizenship of the
Czech Republic.(Jiri Pehe, RFE/RL Inc.)
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Romanian TV Takes Low-Key Approach to Vote Coverage (Bucharest)
By Peter Maass
Special to The Washington Post
BUCHAREST, Romania _ When it comes to journalistic
impartiality, Roma nia's state-owned television network set
an untouchable standard in this country's just-concluded
presidential election campaign. It ignored virtually
everything said by the former communist incumbent and his
centrist opponent.
Instead of running in-depth campaign reports and
political analyses, the network broadcast _ at the end of the
regular evening news program _ brief videotapes provided by
the rival campaign committees. There was none of the
opposition bashing or ruling-party boosting in which state
broadcast services still indulge throughout most of Eastern
Europe.
When polls closed after the first round of
balloting last month, the network timidly interrupted a
dubbed episode of ``Dallas,'' the country's favorite program,
and reported exit polls that indicated President Ion Iliescu
had taken a commanding lead. After a few minutes, the talking
heads gave way to J.R. Ewing. Neither was there much fanfare
Monday when returns from Sunday's second round confirmed
Iliescu's reelection by a ratio of 3 to 2 over challenger
Emil Constantinescu.
The minimalist formula for eliminating slanted
television coverage of the campaign was welcomed by the
opposition and by diplomats who applauded the self-muzzling
as preferable to blatant bias, and it highlighted a paradox
among the former totalitarian nations of Eastern Europe:
Romania, the country with the strongest legacy of old-style
communist control, has allowed less state meddling in its
broadcast media than any of its neighbors.
Romania is trying to peel off its
``neo-communist'' label by taking t he lead in freeing both
its broadcast and print media, according to Western diplomats
who have warned Iliescu _ a former top aide to longtime
communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu _ that his country will
remain an outcast unless it decisively breaks with
communist-era habits. Foreign investment in Romania has been
minimal, and the U.S. Congress refused earlier this month to
grant it most-favored-nation trading status, even though
every other East European country, except Yugoslavia, has it.
The unrestrained zest of Romania's print media is
reflected in a new daily called Evenimentul Zilei, or Event
of the Day, which has given people something to grin about in
hard times. The paper's tabloid mix of brash truth, thrills
and titillation has pushed its daily circulation from 30,000
at start-up three months ago to more than 400,000 now-far
more than its nearest competitor.
It's easy to understand why. While many other
Romanian papers devote endless space to warmed-over political
speculation and high-flown economic theory, Evenimentul Zilei
jolts its readers with screaming tales about the really
important things in life. Now, Romanians are confronted with
headlines like: ``Unhappy Husband Kills Wife Because She
Grilled Chicken.''
``We don't say it's a masterpiece of journalism,''
said Cornel Nistor escu, director of the media company that
publishes Evenimentul Zilei. ``But people smile when they
read it. I smile when I read it.''
On the radio dial, Bucharest listeners can tune
into six privately ru n radio stations, one named Radio Fun.
The most popular station, Radio Contact, offers a
finger-snapping mixture of pop music and impartial news
programs in Romanian and English from the British
Broadcasting Corporation.
The station, partly owned by the Luxembourg-based
media giant RTL, pl ans to set up a nationwide network next
year that would compete head-to-head against the state-owned
radio network. It's the kind of business plan that
entrepreneurs can only dream about in neighboring Hungary,
where the government continues to impose a ban on new radio
and television stations.
According to Christian Constantinescu of the
U.S.-backed Internationa l Media Fund, Romania now has more
privately owned television companies _ eight _ than any other
East European nation. The companies, located in different
cities, rent time on local state transmitters to broadcast
their programs.
Besides its main national television channel, the
Romanian government has a second channel that covers a
smaller number of urban areas, and it has signed a contract
to sell it to a British-led company _ a move that has
surprised and pleased many Western diplomats here. ``Contrary
to its image,'' said one, ``Romania is actually ahead (of its
East European neighbors) in terms of moving to private
broadcasting.''
U.S. `Father' of Soviet Defenses Regrets His Work (St. Petersburg)
By Elizabeth Shogren
(c) 1992, Los Angeles Times
ST. PETERSBURG, Russia _ In America, he is known
as Joel Barr, an enthusiastic communist from Brooklyn who
disappeared without a trace in the late 1940s.
In Russia, he is known as Iosif Veniaminovich
Berg, half of a team of brilliant Americans who designed the
first Soviet computer and pioneered the microelectronics
industry so critical to the Kremlin's defense machine.
But in his St. Petersburg apartment, he is just a
76-year-old eccentr ic, balding, stooped and worried that the
modest attention he has received since he came out of hiding
will bring troubles he avoided for more than 40 years.
Sitting at a kitchen table recently with his worn
Soviet passport and newly acquired U.S. passport, Barr said
he now believes that working for the Soviet defense industry
was wrong.
``I am ready to confess, or whatever the word is,
to say that really I made a tremendous mistake,'' he said.
``Knowing what I do now, it was a tremendous mistake to have
done what I did.''
He insists that he never meant for his work to
``put the United State s in peril.'' Instead, he was
motivated by a desire to help communism thrive in Russia, so
that someday it would spread to America.
Other Americans immigrated or defected to the
Soviet Union over the y ears. But Barr and his partner,
Alfred Sarant, stand out because they had such a significant
impact on Soviet industry and military strength and because
the question of whether they were spies is still shrouded in
mystery.
Barr re-established his American identity three
years ago when two of his four children, both Czechoslovak
citizens, defected to the United States.
A year ago he sought his own U.S. passport. While
in the United State s on a Soviet passport, he applied for a
U.S. passport like any other American, through the passport
office of the Immigration and Naturalization Service.
On that trip he was surprised to find that many
elements of socialism have become part of American society,
and he is gladly taking advantage of some of them.
Although he still lives and works primarily in
Russia, Barr now recei ves Social Security benefits of $244 a
month, which he began getting after simply applying for them.
``It galls me that a guy who works for a foreign
power that is basica lly our enemy for 30 or 40 years can now
be drawing Social Security,'' said Robert Lamphere, a retired
FBI agent who investigated the espionage ring of Ethel and
Julius Rosenberg, who were executed in 1953 for passing
atomic bomb secrets to the Kremlin. ``There's something wrong
with our system.''
Raised in Brooklyn by parents who had emigrated
from Russia, Barr say s his most vivid childhood memories are
of newspaper photos showing businessmen jumping out of
windows during the stock market crash of 1929 and of
Depression days when his industrious father could not feed
the children.
In his neighborhood, soapbox politicians preached
about an alternativ e system that would end America's poverty
forever. He read books about communism and joined the Young
Communist League. As an idealistic youth at City College of
New York, he was drawn to a group of young intellectuals
planning to remake America on the models of Marx and Engels.
Julius Rosenberg signed up young Barr for the Communist
Party, and they became good friends.
``Half of our electrical engineering class at City
College was in the Young Communist League,'' recalled Morton
Sobel, a college chum of Barr who served 18{ years in prison
for conspiracy to commit espionage in the Rosenberg case.
``You have to understand, 1938 was a very special time. We
were fighting against fascism. Some from our class even went
off to Spain to fight (on the side of the Communist-aided
loyalists) against the Fascists.
``We were all very idealistic,'' Sobel added.
``Joel fit into this mo ld.''
After a long job search following his graduation
from the City Colleg e of New York, Barr's career finally
took off, thanks to America's World War II industrialization.
But after the war, he was fired from a high-paying job at
Sperry Gyroscope, a defense contractor, when it was learned
that he was a member of the Communist Party.
He later traveled to Europe, first to Paris and
then to Prague, where he got his first glimpse of socialism
in action.
In Czechoslovakia, he was joined by a friend and
former colleague, Sa rant. By now calling himself Joseph Berg
from Johannesburg, South Africa, Barr married a Czech woman
and started a family. He kept his real identity secret even
from his wife, Vera, who learned the truth only after 20
years of marriage.
Then-Soviet leader Nikita S. Khrushchev invited
the two American engi neers to Russia in 1956 and set them up
in their own institute in Leningrad, as St. Petersburg was
then known.
Russian colleagues credit Barr and Sarant with
being the fathers of S oviet microelectronics, which enabled
the regime to compete in the Cold War arms race and thereby
strengthen its position at home.
``I think communism would have fallen apart
earlier if not for them,' ' said Raphael A. Lashevsky, a lab
chief at Svetlana Electronic Devices Manufacturing Corp. in
St. Petersburg, the huge electronics enterprise where Barr
still works.
Friends and colleagues say that Sarant, known in
Russia as Filipp Georgievich Staros, was a perfectionist and
the leader of the two. Barr, they say, was ``childlike,''
capable of bizarre and careless behavior.
The decor of Barr's St. Petersburg apartment is
testament to his eccentricity. The floors, panels and
makeshift furniture, all fashioned out of the same thin wood
squares, have jagged edges and strange shapes and give the
impression of a gigantic furnished treehouse.
His command of Russian also shows a propensity to
cut corners. After 40 years as his main language, even spoken
with his children, Barr's Russian is ungrammatical and
carries a thick Brooklyn accent.
Barr was crushed by Sarant's death in 1979. After
their children were grown, Barr and his wife separated; she
now lives in Prague.
With his old friend dead and his wife gone, there
may be no one left who really understands Barr. Even people
who have known him for decades describe him as enigmatic.
Barr's commitment to communism remained strong
even after the crimes of dictator Josef Stalin were partially
revealed by his successor, Khrushchev. Barr says he abandoned
his faith in communism only after Mikhail S. Gorbachev came
to power and more fully disclosed the atrocities of past
regimes. He spent no time mourning the death of the theory
that he had served during his whole adult life.
``I have a peculiar character,'' he said. ``I
don't waste my time cry ing over spilled milk.''
Now he has become a troubadour for the American
dream.
``I believe that now history will show that the
Russian Revolution wa s a tremendous mistake. It was a step
backward for mankind,'' Barr said with a smile. ``The real
revolution for mankind that will go down for many, many years
was the American Revolution.''
Instead of preaching communism to Russian friends,
he spends his time thinking up ways to convince his
still-radical American friends that Marxist-Leninist theory
is fatally flawed.
For now, he plans to spend most of his time in
Russia.
``Here I am a rich scientist, and in America I'm
just a poor pensione r,'' he said.
Promised Western Aid Effort for Bosnia Falling Short
As Cold Weather Looms (Zagreb, Croatia)
By Mary Battiata
(c) 1992, The Washington Post
ZAGREB, Croatia _ Western efforts to provide
massive humanitarian aid to hundreds of thousands of Bosnian
refugees this winter are far behind schedule, vastly
underfunded and still lacking the troops and equipment needed
to deliver even minimal food and other supplies before the
first snowfall, according to U.N. relief officials.
``We're behind schedule on everything; it's
scary,'' said Chris Thorn e, chief representative of the U.N.
High Commissioner for Refugees in the Croatian port city of
Split, hub of the relief effort for war-ravaged Bosnia.
``Heavy snows will be starting in three to six weeks,''
Thorne said. ``If we don't get massive support soon, a lot of
people are going to die.''
Thorne did not offer a specific figure, but CIA
estimates put the pot ential death toll in Bosnia this winter
at 150,000, while international aid officials have said that
as many as 400,000 could succumb to exposure and starvation.
Last July, officials from more than 60 world
governments pledged in G eneva to do all in their power to
prevent wholesale suffering and death in Bosnia this winter,
but U.N. aid officials said this week that the relief
operation is still at least $100 million short of the bare
minimum needed.
Morever, the officials said, deliveries of
currently available relief supplies have been severely
hampered by a critical shortage of trucks to haul the goods
from Croatia over steep mountain roads to beleaguered Bosnian
cities.
The refugee agency said it is now providing less
than 20 percent of t he food needed in Bosnia each week and
that it has shipped virtually none of the building materials
needed to make urgent repairs on bombed and burned-out houses
or to erect temporary shelters.
Since the July conference in Geneva, the refugee
agency has repeatedl y requested contributions of 200 to 500
trucks from U.N. member governments, but it is still working
with just 89 _ most of them old, and many in such poor repair
that their frequent breakdowns impede food deliveries rather
than help them.
Bridge and pavement repairs along a key road from
Croatia to Sarajevo , the embattled Bosnian capital, have not
yet begun despite repeated pleas by aid officials. As a
result, U.N. relief convoys are still using a side road that
one senior U.N. aid official said is already ``a sea of mud.''
The aid effort is also short of military personnel
to protect the tru ck convoys from renegade elements of
Bosnia's warring factions and to help distribute the aid
where it is most needed.
Britain, France and the Benelux countries have
promised to reinforce the 1,500-member U.N. humanitarian
relief force in Bosnia with an additional 6,000 troops, but
their arrival is said to be at least 30 to 40 days away.
U.N. Refugee Commissioner Sadako Ogata had
specifically appealed for swift deployment of these troops to
help offset the continuing campaign by powerful Serb
nationalist forces in Bosnia to expel all non-Serbs from
territory they control _ the notorious practice of ``ethnic
cleansing.''
Meanwhile, hungry Slavic Muslims and Croats in
Serb-besieged towns throughout Bosnia are beginning to feel
the cold. In the Muslim-held towns of Travnik and Jablanica,
for example, tens of thousands of Muslim and Croat refugees
have no winter clothing and no access to medicine.
Despite the onset of freezing autumn rains, most
of the refugees are still wearing the summer clothing they
had on when they were chased from their villages by Serb
militia forces this summer. Most sleep on concrete floors in
cold, damp gymnasiums or abandoned army barracks.
In both these towns, and many others across
Bosnia, frantic refugees are beginning to compete with
destitute local populations for the limited supply of food
aid. In Jablanica, many refugees eat only one meal a day, and
thousands of underfed children must subsist on a diet of
white bread and tea for breakfast and a saucer of rice at
night.
In Serb nationalist strongholds, such as Banja
Luka and Prijedor in n orthern Bosnia, the relief operation
is dogged by political problems as well. Western aid workers
say they are subjected to constant harassment and threats
from local Serb officials, who they say have commandeered
large quantities of relief food for themselves.
In public at least, U.N. aid officials say they
are baffled at the sl owness with which Western governments
have moved on their promises of aid. ``Where there's a will,
there's a way,'' declared Sylvana Foa, spokeswoman for the
U.N. refugee agency. ``So where's the will? Where are the
troops? Where are the trucks? If you want to repair a bridge,
you can repair a bridge very quickly. If there's a war on,
you can have troops where you want them overnight.''
``We don't have what we need,'' Foa said, ``and
the general feeling i s that the donor countries just don't
realize the gravity of the situation. Are we all going to
wait until babies start dying before our eyes on television
this winter and public opinion pushes governments to
immediate action?''
In unguarded moments, however, some aid officials
and diplomats descr ibe the tepid response by Western
governments as an attempt to disguise political paralysis
with a low-budget, low-risk aid operation. ``This relief
operation is providing the illusion of action, just like all
the (Balkan peace conferences) in London and Geneva,'' said
one Western diplomat with long experience in the region.
``Governments are trying to treat this as a humanitarian
problem, like the devastation following a hurricane, rather
than as a problem between aggressor and victim.''
This view was even more forcefully expressed
earlier this month by Ro ny Brauman, head of the
international medical aid group Doctors Without Borders.
``Humanitarian aid in these conditions is no more than a mask
for political inaction, the modern name for cowardice and
resignation,'' Brauman told the Council of Europe. ``The
lesson (from Bosnia) for any budding dictator ... is to
massacre, deport, purify, build (detention) camps _ do what
you want as long as you let a few humanitarian convoys
through.''
While the ineffectual efforts of Western
governments to negotiate an end to the Balkan bloodshed have
been widely criticized, some diplomats and internatinal aid
officials also blame the U.N. refugee agency for agreeing to
mount a humanitarian operation in the middle of a nasty war
that Western leaders have declared too complicated or
dangerous for direct intervention.
``Relief workers will tell you that Mrs. Ogata
should have (declared that the U.N. refuge agency) is pulling
out,'' said the Western diplomat.
All told, about 2 million people are believed to
be at risk in Bosnia as factional warfare among the
republic's Serbs, Slavic Muslims and Croats continues into
its eighth month. At least 15,000 have died in the fighting,
but many times that number are likely to die in coming months
for want of food and shelter, U.N. officials say.
Many are trapped in unheated homes with no
windows, heating fuel or electricity. An estimated 30,000
Muslims and Croats _ burned or shelled out of their homes by
Serb forces earlier this year _ are thought to be living in
forests and abandoned mines; at least 10,000 more are
believed confined in wretched conditions in dozens of
Serb-run detention camps.
And hordes of new refugees are being created by
the hour. As many as 10,000 homeless civilians were reported
on the move in northern Bosnia last weekend, as Serb security
forces began an accelerated round of ``ethnic cleansing,''
which aid officials say is calculated to beat the arrival of
the additional U.N. humanitarian relief troops in northern
and central Bosnia at the end of next month.
``We've been told the order has gone out to
`clean' Banja Luka before November,'' said one Western aid
worker in northern Bosnia. Leaders of the 25,000 Muslims
still in the city told Western reporters late last month that
the arrival of extra U.N. troops in the region must be
speeded up to save Muslim lives.
``The extra troops may not be able to save us,
but at least there wi ll be eyewitnesses,'' said Mohammed
Krzic, head of the leading Muslim political party in the
city. ``November is too late,'' he said. ``By November, there
will be no one left here.''
With Croatia and the rest of Europe no longer
accepting Bosnian refu gees, this latest exodus will strain
already-overcrowded refugee centers in central Bosnia, where
the distribution of relief food has grown tense and chaotic.
In Travnik and Jablanica, where refugees
outnumber the resident popu lation, irregular deliveries of
food are divided among the refugees, needy local residents
and hungry military recruits being sent off to the front.
``We're all in bad shape here,'' said Zenaida Malovic,
director of the local refugee effort in Jablanica, whose
prewar population of 10,000, has been swelled to at least
40,000 by the influx of refugees.
Malovic and other town officials confirmed
refugee complaints that a s much as 50 percent of the relief
food delivered to the town is going to non-refugees. ``A
hungry person is a hungry person,'' she said. ``There are a
lot of people standing in line for food. We've had 36,000
refugees come through this town since May. In the beginning
we helped them all _ with food, gasoline, everything. Now all
the stocks are spent. ... ''
Asked what would happen if she refused to
distribute refugee food to townspeople, Malovic shook her
head wearily. ``There would be a riot,'' she said.
Growing Deprivation in Bosnia Could Spark Violence,
U.N. Representative Says (Zagreb, Croatia)
By Mary Battiata
(c) 1992, The Washington Post
ZAGREB, Croatia _ Chris Thorne, chief
representative of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees in
the Croatian port city of Split, said growing deprivation in
Bosnia could spark violence among the needy:
``Anyone who's ever seen a food riot _ and I have
_ knows what people are capable of when they're hungry. This
is a region where there are going to be a lot of very
desperate people this winter, and everybody has a gun.''
novine.94.bale.,
STOP SERBIA. BOMB SERBIA. by Don M. Snider
From The NYT Tuesday - October 13, 1992
Don M. Snider, deputy director of political military studies
at the Center for the Strategic and INternational Studies,
served on the staff of the National Security Council in the
Reagan and Bush administrations.
--- The risks of doing nothing are greater.
Western intervention in the former Yugoslavia has been
impeded by a lack of agreement on long-term goals and by the
urgency of attending to humanitarian help. In Sunday's
debate, president Bush repeated that he was opposed to
committing U.S. forces to the region.
But the ends that Mr. Bush and other Western leaders
should seek are now clear , if they were not earlier. With
Serbia prepared to move on two new fronts - against the
Hungarian minority in the Voivodina region of northern Serbia
and the Albanian majority in the Kosovo region - the West
cannot just provide another hapless negotiator with no power
to back up its words.
To keep the conflict from spreading a coalition of
democratic powers under the U.N. should use a military force
against Serbia, including a strategic air campaign, along
with economic and political pressures. Fortunately, U.S.
technological strength makes this undertaking possible, in
concert with our allies.
Make no mistake: this would be a campaign to isolate
Serbian leaders from the civilized world and inflict maximum
destruction on their military. The aim is not simply to
punish, but to demonstrate to Serbian leaders that only
through accommodation can they avoid such continuing pain in
the future. Exploiting this ability to hurt creates
bargaining power for ultimate diplomatic resolution.
The campaign would have three components. First, the
coalition should tighten the U.N. economic and arms embargo
to quarantine Serbia. All commerce must stop, including
telecommunications and transportation links to other
countries. The coalition would need a naval contingent for
the Danube as well as ground forces on major transportation
arteries. The militaries of our European allies have the
means to do this.
Second, since Western powers are wisely unwilling to
join an unconventional ground war, the coalition should arm -
and perhaps train the Bosnian forces willing to fight and
sacrifice for their freedom. Right now, the Yugoslav Army
backing the Serbs in Bosnia has an uncontested military
advantage. Banning Serbian military flights in the region
would negate Belgrade's overwhelming air- power advantage
within Bosnia. At the same time, U.N. forces should greatly
increase humanitarian aid.
The third component is a strategic air campaign by the
coalition against Serbian military targets, wherever they are
located. These would include airfields, military
installations, arms depots, power plants and communications
lines. As they did against Iraq, American and coalition air
forces, with Stealth aircraft and cruise missiles, can
quickly neutralize Serbian air defenses. The allied air
forces could then strike with relative impunity from bases
close by in NATO countries, as well as from offshore carriers
and other vessels.
Such a military plan certainly carries risks. The
Serbians may respond by stepping up their brutal "ethnic
cleansing" in the near term. There may be more casualties
among civilians and U.N. forces in Bosnia. The air campaign
would put American fliers in danger. But there will be no
risk of escalation, since coalition forces will use maximum
force from the start. Perhaps the greatest risk of this
campaign is that it sets up a potentially protracted contest
of political will between the coalition and the renegade
nation. The West must be prepared to inflict punishment
longer than Serbian leaders can tolerate.
Yet these risks are less of a threat to U.S. interests
than doing nothing and allowing Serbia, and every other
renegade nation, to flout norms of international and human
relations.
The objectives are clear as are the measures of
success. And most important, this plan emphasizes the
strengths of the U.S. and coalition military forces. We need
to respond to the crisis now and fight on our terms, not
theirs.
novine.95.bale.,
RFE/RL Daily Report
No. 198, October 14, 1992
SUCCESSOR STATES TO THE USSR
NEW UKRAINIAN PRIME MINISTER CONFIRMED. The Ukrainian parliament
on 13 October approved by an overwhelming majority Leonid Kuchma
as Ukraine's new prime minister, ITAR-TASS and Western
correspondents reported. Kuchma, fifty-four, is director of the
"Yuzhmash" production association in Dnipropetrovsk, which is said
to be the world's largest armaments manufacturer. The new head of
government holds the degree of candidate of technical sciences and
is said to be a technocrat favoring a gradual transition to a
market economy. Observers have likened Kuchma to Arkadii Volsky,
one of the leaders of the Civic Union in Russia. Vyacheslav
Chornovil, who leads the opposition, is quoted as saying that
nothing can stop the collapse of the economy and that sooner or
later the new government will have to change. (Roman Solchanyk,
RFE/RL Inc.))
RUSSIA REJECTS PROTESTS OVER BLACK SEA FLEET DEPLOYMENT. The
Russian Navy reacted harshly on 13 October to charges by Georgia
that it had violated its territorial waters. According to Reuters,
the Russian Navy questioned the current Georgian government's
legitimacy and sovereignty over the waters, stating that "when the
[Georgian] State Council issues such statements it should explain
how, after illegally toppling President Zviad Gamsakhurdia, it
established its sea border and how this was made known to sailors
around the world." The tone and content of the statement tend to
confirm reports that the Russian government is adopting a tough
stand towards Georgia in the conflict over Abkhazia. According to
ITAR-TASS, most of the ships returned to base on 13 October,
although some Gwere still conducting exercises at sea. (John
Lepingwell, RFE/RL Inc.)
GRACHEV CALLS FOR RESUMPTION OF NUCLEAR TESTING. On 13 October
after returning from a visit to the Novaya Zemlya nuclear testing
ground, Russian Defense Minister Pavel Grachev called for a
resumption of nuclear testing, according to Interfax. Grachev
claimed that two to three nuclear explosions per year are
essential to improve weaponry, although tests couldn't be resumed
before the middle of 1993. Although Grachev did state that Russia
would halt all testing if the US did the same, he did not comment
on the recent signing by President Bush of a measure that would
impose a nine-month moratorium on US testing, followed by limited
testing and a complete halt to testing in 1997. (John Lepingwell,
RFE/RL Inc.)
POLTORANIN ACCUSES KHASBULATOV OF ABUSE OF POWER. On 13 October,
Deputy Prime Minister Mikhail Poltoranin gave an interview to
ITAR-TASS, in which he accused the Russian parliament's speaker
Ruslan Khasbulatov of trying to usurp power in Russia and
attempting to create a "nest of revanchist forces directed against
President Yeltsin." The interview followed Khasbulatov's demand
that Yeltsin should fire Poltoranin. The latter denied, however,
that there was any connection between his latest accusations
against Khasbulatov and the speaker's demand. Poltoranin alleged
that Khasbulatov was gathering communists around him while
supporting everyone opposed to Yeltsin. (Vera Tolz, RFE/RL Inc.)
POLTORANIN CRITICIZES PARLIAMENT. Mikhail Poltoranin also
criticized the parliament's decision to convene the Congress of
People's Deputies on 1 December, ITAR-TASS reported. He said
illegal communist party forces were planning to act precisely at
that time against the president and that their actions were being
coordinated by the parliamentary leadership. (Vera Tolz, RFE/RL
Inc.))
RUSSIAN NATIONALISTS RAID MOSCOW NEWSPAPER OFFICE. Twenty-five
members of the Russian nationalist organization "Pamyat" raided
the offices of the newspaper Moskovsky komsomolets, Interfax
reported on 13 October. Interfax said the intruders tied up a
guard and demanded the names and addresses of the authors of
several newspaper stories about "Pamyat." They also said the
newspaper should "stop humiliating the Russian people." They made
various threats in case their demands were not met within three
days. Police arrived twenty minutes after the intruders left,
Interfax reported. But a newspaper employee said he photographed
several of the intruders and wrote down their license plate
numbers. The same day, an official from "Pamyat," Aleksandr
Potkin, confirmed that his organization was responsible for the
incident, but he denied that the intruders tied up the guard.
(Vera Tolz, RFE/RL Inc.)
YELTSIN FORMS GOVERNMENTAL MONETARY AGENCY. President Yeltsin has
created a new commission composed of top government officials to
oversee the use of state credits, Interfax and "Novosti" reported
on 13 October. The commission will coordinate its work on these
matters with the Russian Central Bank, and may be interpreted as a
means to smooth out the antagonistic relationship between the
government and the bank. The nine-member commission will include
Prime Minister Gaidar, Deputy Prime Ministers Aleksandr Shokhin,
Anatolii Chubais, Georgii Khizha, Finance Minister Vasilii
Barchuk, and Economics Minister Andrei Nechaev. (Erik Whitlock,
RFE/RL Inc.)
GERMAN STUDY ON WESTERN AID TO RUSSIA. A joint report on the
Russian economy by three leading independent German economic
institutes was released on 13 October, Western agencies reported.
The authors are the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW),
the Institute for World Economics (IW), and the Institute for
Economic Research (IWF). A principal conclusion of the report is
that Western aid to Russia must be strictly targeted and that
untied aid should no longer be given. This is because the Russian
central government is unable to put its reforms into practice
because of blockages on lower political levels. The report calls
for legal reform in Russia, the reduction of internal economic
barriers, and safeguards for foreign investment. (Keith Bush,
RFE/RL Inc.)
RUSSIAN CONVERSION AND ARMS EXPORTS GOALS RESTATED. On the eve of
the Moscow conference on conversion, senior Russian officials gave
a news conference on 13 October, Reuters reported. President
Yeltsin's adviser on conversion, Mikhail Malei, restated his
earlier estimates that it will cost about $150 billion and take
some fifteen years for Russia to convert 70% of its military
industrial complex to civilian use. The funding for such a program
must come from the sales of Russian arms to convertible-currency
customers. Malei said that the former Soviet Union's peak annual
income from arms trade was about $14 billion but that only $4-5
billion of this was in cash. (Keith Bush, RFE/RL Inc.)
GORBACHEV ALLOWED TO TRAVEL ABROAD. President Yeltsin asked the
Russian Constitutional Court to permit Mikhail Gorbachev to travel
abroad despite his refusal to attend the court's hearings on the
CPSU, ITAR-TASS reported on 13 October. (The Russian Ministry of
Security and the Foreign Ministry imposed a ban on Gorbachev's
travel at the request of the court after the former president
ignored the court's summons). Several Western countries have
pressed Yeltsin in recent days to let Gorbachev travel abroad. The
court's chief justice, Valerii Zorkin, said that the court still
"deems it possible to hear Gorbachev's testimony either before or
after his scheduled visit to Germany. . ." Gorbachev is to attend
the state funeral of former West German Chancellor Willy Brandt.
Gorbachev's aide, Vladimir Tumarkin, told Interfax, however, that
Gorbachev was willing to answer the court's questions only
"outside" the hearings--i.e. at an informal meeting with the
court's officials. (Vera Tolz, RFE/RL Inc.)
RUBLE EXCHANGE RATE HOLDS STEADY. The dollar ended the Tuesday's
trading on the Moscow Inter-Bank Currency Exchange valued at 334
rubles, Interfax reported on 13 October. The ruble has remained
more or less steady for two straight trading sessions after losing
some 30% of its value during the previous two sessions. Trade
volume on Tuesday was $46.8 million. (Erik Whitlock, RFE/RL Inc.)
NEW ST. PETERSBURG SECURITY CHIEF OPPRESSED DISSIDENTS. Viktor
Cherkesov will replace Sergei Stepashin as the chief of the St.
Petersburg state security service, DR Press and
Sankt-Peterburgskie vedomosti reported on 11 October and 3
October, respectively. Stepashin, who is also the chairman of the
parliamentarian commission on defense and security, left his
position because the law prohibits officials from serving
simultaneously in elective and administrative capacities.
Cherkesov, who since the mid-1970s headed the investigative branch
of the Leningrad KGB, was responsible for conducting
investigations of Mikhail Meiman, Rostislav Evdokimov, and dozens
of the other dissidents. Former political prisoners, the
historical society, "Memorial," and the St. Petersburg division of
"Democratic Russia" have protested this appointment to city
authorities. (Victor Yasmann, RFE/RL Inc.)
KRAVCHUK MEETS WITH PROTESTING STUDENTS. Ukrainian President
Leonid Kravchuk met with leaders of the Ukrainian Students' Union
on 12 October, Ukrainian TV reported. The students have put up a
tent city on Kiev's main square and are demanding new
parliamentary elections next year and Ukraine's withdrawal from
the CIS. The following day, student protestors clashed with police
outside the Ukrainian parliament. Several were injured and others
were detained. (Roman Solchanyk, RFE/RL Inc.)
KIEV, ASHKHABAD REJECT MOSCOW-DOMINATED "INFORMATION SPACE." As
more details emerge about the recent CIS summit in Bishkek, the
Ukrainian media has reported that, among other things, Ukraine and
Turkmenistan rejected the idea of a "single information space"
covering most of the territory of the former USSR but still
centered on Moscow. The two states declined to support the idea of
forming an "international" TV and radio company that would utilize
existing Ostankino facilities. (Bohdan Nahaylo, RFE/RL Inc.)
BELARUS TO SPEED ELIMINATION OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS. President
Stanislav Shushkevich has stated that Belarus will eliminate all
its nuclear weapons in two and a half years, according to an
Interfax report of 13 October. While Belarus had earlier agreed to
eliminate the weapons in seven years, Shushkevich had recently
ordered studies of ways to accelerate the process. There are
fifty-four SS-25 single-warhead missiles in Belarus. (John
Lepingwell, RFE/RL Inc.)
US DOUBTS KAZAKHS SOLD NUCLEAR WEAPONS TO IRAN. US State
Department spokesman Joe Snyder on 13 October said that the
department had no evidence to confirm recent claims by an Iranian
resistance organization that Kazakhstan has sold four tactical
nuclear weapons to Iran. Western news agency quoted Snyder as
saying the department had made "aggressive" attempts to
investigate these claims. At one time Western analysts estimated
that there were as many as 650 former Soviet tactical nuclear
weapons in Kazakhstan. The Kazakh government agreed to repatriate
these weapons to Russia and indicated in January of this year that
the transfers were complete. In March, however, there were rumors
that three weapons were missing. (Doug Clarke, RFE/RL Inc.)
AZERBAIJAN SOFTENS POSITION ON NAGORNO-KARABAKH. Speaking to
journalists in Moscow on 12 October after signing a bilateral
security agreement with Russia, Azerbaijani President Abulfaz
Elchibey ruled out the deployment of CIS peacekeeping troops in
Azerbaijan as his country is not a CIS member, ITAR-TASS reported.
Elchibey claimed that "reactionary forces" in both Armenia and
Azerbaijan were actively hindering a settlement of the Karabakh
conflict, but that the participation in negotiations of such world
figures as George Bush, Helmut Kohl and Francois Mitterand could
contribute to reaching a settlement. In a letter to the UN
Security Council, which is to debate the Karabakh issue on 14
October, Armenia's representative to the UN, Alexander
Arzoumanian, called for the immediate deployment in the area of UN
peacekeeping observers as Elchibey no longer opposed their
presence on Azerbaijani territory, Western agencies reported. (Liz
Fuller, RFE/RL Inc.)
TAJIKISTAN'S NATIONAL SALVATION FRONT DISSOLVES. Chairman of the
Democratic Party of Tajikistan Shodmon Yusuf (Yusupov) announced
on 13 October that the National Salvation Front was dissolving
itself because its task was completed, Ekho Moskvy reported. Yusuf
called for support of Acting President Akbarsho Iskandarov,
suggesting that the Tajik opposition sees an identity of interest
between themselves and the government. The Front was created by
the coalition of Tajik opposition parties after some
oppositionists became members of the government in May. Its most
prominent spokesman, filmmaker and former presidential candidate
Davlat Khudonazarov, saw the Front as a means to restore peace to
the country, but officials in Kulyab Oblast who oppose the
government in Dushanbe were unwilling to accept the Front's
peacemaking efforts. (Bess Brown, RFE/RL Inc.)
KABUL ACCUSES UZBEKISTAN AND TAJIKISTAN OF INTERFERENCE. Gulbuddin
Hekmatyar, leader of the Afghan fundamentalist Hezb-i-Islami
Party, issued a statement on 13 October accusing Uzbekistan and
Tajikistan of arming the formerly Communist militia forces of
Afghan Uzbek General Rashid Dostum and forces loyal to the Afghan
Tajik General and Defense Minister Ahmad Shah Masood, Reuters
reported. The Uzbek and Tajik forces control northern Afghanistan.
Leaders of both Uzbekistan and Tajikistan have complained that
Afghanistan is supplying weapons being used in Tajikistan's civil
war; according to various reports, these weapons have come from
Hekmatyar's group. (Bess Brown, RFE/RL Inc.)
CLARIFICATION OF KYRGYZ POSITION ON CIS. The press service of
Kyrgyz President Askar Akaev has refuted an earlier report that
Kyrgyzstan plans to leave the Commonwealth of Independent States,
Interfax reported on 13 October. The refutation refers to a
Reuters interview of 12 October with Akaev, who was then quoted as
saying that his country intended to seek complete independence and
that the CIS was a "transitional institution." The press service
stated that, on the contrary, Akaev "favors a stronger CIS and
closer cooperation between its members in the economic, military,
and humanitarian spheres." In another interview with Le Monde,
cited by ITAR-TASS on 13 October, Akaev referred to the
transitional nature of the CIS, "although it could last for a
decade." (Keith Bush, RFE/RL Inc.)
CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE
KOSOVO UPDATE: CLASHES REPORTED, TRUCE ANNOUNCED. On 13 October,
Radio Serbia reported that Serbian police prevented a protest of
ethnic Albanians in Pristina, capital of Serbia's province of
Kosovo. Several thousand Albanians tried to gather in front of
Pristina University but were stopped by police using tear gas and
batons. For a second consecutive day Albanians protested in
several Kosovo towns to demand the reopening of Albanian-language
schools closed by Serbia in 1990. The demonstrations were
organized by the Association of Albanian School Teachers. Radio
Croatia quoted a protest leader as saying that the demonstrations
had been temporarily suspended pending the outcome of talks with
Serbian and federal officials. Milan Panic, Prime Minister of the
rump Yugoslavia, appealed for calm and announced he would travel
to Kosovo on 15 October. Panic reiterated his promise to reopen
Albanian schools despite Serbian government opposition. The
protest took place as international representatives of the Geneva
conference on the former Yugoslavia began a fact-finding mission
in the predominantly Albanian populated province. (Milan
Andrejevich, RFE/RL Inc.)
WAR OF WORDS IN BELGRADE. Belgrade's independent youth Radio B-92
commented on 12 October that new battle lines have been drawn
between Serbia's President Slobodan Milosevic and Milan Panic.
Panic is said to have met with Milosevic for more than six hours
this past weekend, according to B-92 and Belgrade TV. Panic
emerged from the meeting blasting Milosevic for his insensitivity
and stubbornness and called for his resignation. No further
details have been made public. On 10 October, Milosevic criticized
both Panic and federal President Dobrica Cosic. In an interview
with Belgrade TV, Milosevic criticized a recent agreement signed
between Cosic and Croatia's President Franjo Tudjman which called
for the return of Croatian refugees to UN protected zones in
Serb-held areas of Croatia. Milosevic stated that he would "never
have signed any agreement" that did not take into consideration
the "legitimate interests" of the Serbs of Croatia's Krajina
region. He added that it was Serbia's task to help all Serbs. On
13 October, the government of the self-proclaimed Republic of
Serbian Krajina accused Cosic and Panic of working "for American
interests." (Milan Andrejevich, RFE/RL Inc.)
BOSNIA ROUNDUP. International media on 14 October reported that an
agreement was reached in Geneva between EC mediator Lord Owen and
Bosnia Serb leader Radovan Karadzic calling for the transfer of
Bosnian Serb military aircraft to Serbia-Montenegro under UN
supervision and safe-keeping. Radio Serbia quoted Karadzic as
saying that the agreement was aimed to dispel accusations that
Serb aircraft were bombarding Bosnian towns controlled by Muslims.
Several UN Security Council members have begun talks aimed at
reaching a new resolution on enforcing the ban on flights over
Bosnia-Herzegovina. Radio Croatia reported on 13 October that
Bosnia's President Alija Izetbegovic would condone the use of
chlorine gas in self-defense against Serb forces whom he described
as "murderers." (Milan Andrejevich, RFE/RL Inc.)
GROWING AUTHORITARIANISM IN CROATIA? Following President Franjo
Tudjman's overwhelming reelection victory in August and the
corresponding strong position of his party (HDZ) in the
legislature, many observers across the political spectrum fear
that Tudjman and the HDZ might try to stifle opposition and the
independent media. The weekly Novi Danas has effectively been
hounded out of existence, administrative pressure was applied to
Rijeka's Novi list, and more recently to the leading independent
daily Slobodna Dalmacija. Vecernji list of 11 October also reports
that some liberal spokesmen are warning against apparent
government plans to jail neofascist leader Dobroslav Paraga and to
ban his Croatian Party of [Historic] Rights (HSP). Paraga and his
party are accused of supporting terrorism, but many feel Tudjman
and the HDZ simply want to silence their most vocal right-wing
critics. Paraga and the HSP finished fourth in the August poll and
did especially well in embattled districts of eastern Slavonia
where their paramilitary group HOS is credited with holding the
Serbs at bay. (Patrick Moore, RFE/RL Inc.)
CZECH GOVERNMENT COALITION AGREES ON DRAFT CONSTITUTION. On 13
October, Czech Premier Vaclav Klaus's government coalition agreed
on the basic principles of a future constitution of the Czech
Republic. Czech Deputy Prime Minister Jan Kalvoda told CSTK that a
special government commission could have the final version of the
constitution ready within 12 days. The coalition agreed on four
previously disputed points, namely the need to amend the current
Bill of Fundamental Rights and Liberties before incorporating it
into the Czech Constitution; the creation of a second chamber of
parliament (a Senate) elected for eight years; a new territorial
structure of the Czech Republic based on municipalities and
higher-level self-governing units of at least one million
inhabitants; and a proposal that constitutional laws need to be
approved only by a simple majority in both chambers of parliament.
The opposition parties have already said that they will not
support a constitution that would require less than a three-fifths
majority for the approval of constitutional laws. (Jiri Pehe,
RFE/RL Inc.)
REFERENDUM APPROVED FOR LITHUANIAN CONSTITUTION. On 13 October the
Lithuanian parliament passed a draft Constitution by a vote of 98
to 2 with 6 abstentions, the RFE/RL Lithuanian Service reported.
The parliament also approved holding a referendum on the draft
Constitution on 25 October when elections to the new parliament,
Seimas, will be held. Elections of a president should be held in
January 1993, but the Seimas was authorized to postpone them for
several months if necessary. (Saulius Girnius, RFE/RL Inc.)
CALL FOR RESIGNATION OF LATVIAN GOVERNMENT. After hearing reports
of ministers accounting for their own and their ministry's work,
the Satversme faction of the Latvian Supreme Council has called
for the government's resignation. According to the faction's
deputy chairman, Rolands Rikards, the government has not performed
its job satisfactorily, either in the economic nor in the
political realm. According to the law on the council of ministers,
the motion will be discussed next week and at least 61 deputies
have to vote for it for it to be approved. The Satversme faction
has 34 members. (Dzintra Bungs, RFE/RL Inc.)
COALITION MANEUVERING CONTINUES IN POLAND. Deputy Prime Minister
Pawel Laczkowski told a press conference in Radom on 12 October
that there might still be place in Poland's ruling coalition for
the Center Alliance, despite its opposition to the government's
economic policy guidelines. To join the coalition, however, the
Center Alliance would first have to accept the government's
program. The Center Alliance announced on 10 October that it would
opt for "determined and responsible opposition" to the government,
which it charged with pursuing "left-wing policies." This exchange
reflects the bargaining now underway in Warsaw as the government
strives to add one more party to the coalition to ensure a
parliamentary majority for revisions to the 1992 budget and other
vital legislation. (Louisa Vinton, RFE/RL Inc.)
ILIESCU PROPOSES EMERGENCY MEASURES AGAINST CRIME AND CORRUPTION.
In the first press conference held after his re-election as
Romania's president on 13 October, Ion Iliescu identified areas
for immediate action, Rompres and Western agencies reported. In
particular, he proposed a six-month period in which emergency
steps against crime and corruption should be instituted to "remove
dishonest people from office." (Michael Shafir, RFE/RL Inc.)
FINAL RESULT OF ROMANIA'S PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION. According to the
Central Electoral Bureau, the final result of the presidential
run-off elections held on 11 October was 61.43% of votes for Ion
Iliescu, the candidate of the Democratic National Salvation Front,
and 38.57% for Emil Constantinescu, the candidate of the
Democratic Convention of Romania, Radio Bucharest reported on 13
October. The turnout was 73.2%. (Michael Shafir, RFE/RL Inc.)
HUNGARIAN PARLIAMENT STARTS ABORTION DEBATE. Laszlo Suranyi,
Social Welfare Minister, presented the draft of a new abortion law
to parliament on 13 October 1992, Hungarian radio reported. The
draft offers parliamentarians two options: one, staunchly
supported by the Christian Democratic Party, would forbid
abortion, giving personal rights to the fetus. The other would
somewhat restrict the present abortion law and require mandatory
education, but still be liberal. The ruling Hungarian Democratic
Party allowed its members to vote as they see fit. Suranyi said
that there have been over 4 million abortions in Hungary since
1956. The draft also introduces prenatal benefits from the fourth
month of pregnancy. (Karoly Okolicsanyi, RFE/RL Inc.)
PROGRESS ON THE HUNGARIAN MEDIA LAW. Prime Minister Jozsef Antall
and the six political parties represented in parliament agreed to
set up a committee that will hammer out a compromise draft media
law, MTI reported on 13 October. The committee, which includes two
members from each party, has two weeks to come up with a result.
In a related development, Antall said that he agreed with
President Arpad Goncz that if no agreement was reached by 27
October 1992, whoever was able to muster a two-third's majority in
parliament's cultural committee should be appointed the new head
of Hungarian radio and television. (Karoly Okolicsanyi, RFE/RL
Inc.)
FIRST ANNIVERSARY OF UDF'S ELECTION VICTORY. On 13 October, at a
public meeting marking the first anniversary of the UDF's election
victory over the BSP, UDF chairman and Prime Minister Filip
Dimitrov spoke about the challenges facing the ruling coalition.
According to BTA, Dimitrov told UDF sympathizers his government's
struggle against resistance to radical reforms was often more
demanding than the pre-election campaign itself. In a clear
reference to the recent political clashes with the mainly Turkish
MRF party and President Zhelyu Zhelev, he said the UDF wished no
confrontation, but would "not retreat a single step." In a written
statement, Zhelev gave a positive assessment to the achievements
of the UDF, but urged the coalition to help re-establish
"dialogue" with Bulgarian society. (Kjell Engelbrekt, RFE/RL
Inc.)
NATO MILITARY COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN VISITS BALTIC STATES. On 12
October NATO Military Committee chairman General Vigleik Eide held
talks with Estonian defense forces officers. At a press
conference in Tallinn Eide noted that the three Baltic States
belonged to NATO's sphere of interest because "NATO is interested
in maintaining the stability and freedom of European countries."
He also said that surplus military equipment could be sent to the
Baltic States, but that specific arrangements should be made by
individual NATO states. On 13 October Eide visited Riga where he
held talks with the Deputy Parliament Chairman Andrejs Krastins on
the consequences of the Russian army's presence in Latvia, BNS
reported. He travels on to Vilnius on October 14. (Saulius
Girnius, RFE/RL Inc.)
ROMANIAN OFFICIAL ON RELATIONS WITH MOLDOVA. Theodor Melescanu,
Secretary of State at the Romanian Foreign Affairs Ministry, said
on 13 October that Bucharest wanted close ties with Moldova, but
that depended on Moldova's own policies. Melescanu told an RFE/RL
correspondent in Bucharest that if Moldova were to integrate with
the CIS states, "as desired by some elements in Chisinau," it
would be difficult to maintain the type of relationship envisaged
by Bucharest. He said Romania's policy was "based on the existence
of two independent Romanian-speaking states coming closer together
and reunifying sometime in the future" but the formal entry of
Moldova into the CIS would destroy this concept. The proponents of
the entry into the CIS, Melescanu continued, argued that Moldova
could benefit from the low prices of energy, but the energy
situation could change since Russia was under strong pressure to
upgrade energy prices even in internal trade. (Michael Shafir,
RFE/RL Inc.).
CIA CHIEF VISITS WARSAW. CIA director Robert Gates paid a visit to
Poland from 11 to 13 October, State Security Office officials
announced late on 13 October. Gates met with President Lech Walesa
and Prime Minister Hanna Suchocka, as well as with the foreign,
defense, and internal affairs ministers and the heads of civil and
military intelligence. Although US officials described these as
"routine consultations," the visit was kept secret until it ended.
The unusually elaborate security measures used during the visit
nonetheless alerted reporters that something was afoot, and Gazeta
Wyborcza broke the story in its 13 October issue. PAP reported
that Gates is now due to travel on to the countries of the former
Soviet Union. (Louisa Vinton, RFE/RL Inc.)
NEXT ROUND OF LATVIAN-RUSSIAN TALKS: 21 OCTOBER. Eriks Tilgass,
adviser to the Minister of State, told the press on 13 October
that the next round of Latvian-Russian talks has been postponed
from 14 to 21 October; the talks are to take place in Moscow. The
agenda includes technical problems of troop withdrawal, border
issues and economic problems. The previous talks in Jurmala in
September ended in a stalemate. Meanwhile Russian aircraft have
continued to violate Latvian government regulations and the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs has sent a protest note to its Russian
counterpart, Diena and BNS reported on 13 October. That same day
the Foreign Ministry also issued a document expressing concern
over Russian President Boris Yeltsin's recent statement linking
troop withdrawal from the Baltic States with Baltic legislation on
human rights and the rights of Russians living there. (Dzintra
Bungs, RFE/RL Inc.)
novine.96.bale.,
SERB SECRET WEAPON MIGHT BE TELEVISION
by Trudy Rubin
BELGRADE - There is one weapon that can stop the brutal fighting
in the former Yugoslavia from spilling over into the rest of
Europe. And it isn't a plane or a missile.
It is a TV transmitter, one capable of broadcasting the real
picture of the fighting in Bosnia throughout the republic of
Serbia. Most of the information the Serbs get now is from the
rabidly nationalist, state-controlled television.
Serbian TV brainwashes the population into believing that
there is no alternative to continuing the fighting.
Without an alternative to the state propaganda network, Serb
opposition parties which want to stop the fighting will have little
chance to win elections later this year. They will lose their best
chance to peacefully oust Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic the
communist-turned-hard-line-nationalist, whose drive to create a
greater Serbia has caused much of Yugoslavia's suffering.
"The opposition can't win elections so long as the media is
under the control of the government" Milan Panic told me in an
interview here in the Serbian capital. Panic is the Serbian
American who was named prime minister of rump Yugoslavia (made up
of the republics of Serbia and Montenegro) several months ago.
Television, Panic stresses, is "the key" to the solution of
the Yugoslav problem.
"Perhaps the United States can send me a TV transmitter as a
present" he adds, only half in jest. In fact such a gift might be
the cheapest way for the Western allies to end the Yugoslav
fighting before it spreads across the Balkans.
In Serbia, television exerts overwhelming power. In Belgrade,
alternative sources of information to state TV exist, including one
independent radio and television station - studio B - whose range
covers only the Belgrade area. This helps explain why Milosevic's
popularity in the capital is waning.
But in the countryside, the base of his support, most people
get all their news from state television, which is under
Milosevic's thumb. With sanctions causing income to drop, rural
Serbs don't have money to buy newspapers. "They listen only to TV",
says Panic, "and TV can manipulate minds."
Frequently, television commentators attack Panic, who is
leading the effort to oust Milosevic peacefully, through elections.
Although Panic has vastly improved Serbia's international standing,
TV editorials blame him, not Milosevic, for the U.N.'s decision not
to let Belgrade government retain the former Yugoslavia's seat.
Moreover, state television downplays his achievements. "They blame
me for sanctions, for everything," Panic says.
Opposition leaders say state TV pays Serbian Americans to
come to Belgrade and denounce Panic on air, while also blasting
American criticism of Milosevic.
"These Serbian Americans bring documents claiming Panic is a
CIA spy, even that Panic is a Muslim, not a Serb," says Vuk
Draskovic, the bearded charismatic writer who is Serbia's best
known opposition leader.
"Compared to Milosevic," he says, "[Hitler aide] Joseph
Goebbels was a child."
In fact, Milosevic uses TV to convince Serbs that he is their
only alternative. Watching state television news, it is easy to
understand why Serbs believe the entire world has turned against
them unjustly.
On one evening newscast, the chief Bosnian Serb militia leader
vehemently denied U.N. charges that his forces had massacred 3,000
Muslims. Then the image cut to a village where 28 Serbs had been
killed by Muslims. Weeping relatives were interviewed, funeral
services shown. Subsequent segments ballyhooed threats by Croatians
to renew fighting and alleged that Germany permitted Muslim
fundamentalists to train fighters in Munich who were then
transported to Bosnia.
The impact of such broadcasts can be seen when one drives
through southern Serbia, the heartland of ultra-nationalism.
"Please, watch TV every night and you will see what the Muslims do
to Serbs", implored 52-year-old Zdravkovic Ljubisa, a friendly
businessman, over coffee at a small cafe in the town of Prokuplje.
"Last night [the Muslims] were cutting off [Serb's] fingers.
My wife was crying. It is the international community who send
arms, instead of food, to Bosnia, under the eyes of the United
Nations. I know it also from TV."
What those watching state television aren't told, of course,
is that the United Nations is enforcing an arms boycott against
Bosnian Muslims, while Bosnian Serbs get heavy weapons from the
Belgrade-based ex-Yugoslav army. But facts don't count in this
brutal propaganda war.
Which is why the opposition is so desperate for independent TV.
One hope was that Prime Minister Panic might be able to
liberate the main state channel from Milosevic's control, or get
access for the opposition to a second channel, now used mainly for
cultural programs. So far, that hasn't worked.
Another alternative, which Panic seems to favor, is to bring
a new, more powerful, transmitter for the already independent
studio B, giving it the potential to broadcast all over Serbia.
This would take outside financial aid, estimated at $12 million -
$14 million.
According to producers at the tiny Studio B, it would also
require immense political muscle to get Milosevic to permit them
to broadcast throughout Serbia. It's hard to imagine Milosevic
giving the enemy his most powerful weapon without a struggle.
But unless they have open access to nationwide TV, Serb
opposition leaders say they may not go to elections at all.
"Milosevic would lose elections if we have free TV," says
Draskovic, "but without it, it is impossible to win." So the
opposition is hoping that Panic can find a way to bring in a new
transmitter and overcome the political barriers to setting it up.
For his part, Panic insists that the greatest barrier to
liberating the airwaves is lack of money for the transmitter.
It would be over for them [Milosevic's party] if Studio B had
a transmitter," says Prime Minister Panic.
He's clearly soliciting help from the west.
novine.97.bale.,
RFE/RL Daily Report
No. 199, October 15, 1992
SUCCESSOR STATES TO THE USSR
GRACHEV REPORTS MISSILES OUTSIDE RUSSIA OFF ALERT. In an interview
published in Izvestiya on 15 October, Russian Defense Minister
Pavel Grachev stated that nuclear weapons control has not been
changed in the wake of the Bishkek summit. Grachev did state,
however, that missiles in Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan have
been taken off combat alert and placed "in reserve" so that they
could only be used for a second-strike. Some missiles in Russia
have also been taken off alert. Grachev claimed that missiles on
alert "have no specific targets. They are just aimed in a general
direction, no more than that." This statement seems to contradict
Marshal Shaposhnikov's recent statements that CIS missiles are
targeted as before. It may be that missiles on alert do not have
specific target information loaded, and that target information
would be loaded simultaneously with launch authorization. (John
Lepingwell, RFE/RL Inc.)
SHELOV-KOVEDYAEV ANNOUNCES RESIGNATION. Fedor Shelov-Kovedyaev,
Russia's first deputy foreign minister, announced his intention to
resign effective 17 October. He told a news conference in Moscow
on 14 October that by leaving the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
(MFA), he hopes to eliminate tension surrounding Russia's policies
toward the former Soviet republics (Shelov's area of
responsibility). He said, however, that he did not think his
resignation would seriously affect Russia's policy towards these
states. Shelov will return to his work as a people's deputy,
rejoining the parliamentary committee on interrepublican
relations, regional policy, and cooperation, where he served
before joining the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He expects his
replacement at the MFA to be Anatolii Adamishin, Russia's
ambassador to Italy and formerly a Soviet deputy foreign minister,
Interfax reported. Speculation in the Russian media that Shelov
would be forced to resign owing to the Russian Security Council's
displeasure with him began in July. (Suzanne Crow, RFE/RL Inc.)
PROJECTIONS OF RUSSIAN ECONOMIC PERFORMANCE. Russian Economics
Minister Andrei Nechaev and Economics Adviser Aleksei Ulyukaev
gave what appeared to be separate news conferences on 14 October
to release official projections for the Russian economy in 1992
and 1993, ITAR-TASS and Western agencies reported. (Nechaev was
criticized by Yeltsin on 7 October for not having produced any
such forecasts). Their figures differed slightly. The consensus
put the GNP decline at 22% in 1992 and 5-8% in 1993. Industrial
output will fall by 20% in 1992 and 7-10% in 1993. Agricultural
output in 1992 is down by 8% on 1991, but is expected to remain at
the same level in 1993. (Keith Bush, RFE/RL Inc.)
RUSSIAN MONETARY POLICY FOR 1993: "MODERATELY TOUGH." Deputy Prime
Minister Aleksandr Shokhin and Minister of the Economy Andrei
Nechaev have described plans for next year's financial and credit
policies as "moderately tough," Interfax and "Vesti" reported on
14 October. The phrase seems to contrast with the strict monetary
line called for by Gaidar just weeks ago to stave off
hyperinflation. Jeffrey Sachs, a senior advisor to the Russian
government and one of many observers who have lost confidence in
Russia's anti-inflationary policy, said that in the last three
months, money supply had doubled. "The whole country is going over
the cliff," he said, according to Reuters. (Erik Whitlock, RFE/RL
Inc.)
LAND AND HOUSING TO BE SOLD FOR VOUCHERS. President Yeltsin signed
a decree on 14 October authorizing the use of privatization
vouchers for the purchase of land and housing, ITAR-TASS reported.
(He had called for this in his speech of 7 October to the
parliament). Economics Adviser Aleksei Ulyukaev told the 14
October news conference, where he also made official projections
on the economy, that the decree refers to all kinds of land,
including agricultural land, state land reserves, and forests.
Vouchers may also be used to purchase state and municipal housing
as well as municipal property, and to buy land being used by
factories that have been privatized. (Keith Bush, RFE/RL Inc.)
YELTSIN SIGNS DECREE ON SECURITIES MARKETS. A decree signed on 14
October by President Yeltsin establishes, among other things, a
framework for creating special investment funds that will serve as
intermediaries for Russian citizens not wishing to purchase state
assets themselves, ITAR-TASS reported on 14 October. Buying into
special investment funds is one of the options open to
voucher-holders envisaged by the government's voucher
privatization program initiated 1 October. The State Committee on
Property will license these special investment funds, and
investment funds without such a license are prohibited from
offering these services to voucher-holders. (Erik Whitlock,
RFE/RL Inc.)
US SENATORS ASK IMF TO EASE UP ON CIS. A group of US senators has
written to the International Monetary Fund urging it to soften its
demands on Russia and other former Soviet republics, an RFE/RL
Washington correspondent reported on 14 October. The group
contains sixteen Democrats and sixteen Republicans. The
legislators fear that the IMF conditions set for further aid will
lead to cuts in government spending that "will fan popular
discontent with an already desperate economic condition." The
senators write that "in the best of circumstances, this would halt
any reform in its tracks. In the worst of circumstances, popular
discontent could sweep away Russia's democratic government,
compromising all that has been gained since 1989." (Ilze
Zvirgzdins/Keith Bush, RFE/RL Inc.).
GORBACHEV ACCUSED OF COVERING UP KATYN MASSACRE. On 14 October
"Vesti" reported the government's release of Politburo documents
from the Stalinist period concerning the massacre of about 15,000
Polish officers by Soviet secret police in the Katyn Forest in
1940. A presidential spokesman used the documents, which include a
statement from the Party Politburo ordering the massacre, to
support his claim that Mikhail Gorbachev knew about and helped
cover up the truth of this matter since 1981. "Novosti" cited
allegations by the same spokesman that this was the reason why
Gorbachev was afraid to testify at the CPSU hearing. This
assertion was reiterated, also on 14 October, by President
Yeltsin's representatives at the Constitutional Court. In fact, in
1990, Gorbachev turned over hitherto top secret archival materials
to Polish leaders concerning the massacre. The same year, TASS
issued an official statement by the Soviet government which
admitted Soviet responsibility for the massacre, and which
confirmed that the earlier Soviet version blaming the crime on the
Nazis was a falsification. (Julia Wishnevsky & Vera Tolz, RFE/RL
Inc.)
NEW UKRAINIAN GOVERNMENT DISCUSSED. Ukrainian President Leonid
Kravchuk and the newly-appointed prime minister, Leonid Kuchma,
met on 14 October to discuss the composition of the new cabinet of
ministers, Interfax reported. Kuchma is required by law to submit
his candidates for ministerial posts to the parliament by 23
October. A number of appointments, including the ministers of
defense, interior, and foreign affairs, are subject to
parliamentary approval. (Roman Solchanyk, RFE/RL Inc.)
UKRAINIAN STUDENTS ANNOUNCE HUNGER STRIKE. A leader of the
Ukrainian Students' Union, which has put up a tent city on Kiev's
central square to press demands for new parliamentary elections
and Ukraine's withdrawal from the CIS, told the Ukrainian
parliament that the students will begin a hunger strike on the
evening of 13 October, DR-Press reported on 14 October. A hunger
strike by students exactly two years ago brought down the
government of Vitalii Masol. (Roman Solchanyk, RFE/RL Inc.)
INDIA WANTS DEFENSE TIES WITH UKRAINE. Indian Defense Minister
Sharad Pawar arrived in Kiev on 14 October for an official visit.
ITAR-TASS reported that Pawar would meet with President Leonid
Kravchuk, leaders of the parliamentary defense and security
commission, and officials involved in the production of military
equipment. The report said that Pawar's visit was expected to "lay
the foundation for military cooperation between the two countries,
including in the military-political and military-technical areas."
It also suggested that some Indian officers could receive training
in Ukraine. (Doug Clarke, RFE/RL Inc.)
UN MISSION VISITS ABKHAZIA. The UN fact-finding delegation that
arrived in Tbilisi and met with parliament-chairman elect Eduard
Shevardnadze and Prime Minister Tengiz Sigua on 13 October
travelled to Sukhumi on 14 October for talks with Giorgi
Khaindrava, Georgian Minister of State for Abkhazia, Interfax
reported. They then met with Abkhaz parliament chairman Vladislav
Ardzinba in Gudauta. Ardzinba subsequently told Interfax he was
dissatisfied with the visit as the observers had not allowed
enough time for their visit to the Abkhaz-controlled area and had
declined to interview refugees. Meanwhile in a statement released
in London the EC expressed "deep concern" about continued fighting
in Abkhazia and called for new effort to reach a peaceful solution
to the conflict. A delegation of Socialist deputies to the
European Parliament that traveled to Georgia to monitor the 11
October elections called for EC intervention to ensure that
Georgia does not become "a second Yugoslavia." (Liz Fuller,
RFE/RL Inc.)
GRACHEV DENIES INVOLVEMENT IN ABKHAZIA. Russian Defense Minister
Grachev denied Russian military involvement in Abkhazia in an
interview with Izvestiya on 15 October. Grachev dismissed claims
that Russian helicopters tried to shoot down Shevardnadze's
helicopter, claiming that had they attempted to, they would have
succeeded. He repeated claims that Abkhaz forces had obtained
their T-72 tanks from Georgian forces, and claimed that T-80 tanks
were only deployed in the Moscow Military District, and not in the
Caucasus. Grachev ascribed the claims to a Georgian attempt to
explain away their recent military setbacks. (John Lepingwell,
RFE/RL Inc.)
GRACHEV ON FORCES, PLANS FOR CAUCASUS. On 15 October, Russian
Defense Minister Grachev noted that there are no plans to withdraw
Russian units from Abkhazia, and that a Russian group of forces
will replace the Transcaucasus Military, District by 1 January
1993, Izvestiya reported. According to Grachev there is only one
airborne division and an antiaircraft missile unit left in
Azerbaijan, with an army division each deployed in Batumi and
Akhalkalaki in Georgia and in Gyumri, Armenia. Grachev also noted
that the 19th Air Defense Army and the 34th Airborne army will be
disbanded, with the exception of a few units. (John Lepingwell,
RFE/RL Inc.)
REFUGEES DEMONSTRATE IN DUSHANBE. Thousands of refugees from the
Vakhsh and Kolkhozabad Raions of Kurgan-Tyube Oblast assembled in
Dushanbe on 14 October to protest the continuing fighting in their
home regions, where local defenders have been battling armed units
from the neighboring Kulyab Oblast for two days, ITAR-TASS
reported. The demonstrators demanded that acting President
Akbarsho Iskandarov and the Tajik government out a stop to the
civil war that has ravaged the southern parts of the country.
(Bess Brown, RFE/RL Inc.)
UZBEKISTAN OFFERS TO SEND TROOPS TO TAJIKISTAN. According to a
NEGA press agency report of 13 October, Uzbekistan has offered to
send a military contingent to Tajikistan. The Tajik government has
requested peacekeeping troops from Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan; 400
volunteers in Kyrgyzstan are reported to be ready to be sent to
Kurgan-Tyube Oblast. Use of Uzbek troops in Tajikistan could
further inflame interethnic tensions in the war-torn country. In
the last two months there have been reports of Uzbek inhabitants
of Tajikistan being driven from their homes by Tajik fighters.
(Bess Brown, RFE/RL Inc.)
KYRGYZ LEGISLATURE VOTES AGAINST PEACEKEEPING FORCES. On 14
October, a closed session of Kyrgyzstan's parliament voted against
sending peacekeeping forces to Tajikistan, KyrgyzTAG-TASS
reported. Supreme Soviet Chairman Medetkan Sherimkulov told a
press conference after the vote that the legislators had decided
against interfering in the internal affairs of a neighboring
state. Kyrgyzstan would continue, however, to help in the search
for a resolution of the Tajik conflict and would provide
humanitarian assistance. Vice-President Feliks Kulov said that the
opposing sides in Tajikistan had been unwilling to guarantee the
safety of Kyrgyz peacekeepers. (Bess Brown, RFE/RL Inc.)
RUSSIFICATION, IDEOLOGICAL MEASURES IN "DNIESTER REPUBLIC." The
"Dniester republic" controlled by the Russian minority in eastern
Moldova has ordered the introduction of "Moldovan" language
textbooks in the Russian script in place of the existing ones in
the Latin script in Moldovan schools. The measure was taken
despite the fact that specialists considered the existing
textbooks in the Latin script (produced in Chisinau for all of
Moldova) as scientifically adequate and "de-ideologized," DR Press
reported from Tiraspol on 14 October. Last month the "Dniester"
authorities had imposed the Russian script on the "Moldovan" (i.e.
Romanian) language in various spheres of public life. Also on 14
October, DR Press reported again that "Dniester University" hosted
the founding conference of the "Dniester republic Communist
Leninist Youth," which called a constituent congress of the
"Dniester republic Komsomol" to be held shortly. The university
was formed recently through the takeover by the "Dniester"
authorities of the Moldovan Pedagogical Institute in Tiraspol, the
last Moldovan higher education institution on the left bank of the
Dniester. (Vladimir Socor, RFE/RL Inc.)
NO PLANS TO WITHDRAW TROOPS FROM DNIESTER REGION. In his interview
with Izvestiya on 15 October, Defense Minister Grachev stated that
the withdrawal of the 14th Army from the Dniester area will only
be possible when the conflict in the region is settled. He noted
that 14th Army units were manned by personnel from the region and
that they would refuse to withdraw unless the conflict was over.
(John Lepingwell, RFE/RL Inc.)
CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE
YELTSIN ENVOY REVEALS KATYN DOCUMENTS. On 14 October, a special
envoy from Russian President Boris Yeltsin, Chairman of the
Government Commission for State Archives, Rudolf Pekhoya,
presented Polish President Lech Walesa with copies of documents
showing that the CPSU Politburo, with Stalin at its head, had
ordered the execution of over 20,000 Polish prisoners of war on 5
March 1940. While Soviet responsibility for the murders had long
been obvious, the documents provide the "smoking gun" that the
Poles had long sought. The documents came from top secret Soviet
party archives that were transferred to the control of President
Mikhail Gorbachev in 1991. Pekhoya charged that all Soviet party
leaders, from Stalin to Gorbachev, had known the truth about the
massacres and had participated in the cover-up. In Moscow,
Yeltsin's spokesman Vyacheslav Kostikov told reporters that
Gorbachev had seen the order to kill the Poles as early as April
1989. In April 1990 the USSR responsibility for the acknowledged
Soviet responsibility for the massacre and Gorbachev then gave
then President Wojciech Jaruzelski archival documents implicating
the NKVD. The Politburo order was not among them. Polish
researchers have been aware of the existence of the document since
July 1992. President Walesa, visibly moved by the revelations,
thanked Yeltsin for his "heroic decision." PolishRussian relations
were "poisoned" in the past, Walesa said, but the transfer of the
documents could help build just, equal relations in the future.
(Louisa Vinton, RFE/RL Inc.)
GROWING TENSIONS IN NORTHERN BOSNIA. The 15 October Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung reported that the Serbian offensive was
continuing in an effort to consolidate the land corridor linking
Serbia with ethnic Serb enclaves in Croatia and Bosnia. On 14
October Austrian TV showed footage of Bosnian officers discussing
the besieged largely Muslim town of Gradacac. They confirmed what
the Croatian media had been saying since early in the week, namely
that chlorine gas tanks had been placed around the town. The
Bosnians threatened to set off an "ecological catastrophe" if
Serbian attacks did not stop and urged civilians to evacuate
Gradacac. AFP on 14 October reported that any release of the gas
could affect not only northern Bosnia and eastern Croatia but also
Vojvodina and parts of Hungary. Gradacac has been under siege for
months, but few if any foreign journalists have gone there. The
main source of news from Gradacac so far has been Croatian media
accounts for which there was no independent confirmation. (Patrick
Moore, RFE/RL Inc.)
VANCE AND MAZOWIECKI SPEAK OUT ON THE YUGOSLAV CRISIS. UN special
envoy Cyrus Vance warned on 14 October that "a spark from
Macedonia could ingite the [Balkan] region," the VOA reported. He
told the Security Council that the conflict could easily spread if
tension in Macedonia and Kosovo continued to mount. Meanwhile, UN
human rights envoy and former Polish Prime Minister Tadeusz
Mazowiecki visited a Croatian center for Serb detainees in
Herzegovina. Western news agencies reported that Mazowiecki
criticized the presence of women and other apparent civilians in
the camp, but the Croats told him that all the inmates had
committed some hostile act or other and warned him not to take up
the role of "judge." (Patrick Moore, RFE/RL Inc.)
SERBO-ALBANIAN TALKS BEGIN IN KOSOVO. On 14 October, after two
days of protests by ethnic Albanians in the Serbian province of
Kosovo for the restoration of Albanian-language teaching,
officials of the main Albanian party, the Democratic League of
Kosovo (LDK) began talks with education ministers representing the
rump Yugoslavia and Serbia. Radio Serbia reported the two sides
discussed ways of reopening Albanian-language schools and allowing
broad powers for Albanians who account for nearly 92% of Kosovo's
population to set their own curriculum. Serbia had suspended
Albanian language curriculum in schools and Pristina university in
1990, resulting in the loss of jobs by Albanian teachers and the
development of an extensive "underground school system." The two
sides agreed that the Albanians submit a list of schools to be
reopened. This will be reviewed on 22 October by federal and
Serbian government officials. Milan Panic, Prime Minister of the
rump Yugoslavia is expected to meet with LDK leaders on 15 October
in Pristina. (Milan Andrejevich, RFE/RL Inc.)
BOSNIAN CHILDREN FIND REFUGE IN POLAND. The first of two special
trains carrying refugee children from Bosnia arrived in Poland on
13 October. Poland has offered to provide shelter for 1500
children and their teachers for at least six months. It has also
acceded to Bosnian government requests to enable the children to
attend normal school classes and maintain their ethnic, cultural
and religious identity; hence the decision to house the children
together in mountain resorts and not in private homes. Poland's
foreign ministry said this humanitarian action reflected Polish
opposition to the policy of "ethnic cleansing." Gazeta Wyborcza on
13 October described a scene of general chaos in the Croatian town
of Osijek as the refugees boarded the trains, but noted the
following day that no one had been left behind. (Louisa Vinton,
RFE/RL Inc.)
ROMANIAN OPPOSITION LEADER SETS CONDITIONS FOR COALITION TALKS.
Emil Constantinescu, the presidential candidate endorsed by the
Democratic Convention of Romania (DCR) in the elections held on 27
September and 11 October, said president Ion Iliescu and the
Democratic National Salvation Front had to dissociate themselves
from the "nationalist-communist" parties before coalition talks
with the DCR could begin. In an interview with RFE/RL's Romanian
service on 14 October, Constantinescu said that when he spoke
about the "national-communists" he had in mind in particular the
Greater Romania Party and the Socialist Party of Labor. Both
formations had endorsed Iliescu. (Michael Shafir, RFE/RL Inc.)
ROMANIA WELCOMES INITIATIVE TO RECONSIDER ITS MFN STATUS. Traian
Chebelu, Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesman, said that his
ministry welcomed the initiative of a large number of
Romanian-born and other US citizens to address an appeal to the US
House of Representatives to reconsider its 30 September decision
denying MFN status to Romania. He added that this was the first
action of such magnitude by the Romanian diaspora and expressed
the hope that it was, at the same time, just the beginning of
efforts by exiled Romanians to uphold the interests of their
country of origin. Chebeleu attacked US congressman Tom Lantos for
his role in the congress' decision. He released the text of a
letter written in 1985 by Lantos to the Romanian authorities, in
which the congressman expressed hope that the US would renew MFN
status for Ceausescu's regime. (Michael Shafir, RFE/RL Inc.)
SOUTH KOREAN LOAN TO HUNGARY. South Korea will extend $650 million
credit to Hungary, Hungarian radio reported on 14 October 1992,
quoting sources in Seoul. The report said that $150 million had
already been provided and negotiations were under way in Budapest
for further credits from a South Korean five-year fund set up to
help developing countries. (Karoly Okolicsanyi, RFE/RL Inc.)
BULGARIAN PREMIER DENIES ARMS DEAL WITH MACEDONIA. Bulgarian Prime
Minister Filip Dimitrov denied allegations that he had secretly
struck an arms deal with Macedonia, thereby violating the UN
embargo against ex-Yugoslavia, Reuters reported on 14 October. The
allegations surfaced after the head of Bulgarian counterespionage,
General Brigo Asparuhov, accused a government adviser of
involvement in an attempt to export Bulgarian arms to Macedonia.
Rejecting these claims, Dimitrov said the adviser's trip had been
a normal fact-finding mission. The incident has deepened the
conflict between the premier and President Zhelyu Zhelev, who, in
his capacity as commander-in-chief, is also head of
counterespionage. (Kjell Engelbrekt, RFE/RL Inc.)
RALLY IN DEFENSE OF BULGARIAN ARMS INDUSTRY. On 14 October
thousands of workers from Bulgaria's arms industry rallied in
central Sofia. According to Western and Bulgarian agencies, the
workers were demanding higher wages as well as government measures
to stimulate arms export. The chairman of the CITUB trade union,
Krastyu Petkov, told a rally that the UDF government had until the
22 October to find a solution to the present situation or the
workers would go on strike. In a comment, the cabinet said there
were no administrative obstacles to arms export--except in the
case of embargoed states--and that 57 deals had been struck over
the last three months. The Bulgarian arms industry, which in
1991-92 has experienced a steep decline in exports, is estimated
to employ some 140,000 people. (Kjell Engelbrekt, RFE/RL Inc.)
PROGRESS IN LITHUANIAN-POLISH MILITARY AGREEMENT. On 14 October,
at a press conference ending a three-day visit to Vilnius,
Poland's Deputy Defense Minister, Przemyslaw Grudzinski, said that
Poland was satisfied with a draft agreement on military
cooperation, Radio Lithuania reported. He invited Lithuanian
National Defense Deputy Minister Sarunas Vasiliauskas to visit
Poland next week to continue the discussions that had been begun
in September during the visit to Warsaw of Prime Minister
Aleksandras Abisala. Grudzinski expressed the hope that the future
agreement would be similar to the Vyshegrad agreement between
Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia. (Saulius Girnius, RFE/RL Inc.)
IGNALINA REACTOR SHUT DOWN. On 14 October excess radiation was
detected in the non-service area of the second reactor at the
atomic power plant at Ignalina, Radio Lithuania reported. Povilas
Vaisnys, the head of the State Atomic Energy Safety Inspection,
said that the reactor would be shut down at noon on 15 October so
that the area where it is thought there might be leakage from the
pipes might be inspected. The amount of radiation is slight and
there is no danger even to the local community, but international
concern about the plant has led Lithuania to follow Western
practice. (Saulius Girnius, RFE/RL Inc.)
RUSSIAN BORDER GUARDS TO LEAVE LATVIA BY END OF OCTOBER? The
Russian border guard leadership in Ventspils said all Russian
border guards in Latvia were scheduled to leave for Russia by the
end of October. So far 16 of the 18 border guard posts have
already been handed over to the Latvian authorities, BNS reported
on 14 October. (Dzintra Bungs, RFE/RL Inc.)
ZOTOV, VETERANS THREATEN LATVIA. Sergei Zotov, chief Russian
negotiator in the troops withdrawal talks from Latvia, told Diena
of 14 October that Latvia was pursuing an "apartheid policy"
against nearly one half of its population, the Russians and other
Slavs. He warned Latvia that Russia could at any time turn off its
gas pipeline and reduce the supply of industrial raw materials.
Similar threats against Estonia were recently made by Russia's
Vice President Rutskoi. On 13 October Diena reported on a meeting
of some 3,000 communists, Soviet military veterans and Russian
military who called for unconditional voting rights in the next
parliamentary elections for Russians and other non-Latvian
residents of Latvia and for the restoration of their former
privileges. They threatened that if their demands were not met,
they would work for the establishment of autonomous
Russian-speaking regions in Latvia. (Dzintra Bungs, RFE/RL Inc.)
RUSSIA TO PAY FOR FOREST FIRE DAMAGES IN LATVIA? BNS and Baltfax
reported on 14 October that Russian Defense Ministry officials had
given an oral promise to Latvia's Forestry Ministry to pay for
damage caused by forest fires near Adazi, a principal base of the
Northwestern Group of Forces in Latvia. Latvians estimate the
damage at some 55 million rubles. Latvian authorities believe that
Russian military activities caused most of the fires in that
area--a claim previously denied by Russian President Boris
Yeltsin. (Dzintra Bungs, RFE/RL Inc.)
CIA CHIEF IN HUNGARY. Hungarian radio reported that CIA Chief
Robert Gates met with Prime Minister Jozsef Antall on 14 October
1992 in Budapest. Gates is on his first ever visit to Eastern
Europe. He arrived from Poland and will visit the countries of the
former Soviet Union. The meeting in the Prime Minister's office
was attended by Hungarian Internal Affairs Minister Peter Boross,
Minister Without Portfolio for National Security, Tibor Fuzessy
and US Ambassador Charles H. Thomas. No details were disclosed
about the subjects discussed. (Karoly Okolicsanyi, RFE/RL Inc.)
ROMANIA AND THE EC. Traian Chebeleu, the foreign affairs ministry
spokesman, said the fifth round of negotiations on Romania's
association with the EC, which was held in Brussels on 12 and 13
October, produced agreement on a number of texts that would be
included in the agreement. Citing Chebeleu, Rompres specified on 14
October that agreement had been reached on the protocols of trade
concerning steel products, textiles, processed agricultural and
fish produce. (Michael Shafir, RFE/RL Inc.)
SLOVAK PREMIER IN BONN. Slovak Prime Minister Vladimir Meciar, on
a two-day visit to Germany, told the German parliament's foreign
relations committee on 14 October that Slovakia was concerned
about growing nationalism within its Hungarian minority. According
to international press agencies, Meciar told the parliamentarians
that Slovakia was prepared to observe minority rights. He said
that the Hungarians were entitled to their own schools and their
own language, and that Slovakia subsidized Hungarian-language
newspapers. According to Meciar, his government was not violating
international agreements on minorities when it rejected demands by
ethnic Hungarian parties for the right to self-determination and
creation of autonomous organizations outside of Slovak
jurisdiction. (Jiri Pehe, RFE/RL Inc.)
novine.98.bale.,
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Sarajevo talks hit immediate snag
Subject: U.N. seeks to restore electricity in Sarajevo
Subject: Serbs, ethnic Albanians hold second day of talks
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Sarajevo talks hit immediate snag
Date: 13 Oct 92 22:31:26 GMT
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Hercegovina (UPI) -- A new United Nations initiative
to reach agreement among warring factions in Bosnia-Hercegovina to avoid
using civilian services as military weapons struck an immediate snag
Tuesday with the reported destruction of several electrical facilities.
The damage was discovered less than a day after French Gen. Phillipe
Morillon, head of the U.N. peacekeeping operation for Bosnia-
Hercegovina, said Sarajevo's electricity service was just hours from
being restored.
Morillon had been hoping to begin regular meetings with opposing
military leaders on ways of avoiding civilian involvement, but the
Bosnian side insisted Morillon was being duped by the Serbs and refused
to participate until water and electricity actually was restored in the
capital.
The U.N. Protection Force, after investigating Bosnian reports
Tuesday that an electrical supply tower was damaged overnight by an
artillery shell, confirmed late Tuesday that new damage was found in at
least three locations.
``It's more then one location, its more than three locations,''
UNPROFOR spokesman Mik Magnusson said of the new damage. ``It's a little
bit here, a little bit there.''
Magnusson declined to blame the damage on any one side in the
conflict but said it means electricity will not be restored to Sarajevo
any earlier than Thursday, and probably some time after that.
Sarajevo's citizens, facing increasing chilly weather in an area
known for its bitterly cold winters, have anxiously awaited restoration
of electricity both in real terms and as a sign of whether other
essential utilities will be reconnected.
The beseiged capital's electricity and water supplies have been out
for weeks, the telephone service has been failing in parts of the city
for lack of diesel fuel, and the city's natural gas lines, the source of
heat in most residences, have been disconnected for about 10 days.
Morillon, after meeting Monday with Serbian and Croat military
leaders, had optimistically told reporters he believed the Serbian side
was cooperative and accepted a series of regular meetings on such
matters.
In other developments, an UNPROFOR flight into Sarajevo Monday was
fired on during its descent into Sarajevo, U.N. officials announced
Tuesday.
There were no injuries or casualties, but one bullet which penetrated
the plane's fuselage came within four inches of the navigator's legs,
officials said.
Five other bullets holes were found in the left wing of the passenger
plane, leaving some damage to the aircraft's systems, according to an
UNPROFOR statement.
Also Tuesday, in Belgrade, incomplete returns showed a constitutional
amendment that would require Communist President Slobodan Milosevic to
call early presidential and assembly elections was almost certain to
fail because of an insufficient voter turnout in a weekend referendum.
The amendments failure would represent a major setback for Yugoslav
Prime Minister Milan Panic and Federal President Dobrica Cosic and force
them to intensify an ongoing power struggle with Milosevic, whose ouster
they view as the main condition for the lifting of chaos-fueling U.N.
economic sanctions.
In Sarajevo, Red Cross officials pushed ahead with plans for two
large road convoys to evacuate children, sick and elderly people from
the city, saying they at least for the present had Serbian assurances of
cooperation.
Red Cross officials also complained Tuesday about shortages of food
from the U.N. distribution program, and said the city's available
cemeteries were so full that bodies now were being buried at an Olympic
sports complex.
And Tuesday, UNPROFOR carried through on its threat to begin
publishing statistics on how much artillery each side in Sarajevo is
firing at the other, releasing figures showing the Bosnians received
more than three times as much incoming fire as the serbs over a six-day
period.
Magnusson, beginning what he said would be a daily release of such
figures, insisted the data must be considered somewhat incomplete and
imprecise but nevertheless showed superior Serbian artillery being shot
into the city and outnumbered bosnian defenders firing back at the
hills.
Morillon had angrily threatened to release the artillery reports kept
by U.N. military observers after Serbian gunners last week used their
heavy weapons to destroy a row of 20-story apartment buildings in
Sarajevo.
Fighting persisted Tuesday along the northern part of Bosnia-
Hercegovina, where Serbian forces were trying to maintain a corridor
connecting territories they hold in the northwest with the Serbian
republic, Sarajevo radio reported.
But the radio, which relays official Bosnian statements, reported no
attacks by Serbian warplanes during the past day, after claiming dozens
of flights in the two days after the U.N. Security Council ordered a ban
on Friday.
Authorities in Brcko, in the northwest corner of the republic, said
however that radar detected planes flying overhead between 8 p.m. Monday
and 8 a.m. Tuesday but without dropping any bombs, the radio said.
The British Broadcasting Corp. also reported Tuesday extensive signs
of Serbian ``ethnic cleansing'' operations in the northern town of Kotor
Varos, where numerous homes were burned down and thousands expelled.
Magnusson said the utility problems in Sarajevo were compounded
Tuesday when UNPROFOR soldiers who have been providing repair workers
with armed escorts had to cancel a mission because of a lack of Serbian
assurances for their safety.
Magnusson attributed the problem to the unexplained absence of
Serbian liaison officers assigned to UNPROFOR headquarters, which he
said also was posing problems for the delivery of humanitarian aid to
the beseiged city.
The U.N. High Commission for Refugees office in Sarajevo on Tuesday
received nine humanitarian aid flights and four trucks, carrying a total
of about 130 tons of food and other supplies.
Telephone service also remained disconnected for a second day Tuesday
in the western areas of the city, including at the UNPROFOR
headquarters. UNPROFOR has repeatedly provided the city's telephone
company with diesel fuel to power its electricity generators and
Magnusson said he suspected the selective outages may be designed to win
more donations.
But telephone company officials insisted Tuesday the fuel shortages
were real and said the entire system still operating inside the city and
some suburbs might soon run out of electricity.
Sulejman Hrle, head of the republic-wide workers union, said Tuesday
he sent a letter to Morillon warning that thousands of people were
preparing to march to the UNPROFOR headquarters to demand the
restoration of utilities in Sarajevo, where overnight temperatures
already were approaching freezing.
Morillon said he was pushing first for guarantees from the warring
parties to allow the delivery of humanitarian supplies through the
western Sarajevo suburb of Ilidza, the city's only reliable winter
outside access route.
Morillon said he proposed that the United Nations take control of the
fiercely contested route and then establish checkpoints at which the
warring factions could ensure only non-military goods were being allowed
to pass.
Pero Butigan, Red Cross Secretary for Bosnia-Hercegovina, estimated
some 3,000 people would join the road convoys headed from Sarajevo to
the Croatian port city of Split and the Serbian capital Belgrade.
He said his organization was still sorting out details of the trip,
including a date of departure, provisions for certifying the illnesses
of people allowed to leave and the possibility of private cars traveling
alongside buses.
``We have guarantees'' that Serbian forces will permit the convoys to
pass, he said, ``but who knows today in these circumstances whether the
guarantees will be fulfilled.''
Emil Vlajki, head of Sarajevo's Red Cross organization, complained
that many government officials and their families already have easy
access to transportation outside the besieged city, often on flights by
U.N. forces controlling the airport.
Vlajki, speaking alongside Butigan at a news conference at the
Bosnian presidency building, also complained about the meager amounts of
humanitarian aid many Sarajevo residents were receiving from UHCHR
distributors. He demanded the agency take immediate steps to bring in
heating oil.
``We are sick of false and half-humanitarianism,'' he said.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: U.N. seeks to restore electricity in Sarajevo
Date: 14 Oct 92 12:33:30 GMT
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Hercegovina (UPI) -- The U.N. mission persevered
Wednesday in efforts to restore electricity supplies and other services
to war-ravaged Sarajevo, seeking new assurances of cooperation from the
commanders of the Serbian forces blockading the Bosnia-Hercegovina
capital.
In a related development, U.N. Protection Force (UNPROFOR) officials
launched an investigation to identify those responsible for firing at a
U.N. aircraft as it landed on Tuesday at Sarajevo airport.
The Russian-built AN-32 cargo plane was struck by six bullets, but
there were no injuries among those aboard or damage serious enough to
ground it, U.N. officials said.
Fighting persisted along Bosnia-Hercegovina's northern flank, pitting
Serbian forces seeking to carve a self-declared state out of the newly
independent former Yugoslav republic against a coalition of Muslim Slavs
and Croats, Sarajevo radio reported.
Serbian forces have been battling since the beginning of last weekend
to keep open a strategic land corridor connecting territories they hold
in the northwest with communist-ruled Serbia, their main military and
economic patron.
Egyptian Brig. Gen. Hussein Abdel Razek, the UNPROFOR commander for
Sarajevo, traveled for talks with Serbian military commanders in Pale, a
mountain town to the east of the Bosnian capital that serves as the
headquarters of the self-styled government of the Serbian ``state.''
Razek hoped to obtain new pledges of Serbian cooperation in
UNPROFOR's efforts to restore electricity supplies and other utility
services to Sarajevo,where an estimated 500,000 residents and refugees
have been trapped and bombarded for more than six months by encircling
Serbian forces.
The Pale talks were called a day after fresh damage to electricity
system components forced a new postponement in a planned restoration of
the regional power supply.
UNPROFOR spokesman Mik Magnusson said that most of the damage
detected Tuesday appeared to be ``collateral'' rather than intentional.
He said UNPROFOR was still operating under the assumption that the
Serbian side was sincere in wanting to restore utilities.
``I've been told by Serb authorities they want power too,'' he said.
``They don't have any power in (the Serb-controlled suburb of) Ilidza.
They don't have any in Pale.''
But, Magnusson acknowledged that it appeared that Sarajevo's outside
telephone links and natural gas supply lines were disconnected at points
controlled by Serbian forces.
The restoration of electricity has been anxiously awaited in an
increasingly chilly Sarajevo.
French Gen. Philippe Morillon, the UNPROFOR commander for Bosnia-
Hercegovina, had been hoping to hold the first of an envisioned series
of regular meetings on Tuesday with opposing military leaders on
safeguarding civilians from involvement in the conflict.
But, the Bosnian government of Muslim Slavs and moderate Serbs and
Croats insisted that Morillon was being duped by the Serbian extremists,
and refused to participate in the talks until water and electricity were
restored to Sarajevo.
Magnusson, meanwhile, said the attack of the U.N. plane Tuesday
appeared to have been committed by someone using a machine gun in the
first such incident since the U.N. airlift of humanitarian aid to
Sarajevo was resumed Oct. 3 after a month-long suspension.
The plane, which makes daily flights into the city carrying U.N.
personnel and cargo, departed Sarajevo after the incident with Morillon
among its passengers.
One bullet entered the cockpit and five others scarred a wing,
Magnusson said.
UNPROFOR announced that its survey of artillery fire in the Sarajevo
area showed U.N. observers detected a total of 21 rounds hitting Serb-
controlled areas and 91 rounds blasting Bosnian-held territory during
the 24-hour period that ended at 5 p.m. Tuesday.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Serbs, ethnic Albanians hold second day of talks
Date: 14 Oct 92 15:22:06 GMT
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (UPI) -- Leaders of the independence-seeking
ethnic Albanian majority of Serbia's Kosovo Province held a fruitful
second day of talks Wednesday with federal and Serbian officials on
resolving a feud over education in the wake of violent anti-government
protests, news reports said.
Representatives of the Geneva-based peace talks on former Yugoslavia
and the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe attended the
discussions in the provincial capital of Pristina, 200 miles south of
the Serbian capital of Belgrade, state-run Belgrade Radio said.
It was the second internationally observed meeting held in as many
days on demands by ethnic Albanians that they devise their own education
programs to replace those imposed by the communist regime of President
Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia as part of its hardline direct rule of the
province.
Tanjug, the official news agency of the Serbia-controlled rump
Yugoslav federation, said the negotiators ended the meeting by
announcing an agreement to resume in Belgrade on Oct. 22 the first face-
to-face discussions held to end the tension-stoking dispute that has
kept most schools closed for more than a year.
``It is a general assessment of all participants that this was the
first significant step to start solving problems in Kosovo,'' Tanjug
said.
The meeting was held on the eve of a visit to Pristina for talks on
the issue by Yugoslav Prime Minister Milan Panic, who on Tuesday
unveiled his own plan for resolving the crisis.
Kosovo has long been riven by serious tensions between its 2 million
ethnic Albanians, who almost unanimously want independence from Serbia,
and 200,000 Serbs. The province is cherished by Serbs worldwide as the
cradle of their culture and Christian Orthodox religion.
Kosovo's future has become a major issue in an ongoing power struggle
between Panic, who favors limited ethnic Albanian autonomy, and
Milosevic, who has reaped enormous support among Serbian nationalists by
employing repressive police policies to crush sessionism.
Western governments and international human rights groups regard
Milosevic's human rights record as the worst in Europe.
Tens of thousands of ethnic Albanian students, teachers and
professors have boycotted school and university classes since last year
to protest Belgrade-designed programs they claim are skewed toward
Serbian history and culture and ignore their own.
Serbian authorities responded to the boycott by closing schools and
suspending ethnic Albanian educators from their jobs.
Serbian police in Pristina and a number of other towns used tear gas
and clubs to disperse thousands of ethnic Albanians demanding the right
to design their own educational curriculums.
Milosevic dissolved Kosovo's provincial administration in July 1990,
and appointed Serbs to replace ethnic Albanians in all major public
posts, virtually wiping out the province's 40-year-old autonomy.
Thousands of Serbian police and troops have been stationed in Kosovo
in the past four years to help Milosevic maintain his iron-strong grip
over the province.
novine.99.bale.,
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Vance says ``no-fly zone'' seems to work in Bosnia-Hercegovina
Subject: 19th Fischer-Spassky game ends in draw
Subject: Sarajevo shelling falls to 'six-month low'
Subject: Yugoslav Prime Minister visits restive Kosovo province
Subject: More Bosnian children arrive in Poland
Subject: Britain sends enlarged UNPROFOR force to Bosnia-Hercegovina
Subject: Meeting of leaders of former Yugoslavia shaping up
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Vance says ``no-fly zone'' seems to work in Bosnia-Hercegovina
Date: 14 Oct 92 22:28:13 GMT
UNITED NATIONS (UPI) -- The U.N. envoy to the peace talks for the
former Yugoslavia suggested Wednesday that the Security Council not take
any further steps to militarily enforce the ``no-fly zone'' in Bosnia-
Hercegovina because Bosnian Serbs appeared to be upholding it.
Cyrus Vance, who co-chairs the international conference on the former
Yugoslavia with British Lord David Owen, said the decision by Bosnian
Serbs to remove their aircraft from their main military headquarters at
Banja Luka was a ``correct step.''
``So far it seems to be working, let's stick with it,'' Vance told
reporters after giving the Security Council a progress report on the
negotiations being held in Geneva in the last month. Vance is the envoy
of Secretary-General Boutros Ghali while Owen represents the European
Community.
Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic offered Tuesday to remove
Serbian combat aircract from Banja Luka to the Federal Republic of
Yugoslavia, now composed of Serbia and Montenegro. Karadzic was to meet
with U.N. peacekeeping officials to work out details for removing the
aircraft and for U.N. observers to move into the base to monitor the
ban.
The United Nations said the pledge was a ``desire to achieve a
cessation of hostilities and to facilitate the implementation of U.N.
Security Council resolution 781'' which bans Serbian military flights
over Bosnia-Hercegovina.
The Security Council had said that it would take a new step to
enforce the ban if it were violated. The United States charged Tuesday
that Bosnian Serbs violated the four-day-old ban and was consulting with
the council to work out a new resolution for military enforcement.
Vance said he briefed the Security Council on progress made by the
conference and its committees which have been dealing with various
aspects of the conflict in the former Yugoslavia. Diplomats said that
progress includes work on a new constitution for Bosnia-Hercegovina and
ways to demilitarize Sarajevo.
Vance said he was returning to Geneva Thursday for a new round of
talks with the president of Macedonia on Saturday and with the
presidents of Croatia and Bosnia-Hercegovina next week.
He said the Yugoslav conference will reconvene on Oct. 28 with the
attendance of leaders of Yugoslav republics. He said the talks are
``full of pitfalls and obstacles,'' but the United Nations intends to
move supplies and relief items to Bosnia-Hercegovina as soon as possible
before the winter settles in.
Ghali told the Security Council he will name five experts to the war-
crimes commission, which was mandated by the council to analyze all
information pertaining to the reported execution and torture of Muslim
Slavs by Serbs or any atrocities committed in ethnic conflicts in the
former Yugoslavia.
The commission was set up by the council on Oct. 6 in response to
widespread allegations of killings of Muslims and severe human rights
violations in Bosnia-Hercegovina. Several council members had said that
the commission's investigations would lead to an international trial of
those charged with war crimes in the Balkans.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: 19th Fischer-Spassky game ends in draw
Date: 15 Oct 92 10:07:47 GMT
BELGRADE, Serbia (UPI) -- Former world chess-champion Bobby Fischer
continued to lead ex-Soviet grandmaster Boris Spassky 7-games-to-3 in
their controversial rematch after the pair's 19th game ended in a draw.
Despite 84 moves and nine hours of play, the game ended deadlocked
late Wednesday.
For the second time this month, Fischer, using white pieces, played a
Sicilian defense -- traditionally Spassky's favorite opening when holding
white figures.
The American had used the defense in the match's 17th game Saturday,
scoring an easy victory over Spassky.
Fischer needs just three more wins to take a $3.35 million prize
offered by Jezdimir Vasiljevic, a Serbian banker who organized the re-
match despite Serbia's ongoing role in the Yugoslav civil war.
Fischer has ignored a U.S. government warning of possible arrest if
he played in Serbia.
American officials said the match -- a replay of a 1972 faceoff that
Fischer won -- appeared to violate a U.N. embargo placed on the nation
because of the Yugoslav war.
The U.S. Treasury Department said Fischer could face up to 10 years
in prison and a $250,000 fine for violating the ban.
However, even if he loses the match, Fischer will receive $1.65
million in prize money.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Sarajevo shelling falls to 'six-month low'
Date: 15 Oct 92 11:51:31 GMT
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Hercegovina (UPI) -- Shelling of the Bosnia-
Hercegovina capital diminished Thursday after some utilities were
restored, and Serbian forces began respecting a U.N. flight ban,
officials and news reports said.
U.N. Protection Force officials said shellfire hitting the city had
been declining daily over the past week.
``I think it's probably dropped down to the lowest point it's been in
the six months of the siege,'' said British Col. Richard Mole, chief of
the 60-member U.N. military observers unit assigned to Sarajevo.
UNPROFOR officials said a total of 11 rounds of large artillery were
fired onto Serbian-controlled areas and 41 rounds reaching Bosnian-
controlled territory during the 24-hour period that ended at 5 p.m.
Wednesday.
Meanwhile, residents were relieved Thursday after gas supplies were
restored following a 10-day disconnection somewhere inside Serbian-
controlled territory.
``Great, it at least means now I can cook,'' said Nedzad Masala, who
found the gas turned back on at his home in the city's Old Town section.
``But unfortunately the pressure is too low to turn on the heat.
The Bosnian government said electricity was restored in the town of
Jajce after a 32-day outage. The reconnections appeared to indicate
Serbian forces were respecting U.N. pleas to stop manipulating civilian
services for military ends in the Bosnian conflict.
The developments came one day after U.N. peace envoy Cyrus Vance told
the U.N. Security Council that Bosnian Serbs appeared to be abiding by
the flight ban it imposed Friday.
``So far it seems to be working, lets stick with it,'' Vance told
reporters after giving the Security Council a progress report on the
negotiations held over the past month in Geneva.
Sarajevo radio said Serbian forces appeared to be refraining from
using warplanes, although it claimed the Serbs still were using
helicopters to transport supplies to the contested towns of Brcko and
Tuzla.
Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic offered Tuesday to remove
Serbian combat aircraft from Banja Luka to the rump Federal Republic of
Yugoslavia, comprising Serbia and Montenegro.
Vance praised the initiative and told the Security Council he
believed it should take no further steps at the moment to enforce the
no-fly zone.
Despite the positive signs, Sarajevo remained without many key
utilities, including electricity, most of its water service and much of
its telephone service.
Bosnian military leaders were refusing to attend U.N.-mediated talks
with their Serbian counterparts until both electricity and water were
restored.
Artillery and infantry attacks were reported Wednesday in some
northern and central areas, including Gradacac, Brcko, Tuzla, Maglaj,
Zavidovici, Travnik, Jajce, Kalesija and Banovici, Sarajevo radio said.
Four people died and seven were injured in Gradacac, where Serbian
forces continued to pull in reinforcements from Prijedor, Banja Luka and
Bosanski Brod, it said.
Also Wednesday, the Bosnian military set up a roadblock to stop two
Red Cross convoys planning to carry some 6,500 people out of Sarajevo,
saying it still needed government approval.
The convoys were planned to bring children, elderly and sick people
from the Bosnian capital to the Croatian port city of Split and the
Serbian capital Belgrade.
Speaking on Wednesday, Vance said he briefed the Security Council on
progress made by the conference and its committees that have been
dealing with various aspects of the conflict in the former Yugoslavia.
Diplomats said that progress includes work on a new constitution for
Bosnia-Hercegovina and ways to demilitarize Sarajevo.
Vance said he was returning Thursday to Geneva for a new round of
talks Saturday with the president of Macedonia and next week with the
presidents of Croatia and Bosnia-Hercegovina.
He said the Yugoslav conference will reconvene Oct. 28 with the
attendance of leaders of Yugoslav republics.
U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Ghali told the Security Council he
will name five experts to the war-crimes commission mandated by the
council to analyze all information regarding the reported execution and
torture of Muslim Slavs by Serbs or any atrocities committed in ethnic
conflicts in the former Yugoslavia.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Yugoslav Prime Minister visits restive Kosovo province
Date: 15 Oct 92 16:11:33 GMT
PRISTINA, Yugoslavia (UPI) -- Yugoslav Prime Minister Milan Panic held
the first direct talks with leaders of independence-seeking ethnic
Albanians in Serbia's Kosovo province Thursday, opening a dialogue on a
series of outstanding issues.
``I am delighted to tell you that we had a very good discussion on a
professional level,'' Panic told a news conference in the Kosovo
provincial capital of Pristina.
``We had a very eloquent and rational review of the sitation. We
defined the problems and we started to work on them immediately,'' Panic
said.
Ethnic Albanian leader Ibrahim Rugova and Panic said they agreed to
resume talks ``soon.''
``I tried to solve all the problems today but Mr. Rugova kindly
explained to me that it would take a bit more of time,'' Panic said.
The two sides decided to form commissions to deal with the issues
that should be resolved such as legislature, education and human rights.
Panic said he and Rugova ``agreed to work together on democratization
of the Yugoslav system.''
Rugova told reporters, ``I appreciate this meeting. This was a very
serious discussion and we want to continue it.''
He underlined that ``the human rights issue has priority over the
question of Kosovo's territorial status.''
Panic arrived in Pristina earlier in the day for separate talks with
Serbian and ethnic Albanian leaders in what he said is an effort to
return peace, tolerance, work and prosperity to Serbia's predominantly
ethnic Albanian province.
It was Panic's first trip to Kosovo and the first talks in three
years between a top-ranking Serbian official coming from the former
Yugoslav capital of Belgrade and leaders of the independence-seeking
ethnic Albanian Democratic League of Kosovo.
Panic flew from Belgrade aboard a Yugoslav Air Force plane and drove
from Pristina's airport to the center of the provincial capital in an
armor-plated black Mercedes-Benz limousine amid heavy security measures.
Scores of uniform and plainclothes policemen stood in chilly and
cloudy weather on the main street in downtown Pristina as Panic arrived
for talks in the predominantly ethnic Albanian town.
The prime minister first met representatives of Serbs from Kosovo,
the south Serbian province where 2 million ethnic Albanians outnumber
200,000 Serbs.
``We have come to move the problems from the street and discuss them
over the table,'' Panic told a group of Serbian officials.
Panic discounted hopes by ethnic Albanian extremists for
independence, saying international bodies including the United Nations
and the European Community recognize Kosovo is part of Serbia.
He urged Serbs in Kosovo to ``help in safeguarding peace...organizing
democratic elections and engaging Yugoslavs of Albanian origin in
political life'' in the province because these are among the conditions
for the lifting of U.N. sanctions against Serbia and Montenegro.
On May 30, the U.N. Security Council imposed strict economic
sanctions including an oil embargo on the rump Yugoslav union of Serbia
and Montenegro for its involvement in the ongoing war in the newly
independent republic of Bosnia-Hercegovina.
``If we carry out a peaceful policy, if we are mutually tolerant and
respect ethnic, religious and other differences, we shall succeed,''
Panic said.
``Peace, tolerance, work, prosperity and international recognition
(for Serbia and Yugoslavia) is my choice. The other is war and tragedy,''
he said.
Panic said that ``stories about (Kosovo's) secession (from Serbia)
are not real...and instead we have to agree what to do next to re-open
schools and respect human rights.''
``This is why I came here, to help in solving the situation and to
get help from whoever wants it,'' Panic said.
At moments, talks between Panic and Kosovo Serbs appeared hostile,
but did not disway the energetic businessman, a Belgrade-born Serb who
made himself a millionaire in the United States.
Panic came to Belgrade from California at the request of the Serbian
regime and was appointed Yugoslav prime minister in mid-July.
``Did you come here as a real Serb which you claim to be or maybe you
have a spare nationality,'' asked an official from among the group of
Serbs.
Another Serb, a deputy from Kosovo Province in the Serbian Assembly
in Belgrade, said, ``Eighty percent of the Serbian people do not support
you. Stop wasting time by asking for (Serbia's hard-line President
Slobodan) Milosevic's resignation and resign yourself.''
Panic was trying to calm down Serbian fears that the Kosovo province
would get back the autonomy it had before 1990 when Milosevic's
communist regime took complete control of the province and dissolved its
government and assembly.
Following his talks with Serbs, Panic drove some 200 yards down the
main street to a former Kosovo government building for talks with
leaders of ethnic Albanians.
Ibrahim Rugova, President of the Democratic League of Kosovo, which
advocates Kosovo's independence from Serbia, led a party of ethnic
Albanian leaders when they began talks behind closed doors.
In Pristina Wednesday, leaders of the Democratic League of Kosovo
held successful talks with Serbian and Yugoslav officials on resolving a
feud over the education issue.
Ethnic Albanians want to have their own education programs instead of
those imposed by the Serbian regime two years ago.
About 60,000 ethnic Albanian schoolchildren and 20,000 university
students in Kosovo have boycotted classes in 1991.
Talks concerning the education issue are to resume in Belgrade next
week.
Kosovo, which Serbs worldwide chersih as the cradle of their culture
and Christian Orthodox religion, has been the site of ethnic tension for
many years.
Ethnic Albanians and Serbs have been exchanging accusations claiming
each group is persecuting the other in Kosovo.
Western governments and international human rights groups regard
Milosevic's human rights record as the worst in Europe.
The Milosevic regime in July 1990 appointed Serbs to replace ethnic
Albanians in all major public posts, virtually wiping out the province's
40-year-old autonomy.
Thousands of Serbian police and troops have been stationed in Kosovo
in the past four years to help Milosevic maintain his iron-strong grip
over the province.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: More Bosnian children arrive in Poland
Date: 15 Oct 92 17:15:11 GMT
WARSAW, Poland (UPI) -- A second trainload of children seeking refuge
from war-torn Bosnia-Hercegovina arrived Thursday in Poland.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Jakub Kozlowski told a news conference the
government of Bosnia-Herzegovina asked the Polish government to accept
1,500 children and youths from the town of Bosanski Brod in northern
Bosnia.
Some 167 people arrived on the second train, while the first train,
which arrived on Tuesday, carried 620 children.
Bosanski Brod, which was originally in Bosnian hands, fell to Serbian
irregulars last week and the families were scattered. By the time the
children were regrouped in Osijek, some parents decided not to send
their charges away.
The expedition was organized so that the children will be able to
continue their schooling, and several truckloads of books were being
shipped also.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Britain sends enlarged UNPROFOR force to Bosnia-Hercegovina
Date: 15 Oct 92 17:22:20 GMT
LONDON (UPI) -- The first British troops of a new United Nations force
began deploying to the republics of the former Yugoslavia Thursday in a
troop operation considerably larger than first envisaged, Defense
Secretary Malcolm Rifkind said.
An enlarged force of about 2,400 British troops would be sent to
accompany convoys ferrying humanitarian relief to villages in Bosnia-
Hercegovina, Rifkind told a news conference.
An advance team of 90 troops from the Cheshire Regiment based in
Fallingbostel, Germany, was flying Thursday to the Croatian city of
Split in a U.S. Air Force transport jet.
``The deployment will be a phased operation,'' Rifkind said. ``By the
end of the month, a larger party of about 1,000 men will have reached
Split, where they will marry up with their vehicles and equipment.''
The deployment is expected to be complete by Nov. 13, he said.
A party of officers earlier studied the land routes from Split to the
Bosnian city of Vitez under Brig. David Jenkins, the director of
military operations at the Ministry of Defense. The reconnaissance made
it clear that extra troops would be required to provide accommodation
for the forces.
``The physical fabric of the buildings in Bosnia has been so badly
damaged by the conflict that we are going to have to put extra effort to
setting up accommodation in which our troops can live and work,'' Rifkin
said.
The 400 extra troops, most of them from the Royal Engineers, will be
sent on a temporary basis. Two hundred other troops will be based at the
Split headquarters, bringing the total British troops to 1,400. The MOD
initially planned to send 1,800 troops after the U.N. Security Council
voted to authorize sending troops to protect humanitarian aid convoys.
Three hundred British troops are now in Croatia as part of a United
Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR). The 2,400 additional troops, along
with troops from France, Canada, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium,
Denmark, and Norway, will form part of a new command known as UNPROFOR
II, led by a French major general. The British troops will be commanded
by Brig. Andrew Cumming.
The troops will protect humanitarian aid convoys traveling from the
port city of Split into central Bosnia-Hercegovina in the embattled
former Yugoslav republic.
Rifkind said the aim of the deployment was to help relieve the
``desperate plight'' of the suffering Bosnians and to try to avert a
tragedy as winter approached.
``I believe public opinion realizes this is an essential humanitarian
task which our forces should be undertaking,'' he said.
The British troops would be authorized to fire in self-defense if
attacked, and reserved the right to withdraw if the fighting was seen to
pose too great a risk.
``The role of these troops is not to fight their way through to their
destination,'' Armed Forces Minister Archie Hamilton said. ``There can
be certain cases when the risks are unacceptable.''
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Meeting of leaders of former Yugoslavia shaping up
Date: 15 Oct 92 17:43:30 GMT
GENEVA (UPI) -- A meeting of leaders of the former Yugoslavia appeared
Thursday to be shaping up for the weekend and early next week as leaders
of Croatia, Bosnia-Hercegovina and federal Yugoslavia announced plans to
be in Geneva.
Derek Boothby, a spokesman for Cyrus Vance and Lord David Owen, the
United Nations and European Community mediators in the ongoing conflict
in Bosnia-Hercegovina, said he was unable to provide a detailed schedule
of who would be meeting whom.
But he said the presence of so many persons in Geneva ``will provide
a splendid opportunity for the co-chairmen (of the mediation effort) to
meet with as many people as possible.''
Radovan Karadzic, leader of the Bosnian Serbs, has spent the week in
Geneva and was scheduled to meet Friday with federal Yugoslav Prime
Minister Milan Panic to discuss the transfer of Serbian planes from
Bosnia to federal Yugoslavia -- a task Boothby said he hopes can be
completed by the weekend.
Karadzic made the surprise offer in a late night meeting with Owen
Tuesday to transfer the planes, which have been based in Serb-held areas
of northern Bosnia-Hercegovina and used to strafe Croatian and Moslem-
held areas.
Details of the transfer to airfields held by the Yugoslav air force
in and around the Belgrade area are being discussed in Belgrade by U.N.
military officials, Boothby said. But he said Panic would be finalizing
matters with Karazdic and also meeting with Owen and Vance, who was due
back from New York on Friday.
Vance has been reporting on the Bosnian peace talks to U.N. Secretary
General Boutros Ghali.
Traveling with Panic was Yugoslav President Dobrica Cosic, who was
scheduled to meet with Croatia's President Franjo Tudjman on October 20
-- the second time the two have met in Geneva within a month.
Sources in the Croatian delegation said it was likely Tudjman would
also meet with Bosnian President Alija Izbekovic, who was coming in over
the weekend and was expected to meet with Cosic on Monday.
The presence of all these major players in the Yugoslav crisis does
not necessarily mean that a peace agreement in Bosnia-Hercegovina is in
the offing, sources close to the Owen-Vance office said. But they said
it was significant that all the major players were gathering in Geneva
at the same time and would be able to exchange views not only with Vance
and Owen but with each other.
A delegation from Macedonia, hitherto a comparatively minor player in
the talks, was also expected in Geneva over the weekend and was
scheduled to meet with the Vance-Owen office Monday.
The only person missing from the equation, observers pointed out, was
Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic.
novine.100.bale.,
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Winter likely to stretch U.N. resources to limit, official says
Subject: Bosnian officials accuse Serbs of creating another Auschwitz
Subject: Bosnian government forces barricade Sarajevo airport road
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Winter likely to stretch U.N. resources to limit, official says
Date: 15 Oct 92 18:40:17 GMT
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (UPI) -- A senior U.N. official warned Thursday
that the United Nations may be pushed ``to the limit of its
capabilities'' as it tries to provide food, clothing and shelter for
refugees and besieged communities in war-torn Bosnia-Hercegovina during
the harsh Balkan winter.
Cedric Thornberry, deputy chief of mission of the United Nations
Protection Force (UNPROFOR) in the republics of the former Yugoslavia,
said that however difficult the situation may have been in Bosnia until
now, it ``may be even more awful in the upcoming few months'' of winter.
``The impact of winter on so many refugees, the lack of food,
clothing and shelter, may push the international community to the limit
of its capabilities,'' Thornberry told a news conference in the Yugoslav
capital of Belgrade.
``We as UNPROFOR are beginning to wonder if the international
community is fully aware of the dimensions of this threat,'' he said.
``All of us in this region, working for the U.N., are profoundly
concerned with the situation developing in Bosnia-Hercegovina,'' stated
Thornberry, adding that he feared the spread of a humanitarian crisis to
other countries in the region.
The UNPROFOR is to expand its peace-keeping mission in Bosnia-
Hercegovina to 22,500 personnel by the end of November, making it the
largest U.N. operation in the world, Thornberry said.
``Although it is difficult to say how many troops there will be in
Bosnia-Hercegovina, my guess is that we will have around 22,500
personnel there by the end of November,'' said Thornberry, who also
serves as the director of civil affairs for UNPROFOR.
The current size of the mission in former Yugoslavia numbers 15,718
people, out of which 613 are members of the U.N. police force, 585 are
civilians and the rest are military personnel.
But Thornberry said that the expansion of the U.N. mission will pose
some operational problems.
``It is going to be extremely complicated in terms of engineering,
planning and looking for additional supplies, elements for adding
contruction capability which we need for accommodations,'' said
Thornberry.
But Thornburry said that there was a ``gleam of hope'' in the
UNPROFOR mission,which is trying to organize a gradual protected return
of refugees to the homes they fled during the Serbo-Croat war last year.
``At the moment we are trying to bring back both Serbs and Croats to
their homes for the day, let them have a look at what is left, if
anything, and let them decide what they want to do,'' said Thornberry.
So far the UNPROFOR has been able to return people to 13 villages in
Croatia. The residents have begun reconstructing their homes, slowly
putting their lives back together again.
But in many cases it has been difficult to obtain cooperation of
local authorities in Croatia's Serbian enclaves for the return of
refugees to their homes located in disputed areas.
Incidents of vandalism and terrorism have increased as neither
Serbian or Croatian extremists wish to have other nationalities living
in their midst.
``Indeed, the highly publicized return of refugees to their homes has
been counterproductive and made it more difficult for us to do our job,''
said Thornburry, recounting a recent incident in the village of Korane
where eight Croatian houses were set ablaze by extremists in an effort
to keep refugees from returning home.
Thornburry said that serious problems have arisen in UNPROFOR-
monitored areas in Croatia due to the failure of ``special militia to
disarm and demobilize'' under an agreement reached between Serbian and
Croatian forces at the time of the January cease-fire between the two
republics.
``The so-called special police are still in charge of sector East (an
UNPROFOR-monitored region) and our reports show that these are mainly
the people who perform these terrorist acts,'' said Thornberry.
``We are dealing with small-time gangsters who have been put in
uniform to give them credibility,'' Thornberry added, saying that the
phenomenon occurs on both the Serbian and Croatian side.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Bosnian officials accuse Serbs of creating another Auschwitz
Date: 15 Oct 92 20:13:09 GMT
UNITED NATIONS (UPI) -- A delegation from Bosnia-Hercegovina accused
Bosnian Serbs Thursday of creating an ``instant Auschwitz'' during their
ethnic cleansing campaign and cited one instance in which they claimed
some 5,000 people were cremated.
The delegation, headed by Bosnian Foreign Minister Haris Silajdzic,
also sent an open letter to President Bush, calling for an end to the
arms embargo so Bosnia-Hercegovina can defend itself against Serb-led
attacks which have captured at least 70 percent of the republic's
territory.
Silajdzic, accompanied by five other officials representing the
Parliament, Bosnian Serbs, Croats and Muslim Slavs, said a total of 613,
000 non-Serbs had been drived out of their homes and towns by the ethnic
cleansing campaign in the 6-month-old war.
One member of the delegation, professor Muhammed Filipovic, claimed
satellite pictures in August showed a massive grave at a mining region
in Prijedor where Serbs maintained three detention camps at the
Tomashica town in western Bosnia-Hercegovina. Filippovic said 5,000 were
cremated at the camps.
``It's an instant Auschwitz there,'' Silajdzic said referring to the
city in southwest Poland where Nazi leaders established an extermination
camp for Jews during World War II. Hundreds of thousands of Jews were
killed at the camp.
The delegation said the Bosnian government has had no information on
at least 200,000 people since the war began and assumed they were killed
during fighting or executed.
The delegation claimed that mass graves had been found throughout
Bosnia-Hercegovina and said the government's institute for war crimes
has been compiling information on human rights violations committed by
Serbs.
The delegation met with Secretary-General Boutros Ghali and Cyrus
Vance, the U.N. envoy to the peace talks for the former Yugoslavia, to
appeal for an end of the Security Council-imposed arms embargo. But
Silajdzic said both Ghali and Vance showed no reaction to their request.
The arms embargo was imposed last year on the whole of the former
Balkan federation when fighting broke out in Croatia. In May this year,
the Security Council decreed a trade embargo against Serbia and
Montenegro to punish it for Serb-led attacks in Bosnia-Hercegovina.
U.N. agencies and the International Committee for the Red Cross have
warned that up to 400,000 people may die during the harsh winter if
humanitarian assistance is not given to the population in Bosnia-
Hercegovina, most of whom have lost homes to the Serbs.
Silajdzic said Bosnia-Hercegovina will become a ``disaster of
gigantic proportion'' if it will not receive outside help immediately.
In his letter to Bush, Silajdzic said 100,000 people were killed in
the past six months and over 1 million were expelled from their homes,
``and those who do not escape are waiting to die of hunger, cold and
disease.''
Silajdzic said his government has never asked for American ground
troops.
``All we ask for is the recognition of our right to self-defense
under the U.N. charter,'' he said.
He said the arms embargo is ``absurd and unjust'' to Bosnia-
Hercegovina. He said Sarajevo, the capital city under siege for six
months is a ``gigantic death camp'' where the 400,000 people who live
there have had little food, running water, electricity or electricity.
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Subject: Bosnian government forces barricade Sarajevo airport road
Date: 15 Oct 92 20:48:11 GMT
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Hercegovina (UPI) -- Bosnian forces barricaded the
airport access road Thursday in violation of a promise to U.N. peace-
keeping forces, totally halting U.N. humanitarian aid deliveries in what
was described as a defensive operation to block a planned Serbian
offensive, U.N. officials said.
Bosnian forces moved a large cargo container across the main airport
access road around noon Thursday and rejected U.N. requests that they
remove it, U.N. Protection Force spokesman Mik Magnusson said.
The action disrupted what had been a series of calming actions in
recent days in the capital and republic, including a reduction in
shelling, a halt in flights by Serbian warplanes and signs that long-
severed utility supplies were being restored.
``I think it (the shelling of Sarajevo) has probably dropped down to
the lowest point its been in the six months of the siege,'' said British
Col. Richard Mole, chief of the 60-member U.N. military observers unit
assigned to Sarajevo.
UNPROFOR officials, in their daily survey, said only 11 rounds of
large artillery were fired onto Serbian-controlled areas around Sarajevo
and 41 rounds reached Bosnian-controlled territory during the 24-hour
period that ended at 5 p.m. Wednesday.
However the blockade of the airport access road violated an agreement
of free passage for U.N. convoys that both Serbian and Bosnian forces
had accepted this summer when the Serbs willingly turn over control of
the airport to U.N. forces.
It cut off the route used both by truck convoys delivering U.N. aid
to the besieged Bosnian capital along land routes and the route used by
trucks ferrying in aid unloaded from planes reaching the airport.
U.N. officials met Bosnian military leaders in the afternoon and
asked that the blockade be removed, but the Bosnians refused and
suggested the U.N trucks use an alternate route, Magnusson said.
The U.N. officials said they could not begin any new route without
first completing a safety survey and getting the approval of all sides
in the conflict, he said.
A spokesman for the U.N. High Commission for Refugees said the new
route proposed by the Bosnians was ``very circuitous'' and of unknown
safety.
``We can't really judge the long-term consequences'' of the blockade,
said UNHCR spokesman Michael Keats, ``but in light of the serious
situation Sarajevo is facing, this does not help matters as winter is
setting in.''
The UNHCR has been trying to catch up on its program for supplying
Sarajevo with winter stocks of food and medicines after a month-long
interruption in the humanitarian airlift prompted by the shooting down
Sept. 3 of an Italian flight over Croat-controlled territory west of the
capital.
Eight trucks arrived in the city along the land route Thursday before
the blockade was installed and these were forced to spend the night in
Sarajevo, UNHCR officials said.
Three planes arrived at the airport during the day, they said.
Also Thursday, fighting continued across northern parts of the
republic, where Serbian forces were trying to maintain control of a land
corridor connecting the Serbian republic with the large Serb-controlled
region of northwest Bosnia-Hercegovina, Sarajevo Radio reported.
Some 1,400 rounds of artillery were fired Thursday at Gradacac, where
seven people were killed and 16 injured, the radio said. The towns of
Brcko, Maglaj and Celic also faced artillery and infantry attacks, the
radio said.
Artillery attacks also were reported against the southern town of
Capljina and the city of Mostar, which faced its heaviest barrage in a
week, the radio said.
Bosnian forces in Sarajevo fought off Serbian infantry attacks
Thursday in the western regions of Otes and Azici, the radio said.
The ground fighting followed one day after U.N. peace envoy Cyrus
Vance told the U.N. Security Council that Bosnian Serbs appeared to be
abiding by the flight ban it imposed Friday.
Earlier Thursday, Sarajevo residents expressed relief that gas
supplies were restored following a 10-day disconnection somewhere inside
Serbian-controlled territory.
``Great, it at least means now I can cook,'' said Nedzad Masala, who
found the gas turned back on at his home in the city's old town section.
``But unfortunately the pressure is too low to turn on the heat,'' he
said.
The Bosnian government also said electricity was restored in the town
of Jajce after a 32-day outage. The reconnections indicated Serbian
forces may be respecting U.N. pleas to stop manipulating civilian
services for military ends in Bosnian conflict.
But Sarajevo still remained without many key utilities, including
electricity, most of its water service and much of its telephone
service.
Bosnian military leaders were refusing to attend U.N.-mediated talks
with their Serbian counterparts until both electricity and water were
restored in the capital.
In Geneva a summit of leaders of the former Yugoslavia appeared
Thursday to be shaping up for the weekend and early next week as leaders
of Croatia, Bosnia-Hercegovina and federal Yugoslavia announced plans to
be in town.
However Derek Boothby, a spokesman for Cyrus Vance and Lord David
Owen, the joint United Nations and European Community mediators in the
ongoing conflict in Bosnia-Hercegovina, said he was unable to provide a
detailed schedule of who would be meeting whom.
Radovan Karadzic, leader of the Bosnian Serbs, has spent the week in
Geneva and was scheduled to meet Friday with federal Yugoslav Prime
Minister Milan Panic to discuss the transfer of Serbian planes from
Bosnia to federal Yugoslavia -- a task Boothby said he hopes can be
completed by the weekend.
novine.101.bale.,
Tape Transcript Describes Last Moments of KAL 007 (Moscow)
By John-Thor Dahlburg
(c) 1992, Los Angeles Times
MOSCOW _ Nine years after they were killed by a
Soviet warplane, the crew of Korean Airlines Flight 007 can
now be heard again, gripped by terror and bewilderment, as
they plunge to their deaths in the frigid waters of the Sea
of Japan.
``Get it up!'' cries one voice in the cockpit,
after two heat-seeking missiles slam into the Boeing 747 and
it starts losing altitude.
``It's not working!'' someone protests.
Anyone who has flown can visualize only too
graphically the sheer pan ic of the 269 people aboard by
extrapolating from the sounds and voices captured by the
jet's cockpit voice recorder.
Suddenly, at 35,000 feet, there is smoke. A
recorded message, in Engl ish, Japanese and Korean, kicks
in: ``Emergency descent. Fasten seat belts. Put on oxygen
masks.''
``I'm Korean Air 007. Don't break off contact,
give instructions!'' a voice calls from the plummeting
jetliner, vainly seeking help by radio from flight
controllers in faraway Tokyo.
The crew apparently does not know their aircraft
has been attacked af ter entering Soviet airspace over the
island of Sakhalin early on Sept. 1, 1983.
In as few as 75 seconds, Flight 007 will be no more.
``We've got rapid (de)compression,'' continues the
message for assist ance. ``I'm going down to 10,000.''
Tokyo radios back: ``Korean Air 007, don't
understand, don't understa nd you.''
It is already too late.
Five seconds later, the tape from the Boeing's
cockpit voice recorder abruptly ends, according to a formerly
top-secret Russian-language translation handed by President
Boris N. Yeltsin to U.S. and South Korean officials and
published Thursday by the Izvestia daily.
The esteemed Moscow newspaper, whose own
investigation last year into the shoot-down of KAL 007 blew
away much of the official Kremlin propaganda, said that the
transcript and other released papers prove incontrovertibly
that a passenger jet, and not a military spy plane, as some
conspiratorially minded Soviets maintained, was destroyed.
But the documents released nine years after the
tragedy leave many tr oubling questions unsolved _ including
why the Boeing was 300 miles off its usual flight path, and
how its cockpit crew could not have realized that fact if its
motives were totally innocent.
``One thing definitely beats me: how a crew of
experienced pilots sta yed quite a ways off course for about
five hours, and never even bothered to check,'' said Nikolai
V. Burbyga, an Izvestia reporter who has specialized in the
KAL tragedy. ``Of course, under any circumstances, the Soviet
side had no right by any standard, moral or military, to
shoot down what was all too obviously a passenger plane. ...
``But somebody must have deliberately sent the
plane on an off-course route with the likely aim of probing
Soviet defenses in this area, believing they wouldn't dare
shoot down a passenger plane,'' Burbyga said.
``This `somebody' must share equal responsibility.
The Americans stil l keep their archives closed on this
subject. Why don't they open up, as we have?''
A South Korean Foreign Ministry official, speaking
in Seoul, complain ed that the files handed over by Yeltsin
on Wednesday were incomplete. The voice recorder transcript,
for example, was very fragmentary.
``There was nothing in the information received
that we did not alrea dy know,'' the South Korean
representative said.
Dissatisfied officials in Seoul said that they
want the recorder itse lf to help determine why the plane was
destroyed. The Itar-Tass news agency said that the apparatus
would be handed over to U.S. and South Korean representatives
in Moscow.
The documents released by Yeltsin and published in
Izvestia show the Kremlin's overwhelming desire to cover up
all evidence that did not square with its loudly proclaimed
thesis that Flight 007 was on a U.S.-South Korean spy mission.
``We haven't succeeded in receiving direct
evidence of the espionage nature of the plane's flight,''
Defense Minister Dmitri F. Ustinov and KGB Chairman Viktor M.
Chebrikov admitted in a top-secret report to Soviet leader
Yuri V. Andropov in December 1983.
Nevertheless, the two officials concluded the
violation of Soviet air space must have been ``premeditated''
as a way of probing local air defenses, and surmised that the
crew was radioing false positions to give itself an alibi in
the event the plane was forced down by Soviet fighters.
Tellingly, Ustinov and Chebrikov recommended that
the Soviet Union ke ep the flight recorder data secret
because they could be used to buttress American claims just
as well as the Kremlin's, and might ignite a ``new round of
anti-Soviet hysteria.''
Among the other revelations in the formerly
top-secret documents:
_For years, including those of Mikhail S.
Gorbachev's tenure as Sovie t leader, the Soviets denied that
they had found the cockpit voice recorder and flight data
recorder. In reality, the ``black boxes'' were dredged up a
month and half after the plane's destruction, in the
600-foot-deep waters of the Sea of Japan. To deceive the
world, search parties feigned to continue the hunt.
_The Soviet fighter-interceptor did not attempt to
make radio contact with KAL 007 before it opened fire, as
Kremlin officials long claimed. Because that is evident from
flight recorder data, experts from the defense and aviation
ministries and KGB recommended keeping the recorders'
recovery a secret.
U.S. Stops Selling `Mein Kampf' at Military Bookstores in Germany
(Bonn)
By Steve Vogel
Special to The Washington Post
BONN, Germany _ Under pressure from the German
government, U.S. offic ials have stopped selling ``Mein
Kampf,'' Hitler's Nazi blueprint, at military bookstores in
Germany.
The U.S. military command in Europe pulled all
copies of the book fro m the shelves of its 150 bookstores in
Germany this month after the Foreign Ministry complained the
Americans were breaking the law by selling it.
``It is an agreement to get out of the `Mein
Kampf' business in Germa ny completely,'' said John
Kominicki, a spokesman for Stars and Stripes, the U.S.
military newspaper that operates a chain of bookstores for
the nearly 200,000 American service personnel and their
families stationed in Europe. The book is still available at
Stars and Stripes bookstores elsewhere in Europe.
German officials contended that the United States
was ignoring laws restricting sales of the book in this
country, and was violating the German copyright owned by the
state of Bavaria since 1951. ``It's simply a sensible step,''
a Foreign Ministry official said.
In the past, the U.S. military had insisted that
its installations we re exempt from restrictions on ``Mein
Kampf,'' which has been available to service personnel since
the mid-1960s. About 1,000 copies a year have been sold at
Stars and Stripes bookstores, according to Kominicki,
generally to soldiers interested in military history.
U.S. military spokespersons denied that American
troops are being sub jected to censorship. ``It's a copyright
problem, not a political problem,'' said a spokeswoman for
the Army's V Corps in Frankfurt.
The sale of ``Mein Kampf,'' which means ``My
Struggle,'' is not, as popularly believed, completely banned
in Germany. The law prohibits the distribution of literature
that advocates Nazism and racial hatred.
But Germany's highest court ruled in 1979 that
copies dating back to 1945 or earlier were of historical
value, and they are still occasionally sold in used-book
shops. In addition, special ``commentated'' editions are
available for scholarly research.
The book's removal from Stars and Stripes
bookstores followed a lette r sent by the German Foreign
Ministry to the U.S. Embassy in Bonn in August protesting the
sale of the book.
``The embassy did receive a request ... from the
foreign office, poin ting out that the state of Bavaria holds
exclusive rights to the sale and distribution of `Mein Kampf'
in Germany, and that the state does not agree to the sale and
distribution of the book in Germany,'' said Capt. Gordon
Peterson, a spokesman for the U.S. European Command
headquarters in Stuttgart. ``The relevant issue is German
law.''
After lawyers for the command researched the
matter and confirmed Bav aria holds copyright, Stars and
Stripes pulled all copies off its shelves in Germany Oct. 1.
But four years ago, when the controversy last
flared up during the da ys before German unification,
American officials ruled differently.
The issue arose in 1988 after a German television
journalist went int o a Stars and Stripes bookstore in
Berlin, and was shown emerging from the store with a copy of
``Mein Kampf.''
``It made a gigantic scandal,'' a Foreign Ministry
official said.
The book was pulled then from the shelves by order
of U.S. officials, but following a legal review, military
lawyers concluded that its sale on U.S. installations did not
violate German law, and the book was restocked.
U.S. officials said the difference this time is
that the German gover nment has raised the copyright
question, and that in the past the controversy ``was not
raised as a government-to-government issue,'' Peterson said.
But one American official familiar with the issue
complained that the military and Stars and Stripes had
``wimped out'' under pressure from the German government.
U.S. officials ``sort of saw the writing on the wall and saw
they were determined to stamp this out,'' he said.
Hitler wrote ``Mein Kampf'' while imprisoned after
the failure of his 1923 Beer Hall Putsch. Amid diatribes
against Jews, he outlined his plans in the book for
conquering Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union.
Bavaria took custody of Hitler's property and
copyrights after the war.
novine.102.bale.,
Yugoslav Leader Urges Serbian President to Step Down (Belgrade)
By Carol J. Williams
(c) 1992, Los Angeles Times
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia _ Serbian strongman Slobodan
Milosevic suffered a serious blow to his already waning power
and prestige Friday when Yugoslav President Dobrica Cosic,
the ideological godfather of Serbs, called on him to resign
for the good of the nation.
Cosic's denunciation of the Serbian president
kicks away the last maj or pillar of political support under
the Milosevic regime, which stands accused of fomenting
ethnic bloodshed in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina and of
exposing Serbs to international scorn and financial ruin.
The federal president's action also draws an
unmistakable battle line between the new Yugoslav leadership
and the bellicose nationalists still siding with Milosevic.
But in a disturbing sign that Milosevic will fight
the intensified ef forts to oust him, radical backers used a
publicly broadcast parliamentary debate to pounce on Cosic
and Prime Minister Milan Panic for allegedly selling out the
interests of Serbs now divided among several pieces of
fractured Yugoslavia.
Milosevic still controls a wide network of
warlords and secret police , especially in volatile Kosovo
Province where ethnic tensions are on the verge of explosion.
As the conflict at the highest levels of power sharpens, many
fear that the Serbian president may be willing to take his
nation down with him in a desperate attempt to cling to power.
In an interview with the main Belgrade daily
Politika, Cosic said tha t he and Milosevic ``differ
essentially in our understanding of democracy'' and how to
rescue Yugoslavia from the pain and humiliation of U.N.
sanctions.
``If people wrote and spoke at home and abroad
about my resignation a s they do about Slobodan Milosevic, I
would resign,'' Cosic told Politika, which until recently was
a mouthpiece for Milosevic and his Serbian Socialist Party.
Cosic, a revered nationalist writer, was the
inspiration for Milosevi c's powerful rallying cry that all
Serbs have the right to remain together in one nation,
despite the independence votes taken in other republics that
were once part of Yugoslavia.
After Croatia seceded in June 1991, Belgrade
funneled troops and arms into predominantly Serbian areas of
the republic to support insurrection. More than 10,000 were
killed on Croatian battlefields last year.
Serbian guerrillas also rushed to the side of
their fellow militants in Bosnia after Slavic Muslims and
Croats voted for independence in March. Fierce fighting in
the ravaged republic continues, with the official six-month
death toll at more than 14,000, another 50,000 people listed
as missing and presumed dead and nearly 2 million forced from
their homes by gunfire and ``ethnic cleansing.''
U.N. sanctions were imposed May 30 on what is left
of Yugoslavia, the republics of Serbia and Montenegro, in
hopes of pressuring Belgrade to cease supply and
encouragement of the deadly sieges in Bosnia.
President Bush symbolically increased the pressure
Friday, signing a bill that deprives Yugoslavia of
most-favored-nation trade status. The trade status allows the
lowest U.S. tariffs for a country's exports to the United
States but with the U.N. embargo in place, the move is merely
an expression of U.S. displeasure.
The global oil and trade embargo have begun to
inconvenience many Ser bs, whose bankrolling of the recent
wars had already sapped their economy.
Hyperinflation, rampant unemployment and fuel
shortages have eroded s upport for Milosevic and prompted
former allies like Cosic to distance themselves from him in
hopes of surviving a looming popular revolt.
But the heavily armed secret police and
paramilitary forces ruling Ko sovo and some parts of
vanquished Bosnia remain loyal to Milosevic.
More Trouble for Gorbachev: Institute Accused of Tax Fraud (Moscow)
By John-Thor Dahlburg
(c) 1992, Los Angeles Times
MOSCOW _ Should anyone doubt how fleeting the
honors of this world ar e, consider the most recent twists of
fate in the life and reputation of the 1990 Nobel Peace Prize
laureate, Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev.
The former Soviet president flew out of Moscow
Friday afternoon on a commercial flight to attend the funeral
in Berlin of yet another Nobel Peace winner, former West
German Chancellor Willy Brandt.
Most probably, Gorbachev was glad to go, even if
it was to attend the burial of a friend.
For only a few hours before takeoff, yet more
anti-Gorbachev charges were filling the Russian media. The
think tank on Moscow's Leningradsky Prospekt that he heads
has now been accused of tax fraud and cooking the books on a
massive scale.
According to the weekly publication Arguments and
Facts, Yuri Danilev sky, head of financial inspection for the
Russian Finance Ministry, has charged after an audit that the
Gorbachev Foundation dodged payments to state of at least 7.2
million rubles, or about $22,500, in the first quarter of 1992.
Danilevsky said that although the supposed
non-profit foundation repo rted losses, it actually made the
equivalent of $70,000 in profits. Through bookkeeping
gymnastics, the government auditor said, the foundation did
not pay profit taxes or a valued-added tax of $119,000 on its
hotels and subleases.
The image of Gorbachev as an alleged tax deadbeat
was just the latest indignity suffered by the former Kremlin
leader, who has already had 75,000 of the 85,000 square feet
occupied by his foundation seized by the Russian government.
He also had his passport impounded, although an exception was
made to allow him to attend the rites for Brandt.
Earlier this week, the head of Constitutional
Court called Gorbachev a liar in everything but name. And his
old nemesis, Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin, delivered a
body blow to Gorbachev's good name by charging that he hid
important information about the 1983 shooting down of a
Korean passenger plane and the slaughter of more than 21,000
Polish officers by Stalin's secret police in 1940.
Valery D. Zorkin, chairman of the Constitutional
Court, has been tryi ng unsuccessfully to force Gorbachev to
testify before the tribunal.
Thursday, Gorbachev vehemently denied covering up
anything and said t hat the ``special file'' he supposedly
concealed was actually an entire roomful of 1,500 to 2,000
documents that he could not have possibly read.
Yeltsin's government countered Friday that a memo
from Valentin M. Fa lin, former chief of the Communist
Party's International Department, dated Feb. 22, 1990, and
signed by Gorbachev, showed that he was ``fully informed''
about the massacre of the Poles.
Whatever the truth, the way much of the world
looks at the statesman who made glasnost, or openness, his
clarion call has probably been altered.
It was only two years ago that the Norwegian Nobel
Committee praised Gorbachev thus: ``During the past few
years, dramatic changes have taken place in the relationship
between East and West. Confrontation has been replaced by
negotiations. Old European nations have regained their
freedom. ...'' No single person could have done all that, the
committee said, but no one was more responsible than Gorbachev.
World leaders overwhelmingly agreed, but at home
in the disintegratin g Soviet Union, many citizens lashed out
at Gorbachev as an ineffectual reformer, closet Communist
tyrant or run-of-the-mill Russian chauvinist.
Gorbachev denies he believes that he is ``God
Almighty,'' but wants n o part of what he calls a show trial.
novine.103.bale.,
FOREIGN PRESS BUREAU, October 16, 1992
ZAGREB - The Croatian parlaiment continues to meet for the third day
today with the main topic of discussion being the proposal to revoke
parlaimentary immunity for three of their colleages from the Croatian
Party of Rights (HSP). If the revocation is passed and the members are
stripped of their immunity, they will then be brought up on charges of
crimes against the government and country while forming and arming a
military force within their party. The three members are Dobroslav
Paraga, Ante Dapic, and Ante Prkacin. A spokesman for the HSP said this
process should not be allowed due to an amnesty law that has been passed
by the Croatian government.
SARAJEVO, B-H - Heavy fighting continued into the night Thursday as
Muslim and Serbian forces battle for control of key areas of the city.
The suburb of Stup was under attack today as Serb forces try to gain
control of the main road towards the airport. If successful, the Serbs
would then be able to link their forces in Ilizda in the western part of
the city with forces stationed to the south, in Vogosca. Power service
was restored to most of the city last night. Radio Sarajevo reported
most institutions, including the hospital, were back on line while other
buildings are expected to be on the main circuits within two days.
Engineers in the city also indicated that water service could be
returned in about a week after all electricity is restored. Gas service
was also restored to parts of the city after Serbian forces reopened a
pipeline running into Sarajevo. While utility services are slowly being
restored to the city, the inhabitants remain skeptical of such services
continuing. In the past, Serbian forces have demonstrated a willingness
to use utility services as a weapon against the residents of the city by
restoring then cutting service. A senior UN official, Mr. Cedric Thorn-
berry, said yesterday he feared it was already too late to save tens of
thousands of lives of people who would perish this winter. In what has
been the strongest warning yet, Mr. Thornberry indicated that it was no
longer a question of preventing people from dying this winter but now a
matter of reducing the number of deaths as much as possible. At the
same time, the deployment of British troops has been stepped up and the
initial contingent of some 2,500 peacekeepers arrived in Split today.
TUZLA, B-H - Tuzla came under attack on Thursday when Serbian forces
opened artillery fire on the town. Apartment buildings ad the indus-
trial zone were the hardest hit with extensive damage reported.
Although there have been reports of people wounded, casualty figures are
not available.
GRADACAC, B-H - The northeastern Bosnian town remained under heavy
attack from Serbian artillery and tank units. The entire defense line
was targeted as well as the town itself and several outlying villages.
Infantry attacks received support from Serbian tanks but were repelled
by defense forces. The information center in Gradacac also advised that
Belgrade radio and television have been claiming the capture of Grada-
cac. The center added that some defense positions have been pulled back
but the town is not in Serbian hands.
BRCKO, B-H - The entire Brcko region was under sustained attack on
Thursday from Serbian artillery. The town, outlying villages, and
defense positions were targeted in the shelling, while infantry clashes
were also taking place.
JAJCE, B-H - Bosnian radio reports that a ceasefire took place yesterday
at 7:00am to allow ameeting to take place between the Jajce and Mrkonjic
Grad branches of the Red Cross to arrange for an exchange of prisoners
and the dead. Mrkonjic Grad officials turned over the bodies of 6
members of the Jajce defense force. Another ceasefire is scheduled for
Monday Oct. 19th to allow civilians who wish to leave Jajce, Sipovo, and
Mrkonjic Grad to do so. Attacks were renewed overnight with mortar fire
reported in Jajce while Serbian forces attempted an infantry advance on
the front lines.
BIHAC, B-H - The center of town was hit by some 20 mortar shells in
attacks Thursday evening. Attacks have taken place throughout the day
with heavy shelling reported along defense lines and surrounding vil-
lages. Material damage in these villages is heavy and several people
were wounded.
MOSTAR, B-H - The northern part of the city came under artillery fire
Thursday afternoon. The medical hospital reported no injuries. The
Croatian Defense Council (HVO) positions around Mostar, Capljina, and
Stolac were also targeted in attacks yesterday but details regarding
casualties are not available.
NEW YORK - The foreign minister of Bosnia-Hercegovina, Mr. Haris
Silajdzic, asked United Nations Secretary General Butros- Ghali and UN
negotiator Cyrus Vance yesterday to use their influence to lift the arms
embarge against his republic. Mr. Silajdzic said that there are so many
who are dead yet so many excuses. He said they have never asked for
ground troops, or for anyone else to die for them, but only to lift the
embargo, and he added that the world did not have to give them weapons,
they would buy them. The foreign minister said that Bosnia-Hercegovina
was being denied the right to defend itself against the Belgrade regime.
Mr. Silajdzic said he had evidence that Serbian forces were being with-
drawn from Croatia into Bosnia, especially the trops leaving the Prev-
laka peninsula under a UN arranged agreement. Mr Vance indicated that
he was unwilling to assist in lifting the arms embargo because it would
only fuel the conflict. Mr. Silajdzic went on to say that a disaster of
gigantic and historic proportions was and still is taking place in
Bosnia, with more than 600,000 thousand people killed or forced from
their homes as a result of the Serbian policy known as ethnic cleansing.
Other officials with Mr. Silajdzic said that by their calculations
613,000 civilians who had in no way participated in the fighting are
either dead or forced from homes. One anthropology professor said that
he has evidence that in August 5,000 people were forced into crematori-
ums and burned alive at three concentration camps in Tomashica. The
Sarajevo government has established an institute for investigating war
crimes and will prepare a report for the War Crimes Commission being
established by the Security Council. Later in the day, the Security
Council issued a statement expressing great emosion at the tragic
incident which cost the life of a Ukranian "blue helmet" on October 10
and left three others seriously wounded. The members of the council
also expressed their concern about the continuation of hostile actions
committed against members of UNPROFOR.
novine.104.bale.,
Contribution by: Sejo_od_Bosne
Tamo daleko
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Tamo daleko,daleko na Balkanu
moja "BOSNA" je u ratnome stanju,
uzdise jeci i u nesvjest pada
i sve to zbog mrskog srbina gada.
Taj isti zlotvor sto rusi i pali
htio bih s njome da se dici i hvali,
kao bajagi ona mu trba
zbog,radi srbskih Velikih zelja.
Raseliti narod, sve sto srbsko nije
unistiti Crkve i Dzamije,
drumove nase i mostove mnoge
Srbski je moto Civilizacije - Slobode.
O, zlotvore kleti, bez ljudske vrline
nestat ce i tvoje krvolocne sile,
a onda se pazte prokleti bili
oprosta vam nema u "BOSNIJI"
SEJO
novine.105.bale.,
New YorkTimes: Editorials Friday October 16
HOW TO SLOW THE SLAUGHTER
While Americans focus increasingly on who will win on Nov. 3,
embattled Bosnians worry about a simpler question: Will they
live that long?
Serbia's planes continue to pound Bosnia's towns. Brutal ethnic
cleansing accelerates in northern Bosnia after Croatia's forces
nominally allied to Bosnia, faithlessly abandoned the area to
Serb control. Short of fuel as winter apporache, panicky resi-
dents of Sarajevo chop down the city's trees. Cyrus Vance, the
United nations mediator, warns of a catastrophe of "untold dimen-
sions" unless the world acts soon.
Steadily, a question inscibes itself ever deeper into American
and Wetsren consciences: Is the world doing all it can at least
to slow the slaughter of the people of Bosnia?
There are five ways for the wolrd to help:
ESTABLISH A PROMPT U.N. PRESENCE. British, French and Canadian
troops have been slow to move in as promised. They can monitor
the border and keep Serbian troops from attacking northern
Bosnia. They can secure corridors for urgently needed food and
medicine. Their very presence can reassure residents who
might otherwise enlarge the refugee tide. When will the troops
finally get there?
ENFORCE THE NO-FLY ZONE. U.S. planes observe continuing Serbian
sorties against unprotected Bosnian towns. They need U.N. autho-
rity to shoot down helicopters as well as fixed-wing planes.
REPEAL THE ARMS EMBARGO. The Serbs and others have all the arms
they need, and can circumvent the embargo to get more. The present
embargo disarms only Bosnia. The U.S. can persuade the Security
Council to drop the embargo, then help arm the Bosnians with big
guns to resist aggression.
SPEED UP RELIEF SUPPLIES. People in Sarajevo and other Bosnian
towns will die by the hundreds of thousands this winter unless
they get food, water and heat. Yet Serbs have only now opened
natural gas pipelines and they still permit only a trickle of
water to flow. And the U.N. relief effort is behind schedule
and underequipped, providing what one western diplomat derides
as merely "the illusion of action". For instance, only 87 of the
requisitioned 200 trucks have arrived.
TAKE IN REFUGEES. Neighboring Croatia has been hospitable but is
owerwhelmed by refugees fleeing the fighting in Bosnia. Other
countries need to help, especially the U.S. and Britain, which
have so far slammed their doors.
The world shrinks from waging a war of conscience against the
slaughter. How will Americans and others answer, after the
election, after the winter, after thousand more have perished?
novine.106.bale.,
Iz propovedi Patrijarha Pavla,
u crkvi Svetog Save, San Gabriel, Kalifornija
17. oktobra 1992, sa pocetkom u 17 casova
[ "...ako treba da stradamo, neka bude na putu pravde,
bez mrznje prema ikome..." (iz sluzbe)]
Patrijarh Pavle:
Braco i sestre, po veri i po krvi... Mi ponekad kazemo, da zivimo
u neko drugo, bolje vreme, pokazali bi vise i bolje od ovoga sto jesmo.
Ali to je samo izgovor. Jer ne zivimo mi slucajno u vremenu u kome zivimo,
takva je volja bozja... Nase je da ucinimo onoliko koliko mozemo. O svemu
drugome Bog vodi racuna.
...U nasem starome kraju se strada, proliva se krv i Srba, i Hrvata,
i Muslimana... Nase je, ne da se ne branimo, vec da to cinimo kao ljudi,
kao narod bozji, kao ne-ljudi, nikada! Samo tako mozemo da sacuvamo nas
obraz, nase grobove i nasu zemlju.
...Neprijatelji nasi su nam cesto govorili da ja to pozivam narod
srpski na osvetu, da ubijaju Hrvate, da progone i istrebljuju Muslimane...
Nikada! Osveta ne pripada nama, osveta je Bozja...
...Nasa vera, vera nasih otaca, nasa muka i stradanja, oni nama
govore da po cenu jedne nove Jadovne, jednog novog Jasenovca, Velika Srbija
ne moze i ne treba da se stvori. I ne samo Velika nego ni Mala...
...Budimo ljudi...A ne da se onome kome je puska izbijena iz ruku
vade oci, pore grudi, da se zivi i mrtvi bacaju u jame... Mi znamo sta su
jame! ...Samo ako smo ljudi, ako smo narod bozji, mozemo se opravdati i
pred svetom, i pred precima, i pred Bogom.
...Kao sto je rekla Jevrosima majka: "...bolje ti je sine izgubiti
glavu, nego danas izgubiti dusu!" Dusu mozete izgubiti i vi ovde, u dalekoj
zemlji, kao i narod u nevolji u starome kraju.
...Mislite da vas odozgo sa neba gledaju oci nasih napacenih predaka,
iznad njih nebo sa ocima andjela, a iznad njih, jedno, svevidece oko bozje...
pred njegov sud mozemo da izadjemo samo sa pravdom, istinom i covecnoscu...
...Ovo je moja poruka vama, ovde u dalekoj zemlji, i nasem narodu u
otadzbini...
novine.107.bale.,
RFE/RL Daily Report
No. 200, October 16, 1992
SUCCESSOR STATES TO THE USSR
GORBACHEV DENIES KNOWLEDGE OF KATYN DOCUMENTS. At a news
conference in Moscow on 15 October, Mikhail Gorbachev denied prior
knowledge of the decision of Stalin's Politburo to have 20,000
Polish officers massacred in 1940, the "Novosti" TV newscast
reported. The previous day, Yeltsin's representatives persuaded
the Constitution Court to accept documents alleged to prove the
personal responsibility of Gorbachev in a cover-up of the Stalin
leadership. Gorbachev said he obtained access to the files at the
same time Yeltsin did, in late 1991. In April 1990, Gorbachev gave
a number of previously top secret documents showing Soviet
responsibility for the massacre to then Polish President Wojciech
Jaruzelski. (Julia Wishnevsky, RFE/RL Inc.)
GORBACHEV TO BE PROSECUTED FOR REFUSAL TO TESTIFY? Gorbachev also
told the press conference that the chairman of the Constitutional
Court, Valerii Zorkin, had threatened him with a criminal charge
for his refusal to testify at the hearing on the Communist Party.
Apparently Zorkin intends to punish Gorbachev twice for the same
thing: he has already tried to fine the former Soviet president
100 rubles for refusal to testify. (Julia Wishnevsky, RFE/RL Inc.)
GORBACHEV VOICES HARSH CRITICISM OF YELTSIN. Mikhail Gorbachev was
quoted in two French publications on 15 October as saying that
Boris Yeltsin was dangerous, destructive and incompetent.
L'Evenement du Jeudi quoted Gorbachev as saying the Yeltsin
administration was "heading toward dictatorship." He said Yeltsin
was "a destroyer, not a builder" and "he knows neither how to use
his power nor how to delegate it." In an interview with Paris
Match, Gorbachev said many of the democrats who surround Yeltsin
"are thieves and looters--and they are not even good at their
jobs." Western and Russian agencies reported the same day that the
Russian ambassador to Italy was told by the Italian government
that Italy was very surprised and concerned that Gorbachev was
forbidden to travel to Italy by the Russian leadership. (Vera
Tolz, RFE/RL Inc.)
ABKHAZ PEACE TALKS DEADLOCKED. Talks in Moscow on 15 October
between Russian Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev and his Georgian
counterpart Aleksandre Chikvaidze failed to produce a mutually
acceptable formula for resolving the conflict in Abkhazia,
ITAR-TASS reported. Kozyrev said he had the impression that both
the Georgian and the Abkhaz side were still relying on the use of
force. Georgia is insisting that Abkhaz forces withdraw from Gagra,
while the Abkhaz demand that all Georgian forces should be
withdrawn from Abkhazia as a precondition for a settlement. (Liz
Fuller, RFE/RL Inc.)
YELTSIN ORDERS INVESTIGATION OF PAMYAT ATTACK ON NEWSPAPER.
President Yeltsin ordered an investigation into an attack on
Moskovsky komsomolets by the right-wing nationalist group
"Pamyat." On 13 October, several members of "Pamyat" broke into
the newspaper's office and demanded the names and addresses of
authors whose articles were newspaper critical of the Russian
nationalists. On 15 October, ITAR-TASS quoted Yeltsin's press
secretary as saying that the president "will not tolerate threats
to the free press and will take the necessary measures to prevent
the recurrence of such provocations." Kostikov said that Yeltsin
had ordered the interior and security ministers to investigate the
incident and punish those responsible. (Vera Tolz, RFE/RL Inc.)
SOVIETS WITHHELD DATA ON KOREAN AIRLINER. The long-secret files
connected with the 1983 downing of a Korean Airlines 747 show that
Soviet officials had refused to admit they had the airplane's
inflight recorder since information in the so-called "black box"
did not support their claim that the airliner was on a spying
mission over Soviet territory. Parts of these files were published
in Izvestiya on 16 October. UPI reports that they show that Soviet
ships mounted a phony hunt in the Sea of Japan for the recorder to
make the Americans and Japanese think they had not found it. The
black box recorded the Korean crew's conversations and radio
transmissions--which gave no hint of any intelligence mission.
(Doug Clarke, RFE/RL Inc.)
RUSSIANS WARN ANOTHER GREENPEACE SHIP. Four days after seizing a
Greenpeace ship in the Kara Sea, Russian border guards on 16
October warned Greenpeace's Rainbow Warrior that it was violating
Russian waters en route to Nakhodka on the Pacific Coast. Western
agencies report that a Greenpeace spokesman in Moscow said that
the ship was gathering data on pollution near Vladivostok and its
route had been approved in advance by Russian authorities. He said
that the Russian Navy had tried to stop the ship from entering the
submarine base at Chashma, near Vladivostok, despite a Greenpeace
permit for the visit. The crew was allowed to measure ITAR-TASS
reported that the ship seized on 12 October, the (Doug Clarke,
RFE/RL Inc.)
YELTSIN CALLS FOR MORE POWERS FOR RUSSIAN REPUBLICS. The leaders
of the republics of the Russian Federation agreed unanimously on
15 October to set up a council of the heads of the republics under
the chairmanship of Russian president Boris Yeltsin, ITAR-TASS and
Interfax reported. The decision was announced after a meeting with
Yeltsin that ended a two-day meeting attended by representatives
of all the republics apart from Chechnya and Ingushetia. Yeltsin
called for an expansion of the powers of the republics beyond
those outlined in the Federal Treaty, while the republican leaders
in their turn expressed their support for the territorial
integrity of the Russian Federation. The new council, which comes
under the aegis of the Security Council, will participate in
working out all important decisions, but the final decision will
rest with the president. (Ann Sheehy, RFE/RL Inc.)
UNION OF INDUSTRIALISTS AND ENTREPRENEURS FAVORS "HARSH" FORM OF
FEDERATION. While Yeltsin was proposing concessions to the
republics to preserve Russia's territorial integrity, Arkadii
Volsky, president of the Russian Union of Industrialists and
Entrepreneurs, presented a report by the Union's experts which
said that a "harsh" form of federation, providing for substantial
dependence of the regions on the center, was necessary to preserve
the unity of the state, ITAR-TASS reported. Volsky stressed that
reforms in Russia were impossible without strong power. The report
said it was necessary to work out a new, more precise concept of
federalism capable of realizing the transition to the market. (Ann
Sheehy, RFE/RL Inc.)
NUCLEAR ARMS REDUCTION TALKS STALL. Western news agencies reported
on 15 October that new Russian positions are delaying efforts to
codify the June 1992 US-Russian agreement on nuclear weapons
reduction in a treaty. The agreement called for Russian forces to
be reduced to approximately 3000 warheads and for the elimination
of land-based multiple warhead missiles. Russian negotiators have
requested that the US allow it to convert silos for the large
SS-18 missile into silos for the much smaller SS-25 missile. They
have also suggested removing five warheads from the six-warhead
SS-19 in order to convert it to a single-warhead missile. (John
Lepingwell, RFE/RL Inc.)
SOUTH KOREA CONSIDERING ORDERING RUSSIAN ARMS FOR TESTING.
According to an AFP report of 15 October, the South Korean
government is considering ordering samples of Russian arms for
testing and "opposing forces" exercises. Most of North Korea's
arsenal consists of Russian-made weaponry, and the South Korean
Defense Ministry would like to obtain copies in order to determine
their strengths and weaknesses. Since most of South Korea's
weaponry is of Western origin, the arms purchase would be small
and would not be used for combat units. Some of the arms being
considered include MiG-29 fighters, surface-to-air missiles, mines
and torpedoes. (John Lepingwell, RFE/RL Inc.)
RUSSIA REPORTS DRAFT RESULTS, PLANS FOR CONTRACT SERVICE. The
Russian Defense Ministry reports that 7 percent of conscripts
(18,000 persons) failed to report for duty during the spring 1992
draft, more than twice the number of the previous year according
to Interfax on 15 October. Only 38 have been prosecuted for
draft-dodging. In Moscow the sign-up rate was only 9 percent, and
low turnouts were also recorded in the North Caucasus and
Volga-Urals regions. On October 20 the Defense Ministry will
submit to the government a plan for a large contract-service (for
volunteers) experiment to prevent further personnel shortfalls.
The current Russian military reform plan calls for a gradual
transition to a mixed professional and conscript force. (John
Lepingwell, RFE/RL Inc.)
RUSSIAN DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER ON DEFENSE BUDGET, CONVERSION.
According to an Interfax report of 13 October, Russian Deputy
Prime Minister Georgii Khizha criticized conversion efforts and
said that Russian defense production was down "by 67 percent over
an extremely short time period." He said that this drop was
unreasonable and urged that the aerospace industry be given top
priority in conversion because of its scientific and technological
strength. Khizha also suggested that Western governments and firms
make room for Russian exports in order to facilitate the
conversion process. A week earlier, on 8 October, Interfax
reported that Khizha was calling for a 70 billion ruble increase
over current budget plans for defense procurement in 1993. (John
Lepingwell, RFE/RL Inc.)
PROGRESS ON RESOLVING RUSSIAN INTERENTERPRISE DEBT. The Russian
Central Bank seems to be making headway on resolving the
inter-enterprise debt crisis that peaked in mid-summer. The bank
began a process of mutual debt cancellation in late July and early
August that, according to Kommersant No. 36, reduced the volume of
enterprise non-payments from 3.2 trillion in June to just above
500 billion in mid-September. The next stage, according to
Interfax on 15 October, is settling claims on Russian enterprises
from the state budget, banks and enterprises in other CIS states.
The fate of enterprises unable to meet debt payments after all
these transactions is still unclear. (Erik Whitlock, RFE/RL Inc.)
RUBLE's VALUE SLIPS SLIGHTLY. The dollar to ruble exchange rate
dipped to 1:339 from 1:334 on Thursday's trading at the Moscow
Interbank Currency Exchange, Interfax reported on 15 October.
Volume traded was 37.86 million dollars. (Erik Whitlock, RFE/RL
Inc.)
RUSSIA SIGNS AGREEMENT ON REFUGEES. On 6 October the Russian
government signed an agreement with the Office of the UN High
Commissioner for Refugees which provides for the opening of an
office of the UN body in Moscow, ITAR-TASS reported. Vyacheslav
Bakhmin, the Russian Foreign Ministry official who signed the
agreement, said Russia was keen to cooperate with all
international organizations dealing with refugees, since refugees
were a new problem for Russia and it lacked experience and
qualified specialists in this area. In his speech to the Russian
parliament on 6 October, Yeltsin said there were currently more
than 460,000 refugees and a further 700,000 who were involuntarily
resettled on Russian territory. He said that any further delay in
adopting the laws on refugees and those involuntarily resettled
would be amoral. (Ann Sheehy, RFE/RL Inc.)
RUSSIAN "WHITE BOOKS" ON HEALTH AND ENVIRONMENT RELEASED. During
his speech to the parliament on 6 October, Yeltsin mentioned the
completion of two "white books" on health and environmental
problems in Russia. The two books were officially released at a
Moscow news conference on 7 October, ITAR-TASS and Western
agencies reported. The government advisers who briefed the news
conference were quoted as using adjectives such as "appalling,"
"shocking," and "deplorable" to describe the findings. Not only
have the country's health and environment been sadly neglected
over the past 70 years, but their condition continues to worsen
"daily." (Keith Bush, RFE/RL Inc.)
UKRAINIAN INDUSTRIALISTS JOIN FORCES. Heads of Ukrainian
industrial enterprises in the eastern and southern regions of the
country met in Donetsk to form an interregional association,
Ostankino TV's "Novosti" reported on 15 October. The group said
that its disagreement with many political decisions taken in Kiev
was motivated by the serious fall in production, which, they
maintained, could result in the collapse of the economy. The
industrialists characterized the CIS summit in Bishkek as having
yielded little, and criticized Ukraine's decision to leave the
ruble zone. The group announced that it intends to exercise more
influence on politics. (Roman Solchanyk, RFE/RL Inc.)
CEASEFIRE IN TAJIKISTAN BROKEN. A ceasefire between the opposing
sides in the Tajik civil war was broken after only a few hours,
ITAR-TASS reported on 15 October. Supporters of deposed President
Rakhmon Nabiev from Kulyab Oblast took control of a bridge over
the Vakhsh River, apparently as part of their attempt to break the
blockade of Kulyab Oblast by pro-government forces that has
reduced the region to near-starvation. An article in Sobesednik
No. 41 presents a sympathetic picture of the Kulyab fighters, who
are usually dismissed as procommunist; this publication portrays
them as a bulwark against Muslim fundamentalism. (Bess Brown,
RFE/RL Inc.)
CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE
MAZOWIECKI CALLS FOR INTERNATIONAL BROADCASTS TO FORMER
YUGOSLAVIA. UN human rights envoy and former Polish Premier
Tadeusz Mazowiecki ended his visit to BosniaHerzegovina on 15
October, Reuters reported. He said that Croatian Herzegovinian
leader Mate Boban had promised to release all prisoners in his
forces' custody by the end of the following week. Mazowiecki
blamed the Serbian and Croatian media for inciting ethnic hatred,
and called for international independent broadcasting, especially
to Belgrade and Zagreb. (Patrick Moore, RFE/RL Inc.)
BOSNIAN FOREIGN MINISTER WARNS OF "TOTAL DISASTER." An RFE/RL
correspondent on 15 October quoted Haris Silajdzic as again
telling both the UN and the US that Bosnia wanted the arms embargo
lifted so that it might defend itself. He called Sarajevo a
"gigantic death camp." The RFE/RL report also cited
Serbia-Montenegro's Prime Minister Milan Panic as appealing to the
UN partially to lift sanctions to permit vital imports of oil
products for winter fuel. (Patrick Moore, RFE/RL Inc.)
CROATIAN SERBS NOT STICKING TO AGREEMENT. The 16 October issue of
the Los Angeles Times quoted Cedric Thornberry, who heads the UN
civilian affairs office in the former Yugoslavia, as saying there
was not "the slightest sign of demobilization" among Serbian
irregulars and militias in parts of Croatia that are theoretically
under UN control. Under the terms of an agreement negotiated by
Cyrus Vance at the beginning of the year, the Serbs had agreed to
disarm, but Thornberry said that many of the uniformed Serbs were
"small-time gangsters and terrorists" out of control. Croatia
expects to regain the areas eventually, but the Serbian civilians
are firmly opposed to what they regard as Croatian nationalist
rule. The Croatian parliament recently passed an unpopular measure
effectively assuring most Croatian Serbs that they would not be
tried for war crimes, in keeping with Zagreb's pledges to Vance.
But Croatian President Franjo Tudjman is impatient with the UN for
not handing over Serb-held territory to Croatia, and has
threatened not to extend the UN mandate beyond February 1993.
(Patrick Moore, RFE/RL Inc.)
PANIC MEETS KOSOVO SERBS AND RUGOVA. On 15 October Milan Panic,
Prime Minister of the rump Yugoslavia, paid a one day visit to
Pristina, capital of the Serbian province of Kosovo, whose
population is 92% Albanian. According to Radio Serbia, he met with
the commander of the Pristina Corps of the federal Yugoslav Army,
chaired a meeting with Kosovo Serb officials and representatives
of local Serb political parties, and held a closed door meeting
with Ibrahim Rugova, the leader of the main Albanian party, the
Democratic League (LDK) and self-styled President of the Republic
of Kosovo. Panic later told reporters that Albanians had been
"locked out" of Serbian political life and stressed the need to
remedy this situation. Problems could only be solved
"step-by-step." Negotiations with Albanians would continue as
"long as they do not involve the question of independence." Panic
reiterated his promise to reopen Albanianlanguage schools. He also
stated that Rugova did not "demand anything against Serbian
interests." (Milan Andrejevich, RFE/RL Inc.)
WEU SAYS ROMANIA RESPECTS EMBARGO ON FORMER YUGOSLAVIA. A mission
of the West European Union (WEU), which paid a four-day visit to
Romania, said that it had concluded that Romania was respecting
the embargo against former Yugoslavia. The chairman of the
commission, Dudley Smith, said the commission was "very impressed"
by the way in which the embargo was observed. Rompres quoted Smith
on 15 October to say that Romania was implementing the embargo
despite heavy economic losses. (Michael Shafir, RFE/RL Inc.)
UN FACT-FINDING MISSION TO LATVIA. At the request of Latvian
Supreme Council Chairman Anatolijs Gorbunovs, UN Secretary General
Boutros Boutros Ghali is sending UN representatives to look into
alleged discriminatory practices against minorities in Latvia. The
UN group is to be headed by Ibrahima Fall, director of the UN
Human Rights Center in Geneva, an RFE/RL correspondent from New
York reported on 15 October. Boutros-Ghali is also considering
Latvia's request for UN participation in future talks with Russia
on troop withdrawals. (Dzintra Bungs, RFE/RL Inc.)
KATYN CONTROVERSY CONTINUES. Controversy over the role of former
Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev continued to overshadow the
significance for Poland of President Boris Yeltsin's decision to
reveal documents proving that the Soviet Politburo authorized the
execution of over 20,000 Polish prisoners of war in March 1940. In
a letter praising Yeltsin's courage on 15 October, President Lech
Walesa said the decision to acknowledge the full truth "opened a
new chapter in the relations between our nations." Gorbachev
meanwhile sent a letter to Walesa saying that he had learned of
the documents' existence only in December 1991 when he transferred
secret archives to Yeltsin. Gorbachev claimed he was "shocked" at
the documents. The documents turned over to Poland on 14 October
suggest, however, that Gorbachev, like Soviet leaders before him,
was always fully aware of Soviet responsibility for the deaths and
merely strove to limit the political damage of admitting the
truth. (Louisa Vinton, RFE/RL Inc.)
SUCHOCKA DEFENDS ECONOMIC POLICY. In an address to the Senate on
15 October, Prime Minister Hanna Suchocka attempted to correct the
perception that her government is proposing five more years of
belt-tightening. Growth in consumption is possible, but will have
to be modest, and investment will take priority over higher wages.
The point of the government's economic program, Suchocka said, is
that better living standards cannot be achieved unless
productivity rises and products are competitive. Given the state
of the budget, only minimum social security payments could be
raised to compensate fully for inflation. The Senate voted 58 to 8
to approve the policy guidelines. (Louisa Vinton, RFE/RL Inc.)
KISZCZAK HINTS KGB BEHIND POPIELUSZKO MURDER. Testifying on 14
October in the trial of the two secret police generals accused of
inspiring the murder of Father Jerzy Popieluszko in 1984, former
Internal Affairs Minister Czeslaw Kiszczak argued that the crime
was a "provocation" directed against himself and General Wojciech
Jaruzelski. Painting himself as an ally of the Church, Kiszczak
suggested that the four secret policemen convicted of the murder
had had protectors among communist party hard-liners advocating a
bloodier offensive against Solidarity, though he admitted that
phone taps on CC Secretaries Miroslaw Milewski and Stefan
Olszowski, as well as Stanislaw Kociolek had been in vain. He also
hinted at KGB involvement in the murder, contending that the uncle
of one of the murderers was a "classic agent of foreign
intelligence." (Louisa Vinton, RFE/RL Inc.)
LATVIAN COURT REFUSES TO RELEASE OMON LEADER ON BAIL. BNS reported
on 13 October that the court has refused to release OMON leader
Sergei Parfenov on bail. He is standing trial in Riga for abuse of
power while serving in Latvia. Parfenov was extradited from Russia
and he, as well as Russian officials, have expressed the desire
that his case be transferred to Russia. The trial in Riga has
proceeded slowly, especially since several witnesses are not
testifying before the court to everything that they told the
prosecutor during the investigation; the possibility that
witnesses have been intimidated cannot be excluded. Nonetheless,
one former OMON official Herman Glazov upheld his earlier
statements and testified in detail about the brutal measures OMON
used to repress civilians in Latvia. (Dzintra Bungs, RFE/RL Inc.)
STOLOJAN PRESENTS RECORD OF HIS GOVERNMENT. At a press conference
in Bucharest outgoing prime minister Theodor Stolojan presented
his government's achievements during its year in office. As
reported by Radio Bucharest on 15 October, he said that the
government had fulfilled its main political task which was the
holding of free and democratic elections. Stolojan said
authoritarianism could not work in Romania and called on the next
government to pursue both democracy and market reforms. He added
that the economic policies pursued by his administration had been
sound, if unavoidably harsh, and that the liberalization of prices
had to precede privatization in the conditions of transition. The
country's foreign currency reserves had improved and the balance
of trade showed a surplus of 22 million US dollars; inflation had
been pushed down from 19.5% in January to 3.4% in September.
Stolojan said that postponing the next stage of the reforms (as
suggested by president Iliescu) would be wrong. (Michael Shafir,
RFE/RL Inc.)
SEJM APPROVES RADIO AND TV LAW. During a session on 15 October the
Polish Sejm finally approved legislation officially ending the
state monopoly on radio and television. The law which was in
preparation for three years sets up a nine-person national
broadcasting council to oversee the licensing of private
television and radio stations. Three members (including the
chairman) are selected by the president, four by the Sejm, and two
by the Senate. A motion to require that public television and
radio programs respect the "Christian value system" was rejected
by a one-vote margin, but the final version of the law mandates
"respect for viewers' religious feelings" in both public and
commercial broadcasting. Licenses can be withdrawn if programs
threaten Polish culture, national security, or "social norms." The
several pirate stations now operating will be given the
opportunity to legalize their status before penalties for
unauthorized broadcasting take effect. (Louisa Vinton, RFE/RL Inc.)
HUNGARIAN TV CHIEF REMOVES PROGOVERNMENT NEWSMAN. Elemer Hankiss,
embattled chief of Hungarian state television, has dismissed the
pro-government director of a foreign policy program, Alajos
Chrudinak, MTI reported on 15 October. The move came after Hankiss
fired the pro-government director of the evening news program and
amid hot political debate on a new media law. Chrudinak rejected
the decision. The Prime Minister's office expressed shock at
Chrudinak's dismissal and called for his reinstatement. (Karoly
Okolicsanyi, RFE/RL Inc.)
BULGARIA TO RAISE ELECTRICITY PRICES. From 1 November Bulgarian
domestic consumers will be charged 30% more for electricity, the
government decided on 15 October. Chairman of the Committee on
Energy, Lyulin Radulov, told BTA that some institutions, such as
schools and hospitals, would be exempt from the increase, while
commercial users would have to pay 10% more. Explaining the
measure, Radulov said domestic users were currently paying only
50% of actual power costs. (Kjell Engelbrekt, RFE/RL Inc.)
PREPARATIONS FOR THE DIVISION OF THE CZECHOSLOVAK ARMY. Speaking
at a press conference in Prague on 15 October, Czechoslovak
Defense Minister Imrich Andrejcak said that "all technical and
organizational measures needed to split the Czechoslovak army on 1
January 1993 have been prepared." He said that his ministry had
been making preparations for the establishment of Slovakia's
airforce and would soon complete selection of pilots who had
expressed interest in serving in Slovakia's airforce after the
split. Also on 15 October, Peter Svec, a member of the Slovak
parliament's security committee, told journalists in Bratislava
that Slovakia "is already capable of demonstrating some military
strength, even without the Czech Republic's assistance, and thus
deter potential aggressors." Svec argued that some "profederal
officers who have been hurting Slovakia's interests will have to
be eliminated" in the process of creating a Slovak army. One of
them is the current Czechoslovak Defense Minister Imrich
Andrejcak. In Svec's view, Andrejcak, who is Slovak, has done
"nothing for a future Slovak army" since he was named the minister
of defense in June 1992. (Jiri Pehe, RFE/RL Inc.)
ARREST WARRANT FOR COMMANDER OF RUSSIAN AVIATION UNIT. On 6
October the Siauliai prosecutor's office issued an arrest warrant
against Lt. Col. Pavel Ievlev, the commander of the Russian
aviation unit based in Siauliai, for illegally trying to sell
concrete sections of the runway at the military air field in
Zokniai to private entrepreneurs, BNS and Baltfax reported on 15
October. Lithuanian law states that all buildings, equipment, and
inventory used by foreign military forces in Lithuania belong to
the state. Siauliai Prosecutor General Anatolijus Mirnas said that
Ievlev had not left the base since the warrant was issued,
although he had talked to investigators visiting the base. The
Lithuanian police have not attempted to arrest him in order to
avoid a political conflict. (Saulius Girnius, RFE/RL Inc.)
HUNGARY ASKS THE DANUBE COMMISSION TO DISCUSS SLOVAK DANUBE
DIVERSION. Danube Commission's Director Helmut Strasser said that
Hungarian Foreign Minister Geza Jeszenszky asked the eight-nation
Commission to discuss Slovakia's plans to divert the Danube river
later this month, Reuters reported on 15 October. In a related
development, the Hungarian State Shippping Company made public a
Slovak announcement saying that Danube shipping would be stopped
on 20 October 1992 for 10-15 days in order to allow for the
river's diversion to the new channels and the Gabcikovo
hydroelectic dam, according to a MTI report on 16 October. (Karoly
Okolicsanyi, RFE/RL Inc.)
GERMAN FOREIGN MINISTER IN BUDAPEST. Klaus Kinkel paid a one-day
official visit to Hungary, MTI reported on 15 October. Kinkel said
that Germany supported Hungary's ultimate EC membership. He
praised Hungary's achievements in restoring democracy and a market
economy. Kinkel did not take a stand on the Danube diversion
dispute between Hungary and Slovakia and rejected a Hungarian
request to mediate. No progress was made on Hungary's request for
arm from the GDR arsenal. (Karoly Okolicsanyi, RFE/RL Inc.)
novine.108.bale.,
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Bosnians plea for weapons from the U.S.
Subject: Yugoslav peace talks underway
Subject: Bosnians say they had no choice on blockade
Subject: Last Yugoslav army troops withdrawing from Croatia
Subject: ``Tired'' players draw 22nd game of re-match
Subject: TV claims violations of embargo against Serbia
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Bosnians plea for weapons from the U.S.
Date: 16 Oct 92 20:50:24 GMT
WASHINGTON (UPI) -- The foreign minister of Bosnia-Hercegovina said
Friday that he will ask National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft and
other U.S. officials to lift the arms embargo on his besieged republic.
Haris Silajdzic told reporters that if the administration refuses to
arm Bosnians in their grossly one-sided battle against Belgrade's modern
army then Washington will be party to a ``monstrous crime.''
Silajdzic and a delegation of four Bosnian legislators -- made up of
Muslims, Croatians and Serbians -- also delivered their impassioned plea
in a letter to President Bush.
``Mr. President, to treat the Bosnian tragedy as another humanitrian
problem is not right,'' the letter said. ``To focus simply on providing
aid is to ignore the real problem.
``The real issue is the slaughter of tens of thousands of civilians
and the inability of the government of Bosnia-Hercegovina to defend its
citizens.''
Acting Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger, speaking to reporters
following a meeting with Japanese officials, said the United States
currently had no plans for lifting the arms embargo.
``At this stage there is in this administration no intention to lift
the arms embargo, period,'' Eagleburger said.
But he left out the possibility that there may come a time when the
administration would be willing to reconsider its position.
``I can't predict what circumstances might develop,'' he said.
``Maybe we would change our minds.''
Silajdzic, who met with the secretary of state on two previous trips,
was scheduled to visit Friday with Undersecretary of State Arnold
Kanter.
Prior to his arrival at the State Department, nearly 150 protestors
gathered outside to urge the administration to show greater support for
the Bosnian's plight and to lift the arms embargo.
The demonstrators, chanting ``Eagleburger where are you'' and
carrying signs that said ``Stop the Holocaust in Bosnia,'' were
predominantly composed of people who appeared to be Muslims. More than
50 percent of Bosnia's population is Muslim.
The forcible expulsion from Bosnia-Hercegovina of all Muslims and
Croats has been one of Belgrade's main goals in its attempt to annex the
nascent republic and create a zone of ``Serbian purity.''
Silajdzic said that effort has left hundreds of thousands of Bosnians
homeless. He predicted that ``untold thousands'' of those displaced
persons will die during the upcoming winter unless the international
community gives his countrymen the means to defend themselves.
``We don't need any foreign soldiers, including the Islamic
Mujaheedin, including the American troops, British, French, Japanese or
any else,'' he said. ``We have enough of our people willing to fight now
for their lives.''
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Yugoslav peace talks underway
Date: 17 Oct 92 15:03:44 GMT
GENEVA (UPI) -- Federal Yugoslav Premier Milan Panic met with U.N. and
European Community mediators Saturday on the second day of a
concentrated ``mini-summit'' aimed at finding a solution to the war in
the former Yugoslav republic of Bosnia-Hercegovina.
The meeting with former U.S. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance and Lord
David Owen took place at Panic's hotel rather than at U.N. European
headquarters, where both Vance and Owen have offices.
Derek Boothy, a spokesman for the mediators, said they would have no
commentafterward ``because they want to keep the meeting low-key and
make it clear that Mr. Panic is not their main interlocutor in ex-
Yugoslavia, although of course his views are valued.''
Panic is prime minister of the truncated remains of Yugoslavia,
comprised of the republics of Serbia and Montenegro. Federal Yugoslav
President Dobrica Cosic arrives Sunday and will meet with Owen and Vance
Monday along with Alija Izetbegovic, president of Bosnia-Hercegovina.
The two presidents were to arrive within an hour of each other at
Geneva airport Sunday night. An official in Panic's delegation said it
was possible they and Panic could have a preliminary meeting Sunday
night before the official exchange Monday. All planned to stay in the
same hotel.
Boothby said Vance and Owen were cautioning against too much optimism
simply because of the simultaneous presence of most of the major players
in Geneva.
Croatian President Franjo Tudjman arrives Monday for his second
meeting within a month with Izetbegovic. And Friday, Vance and Owen met
with Macedonian President Kiro Gligorov. Sources in the Vance-Owen
office noted that only Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic was missing
from the talks.
Radovan Karadzic, chief of the Bosnian Serbs, left early Saturday for
Bosnia-Hercegovina after a meeting late Friday night with Panic,
reportedly to try to persuade the commander of the Bosnian Serb air
force to comply with U.N. instructions to move his planes to the
Yugoslav federation.
Reports reaching Geneva from Banja Luka, headquarters of the Bosnian
Serb air force, quoted air force commander Maj. Gen. Zivomir Ninkovic as
saying he would not comply with the deal that Karadzic struck with Owen
on Oct. 13.
A spokesman for Panic said Saturday the Yugoslav premier met with
Karadzic late Friday and reinforced the necessity of persuading Ninkovic
to fall into line. Karadzic was expected back in Geneva Monday in time
for the Cosic-Izetbegovic meeting, although he would not attend, his
office said.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Bosnians say they had no choice on blockade
Date: 17 Oct 92 22:01:53 GMT
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Hercegovina (UPI) -- Bosnian leaders say they realize
they cut off U.N. aid to their own trapped citizens by blockading
Sarajevo's airport access road, but say they felt they had little
choice.
``It was a classic military solution,'' Bosnian Vice President Ejub
Ganic said Saturday of the large cargo container his government's troops
placed Thursday across the wide open highway leading from the airport to
the city.
``By your logic, we have no chance militarily,'' he told Western
reporters, ``But as you can see, we are still alive.''
The U.N. Protection Force, or UNPROFOR, said it could not understand
how the Bosnians could choke off the aid pipeline and offered to erect
its own barricade if the Bosnians feel it necessary.
Later Saturday, the Bosnians accepted the proposal and agreed to
remove the cargo container in return for a retractable U.N. barricade
and increased U.N. vigilance at the airport for violations of the
agreement banning heavy weapons around the facility.
A U.N.-sponsored airlift has been ferrying aid to Sarajevo, which has
been beisieged by Serbian forces since last spring. The Serbians are
trying to carve territory out of the former Yugoslav republic of Bosnia-
Hercegovina.
Ganic said the Bosnian side set up the roadblock after at least two
dozen Serbian tanks in the surrounding area began pressing closer and
closer to territory held by the Bosnians.
UNPROFOR spokesman Mik Magnusson told reporters Friday the Bosnian
army's tale of some 24 Soviet-made T-84 tanks near the airport was
simply an ``extraordinary claim.''
Hours later, with U.N. inspectors still unable to find any such tanks
but amid mounting reports that Serbian tanks and armored vehicles has
for weeks been violating the supposedly neutral space around the
airport, he explained he only meant that specific talk of T-84s was
``extraordinary.''
Saturday morning, the UNPROFOR spokesman said U.N. inspectors still
had found no evidence of Serbian tanks remaining around the airport.
But he said since UNPROFOR-escorted humanitarian aid convoys travel
only during the day, the suggestion that Serbian tanks traveled the
airport road at night out of sight of U.N. personnel was ``very
legitimate, quite probable.''
However, he again called the Bosnian blockade a ``serious
infringement'' of the agreement under which Serbian forces willingly
surrendered control of the airport, and called on Bosnians to accept a
compromise plan in which UNPROFOR would establish a retractable barrier
and increase its monitoring of the road.
Ganic declined to actually tell reporters he could not trust
UNPROFOR's plan, but accused its leaders of being interested primarily
in winning personal promotions and its multi-national troops of being
unable to even communicate properly with each other.
He recalled a recent indoor soccer game against UNPROFOR soldiers in
which the Sarajevo team took a lopsided 17-3 victory. The top UNPROFOR
commander in the city, Egyptian Brig. Gen. Hussein Abdel Razek,
complained afterward that his players were at a disadvantage because
they couldn't understand what they were saying to each other.
``That,'' Ganic said, ``is exactly what UNPROFOR is doing here.''
UNPROFOR Saturday acknowledged three Muslim drivers seized last month
from a U.N.-protected convoy bringing foreign students out of Sarajevo
were likely killed by their Serbian abductors.
Also Saturday, both utility and most telephone service were again out
in Sarajevo. A week ago, UNPROFOR said it had won Serbian cooperation in
restoring the city's utilities. Service was restored Friday, only to be
interrupted again after more artillery attacks and confrontations
between both Serbian and Bosnian troops with UNPROFOR-escorted utility
repair crews.
Magnusson contends that at the airport, however, UNPROFOR has
succeeded in keeping the area demilitarized despite some possible minor
violations by Serbian tanks.
He admitted if Serbian forces did decide to simply run tanks down the
airport road through a U.N. barrier and into the city, UNPROFOR could do
little more than lodge a protest.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Last Yugoslav army troops withdrawing from Croatia
Date: 18 Oct 92 18:31:43 GMT
DUBROVNIK, Croatia (UPI) -- One year after the highly criticized
Serbian bombardment of the 12th century city of Dubrovnik during the war
in the former Yugoslav republic of Croatia, the Serbian-dominated
Yugoslav army is withdrawing the last of its troops from Croatian soil.
But Croatian military sources say the army, occupying territory a few
miles south of Dubrovnik, is leaving behind weapons and heavy artillery
for the Serbian forces fighting in the neighboring war-torn republic of
Bosnia-Hercegovina.
U.N. officials would not confirm or deny the allegations that the
weaponry was being left behind for Bosnian Serbs stationed in the hills
above the historic Adriatic port known as the Pearl of Croatia.
The withdrawal of the Yugoslav army from Croatia is scheduled to be
completed by Oct. 20, but the joint U.N. and European Community brokered
agreement did not stipulate what should be done with the weapons or
where the army should withdraw to.
``They are not bound to tell us where they are supposed to go,''
Rashid Khan, U.N. Commander in the region said. ``This is not the end of
the story, it is just the beginning. We still need areas of operations
earmarked and to find a more mutual agreement regarding equipment.''
When the Yugoslav army, one of the largest and well-equipped in
eastern Europe, withdrew from other areas in Croatia early this year,
they left weaponry behind for local Serb forces.
Ethnic Serbs -- backed by the army -- launched the war in Croatia to
oppose Croatian independence. The bombing of Dubrovnik, a famous tourist
attraction, was widely denounced. Now, although a U.N. cease-fire and
peace plan are in effect, some Serbs in Croatia have been unwilling to
disarm.
Cedric Thornberry, head of U.N. civil affairs, has said the Serb's
unwillingness to comply is having ``catastrophic'' repercussions on the
U.N. peace plan.
Croatian forces fear Serbians in Bosnia-Hercegovina will move to the
north towards Mostar, a city in west-central Bosnia-Hercegovina
liberated by Croatian forces in June, and launch a new assault on the
area.
The Yugoslav army is withdrawing from the southern tip of Croatia,
which includes the strategic Prevlaka Peninsula that controls access to
the neighboring Boka Kotorska bay in Serbia's allied republic
Montenegro.
Under the agreement, the peninsula will be put under U.N. and EC
control to ensure the Yugoslav army access to the bay, Serbia's only
port outlet to the west.
In addition, a ``yellow zone' will be created around the entrance to
the peninsula where only Croatian and Serbian police will be permitted
on each of their respective territories, according to local Croatian
military sources.
But the U.N. and the EC only has about 20 people patrolling the area.
``It's a problem,'' said a U.N. observer who asked not to be
identified. ``You never know what is going to happen.''
Although Khan said everything is going as scheduled and has had
assurances the troops will withdraw on schedule, he added there were no
guarantees. ``The first thing to be assassinated in a war is the truth.''
But he believes it is in the Serb's best interest to complete the
process.
``If they are not finished by the 20th, then the whole world can
point their fingers at them,'' he said.
Preliminary agreements are being made for Croatia and the former
Yugoslavia to jointly recognize each other and possibly open up
transportation routes between their respective capitals, Zagreb and
Belgrade.
But Dubrovnik leader Zeljko Sikic said left-over bitterness will
plague the normalization process. He said the old town district took
hundreds of direct hits and ``nothing can be repaired to its original
state.''
Sikic said the war caused approximately $4 billion in damage and
destroyed the multi-million dollar tourist industry.
``I think the Serbs would like to forget what they have done -- they
need our geographical position,'' he said. ``But I think the people of
Dubrovnik will not so easily forget.''
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: ``Tired'' players draw 22nd game of re-match
Date: 18 Oct 92 20:28:30 GMT
BELGRADE (UPI) -- Former world chess champion Bobby Fischer and his
opponent Boris Spassky agreed to a draw after only 26 moves of the 22nd
game of their controversial re-match Sunday, bringing the score to 8-4
in Fischer's favor.
Chess experts said the two players appeared tired after Saturday's
eight-hour game. ``They were obviously tired. They played just to pass
the time away,'' said Dimitrije Bjelica, a Yugoslav chess expert and
Fischer's former friend.
``I think that they really wanted to finish even sooner, but kept on
in order to avoid playing another game today,'' added Bjelica.
Fisher, playing with black pieces in the 22nd game of the match,
proposed the draw after 26 moves. The draw was the 10th of the re-match,
which began on Sept 2.
The rules of the match say that if a game is finished within one
hour, the next one has to be started the same afternoon. All games are
to be played without adjournment.
Fischer is now just two wins away from $3.35 million prize offered by
Jezdimir Vasiljevic, a Yugoslav bank owner who organized the match.
He deliberately breeched the U.S. Department of Treasury order not to
play in the truncated Yugoslav federation of Serbia and Montenegro.
The order endorsed the U.N. resolution banning all economic and
financial transactions with Yugoslavia because of its involvement in the
war in neighboring Bosnia-Hercegovina.
If convicted in court, Fischer may get a maximum of 10 years in jail,
and a fine up to $250,000.
He publicly spat on the Treasury's document at a news conference in
the eve of the match, Sept. 2.
Game 23 is scheduled for next Wednesday.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: TV claims violations of embargo against Serbia
Date: 18 Oct 92 20:42:12 GMT
BONN, Germany (UPI) -- German officials said Sunday they were
investigating claims that German firms were servicing ships from Serbia
and Montenegro in violation of a U.N. embargo.
ARD-German television claimed in its Monitor program that German
firms had serviced about 40 ships from Serbia and Montenegro, and also
alleged the ships were trading to obtain currency with which to buy
weapons from the Mafia.
The United Nations imposed the embargo in an attempt to stem the
bloodshed in war-torn former Yugoslav republics. Serbian forces
currently are battling in the republic of Bosnia-Hercegovina against
Muslim Slav and Croat defense forces.
A German justice spokesman said the port authorities in Bremen,
Hamburg and Brake had kept a close eye on the ships, but said that all
of them were flying the Maltese flag.
The spokesman said if the alleged Maltese owners of the vessels were
indeed front-companies for firms from the truncated Yugoslav federation,
as the TV station claimed, it was up to the authorities in Malta to
launch investigations.
He said that the German authorities were investigatigating the matter
and confirmed that it is a punishable offense under German export
legislation for German firms to deliver supplies and services to ships
from areas against which the United Nations has imposed an embargo.
The spokesman said that the ships were sailing from Italy, some of
them to South America and others to East Africa.
novine.109.bale.,
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Artillery attacks resume in Sarajevo
Subject: Cosic meets again with U.N. and EC mediators
Subject: Sarajevo tallies barrage damage
Subject: Serbians seize federal police headquarters
Subject: Greece may allow Macedonia on name domestically, premier says
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Artillery attacks resume in Sarajevo
Date: 18 Oct 92 21:16:41 GMT
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Hercegovina (UPI) -- Serbian forces in the hills
surrounding Sarajevo broke several days of relative calm Sunday by
unleashing a city-wide artillery barrage, repeatedly hitting a hospital,
damaging the main bread bakery and killing and wounding numerous
civilians.
``It was terrible,'' said Dr. Ranko Covic of the city's state
hospital, his white hospital gown and white shoes splattered red with
fresh blood. ``The whole day we haven't stopped for a minute.''
Heavy artillery and infantry attacks also were reported during the
day in towns across central and northern parts of Bosnia-Hercegovina,
where Serbia-backed forces are waging an ongoing battle to carve out a
self-declared Serb state.
The victims of Sunday's assault on the capital included the state
hospital, which took several hits, and the main bread bakery just west
of downtown, which with U.N. supplies of flour was supplying much of the
city's food.
The heavy shelling began less than two hours after the Bosnian
military permitted the resumption of U.N. relief shipments into Sarajevo
by removing its blockade of the main access road connecting the city
with both the airport and outside roadways.
The removal followed three days of talks between Bosnian and U.N.
Protection Force representatives that culminated in a meeting Saturday
afternoon where UNPROFOR agreed to maintain its own barricade during
nights.
UNPROFOR also agreed to increase its monitoring of the airport area
to guard against violations of the Bosnian-Serb agreement that banned
tanks and other heavy weaponry around the facility, and to keep an
armored personnel carrier stationed at the site during the day ``ready
to block the road at any time.''
Bosnian soldiers, working under the watch of UNPROFOR troops who
arrived at the airport roadblock shortly after daybreak Sunday, used a
bulldozer to shove their large cargo container off to the side of the
road as scheduled shortly after 8 a.m.
``Obviously, were glad to be back in operation,'' Jeremy Brade, head
of the U.N. High Commission for Refugees' Sarajevo office, said as the
white and green UNHCR-flagged trucks began plying the roadway moments
later.
Seventeen UNHCR trucks and 14 planes reached the city during the day,
bringing in nearly 300 tons of aid, the most since the relief operation
was resumed Oct. 3 after a month-long suspension caused the downing of
an Italian relief flight.
But the airport road settlement came at the same time the UNHCR said
it was suspending temporarily the use of a road taken by trucks carrying
relief supplies to the Sarajevo area through the southern city of Mostar
because of two separate incidents Friday in which UNHCR trucks got
caught in artillery fire.
Shrapnel broke the window of one truck but caused no reported
injuries, and there were conflicting opinions on whether the incidents
were the result of incidental fire between the warring parties or a
deliberate attack.
The UNHCR said Sunday in a statement from Zagreb that the drivers
believed they were intentional targets, but Brade questioned the version
and called the wording ``unfortunate.''
The UNHCR statement said the agency was suspending use of the road
between Mostar and Sarajevo for at least 48 hours ``to obtain fresh
assurances of safe passage'' from the armies involved in the conflict.
Sarajevo's 500,000 trapped residents, after passing through what U.N.
forces called the quietest week of their 6-month siege, awoke Sunday to
sporadic shooting that exploded around 10 a.m. into heavy grenading
throughout the capital, including the city center, old town and the new
Sarajevo section.
The attacks killed and injured dozens of people, mostly civilians and
many of whom had been out walking the streets looking for sources of
water, Covic said.
Another artillery shell hit the city's UNPROFOR headquarters,
crashing through the roof of the main dining hall shortly before the
lunch hour.
``There was a kaboom and pieces of the roof started falling in,''
said a cafeteria worker who was alone in the room at the time.
UNPROFOR officials, in their daily survey, said a total of 70 rounds
of large artillery were observed falling onto Serbian-controlled areas
around the capital and 65 rounds were seen reaching Bosnian-controlled
territory during the 24-hour period that ended at 5 p.m. Saturday.
Serbian forces also waged artillery, tank and infantry attacks
overnight and into the day Sunday on various central and northern towns,
including Gradacac, Tuzla, Maglaj, Brcko and Jajce, causing unknown
numbers of casualties, Sarajevo radio said.
Also Sunday, UNPROFOR troops in Sarajevo were again escorting utility
workers around the city in an effort to restore water and electricity
supplies that have been out through most of the capital for almost the
entire past month.
Electricity was briefly reconnected Thursday evening after days of
UNPROFOR negotiations with Serbian and Bosnian military leaders, but an
electricity transmission tower was hit only a few hours later, knocking
out both utilities.
UNPROFOR-escorted repair missions have reported being shot at since
then by soldiers on both sides of the war.
The agreement on the airport blockade was a temporary arrangement
until a more permanent solution can be found, UNPROFOR officials said.
The Bosnian side, which holds a roughly oval-shaped hunk of land
extending west of the capital, connecting near the point where it placed
the barrier, said it installed the blockade after finding at least two
dozen Serbian tanks in the surrounding territory pressing closer and
closer.
The Bosnians will still maintain barricades at points on the airport
road a short distance beyond the disputed blockade, protecting
themselves against Serbian tanks seen positioned in Serbian-held areas
further north.
Trucks stranded by the blockade included two UNHCR tankers carrying
fuel oil that was to be delivered to city public services, including
hospitals, telephone company offices, water-distribution trucks and
firefighters.
But the fuel, used to power both electricity generators and vehicles,
was delayed Sunday by a problem with the tanker trucks and will be
delivered Monday, UNHCR officials said.
Others affected by the three-day airport road blockade included four
officials of the Bosnian presidency who were forced to sleep nights at
the airport, and three injured children who could not be put on their
scheduled evacuation flights. One of the children underwent an operation
during the night at an UNPROFOR field hospital and was due to be flown
from the city Sunday.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Cosic meets again with U.N. and EC mediators
Date: 19 Oct 92 13:01:12 GMT
GENEVA (UPI) -- President Dobrica Cosic of rump Yugoslavia met Monday
for the second time in 24 hours with U.N. and European Community
mediators just prior to a face to face meeting with President Alija
Izetbegovic of war-torn Bosnia-Hercegovina.
The meeting between the two presidents and mediators Cyrus Vance of
the U.N. and Lord David Owen of the EC was scheduled for Monday
afternoon. Derek Boothby, a spokesman for Vance and Owen described the
meeting as ``quite significant'' because it was the first time the two
had ever met, at least officially.
Both flew into Geneva Sunday night and are staying in the same hotel
but aides insisted they had not met, although they admitted there had
been ``some contact'' between the two delegations.
Cosic, who met Vance and Owen in his hotel Sunday night, lunched with
them prior to Monday's meeting. Izetbegovic had met the co-chairmen of
the joint peace initiative in the hotel earlier Monday.
Sources in both delegations said that while the agenda for the talks
was fluid, both Izetbegovic and Cosic had the halting of fighting in
Sarajevo at the top of their minds, and this was confirmed by U.N.
spokesman Derek Boothby.
``The No. 1 priority is to stop the fighting,'' he said. ``Then we
can move on to the future of Bosnia-Hercegovina, where there are a lot
of ideas kicking around but none concrete enough to take precedence over
the cessation of hostilities.
Joining the talks later would be Cedric Thornberry, the senior U.N.
political officer in Bosnia-Hercegovina, Boothby said.
The Cosic-Izetbegovic talks were to be followed by a meeting between
Izetbegovic and Croatian President Franjo Tudjman Tuesday, their second
in a month.
In a related development the International Red Cross said
representatives of rump Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) and Croatia
had agreed at a meeting Sunday to exchange lists of prisoners they were
holding, to pave the way for their release.
The two sides also agreed, the Red Cross said, to exchange
information on missing people and work together to ease the return of
refugees to their homes.
The Red Cross, in a statement, called on all parties in the conflict
in ex-Yugoslavia to proclaim an amnesty for all offenses during the
conflict except war crimes. This would cover desertion and refusal to
bear arms.
Renewed fighting erupted Sunday around Bosnia's capital of Sarajevo.
But U.N. spokesman Boothby said the fresh shelling was unlikely to
affect the talks in Geneva.
Cosic met briefly with Yugoslav Prime Minister Panic, who has been in
the Swiss capital since Friday, but who left for Belgrade late Sunday
night. It was their second second meeting in two days.
Before leaving, Panic also met with Sadako Ogata, the U.N. High
Commissioner for Refugees, and Cornelio Sommaruga, president of the
International Committee of the Red Cross, to discuss relief operations
in Bosnia-Hercegovina.
At his meeting with Vance and Owen on Saturday, Panic pledged the use
of Belgrade airport for U.N. support operations for getting supplies to
Sarajevo as winter approaches. Sarajevo has been besieged by Serbian
forces since last spring, when Serbians launched an offensive to seize
territory in the newly independent republic.
The UNHCR airlift to Sarajevo has been hampered by bad weather and
the lack of anti-aircraft equipment to protect planes taking part in the
airlift.
Panic renewed these offers to Ogata and Sommaruga Sunday, sources in
his delegation said. He also offered the services of the federal
Yugoslav army to provide security for U.N. truck convoys passing through
areas controlled by Bosnian Serbs.
These assurances too were reiterated to the Red Cross and the UNHCR,
Panic's office said.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Sarajevo tallies barrage damage
Date: 19 Oct 92 15:48:33 GMT
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Hercegovina (UPI) -- The Bosnian capital struggled
Monday to recover from another withering assault by serbian artillery
that caused scores of casualties and knocked out the city's main grain
refinery.
Serbian forces in the hills overlooking Sarajevo bombarded the city
for several hours Sunday, firing hundreds of rounds of heavy artillery
that damaged apartment buildings, the city's state hospital and its main
bread factory.
At least 10 people were killed and 118 injured, hospital officials
said.
Conditions also were reported deteriorating Monday for some 80,000
people taking refuge in and around the eastern Bosnian town of
Srebrenica, where they fled after being forced or frightened out of
nearby Serbian-controlled areas.
The refugees, who outnumber natives remaining in the Muslim Slav-
majority town by some six-to-one, include about 8,000 children and are
in dire need of food and medicine, Sarajevo radio and the Vecernje
Novine newspaper reported.
Most are living in wooded land around Srebrenica, where they have
been shelled repeatedly and are dying from wounds that go untreated, the
reports said. Doctors have been performing limb amputations with hot
wires, they said.
The strike on the Sarajevo bread factory destroyed the city's major
grain mill, meaning U.N. relief workers already well behind schedule in
stockpiling food and medicines for winter will have to begin delivering
more flour.
The U.N. High Commission for Refugees, which coordinates aid
deliveries, said it was asked to provide another 50 tons of flour a day
to replace that produced by the damaged mill.
``We'll do what we can,'' UNHCR spokesman Larry Hollingsworth said.
``The basic difference is that it'll mean 50 tons a day of something
else we can't bring in.''
The mill had stored about two to three months worth of grain that it
could have processed into flour, and officials estimated it would take
about six weeks even in peace time to repair the damage.
The capital at least had some water and electricity services restored
by Monday morning, although supplies remained sporadic as warring
parties continued to block repair crews and shoot at transmission
facilities.
Power and water were restored two days earlier after outages lasting
several weeks, but an electricity tower was hit by artillery fire within
hours and knocked out again.
The shelling of Sarajevo slowed once more Monday, although heavy
artillery and infantry attacks were reported to be continuing in several
cities of northern and central Bosnia-Hercegovina, where Serbian-backed
forces are fighting to establish a self-declared Serbian state.
Serbian forces dropped rounds of artillery Monday on Travnik and
Bugojno in the central part of the republic and Gradacac, Brcko and
Maglaj in the north, Sarajevo radio said.
Maglaj, completing a full month under seige, was hit throughout the
night and into the morning by fire from tanks, howitzers and incendiary
ammunition, the radio said.
The warring parties were attempting Monday to negotiate an exchange
of 90 Serbs living in the beseiged central Bosnian town of Jajce for
some 1,000 Muslim Slavs and Croats evicted from other nearby towns, it
said.
In Geneva, the presidents of both Bosnia-Hercegovina and the Serbian-
dominated rump yugoslav union met Monday with U.N. and European
Community negotiators at the site of the ongoing Yugoslav peace talks.
The Serbian-run Yugoslav army was removing its last troops from
Croatian soil, one year after its highly criticized bombardment of the
12th Century coastal city of Dubrovnik.
But Croatian military sources complained the Yugoslav army, while
leaving Dubrovnik as scheduled by Tuesday, was just relocating a few
miles south and was leaving behind weapons and heavy artillery for
Serbian forces still fighting in Bosnia-Hercegovina.
The shelling of Sarajevo began sunday less than two hours after the
Bosnian military permitted the resumption of U.N. relief shipments into
Sarajevo by removing its blockade of the main access road connecting the
city with both the airport and outside roadways.
The attacks timing was attributed by Bosnian officials to their
refusal to accept Serbian demands for the release of bodies of Serbian
fighters, primarily those killed in a failed offensive two weeks earlier
in the southern part of the city.
The Bosnian officials said the shelling began as threatened, at 10 a.
m., after the Bosnians insisted on getting back bodies of their own
fighters.
A total of 291 rounds of large artillery fell onto Bosnian-controlled
areas around the capital, compared to only 18 rounds seen reaching
Serbian-controlled territory during the 24-hour period that ended at 5
p.m. Sunday, the U.N. Protection Force said in its daily survey.
Also Monday, a former Bosnian military leader was being held in
Bosnian custody in Konjic, south of Sarajevo, after he reportedly
returned from exile to the hills around the capital and allegedly tried
to take control from a local commander.
Jusuf Prazina, known popularly as ``Juka,'' returned to the Sarajevo
area on Friday and along with eight armed colleagues on Saturday briefly
seized control of a Bosnian army headquarters on Igman Mountain,
southwest of the capital, before being arrested following a shootout,
Bosnian media reported.
The UNHCR on Monday was bringing into the city two tanker trucks
carrying fuel oil that was to be delivered to city public services,
including hospitals, telephone company offices, water-distribution
trucks and firefighters.
The fuel, used to power both electricity generators and vehicles, was
caught at the airport during the road blockade and further delayed
Sunday by a problem with the tanker trucks, unhcr officials said.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Serbians seize federal police headquarters
Date: 19 Oct 92 17:18:19 GMT
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (UPI) -- Serbian police seized the headquarters
of the Yugoslav federal police Monday and refused to let the federal
interior minister enter the building, the Belgrade-based Tanjug news
agency said.
Serbian police said they were acting as a result of a Belgrade
municipal court decision that said that the headquarters was the
property of the republic of Serbia.
An official statement issued by the Serbian government said the
takeover ``was simply a matter of owner's rights...There are no reasons
for over-dramatizing the event.''
Tanjug said the Serbian police stopped Pavle Bulatovic, the federal
minister of interior, from entering the building Monday morning.
Federal police sources said that they received the court's decision
about the building 10 days ago, but ``thought that it was a mistake.''
The appearance of hundreds of heavily-armed Serbian police briefly
sparked rumors of a coup attempt by Serbia's hard-line President
Slobodan Milosevic against the leadership of the rump Yugoslav union of
Serbia and Montenegro.
Milosevic and his ruling Socialist Party of Serbia have repetedly
accused federal President Dobrica Cosic and Prime Minister Milan Panic
of ``neglecting Serbian national interests'' in their negotiations with
neighboring Croatia.
Panic Sunday interrupted a visit to Geneva, where he and Cosic were
participating in peace talks on former Yugoslavia, to return to Belgrade
because of ``pressing business at home,'' his spokesman said.
The spokesman denied that there was any connection between Panic's
return and the takeover of the police headquarters. The federal
government issued no official statement.
``This is a show of force by Milosevic,'' said a Western diplomat in
Belgrade, who insisted on remaining anonymous. He said ``Milosevic is
demonstrating to Panic who is in charge.''
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Subject: Greece may allow Macedonia on name domestically, premier says
Date: 19 Oct 92 17:47:35 GMT
ATHENS, Greece (UPI) -- Greek Prime Minister Constantine Mitsotakis
said Monday Athens had no quarrel with any name the former Yugoslav
republic of Macedonia wished to use for itself domestically.
He implied that Athens would not object if the republic used the name
``Macedonia'' domestically but would remain steadfast in not allowing it
to use the name externally.
The Greek premier's statement came two days before the European
Community was due to vote on whether to allow the former Yugoslav state
to use the name ``Macedonia'' externally for trade purposes.
Since Macedonia broke away from the Yugoslav federation earlier this
year, Athens has blocked EC recognition of the republic so long as it
insisted on using the name Macedonia, which is also the name of a Greek
province adjacent to the former federation.
Athens argued that use of the name implied territorial ambitions by
the former Yugoslav state.
Mitsotakis said Greece would continue to oppose use of the name
``Macedonia'' by the state in its external dealings, but had no quarrel
with ``a name which the republic wishes to call itself domestically.''
The new policy appeared to soften the Greek stance on the issue, but
opposition parties in Athens earlier said they were not ready to
compromise on the name.
Diplomats however pointed out that Greece called itself ``Ellada''
internally, though it was referred to as ``Greece'' or the ``Hellenic
Republic'' externally.
Mitsotakis also said Athens would be ready to accept a formula
whereby the breakaway Yugoslav state would be referred to externally as
``the Territory of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia'' in its
trade dealings with the EC.
Greek officials however said the new formula was a temporary
compromise, and would be used until Macedonia found another name for
itelf for external use.
``The flow of oil and other products from Greece will not be resumed
to this republic unless (it) accepts the stamp which the European
Community has agreed to, showing that it is the former Yugoslav Republic
of Macedonia,'' Mitsotakis said.
The Greek media and officials refer to the former Yugoslav state as
the ``Republic of Skopje,'' after its capital city.
novine.110.bale.,
Serbian Seizure of Interior Building Sparks Coup Rumors (Belgrade)
By Laura Silber and Carol J. Williams
(c) 1992, Los Angeles Times
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia _ Heavily armed police loyal
to Serbian Presiden t Slobodan Milosevic seized the Yugoslav
federal Interior Ministry building Monday in a move that may
foreshadow an attempt to depose federal Prime Minister Milan
Panic.
The action by Milosevic forces has been explained
publicly as a dispu te between the republic and federal
governments over ownership of the ministry building. But in
view of the increasingly tense power struggle between
Milosevic and Panic, the takeover sparked fears that the
Serbian strongman might be laying the groundwork for a coup
d'etat.
By invading the Interior Ministry building after
nightfall Sunday and disarming federal police officers on
duty, the Milosevic forces have flouted Panic's limited
authority over his own government institutions.
In a statement issued through the Tanjug news
agency, Panic's governm ent said it ``strongly condemns the
violent takeover'' and demands immediate restoration of
federal authority over the property.
``The federal Interior Ministry is now unable to
perform its legal an d constitutional functions, which
gravely threatens one of the vital state and security
functions of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia,'' the
statement said.
Panic's spokesman, David Calef, said the prime
minister had no immedi ate comment on the incident.
Asked if the Serbian takeover might signal an
attempt to wrest power from Panic, Calef replied: ``I
wouldn't engage that one way or the other.''
Panic, a naturalized American citizen who left his
California- based pharmaceuticals empire in July to lead the
government of his native Yugoslavia, made a mysterious detour
in his travel plans Sunday when he returned to Belgrade from
Geneva, where he had been expected to remain for Yugoslav
peace talks that will continue throughout the week.
Calef denied that Panic's early return had
anything to do with the In terior Ministry situation.
``The two are not related to one another,'' he
said. ``His business i n Geneva was concluded.''
Calef said Panic planned to leave again Wednesday
for an official vis it to Austria, then return to Geneva for
further negotiations with U.N. special envoy Cyrus Vance and
European Community mediator Lord Owen, joint chairmen of the
Yugoslav peace talks.
The struggle for control of the ministry follows a
critical blow to Milosevic's prestige delivered by Yugoslav
President Dobrica Cosic last week. Cosic, an esteemed writer
and prominent nationalist once closely allied with the
Serbian president, called on Milosevic to resign for the good
of the nation.
The Serbian Orthodox Church and prominent members
of the Serbian Acad emy of Sciences had earlier distanced
themselves from Milosevic, who is accused by Western leaders
of fomenting ethnic violence in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Cosic and Panic have joined forces in hopes of
ousting Milosevic and getting the United Nations to lift the
harsh sanctions imposed five months ago against Serbia and
Montenegro, the last two republics remaining in Yugoslavia.
While Belgrade was gripped by rumors of a possible
coup, Serbian and federal officials played down the seizure
as a dispute over property rights. The Serbian move followed
a ruling by a municipal court that the federal Interior
Ministry must abandon the building by Oct. 15.
The takeover fueled speculation that the Serbian
police were trying t o confiscate federal police archives.
Those files are believed to contain incriminating evidence
against top Serbian politicians that could be used in war
crimes trials being called for in international circles.
Eyewitnesses Report Torture, Many Deaths in Serb Camp (Omarska)
By Roy Gutman
(c) 1992, Newsday
OMARSKA, Bosnia-Herzegovina _ The vast mining
complex here, with its open pits and ore processing system,
looks like anything but a concentration camp.
The nondescript buildings in their barren frontier
landscape have bee n cleaned up, and there is no trace of the
blood reputedly spilled here. But during the last month
dozens of eyewitnesses have provided compelling evidence of
murder and torture on a wide scale at this complex, where the
Serbs who conquered much of Bosnia brought several thousand
Muslims and Croats. Inside the huge hangarlike building that
houses earth-moving equipment, armed guards ordered tortures
at gunpoint. The paved area outside was an open-air prison,
where 500 to 1,000 men had to lie on their bellies from dawn
to dusk.
Thousands more packed the offices, workshops and
storage rooms in the hangar and a glass-and-brick
administration building. All were on starvation diets.
The two most-feared locations were small
outbuildings some distance f rom the main facilities: the
``Red House,'' from which no prisoner returned alive; and
the ``White House,'' which contained a torture chamber where
guards beat prisoners for days until they succumbed.
Unlike Nazi concentration camps, Omarska kept no
real records, making it difficult to determine exactly how
many died.
Newsday first reported mass murders at Omarska and
other camps on Aug . 2. Five days later, as television
pictures of emaciated prisoners were aired worldwide, Serb
authorities closed the camp and dispersed the prisoners. But
not until hundreds of survivors aided by the International
Red Cross reached the West in the last few weeks was it
possible to draw up a detailed account.
A monthlong Newsday investigation that included
extensive interviews with officials who said they were
responsible for Omarska and with dozens of former detainees
in Croetia, Britain and Bosnia itself, produced these main
conclusions:
_Eyewitness accounts of detainees indicate that
well over 1,000 peopl e were killed at Omarska, and thousands
more might have died from beatings, executions, disease or
starvation had the camp not been closed.
_A large number of detainees, possibly as many as
1,000, seem to have disappeared when the camp was closed.
_All but a few detainees were civilians, mostly
draft-age Muslim or C roat men, but there were many men under
18 or over 60, and a small number of women.
Newsday's estimate of the death toll of more than
1,000 is based on t he eyewitness accounts of daily killings
by three former detainees who spoke in separate interviews.
It does not reflect other, possibly duplicating, first-person
reports of mass executions or disappearances; if it did, the
toll could easily be twice as high.
Three Bosnian journalists who were detained at
Omarska and are now be ing held in another camp estimated the
death toll of 1,200 or more. And International Red Cross
officials said at least 2,000 people who went to Omarska are
unaccounted for.
Nine hundred miles from here, outside London, Edin
Elkaz lies awake n ights, his head filled with the screams of
the men being tortured in the room next door at the White
House. During one month at the camp, the 21-year-old said, he
witnessed some of the killings and the removal of bodies the
next day. The guards, he said, slaughtered five to 10 men a
night, up to 30 on some nights.
E.L., a 26-year-old Muslim, spent two months here
and said he helped load between five and 10 corpses daily
from the White House into a small yellow pickup truck that
removed them to an unknown grave. Like many of those
interviewed, he asked that his full name not be used.
And N.J., a 23-year-old Muslim, said he kept a
count each night for t he final 20 nights of inmates marched
to the Red House. Some days there were as few as 17, on
others as many as 42. None ever returned.
Interviews with these three detainees, who are
among 68 taken to Brit ain to recover from beatings and
shootings, and from several hundred who recently arrived in
Karlovac, western Croatia, provide chilling amplification of
the original reports of atrocities at the camps in Bosnia.
After conducting its own interviews recently with
about 40 former det ainees in Karlovac for submission to a
special United Nations war crimes panel, the U.S. Embassy in
Zagreb has concluded there were massive atrocities at Omarska
and other camps and in the surrounding towns, said John
Zerolis, an embassy official.
``The Nazis had nothing on these guys. I've seen
reports of individua l acts of barbarity of a kind that
haven't come up in State Department cable traffic in 20
years,'' said another top official at the U.S. embassy, who
spoke on condition of anonymity.
Extensive Newsday interviews with prisoners
indicate that at least 2, 500 to 3,000 detainees were held in
Omarska at any one point in time. International Red Cross
officials have a working estimate that up to 5,000 prisoners
were taken to Omarska altogether.
Serbs from nearby Prijedor, in northwest Bosnia,
set up camps at Omar ska and Kereterm, a disused tile
factory, on May 25, not quite a month after they seized power
by force in the town of 30,000. Officials from Prijedor were
eager to present their version of events. ``You have your
facts. We have our facts. You have a complete right to choose
between the two versions,'' Police Chief Simo Drljaca said in
an interview last month.
Almost nothing in the official version stands up
to scrutiny.
During a tour of the administration building at
the camp, Zeljko Meha jic, the former commander of the
guards, took a visitor to a basement room packed with rows of
bunk beds. There were never more than 270 prisoners at
Omarska at any one tmme, Mehajic said, and ``this is where
they all slept.''
But the detainees said they had slept on the
ground, on floors, or cr ouching jammed into closets _
anywhere but in beds. The beds were brought a few days after
the media drew attention to Omarska, according to a foreign
humanitarian aid expert.
Milan Kovacevic, the city manager in Prijedor,
said Omarska was an investigative facility, set up ``to see
who did what during the war, to find the guilty ones and to
establish the innocent so that they didn't bear the
consquences.'' He said the camp was closed when the
investigation was completed.
Drljaca, who became police chief when the Serb
minority took power, s aid 3,334 people were arrested on
suspicion of resisting or plotting against the new Serb
authorities and were taken to Omarska. Drljaca insisted that
no one had been killed at Omarska, and that only two
prisioners died between May 25 and mid-August, both of
``natural causes.'' Another 49 ``disappeared,'' including the
former lord mayor of Prijedor, Mohamed Cehajic, and were
presumed dead, Drljaca said.
In the official version, detainees were
interrogated for four days an d shipped out. But not one of
more than three dozen Omarska survivors whom U.S. embassy
officials interviewed at Karlovac said he had been questioned
before being taken to Omarska. Only a few of several dozen
interviewed by Newsday had been interrogated, and they said
they were beaten before and during questioning. Most had been
held more than two months.
Slobodan Balaban, an ethnic Serb who was technical
director of the mi ning complex, said Serbs were motivated to
operate the camps by revenge for the perceived suffering of
Serbs in other conflicts. ``The main factor that influenced
our conduct has been the treatment of our people who were
taken to Croatian camps,'' he said.
Tahirovic Redzep, 52, said he was brought to
Omarska with hundreds of others on May 26, after Serbs
destroyed and ``cleansed'' the nearby Muslim town of Kozarac.
In a sworn statement given to the Bosnian office on war
crimes investigation, he said guards called out a dozen
people a day for five days and decapitated them with chain
saws near one of the main pits. He said Omarska prisoners
were forced to witness the massacre, as well as the
subsequent execution of 20 non-Serb policemen from Prijedor.
There were ways to avoid beatings, detainees said.
Rule 1 was never t o look a guard in the eye. Rule 2 was that
if called to an interrogation, to confuse the guards by
saying he had just come from one. Prisoners sometimes smeared
themselves with blood from a newly beaten detainee ``so that
we would be spared as much as possible in the next round,''
Kamber Midho, 31, said in a sworn statement to the Bosnian
government.
At least one prisoner was burned alive at Omarska.
The burning occurred in late July as detainees
lined up for lunch, ac cording to Nedjad Hadzic, 23, an
eyewitness now in Karlovac. The man was emerging from an
interrogation, and a guard ordered him to run, as if in
preparation to shoot him. ``You are cowards. You know nothing
but cruelty,'' the man taunted the guard.
While the guards were shoving him, he grabbed a
gun from one of them, but then gave it up. ``They shoved him
toward the White House, poured gasoline over him and set him
alight,'' Hadzic said.
And Osman Hamuric, who is now recovering outside
London, told Newsday he had twice witnessed forced cannibalism.
On one occasion, he said, guards cut off a
prisoner's ear and forced another man to eat it. The second
time, a guard cut a piece of flesh off a wounded prisoner and
told him to eat it. He refused. ``Why not? It's cooked,''
Hamuric quoted the guard as saying. Hamuric could not say
whether the man ate his own flesh. ``All I know is that they
took him away and we never saw him again.''
U.S. Embassy officials found a witness to an
incident in which a man had his testicles tied with wire to
the back of a motorcycle, which took off at high speed. He
died of massive blood loss.
During their first five days in Omarska, prisoners
were generally giv en no food, witnesses said. After that,
they were taken in groups of 30 to the cafeteria for the sole
meal of the day, which consisted of a slice of bread and a
bowl of thin soup.
Dysentery was rampant, and conditions were so
unclean that some pris oners counted 10 types of lice or
vermin on their bodies. ``We had lice on our eyelids. They'd
fall out of your beards,'' said Hadzic. Detainees said they
were bathed only twice all summer. The guards ordered
prisoners to disrobe in groups of 50 and then aimed firehoses
at their genitals. ``It was pure sadism. They'd laugh if we
fell over,'' Hadzic said.
A mystery is what happened to the people
transferred from Omarska at the time of its closing.
Prisoners said they reckoned a population of 2,500 to 3,000
at Omarska, basing their estimates on such things as counts
of the lunches served on a particular day. Of the prisoners
there at the end, 1,374 were transferred to Manjaca, a POW
camp, according to the International Red Cross. About 700
others went to Trnopolje, a transit camp, according to
prisoners later taken from there to Karlovac. That leaves
between 500 and 1,000 unaccounted for. ^ Distributed by the
Los Angeles Times-Washington Post News Service=
Wounded Eye Witness Tells of Torture in Serb Camp (Omarska)
By Roy Gutman
(c) 1992, Newsday
OMARSKA, Bosnia-Herzegovina _ Edin Elkaz counts
himself lucky to have been shot in the Serb interrogation
camp where Muslims and Croats were taken between May and
August after Serbs captured the town of Prijedor and rounded
up anyone suspected of opposing them.
Elkaz had been a Bosnian soldier, one of the few
Omarska prisoners wh o had actually fought the Serbs. Stuffed
with 130 others into a one-car garage, Elkaz was standing
near the door on May 30 when guards seized a friend of his
and executed him outside at close range.
The bullet penetrated the door, entered the
stomach of Elkaz' brother and finally came to rest in Elkaz'
leg. In the hospital for six weeks with his leg suspended
from a bar, Elkaz had difficulty recovering because Serbs
came by and poked the wound with a stick, repeatedly
reinfecting it.
``I had a very good (Serb) neighbor who came by
one day and said hell o. I came to regret it,'' Elkaz said,
smiling at the irony. ``He brought 15 people to beat me up
over six weeks.''
But Elkaz' weeks in the hospital reduced the time
he was exposed to t he brutality of the Omarska camp. Once
back in Omarska, he was taken with several other Bosnian
soldiers to a room in the ``White House,'' where torture was
conducted. He could see the beatings through a glass door.
The guards used wooden clubs and iron bars and usually
concentrated on the head, the genitals, the spine and the
kidneys. Sometimes they smashed prisoners' heads against
radiators. ``You'd see pieces of flesh or brain there the
next day,'' Elkaz recalled.
But the worst torture was to stand a prisoner
against the wall and be at him with a cable. ``I think they
killed at least 50 men with that cable,'' Elkaz said.
Each morning, he said, detainees laid out the
corpses in front of the White House. Others then loaded them
into the small yellow truck that had just been used to
deliver food to the camp kitchen. A four-man burial detail
would accompany the truck, but only one of them would return
alive.
novine.111.bale.,
Report Used by White House to Defend Iraq Policy Was Flawed (Washn)
By Douglas Frantz and Murray Waas
(c) 1992, Los Angeles Times
WASHINGTON _ A Department of Agriculture report
used in recent months by the Bush administration to defend
its prewar assistance to Iraq was known to be flawed and
incomplete before it was released in 1990, according to
internal documents and interviews.
A senior federal investigator cited the
deficiencies when he tried to delay release of the report,
which stemmed from an inquiry into allegations that Iraq had
misused U.S.-backed loans.
Records show that the official complained that the
report represented an incomplete and ``rosy'' picture of
Iraq's abuse of the loan program, which included paying
bribes to U.S. exporters and possibly trading food for arms.
Releasing the report could embarrass the administration, he
warned.
But the Department of Agriculture, after pressure
from President Bush 's national security adviser, released
the report essentially unchanged. It said that the
department's internal auditors had uncovered no evidence that
Iraq had traded goods bought with U.S. loans for weapons, and
the United States did not suspend its aid to Iraq.
``The administration's investigation of Iraqi
abuses was a whitewash at best,'' said Sen. Patrick J. Leahy,
D-Vt., chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, which
has been investigating the Iraqi loan guarantees. ``At worst,
it was an unsuccessful effort to hide a foreign policy
failure.''
Concerns about the accuracy of the Department of
Agriculture report c ome in the wake of recent questions
about the thoroughness of a simultaneous criminal
investigation into a massive loan scheme involving Iraq and
the Atlanta branch of Italy's Banca Nazionale del Lavoro.
The criticism has centered on the apparent failure
by U.S. government prosecutors to pursue key evidence and the
withholding of intelligence files, possibly to avoid
disclosing the extent of administration aid to Iraq.
The BNL case has become a major issue in the final
weeks of the presi dential campaign, with Democrats accusing
the administration of a coverup and administration officials
denying that there was an effort to conceal information.
Attorney General William P. Barr has appointed an outside
investigator to examine the BNL matter.
Dissatisfied with the appointment, all eight
Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee, asked Barr
Monday for an independent counsel _ who would not report to
the Justice Department _ to investigate the government's
handling of the BNL inquiry. The House Judiciary Committee
made a similar request Friday.
A Department of Agriculture spokeswoman would not
comment Monday on t he 1990 Iraqi report or the criticisms of
it.
The Department of Agriculture inquiry that led to
the report was init iated in response to evidence uncovered
in the BNL investigation. The two sets of investigators even
collided later when they tried to interview the same Iraqi
officials.
When FBI agents raided the Italian bank's Atlanta
branch in August 19 89, they found evidence of $5 billion in
illegal loans to Iraq. Nearly $2 billion had been guaranteed
by the Agriculture Department through its Commodity Credit
Corp. to promote U.S. farm exports.
Investigators discovered indications early that
food bought with the loans may have been traded by Iraq for
military goods. They also uncovered evidence that Iraq had
demanded bribes from U.S. exporters participating in the
program.
Agents from the FBI and the Department of
Agriculture inspector gener al's office pursued the bank case
and internal auditors from Agriculture began to examine the
loans.
In early 1990, both teams wanted to interview the
same Iraqi governme nt officials, but officials in Washington
decided that only one group would be able to interview the
Iraqis. The lead agent in the criminal inquiry later
testified in court that it was decided that the auditors
would interview the Iraqis because both groups believed that
the Iraqis would lie anyway.
In April, the audit team interviewed Iraqi
officials in Baghdad and e xamined documents indicating
possible misuse of the loans. The documents, however, were in
Arabic and never were translated.
In late April 1990, the first draft of the audit
investigation was wr itten and, in an unusual step, sent to
the National Security Council at the White House for review.
It also was reviewed by Craig Beauchamp, the assistant
inspector general for investigations at the Department of
Agriculture, who immediately found that the auditors did not
thoroughly investigate many allegations about Iraq's abuse of
the program.
On May 8, 1990, Beauchamp telephoned Lawrence A.
Urgenson, a senior a ttorney at Justice who was supervising
the criminal investigation of BNL. He told Urgenson that the
report was a ``very incomplete picture of Iraqi involvement''
in abuses and warned that Justice and Agriculture ``could be
embarrassed'' by its release, according to Beauchamp's notes
of the conversation, which were obtained by the Los Angeles
Times.
Two days later, Beauchamp again complained to
Urgenson, saying that t he report painted ``a rosy picture''
of Iraq. He said that he had tried to persuade his superiors
to delay the report's release.
Urgenson apparently took the warning seriously and
responded with a l etter to Agriculture officials saying that
criminal investigators had evidence of Iraqi complicity in
criminal abuses of the loan program, including demanding
bribes. But the letter did not address whether goods had been
traded for weapons.
At the time, Iraq was scheduled to receive
another $500 million in lo an guarantees. Beauchamp and
others were trying to halt the program, but the White House
wanted to keep it open to avoid straining relations with
Iraq, according to documents.
On May 18, 1990, Brent Scowcroft, the president's
national security a dviser, contacted then-Agriculture
Secretary Clayton K. Yeutter and urged him to hold off
suspending the loan guarantees, according to internal
documents.
Yeutter complied and did not announce the
suspension of the program w hen the audit report was released
on May 21. The additional $500 million was still pending when
Iraq invaded Kuwait in August, 1990, according to various
documents and interviews.
Clinton's Record as Governor: Ambiguous, Contradictory
By David Lauter
(c) 1992, Los Angeles Times
WASHINGTON _ During his 12 years as governor of
Arkansas, Bill Clinto n has improved the schools, kept taxes
low, increased the number of jobs, improved civil rights for
minorities and maintained one of the cleanest environments in
the country.
Or, he has presided over one of the worst-educated
states in the coun try, raised taxes on everything from
groceries to used cars, watched as wages declined, failed to
gain a civil rights law for his state's citizens and allowed
the poultry industry to stall state regulation of water
pollution caused by chicken droppings.
Both pictures are true. Neither is complete.
Clinton's record is as ambiguous and contradictory
as the man himself often has been on this year's campaign
trail. When he took over, Arkansas ranked as one of the
nation's poorest states. It still does. But in many ways, the
state has made steady progress under Clinton's tenure.
The overall assessment of his record depends in
large part on whether one looks at where the state stands or
where it is moving. Much also depends on what year one looks
at.
During the first part of the 1980s, Arkansas was
hard hit by the twin downturns in the nation's farm economy
and its oil and gas industry. Economic statistics taken from
that decade show slow growth, declining incomes and poor job
markets. During the last four years, however _ while
President Bush presided over a stagnant national economy _
Arkansas' picture has improved substantially.
Here is a closer examination of the Clinton record:
Economy
The official version of the history of the
Arkansas economy during t he Bill Clinton era runs something
like this:
When he first took office in 1978, economic
development in the small Southern state amounted to
``smokestack chasing.'' State officials would look for
industrial plants in the Midwest and Northeast and woo them
with promises of cheap labor, low taxes and lax regulation.
Clinton has said that he quickly realized that
such efforts were self-defeating. Employers attracted by the
promise of low wages would forever remain low-wage employers.
They would stay in the state for a while but eventually would
be lured away by other areas _ Mexico or Taiwan _ that could
promise even lower costs. And in the meantime, such
industries would do little to lift the state from poverty.
And so, during his first two-year term and again
in 1982 when he rega ined his office after losing it in 1980,
Clinton set out to change the state's approach to encouraging
development in its impoverished backwaters. He pushed for
major education reforms to improve the future work force, as
well as the creation of new agencies to provide capital to
encourage local business start-ups.
At first, progress was slow, particularly in the
recessionary years o f the mid-1980s. But in recent years,
Arkansas has led the nation in new job growth.
This version of the story is true. But only in part.
Clinton's programs may have had some impact on the
state's job-growth rate, but the impact has been small. The
main source of new jobs has been the state's rapidly growing
chicken industry, growth that has made the poultry producers
a powerful entity in Arkansas. And that, in turn, has stymied
efforts to control chicken-related pollution.
In addition, jobs in the chicken factories are
generally low paying, as are jobs in the timber industry _
another source of Arkansas' strong employment growth in
recent years.
Comparing 1979 and 1991, the number of non-farm
jobs in Arkansas has increased by 24 percent, a rate slightly
higher than the national average of 20 percent during that
period. Nationally, most of that job growth took place in the
early and mid-1980s. In Arkansas, much of the growth was in
the last four years. Since Bush took office, jobs nationwide
have increased by only 1 percent, while jobs in Arkansas have
increased by 11.5 percent.
In another key economic category, Arkansas' per
capita annual income has gone from $6,911 in 1979 to $14,629
in 1991. That was a healthy rate of growth, but overall only
kept pace with the national averages. And the state remains
near the bottom in per capita income; only West Virginia,
Mississippi and Utah rank below it.
Still, during the years Clinton and Bush have both
been chief executi ves, Arkansas has done better than the
nation as a whole. Nationally, per capita income adjusted for
inflation has dropped 1 percent since 1989. In Arkansas, per
capita income adjusted for inflation has grown 2 percent,
making the state one of the few that can show actual income
growth during the Bush years.
-0-
Spending and Taxes
As governor, Clinton has faced strict constraints
on his ability to e ither spend money or raise it. Under the
Arkansas constitution, the budget must be balanced. The state
has an automatic budget-cutting process that cuts spending to
match revenues each quarter of the year. As for taxes, most
can be increased only if three-fourths of the Legislature
concurs. Effectively, that means that as few as 12 members of
the state Senate can kill a tax increase, and they usually
have.
The exceptions to that rule are sales taxes and
fees, and Clinton has turned to both to raise revenue. As
governor, he put through two major sales tax increases. The
first, in 1983, raised the sales tax from three cents on the
dollar to four cents. The second increase, in 1990, added
another half cent to the levy.
Adjusted for inflation, state spending in Arkansas
increased 33 perce nt between 1980 and 1991. Spending
increased somewhat faster than statewide income. But despite
those spending increases, Arkansas has one of the lowest tax
burdens in the nation.
-0-
Education and Environment
No issue has had a greater priority with Clinton
than education. His biggest political battle was a
confrontation with the state teachers union over teacher
competency tests _ part of a broad package of educational
reforms Clinton was able to get passed in 1983.
Clinton's efforts on education even won him praise
from President Bus h. In 1989, when Clinton headed a task
force of governors that worked with administration officials
in setting new education goals, Bush wrote him a letter
complimenting his work.
Nonetheless, education reforms take many years to
have an impact, and so far, the measurable changes in the
state's rankings are small.
On the environmental front, Clinton took on the
timber industry durin g his first term (1979-81) and lost a
major battle over clear-cutting in the state's forests. He
also staged a major fight with the state's chief utility over
nuclear power. When he returned to office in 1983, Clinton
took a more low-key approach on environmental concerns,
playing down the issue in the interests of economic growth.
The resulting problems have been most evident in
northwestern Arkansa s, the center of the state's poultry
industry. The chief culprit is chicken droppings, which area
farmers traditionally have used for fertilizer. In limited
amounts, that practice causes few environmental problems, but
as the industry has grown, the amount of chicken waste has
exceeded the land's ability to absorb it, resulting in runoff
into lakes and streams, where the nitrogen in the chicken
droppings causes sharp increases in the growth of algae.
That, in turn, robs the water of oxygen needed by fish.
Clinton and his aides correctly note that overall,
the state remains one of the nation's cleanest. The vast
majority of the state's rivers and streams are clean, and
Arkansas is one of the few states that complies fully with
the federal Clean Air Act _ mostly because the state
industrialized late and has few old, high-polluting factories.
Examination of Bush's Successes, Failures as President
By Douglas Jehl
(c) 1992, Los Angeles Times
WASHINGTON _ That George Bush's first-term record
looms as a problem even for him is evident in the strategy he
has adopted for re-election. Rather than dwell upon the past
four years, the president has mostly tried to change the
subject.
He is glad to talk about his agenda for American
``renewal.'' He is e ager to talk about Democrat Bill
Clinton's record as Arkansas' governor. But he dares not ask
voters whether they are better off now than when he took
office. This election, he now insists, should focus on the
future.
That approach carries deep irony: While incumbency
is usually regarde d as an advantage, Bush's past has proved
a burden. Not since World War II has a president presided
over an economy so stagnant. In promising better times ahead,
Bush finds himself conceding that ``times have been very,
very difficult for many Americans.''
The sense of ``Marching In Place,'' as a new book
on the Bush preside ncy is titled, extends across a wide
domestic spectrum. In his first term, Bush has done what he
promised not to do _ raise taxes _ and stopped short of what
he vowed to be _ the environmental and education president.
If the past has become a handicap, that fate also
serves as a remind er of politics' cruel tricks. With the
Cold War over and the Persian Gulf war won, Bush discovered
that great successes only make voters yearn for more.
Victorious abroad, Americans demanded similar victories at
home.
Here is a closer examination of the Bush record:
The Economy
Bush took office with promises of massive job
growth and sunny prospe rity. Instead, Americans lost ground
in three crucial areas: economic growth, income and jobs.
Under Bush, the economy has grown by just 1
percent a year. And media n family income, when adjusted for
inflation, has actually declined. Bush promised to create 30
million jobs in eight years; but in a little less than four
years, total employment has increased by just 2.8 million,
and the number of private-sector jobs has actually declined.
The jobless rate, 5.4 percent when he took office, has shot
upward, standing at 7.5 percent in the latest report. One
American in 10 is now on food stamps.
The statistics are not uniformly bleak. The U.S.
economy remains the world's largest; inflation, its bane a
decade ago, no longer poses a serious threat. And interest
rates are at their lowest level in 20 years, setting the
stage for a spree of investment that Bush claims leaves that
nation ``poised for a dramatic recovery.''
To listen to the president, the poor economic
record is mostly Congre ss' fault. As an example, he points
to lawmakers' steadfast refusal to pass the capital gains
tax-cut proposal that has been the most consistent element of
his economic agenda.
Bush's advisers also point to the structural
slowdown in the defense industry brought about by the end of
the Cold War. With various major weapon programs being
canceled or slowed, thousands of jobs have been loss.
But it is also true that, until this year, Bush
devoted little attent ion to the state of the economy. When
he finally did so, his election-year proposals had virtually
no chance of winning the embrace of a Democratic-controlled
Congress.
-0-
Taxes and Spending
For all his disdain of taxing and spending, Bush
has presided over la rge increases in both. The income tax
increase he reluctantly approved (he now calls it a
``mistake'') in a 1990 budget-agreement with Congress was the
second-largest in American history. Since he took office,
federal spending, adjusted for inflation, has shot up 8.7
percent a year.
Bush justified his support for the tax hike as a
necessary step to ma intain budget discipline. But it has not
had that effect. In just four years, the federal deficit has
nearly doubled, swelling to $290 billion this year. The total
federal debt has increased to $4 trillion, from $2.6 trillion
four years ago.
To be sure, Bush tried but failed to persuade
Congress to accept a cu t in the capital-gains tax rate. His
own spending proposals have been consistently smaller than
those ultimately approved by Congress. But as a would-be
deficit-cutter, he has been less than courageous. While
calling for spending cuts, he has refused to identify the
programs he would shrink or eliminate.
-0-
Foreign Policy and Defense
So much more impressive is Bush's record here that
he has sought to u se it as a symbol. ``If we can change the
world, we can change America,'' he has said. But just as the
resulting defense build-down has contributed to economic
problems at home, so too have extraordinary successes made
the next steps more confusing.
Since Bush took office, the Cold War has ended,
the Berlin Wall falle n and the Soviet Union disbanded.
Nuclear war no longer looms as a threat and arms control
agreements have cut deep into the former adversaries'
arsenals. Perhaps more than ever before, the United States
holds an unparalleled position of world leadership.
That prestige was reinforced by Bush's success in
mustering the international coalition that drove Saddam
Hussein's armies from Kuwait. In a standoff in which he was
never seen to waver, Bush earned acclaim from a public that,
polls show, even now regards his gulf war leadership as his
top accomplishment.
Recently, however, even his record on this front
has suffered, fallin g prey to disclosures showing that his
administration coddled Iraq until only days before it invaded
Kuwait.
-0-
Environment and Education
While Bush has fulfilled his specific pledges on
these issues, his re cord has fallen short of the standard
most voters had been led to expect.
The slower course reflects in part the tension
Bush perceived between environmentalism and the economy.
After winning passage of a landmark Clean Air Act, the Bush
administration has moved to weaken some standards on the
grounds that they involved too much regulation. While putting
the coasts of New England, southern Florida and California
off limits to oil exploration, Bush has pressed to open the
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for drilling.
On education, Bush's efforts have been limited by
spending constraint s. He has increased education funding by
11 percent a year since taking office. But while creating an
America 2000 program of goals and standards, he has resisted
pressures for a more active federal role. His most innovative
proposal, to guarantee ``school choice,'' remains limited:
His plan to provide $1,000 vouchers that parents could use
toward paying for their children's educations at public,
private or parochial schools would include no more than 2
percent of the nation's schoolchildren.
-0-
Drugs
``This scourge will end,'' Bush said of the
nation's drug epidemic. B ut after nearly four years and a
doubling of federal spending to $12 billion, the end is not
in sight. Drug use among teen-agers and so-called casual
users has declined, but its incidence among addicts and in
inner-city neighborhoods has not abated.
The slow progress may have been the fault of a
misdirected drug war. A so-called Andean strategy that aimed
vast new resources at crackdowns in Peru, Bolivia and
Colombia has shown little success; the amount of cocaine
reaching the United States appears mostly unchanged.
novine.112.bale.,
GENEVA, Oct 18, Reuter - After seven months of fighting,
Bosnia-Herzegovina's Moslems, Serbs and Croats appear as far
apart as ever on the shape of a state where they could live
together again.
The three main communities in the former Yugoslav
republic have made clear to international mediators working
in Geneva that they have widely differing views on how they
could share power from foreign affairs down to customs duties.
In presentations to the mediators of their views, the
Moslem-led Bosnian government argues for a single if
decentralised state, the rebel Serbs insist on a
confederation and the Croats argue for a federation.
The presentations, in copies obtained by Reuters this
weekend, show the government insisting that the high degree
of intermingling before the conflict erupted in April meant a
split on ethnic lines would be economic nonsense.
The Serbs have told mediator Martti Ahtisaari, according
to the documents, that they want three clearly identified
ethnic states each with their own central bank, police force
and army or National Guard.
Between these two positions, Croat leader Mate Boban says
the country should be "a democratic and federal state of
constituent and sovereign nations" where the three national
groups are organised in their own "units."
The presentations were made in response to a
questionnaire from Ahtisaari, an experienced Finnish diplomat
and United Nations negotiator who heads a working group on
Bosnia set up by the Geneva conference on the old Yugoslavia.
The conference co-chairmen, former U.S. secretary of
state Cyrus Vance and ex-British foreign secretary Lord Owen,
say that despite the continued ferocity of the conflict,
progress is being made in discussions on a future constitution.
But the presentations suggest there has been little
change of position since European Community-brokered talks in
February and March this year failed to prevent war between
the Serbs and the loosely allied Moslems and Croats.
Then the idea of "cantonisation" along the Swiss model
was pursued but the Serbs -- just under 30 per cent of the
population -- also demanded near total autonomy in their own
region covering two thirds of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
In a referendum on March 3, boycotted by most Serbs, the
Moslems and Croats voted almost unanimously for independence
from the rump Yugoslavia -- already reduced to only Serbia
and Montenegro -- and it was immediately proclaimed.
An EC plan for constitutional settlement, which in
outline resembled that now offered by the Croats who
represent 18 per cent of the country's people, was rejected
by Serb leader Radovan Karadzic as too centralist.
Despite apparent initial agreement, Bosnia's
parliamentary president Alija Izetbegovic rejected division
into ethnic cantons on grounds almost identical to those
which he and his colleagues still defend.
He feared the Moslems, concentrated by history in small
pockets of territory and many major towns but spread thinly
across the countryside, would be left with an unviable mini-
state under constant threat from its larger neighbours.
Although he retains the backing of some urban Serbs who
reject the fierce nationalism of Karadzic, he is accused by
the Bosnian Serb leaders of aiming to create an Islamic state
where Moslems would dominate the rest.
But in his government's presentation to Ahtisaari, he
argues for a "democratic, secular and decentralised state"
based on equal rights "for Croats, Moslems, Serbs and all
other citizens of Bosnia-Herzegovina."
Decentralisation, the presentation argues, should be
based on geographic and economic criteria as well as national
and cultural grounds, and be around "natural centres" in the
larger towns and cities.
These "constituent units-regions," the document
declared, "do not have the character of a state." The Serbs,
who have proclaimed their own republic and through "ethnic
cleansing" have removed many Moslems and Croats, insist that
they should.
"Naturally," their document says, the constituent units
"are sovereign states with all the consquences known in
internal and international law" joining a future
Confederation of Bosnia- Herzegovina "of their own free will."
novine.113.bale.,
FOREIGN PRESS BUREAU, October 19, 1992
SARAJEVO, B-H - Heavy fighting was reported in the Bosnian capital Sun-
day with all parts of the city coming under artillery, tank, mortar, and
sniper fire. The main grain mill was hit and destroyed after taking
three direct hits. Directors of the main bakery estimated that the sup-
ply of bread would run out in less than two days and no more bread can
be made. At least 17 people were killed and more than 100 wounded in
the bombardment. The commander of the Bosnian Army said the renewed
shelling was the result of a dipute between the Serbian and Muslim sides
over a body exchange. A spokesman for the UN peacekeeping forces, Mik
Magnusson, said the overland routes were desperately needed in oreder to
supply the city and prepare it for the upcoming winter. Relief aid from
the air is not enough. Building and construction materials are needed,
he said, to put roofs on houses and some kind of protection where glass
windows used to be. He added that the city is freezing, damp and miser-
able, as well as starving. One of Bosnia's most popular guerrilla
leaders, Juka, was arrested yesterday in Sarajevo. According to Bosnian
government sources, he was arrested on Igman mountain for allegedly try-
ing to seize control of military operations. There was an attempt by
his forces in Sarajevo to try and relay a message on Sarajevo TV, which
was denied to them. The Bosnian Vice-President, Ejup Ganic, said mili-
tias in Sarajevo are resisting attempts by the government to unify the
army.
GRADACAC, B-H - Serbian infantry units have continued to try and advance
through defense lines in the outlying villages and towns. Heavy fight-
ing was reported Sunday with continued shelling. The situation is said
to be dramatic, with shells falling near the chlorine tanks that have
been placed along the front lines in an attempt to stop the shelling.
Serbian 120 and 125 millimeter artilley units have kept up a continuous
bombardment of the town throughout the day today, targeting civilian
houses in town. Chlorine barrels have reportedly been placed in Tuzla
and the Bosanska Posavina region in addition to those already in place
around Gradacac. The announcement came from the Bosnian high command in
Tuzla on Sunday. The command added if Serbian attacks on the sector did
not cease, they would open the cannisters and release the gas.
MAGLAJ, B-H - Heavy fighting continued in the northern Bosnian town over
the weekend. Serbian forces shelled the road between Maglaj and Jepce
Saturday night while infantry battles continued into Sunday. Shells
also landed in the town itself while the defense lines were reported to
be under heavy fire. Serbian forces are said to be reinforcing their
positions thorough the area.
MOSTAR, B-H - The front lines around Bijelo Polje were under attack from
Serbian forces and the bridge at the hydroelectric station was also
reported to be under attack throughout the day, yesterday. Bosnian
President Alija izetbegovic, was in Mostar yesterday to discuss joint
military command with the Croatian Defense Council forces.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND - A meeting between the three parties of the con-
flict in former Yugoslavia will take place in Geneva today. The talks
will be held under the joint chairmanship of Cyrus Vance, from the UN,
and Lord Owen, from the EC. They will consider new proposals on the
future of Bosnia, including plans that envisage a decentralized state
split up into ten regionsall with a high degree of autonomy. Included
in the proposals are plans for a new costitution for a divided republic
of Bosnia-Herzegovina. The Bosnian Foreign Minister, Haris Silajdzic,
said his republics government was prepared to make a major concession to
the Serb forces who have effective military control over much of
Bosnia-Herzegovina. Silajdzic said the plans were being considered to
split the republic into as many as 10 regions, each with a high degree
of autonomy but the divisions would not be along ethnic lines.
novine.114.bale.,
RFE/RL Daily Report
No. 201, October 19, 1992
SUCCESSOR STATES TO THE USSR
TAJIK MILITANTS TAKE RUSSIAN HOSTAGES. Supporters of the Islamic
Renaissance Party blockaded a Dushanbe school for an hour and a
half on 15 October in an attempt to force a Russian division
stationed in Tajikistan to repossess tanks and armored transports
the militants believe were given by the Russians to forces
fighting the Tajik government in the southern part of the country,
ITAR-TASS, quoting the Russian Defense Ministry, reported on 17
October. The school is attended by Russian children as well as
other nationalities. Western press agencies reported on 16 October
that the militants subsequently took a group of Russians hostage
near the school. (Bess Brown, RFE/RL Inc.)
IRAN OFFERS TO MEDIATE IN TAJIK CIVIL WAR. Iran has again offered
to mediate between opposing sides in the continuing conflict in
Tajikistan, ITAR-TASS reported on 17 October, quoting the official
Iranian news agency IRNA. The offer was made by Iran's ambassador
to Tajikistan, Ali Ashraf Mojtahed Shabestari, at a cultural
symposium in Dushanbe. While the Iranian offer might be welcomed
by some elements of the former opposition coalition, it is
unlikely to be viewed favorably by forces opposed to the Tajik
government, who reject any meddling by an Islamic state such as
Iran. (Bess Brown, RFE/RL Inc.)
GEORGIA CALLS FOR WITHDRAWAL OF RUSSIAN FORCES FROM ABKHAZIA.
Addressing the final session of Georgia's state council on 16
October, Georgian parliament speaker-elect Eduard Shevardnadze
stated that if the next round of Georgian-Russian negotiations on
a settlement of the Abkhaz conflict fails, Georgia will be
compelled to use military force to recover the territory occupied
by Abkhaz forces, ITAR-TASS reported. A Georgian government
statement issued on 17 October called on the Russian military
command to withdraw its forces from the conflict zone. A CSCE
fact-finding delegation held talks with Shevardnadze on 17 October
and with Georgian officials in Sukhumi on 18 October, Interfax
reported. Pope John Paul II appealed on 18 October for peace in
Georgia, which he termed "a country of long-established and
important Christian tradition." (Liz Fuller, RFE/RL Inc.)
YELTSIN FOR POSTPONEMENT OF CONGRESS. Russian President Boris
Yeltsin has asked the parliament to postpone the Seventh Congress
of People's Deputies, ITAR-TASS reported on 16 October. Yeltsin
argued that if the Congress was held in March and not, as
scheduled, in early December, it could adopt the new Constitution
which is not yet completed. He said that if convened now, the
Congress would only lead to a political struggle. The leaders of
the Republics of the Russian Federation issued a joint statement
also asking parliament to postpone the date of the Congress.
Yeltsin also accused the so-called "National Salvation Front" of
attempts to set up power structures parallel to those in his
administration, and he criticized the parliament for tolerating
these activities. (Alexander Rahr, RFE/RL Inc.)
CHERNOBYL BLOCK SWITCHED ON. The third block of the Chernobyl
nuclear reactor was switched on again on 16 October, an RFE/RL
correspondent and Ukrinform-TASS reported. Trial operations were
scheduled to be run for two days, after which the block was to
operate at full capacity. The second block is to be restarted at
the end of October. A spokesman for the Ukrainian parliamentary
commission on Chernobyl rejected the warnings of Western
specialists on the potential danger of restarting the Chernobyl
reactor. Several authoritative Ukrainian spokesmen have reiterated
that the Chernobyl reactor will be closed permanently starting in
1993, but that Ukraine will continue to need nuclear power. (Keith
Bush, RFE/RL Inc.)
NEW RUSSIAN TV COMPANY ESTABLISHED. Following a recommendation by
the Russian Ministry for Press and Information, President Yeltsin
has issued a decree establishing a new TV company, the Federal TV
and Broadcasting Agency (FTS-TV Rossiya), ITAR-TASS reported on 17
October. FTS-TV Rossiya will broadcast on the fifth channel, which
has been used previously by St. Petersburg TV and RIA-TV. The
boards of both TV companies have been incorporated into FTS-TV
Rossiya. St. Petersburg TV will thus cease to exist as a separate
body. The prominent St. Petersburg TV moderator, Bella Kurkova,
has been appointed head of the new TV agency. (Alexander Rahr,
RFE/RL Inc.)
RUSSIA TAXES IMPORTED VODKA. Russia has imposed a 100% tariff on
imports of alcohol in an effort to protect domestic vodka
producers, Interfax reported on 16 October. The tariff had been
set at 15% in early 1992, and was raised to 30% in August. Sales
of domestically produced vodka have plummeted. Many Russians
appear to prefer the imported brands, which are more expensive,
because they are thought to be superior in quality. (Keith Bush,
RFE/RL Inc.)
RUSSIANS DETAIL GREENPEACE TERRITORIAL VIOLATIONS. Russian Foreign
Ministry press spokesman Sergei Yastrzembski charged that the
Greenpeace ship Solo, seized by Russian naval forces on 12 October
off the Arctic nuclear testing ground on Novaya Zemlya, had
deliberately violated Russian territorial waters. In remarks
carried by Interfax on 16 October, he reported that water and soil
samples had been discovered aboard the ship. He claimed that this
proved that the crew had been engaged in research in violation of
international law, since they had no permission for such work. The
Solo arrived in Tyuva Guba, a military port near Murmansk, early
on the morning of 18 October. Consular officials from six Western
countries were taken to the site but not allowed aboard. Western
agencies reported that, ironically, the Solo ended up towing its
captor into port after the Russian ship broke down. (Doug Clarke,
RFE/RL Inc.)
SHAPOSHNIKOV PESSIMISTIC OVER KURILS. In an interview published on
17 October by the Japanese Kyodo news service, CIS
commander-in-chief Evgenii Shaposhnikov hinted that Russia could
reconsider its earlier pledge to withdraw all its troops from the
four southern Kuril islands claimed by Japan. He was quoted as
saying that a Russian unilateral withdrawal was "meaningless," and
that it would be necessary to beef up the border guards in the
area if the islands were demilitarized. Shaposhnikov suggested
that the way could be opened for a settlement of the island issue
if Japan were to provide more economic assistance to Russia, and
if "politicians in the new [Russian] generation" understood that
Japan was not an enemy. (Doug Clarke, RFE/RL Inc.)
RUSSIANS STUDYING IDEA OF SPECIAL ECONOMIC ZONE IN KURILS. An AFP
report on 16 October cites a statement by Russian presidential
adviser Sergei Stankevich that President Yeltsin is awaiting a
report by experts before signing a decree transforming the Kuril
Islands into a special economic zone. The plan was first announced
in Hong Kong on 15 October by Valentin Fedorov, the Governor of
Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands. Fedorov said that the zone would
afford tax breaks and other incentives to foreign investors. (Hal
Kosiba, RFE/RL Inc.)
GAPS IN CIS AIR DEFENSE SHIELD. Kommersant reported on 16 October
that the CIS high command is concerned over the ongoing
disintegration of the former Soviet air defense system,
particularly as a result of developments in Central Asia and the
Caucasus. According to the report, an exodus of military
specialists and funding shortfalls have forced the closing of
radar stations along the Tajik-Afghan border. At the same time,
plans to disband in April of 1993 the 19th Air Defense Army,
stationed in the Caucasus, are likely to create a gap there that
would further impair the functioning of the formerly integrated
air defense system. (Stephen Foye, RFE/RL Inc.)
GERMAN POLICE SEIZE ENRICHED URANIUM. According to a Reuters
report of 16 October, German police seized 2.2 kilograms of
allegedly highly enriched uranium in Munich on 13 October. The
material was apparently smuggled in from Russia, and a German
police union leader called for Russia to help prevent attempts to
smuggle radioactive materials. Reports were unclear on the extent
of enrichment: Reuters claimed that uranium-234, 235, and 238 were
seized. Only the uranium-235, if sufficiently pure, would be of
use in making an atomic bomb. Previous seizures of "highly
enriched uranium" have involved uranium enriched to only 3-3.5%
uranium-235 for nuclear reactor fuel, rather than the much higher
90-100% enrichment required for producing atomic bombs. (John
Lepingwell, RFE/RL Inc.)
YELTSIN AND GATES MEET. During a three day visit in Moscow, CIA
Director Robert Gates met with President Yeltsin, Evgenii
Primakov, the director of the Russian foreign intelligence
service, and Viktor Barannikov, the minister of state security,
ITAR-TASS and Western agencies reported on 17 October. Yeltsin
told Gates that the Russian and American intelligence services
could cooperate in the fight against drug smuggling, the
proliferation of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction. He
added, however, that Russia could not give away all of its
secrets, including information about Russia's former KGB network
in the West. Yeltsin also provided Gates copies of the
declassified KGB documents concerning the shooting down of a South
Korean passenger airliner in 1983. (Victor Yasmann, RFE/RL Inc.).
CIA CHIEF TELLS YELTSIN ABOUT LOST SOVIET SUBMARINE. ITAR-TASS
reported that during his meetings with President Yeltsin and
high-ranking Russian intelligence officials, Robert Gates gave
Yeltsin details of the CIA's 1974 attempt to recover a Soviet
Golf-2 class submarine, which sank in the northern Pacific in
March 1968. Using the research ship Glomar Explorer, the CIA
secretly raised a part of the sub from the ocean floor. The
remains of six crewmen were recovered. Gates explained that the
six were buried at sea in a ceremony that included the playing of
the Soviet anthem. He gave Yeltsin the Soviet flag that had draped
the remains during the funeral. (Doug Clarke, RFE/RL Inc.)
CABINET CHANGES IN UKRAINE. Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk
issued three decrees affecting the composition of the Ukrainian
government, DR-Press reported on 17 October. Anatolii Lobov has
been appointed minister of the cabinet of ministers, replacing
Volodymyr Pyekhota, a longtime Communist Party functionary. Yurii
Shcherbak, who will serve as Ukraine's ambassador to Israel, was
relieved of his post as environmental minister. (Roman Solchanyk,
RFE/RL Inc.)
BLACK SEA FLEET UPDATE. The commander of the Ukrainian Navy, Rear
Admiral Boris Kozhin, told the newspaper Krymskie izvestiya that
he believes the existing infrastructure of the Black Sea Fleet
should belong to Ukraine. According to a 16 October Interfax
summary of the interview, Kozhin also suggested that expert groups
from Russia and Ukraine were completing a new agreement that would
deal with the interim joint command of the fleet and the phased
creation of independent Russian and Ukrainian navies. (Stephen
Foye, RFE/RL Inc.)
UKRAINIAN ARMS DEALS. Ukraine and India concluded a barter deal on
17 October in which Kiev agreed to supply weapons and spare parts
to New Delhi in exchange for Indian goods, including medicine and
cloth, Reuters reported. India also agreed to pay partly in hard
currency. The talks had appeared deadlocked on 16 September when
the Ukrainian Minister of Machine-Building, the
Military-Industrial Complex, and Conversion, Viktor Antonov,
apparently insisted on dollar payments. Meanwhile, on 17 October
the press service of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry denied a
report published by Komsomolskaya pravda that a deal is in the
works whereby Kiev would sell the aircraft-carrying cruiser Varyag
to France in exchange for several French-made submarines. The
denial was reported by Interfax. (Stephen Foye, RFE/RL Inc.)
BELARUS: GENERALS DISMISSED; OTHER DEVELOPMENTS. Prime Minister
Vyacheslav Kebich has dismissed two Lt. Generals for "abuse of
power" and "failure to manage military property," Interfax
reported on 16 October. Three deputy defense ministers were
reportedly also severely reprimanded and several top posts were
eliminated. The corruption charges were first raised on 11
September. Meanwhile, Defense Minister Pavel Kozlovsky called upon
parliament to increase the military budget, according to the same
report. He said that the armed forces were having difficulties
holding on to their best pilots and other specialists. He also
said that the high command would not tolerate "any political
organizations in the army." (Stephen Foye, RFE/RL Inc.)
KYRGYZ CONSTITUTIONAL COMMISSION COMPLETES WORK. A commission
drafting a new constitution for Kyrgyzstan has completed its work,
Interfax reported on 16 October. The group's chairman was quoted
as saying that a statement that Kyrgyzstan is in the process of a
spiritual rebirth oriented toward Islamic values has been deleted
from the preamble to the draft constitution. The draft permits
only the state to own water and natural resources. According to
Interfax, Kyrgyz President Askar Akaev told the last session of
the commission that he opposes creation of a constitutional court,
because the Russian experience shows it can be misused to stage
political trials. (Bess Brown, RFE/RL Inc.)
CENTRAL AND EAST EUROPE
MAZOWIECKI TALKS ABOUT RIGHTS ABUSES IN KOSOVO. UN human rights
envoy and former Polish Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki on 18
October warned that the human rights of Kosovo's Albanian majority
which constitutes over 90% of the population were being
"systematically violated" by Serbian authorities. He called for
the establishment of a "joint Albanian-Serbian group under
international auspices," and recommended one of his assistants to
head the project, the BBC said on 19 October. The Albanians agreed
to his suggestion, but local Serbian officials said they had no
authority to accept. (Patrick Moore, RFE/RL Inc.)
BOSNIAN UPDATE. International media reported on 18 October that
Bosnian officers had agreed to remove a roadblock on the main
highway into Sarajevo to allow the UN to resume overland relief
convoys after several days' break. The BBC said on 17 October that
the Bosnians had claimed they were trying to prevent Serbian tanks
from using the road. Its correspondent suggested, however, that
they were simply trying to be difficult since they wanted arms,
not aid. Austrian and German TV said on 17 and 18 October,
respectively, that there were unconfirmed rumors in Sarajevo of a
coup against President Alija Izetbegovic. The putsch was allegedly
staged by Vice President Ejup Ganic and several ministers
reportedly regarded as hard-liners. On 18 October international
media reported increased shelling in Sarajevo, while Croatian
Radio said that Serbs had also intensified their attacks on Bihac
and Maglaj. (Patrick Moore, RFE/RL Inc.)
ROMANIAN OPPOSITION LEADER SAYS UN EMBARGO VIOLATED. Ion Ratiu,
vice president of the opposition National Peasant Party Christian
Democratic, said in Washington Romania was violating the UN
sanctions imposed on trade with former Yugoslavia, Reuters
reported on 17 October. Ratiu said the government was helping
Serbia and that violations included traffic on the Danube river
and sharing of electricity. (Michael Shafir, RFE/RL Inc.)
SEJM REJECTS CRUCIAL SPENDING CUT. By a slim margin of three
votes, the Polish Sejm voted on 17 October to accept the
government's economic program for 1993 which favors investment
over consumption. The Sejm voted down a motion to reject proposed
revisions to the 1992 budget; these will raise the deficit ceiling
by 16 trillion zloty ($1.1 billion, RFE/RL Inc.), cut spending by
3.5%, and impose new taxes. The Sejm refused, however, to consider
a related government proposal to reduce cost-of-living increases
in pensions from 30% to 18%. The vote on the pensions issue was
the government's first parliamentary defeat and drives home the
need to broaden the ruling coalition. The Sejm's decision forces
the government to choose between a further increase in the budget
deficit, risking the IMF's displeasure, or additional unpopular
cuts in social services. Finance Minister Jerzy Osiatynski said
the failure to limit pension increases required the government to
find new spending cuts of up to 23 trillion zloty ($1.6 billion).
(Louisa Vinton, RFE/RL Inc.)
LITTLE CONSTITUTION CLEARS POLISH PARLIAMENT. The Sejm voted on 16
October to reject most of the Senate's proposed changes to the
"little constitution," which is designed to clarify the balance of
power in the executive branch. In normal circumstances, only the
president's signature would now be needed to make the bill law.
But, before voting, the Sejm changed its own rules of procedure to
require a two-thirds majority to accept the Senate's revisions
rather than a two-thirds majority to overrule them, as had been
the case up until now. A group of 52 deputies has asked the
Constitutional Tribunal for a ruling on the legality of this
procedural change. President Lech Walesa, who has charged that the
little constitution unduly limits the powers of the presidency,
announced he would postpone any decision until the Constitutional
Tribunal rules on the case. (Louisa Vinton, RFE/RL Inc.)
FIAT TAKES OVER POLISH AUTO PLANT. Representatives of Fiat and the
Polish finance ministry signed "opening date" agreements on 17
October (backdated to 16 October) granting the Italian auto maker
90% ownership of the FSM firm. FSM is already producing compact
Cinquecento cars. Prime Minister Hanna Suchocka attended the
ceremony. The agreement makes possible the wage increases that
were delayed by the summer strike at the FSM plant in Tychy. The
Fiat deal, with a total value of $2 billion, is the largest
Western investment in Poland so far. (Louisa Vinton, RFE/RL Inc.)
SEJM ON KATYN. On 17 October the Sejm adopted a resolution
welcoming President Yeltsin's release of documents showing that
the CPSU Politburo had ordered the execution of 21,000 Polish
prisoners of war in 1940. "Although the Polish nation always knew
the criminals' true names," the statement said, "the release of
the documents creates a new moral situation in Polish-Russian
relations. The whole truth must be revealed, the crimes punished,
and justice done." The statement expressed confidence that
legality and truth would enable Poland and Russia to overcome the
burden of the past in building the future. (Louisa Vinton, RFE/RL
Inc.)
NEW ROMANIAN PARLIAMENT CONVENES. The new Romanian parliament,
elected on 27 September, convened in Bucharest on 16 October,
Rompres and Radio Bucharest reported on the same day. The parties
represented in the new legislature's two chambers set up new
parliamentary groups. The Socialist Labor Party, heir to the
Communist Party, and the extreme nationalist Greater Romania Party
(GRP) set up a joint group in the Senate, named "the national
bloc" (partida nationala). It will be headed by Adraian Paunescu,
a former "court poet" under Ceausescu. At a press conference in
Bucharest Corneliu Vadim Tudor, a new senator and the GRP leader,
said the next prime minister must be an "authentic Romanian" (an
allusion to former prime minister Petre Roman's Jewish origins)
and should not be a "personality of the diaspora" (an allusion to
rumors that Iliescu might nominate former dissident Mihai Botez as
premier). (Michael Shafir, RFE/RL Inc.).
KING MICHAEL AND THE ROMANIAN GOVERNMENT. Festivities were held in
Alba Iulia on 17 October to commemorate the seventieth anniversary
of the inauguration of the town's cathedral and the coronation of
King Ferdinand as sovereign of Greater Romania. Radio Bucharest
broadcast on the same day a message from exiled King Michael and
the response of the government. The king said that he had been
hindered from attending the ceremonies by those who in the past
had "backed a regime that brought misfortune" and who were now
inventing new pretexts and going back on earlier promises. In
reply, the government's spokeswoman said no pretexts or new
conditions had been raised for the king's visit. The prolonged
electoral process, the convening of the new parliament and the
investiture of the president had made it impossible to issue in
time a visa for the king to attend the celebrations. There would
be "other occasions" for a visit by the royal family, the
spokeswoman said. (Michael Shafir)
DUBCEK REELECTED CHAIRMAN OF SLOVAK SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC PARTY.
Alexander Dubcek, the former First Secretary of the Czechoslovak
Communist Party and symbol of the "Prague Spring," was reelected
chairman of the Slovak Social Democratic Party (SSDP) on 17
October. Dubcek joined the SSDP shortly before this year's June
elections but failed to lead it to an election victory. The SSDP
is represented in only one chamber of the federal parliament, and
has no representation in the Slovak National Assembly. Meanwhile,
Dubcek's condition remains critical after several operations
following a car crash on 1 September in which he suffered chest
and spinal injuries. (Jan Obrman, RFE/RL Inc.)
HUNGARIAN DEPUTY REPRIMANDED. Jozsef Debreczeni, a liberal deputy
of the ruling Hungarian Democratic Forum was reprimanded by his
party's ethics committee for publishing an article in the
socialist daily Nepszabadsag criticizing a controversial essay by
Istvan Csurka, one of the vice presidents of the Forum, MTI
reported on 16 October. Debreczeni wrote that the essay, which had
anti-Semitic overtones, was the basis of Nazi ideology. The ethics
committee called attention to its earlier decision that debates
among party members should be published in periodicals close to
the forum. Debreczeni said that he was not familiar with this
decision. (Judith Pataki, RFE/RL Inc.)
HUNGARIAN CHRISTIAN DEMOCRATS MEET. The presidium of the Hungarian
Christian Democratic Peoples' Party (HCDP) met on 17 October to
discuss the political situation in the country. Party chairman
Laszlo Surjan said that a common ideology was not enough to share
in the responsibility of governing and that the HCDP was an open
party ready to cooperate with any other political force that
showed good will and even make ideological concessions to make a
coalition work. Surjan's statements, made it clear, however, that
he was not thinking about leaving the coalition before the next
national elections in 1994. The meeting adopted a resolution
stressing that war crimes and crimes against humanity committed
after the 1956 revolution were not subject to the statute of
limitations. (Judith Pataki, RFE/RL Inc.)
ENERGY PRICE INCREASES IN LITHUANIA. On 17 October Lithuanian
Prime Minister Aleksandras Abisala said on national television
that due to the higher costs of oil and natural gas from Russia
energy prices in Lithuania would be increased, Baltfax reported on
18 October. Households will have to pay 5.4 coupons (the temporary
currency in the republic) for a kilowatt of electricity. The
monthly charge for hot water will be 139.5 coupons, for natural
gas--196 coupons, and for heating--12.6 coupons per square meter.
Hot water would be supplied to apartments for no more than 6 to 8
hours a day and apartments would be heated only to 15 degrees
Centigrade. (Saulius Girnius, RFE/RL Inc.)
SWEDISH KING CONCLUDES VISIT TO LITHUANIA. On 17 October Swedish
King Carl Gustaf XVI and Queen Sylvia completed an official
three-day visit to Lithuania during which they held talks with
Lithuanian officials and visited Vilnius, Trakai, and Kaunas,
Radio Lithuania reported. On 16 October Swedish Foreign Minister
Margaretha af Ugglas and Lithuanian counterpart Algirdas Saudargas
signed a treaty on free trade and protection of investments. At a
press conference she noted Sweden's concern about the safety of
the Ignalina plant and promised 40 million krona to help insure
its safety. (Saulius Girnius, RFE/RL Inc.)
IGNALINA LEAK AFFECTS LATVIA. Radio Riga reported on 15 October
increased levels of radioactivity in various parts of Latvia
following the leaks at the Ignalina nuclear power station in
Lithuania. At Daugavpils, Zilani and Dagda the monitoring stations
had noted readings of 14, 13, and 12 microroentgens per hour
earlier in the day. On 17 October Lithuanian officials inspecting
the second reactor at the Ignalina plant that had been shut down
on 15 October discovered a crack a centimeter long in a pipe in
the main cooling circuit of the reactor, Western agencies
reported. Another crack was found in a pipe in the emergency
cooling system. The repairs of the reactor will not be completed
by 21 October as previously thought, but by 23 October at the
earliest. (Dzintra Bungs and Saulius Girnius, RFE/RL Inc.)
ENVIRONMENT MINISTERS IN SOFIA OUTLINE STRATEGIES. At a conference
on the ecological problems of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet
Union, organized by the Washington-based Center for Democracy, the
Howard Gilman Foundation, and under the patronage of Bulgarian
President Zhelyu Zhelev, environment ministers representing some
twenty countries adopted a joint declaration outlining chief
strategies in fighting pollution. BTA reported on 16 October that
the Sofia conference had found that many countries had little
knowledge about the environmental problems of their neighbors. It
had been suggested that a network for conveying such information
be created. A larger conference involving all the environment
ministers of the region is scheduled for early 1993 in Florida.
(Kjell Engelbrekt, RFE/RL Inc.)
SLOVAK OFFICIALS TO DISCUSS GABCIKOVO IN BRUSSELS. A Slovak
government delegation is scheduled to discuss the controversial
Gabciko-Nagymaros hydroelectric project with EC officials on 19
October, CSTK reported. A spokesman for the Slovak Environment
Ministry was quoted as saying that the Slovak delegation would
present its position on the environmental, technical, and legal
issues involved in the project. The Chairman of the Slovak
parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee, Ivan Laluha, said on 18
October that the Slovak side was willing to continue talks with
the Hungarian government, but made it clear at the same time that
Slovakia would commence diversion of the Danube on 20 October.
Hungarian officials have argued that the diversion of the Danube
would change the border between the two countries and was thus
illegal. Meanwhile, more than a thousand people rallied in front
of Hungary's parliament on 18 October to show their opposition to
the Slovak plans. On the same day, the Hungarian Foreign Ministry
formally protested to Slovakia, saying that the "unilateral
opening of Gabcikovo breached EC recommendations." (Jan Obrman,
RFE/RL Inc.)
LATVIAN-RUSSIAN TALKS TO START ON 23 OCTOBER? Latvian-Russian
talks on troop withdrawal have once again been postponed. At the
request of the Russian side, they are now scheduled to start on 23
October in Moscow. Radio Riga also reported on 17 October that a
group of Russian parliamentarians, after completing their
fact-finding visit to Latvia, told the press that they had found
that the human rights of Russian troops in Latvia were not being
violated--a claim that had been made by groups wishing to restore
Soviet power in Latvia. (Dzintra Bungs, RFE/RL Inc.)
GERMAN EMBASSY IN RIGA REOPENS AFTER WATER SUPPLY RESTORED. On 16
October German Ambassador Hagen von Lambsdorf told the press in
Riga that he had authorized the closing of his country's consular
and diplomatic offices because the building had been without water
since 12 October and the Riga city authorities had still not
resolved the problem. Radio Riga announced on 18 October that the
water supply had been restored during the weekend, and the German
diplomatic and consular offices on Basteja Boulevard would reopen
on 19 October. The problem may stem from Riga's antiquated water
supply system. (Dzintra Bungs, RFE/RL Inc.)
novine.115.bale.,
RFE/RL Daily Report
No. 202, October 20, 1992
SUCCESSOR STATES TO THE USSR
MINISTERS WARN OF COUP. State Secretary Gennadii Burbulis,
information minister Mikhail Poltoranin, foreign minister Andrei
Kozyrev, and deputy prime minister Anatolii Chubais warned at a
press conference that conservatives in the parliament are plotting
against Russian President Boris Yeltsin and his reform policy, The
Guardian reported on 19 October. Poltoranin stated that the "coup"
is being prepared under the direction of parliamentary speaker
Ruslan Khasbulatov. He accused conservatives of attempting to
replace the present judges of the Constitutional Court to make
that institution more obedient to right-wing forces. Burbulis
claimed that the government has lost control over the police and
prosecutors' offices in many regions to the right-wing opposition.
(Alexander Rahr, RFE/RL Inc.)
KOBETS: MILITARY WOULD PREVENT COUP. General Konstantin Kobets,
recently appointed as the chief military inspector of the Russian
armed forces, told Interfax on 19 October that "the army will not
allow an overthrow of the president." He claimed that the
situation in the military was "stable enough, but its officer
corps well understands the changes taking place in the country and
is committed to the President and the government." Kobets, a
former deputy chief of the Soviet general staff, played a
prominent role in foiling the August coup attempt. Subsequently,
he became a military advisor to Yeltsin. (Doug Clarke, RFE/RL
Inc.)
YELTSIN SIGNS NUCLEAR TEST MORATORIUM DECREE. President Yeltsin on
19 October signed a decree prolonging until July 1, 1993 the
Russian moratorium on nuclear weapons tests. ITAR-TASS reported
that the decision had been taken in connection with the recent
suspension of similar tests by France and the United States.
Yeltsin appealed to the other two declared nuclear powers, Great
Britain and China, to join the moratorium as soon as possible. At
the same time, Russian Defense Minister Pavel Grachev said that
the moratorium could be extended throughout 1993 if the United
States would agree to follow suit. However, he told the visiting
New Zealand minister of defense that "a moratorium cannot be
unilateral permanently. If we do not reach accord, Russia, most
evidently, will resume nuclear tests in the middle of 1993." (Doug
Clarke, RFE/RL Inc.)
RUSSIA DENIES REPORT ON CHINA DEAL. Russian officials on 19
October denied a report published in The New York Times one day
earlier--quoting US officials--that accused Moscow of fueling an
arms race in Asia by selling advanced weapons systems to the
China. The US charges focused on alleged sales to China of
technology for enriching uranium, as well as missile-guidance
technology, rocket engines and rocket technology. A Russian
spokesman for "Oboroneksport," which oversees such transactions,
said that Russia had violated neither the nuclear
non-proliferation treaty nor other arms control agreements, and
that Russia was operating strictly "within the framework of United
Nations agreements." The story was reported by Western agencies.
(Stephen Foye, RFE/RL Inc.)
CHINA SAID TO HAVE BACKED OUT OF FIGHTER DEAL. Quoting "competent
sources," Interfax on 19 October reported that China had annulled
an agreement to buy 10 Su-27 "Flanker" combat aircraft from the
Gagarin plant in Komsomolsk-on-the-Amur. The sale was first
reported by the same agency on 3 August, and seemed to have been
confirmed by Russian Defense Minister Pavel Grachev during the
visit to Moscow in late August by the Chinese minister of defense.
The latest report said factory officials suspected that China
intended to buy Western aircraft with more advanced electronics.
They said that the Gagarin factory--which had the capacity to
build 10 Su-27s each month--at present had only two of the
fighter-bombers under construction. (Doug Clarke, RFE/RL Inc.)
GRACHEV, KOBETS ON BALTIC PULL-OUT. Russian Defense Minister Pavel
Grachev said on 19 October that adverse conditions for Russian
military forces in the Baltic States dictate an early withdrawal
from the region, ITAR-TASS reported. Grachev pointed to training
difficulties and to the prohibition against sending new conscripts
to the Baltic states, saying that soon there would be only
officers serving there. He said that the troops should be
withdrawn "without delay" and suggested that military housing
shortages in Russia should not be a factor. Grachev nevertheless
appeared to hedge on the precise timetable of the withdrawal,
saying it should commence "right after the pull-out from Eastern
Europe in 1994," a qualification that will probably not please
Baltic leaders. On the same day, Interfax quoted Army General
Konstantin Kobets, the Russian Army's Chief Military Inspector, as
saying that Russian terms for withdrawing from the Baltic were
"completely reasonable," that "everything there is going according
to schedule," and that there is "no special animosity in the
process." (Stephen Foye, RFE/RL Inc.)
RUSSIAN GAS DELIVERIES CURTAILED. The supply of Russian natural
gas to Germany and France was roughly halved last week, The Wall
Street Journal reported on 19 October. The shortfall was
attributed to the pumping of gas by Ukraine from transit
pipelines, resulting in lower pressure, as a consequence of a
disagreement between Russia and Ukraine over transit fees. The
transport director for the Ukrainian gas utility, Urgasprom, was
quoted by Reuters as saying that Ukraine has a right to take its
share of Russian gas in the case of any shortfall. Deliveries of
gas to Western Europe are reported to be slowly returning to the
normal level. (Keith Bush, RFE/RL Inc.)
GAIDAR VISITS YAKUTIA AND MAGADAN. Russian Prime Minister Gaidar
was on tour of the natural resource rich regions of Yakutia and
Magadan on 16 and 17 October. In Yakutia, the President of the
autonomous republic, Mikhail Nikolaev, and Gaidar signed a
document creating a Russian-Yakut joint-stock company for mining,
processing and marketing diamonds in the region. The two also
discussed issues related to the decentralization of political and
economic power within the Russian Federation, Interfax reported.
In Magadan, Gaidar discussed the economic development of the Far
East with oblast officials, and approved of their plans for
attracting foreign companies to extract minerals in the territory,
"Novosti" reported on 18 October. (Erik Whitlock, RFE/RL Inc.)
CHERNOBYL DEVELOPMENTS. The head of environmental policy at the
European Commission and the German environment minister have
expressed concern over the restarting of the third block of the
Chernobyl nuclear reactor on 16 October, Western agencies
reported. Meanwhile, a report by the State Commission of
Ecological Experts on the impact of the 1986 explosion at
Chernobyl on the Russian environment was scheduled to be presented
to President Yeltsin on 19 October. One of its authors told an
RFE/RL correspondent in Moscow that the study puts the cost of
cleaning up the after-effects of Chernobyl within the Russian
Federation at 74 billion rubles by the year 2000. At current rates
of exchange, this works out at about $220 million. (Keith Bush,
RFE/RL Inc.)
MINIMUM WAGE TO BE RAISED IN RUSSIA. ITAR-TASS reported on 19
October that the Russian Finance Ministry plans to raise the
minimum monthly wage from 900 to 2,250 rubles, starting in January
1993. The average monthly wage is currently approximately 5,500
rubles. Increases to student grants and to pensions are also
reported to be in the pipeline. According to Interfax, 19 October
1992, the head of the Social Security Department of the Labor
Ministry has claimed that one third of the Russian population are
currently living below the (unspecified) poverty line, and that
living costs are expected to double by the end of the year. A new
social security system is due to be introduced early next year.
While extra protection is obviously required to protect the
population from the effects of soaring prices and inflation,
increases in the minimum wage and benefits will add extra strain
to the budget deficit. (Sheila Marnie, RFE/RL Inc.)
TRADE UNIONS PLAN PROTEST ACTION. According to Interfax on 19
October, the Russian Federation of Independent Trade Unions is
planning protest rallies the 24 October to support its demands
that the minimum monthly wage be raised to 4000 rubles, that
prices for bread, potatoes and milk be frozen, and that incomes
and savings be indexed. The unions have also been demanding the
dismissal of the Gaidar government. The government has set up a
conciliatory commission led by the Minister of Labor, Gennadii
Melikyan. If current negotiations between the commission and the
unions fail to produce results, strike action may follow. November
23 has already been put forward as a tentative date for such
action. (Sheila Marnie, RFE/RL Inc.)
RUSSIA AND MONGOLIA TO KEEP MILITARY TIES. Following the signing
of an agreement on bilateral relations and cooperation in Moscow
on 19 October, the Russian and Mongolian Foreign Ministers said
that both sides would like to continue cooperating in the area of
defense and security, Interfax reported. The Mongolian Foreign
Minister said that the withdrawal of Russian troops from Mongolia
does not signify an end to military cooperation with Moscow, and
called for expanding these relations. (Stephen Foye, RFE/RL Inc.)
YAROV PESSIMISTIC ON BLACK SEA FLEET TALKS. Yurii Yarov, head of
the Russian delegation negotiating with Ukraine on the Black Sea
Fleet, said on 19 October that the talks were proceeding with
difficulty, Interfax reported. He said that documents regulating
the fleet's activities during the 3-year "transitional period" had
not been completed by 1 October, as planned. He added that some
areas of common interest had been found in terms of naming a new
fleet command, that Russia insisted that as few new posts be
created as possible, and that the fleet would be manned equally by
Russian and Ukrainian citizens. (Stephen Foye, RFE/RL Inc.)
SHANIBOV IN GUDAUTA TO MEET ABKHAZ LEADERS. Musa Shanibov,
president of the Confederation of the Peoples of the Caucasus,
arrived in Gudauta (in Abkhazia) on 19 October. He told Interfax
he had come to tell the Abkhaz leaders of the Confederation's
decisions as regards political and military aid to the Abkhaz.
Shanibov described the decisions as "radical" but refused further
comment on them. Shanibov said that the Caucasus was well aware
that its future would be decided in Abkhazia and was prepared, if
necessary, to fight to prevent its occupation. Shanibov had come
from a two-day session of the Confederation's parliament in
Groznyi. (Ann Sheehy, RFE/RL Inc.)
EXTRAORDINARY SESSION OF CONGRESS OF KABARDIAN PEOPLE. An
extraordinary session of the Congress of the Kabardian People
(CKP) was held on 17 October in response to statements by the
Kabardino-Balkar Supreme Soviet and the republican prosecutor that
the activity of the CKP's Executive Committee during the
continuous protest meeting from 24 September to 4 October was
unconstitutional, Nezavisimaya gazeta reported on 20 October.
Participants in the session rejected the charges, blaming recent
political events on the shortsightedness of the republic's top
leadership, which had refused a dialog with local political
movements. They also declared they would continue providing
assistance to the Abkhaz until the complete withdrawal of Georgian
troops from Abkhazia. A third, extraordinary Congress of the
Kabardian People is to be held in November where those delegates
"who showed cowardice at critical moments" will be replaced. (Ann
Sheehy, RFE/RL Inc.)
TAJIKS DEFEND RECORD ON MINORITIES. Tajikistan's Ministry of
Foreign Affairs defended the record of the Tajik government in
providing help to refugees regardless of nationality, ITAR-TASS
reported on 19 October. The ministry was responding to an
expression of concern by its Russian counterpart, in which the
Russian Foreign Ministry had called attention to the rise in Tajik
nationalism and what it described as political pressure on the
non-Tajik population. The Tajik response rejected the charges. The
same day, acting President Akbarsho Iskandarov set up a Security
Council consisting of the leadership of Tajikistan's legislature
and the Cabinet of Ministers, and appointed filmmaker and
opposition leader Davlat Khudonazarov his chief presidential
advisor. (Bess Brown, RFE/RL Inc.)
CHECHENS ORDERED OUT OF UST-KAMENOGORSK. Reuters, quoting a CIS TV
broadcast, reported on 19 October that the Eastern Kazakhstan
Oblast Soviet in Ust-Kamenogorsk has ordered the deportation of
all Chechens from the oblast. The previous day Russian TV's
"Vesti" had reported that inhabitants of Ust-Kamenogorsk demanded
the deportation after a group of Chechens from Orenburg were
implicated in the murders of four Kazakhs in a city dormitory.
Participants in a spontaneous demonstration attempted to march on
a Chechen settlement, but were stopped by the militia. Reuters
quoted a report of the independent Kazreview news agency that
alcohol sales had been banned, and that the deportation decision
might be rescinded. (Bess Brown, RFE/RL Inc.)
ANOTHER ATTACK ON BIRLIK LEADER. Two armed men attacked Abdurahim
Pulatov, leader of the Uzbek opposition organization Birlik, on 19
October, Radio Rossii reported. The attack occurred in a Tashkent
subway station. Pulatov told an RL/RFE correspondent that this was
the third attempt on his life in six months. This time colleagues
overpowered the attackers, who were armed, and handed them over to
the militia. Earlier this year Pulatov was badly beaten and
suffered a fractured skull. Birlik supporters believe that the
attacks have been carried out at the instigation of the Uzbek
government, which has cracked down on domestic opposition in the
wake of the unrest in Tajikistan. (Bess Brown, RFE/RL Inc.)
CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE
POWER STRUGGLE IN BELGRADE. International media reported on 19
October that Serbian police had seized the interior ministry of
Serbia-Montenegro and all of its files. This appears to be the
latest chapter in a power struggle between Serbian President
Slobodan Milosevic and the rump Yugoslav leadership headed by
President Dobrica Cosic and Prime Minister Milan Panic. Public
opinion appears to be increasingly behind Cosic and Panic, but
Milosevic can still count on the backing of the army and the
police. The files would be invaluable in any future trials of war
crimes, particularly those committed by Serbian forces in
Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia- Herzegovina. (Patrick Moore, RFE/RL
Inc.)
IZETBEGOVIC AND COSIC MOVE TOWARD PEACE IN BOSNIA? On 19 October
Cosic met under UN and EC sponsorship with Bosnian President Alija
Izetbegovic. International media reported that they agreed to stop
and reverse ethnic cleansing, demilitarize Sarajevo, "eliminate"
armed irregulars, and support bringing war criminals to justice.
These pledges reaffirm those made at the London Conference in late
August. The presidents enjoy considerable moral standing among
their respective peoples, but most of the real authority in
Bosnia-Herzegovina appears to be in the hands of local Serb and
Croat leaders, so it is doubtful whether the promises can be kept.
Izetbegovic confirmed to Vecernji list on 19 October that his
government favored a "decentralized, not a unitary state," a
position his people had also taken in London in an apparent
departure from their previous insistence on a centralized state.
They want, however, the autonomous regions based on geography
rather than on ethnic criteria, which the Serbs advocate. It
remains to be seen whether this is a bargaining ploy or a serious
bid for compromise. (Patrick Moore, RFE/RL Inc.)
CROATIAN PARLIAMENT MOVES AGAINST FAR-RIGHT PARTY. On 17 October
the Croatian Sabor voted to lift the parliamentary immunity of
Croatian Party of [Historic] Rights (HSP) leader Dobroslav Paraga
and two other HSP deputies. They are to face charges of terrorism
stemming from the activities of the HSP's paramilitary group the
Croatian Defense Force (HOS). Sabor President Stipe Mesic told
Novi Vjesnik on 18 October that it was the stormiest parliamentary
session in living memory and that justice would now take its
course, adding that no country would tolerate private armies like
HOS. Others note, however, that President Franjo Tudjman's
government seems to be anxious to silence its critics from any
point on the political spectrum and point to administrative
measures taken recently against the leading independent daily
Slobodna Dalmacija. HOS is popular in some of the war-torn parts
of Croatia where it is credited with putting up a better fight
than the Croatian military. Vecernji list on 18 October published
a poll showing that 73% of those interviewed favored banning
paramilitary groups but that two-thirds opposed banning the HSP.
(Patrick Moore, RFE/RL Inc.)
ROMANIAN GOVERNMENT DENIES EMBARGO INFRINGED. In a communique
released by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and broadcast by Radio
Bucharest on 19 October, the government denied the trade embargo
on former Yugoslavia was being infringed. It said that opposition
leader Ion Ratiu, who made the allegation in Washington, had never
before shown an interest in the problem and that his "sensational
declarations" were intended to generate international "suspicion
and mistrust" toward the government's policy. (Michael Shafir,
RFE/RL Inc.).
ILIESCU STARTS COALITION TALKS. President Ion Iliescu has begun
consultations with leaders of the political parties represented in
the new parliament for the purpose of designating the new premier,
Radio Bucharest reported on 19 October. He said he had no
"prejudices" and no "hard feelings" and that he hoped to set up a
government that would be "broadly accepted." The program of
economic reform and the legislation connected with it must be
completed, he added, in order to overcome the present crisis. At
the end of the talks, Iliescu said they had been positive but the
leader of the National Peasant Party Christian Democratic,
Corneliu Coposu, ruled out collaboration with the Democratic
National Salvation Front. (Michael Shafir, RFE/RL Inc.)
ROMANIAN OPPOSITION LEADER DENIES DCR ABOUT TO SPLIT. Corneliu
Coposu, president of the National Peasant Party Christian
Democratic and interim president of the Democratic Convention of
Romania (DCR) denied the DCR was about to split. In an interview
with the daily Romania libera on 20 October, Coposu said none of
the eighteen parties and formations belonging to the DCR intended
to leave it. Such a step, he said, would be "suicidal" for any
formation deserting the convention. Arpress released an advance
summary of the interview on 19 October. (Michael Shafir, RFE/RL
Inc.)
ROMANIAN PARTY TAKES "TURN TO LEFT." The Party of National Unity
of Romania (PRNU), the political arm of the anti-Hungarian
organization "Romanian Cradle," has taken what the independent
news agency Arpress termed on 19 October as a "turn to the Left."
At its extraordinary national convention held in Cluj on 18 and 19
October, the leadership of the party approved the election of
Gheorghe Funar, the PRNU candidate in the last presidential
election, as president of the formation. The decision confirms a 3
October move to replace former PRNU leader Radu Ceontea,
considered by observers as centrist on the economy and more
moderate on the national question. (Michael Shafir, RFE/RL Inc.)
SUCHOCKA ON FOREIGN POLICY. Speaking on 18 October at the
inauguration of the academic year at the Catholic University of
Lublin, Prime Minister Hanna Suchocka said that the priorities of
Polish foreign policy were European integration, association with
NATO, and regional cooperation. Although optimistic about Poland's
prospects of joining NATO, Suchocka said it would be naive to
think that "distant alliances" could provide a substitute for
secure relations with Poland's neighbors. She criticized the EC
for treating the "triangle" countries as potential rivals rather
than as partners; European integration would have to serve
Poland's economic interests. Suchocka also warned against
succumbing to the provincialism that Poland's past status as a
Soviet satellite had fostered. (Louisa Vinton, RFE/RL Inc.)
SOLIDARITY TO HELP BROADEN COALITION. Parliamentary caucus leader
Bogdan Borusewicz announced on 19 October that Solidarity's
deputies in the Sejm would undertake talks aimed at bringing the
Center Alliance into the government coalition. Solidarity deputies
brokered the original coalition agreement in July. Although the
seven-party coalition needs another partner to secure a
comfortable pro-capitalist majority, the Center Alliance may not
be an especially attractive candidate. Guided in part by personal
antagonism toward President Lech Walesa, Center Alliance leader
Jaroslaw Kaczynski has voiced shrill opposition to the current
government's policies. Disciplinary proceedings were begun on 19
October against four Center Alliance deputies who failed to vote
with the rest of the party against the government's proposed
revisions to the 1992 budget. The same four deputies had
previously advocated bargaining for a place in the coalition.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Hanna Suchocka fired three voivodship
heads on 19 October. Two of these were Center Alliance members who
had opposed the government's budget proposals during the Sejm
debate on 17 October. (Louisa Vinton, RFE/RL Inc.)
ECONOMIC UPTURN CONTINUES IN POLAND. Economic statistics released
on 19 October showed that September was the sixth consecutive
month in which Polish industrial production exceeded the previous
year's totals. Production in September 1992 was 13.1% higher than
in September 1991. Growth was recorded in all industrial branches,
with the exception of paper and food processing. Prices in
September rose 5.3% over August, the largest monthly jump in
inflation since January 1992. This was mainly due to huge food
price increases caused by the summer's drought. Real wages dropped
0.4% in September. (Louisa Vinton, RFE/RL Inc.)
NEW ESTONIAN PM CONFIRMED. The parliament approved Mart Laar as
Estonia's new prime minister on 19 October, according to the local
media. Laar, who was named Prime Minister Designate two weeks ago
by President Lennart Meri, was formally confirmed after the
Riigikogu approved the coalition agreement signed by the three
parties forming the ruling majority. Laar has seven days to
formally name a cabinet. The Riigikogu must confirm a number of
the appointments, including the internal affairs, defense, foreign
affairs and economics ministers. Laar has already announced his
choice for five of the ministries: Marju Lauristin for social
welfare, Lagle Parek for internal affairs, Paul-Erik Rummo for
culture and education, Ain Saarman for economics and Kaido Kama
for justice. (Riina Kionka, RFE/RL Inc.)
ESTONIA'S RULING COALITION PROPOSES LIBERALIZATION ON CITIZENSHIP
LAW. In the coalition agreement approved on 19 October, the ruling
majority has called for liberalization of the citizenship law. The
agreement, signed by the parties Pro Patria, the Moderates, and
the ENIP, proposes a number of changes aimed at eliminating much
of the legal ambiguity that currently exists. It includes
provisions for dual citizenship and derivation of citizenship
through both male and female lines. It also calls on all CIS
republics to grant citizenship to those living in Estonia who wish
to take the citizenship of those states, and promises help for
those wishing to leave Estonia. In his statement to parliament
after the signing, Laar also said all non-Estonians who wanted to
stay should be integrated into Estonian society, BNS reported.
(Riina Kionka, RFE/RL Inc.)
RUSSIAN EMBASSY IN LATVIA PROCESSES CITIZENSHIP APPLICATIONS. BNS
reported on 17 October that the Russian embassy in Riga had
started to process applications for Russian citizenship from
residents of Latvia. Some 300 applicants had already submitted
forms which include a statement that the applicant has not already
requested Latvian citizenship. Russians comprise 34% of Latvia's
population of about 2.6 million. (Dzintra Bungs, RFE/RL Inc.)
BULGARIAN GYPSIES SET UP NATIONAL LOBBY ORGANIZATION. At a meeting
in Sofia on 17 and 18 October Bulgarian gypsies set up a national
organization, the United Roma Federation (URF). Vasil Chaprasov, a
teacher from the city of Sliven who was elected chairman, told a
Western agency the organization was independent and politically
unaffiliated. According to Trud of 19 October, the URF adopted a
declaration calling on the government to ensure Roma influence in
local politics. It demanded the resignation of Culture Minister
Elka Konstantinova who recently branded gypsies as "uncivilized."
(Kjell Engelbrekt, RFE/RL Inc.)
PARTS OF THE DANUBE TO BE DIVERTED TODAY. A 30-kilometer leg of
the Danube is scheduled to be diverted by Slovak engineers today
as part of the controversial Gabcikovo hydroelectric project.
Although Hungarian news agency MTI reported on 19 October that the
diversion might not begin as scheduled, there have been no reports
from Slovakia indicating a change of plans. According to various
sources, Czechoslovak, Hungarian, Austrian, and German
environmentalists are planning to converge for demonstrations at
the dam site. (Jan Obrman, RFE/RL Inc.)
HUNGARIAN DEFENSE MINISTER ON NATIONAL SECURITY. Defense Minister
Lajos Fuer, in a 19 October interview in Magyar Hirlap, said
Hungary was not threatened at present by any "direct military
attack from either the East, or the South, or the North." On the
other hand, the serious conflict to the south "could spill over
into Hungary at certain points and in certain forms," Fuer added.
Hungary's army would continue to show restraint in the Yugoslav
conflict but would also make clear that it would take a resolute
stand against "small aggression" coming from any quarter, he
concluded. (Alfred Reisch, RFE/RL Inc.)
DEFENSE MINISTER OF REPUBLIC OF MACEDONIA VISITS BULGARIA. Vlado
Popovski, the Republic of Macedonia's Defense Minister, heading a
delegation which included Chief of the General Staff, Colonel
General Mitre Arsovski, met with counterparts in Sofia on 19
October. According to BTA, discussions focussed on regional
security issues and Popovski informed Alexander Staliiski,
Bulgaria's Defense Minister, that Bulgaria was an important and
stabilizing factor in the Balkans especially for Macedonia. Both
stressed that there were no problems between the republics of
Macedonia and Bulgaria. Popovski noted that the Macedonian army
was equipped with weapons from the former Yugoslav territorial
defense forces and would seek those weapons which it lacked
through normal diplomatic contacts. In order to counter recent
allegations in the Bulgarian press that Bulgarian arms had been
shipped to the new republic, Popovski stressed that "not one
Bulgarian rifle sling has entered Macedonia." (Duncan Perry,
RFE/RL Inc.)
RUSSIAN TROOP TRAIN DETAINED IN RIGA. Radio Riga reported on 19
October that earlier that day a Russian troop train had been
detained at Skirotava station, Riga. The echelon, carrying troops,
6 tanks and 11 missile systems, arrived in Latvia from Estonia
without an entry permit and failed to halt for inspection at
Lugazi border post. Radio Riga said that such activity by the
Russian military was a flagrant violation of earlier accords on
movement of troops and weapons in Latvia. (Dzintra Bungs, RFE/RL
Inc.)
SOLDIERS SUPPORT MORATORIUM ON TROOP PULLOUT FROM LATVIA. On 15
October members of a local organization defending the rights of
Russian soldiers staged a demonstration in Daugavpils. They
demanded a moratorium on troop withdrawal and that the Latvian
government guarantee officers' families' welfare. They also called
for a halt to the transfer of military structures to the Latvian
authorities, BNS reported on 16 October. (Dzintra Bungs, RFE/RL
Inc.)
novine.116.bale.,
Law, Public Opinion Don't Govern Serbia (Belgrade)
By Blaine Harden
(c) 1992, The Washington Post
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia _ When Serbian President
Slobodan Milosevic orde red his police to take over the
Interior Ministry of the new Yugoslav state here this week,
he reminded his countrymen and his political adversaries that
neither the rule of law nor public opinion governs Serbia.
He also sent a sobering message to the two leaders
of the Yugoslav government who are trying to force Milosevic
from office and halt the factional war in neighboring Bosnia
that he did more than anyone to foment. ``What happened at
the Interior Ministry is a depressing reminder that Milosevic
is not going to leave peacefully,'' said a Western diplomat.
But the popularity of Yugoslav President Dobrica
Cosic and Premier Mi lan Panic _ both hand-picked by
Milosevic to give credibility to the new Serb-controlled
Yugoslav state he created _ appears to be growing with each
passing week, and they are defying Milosevic almost daily.
Hours before Serbian police seized the Interior
Ministry and its sens itive police files Monday, Cosic flew
to Geneva to meet for the first time with Bosnia's Slavic
Muslim president, Alija Izetbegovic, and the two men seem to
have agreed to a number of peace gestures on the Bosnian
crisis that Milosevic has long opposed.
Here in Belgrade, capital of both Serbia and
Yugoslavia, Milosevic-controlled media explained the sudden
seizure of the ministry as nothing more than a normal
settlement of a property dispute. They said a Belgrade court
had ruled that the building belongs to the Serbian
government, not to Yugoslavia _ which is essentially an
unequal alliance of Serbia and its tiny seaboard satellite,
Montenegro. This assertion, however, was challenged by senior
Belgrade judge Bratimir Tocanac, who declared Tuesday that
``Serbian police have no legal basis for seizing the
building.''
Since Milosevic rose to power here in the late
1980s, he has shown a genius for bending the law to his
purposes. Under his guidance, for instance, the Serbian
constitution was rewritten to disenfranchise ethnic Albanians
who make up 90 percent of the population of the Serbian
province of Kosovo.
The new two-republic Yugoslavia is a similar
Milosevic invention, con jured up last summer as a way of
winning respectability for a regime that had outraged the
world by inciting and supporting Serb nationalist aggression
in Bosnia and Croatia.
Panic and Cosic were called upon to prop up
Milosevic's flagging popu larity at home and curry favor
abroad, but Cosic, a novelist and oracle of Serbian pride,
and Panic, a Serbia-born U.S. entrepreneur, are proving poor
flunkies. Using the mantle of Milosevic's invented
government, they are mending fences with the West, meeting
with Milosevic's enemies and pressing for democratic
elections that could boot Milosevic out of power.
Until his police stormed the Yugoslav Interior
Ministry, Milosevic ha d seemed uncharacteristically stymied.
He had denounced Panic as an American spy, and questioned if
Cosic was really a loyal Serb. But even Belgrade Television,
Milosevic's chief propaganda instrument, has been unable to
work up much enthusiasm for denouncing Cosic as anti-Serbian.
Tuesday, as Cosic was meeting with Izetbegovic in
Geneva, Cosic's chi ef political adviser was calling into
question a fundamental precept of Milosevic's
ultranationalist agenda. Svetozar Stojanovic told a Belgrade
daily that ``conditions are now inadequate'' for the Serb
populations of Bosnia and Croatia to have their own
independent states. In effect, he was telling the people of
Serbia that 16 months of fierce warfare _ costing tens of
thousands of lives, creating 2 million refugees and making
Serbia an international pariah _ had been fought for an
impossible goal.
Such defiance appears to backing Milosevic into a
corner in which his only option is force. Before the Yugoslav
leadership turned on him, Milosevic had always tolerated a
limited amount of dissent, tolerance of a kind that helped
him survive as that last old-style Marxist leader in Europe.
Opposition politicians have been free to let off
steam, but their cri ticism reached only a small Belgrade
audience through a low-power television station and a
small-circulation magazine. These views rarely reached the
masses in the countryside, but this seems to be changing.
Serbia's two biggest newspapers, Politika and Borba, are now
publishing accurate and extensive accounts of the
confrontation between Milosevic and the Yugoslav government.
Like East European communist leaders in the
revolutionary year of 198 9, Milosevic is being buffeted by
an unexpectedly powerful wind, but the ministry takeover
suggests he will not give way without battening down behind
his police. It appears, therefore, that the model for
democratic change in Serbia is unlikely to be the peaceful
revolutions of Poland, Hungary or Czechoslovakia. Rather, the
model may well be Romania, where a desperate dictator was
driven from power in a hail of gunfire.
Bosnian Leader Agrees to Partitioning of His Republic (Belgrade)
By Carol J. Williams
(c) 1992, Los Angeles Times
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia _ In the face of growing
Serbian militancy, the president of Bosnia-Herzegovina gave
in Tuesday to pressures to permit the division of his
war-torn republic, while federal Yugoslav authorities backed
away from a confrontation with police of the Serbian republic.
At the Yugoslav peace talks in Geneva, Bosnian
President Alija Izetbe govic appeared to abandon hopes of
preserving a united and integrated republic when he agreed
with Yugoslav President Dobrica Cosic to a partitioning of
Bosnia into autonomous zones.
But it remained unclear whether the agreements
between Izetbegovic an d Cosic would be adhered to by
militants who have been emboldened by Serbian territorial
gains, particularly Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic and
Bosnian Serb warlord Radovan Karadzic.
Reversing recent assurances to mediators that
Bosnian Serbs wanted on ly peace and security, Karadzic was
quoted by the Yugoslav news agency Tanjug as saying that his
supporters demand the right to secede.
``We can exist as an independent state or unite
with others of the fo rmer Yugoslavia,'' Karadzic told Tanjug.
Izetbegovic opposes division along ethnic lines,
but his poorly armed republic forces have been powerless to
stop the de facto partitioning by rebel Serbs who now control
70 percent of the republic. They have driven out most
non-Serbs in a practice they call ``ethnic cleansing.''
The Bosnian president, a Muslim, probably softened
his position in Ge neva in hopes of ending the siege of
Sarajevo and other embattled cities soon enough to avert mass
starvation and freezing as winter sets in throughout the
republic, where six months of war have left 2 million
homeless and blocked most supply routes.
Izetbegovic has long insisted that ethnic division
is neither necessa ry nor wanted by most of the 4.4 million
people who inhabited his multiethnic republic. But his
resolve to continue battling Serbian extremists bent on
carving up Bosnia was dealt a blow last week when Foreign
Minister Haris Silajdzic failed to win U.S. support for
lifting a U.N. arms embargo against the republic.
Acting U.S. Secretary of State Lawrence S.
Eagleburger said that he r emained unconvinced that Western
countries should allow the Bosnian government to arm itself
against the Serbian onslaught, even though Washington has
repeatedly identified Serbian forces as the aggressors and
lamented the weapons imbalance that has given the attackers
an insurmountable advantage.
In Belgrade, one day after heavily armed Serbian
police seized the fe deral Interior Ministry in the downtown
of the joint Yugoslav and Serbian capital, the ministry's top
officials moved to another government building, at least
temporarily abandoning the security headquarters to its
occupiers.
Federal security troops, who are grossly
outnumbered by republic poli ce and reservists loyal to
Milosevic, will operate out of the main government
headquarters until courts determine whether the building
belongs to the federal or Serbian government, Tanjug reported.
Dispute over ownership has been cited by both
Yugoslav and Serbian of ficials as the reason gunmen
infiltrated the key ministry and have prevented federal
workers from entering the building.
However, that version of events is widely seen as
a fig leaf for Milo sevic's direct challenge to the authority
of federal Prime Minister Milan Panic. Belgrade judicial
authorities know nothing of a court ruling the Serbian
government claims gave it the right to occupy the building,
Tanjug said.
Founder of Germany's Greens Party Found Dead (Berlin)
By Marc Fisher
(c) 1992, The Washington Post
BERLIN _ Petra Kelly, the U.S.-educated founder of
Germany's Greens p arty, was found dead in her home, shot in
her sleep by her longtime companion, ex-general Gert Bastian,
who killed Kelly and then turned his pistol on himself,
police said Tuesday.
The deaths of two of the most prominent figures in
the world's most influential environmental party shocked a
country already suffering from a wave of political violence.
Prosecutors said the shootings were either a
murder-suicide or the re sult of a suicide pact. Colleagues
said Bastian had been upset recently by Germany's failure to
halt the current wave of neo-Nazi attacks on foreigners.
Kelly was said to be depressed both by her lack of political
impact in the two years since German reunification and by her
recent firing from a cable TV channel, where she had been
moderator of a talk show.
Although the Greens have had a lower profile since
German voters oust ed them from Parliament in 1990, their
environmentalist-pacifist message remains part of the
country's political mix, and the party is part of ruling
coalitions in four of Germany's 16 states.
Kelly, a 1970 graduate of American University in
Washington and stepd aughter of a U.S. Army colonel, was one
of Germany's best-known politicians, a fast-talking dynamo
who was attempting to shift from electoral politics to TV.
She had been moderator of ``Five to Twelve,'' an ecological
program.
Kelly, 44, lived for close to a decade with
Bastian, 69, a career off icer who in 1980 was forced out
when he criticized the proposed deployment of medium-range
U.S. nuclear missiles on German soil. Both Kelly and Bastian
spent most of the 1980s in the West German Parliament.
Police found the badly decomposed bodies of the
couple late Monday ni ght after concerned relatives, who had
not heard from Kelly or Bastian for weeks, asked a friend to
look inside their Bonn rowhouse.
After an autopsy Tuesday, chief homicide
investigator Hartmut Otto sa id Bastian shot Kelly in the
left temple with a single bullet from his .38-caliber
Derringer while she lay sleeping beneath a blanket. Bastian
then used the same pistol to fire a single shot into his own
forehead. Otto said police could not determine whether Kelly
had acquiesced.
Police said no note was found at the house.
Tuesday, the Greens party released the text of an open letter
Bastian wrote last month decrying anti-foreigner violence in
Germany. ``Evil memories of my youth in the 1930s are
awakened,'' he wrote. ``Today, as then, a shameful number of
good citizens watch murderous arsonists without acting, often
with barely disguised pleasure.''
``Petra was depressed because she had no leading
role anymore,'' said Wilhelm Knabe, a founding member of the
Greens and former Parliament member, in an interview. ``To
the end, she was a wonderful messenger, carrying to people
abroad the Green ideas. She helped people think in a new way.
Now, after unification, Germany has no politician who offers
goals and ideals as we did in forming the Green party.''
Rita Suessmuth, president of the Parliament, said
Kelly and Bastian w ere committed to ``a worldwide political
order without fear of war, torment and deprivation.''
Kelly was a slight, frail woman who was
hospitalized several times fo r exhaustion. She emerged from
six years in a Bavarian convent, her college experience in
Washington, and work as a volunteer in the presidential
campaigns of Robert F. Kennedy and Hubert H. Humphrey to
found the Greens in 1972.
The environmental group evolved into a political
party in 1979, winni ng support and opposition _ both
vociferous _ as it mounted huge demonstrations against
nuclear power and NATO's plans to station medium-range
nuclear missiles in West Germany. Bastian was arrested
several times for taking part in sit-ins at U.S. military
facilities.
The Greens, first elected to Parliament in 1983,
became a model for ecological politics in many Western
countries and in the East Bloc, where Kelly was often viewed
as a heroine by dissidents.
In the Bonn Parliament, Greens helped change
German society through a mix of traditional compromise _
making West Germany the world leader in recycling and other
ecological advances _ and rebellious theatrics. These
included a refusal to adhere to rules and a studied
informality that precluded jackets and ties and allowed Kelly
to wear T-shirts while meeting heads of state.
Within the party, Kelly and Bastian were
mistrusted by hard-core environmentalists, who opposed the
very notion of leadership and insisted that the party adhere
to a strict rotation of its top officers and Parliament
members.
By 1990, when the Greens were the only West German
party to oppose unification with Communist East Germany,
Kelly and Bastian were virtual outsiders in their own party.
The long delay in finding their bodies _ as much
as three weeks, poli ce said _ ``showed how they had been
abandoned and pushed to the fringes, which they never
deserved,'' said Konrad Weiss, a legislator whose eastern
German Alliance 90 party represents Green ideas in the Bonn
Parliament. ``It showed how cold the political climate has
become in Germany.''
Outside the couple's rowhouse, the doorway
obscured by a late-bloomin g rose bush, neighbors described
the pair as reclusive and unfriendly. Signs warned salesmen
to stay away.
novine.117.bale.,
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Islamic countries urge lifting of arms embargo in Bosnia-Hercegovina
Subject: Serbian forces harass U.N. military chief near airport
Subject: Fighting continues as Yugoslav leaders talk
Subject: Little progress seen in peace talks between Croatia, Yugoslavia
Subject: U.N. troops come under fire in Croat-Muslim clashes
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Islamic countries urge lifting of arms embargo in Bosnia-Hercegovina
Date: 19 Oct 92 22:36:38 GMT
UNITED NATIONS (UPI) -- Six Islamic countries Monday asked the
Security Council to urgently consider lifting the arms embargo imposed
on Bosnia-Hercegovina.
``If the government of Bosnia-Hercegovina had more adequate means to
repel aggression, the likelihood of achieving a peaceful and just
solution through negotiations would be enhanced,'' the six countries
said in a letter to the president of the 15-nation council.
Egypt, Pakistan, Senegal, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, which formed
the Contact Group of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, said
violations by Serbian forces of the London conference's agreements and
Security Council resolutions were the reason for them to call for
lifting the arms embargo.
The Security Council decreed the arms embargo on the whole former
Yugoslavia last year when fighting broke out between Serbian minority
and Croatian forces after Croatia declared independence from the
Yugoslav federation. The war spread to Bosnia-Hercegovina earlier this
year involving Bosnian Serbs, Croats and Muslim Slavs.
The six countries said Serbs will continue to violate the London
conference as long as they can use force and those countries thefore
called on the council to meet urgently to ``consider and secure the
lifting of the arms embargo.''
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Serbian forces harass U.N. military chief near airport
Date: 19 Oct 92 22:57:18 GMT
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Hercegovina (UPI) -- Serbian gunners peppered the
Bosnian capital with artillery fire that wounded dozens of people
Monday, and militiamen harassed U.N. vehicles traveling the airport
road, at one point briefly detaining the top commander of U.N. forces in
the city.
Egyptian Brig. Gen. Hussein Abdul Razek, the head of the U.N.
Protection Force in Sarajevo, described his brief detention as an
``irresponsible action'' and warned that ``UNPROFOR in Sarajevo will not
accept such an action being repeated.''
Abdul Razek's armored personnel carrier was one of a dozen U.N.
vehicles stopped at a Serbian checkpoint established on the city's main
airport road despite earlier assurances guaranteeing U.N. forces freedom
of movement. The checkpoint apparently was established in response to a
Bosnian roadblock.
Abdul Razek was forced out of his vehicle and briefly detained while
being questioned by the Serbian militiamen at the checkpoint. No one was
injured in the incident, but Abdul Razek's aides said the Serbian troops
sometimes pointed their guns toward the U.N. military officials.
The incident came as city and U.N. officials began to assess the
damage of heavy Serbian shelling over the weekend. The shelling hit
apartment buildings, a state hospital and a bread factory that
authorities had been counting on to mill flour for the coming winter
months.
Meanwhile, an advance party of 20 soldiers of British U.N. relief are
racing against time to set up a forward command post before the onset of
the Bosnian winter.
The troops will escort the humanitarian-aid convoys across front
lines and say they are ready to shoot back if fired upon. ``It's not our
intention to fight the convoys through but we are prepared if it comes
to that,'' Nigel Gillies, spokesman for the British troops said.
The first troops are part of 6,000 scheduled to arrive. About 1,800
more British troops will should come within the next few weeks, Gillies
said.
Compounding the man-made disaster in the newly independent republic,
Mother Nature chimed in with a moderate earthquake that measured 4.1 on
the Richter scale and was centered about 15 miles north of the city, the
U.S. Geological Survey said. There were no immediate reports of damage
or casualties caused by the quake, which occurred about 2:41 p.m. local
time.
Conditions also were reported to be deteriorating Monday for some 80,
000 people taking refuge in and around the eastern Bosnian town of
Srebrenica, where they fled after being forced or frightened out of
nearby Serbian-controlled areas.
The refugees, who outnumber natives remaining in the Muslim Slav-
majority town by some six-to-one, include about 8,000 children and are
in dire need of food and medicine, Sarajevo radio and the Vecernje
Novine newspaper reported.
Most are living in wooded land around Srebrenica, where they have
been shelled repeatedly and are dying from simple wounds that go
untreated, the reports said. Doctors have been performing limb
amputations with hot wires, they said.
Heavy artillery and infantry attacks continued Monday in several
cities of northern and central Bosnia-Hercegovina, where Serbian-backed
forces are fighting to establish a self-declared Serbian state.
The Serbian forces dropped rounds of artillery Monday on Travnik and
Bugojno in the central part of the republic and Gradacac, Brcko and
Maglaj in the north, Sarajevo radio said.
Maglaj, completing a full month under seige, was hit throughout the
night and into the morning by fire from tanks, howitzers and incendiary
ammunition, the radio said.
At least 34 people were reported injured Monday in Sarajevo. The
shelling came just a day after a city-wide artillery barrage Sunday hit
apartment buildings, the state hospital and a major bread factory and
left at least 10 dead and 130 wounded.
One shell exploded Monday near a government kitchen in the northwest
Sarajevo neighborhood of Podhrastovi where people gathered to receive
donated food.
``While I was standing in front of the public kitchen it exploded and
I got shrapnel in my left leg,'' Sedik Basic said while being treated at
the city's Kosevo hospital complex.
Doctors at the facility Monday handled at least 34 injured patients --
22 civilians and 12 fighters -- and one patient who died, said Dr. Jovo
Vranic, the hospital's trauma director.
The strike on the bread factory destroyed the city's major grain
mill, meaning U.N. relief workers already well behind schedule in
stockpiling food and medicines for winter will have to begin delivering
more flour.
The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, which coordinates aid
deliveries, said it was asked to provide another 50 tons of flour per
day to replace that produced by the damaged mill.
``We'll do what we can,'' UNHCR spokesman Larry Hollingsworth said
Monday. ``The basic difference is that it will mean 50 tons a day of
something else we can't bring in.''
The mill had stored about two to three months worth of grain that it
could have processed into flour, and officials estimated it would take
about six weeks even in peacetime to repair the damage.
The capital at least had some water and electricity services restored
by Monday morning, although supplies remained sporadic as warring
parties continued to block repair crews and shoot at transmission
facilities.
``At exactly at 20:46 last night, Sarajevo got electricity, but
unfortunately at 11:44 this morning it went out,'' said Irfan Durmic,
director of Elektroprenos, the city's electrical utility.
In Geneva, Switzerland, the presidents of both Bosnia-Hercegovina and
the Serbian-dominated two-republic Yugoslav union met Monday with U.N.
and European Community negotiators at the site of the ongoing Yugoslav
peace talks.
Yugoslav President Dobrica Cosic and Bosnian President Alija
Izetbegovic were to meet U.N. mediator Cyrus Vance and his EC
counterpart Lord Owen amid reports of a possible deal for power sharing
within the former Yugoslavia.
The signs of movement came as the Serbian-run Yugoslav army was
removing its last troops from Croatian soil, just one year after its
highly criticized bombardment of the 12th century coastal city of
Dubrovnik.
But Croatian military sources complained the Yugoslav army, while
leaving Dubrovnik as scheduled by Tuesday, was just relocating a few
miles south and was leaving behind weapons and heavy artillery for
Serbian forces still fighting in Bosnia-Hercegovina.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Fighting continues as Yugoslav leaders talk
Date: 20 Oct 92 17:44:37 GMT
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Hercegovina (UPI) -- Fighting continued across
northern and central Bosnia-Hercegovina Tuesday, officials and news
reports said, as Yugoslav faction leaders met in peace talks in Geneva,
Switzerland.
The heaviest attacks were reported in the northeastern town of
Gradacac. About 10 Serbian helicopters from the direction of Brcko and
road convoys from the area of Bosanski Samac moved toward Gradacac,
where Serbian forces attacked with fire from howitzers, tanks, artillery
and ground troops, Sarajevo radio reported.
Civilian targets were hit in heavy grenading in Jajce that followed
an artillery attack Monday that killed four women and injured several
other people as they were waiting outside to collect water, the radio
said.
Jajce, in the central part of the republic, remained without
electricity, water or telephone services, it said.
Artillery attacks also were reported in Tuzla, Bihac, Maglaj and
Tesanj, the Bosnian radio said.
Fighting also was reported in Vitez, the town north of Sarajevo where
the U.N. High Commission for Refugees keeps its main storage depot for
UNHCR trucks delivering humanitarian aid to Sarajevo.
The U.N. Protection Force dispatched three armored personnel carriers
to the area Tuesday afternoon to investigate whether UNHCR workers
needed to be evacuated, an UNPROFOR spokesman said.
In Geneva, Presidents Dobrica Cosic of Yugoslavia and Franjo Tudjman
of Croatia met for the second time in a month Tuesday as a four-day
peacekeeping effort by U.N. and European Community mediators drew to a
close in a flurry of diplomatic activity.
Also, the commander of the U.N. protection force in ex-Yugoslavia,
Indian Gen. Satish Nambiar said Tuesday there is ``no way'' any one
party could win a lasting military victory in Bosnia-Hercegovina.
Nambiar also said he would be in Sarajevo Wednesday to get local
military leaders to meet to discuss demilitarizing the besieged city.
Sarajevo remained without much of its water, electricity and
telephone services, as well as its primary grain mill, after two days of
artillery attacks that added scores more to Sarajevo's six-month total
of dead and wounded.
The strike on the grain mill meant the UNHCR, already well behind
schedule in stockpiling food and medicines for winter, will have to
begin delivering another 50 tons of flour each day.
A total of 57 rounds of heavy artillery fire fell onto Bosnian-
controlled areas around the capital, compared to 23 rounds reaching
Serbian-controlled territory, during the 24-hour period that ended at 5
p.m. Monday, the UNPROFOR said in its daily survey.
Sarajevo radio reported Tuesday that male Serbs in villages
surrounding the Bosnian-held northeastern town of Brcko were breaking
their own arms and legs in bids to avoid compulsory Serbian military
service.
Separately, French Maj. Gen. Phillipe Morillon was due to arrive in
the Bosnian capital Tuesday, one day after his colleague in charge of
the UNPROFOR's Sarajevo operation was held at gunpoint by Serbian troops
at an unauthorized checkpoint along the city's airport road.
The UNPROFOR Sarajevo chief, Egyptian Brig. Gen. Hussein Abdul Razek,
who was unhurt in the incident, said he suspected it may have been
related to the recent controversy over a Bosnian blockade of the airport
roadway and insisted any such repetitions would not be tolerated.
UNHCR spokeswoman Sylvana Foa said Tuesday in Geneva that U.N. High
Commissioner for Refugees Sadako Ogata called off road convoys trying to
ship supplies into Sarajevo from the Croatian port of Split through
Mostar after they were shelled in contravention of assurances to Ogata
from all three warring factions as late as last weekend that there would
be no interference with U.N. truck traffic.
``Mrs. Ogata now calls into question the fact of whether the
representatives of the three factions in Geneva have any control at all
over what their people on the ground in Bosnia-Hercegovina do,'' Foa
said.
``What were talking about here is banditry and the UNHCR is going to
stop its road convoys along the Mostar road as a result of what
happened,'' Foa said.
The airlift into Sarajevo airport will continue despite steadily
worsening weather, she said.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Little progress seen in peace talks between Croatia, Yugoslavia
Date: 20 Oct 92 19:28:17 GMT
GENEVA, Switzerland (UPI) -- The presidents of Croatia and Yugoslavia
agreed to speed up repatriation of refugees during a day of peace talks
Tuesday but failed to make substantial progress toward ending the
conflict among the warring Balkan countries.
The meeting between President Dobrica Cosic of Yugoslavia and Franjo
Tudjman of Croatia was part of a flurry of diplomatic activity that came
at the close of four-day peace-making effort by the United Nations and
European Community peace negotiators.
Fred Eckhard, a spokesman for U.N. mediator Cyrus Vance and EC
negotiator Lord David Owen, said while the two leaders were able to
agree on repatriation of refugees and condemnation of racist ``ethnic
cleansing'' in Serb-held areas, they were far from finding a way to end
the war in Bosnia-Hercegovina.
``There's been a lot of hard work and some movement but I'm not going
to put a time frame on when the talks might end,'' Eckhard said. He said
the two presidents had agreed to meet again to discuss refugee matters
and the evolving situation among the former Yugoslav republics.
Vance and Owen were joining the daylong talks with Tudjman and Cosic
along with Gen. Satish Nambiar, commander of U.N. peace-keeping forces
in the former Yugoslavia, and Cedric Thornberry, senior U.N. political
officer there.
Tudjman met privately Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic before the
official meeting at the U.N. building here. Izetbegovic and Cosic, after
a late night meeting Monday, had issued a joint appeal for an urgent
cease-fire in Sarajevo as the number one priority in Bosnia-Hercegovina.
That appeal was on the agenda for Cosic and Tudjman Tuesday but the
talks were also expected to focus on refugee problems, sources in the
Vance-Owen office said. Croatia has claimed it cannot accomodate any
more refugees from Bosnia-Hercegovina and has said it will give only
temporary asylum to 1,500 ex-prisoners freed by the U.N. High Commission
for Refugees and the International Red Cross earlier this month from
camps in Serb-held areas of Bosnia.
Sylvana Foa, spokeswoman for the UNHCR, said Tuesday the relief
agency now had offers of asylum for some 600 of the former prisoners
from as far away as New Zealand but has so far only moved 92 out of
their temporary refugee in Croatia -- to Norway.
Paul-Henri Morard, a spokesman for the International Committee for
the Red Cross, said the ICRC was continuing its efforts to bring ex-
prisoners out of camps in Serb areas but had so far not moved more than
the 1,500 already announced.
Foa said Refugee High Commissioner Sadako Ogata had called off road
convoys trying to ship supplies into Sarajevo from the port of Split
through the Mostar road after they had been shelled -- despite the fact
that all three of the warring factions in Bosnia-Hercegovina had assured
Ogata as late as last weekend that there would be no interference with
U.N. truck traffic.
``Mrs. Ogata now calls into question the fact of whether the
representatives of the three factions in Geneva have any control at all
over what their people on the ground in Bosnia-Hercegovina do,'' Foa
said. ``What we're talking about here is banditry and the UNHCR is going
to stop its road convoys along the Mostar road as a result of what
happened.''
She described the militias of all three factions operating in the
Sarajevo area as ``bandits, thugs -- guys in black hats.''
The airlift into Sarajevo airport would continue despite steadily
worsening weather, she said.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: U.N. troops come under fire in Croat-Muslim clashes
Date: 20 Oct 92 20:17:46 GMT
GORNJI VAKUF, Bosnia-Hercegovina (UPI) -- A convoy of British U.N.
troops came under fire Tuesday when their vehicles crossed through a
region in central Bosnia-Hercegovina where fighting suddenly erupted
between Muslim and Croat forces, officials said. There were no reports
of casualties.
About 20 U.N. troops were caught in a hail of mortar and machine-gun
fire, a soldier in the British unit said. He said one rocket-propelled
grenade passedbetween two U.N. vehicles.
The troops did not return fire because they did not believe they were
being targeted, said John Field, unit commander of the British forces,
in an interview with United Press International shortly after the
incident.
``It was all noise...People were firing at everything. The situation
is completely confused with a lot of people who think they are in
command, and no one knows what anyone else is doing,'' Field said.
The fighting erupted two days after Mate Boban, leader of the self-
proclaimed Croat state of Herceg-Bosnia, announced that Travnik, a mixed
Croat and Muslim town in central Bosnia, would become part of his state.
Barricades and checkpoints have been set up outside nearby towns
including Vitez, Travnik and Novi Travnik, Field said shortly after the
incident.
``All the villages have barricades in and out. There are mines in the
road and a lot of fire was coming within our vicinity,'' said Field
after arriving in the town of Gornji Vakuf, some 22 miles northeast of
Travnik.
The British troops, who arrived on Saturday, were the first part of a
6,000-member multi-national U.N. force scheduled to come to Bosnia-
Hercegovina to secure humanitarian aid convoys against heavy fighting
during the winter.
When asked why the supposedly allied Muslim and Croat forces were
fighting each other at a newly established front line, a soldier in the
Bosnian-Hercegovina army said the Croats want a republic like the Serbs,
adding: ``We say no. This is Bosnia.''
Tensions have been mounting between Muslims and Croats within the
last few months but this has been the most serious confrontation so far.
No accurate figures on casualties among the warring factions were
available.
novine.118.bale.,
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Yugoslav prime minister dubs Serbian police action 'nonsense'
Subject: Aid flights suspended amid Bosnian-Croat clashes
Subject: U.N. health agency returning to Sarajevo
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Yugoslav prime minister dubs Serbian police action 'nonsense'
Date: 21 Oct 92 13:16:23 GMT
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (UPI) -- Yugoslav Prime Minister Milan Panic
Wednesday discounted the seizure of a federal police headquarters by
Serbian police as political ``nonsense'' that had no real significance.
``It was nonsense what they (Serbian police) did...It does not mean
anything as we have many buildings,'' Panic told the Serbia-controlled
Tanjug news agency.
``A purely political affair is in question which should have not be
done, I think it was a mistake,'' Panic said in his first public comment
on the incident.
Panic, a Belgrade-born Serb and naturalized U.S. citizen, attended
peace talks in Geneva during the weekend. He returned home to Belgrade
Sunday evening when Serbian police stormed the Yugoslav federal police
headquarters and seized the building.
The seizure was made public Monday morning, adding fuel to the
ongoing power struggle between hard-line communist President Slobodan
Milosevic of Serbia and Federal President Dobrica Cosic and Panic,
leaders of the rump Yugoslav union of Serbia and Montenegro.
Panic and Cosic consider the ouster of Milosevic as a pre-condition
for the lifting of strict economic sanctions, imposed by the United
Nations on May 30 on Serbia for its involvement in the ongoing war in
the former Yugoslav republic of Bosnia-Hercegovina.
Serbian police kept control of the stone building in downtown
Belgrade for a third day Wednesday and Yugoslav Federal Interior
Minister Pavle Bulatovic moved to a new office in the federal government
building, which also accommodates Panic and a number of other federal
ministers.
The Yugoslav Public Prosecutor's office Tuesday announced it was
preparing, on behalf of the federal government, to undertake legal
action against the Serbian Interior Ministry for ``trespassing'' after
Serbian police refused to move out of the federal police building.
The Yugoslav federal police, totalling about 1,000 men, represent no
real threat to the Milosevic-controlled Serbian police of nearly 50,000
well-equipped policemen.
Zoran Sokolovic, the Serbian interior minister, Tuesday tried to play
down the incident, saying it was ``nothing but an ordinary owner's
rights issue''.
``The building was more or less empty anyway,'' said Sokolovic,
saying that the complex was assigned to the republic of Serbia by a
Belgrade municipal court order.
However, Belgrade news reports suggested the Serbian police seizure
of the federal police headquarters might be aimed at taking over files
including information on war crimes reportedly committed by the Serbian
paramilitary units in Croatia and Bosnia-Hercegovina.
Serbian police took over the federal building only three days after
Cosic publicly demanded that paramilitary ``patriotic'' units be
disbanded and disarmed.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Aid flights suspended amid Bosnian-Croat clashes
Date: 21 Oct 92 14:56:50 GMT
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Hercegovina (UPI) -- Humanitarian aid flights into
Sarajevo were suspended Wednesday while the United Nations assessed
security along the approach to the airport, cutting off all main aid
routes into the Bosnian capital, a U.N. spokesman said.
One Canadian and one British plane flew into the capital early
Wednesday before the the U.N. High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR)
suspended flights into Sarajevo, said UNHCR spokewsman Michael Keats.
The main land route into Sarajevo was closed Tuesday after shelling
in Mostar.
Keats said, ``We are reviewing the security situation at the airport
as the whole area is tense. There is fighting on the flight approach.''
Keats, who did not think flights would resume until the trucks start
rolling again, said the UNHCR were now unloading aid supplies at
Posusje, but added: ``as an interim measure, we are sending at least 20
aid trucks from Split via Zagreb to Belgrade and we will run a big
convoy from Belgrade to Sarajevo on Saturday. It'll take two days to
arrive.
Formerly allied Bosnian and Croat forces fought each other Wednesday
in towns of central Bosnia-Hercegovina, bringing new dimensions and
theaters to the 7-month-old conflict in the disintegrating republic.
Meantime, Lt. Gen. Satish Nambiar, overall commander of the U.N.
Protection Force (UNPROFOR), making his first visit to the Bosnian
capital in 1 1/2 months, acknowledged growing signs of disrespect for U.N.
forces in the republic but said he would continue to ask for the
cooperation of the warring parties.
``The fact that the U.N. flag and presence is not respected is one of
the more uncomfortable aspects of the situation here in Sarajevo, as it
is elsewhere,'' Nambiar told reporters after visiting Bosnian leaders.
But, said Nambiar, who also was visiting Serbian leaders during his
day-long visit, ``There's no point in making threats.''
Only a few hours earlier, a French UNPROFOR soldier was shot and
wounded by a sniper firing from Bosnian-controlled territory while the
soldier was escorting humanitarian aid deliveries in a Serbian-
controlled section of Sarajevo.
The Bosnian-Croat fighting north of Sarajevo, which in one town
forced the evacuation of a main U.N. warehouse used for humanitarian aid
to the beseiged capital, was prompted by growing signs of Croat
dominance in their anti-Serb alliance with the Muslim Slav-majority
Bosnian forces.
Fighting Wednesday in Novi Travnik set fire to an apartment building
in the center of the town as Croats appealed for a cease-fire to permit
evacuations, Mujo Delibegovic, a Sarajevo radio reporter, said Wednesday
from nearby Zenica.
Croatian forces in Novi Travnik also asked for reinforcements from
Vitez, Kiseljak and Fojnica, Delibegovic said, and both Bosnian and
Croatian forces were reported taking civilians hostage in surrounding
villages in apparent bids for bargaining leverage.
In Vitez, site of the U.N. High Commission for Refugees warehouse for
humanitarian supplies, both Croatian and Muslim Slav residents gathered
Wednesday morning in downtown for a joint protest for peace, he said. No
new fighting was reported in the town.
The fighting among allies began Monday in Novi Travnik when a dispute
over control of a gasoline station prompted Croat leaders to demand the
town's Bosnian military leader surrender his force's weapons,
Delibegovic said.
It also appeared to have been touched off by the declaration Sunday by
Mate Boban, leader of the self-proclaimed Croat state of Herceg-Bosnia,
that Travnik would become part of his state.
Barricades were set up shortly afterward outside Travnik, a mixed
Croat and Muslim Slav town in central Bosnia-Hercegovina, as well as
Vitez and Novi Travnik, said John Field, a commander of British troops
caught briefly in Tuesday's crossfire.
The fighting, the most serious so far in months of mounting tensions
in the Croat-Bosnian alliance, began the same day Yugoslav leaders at
the ongoing peace talks in Geneva ended four days of top-level
negotiations with some agreement on the repatriation of refugees but
little progress on ending the actual fighting.
Iin Belgrade, the struggle for control of the city's federal police
headquarters continued between Yugoslav forces loyal to Cosic and
federal Prime Minister Milan Panic and those backing Serbia's hard-line
nationalist President Slobodan Milosevic.
Panic and Cosic, who have threatened to take legal action against
Serbian police who seized the building Monday, believe Milosevic must be
removed to convince the United Nations to lift economic sanctions
against Serbia and its tiny ally Montenegro.
Bosnian and Serbian military leaders in Sarajevo faced their own test
of promises Wednesday as a planned exchange of the bodies of dead
soldiers was reported moving forward.
The deal approved after two days of U.N.-mediated talks involved the
exchange of eight bodies of Serbian troops killed two weeks earlier when
Bosnian forces blew up a restaurant along the front line, in return for
those of 18 Bosnian fighters who died a few days later in the areas of
Stup and Zuc. In addition, both sides agreed to turn over 18 prisoners
apiece.
Sunday's heavy shelling of Sarajevo, which began exactly at the 10 a.
m.deadline Serbian forces set for the initial body transfer demands,
broke what U.N. military observers had described as the quietest week of
the six-month seige of Sarajevo, causing scores of civilian casualties
and destroying city's major grain mill.
The new fighting around Vitez could further hinder the UNHCR's
efforts to catch up on supplying food and other aid to Sarajevo, which
already was hurt in the past week by the loss of the grain mill, Serbian
and Bosnian interference with U.N. use of the Sarajevo airport road, and
shelling in Mostar that prompted the UNHCR to temporarily suspend the
use of its main overland supply route.
Nambiar said the Bosnian military, which had been boycotting a
planned system of regular u.n.-mediated talks with their Serbian
counterparts, now appeared ready to join, as their condition -- the
restoration of sarajevo's water and electricity -- had largely been met.
The wounded French soldier, who was expected to survive, was hit in
the shoulder and head by a shot fired from the Sarajevo's Dobrinja
neighborhood while standing on a street during aid deliveries, a
UNPROFOR spokesman said.
Kenan Delic, a Bosnian liaison officer at UNPROFOR headquarters,
conceded Bosnian responsibility for the shooting but said: ``it must
have been a mistake.''
The eight UNHCR workers in Vitez, a mixture of international and
local staff, had become accustomed to occasional shelling by Serbian
forces but asked for the evacuation late Tuesday after the Croat-Bosnian
confrontation erupted into actual street fighting outside their
building, a UNCHR official said.
``It was shelling and heavy street fighting,+ said the official, Marc
Vachon.
Most of the evacuated workers were to be flown to zagreb while the
UNCHR decides the future of its warehouse in Vitez.
Croat-Bosnian fighting was not reported in Mostar, the major city
between Sarajevo and the coast, but Bosnians formed their own political
alliance last week and charge nationalist Croats with seeking to
dominate local government.
The permanent loss of the road through Mostar would virtually cut off
land access to Sarajevo, a UNHCR spokeswoman said, because other roads
from the Adriatic coast that have been traveled in the past become
unusable in the winter.
Heavy fighting was reported continuing Wednesday between Serbian and
Bosnian forces in northern and central parts of the republic, with
Serbian troops forced by an armistice to leave Dubrovnik reported
joining battles elsewhere.
The Serbian troops leaving the historic Croatian port city, now badly
damaged after months of fighting, were arriving in two main groups to
the areas of Nevesinje, Stolac and Mostar, and the areas of Gacko,
Tjentiste and Foca, Sarajevo radio reported.
Bosnian forces nevertheless claimed military successes in routing
Serbs at the mountain of Cemerena, which the Serbs had been using to
rain artillery fire on Olovo, just north of Sarajevo, and in the Praca
Valley east of the capital, the radio said.
But the beseiged Bosnian-controlled town of Gradacac, in northeast
Bosnia-Hercegovina, suffered through another day of heavy artillery and
infantry attacks that killed at least nine people and left 20 injured,
it said.
Maglaj, Jajce and other towns in the northern and central parts of
the republic also had another day of artillery attacks, it said.
At least 24 people were killed and 130 injured across the republic in
the 24-hour period that ended at 10 a.m. Wednesday, including three
killed and 43 injured in Sarajevo, bosnian health officials said.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: U.N. health agency returning to Sarajevo
Date: 21 Oct 92 16:48:54 GMT
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Hercegovina (UPI) -- The World Health Organization
said Wednesday it is sending a full-time field officer to Sarajevo to
help cope with what other U.N. experts have predicted could be a health
catastrophe this coming winter.
The planned return was anxiously awaited by the U.N. Protection Force
(UNPROFOR) in Sarajevo, which has been forced to provide humanitarian
services outside its expertise as military peacekeepers, and Sarajevo
medical professionals, who said U.N. assistance in health matters has
been seriously deficient.
The absence of both the WHO and the International Committee for the
Red Cross, which pulled out of Sarajevo in May after one of its workers
was killed, has left the city's hospitals forced to seek supplies and
help through one or two highly overworked members of the U.N. High
Commission for Refugees, said Dr. Bakir Nakas, director of Sarajevo's
state hospital.
``If it is a humanitarian organization, and if they really want to
help people, they must be aware of the risks and the eventual casualties
by going to crisis areas,'' Nakas said of the two groups.
The WHO field officer, scheduled to arrive Saturday, will be in
charge of monitoring U.N. food and medical supplies reaching the
besieged capital, David MacFadyen, of the group's Zagreb headquarters,
said in Split.
The WHO, whose workers traditionally do not become directly involved
in areas of ongoing combat, currently has only a health monitoring unit
in Sarajevo attached to the UNHCR, MacFadyen said.
The ICRC decided May 27 at its Geneva headquartes to pull out of
Bosnia- Hercegovina after one of its workers, Pierre Maurice, was killed
and two others injured when their medical assistance convoy was fired
upon May 19 outside Sarajevo.
The ICRC, which left the republic by the end of May, had
``exploratory visits'' to Bosnia-Hercegovina in June and on July 7 it
re-opened some Bosnian offices and began sending convoys with
assistance, said Judith Hushagen, a Canadian spokeswoman for the ICRC in
Belgrade.
UNPROFOR spokesman Mik Magnusson in Sarajevo said he could understand
the two groups' security concerns, but said their absences have been
sorely felt in such areas as evaluating injured civilians on their
medical needs and arranging exchanges of prisoners and war dead.
``We need them back here,'' Magnusson said.
In one recent case, a failed agreement between Bosnian and Serbian
forces on an exchange of prisoners and war dead erupted Sunday into
several hours of shelling by Serbs that resulted in scores more dead and
wounded civilians.
``In their absence,'' Magnusson said of the ICRC, which traditionally
handles such exchanges worldwide, ``we have been doing what we can to
assist.''
Nakas said his hospital, where the ICRC was offered space to
establish its Sarajevo headquarters, has felt the rejection in concrete
terms, figuratively and literally.
The absence of the ICRC we feel is shown best by the holes in the
walls of the hospital caused by the numerous grenades, which we believe
would not have happened if they had been here,`` Nakas said.
He said his hospital also must deal with the additional red tape of
seeing its requests for standard hospital supplies first passed to UNHCR
offices in Zagreb and elsewhere for their approvals.
``They are working themselves to death,'' Nakas said of the UNHCR
staff in sarajevo, ``but with little progess to show for it.''
``We cannot easily work with people when they are far away and we
lack proper communications,'' said Dr. Slavenka Straus of the city's
Kosevo hospital complex.
The absence of the WHO or other outside medical professionals also
has left UNPROFOR with no expert advice on which wounded civilians it
should take on its flights out of the city, Magnusson said.
Other than wounded children, whose cases are handled by the Sarajevo
office of the U.N. children's organization UNICEF, and wounded U.N.
personnel, Magnusson said he knew of almost no other medical air
evacuations. ``The only(other) cases i'm aware of are journalists,'' he
said.
Straus said her hospital has ``begged'' U.N. officials in vain for
help in evacuating seriously wounded patients, including amputees, who
have been assured space in western hospitals, and said she believed the
failures were mostly due to a lack of U.N. medical expertise.
The UNHCR has said the people of Sarajevo face a health catastrophe
this winter when bitterly cold weather returns to a city short on food,
medicine, shelter and basic utilities.
The ICRC, when it returned to Bosnia-Hercegovina in July, reopened
offices in the towns of Mostar, Zenica, Velika Kladusa and Banja Luka,
but not as yet in Sarajevo, Tuzla or Bijeljina.
ICRC officials in Geneva said they still needed guarantees from all
sides that ICRC convoys and vehicles will not be attacked heading into
or out of Sarajevo.
``We are still waiting from security guarantees,'' Hushagen said.
``We cannot spend the whole day in shelter, we have to be able to work.''
novine.119.bale.,
RFE/RL Daily Report
No. 203, October 21, 1992
SUCCESSOR STATES TO THE USSR
WITHDRAWAL OF TROOPS FROM BALTIC SUSPENDED? The Russian Defense
Ministry announced on the morning of 21 October that the
withdrawal of Russian forces from the Baltic would be suspended
for those units scheduled to be redeployed to areas in Russia that
lacked adequate housing, Interfax reported. While Defense Minister
Pavel Grachev said that he would "not station forces in a bare
field," he nevertheless suggested that the overall timetable for
the withdrawal would not be changed; the movement of individual
sub-units will apparently be altered to conform with the
availability of housing in Russia. Grachev said that the Defense
Ministry had issued the statement to draw the public's attention
to the army's housing shortage, but the obvious confusion in
policy statements suggests that military leaders may themselves be
split over the withdrawal issue. (Stephen Foye)
STANKEVICH ACCUSES, CHURKIN THREATENS BALTIC STATES. Sergei
Stankevich, an advisor to Russian President Boris Yeltsin, sent a
letter to the Council of Europe in which he accused Estonia and
Latvia of stripping their Russian residents of the possibility of
becoming loyal citizens of the two countries and of unspecified
human rights violations against the Russians, Interfax reported on
20 October. That same day Vitalii Churkin, identified by Interfax
as Russia's First Deputy Foreign Minister, said that despite the
fact that the European Community had advised against using "power
measures" to resolve human rights issues in Estonia and Latvia,
the Russian Supreme Soviet has not ruled out the possibility of
using economic sanctions against the two Baltic states. (Dzintra
Bungs, RFE/RL Inc.)
GRACHEV ON MILITARY REDUCTIONS, RUSSIAN MINORITIES. In a
wide-ranging interview published by Rossiiskaya gazeta on 21
October, Russian Defense Minister Pavel Grachev repeated Moscow's
plans to stand-down strategic missiles throughout the CIS. He also
said that air defense troops on the island of Novaya Zemlya would
be significantly reduced, while several radar units and fighter
squadrons would be transferred to the mainland. He said that there
was now little difference between nuclear and conventional war.
Turning to the former Soviet republics, he said that there were no
immediate plans to withdraw the 201st motor rifle regiment from
Tajikistan, the 345th parachute assault regiment (or any other
troops) from Abkhazia, or the 14th Army from Moldova. Russian
assault troops will be withdrawn in the very near future from
South Ossetia, he said. Grachev also defended orders he has issued
for Russian troops to protect themselves, saying that it was "not
I who sent the troops into our former republics, and it is not for
me to decide how and when to withdraw them." (Stephen Foye, RFE/RL
Inc.)
HARDLINERS RENEW CLAIM ON IZVESTIA. The Russian parliament has
renewed its claim to the newspaper, Izvestiya, ITAR-TASS reported
on 20 October. Both chambers of the parliament voted in favor of
taking over the founding rights for the Izvestiya publishing
house, and authorized the Presidium of the parliament to appoint a
new director. The bill calls on the parliamentary presidium to
confirm the publishing house's charter and to appoint its
director. The conservative-minded parliament had already made an
attempt last summer to take the newspaper under its jurisdiction,
but President Boris Yeltsin resisted the move by issuing a decree
confirming the paper's independence. Information Minister Mikhail
Poltoranin said that the Russian leadership will appeal the
decision to the Constitutional Court. (Alexander Rahr & Vera Tolz,
RFE/RL Inc.)
YELTSIN ACCUSED OF CURBING FREEDOM OF SPEECH. The former director
of St. Petersburg TV, Viktor Yugin, complained that President
Yeltsin's latest decree abolishing the independence of his TV
station by placing it under governmental control is aimed at
silencing criticism of Yeltsin's policies, Western news agencies
reported on 20 October. He said that the decree curbs freedom of
speech. Information Minister Mikhail Poltoranin had accused St.
Petersburg TV of favoring hardliners and nationalists. Yeltsin
decreed that the station, which broadcast on the fifth channel, be
transformed from a local into a federal Russian TV company called
Rossiya. (Alexander Rahr, RFE/RL Inc.)
PARLIAMENT CHAMBER VOTES ON FREEDOM OF MOVEMENT BILL. The Russian
parliament's Council of Nationalities approved on the first
reading a draft law which gives citizens of Russia the right to
freely choose their place of residence within the Federation,
ITAR-TASS reported on 20 October. This draft eliminates the
existing system of residence permits according to which the
authorities could give or deny citizens the right to live in any
city or village of the country. ITAR-TASS said the Council of
Nationalities called for more revisions to the draft aimed at
eliminating several unclear points. (Vera Tolz, RFE/RL Inc.)
RUBLE EXCHANGE RATE DROPS FURTHER. The ruble fell to 368 to the US
dollar at the 20 October trading session of the Moscow Interbank
Currency Exchange, Biznes-TASS reported. The rate on 15 October
had been 338 rubles to the dollar. The volume traded was $46.7
million, up from $37.9 million at the previous session.
Contributory factors cited included high inflationary
expectations, the continuing decline in output, and a government
decision to oblige state enterprises to convert 100% of their
hard-currency receipts at the market rate by the end of 1993.
However, this last factor may not be valid, as earlier government
pronouncements suggested that mandatory full conversion of
hard-currency would be enforced "soon." (Keith Bush, RFE/RL Inc.)
USE OF FOREIGN CREDITS IN RUSSIA. On 20 October, the Russian
Government Collegium approved a draft directive on the use of
foreign credits, Interfax reported. The directive, which was
proposed by Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandr Shokhin, distinguishes
between trade and investment credits. To receive a trade credit,
an enterprise must pay its entire cost outright, either in hard
currency or in rubles at the market rate. To receive an investment
credit, the enterprise will have to pay 15% of the total value in
advance and undertake to repay the balance within the stipulated
period. The credits will be distributed on a competitive basis
through auctions instead of being administratively allocated.
(Keith Bush, RFE/RL Inc.)
GORBACHEV WANTS TV TIME TO REPLY TO ZORKIN. On 20 October, former
Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev sent a letter to the chairman
of the Russian State TV and Radio Broadcasting Company, Oleg
Poptsov, requesting TV time to reply to accusations made against
him by Constitutional Court Chairman Valerii Zorkin. At a TV press
conference, Zorkin attacked Gorbachev for ignoring summons to
attend the constitutional court and described them as evidence of
Gorbachev's disrespect for the law. He said that Gorbachev has
deprived himself of the rights of Russian citizenship. Interfax
quoted Gorbachev's letter as saying that the press conference cast
doubt on Zorkin's objectivity and independence. On 20 October,
deputy prime minister and information minister Mikhail Poltoranin
reiterated that Russian authorities hold "very serious documents"
signed by Gorbachev that could incriminate the former Soviet
leader. (Vera Tolz, RFE/RL Inc.)
NEW UKRAINIAN PRIME MINISTER PESSIMISTIC ON ECONOMY. Newly
appointed Ukrainian Prime Minister Leonid Kuchma says that
Ukraine's economy is in worse condition than he had suspected,
Reuters reported on 19 October. Kuchma is reported to have told
the Ukrinform news agency that he could not promise "an easy life"
and that the economic situation would grow worse. At the same
time, he promised that his government would work
"conscientiously." Kuchma is due to announce his cabinet next
week. (Roman Solchanyk, RFE/RL Inc.)
MEETING OF UKRAINIAN AND RUSSIAN INDUSTRIALISTS. Ukrainian and
Russian industrialists and entrepreneurs were scheduled to meet in
Belgorod on 20 October to discuss coordination of their
activities, Radio "Mayak" reported. It was expected that Arkadii
Volsky and Vasilii Yevtukhov, the heads of the Russian and
Ukrainian organizations of industrialists and entrepreneurs, would
address the meeting. (Roman Solchanyk, RFE/RL Inc.)
NO PROGRESS IN ABKHAZ PEACE TALKS. Georgian Foreign Minister
Aleksandre Chikvaidze returned to Tbilisi on 20 October after
talks with Russian Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev in which no
progress was made on an Abkhaz peace settlement, Russian foreign
ministry spokesman Sergei Yastrzhembsky told Interfax. Parallel
talks took place behind closed doors in Sukhumi on 19 October
between members of the ethnic Abkhaz and Georgian factions within
the Abkhaz parliament, ITAR-TASS reported. Continued fighting
between Abkhaz and Georgian troops was reported near Sukhumi and
Ochamchire on 19-20 October. (Liz Fuller, RFE/RL Inc.)
WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE OFFICIAL GEORGIAN ELECTION RESULTS? Ten
days after the Georgian parliamentary elections, the central
electoral commission has apparently still not made public the
composition of the new parliament. On 20 October the unofficial
Iberia News Agency cited statistics on the distribution of 145 of
the total 234 seats, which confirm earlier predictions that the
Mshvidoba (Peace) bloc, which is dominated by former Communist
Party apparatchiks, is the largest single faction within the new
parliament with 24 seats, followed by the moderate 11 October and
Unity blocs with 18 and 14 seats respectively. The Neue Zuercher
Zeitung reported on 14 October that 226 seats in the new
parliament had been filled. (Liz Fuller, RFE/RL Inc.)
ARMENIA APPOINTS NEW DEFENSE MINISTER. Former Prime Minister
Vazgen Manukyan, who resigned over policy disagreements with Levon
Ter-Petrossyan in September 1991, shortly before the latter's
election as Armenian President, has been appointed Armenian
Minister of Defence, according to Armen-Press-TASS. Manukyan
replaces Vazgen Sarkisyan, who has been named special advisor to
Ter-Petrossyan and envoy to the Armenian raions bordering on
Azerbaijan. (Liz Fuller, RFE/RL Inc.)
RESIGNATION OF VALERII TISHKOV. Valerii Tishkov, chairman of
Russia's State Committee for Nationality Affairs, has resigned
after only seven months in office, Radio Rossii reported on 19
October. Tishkov told Rossiiskie vesti (20 October) that one
reason was his inability to get a new building in the center of
Moscow or recruit the best people for the committee. More
important reasons were the senselessness of many Russian laws,
which were dictated by narrow political interests (Tishkov cited
in particular the laws on the rehabilitation of the repressed
peoples and the Cossacks which anyone aware of the situation knew
would only provoke conflicts) and the failure of the top
decision-making bodies to consult the committee. (Ann Sheehy,
RFE/RL Inc.)
YELTSIN AT OPENING OF YAKUT PERMANENT REPRESENTATION. Continuing
his wooing of the Russian Federation's republics, Yeltsin attended
the opening of the permanent representation of the republic of
Sakha (Yakutia) in Moscow on 20 October, ITAR-TASS reported.
Yeltsin said that the representations of the republics in Moscow
would have a special role to play in the development of new
federal relations. (Ann Sheehy, RFE/RL Inc.)
CONFEDERATION OF CAUCASIAN PEOPLES' PARLIAMENT CALLS FOR
DENUNCIATION OF FEDERAL TREATY. The session of the parliament of
the Confederation of Caucasian Peoples in Groznyi on 18 October
endorsed the decision of the October Congress of the Mountain
Peoples of the Caucasus to call on the North Caucasian republics
to denounce the federal treaty with Russia, Interfax reported on
20 October. Interfax said that the parliament also decided to send
a delegation to Baku to discuss the Lezgin question. The
consequences of the possible establishment of a state frontier
between Russian and Azerbaijan that would split the Lezgin people
is to be discussed at the 4th Congress of the Lezgin People in
early November. (Ann Sheehy, RFE/RL Inc.)
SITUATION IN TAJIKISTAN. Tajik Foreign Minister Khudoberdy
Kholiknazarov and newly appointed State Advisor Davlat
Khudonazarov met with Russian Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev on
20 October to explore ways to find a way to end the civil war in
southern Tajikistan, ITAR-TASS reported. None of the three
described what concrete proposals had been discussed, but Kozyrev
said that Russian help could not take the form of interference in
Tajikistan's internal affairs. Tajikistan's highest-ranking Muslim
clergyman, Kazi Akbar Turadzhonzoda, was reported by a Western
news agency to have said on 19 October that Russia could end the
Tajik civil war in two days if it wanted, by ending its support
for fighters in Kulyab Oblast who oppose the present Tajik
government. (Bess Brown, RFE/RL Inc.)
LENINABAD OFFICIALS APPEAL FOR RUSSIAN HELP. Officials in
Tajikistan's Leninabad Oblast have issued an appeal for more
Russian troops to be sent to the country, Khovar-TASS reported on
20 October. Leninabad, which has rejected the inclusion of
opposition forces in the government in Dushanbe and which is known
for procommunist sympathies, has succeeded in staying out of the
armed conflict that has ravaged southern Tajikistan since June.
The oblast leadership denied that arms from Leninabad have been
supplied to forces in the south that support deposed President
Rakhmon Nabiev, who is now living in Leninabad, and it offered to
host meetings between the opposing sides in the southern conflict.
(Bess Brown, RFE/RL Inc.)
EAST KAZAKHSTAN CANCELS CHECHEN DEPORTATION. The Deputy Chairman
of the East Kazakhstan Oblast Soviet, Mukhtar Nukeshev, told an
RL/RFE correspondent on 20 October that the council had reversed
its earlier order that all Chechens be expelled from the oblast.
The decision was reversed, according to Nukeshev, because a
confrontation between Kazakhs and Chechens in Ust-Kamenogorsk had
ended. Kazakhs had demonstrated for several days, demanding the
expulsion of the Chechens, after Chechens were implicated in the
murder of some Kazakhs. A commission was sent from Alma-Ata to
examine the legality of the deportation order, and Interfax
reported that a delegation from the Chechen parliament was on its
way to Ust-Kamenogorsk. (Bess Brown, RFE/RL Inc.)
CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE
TUDJMAN AND COSIC SIGN AGREEMENT. The New York Times reported on
21 October that the presidents of Croatia and Serbia-Montenegro
had signed an agreement under UN sponsorship in Geneva a day
earlier. The agreement commits the two to some concrete goals,
such as opening the main Belgrade-Zagreb highway as well as
liaison offices in each other's capitals. An earlier agreement
concluded on 30 September has not been truly implemented, though
one clause was fulfilled on 20 October when Serbian forces
completed their withdrawal from Croatia's Prevlaka peninsula near
Dubrovnik, which is now under UN control. (Patrick Moore, RFE/RL
Inc.)
BOSNIAN UPDATE. The BBC reported on 21 October that UN armored
personnel carriers had succeeded in rescuing a relief mission
trapped by fighting between Muslims and Croats in the town of
Vitez between Sarajevo and Travnik. The two sides are nominal
allies in a fight against the Serbs, but the Muslims suspect the
Croats of having agreed to the partition of Bosnia-Herzegovina
with the Serbs and of now trying to consolidate their positions.
The Croats may well be keeping all options open. There have been
clashes between Muslims and Croats before, notably around Mostar,
and the Muslims wonder out loud why the Croats do not move up from
their strong positions in Herzegovina to break the siege of
Sarajevo. The BBC also said that UN human rights envoy and former
Polish Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki had visited Serbian and
Muslim detention camps in Bosnia on 20 October. Mazowiecki said
that the difference between the two was one of "hell and
happiness," with hundreds of Muslims living in cramped conditions
on the floors of the Serb camp, while a smaller number of Serbs
had "proper beds and two regular meals per day" in the Muslim
facility. (Patrick Moore, RFE/RL Inc.)
KOSOVO ALBANIAN STUDENTS POSTPONE PROTESTS. The Committee for
Albanian Education in Kosovo has suspended protests by ethnic
Albanian pupils and students until officials of the rump federal
Yugoslav and Serbian education ministries meet representatives of
Albanian educational associations on 22 October in Belgrade. The
committee warned the protests would continue if talks did not
yield "concrete results," Radio Serbia reported on 19 October.
Ibrahim Rugova, chairman of Kosovo's main party, the Democratic
League, reiterated in the latest issue of the Albanian weekly
Bujku his insistence on creating a "neutral and independent
Kosovo," as the basis for all his talks with Serbian officials.
Serbia opposes any form of sovereignty for Kosovo whose population
is over 90% Albanian. (Milan Andrejevich, RFE/RL Inc.)
WILL THERE BE EARLY ELECTIONS IN SERBIA? According to Radio Serbia
on 19 October, parliamentary caucus chairmen in Serbia's National
Assembly agreed at a closed-door meeting with Assembly President
Aleksandar Bakocevic that early elections should be held in Serbia
by the end of this year. They also agreed that republican
elections should be held on the same day as federal elections.
Proposals on their organization and date are to be submitted by
the end of this week. A constitutional amendment allowing for
early general and presidential elections failed to win public
approval in a recent referendum. (Milan Andrejevich, RFE/RL Inc.)
SLOVAKIA POSTPONES DIVERSION OF DANUBE... Slovakia announced on 20
October that it would postpone the planned opening of the
Gabcikovo hydroelectric project which involves diverting the
Danube. A spokesman for the Slovak government said that the
decision was based on technical, rather than political
considerations and that the river would be diverted by November.
The Czechoslovak federal government will discuss the possibility
of setting up a three-party commission of Czechoslovak, Hungarian,
and European Community experts to settle the dispute between
Hungary and Slovakia. Negotiations between the interested parties
are beginning in Brussels today. (Jan Obrman, RFE/RL Inc.)
..AND ANTALL APPEALS TO WORLD LEADERS. Meanwhile, MTI reported
that Hungarian Prime Minister Jozsef Antall sent a letter to
leading politicians in Europe and North America (including
Presidents George Bush and Boris Yeltsin) in which he made it
clear that the diversion of the Danube "will seriously violate the
interests of the international community and create a new source
of conflict in Central Europe endangering stability and European
cooperation." Antall asked the statesmen to "help rationality to
prevail" and urge the Czechoslovak government to postpone the
diversion "at least until international inquiry and mediation
proceedings are completed." (Jan Obrman, RFE/RL Inc.)
HUNGARY DENIES ALLEGED TROOP MOVEMENTS. Following a phone inquiry
from the Czechoslovak Ministry of Defense about alleged Hungarian
troops movements near Rajka on the Slovak-Hungarian border,
Hungary's Defense Ministry has stated that there was no military
nor extraordinary border guard activity in that area, MTI reported
on 20 October. Hungary's Deputy State Secretary of Defense Rudolf
Joo called in the Czechoslovak military attache in Budapest and
proposed setting up a joint monitoring group to strengthen mutual
confidence and reassure the local population, as well as to
prevent misunderstandings. (Alfred Reisch, RFE/RL Inc.)
SLOVAK MINISTER REJECTS COMPLAINTS OF HUNGARIAN MINORITY. Slovak
Foreign Minister Milan Knazko accused Miklos Duray, the Chairman
of the predominantly ethnic-Hungarian opposition party Coexistence
of stirring ethnic tensions in Slovakia, CSTK reported on 20
October. Earlier, Duray told reporters that the new Slovak
constitution sharply curtailed minority rights and that Hungarians
were in many respects worse off now than under the communist
regime. Knazko said that these statements were "unfounded and
baseless." He added that Duray was a "militant, interpreting the
constitution in a twisted way to hurt ethnic relations in Slovakia
for political reasons." (Jan Obrman, RFE/RL Inc.)
NATIONAL ASSEMBLY CHASTISED BULGARIAN PREMIER. After a closed
session which carried on past midnight, a narrow majority of the
Bulgarian parliament on 21 October chastised Prime Minister Filip
Dimitrov for his way of dealing with a Macedonian request to buy
arms from Bulgaria, BTA reported. Dimitrov was criticized for
actions that might have led to "lowering the country's prestige"
and "damage to national security." Parliament praised the
investigation led by head of counterespionage, General B.
Asparuhov, but expressed disapproval that he had stated publicly
his suspicions of government involvement in illegal arms deals.
All UDF deputies boycotted the vote in protest. A day earlier the
UDF daily Demokratsiya published what it claimed were the minutes
of a 2 October meeting between the Premier and President Zhelyu
Zhelev, according to which the two had agreed that Dimitrov had
acted in an appropriate manner. (Kjell Engelbrekt, RFE/RL Inc.)
ILIESCU HOLDS TALKS ON FUTURE CABINET. On 20 October Romanian
President Ion Iliescu held talks on forming a government with
leaders of the parties represented in parliament. According to
Radio Bucharest, Iliescu received leaders of the Democratic
National Salvation Front (DNSF) which had backed him in the 27
September elections; the National Peasant Party--Christian
Democratic; the Democratic Agrarian Party; the Civic Alliance
Party; the Party of Romanian National Unity; and the National
Salvation Front (NSF). NSF leader Petre Roman stated that he had
offered support for the rival DNSF in parliament on condition that
it promised to foster market reforms despite its pledges to the
contrary during the electoral campaign. He also said that the NSF
might join a coalition government that included the centrist
Democratic Convention. (Dan Ionescu, RFE/RL Inc.)
NEW POLITICAL PARTY IN LATVIA. On 17 October, 98 delegates
convened in Riga for the formal founding of the Democratic Center
Party. The main speakers were Supreme Council Deputy Janis Skapars
and former Deputy Prime Minister Ilmars Bisers, who said that the
party would aim to steer a moderate course both politically and
economically and seek its adherents among all the nationalities
living in Latvia. Among the new party's activistists are former
liberal communists who supported and worked for the People's Front
of Latvia when it was founded in October 1988, Radio Riga reported
on 18 October. (Dzintra Bungs, RFE/RL Inc.)
POLISH GOVERNMENT PROPOSES NEW BUDGET CUTS. Responding to the
Sejm's refusal to consider limiting cost-of-living increases for
pensioners in 1992, the Polish government approved new spending
cuts of 1.8 trillion zloty ($129 million) on 20 October. The cuts,
part of a package of revisions to the 1992 budget, would reduce
subsidies to the railways and defense industries, credits for
farmers, central investments and budgetary reserves. At the same
time, the government pledged to return to the pension issue in the
draft budget for 1993. Social security payments have in recent
years become a huge drag on the budget. They will amount to 20% of
expenditures in 1992 and, if unchecked, could rise to 30% in 1993.
Finance ministry officials argue that no normal state can afford
this burden. (Louisa Vinton, RFE/RL Inc.)
RECORD VOLUME ON WARSAW STOCK MARKET. Trading reached record
levels on the Warsaw stock market on 20 October after most of the
firms represented reported positive economic results for the first
three quarters of 1992. Volume exceeded 55.1 billion zloty ($4
million). Demand for shares in two firms--Prochnik and
Mostostal--was so great that trading in them had to be suspended.
Eight of the nine firms which announced their results before the
trading session opened (of the sixteen on the market) have so far
recorded profits in 1992; two others reported balances in the
black earlier in the month. (Louisa Vinton, RFE/RL Inc.)
BULGARIA TO RECEIVE EC CREDITS. The finance ministers of European
Community countries agreed at a meeting in Luxemburg to release
100 million Ecu in credits to help Bulgaria overcome its present
balance of payments problems, Bulgarian and Western dailies wrote
on 20 October. The first of two installments will be made
available immediately, while the second part is to be provided
when Bulgaria has renegotiated its debt agreement with the Paris
Club of creditors. (Kjell Engelbrekt, RFE/RL Inc.)
ROMANIA'S ECONOMIC PERFORMANCE IN SEPTEMBER. Romania's National
Statistics Board released on 20 October data on the previous
month's economic performance. Industrial production was up 5.5%
from August, but was still 23.5% below the level of September
1991. The trade balance registered a surplus of $68.2 million.
Compared to August, prices for consumer goods and staples were
10.1% and 12.1% higher, respectively. Compared with October 1990,
when price liberalization began, food prices were up 1,074%. Over
869,000 people (7.7% of the labor force) were out of work. The
communique said that seasonal sowing was behind schedule, with
only 29% of wheat fields sown. (Dan Ionescu, RFE/RL Inc.)
WALESA: SOVIET PARTY WAS "CRIMINAL ORGANIZATION." In an interview
with the Russian weekly Novoe Vremya on 20 October, Polish
President Lech Walesa took the part of Russian President Boris
Yeltsin. Walesa said the Soviet communists who enslaved Poland
were a "criminal organization." Resolving this question once and
for all through the release of documents on the Katyn massacres,
Walesa said, had opened the way for democratic relations between
the two nations. "Without Yeltsin," Walesa said, "this would have
been impossible." Walesa called the conflict between Yeltsin and
former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev a "contest over Russia's
future policies." Only Yeltsin had understood that revealing the
full truth about the criminal nature of the communist system was
the only way to keep Russia moving forward and to forestall
efforts by former communist leaders to pretend that the old system
"wasn't really so bad." "Other Soviet leaders knew the truth but
were afraid to reveal it," Walesa observed. (Louisa Vinton, RFE/RL
Inc.)
UPDATE ON RUSSIAN TROOP TRAIN. Radio Riga reported on 20 October
that in response to Latvian inquires about the illegal entry of a
Russian train transporting troops and missiles to Latvia from
Estonia, the Russian embassy and the Northwestern Group of Forces
leadership apologized, claiming that this was a "misunderstanding"
and that the Estonian authorities regretted that they had not
promptly informed Latvia of the Russian military's plans to send
the train. Minister of State Janis Dinevics said that a protest
note had been sent and that Latvia would seek a peaceful solution
to the incident. (Dzintra Bungs, RFE/RL Inc.)
ESTONIAN OPPOSITION CALLS NEW GOVERNMENT NATIONALIST-SOCIALIST.
Two opposition factions in the Estonian parliament are calling the
proposed Pro-Patria-Moderates-ENIP government "national
socialist," BNS reports. The Coalition Party Alliance and the
Rural Union Alliance, which together formed the pre-election
coalition Secure Home, circulated a statement criticizing the
government program approved on 20 October by the Riigikogu. The
Secure Home coalition is made up of former Savisaar government
ministers and collective/state farm directors. (Riina Kionka,
RFE/RL Inc.)
novine.121.bale.,
RFE/RL Daily Report
No. 204, October 22, 1992
SUCCESSOR STATES TO THE USSR
YELTSIN UNDER ATTACK. Hardliners will seek to impeach President
Boris Yeltsin and abolish the institution of the presidency at the
next Congress, Komsomolskaya pravda reported on 20 October. The
opposition is united in a newly created front of national
salvation: an organization that has already started to establish
its units on the local level. In Ekaterinburg, for example, the
front conducted a congress of workers, peasants and "labor
intelligentsia" of the Central Urals which called for Yeltsin's
resignation. The Civic Union, which apparently helped set up the
front, has now officially distanced itself from that organization.
Yeltsin and Vice President Aleksandr Rutskoi have reportedly joined
forces to fight the Front. (Alexander Rahr, RFE/RL Inc.)
CONGRESS WILL TAKE PLACE IN DECEMBER. The Russian parliament has
rejected the proposal made by President Yeltsin and the leaders of
the republics of the Russian Federation to postpone the Seventh
Congress of People's Deputies until spring 1993, ITAR-TASS reported
on 21 October. Observers believe that the Congress, which is
scheduled to start on 1 December, may seriously weaken the position
of Yeltsin and the reformist government. At the suggestion of the
Civic Union, parliament also summoned for testimony four senior
members of the Russian leadership (Gennadii Burbulis, Andrei
Kozyrev, Mikhail Poltoranin and Anatolii Chubais), who at a press
conference on 16 October had warned of an impending coup attempt
against the President by members of the legislature. Parliament
will demand that the ministers to explain their reasons for issuing
this warning. (Alexander Rahr, RFE/RL Inc.)
ANOTHER WARNING OF HYPERINFLATION IN RUSSIA. Professor Jeffrey
Sachs has warned of hyperinflation in Russia, The Times reported on
21 October. Speaking at a London conference on banking reform in
Eastern Europe organized by the European Bank for Reconstruction
and Development, Sachs stated that the Russian money supply had
ballooned by 150% since 1 July, from 1.5 trillion to 4 trillion
rubles. This has caused prices to accelerate by perhaps 10% a week,
that is, an annual rate of more than 14,000%. "There has been no
help from outside and Russia's problems are about to explode."
(Keith Bush, RFE/RL Inc.)
RUSSIAN PARLIAMENT HIKES PENSIONS. On 21 October, the Russian
parliament enacted a bill "On Raising State Pensions in the Russian
Federation," Interfax reported. This stipulates an increase in the
minimum state pension from 900 rubles to 2,250 rubles a month,
effective 1 November. It also provides for indexing minimum
pensions every three months, starting on 1 February 1993. (On 19
October, ITAR-TASS reported that the Russian government proposed to
raise the minimum wage from 900 to 2,250 rubles starting in January
1993). No price tag was put on the pension increase, but the
finance minister and the employment minister warned parliament of
the inflationary impact. (Keith Bush, RFE/RL Inc.)
ILO PREDICTS STEEP RISE IN RUSSIAN UNEMPLOYMENT. The ILO has
carried out its second survey of industrial enterprises in Moscow
and St. Petersburg, and is predicting that mass layoffs will begin
early in 1993, according to western agencies on 21 October. The
first survey covered 500 enterprises, and the second one, carried
out in mid-1992, covered 191, 109 of which were also included in
the earlier survey. After the first survey the ILO predicted that
unemployment figures would reach ten to eleven million by the end
of 1992. The numbers of unemployed registered with the state
employment service in September was however still below 1 million.
40% of the enterprises covered by the second survey claim that they
will cut employment by mid 1993. (Sheila Marnie, RFE/RL Inc.)
KUCHMA ON ECONOMY, POLITICS. Newlyappointed Ukrainian Prime
Minister Leonid Kuchma told Le Figaro that Ukraine has been
preoccupied with politics rather than economics. Privatization, he
asserted, should have begun a long time ago. His remarks appear in
an interview published in the newspaper on 21 October. Kuchma
argues that privatization should be initially focused on the trade
and service sector and that farmers should be given the land to
work. In the industrial sector, small and middle-sized enterprises
should be privatized, but the nuclear, energy, and military
industries must remain under state control. Kuchma also told the
newspaper that he proposes the formation of a government of popular
trust that will be committed to the reform process. (Roman
Solchanyk, RFE/RL Inc.)
UKRAINE CAUTIONED ON SEPARATE CURRENCY. Ukrainian Central Bank
Chairman Vadim Hetman told a Kiev news conference on 21 October
that it was technically possible to launch the hrivnya by the end
of the year, but he advised against it, Reuters reported. "Nowhere
has it proven possible to introduce a new currency amid
catastrophic economic conditions." Hetman recommended that the
country first work out a coherent reform program based on
privatization. He repeated Ukraine's intention of paying its 16.37%
share of the debt of the former Soviet Union, and ruled out
Russia's proposals that Moscow assume full responsibility for the
debt provided that it inherited all former Soviet assets. (Keith
Bush, RFE/RL Inc.)
FOREIGN POLICY "CONCEPT" TO APPEAR SOON. The Russian Foreign
Ministry's long-awaited "concept" of Russian foreign policy--a
statement which is intended to map out Russia's overall foreign
policy goals and stances--is expected to appear soon. Nezavisimaya
gazeta reported on 21 October that the 53-page document is all but
complete and needs only President Yeltsin's stamp of approval.
According to the paper, the Foreign Ministry's report continues to
emphasize good relations with the "near abroad" (the former
republics of the USSR), and rejects the use of strong-arm tactics
in this region. The authors of the document emphasize the utility
of bilateral agreements, thus continuing a trend of Russian policy
toward the near abroad, which started in the spring of 1992, and
which is designed to hedge against the collapse of the CIS.
(Suzanne Crow, RFE/RL Inc.)
YELTSIN TO SPEAK AT FOREIGN MINISTRY. Reports about the coming
publication of the Foreign Ministry concept coincide with reports
that President Yeltsin plans to address the Russian Foreign
Ministry in late October. His talk will be designed to show support
for the embattled policy line of Andrei Kozyrev, the Russian
foreign minister, Interfax reported on 20 October. The fact that
this speech will occur in the weeks preceding the Congress of the
People's Deputies is intended to send a message to legislators:
criticism of Kozyrev will not find sympathy with Yeltsin. It is
likely that the Russian president's speech will also be used for
christening the new Foreign Ministry concept for Russia's foreign
policy. (Suzanne Crow, RFE/RL Inc.)
FINANCIAL VIOLATIONS IN GORBACHEV FOUNDATION DISPUTED. An article
in Moscow News (No. 43) asserts that President Yeltsin's closure of
the Gorbachev Foundation was an act of political oppression.
According to the article, in August 1992, Yeltsin sent to the
foundation an audit commission from the Russian Ministry of Finance
with instructions "to find illegal sources and uses of the income
and property by the Gorbachev Foundation." In fact, the commission
found no financial violations, only minor cases of confusion that
resulted from unclear instructions from the newly established
Russian fiscal agency. According to Moscow News, the Russian
government is trying to convince the public that the foundation's
employees have enriched themselves at the public's expense, but
this accusation is totally unfounded, since the Russian government
has not contributed a single ruble either to the foundation or to
the upkeep of its premises. (Julia Wishnevsky, RFE/RL Inc.)
BELARUS RATIFIES THE CFE TREATY. The Supreme Soviet of the Republic
of Belarus ratified the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty
at a closed session on 21 October, ITAR-TASS reported. The treaty,
which sets limits on five categories of conventional weapons in
Europe, came into force on 17 July this year. Armenia is now the
only one of the 29 signatories not to have ratified the treaty.
(Doug Clarke, RFE/RL Inc.)
BLACK SEA FLEET APPOINTMENT. Interfax reported on 21 October that
Russian Defense Minister Pavel Grachev has appointed Vice Admiral
Petr Svyatashov Chief of Staff of the Black Sea Fleet. The report
provided no details as to the exact role that the Admiral would
play in the disputed fleet or whether his appointment needed also
to be approved by the Ukrainian side. (Stephen Foye, RFE/RL Inc.)
OUTLINES OF THE NEW UKRAINIAN GOVERNMENT. The new Ukrainian cabinet
of ministers will retain Konstantin Morozov and Anatolii Zlenko,
the ministers of defense and foreign affairs, respectively,
according to remarks made by Prime Minister Leonid Kuchma to
Interfax on 21 October. Kuchma also said that probably the
ministers for industry, the military-industrial complex, conversion
(Viktor Antonov), and health (Yurii Spizhenko) would also be
included in the new government. (Roman Solchanyk, RFE/RL Inc.)
UKRAINIAN STUDENTS CONTINUE STRIKE. As of 19 October, 22 students
were continuing their hunger strike in Kiev as part of a campaign
to force new parliamentary elections and Ukraine' withdrawal from
the CIS. At the same time, more students have abandoned their
classrooms in support of the campaign. All institutes of higher
education in Lviv and Ivano-Frankivsk have gone on strike, as well
as the Luhanksk Pedagogical Institute, the Ukrainian National
Humanitarian Lyceum, individual departments of Kiev State
University, the Kiev Polytechnic, and the Kiev Agricultural
Institute. (Roman Solchanyk, RFE/RL Inc.)
RUSSIAN-ABKHAZ TALKS. Russian Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev and
Abkhaz parliament chairman Vladislav Ardzinba met in Moscow on 21
October. Ardzinba subsequently told journalists that the talks had
yielded a better understanding of the issues at stake but no
progress had been made on resolving the conflict. He affirmed that
Abkhazia was complying with the terms of the 3 September ceasefire
agreement and wanted a peaceful settlement, but insisted that
Georgia withdraw its troops from Abkhazia. Ardzinba also accused
Georgia of wishing to create "a new unitary state structure" that
would entail the abolition of any autonomy for Abkhazia, ITAR-TASS
reported. (Liz Fuller)
RUSSIAN COMMANDER WARNS GEORGIANS. Interfax reported on 21 October
that General Fedor Reut, commander of the Transcaucasus Military
District, has sent a letter to Eduard Shevardnadze warning him that
attacks on Russian military personnel in Georgia could lead to
unpredictable consequences. The report suggested that the letter
was not written in a hostile tone, and speculated that Reut is
himself bound by instructions from Russian Deputy Defense Minister
Georgii Kondratev and by a General Sigutkin, identified in the
report as the Russian Defense Ministry's special representative in
Abkhazia. (Stephen Foye, RFE/RL Inc.)
ARMENIA, AZERBAIJAN SIGN PROTOCOL ON RAIL TRAFFIC. The ongoing
talks between Armenian and Azerbaijani defense ministry officials
on safeguarding rail traffic between the two states resulted on 21
October in the signing of a protocol establishing security zones
along the frontiers between the two states from which all armed
formations and military hardware are to be withdrawn on 24-25
October, Radio Erevan reported on 21 October. Implementation of the
agreement will be monitored by Russian, Azerbaijani and Armenian
observers. (Liz Fuller, RFE/RL Inc.)
WORSENING SITUATION IN TAJIKISTAN. Deputy Prime Minister Asmiddin
Sohibnazarov appealed to the world community for humanitarian aid,
saying on 21 October that there are now more than 200,000 refugees
who have fled their homes to escape fighting in the southern parts
of Tajikistan. Most have gone to Dushanbe and the Kulyab and
Leninabad Oblasts, and local resources are nearly exhausted.
Sohibnazarov's appeal follows reports that the economic situation
of the country is disastrous. Much of Tajikistan's cotton crop was
not harvested, and several regions, including Kulyab Oblast, face
severe shortages of food. (Bess Brown, RFE/RL Inc.)
RUSSIAN DIVISION GIVEN PERMISSION TO SHOOT. On October 21,
ITAR-TASS reported that the commander of the Russian motorized
division stationed in Tajikistan has authorized his men to shoot
without warning if their personal safety is threatened. An increase
in the number of attacks on division soldiers has been reported
recently. Tajik militiamen have also been authorized to fire on
vehicles ignoring an order to stop. The same day, ITAR-TASS
reported that acting President Akbarsho Iskandarov wants units of
the Russian division to take part in peacekeeping operations and
has submitted a plan to the representative of the Russian Defense
Ministry in Dushanbe. (Bess Brown, RFE/RL Inc.)
MOLDOVAN PRESIDENT ON LEFT BANK'S STATUS. President Mircea Snegur
outlined Moldova's policy on the "Dniester" question to a visiting
party of fifty-six Russian journalists in Chisinau on 16 October,
as reported by Moldovapres and Interfax, and in an interview with
Nezavisimaya gazeta of 21 October. Moldova will continue to resist
its transformation into a "federation" of republics and the
creation of a "Dniester republic" with an army, security services,
border guards, and other attributes of statehood. Chisinau is,
however, prepared to grant the left bank of the Dniester
"self-government" with political, economic, and cultural autonomy,
within an "integral and indivisible" Moldova. Chisinau is also
ready to recognize the left bank's full right of self-determination
in the event of "a change in Moldova's status as a state" (that is,
unification with Romania, which the "Dniester" Russian leadership
professes to fear and which Moldova itself opposes). (Vladimir
Socor, RFE/RL Inc.)
CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE
UN STOPS RELIEF FLIGHTS TO SARAJEVO. The 22 October Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung reported that the UN had announced the previous
day that fighting between Croats and Muslims near Novi Travnik had
made it impossible to continue aid flights safely, and that the
missions would be stopped. The previous weekend, similar fighting
had prompted the UN to halt overland shipments from Split.
Sarajevo's food reserves are reportedly exhausted, and tank shells
recently put the city's vital flour mill out of action. Meanwhile,
an RFE/RL correspondent at the UN said on 21 October that Milan
Panic, prime minister of the rump Yugoslavia, had offered to
provide a secure overland relief route from Belgrade to Sarajevo.
Panic pledged 100 trucks with drivers and safe passage, but it was
not clear whether he could actually bring Bosnian Serb leaders
ground to agree. Finally, the 22 October Frankfurter Allgemeine
Zeitung quoted UN human rights envoy Tadeusz Mazowiecki as
reporting from Bosnia that it was not a question of refugees
surviving the winter, but of their surviving the autumn. (Patrick
Moore, RFE/RL Inc.)
WHAT IS GOING ON IN BOSNIA? The 22 October Frankfurter Allgemeine
Zeitung said that Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic had told UN
mediator Cyrus Vance in Geneva that he approved dividing his
republic into 8 to 10 cantons set up on a geographic, not an
ethnic, basis. Izetbegovic said he would not stand for reelection
when his term runs out on 18 December, but he denied rumors in the
Croatian media that he had already been toppled by Vice President
Ejup Ganic in a coup allegedly aimed at uniting Bosnia with rump
Yugoslavia. Bosnian officials mocked the Croatian reports, calling
them "silly" and propagandistic. The 22 October New York Times
reported that the current wave of fighting between Muslims and
Croats might be the result of desperation by the Muslims, who might
well fear that the Croats and possibly Izetbegovic have made a deal
with Belgrade at their expense. Another theory suggested that
Izetbegovic was trying to rally Muslim troops serving in Croatian
units to turn on the Croats in a desperate life-or-death struggle.
Finally, as if to add to the confusion, international media on 21
October reported renewed fighting between Serbs and Croats
southeast of Dubrovnik. (Patrick Moore, RFE/RL Inc.)
CONTROVERSY OVER INTERIOR MINISTRY CONTINUES IN BELGRADE. The
independent Belgrade daily Borba warned on 20 October that the
takeover by Serbian police of the Federal Interior Ministry in
Belgrade has heightened tensions between Serbia's President
Slobodan Milosevic and leaders of the federal rump Yugoslav
government and raised fears of the army's intervention. A statement
by Serbia's main opposition party, the Serbian Renewal Movement,
described the move as "Milosevic's foolish resolve to provoke war
in Serbia" adding that "to keep his own position, this man is
prepared to turn Belgrade into Sarajevo." A Serbian Interior
Ministry statement said that the federal administration had to move
out because a Belgrade court ruled the building was the property of
the Republic of Serbia. However, Bratimir Tocanac, head of that
court said he knew nothing about such a ruling, according to Radio
Serbia on 20 October. The Federal Interior Ministry relocated to
the federal government's Palace of the Federation building and
announced it would prosecute the Serbian police, who, according to
Belgrade media, were backed by Serbian militia from Croatia and
Bosnia. (Milan Andrejevich, RFE/RL Inc.)
KOSOVO DEVELOPMENTS. Radio Serbia reported on 21 October that 19
ethnic Albanians had been convicted by a provincial court of
planning to use violent means to seek Kosovo's independence from
Serbia. The group, allegedly members of the National Front of
Albanians, were given sentences totalling more than 70 years.
International media reported that Bujar Bukoshi, Prime Minister of
the selfproclaimed Republic of Kosovo, has urged the US to press
Serbia to lift martial law and also asked the UN to impose a
"no-fly" zone over Kosovo and take control of Serbian military
hardware there. Bukoshi added that such actions were necessary in
order to head off an imminent "massacre" of Albanians by heavily
armed Serbs. He made the remarks at the end of his three day visit
to the US on 21 October. Kosovo's Albanians, who make up more than
90% of the province's population, reject Serbian domination and
seek independence. (Milan Andrejevich, RFE/RL Inc.)
NEW ESTONIAN GOVERNMENT. President Lennart Meri named Prime
Minister Mart Laar's choices for the new government on 21 October,
local sources report. The new government, drawn from the strongly
promarket ruling coalition of Pro Patria, the Moderates and
Estonian National Independence Party, stands as follows: former
deputy Foreign Minister Trivimi Velliste (Pro Patria) for Foreign
Affairs; Kiel professor Hain Rebas (ENIP) for Defense; former
dissident Lagle Parek (ENIP) for Interior Affairs; Stockholm
economist Madis Uurike for Finance; former deputy speaker Marju
Lauristin (Moderates) for Social Welfare; agronomist Ain Saarmann
(Pro Patria) for the Economy; former Supreme Council deputy Kaido
Kama (Pro Patria) for Justice; poet Paul-Eerik Rummo (Pro Patria)
for Culture; agricultural engineer Jaan Leetsar (Moderates) for
Agriculture; former Transportation Ministry functionary Andi
Meister (ENIP) for Transportation; geographer and former Supreme
Council deputy Andres Tarand (Moderates) for the Environment. The
two ministers without portfolio include scientist and former
Supreme Council deputy Liia Hanni (Moderates) for Minister of
Reform; and Toronto energy executive Arvo Niitenberg for Energy, a
post he held under the previous government. (Riina Kionka, RFE/RL
Inc.)
LATVIAN GOVERNMENT SURVIVES VOTE OF CONFIDENCE. With the exception
of the Minister for Economic Reforms, the government of Prime
Minister Ivars Godmanis survived the vote of no confidence in the
Latvian Supreme Council, Baltic media reported on 21 October. Votes
were also taken against Foreign Minister Janis Jurkans and Internal
Affairs Minister Ziedonis Cever, but failed to force their
resignation. After these votes it appears unlikely that the
government will resign en masse. (Dzintra Bungs, RFE/RL Inc.)
ELECTION LAW ADOPTED IN LATVIA. On 20 October the Latvian Supreme
Council adopted a new election law that stipulates that all
citizens of Latvia can vote, provided they are at least 18 years
old and have not been members of organizations opposing Latvia's
independence, such as the KGB, Radio Riga reported. (Dzintra Bungs,
RFE/RL Inc.)
BULGARIAN PREMIER ASKS FOR CONFIDENCE VOTE. On the evening of 21
October the Bulgarian government proposed that the National
Assembly take, on the following day, a vote of confidence on the
government's performance and policies, BTA reported. Prime Minister
Filip Dimitrov, who had been rebuked by parliament earlier that day
for his decision to send a political adviser to discuss an arms
deal with Macedonian leaders, told reporters that a government
could not continue to rule if it had been denigrated and its arms
and legs were tied. In a statement the UDF's governing body accused
President Zhelyu Zhelev of instigating recent attacks on the
government. Emergency talks between UDF leaders and their MRF
counterparts, who hold the balance of power in parliament, carried
on through the night. (Kjell Engelbrekt, RFE/RL Inc.)
NO COALITION GOVERNMENT IN SIGHT IN ROMANIA. On 21 October
Romania's President Ion Iliescu ended two days of talks with
political party leaders on forming a government. Interviewed by
Radio Bucharest, Iliescu admitted that the talks had failed to
produce a national unity government, or a broad-based coalition
involving the main political parties. He added that the focus would
now shift to the possibility of forming a narrower coalition led by
his Democratic National Salvation Front (DNSF). Iliescu, who called
for "a political pact" in the parliament, proposed a parliamentary
"moratorium," a period of grace during which the parties that did
not join the ruling coalition would not obstruct a DNSF-led
government. (Dan Ionescu, RFE/RL Inc.)
NEW DATE SET FOR DIVERSION OF DANUBE. Czechoslovak Foreign Minister
Jozef Moravcik said on 21 October that the planned diversion of the
Danube as part of the controversial Gabcikovo hydroelectric project
will take place on 3 November, CSTK reported. Moravcik's
announcement conflicts with earlier official Slovak statements
which said that the diversion would begin on 7 November. The
federal foreign minister also said that his government was ready to
take into consideration any recommendations of the EC as long as
they were presented by 2 November at the latest. He added that the
diversion of the Danube was not irreversible and that even after
the damming of the river the Danube can be diverted to its original
river bed. Meanwhile, Hungarian, Czechoslovak, and EC officials are
scheduled to discuss Gabcikovo in Brussels today. They will
consider the setting up of a tripartite commission that would offer
solutions for the current deadlock. (Jan Obrman, RFE/RL Inc.)
SLOVAKIA COMMEMORATES DEPORTED JEWS. A memorial ceremony was held
on 21 October in the Slovak town of Nitra in remembrance of Slovak
Jews who were deported to death camps during the war. The ceremony
marked the 50th anniversary of the first group of Slovak Jews to be
sent to the camps. In the presence of Slovak Prime Minister
Vladimir Meciar, Slovak parliament Chairman Ivan Gasparovic, and
Israel's Ambassador to Czechoslovakia, Yoel Scher, a monument was
unveiled to commemorate the estimated 70,000 people who were
deported. Gasparovic told the 300 people who gathered for the
ceremony that there will be no room for racism and anti-Semitism in
the new Slovak state. (Jan Obrman, RFE/RL Inc.)
CZECH PARLIAMENT APPROVES LAW ON CZECH PRESS AGENCY. The Czech
National Council approved a law on the new Czech Press Agency (CTK)
on 21 October. The law makes provision for the introduction of CTK
as a legal public entity on 15 November and its full privatization
within the next two years. It stipulates that no government
official or Czech parliamentary deputy may become CTK's director or
sit on the 7-member council that will oversee its activities. The
council will be elected by the Czech National Council. Unlike its
federal predecessor, CSTK, CTK will not be obliged to publish
official government statements. (Jan Obrman, RFE/RL Inc.)
LIMITED CONVERTIBILITY FOR HUNGARIAN CURRENCY. Radio Budapest
reported on 21 October that the Hungarian government had accepted
the basic outline of a new law on the convertibility of the forint.
After the law is passed by parliament, Hungarian enterprises will
be able to freely convert their forints into foreign currency for
business purposes. This is an important step forward toward the
liberalization of the forint's convertibility and an indication of
Hungary's good foreign trade and balance of payment performance.
(Judith Pataki, RFE/RL Inc.)
IMF APPROVES CREDIT FOR LITHUANIA. On 21 October the executive
board of directors of the IMF accepted the Lithuanian economic
reform program and approved credits of $82 million in the next
eleven months, Radio Lithuania reported. Part of the credits will
be paid out immediately with additional credits at the end of
February, May, and August. Lithuania will begin paying the annual
interest of 4-6% in 1994 with the deadline for paying the balance
of the loan in 1998. The board of the World Bank is expected to
discuss granting a $60 million import loan to Lithuania on 22
October. (Saulius Girnius, RFE/RL Inc.)
BICKAUSKAS PERPLEXED OVER RUSSIAN ANNOUNCEMENT. Lithuania's charge
d'affaires in Moscow Egidijus Bickauskas told Baltfax on 20 October
that he was perplexed over a Russian announcement to suspend the
troop withdrawals from the Baltic States. Recalling that Russian
officials had already signed several documents stipulating 31
August 1993 as the completion date for the troop pullouts from
Lithuania, Bickauskas expressed regret that "once again [Russia]
has unilaterally announced plans to break its own commitments" and
noted that such actions shed doubt on the sincerity of statements
of Russian representatives who said they were striving to resolve
these problems. (Dzintra Bungs, RFE/RL Inc.)
LANDSBERGIS DOUBTS RUSSIAN MILITARY WITHDRAWAL FROM LITHUANIA WILL
BE SUSPENDED. On 21 October Lithuanian parliament chairman Vytautas
Landsbergis told reporters that he thought that the statement of
the Russian Defense Ministry on suspending the withdrawal of troops
from the Baltic States was "meant for inner use and to calm down
certain influential group assemblies of officers, by showing a
general concern for their social needs," BNS reports. Noting that
the texts of the agreements on the withdrawal made provision for
postponing the removal of units if preparations for their
settlement were not complete, he said that "as far as he knew units
from Lithuania were not being withdrawn to empty fields," and had
no reason "to believe that the army's withdrawal from Lithuania was
to be suspended or slowed down." (Saulius Girnius, RFE/RL Inc.)
RUSSIAN TROOP TRAIN TO LEAVE LATVIA FOR KALININGRAD? Radio Riga
reported on 21 October that preparations were being made to send to
Kaliningrad the Russian train carrying troops and weapons that
entered Latvia illegally on 19 October. The Latvian government also
decided not to confiscate the train's cargo in order to show its
good will to Russia and demonstrate its desire for a speedy
resolution of the troop withdrawal issues. Radio Riga said that the
next round of troop withdrawal talks was still expected to start on
23 October in Moscow. (Dzintra Bungs, RFE/RL Inc.)
novine.122.bale.,
FOREIGN PRESS BUREAU, October 22, 1992
DUBROVNIK, CROATIA - The European Community Monitoring Mission team in
Cavtat reported that they were confined to their hotel by the Croatian
Army yesterday morning. In a press release issued by the EC in Zagreb,
they stated that on Wednesday, October 21, they were confined to their
hotel at 8:30 am by the Croatian Army. The EC in Cavtat was able to
confirm Croatian artillery in Cavtat was firing in the direction of
Jasenica on positions of the Serbian Herzegovinian Corps within Croatian
territory. By 9:15 the EC monitors confirmed small arms fire coming
from the direction of Jasenica and assessed that Croatian infantry were
moving foreward to Jasenica. At 11:30 they confirmed incoming fire from
Serbian Herzegovina Corps positions. At 14:00, the area was reported to
be quiet. The ECMM team in Cavtat withdrew from their hotel to Herzeg
-Novi because the situation had become too dangerous. The ECMM reported
the presence of Croatian Army Special Forces in Cavtat in white vehicles
similar to those commonly used by ECMM teams. The EC protested this
practice which could put the lives of the ECMM teams at risk. The EC
also expressedits regret over the activity taking place in the area as
it was against the spirit of the ceasefire established for the Dubrovnik
area. The ceasefire was originally brokered by the EC and has held for
three months until now. The renewed fighting threatens the stability of
the region and the EC said it was dismayed at the presence of Serbian
Herzegovinian Corps troops on Croatian territory and called upon them to
withdraw immediately. The Croatian Ministry of Defense also issued a
statement which refuted claims made by the EC. In their statement, the
Ministry said the Croatian side, in accordance with an agreement reached
in Geneva and Tuesday's meeting with General Kranston, head of the ECMM
for the Dubrovnik region, Croatian forces began to transport some of
their units by sea into the area because 40 meters of road between Plat
and Uvala Ljuta had been destroyed. Repairs to the road had been
prevented by the Serbian forces occupying the area. The Ministry of
Defense denied any activity in the village of Jasenica as well as any
kind of shooting in Cavtat. The statement added that Croatian units did
not remain in Cavtat because Serbian irregular units were attacking the
town and port with artillery. In addition, the statement said the Croa-
tian Army did not use white vehicles; only medical vehicles and vehicles
belonging to the Croatian Interior Ministry had arrived in Cavtat along
with several civilian vehicles which brought food and medicine to the
town, along with one press vehicle that was white in color. Serbian
sources reported an upsurge of fighting in the hills behind Dubrovnik,
in southern Bosnia- Herzegovina. The news agency Tanjug said fighting
began when Croatian forces moved towards the road to the mainly Serb
town of Trebinje...
novine.123.bale.,
Los Angeles Times Editorial, October 22, 1992
"Call It Anything but Peace"
Bosnia-Herzegovina has fallen. The attempt to create a secular,
multiethnic, multi-religous state in one of the constituent republics of
what was Yugoslavia has been crushed by the neo-fascist ambitions of
Serbia and Croatia. On Tuesday Bosnia's President Alija Izetbegovic,
under extreme duress, agreed to a division of his nation into autonomous
zones.
In essence, a secret partition agreement made in Graz, Austria, by
representatives of Croatia and Serbia is about to be implemented. Bosnia's
Muslims -- those who have not yet been expelled or slain in "ethnic
cleansing" -- will inevitably be confined to ghettos within the Serbian and
Croatian zones: Given their scattered distribution, they cannot form a
viable, territorially contiguous state.
In Geneva, amid the politesse of international diplomacy, the
agreement may be hailed as an end to the fighting, but in the hills of
Bosnia, over the coming winter, it will be butchery. The butchers could
have been beaten back.
Bosnia was prepared to fight on if the West, notably the United States,
permitted it to buy weapons. Alas, the Bush Administration insisted on
enforcing the U.N. arms embargo against the unarmed Bosnians as well as
their heavily armed attackers. The failure of a last-ditch attempt by
Bosnian Foreign Minister Haris Silajdzic to move acting Secretary of State
Lawrence S. Eagleburger became the coup de grace.
But nations can rise from the dead. Even at this late hour, the Bush
Administration can state unequivocally that it will never grant diplomatic
recognition to a Serbia enlarged by territorial conquest and will withdraw
diplomatic recognition from Croatia if it annexes any portion of Bosnia-
Herzegovina. And if Izetbegovic or other Bosnian leaders set up a
government in exile, it should be recognized as the legitimate government.
Yugoslav Prime Minister Milan Panic has now been undercut both by
Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic's seizure of much of the governmental
apparatus of federal Yugoslavia and by Yugoslav President Dobrica Cosic's
role in the Geneva partition agreement. If Panic should choose to flee
Belgrade and set up a government in exile, that government too could be
recognized as legitimate, at least for a period of transition.
In short, though the West, led by the United States, has failed to
halt an international atrocity, it must not now compound the failure by
calling the atrocity peace.
novine.124.bale.,
An Open Letter to the President of
the United States of America
The Delegation of the
Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina
October 15, 1992
The Honorable George Bush
President
The White House
Washington
Dear Mr. President,
On behalf of the citizens of Bosnia-Herzegovina, we, the members of
the delegation of Bosnia-Herzegovina, representatives of the
Parliament, the Presidency and the Government, Croats, Serbs and Muslims,
demand justice for our country. We bring you this message:
We do not ask for American or any other ground troops to defend us. All
we ask for is the recognition of our right to self-defense under the UN
Charter. Negotiations alone will not bring peace. The aggressor has not
fullfiled any of the obligations ensuing from the London Conference.
Time is running out - - especially for those 400.000 people the ICRC
estimates will lose their lives this winter. It is this horrible reality
that the Government of Bosnia-Herzegovina must take into account when
assessing its participation in the peace process.
For a long six months Bosnia suffers under savage attacks by the
Belgrade regime and its executioners in Bosnia. In the name of ethnic
purity and undisguised territorial expansion, one hundred thousand
people were killed, over a million expelled from their homes, and those
who could not escape are waiting to die of hunger, cold and disease.
They are incessantly shelled, bombed and slaughtered, and yet denied the
right to defend themselves. They are not asking for anyone to die for
them; they simply ask for their right to be recognized, the right to
meet force with force when everything else has failed to stop the
murder.
Mr. President, we firmly believed that the London Conference sponsored
by the democracies at the highest level would stop the aggression. We
joined the peace efforts unconditionally and have complied with all
requirements set forth by the London Conference. We place our full
confidence in and greatly appreciate the noble efforts by Mr. Vance,
Lord Owen, Mr. Ahtishaari, the United Nations High Commisioner for
Refugees, and others who help us in this hour of need. Let us not forget
those who lost their lives trying to bring in the relief.
However, what followed after the London Conference proved that the
aggressor does not intend to respect any agreement. Artillery attacks,
air raids, mass killings and ethnic cleansing have reached catastrophic
proportions. Some concentration camps were closed to deceive the world
as new ones were immediately opened. About two hundred thousand people
in the region of Banja Luka are threatened by expulsions or summary
executions. A new offensive is underway in northern Bosnia with fresh
troops coming from Serbia . The most recent casualty was Bosanski Brod.
The capital, Sarajevo, is a gigantic death camp where four hundred
thousand people live without food, running water, gas and eletricity.
Day after day they are shelled and burned in their homes or sniped off
while looking for food. Yet we are told to be patient and cooperative,
but if the aggression continues, peace efforts will soon be rendered
meaningless. We cannot cooperate in the destruction of our country.
Mr. President, the evil forces of fascism have erupted once again in
Bosnia and tremors are being felt around the world. A monstrous crime is
being commited while the world tries to look the other way. Of the dead
we shall not speak; silence and grief is left for those who have stayed
behind. But there will be thousands of blind, limbless, parentless
children to haunt us all for decades to come. Human tragedy has no
borders.
Mr. President, to treat the Bosnian tragedy as another humanitarian
problem is not right. This is a man-made catastrophe. To focus simply on
providing aid is to ignore the real problem. After all, people must be
alive to be able to receive aid. The real issue is the slaughter of tens
of thousands of civilians and the inability of the Government of
Bosnia-Herzegovina to defend its citizens. Those who argue that more
arms will bring more fighting fail to realize that now the arms are in
the hands of murderers and that more innocent people will die if they
cannot defend themselves.
The concept of global peace rests on the principle of deterring
aggression. Why should that principle be disregarded in Bosnia? Is
Bosnia the place where all principles must be abandoned? On the
contrary! Bosnia is the seam on the fabric of the humanity. It carried out
the task of bringing civilizations together with an open heart and
dignity. Throughout centuries Bosnia offered refuge to all who needed
it. It guarded the heritage of us all with its own life. In Bosnia, the
human rights of all were respected centuries before the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights come into being. Now Bosnia is being
punished for being open, universal and human - - for trying to restore
human and democratic values after decades of communist rule. In Bosnia
we want to live together, as we did for centuries, regardless of ethnic
background, religion or political affiliations. Thus, to interpret the
aggression as a civil war is an insult to those Serbs, Croats, Muslims
and Jews hiding from terrorists' shells and defending Bosnia together.
Americans should understand that, because they also regard their
diversity as an advantage. American democracy cannot deny the right for
self-defense to a new democracy. America inspired us. America cannot let
us down.
Mr. President, an arms embargo imposed on a country being annihilated by
a military machine is absurd and unjust. Help justice by lifting the
arms embargo against Bosnia. Let us stop the aggression against us. The
world is waiting for the United States of America to take the lead.
Sincerely,
Haris Silajdzic, Foreign Minister;
Muhamed Filipovic, Member of the Parliament;
Mariofil Ljubic, President of the Parliament;
Mirko Pejanovic, Member of the Presidency;
Miro Lazovic, Member of the Parliament.
novine.125.bale.,
These articles have been published in response to Allison Abbot
article published in Nature 358, 360; 1992.
*************************************************************************
NATURE VOL 359 15 OCTOBER 1992
PLIGHT OF BOSNIA AND CROATIA
SIR These are great times for the revival and advancement of
the theory of symmetry of culpability. I refer, of course, to
the war in Croatia and Bosnia, and your leading article
(Nature 358, 439; 1992), and the News story by Alison Abbott
(358, 360; 1992). There are some facts which would greatly
improve the foundations of this theory and accordingly, the
chances for peace in Europe.
Serbs, 12 per cent of the population of the Republic of
Croatia, have occupied 25 per cent of its total territory,
and effectively 'cleansed' it of Croatians, Hungarians,
Czechs, Slovaks and Ukrainians. Serbs, 34 per cent of the
population of Bosnia and Herzegovina have occupied 60 per
cent of the total territory of that state, and are
effectively cleansing it of Croatians and Muslims. The
problem is not agricultural 'land grabbing' (agriculture has
never been a favorite subject for communists), but the
Serbian quest for control of communication lines and
corridors. The loss of these would render both states,
Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, a joke in terms of
contemporary non-agricultural economy.
These remarkable Serbian achievements are a product of
other initial and consequential symmetries: lighter bombers:
Serbs 600, Croats none; Tanks: Serbs 1800, Croats none; heavy
artillery: Serbs 2000, Croats none; Ordnance: Serbs huge
stockpiles of the former Yugoslav Army and supplies through
Rumania; Croats negligible initially, now carefully dosed
life-line supplies breaking the UN embargo through Slovenia
and Hungary; Major damaged cities: Serbia none; Croatia l0
(with a total population in excess of 400 000, Bosnia 8
(population in excess of 600 000; Ravaged cities: Serbia
none; Croatia 2 (Vukovar and Petrinja). Casualties are
mounting, but for each dead Serb there are 5 dead Croatians
and 20 dead Muslims (most of them civilians, women and
children).
The symmetry in the domain of science should also be
mentioned. Croatian scientists share the Serbian fear that
"prolonged sanctions will destroy" science. Croatia, with 20
per cent of the total population of the former Yugoslavia
contained some 18 per cent of registered scientists (Croatia
did not need this war to apply evaluation by per review, as
Glisin hopes for Serbia, 358, 31; 1992). Croatia was forced
to contribute 28 per cent of the total Yugoslav federal
budget and 40 per cent of foreign hard currency earnings
(1986). Croatian scientists received about l0 per cent of
federal funds (1987) for research and development, yet
produced up to 40 per cent of papers from the former
Yugoslavia cited in the Institute for Scientific Information
Science Citation Index (SCI), and issued the only two
Yugoslav scientific journals recognized by SCI (1985):
Croatica Chemica Acta and Periodicum Biologorum. The cut-off
of US sponsored cooperative projects and those with the
European Communities (EC) is symmetrical again. Croatia has
not been admitted to the EC's PHARE program.
The theory of symmetry of culpability should also take
into account the case of the Interuniversity Center for
Postgraduate Studies in Dubrovnik, a cooperative venture of
250 universities worldwide and year-round courses. As its
director, Professor Kathleen Wilkes of the University of
Oxford, witnessed, its building took a few well-aimed Serbian
shells and burned down along with its specialized library of
25,000 volumes.
For those unfamiliar with the theory of symmetry of
culpability, it was originated by Neville Chamberlain and
published in Munich in 1938.
Velimir Pravdic
Ruder Boskovic Institute,
PO Box 1016, Bijenicka 54,
41001 Zagreb, Croatia
******************************************************************************
SIR To write about difficulties of Serbian science and researchers and at
the same time not even mention the situation of science in Bosnia, where
dozens of university buildings, research institutions and libraries have been
set ablaze or demolished by Serbian mortar fire, is, to say the least,
hypocritical. How those burnt and demolished building compare with a
$65,000 computer'? How do burnt libraries compare with the Institute of Physics
receiving only 40 of its 180 subscriptions? Do you remember the scenes shown on
television when a crowd of Sarajevans lining up for bread was hit by a Serbian
shell? Do you remember the man lying in the puddle of blood, crying for help
and stretching his hands toward the camera? That was Professor Mahmud Dikic
with whom I worked at the Mechanical Engineering Department of the University
of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. In that attack he lost his legs. How does
that compare with BlTNET electronic mail lines being disconnected'?
I assume that your aim was to inform us about the protests that the
Serbian scientific community is trying to articulate against their government.
The protest could be summarized by saying that, after the international
community imposed sanctions, 70 000 students occupied the university's
main building for 26 days and that all examinations were suspended until
late August. What Abbott failed to say is that this is too little, too
late. She also failed to say that the Serbian scientific community is
not as innocent as she suggests. There was no mention at all of the
role of the Serbian Academy of Science and Arts and of its Memorandum
(1986) in laying the ideological framework for the formation of Greater
Serbia and the atrocities that have followed. The international scientific
community used to be very vocal against the Suppression of human rights
in Eastern Europe, but now seems to be untouched by the plight of the
Bosnian people, human rights abuses and genocide. How many other nations
will be put into the Serbian cleansing machine before the world's
scientific community react?
Sead Doric
Institut National d'Optique,
369 Rue Franquet,
Sainte-Foy, Quebec, Canada GlP 4NB
*****************************************************************************
SIR When black pictures of history are once again emerging in Bosnia and
Herzegovina, where more than 100 detention or death camps for Croats and
Muslims have been established by Serbians, I would have expected Serbian
scientists to be concerned about their colleagues and collaborators in Bosnia
and Herzegovina. But the major worry of Serbians seems to be about shortage
of funding, chemicals and about a Computer that has been paid for and cannot
be imported to Serbia.
Which is the guilty party'? The United Nations (UN) for striking back
with sanctions that will affect not only Serbian researchers but also the
authoritarian communist government of Serbia, or the latter for eliciting
such a response from the rest of the world?
Every scientist in Serbia should understand that silence is sometimes
the same as a lie or crime especially when it is expressed in such a selfish
manner. "As scientists we can only protest we cannot take up guns and kill
people" said Dragan Vuckovic, a Serbian scientist. What does he think about
Bosnian scientist, Croats, Muslims and loyal Serbs? Are they running their
experiments'? No, they are not, they are fighting for their own lives and
the lives of their children or starving to death in the detention camps.
No change is conceivable until human rights are acknowledged in Bosnia
and Herzegovina, and until they are willing to help their colleagues to
stop the bloodshed.
The UN must exert a stronger embargo on Serbia, in the hope that in the
near future science would he restarted in a fair and democratic environment.
Ivan Dikic
NYU Medical Center,
550 First Avenue,
New York, New York 10016, USA
novine.126.bale.,
NYT Oct.22,1992 ;excerpts:
JOHN BURNS (from Sarajevo)- According to Bosnian officials, Croatia
has agreed not to challenge Serbian control of the region around Trebinje
in a southern triangle of Bosnia adjancent to Montenegro,Serbia's ally
in the truncated federation of what was once Yugoslavia................
"If Izetbegovic or anybodyelse thinks that we fought as long as we have
to capitulate now,they will not live five minutes," one militia commander
said.He was speaking at a frontline Bosnian position in Stup, a western
suburb of Sarajevo where Croatian troops pulled back in September and
allowed Serbian units to tighten the Sarajevo siege.....................
"We know only too well that fighting on involves enormous hardships and
dangers ,but the alternative would be still worse ,"said Kemal Muftic,
a senior adviser in Mr. Izetbegovic's office . What faces us is genocide,
the extinction of the Muslim people of Bosnia, and the end of 500 years
of history. So we must either confront our enemies now,with all that
entails ,or accept still greater suffering and death"....................
Just 200 days ago, B&H emerged from 1000 years of tumultuous history to
a status many Bosnians had dreamed of since their childhood - that of an
independent state, recognized by the mayor powers of Europe ,with
many of its mixed population of Muslims, Serbs and Croats eager to put
years of communist stagnation as a republic of Yugoslavia behind them....
According to documents possessed by the Bosnian Government ,Mr.Milosevic
and Radovan Karadzic secretly agreed to annex what they reffered to in
their own internal mesagges as a "frame" around the small heartland of
Bosnia.
The mood of desperation in Bosnia was captured two weeks ago,when the
Government commander in Tuzla threatened to create an ecological disaster
by dynamiting railroad cars and trucks full of chloride and chlorine....
In Jajce another commander threatened to pour cyanide into the Vrbas River
The Tuzla commander ,Zeljko Knez ,said that use of chemicals was all that
eas left to the Tuzla defenders after Croatian forces had intercepted and
confiscated arms supplies..................................................
In his tour of Government-held areas ,Mr.Izetbegovic is said to have worked
to undermine Mr.Tudjman's control of Croatian Defese Council forces by
appealing to units with large numbers of Muslim fighters to support the
Government in defiance of Mr.Tudjman's orders. In Mostar,the commander of
the Croatian units ,Jasmin Jaganjac, is a Muslim, and in some areas Muslims
are said to comprise nearly half of the Croatian forces' fighting strenght...
Nor has here been any let-up in a practise sanctioned by Mr.Tudjman ,of
imposing a "war tax" of 30 per cent on all supplies and arms funneled through
Croatian - held areas to Sarajevo .Often ,the supplies ,costing millions
of dollars in cash to black marketeers ,have been seized before reaching
the city.
PAUL LEWIS (Geneva) - The president of the Muslim-dominated Government
of Bosnia and Herzegovina offered a concession in the serach for peace
there today when he said he would send a senior military officer to take
part in talks on ending the hostilities around his capital, Sarajevo, and
opening up the beseiged city to the outside world......................
The aim is to agree on the demilitarization of Sarajevo and to open up
the city so that those who want to leave can do so and relief workers can
take in needed suplies without hindrance or danger.
Up to now, President Izetbegovic has refused to be represented at the talks
unless the Serbian forces ringing Sarajevo agree to fully restore supplies of
water , power and fuel. United nations negotiators said they believed the real
reason for his reluctance to join in is that he wants the 60,000 or so ethnic
Serbs still living in the city to remain there as effective hostages and
because he also fears that many young Muslims might leave, weakening his
own forces and his political base.
......................................................
United nations peacekeeping forces in the region have been asked to
investigate the fighting and advise whether it is safe for the flights
to be resumed.
......................................................
novine.127.bale.,
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Bosnians, Serbs trade prisoners, bodies
Subject: Serbia's Marxists to convene a ruling party congress
Subject: Sarajevo airport suspension lifted
Subject: Sarajevo teachers, students defy war
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Bosnians, Serbs trade prisoners, bodies
Date: 21 Oct 92 23:15:33 GMT
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Hercegovina (UPI) -- After four days of talks, nearly
300 rounds of artillery shells and more than 100 new casualties, the
Bosnian and Serbian armies finally completed an exchange of prisoners
and bodies Wednesday.
The beginning of the end came at about 2 p.m., when a red Bosnian bus
with Sarajevo license plates pulled into the parking lot at the
headquarters of the U.N. Protection Force with its cargo of 18 Serbs.
A few minutes later, a white bus with the Serbian flag, cyrillic
lettering and 18 mostly Muslim Bosnian civilians pulled up and faced
straight at it.
Next came a truck bearing the remains of eight Serbian soldiers.
Then, after one hour-long wait that gave those on all sides a dose of
pacing and fretting, the final piece of the puzzle, a truck bearing the
remains of 18 Bosnian fighters, pulled through the gate.
Many of those in attendance brought handkerchiefs to their faces, the
heavy stench of death confirming beyond much doubt that all parties to
the deal were now in place.
``I don't have to say anything,'' said Enes Milanovic, standing now
inside the Bosnian bus after completing the swap, a smile showing
through the hand covering his mouth and nose. ``Words are superfluous.''
Milanovic, a Muslim who lived in the Serbian-controlled Grbavica
section of Sarajevo, was one of the living chips in the Bosnian-Serb
deal approved after a final two days of U.N.-mediated talks.
The exchange involved eight bodies of Serbian troops killed about two
weeks ago when Bosnian forces blew up a restaurant along the front line
between Grbavica and neighboring Hrasno, in return for those of 18
Bosnian fighters who died last month in the areas of Stup and Zuc.
The 18 bus passengers brought by the Serbs were the families of seven
Muslim who were sent across the line Sunday to retrieve the eight
bodies, but whom the Bosnians, not accepting the deal, refused to send
back. The 18 passengers brought by the Bosnians were prisoners held on a
variety of war-related crimes.
The first deal failed Sunday with a devastating bang. Serbian forces
in the hills over the city, after setting a 10 a.m. deadline for the
return of the eight bodies, unleashed an artillery barrage at 10:01.
At least 10 people were killed and 130 injured in the ensuing four
hours. UNPROFOR military observers the next day reported counting 291
artillery shells falling on Bosnian territory.
Also among the casualties were the city's main grain mill, forcing U.
N. relief officials to add another 50 tons of flour to their daily
deliveries to the capital.
UNPROFOR officials, who have tried with limited success to mediate
such exchanges in the past, hosted another two days of meetings Monday
and Tuesday before the two sides reported an apparent settlement
Wednesday.
But until all four vehicles finally arrived in the afternoon -- the
final truck bearing the remains of Bosnian soldiers was delayed by muddy
roads and a flat tire -- and both sides confirmed the cargo and quickly
shook a few hands, nobody knew for sure.
``Without shouting at each other, they can talk for about four hours,
'' said UNPROFOR spokesman Mik Magnusson.
Milanovic's 52-year-old mother Hatidza, for one, appreciated the
effort. ``I feel,'' she said, now homeless and carrying only two
handbags of possesssions, ``like I'm back on my own land.''
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Serbia's Marxists to convene a ruling party congress
Date: 22 Oct 92 12:37:46 GMT
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (UPI) -- The ruling Socialist Party of Serbia
(SPS) meets meets Friday in a two-day congress to work out a plan to
retain power.
A total of 880 delegates are to represent the 450,000-strong
membership at the party's second congress, which opens Friday morning at
Belgrade's Sava Conference Center, a party spokesman said.
After a plenary session that is to hear a leadership report on work
accomplished over the past two years, the congress will go into session
behind closed doors. New leadership is to be elected Saturday.
The SPS was formed in July 1990 when the then ruling Serbian
Communist party merged with the communist-led Socialist Alliance.
Appearing confident that they will retain power, the ruling communist
followers of Serbia's hard-line President Slobodan Milosevic reject any
blame for a disastrous economic situation in the country.
Mihajlo Markovic, 69-year-old vice president of the SPS, explained
the plan to win parliamentary and presidential elections later this
year. He said the plan is designed to exploit Milosevic's popularity,
which is still strong in rural areas but declining in urban centers.
With the support from the state-run television network and other
government-controlled media, the communists, now called socialists,
could win elections, as they did two years ago.
The ruling party ``is very likely'' to elect Milosevic its president
at the congress to strengthen the organization, Markovic told United
Press International.
``Then, with Milosevic strengthening our party lists, the SPS has a
much bigger chance to win the elections,'' said Markovic, a veteran
Marxist philosopher and retired Belgrade University professor.
He said Borisav Jovic, the current president of the ruling party,
will step down to make a place for Milosevic, who would then formally
take the helm of the SPS.
Milosevic, a communist activist since the age of 17, resigned as the
leader of the SPS after he was elected Serbian president in December
1990, when the SPS won the first multi-party elections in 50 years.
Speaking of ordinary Serbs suffering under spiralling inflation of
about 3 percent per day, Markovic blamed the United Nations for
``unjustly'' imposing on May 30 strict economic sanctions on Serbia for
its involvement in the war in Bosnia-Hercegovina.
``We shall survive the U.N. sanctions with our own resources,'' he
said.
``Socialists cannot close factories and throw workers out in the
streets. We have decided that nobody will be laid off as long as the
sanctions last,'' Markovic said.
Out of Serbia's 3 million work force, about 800,000 are unemployed
and another 500,000 are on ``forced leave'' as factories and offices
have been forced to shut their doors.
Those who were put on ``forced leave'' receive about 70 percent of
their monthly wages, amounting to abnout $100.
Markovic argued that without the ruling communist-turned-socialist
party the situation would have be even worse.
The Serbian regime claims that the right-wing opposition would have
led the country into a full-fledged war among the six republics of the
now defunct Yugoslav federation.
``Serbia has not been pulled into war, thanks to our party. In
contrast to us, the opposition wanted Serbia to declare war to Croatia,''
he said.
Markovic boasted that war was not waged on Serbia's territory,
disregarding the fact that thousands of Serbs engaged in battles in the
secessionist republics of Croatia and Bosnia-Hercegovina.
Markovic claimed that ``the SPS advocates peace in Bosnia, the
lifting of U.N. sanctions and political stability as a pre-condition for
economic development.''
He acknowledged these were also goals pursued by President Dobrica
Cosic and Prime Minister Milan Panic, the two liberal leaders of the
rump Yugoslav union of Serbia and its tiny ally, Montenegro. The two
have been criticized by Milosevic and his supporters as ``traitors'' to
Serbian national interests.
In the past three months, Cosic and Panic have engaged in peacemaking
efforts at international conferences on the former Yugoslavia and have
negotiated with the feuding leaders of the newly independent republics.
``We also want a dialogue (with leaders of other ethnic groups), but
there is a limit beyond which we cannot go,'' Markovic said. ``We cannot
let Serbs outside Serbia be persecuted by local authorities in the newly
independent republics.''
He said Serbia has been giving considerable financial and moral
suppoprt to more than 2 million Serbs who live in Bosnia-Hercegovina and
Croatia.
``We cannot let them down. We support Serbs in Croatia and Bosnia-
Hercegovina and consider they must be given the right for self-
determination in all enclaves where they are in majority,'' Markovic
said.
Rebel Serb leaders, seeking autonomy for enclaves they control, have
declared ``Serbian states'' in both Croatia and Bosnia-Hercegovina and
want to merge them with the newly forged, Serbia-dominated Yugoslav
union.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Sarajevo airport suspension lifted
Date: 22 Oct 92 15:05:43 GMT
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Hercegovina (UPI) -- Croat-Bosnian fighting flared
Thursday north of Sarajevo and threatened Mostar, Croat-Serb clashes
erupted in southeastern Bosnia-Hercegovina and Serbian troops in the
north shelled Bosnian holdout towns.
Also Thursday, U.N. peacekeepers re-opened the Sarajevo airport to
relief flights after a one-day suspension ordered by U.N. relief
officials because of reported fighting around the approach route.
A British plane arrived at 1 p.m. without incident, bringing its
cargo of some 10 tons of U.N. High Commission for Refugees aid for
Sarajevo's half- million trapped residents, U.N. officials said.
The Croat-Bosnian fighting, which broke out in a series of towns
north of Sarajevo, forcing the UNHCR to evacuate its main food supply
warehouse feeding the capital, threatened Thursday to spread to the
allies still defending Mostar against Serbian forces.
Croat forces late Wednesday surrounded the Bosnian military
headquarters in Mostar and occupied police and television facilities,
Sarajevo radio reported Thursday. The Croats also set up street
barricades and ordered a 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew, although no actual
fighting between the two uneasy allies had been reported, it said.
Muslim Slavs, who make up the majority of Bosnian forces, also were
reported arrested while returning from Croatia, the Bosnian radio
reported.
The fighting persisted in the three affected towns north of the
capital, Travnik, Novi Travnik and Vitez, with artillery fire reported
throughout the night and morning.
At least one civilian died Thursday morning in Novi Travnik and
soldiers fired from a school building into Vitez, site of the abandoned
U.N. humanitarian aid warehouse, the radio said.
Muslim and Croat residents of Vitez pleaded publicly for a second day
for an peaceful resolution to the Croat-Bosnian split, which has been
attributed to growing signs of Croat dominance in their anti-Serb
alliance with the muslim slav-majority Bosnian forces, including new
reports of a Croat-Serb deal to carve up the republic.
Bosnian citizens in the republic's north, where Serbian forces have
been fighting to control a strip of land connecting Serbia with Serbian-
held areas of the northeast, suffered through another day of
devastation, Sarajevo radio said.
At least two people were killed and one was injured Thursday in
Gradacac, again the focus of some of the heaviest attacks of the war,
the radio said, with Serbian artillery, tank and infantry attacks all
along an expanding front line.
Olovo, already with barely a house left undamaged, faced a four-hour
artillery barrage, along with similar onslaughts against Maglaj, Doboj,
Brcko, Bihac, Tuzla and Tesanj, where at least five people were injured
Thursday, it said.
An exception was Jajce, which was relatively peaceful as both sides
observed an agreement to allow reconnections of electricity serving both
Jajce and Banja Luka, the radio said.
Also Thursday, Serbian forces command in Bileca in southeastern
Bosnia-Hercegovina said units of the ``regular Croatian army'' launched
for a second day in a row a ``fierce artillery attack'' on Serbian
positions around the Serbian-held town of Trebinje, 20 miles northeast
of the Croatian medieval city of Dubrovnik on the southern Adriatic
coast.
The Croatian army artillery fired from the strongholds of Brgat and
Zarkovica, outside Dubrovnik, and Serbian forces in the Trebinje area
``energetically responded to prevent the enemy's penetration into the
Serb-held territory,'' the Serbian command in Bileca said, according to
the Serbia-run Tanjug news agency.
Quoting Serbian sources, Tanjug reported from Bileca that Croat and
Muslim Slav forces also opened artillery fire on Serbian positions in
villages around the towns of Stolac and Capljina in southern Bosnia-
Hercegovina, northwest of Dubrovnik.
At least 40 people were killed and 111 injured across the republic in
the 24-hour period that ended at 10 a.m. Thursday, including 21 killed
and 38 injured in Sarajevo, Bosnian health officials said.
A total of 15 rounds of large artillery were observed falling onto
Serbian-controlled areas around Sarajevo and 33 rounds were seen
reaching Bosnian-controlled territory during the 24-hour period that
ended at 5 p.m. Wednesday, U.N. Protection Force officials said in their
daily survey.
At least one person was reported killed and two injured Thursday
morning in sporadic grenade and sniper attacks in the capital.
The UNHCR headquarters in Geneva ordered the suspension of its aid
flights to the city Wednesday because of reported fighting around the
landing strip, although UNPROFOR and UNHCR officials in Sarajevo
questioned the decision.
``I see no reason for it,'' as fighting was no heavier Wednesday than
at any other time during the months-long airlift of humanitarian aid to
Sarajevo, said one top UNPROFOR official, who asked not to be
identified.
Indian Lt. Gen. Satish Nambiar, overall UNPROFOR commander,
acknowledged Wednesday during a visit to Sarajevo growing signs of
disrespect for U.N.forces in the republic but said he would continue to
ask for the cooperation of the warring parties.
Bosnian military leaders, after a visit by Nambiar, were reported
ready to join U.N.-mediated talks with their Serbian and Croat
counterparts to focus primarily on ways of avoiding civilian involvement
in the conflict.
The Bosnian side was boycotting the talks until water and electricity
were restored in Sarajevo. About 70 percent of the city was being
supplied with electricity Thursday, UNPROFOR said, although a bid to
connect a second transmission line into the city was hampered by heavy
fighting in the area.
Bosnian and Serbian military leaders in Sarajevo also passed a more
direct test of faith in each other, when under U.N. mediation they
successfully completed an exhange of both prisoners and bodies of dead
soldiers.
The deal was approved after two days of talks that followed a round
of heavy shelling of the city Sunday attributed to Bosnian failure to
meet original Serbian demands for the body release.
Several thousand more Sarajevo residents, having gained Serbian and
Bosnians promises of free passage, were making final plans Thursday for
a huge convoy of vehicles scheduled to leave the capital Friday for both
Split and Belgrade.
Also Wednesday, a French UNPROFOR member was shot and wounded by a
sniper firing from Bosnian-controlled territory while the soldier was
escorting humanitarian aid deliveries in a Serbian-controlled section of
Sarajevo.
UNPROFOR and Serbian troops trying to rescue the french soldier were
attacked with machine-gun fire while pulling him to safety, UNPROFOR
said.
One Canadian and one British plane reached the Sarajevo airport on
Wednesday before the UNHCR ordered the halt, UNHCR spokesman Michael
Keats said.
``We are reviewing the security situation at the airport as the whole
area is tense,'' he said in announcing the order. ``There is fighting on
the flight approach.''
Keats said the UNHCR, without the Vitez warehouse to handle land
convoys, was unloading aid supplies at Posusje, only about one-third of
the distance to Sarajevo from the coast.
``As an interim measure, we are sending at least 20 aid trucks from
Split via Zagreb to Belgrade and we will run a big convoy from Belgrade
to Sarajevo on Saturday,'' he said. ``It'll take two days to arrive.''
UNPROFOR officials said Nambiar and Maj. Gen. Philippe Morillon, his
deputy and recently appointed chief of UNPROFOR's new republic-wide
operation, were in the capital Wednesday primarily to establish
Morillon's new Sarajevo-area headquarters.
Milan Panic, prime minister of the Serbian-dominated rump Yugoslavia,
during a visit Wednesday to Austria, called for an economic summit of
the former Yugoslav republics to be held in Vienna.
``Once the economic problems are dealt with, political problems will
solve themselves,'' Panic said.
Panic also confirmed that Bosnian president Alija Izetbegovic had
approved the idea of dividing Bosnia-hercegovina into nine ``cantons,''
Austrian ORF radio reported.
Izetbegovic planned to return Friday to Sarajevo, Sarajevo radio
reported.
novine.128.bale.,
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Spassky's cold postpones the 24th game
Subject: Chaos follows battle between former Croat, Muslim allies
Subject: Fighting intensifies among Bosnia-Hercegovina ethnic groups
Subject: U.S. gives U.N. war crimes report in former Yugoslavia
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Spassky's cold postpones the 24th game
Date: 22 Oct 92 17:34:44 GMT
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (UPI) -- The 24th game of the controversial match
between former world chess champion Bobby Fischer and his rival Boris
Spassky was postponed Thursday because of Spassky's acute cold and will
be played Saturday instead.
This is the third time that Spassky has asked to postpone a game
because of his health. The score is 8-4 to Fischer, with 11 draws. The
first player to achieve 10 victories will be the winner of the $5
million match that started Sept. 3, in the posh Montenegrin resort of
Sveti Stefan and was later moved to this Serbian capital.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Chaos follows battle between former Croat, Muslim allies
Date: 22 Oct 92 19:48:33 GMT
NOVI TRAVNIK, Bosnia-Hercegovina (UPI) -- Soldiers along the 5-mile
stretch of road between Bugojno and Novi Travnik were suspicious and
edgy after a three-day battle this week, warily studying the first
vehicles in two days to pass by their makeshift barricades of logs and
rocks.
``Did you see them? How many have they got there?'' asked one soldier
from the Bosnia-Hercegovina army, hoping to gain valuable intelligence
about the strength of his former allies -- the Croats -- who were manning
a checkpoint down the road.
``Do you have any Muslims in the car?'' asks a soldier at a Croat
checkpoint.
The alliance between the two sides, who joined to battle against
Serbian forces, began to deteriorate when Croats followed the lead of
the Serbs and declared their own independent nation -- Herzeg-Bosna -- on
territory of theinternationally recognized republic of Bosnia-
Hercegovina.
Fierce fighting erupted between the two sides this week after Mate
Boban, leader of the self-proclaimed Croat state, announced that his
country would be expanded to include the city of Travnik, a mixed Croat
and Muslim community 30 miles northwest of Sarajevo.
Three days of intense fighting left the region around the city in
chaos. Soldiers manned makeshift barricades of logs and rocks in a bid
to maintain control over their small patches of territory. Little
communication existed between neighboring towns and villages, fostering
an atmosphere of uncertainty and suspicion.
Soldiers carrying everything from AK-47 rifles to hunting guns
emerged from bushes along the dirt track to watch warily as the first
cars passed their checkpoints in two days. No one appeared to be in
control of the forces along the hilly forested terrain between Bugojno
and Novi Travnik.
In a village two miles from Novi Travnik, a convoy carrying about 350
people had been trapped on the closed road as the battle raged nearby.
Most of them were refugees from central Bosnia-Hercegovina trying to get
to Novi Travnik.
Safe passage to Novi Travnik had finally been negotiated Wednesday
for the refugees by the local Muslim forces, but shelling began as the
group set out. Residents of the area quickly ran into makeshift shelters
to wait out the barrage.
``We didn't expect to run into this before we left. We knew there
were problems with Serbs but not this,'' said a Croat Franciscan priest
on leave from his mission in Uganda who joined the convoy to try and
visit his three sisters and one brother near Travnik. He refused to give
his name.
``I'm scared,'' said 13-year-old Ina Bosic, a refugee trying to go
back to her home in the town of Zenica as she clutched a stuffed
elephant doll. After five days of living in buses, the refugees were
finally forced to turn back down the road to Bogonjo.
Bosnia-Hercegovina soldiers said the immediate cause of the fighting
was the seizure of 80 tons of Turkish petrol by Croat forces near Novi
Travnik and the killing of a Muslim Slav soldier by Croat troops.
Up to 50 people were killed during the three days of clashes that
followed, said Perro Celina, a doctor at the hospital in Bugonjo south
of Novi Travnik, where mostly Bosnia-Hercegovina soldiers were being
treated.
``There have been clashes between Muslims and Croats before but these
are defintely the worst,'' Celina said while working at the hospital,
located in the basement of the town's hotel.
``I saw some bodies. I can't say how many. Some were in uniform and
some were civilian,'' said Zalko Saralic, 26, a Muslim Slav soldier in
the Bosnia-Hercegovina army. He had been shot in the shoulder during the
battle.
Reports from state-run Croatian radio blamed Muslim extremists for
the fighting and reported five dead and 20 wounded.
``The...(Croat forces) will use all means necessary to defend the
region of Herceg-Bosnia from both Serb agressors and Muslim extremists,''
the radio quoted Croatian Defense Council representatives as saying.
The lull in fighting allowed Bosnia-Hercegovina soldiers to take
stock of their grim situation, surrounded on one side by the Serbian
republic and on the other by Croatian forces. Bosnia depends upon goods
passing through Croatian-held territory for its survival. Now goods
don't seem to be moving.
At checkpoints along the road into central Bosnia, Croatian forces
were prohibiting Muslim deliveries into the region. About 40 large
flatbed trucks from numerous Muslim humanitarian aid organizations were
stuck at various checkpoints along the route. No trucks with Croatian
insignias were spotted.
``They say there is too much fighting down the road and they won't
let us through but they are letting Croats in,'' said one Muslim Red
Cross worker who had been stuck at the checkpoint for 36 hours.
About 30 trucks with Croatian insignias and Croatian Defense Council
emblems on them were spotted driving along the same road to central
Bosnia.
Sarajevo has rejected the creation of Herceg-Bosna, declaring it
unconstitutional. The Croatian Defense Council has ignored the
declaration and ordered all Bosnia-Hercegovina soldiers to surrender
their weapons by Oct. 18, Bosnian soldiers say. The land-grab by their
allies has left them disillusioned.
``Just like the Serbs want to create their own Bosnia-Hercegovina,
the Croats want to create their own Herceg-Bosna,'' one Bosnian army
soldier said.
``They took our fuel and food until our army had nothing left,'' said
a wounded Muslim soldier in the hospital who refused to give his name.
The Bosnian government has repeatedly asked for the international
arms embargo to be lifted for the Muslim-led Bosnia-Hercegovina army but
the United Nations says that would only further inflame the conflict.
Soldiers say they need aid quickly.
``I know the West doesn't want to help the Muslims because they are
afraid of an Islamic state, but that's ridiculous because we are
Europeans,'' said one Muslim soldier, whose rifle was marked with the
slogan: ``An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.''
``It's from the Koran and the Bible,'' he said of the saying. ``And
it's the way you have to fight here.''
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Fighting intensifies among Bosnia-Hercegovina ethnic groups
Date: 22 Oct 92 20:23:34 GMT
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Hercegovina (UPI) -- Intense fighting erupted
Thursday among the warring ethnic groups in Bosnia-Hercegovina, with
Croats and Muslims clashing in the north, Croats and Serbs battling in
the southeast and Serbs using artillery on towns under control of the
predominantly Muslim government.
Despite the fighting, U.N. peacekeepers reopened the Sarajevo airport
to relief flights after a one-day suspension prompted by reports of
fighting, and military leaders of all three ethnic groups agreed to
their first joint meeting.
``I hope that tomorrow can be an historic date in the history of this
country,'' French Maj. Gen. Philippe Morillon, head of U.N. peacekeepers
in the republic, said of the planned meeting. ``It can be if the
representatives of the militaries can begin to hear each other and
understand each other.''
The talks were planned as a way of getting the Bosnian, Serbian and
Croatian leaders to develop and approve ways of avoiding civilian
involvement in the conflict, and Morillon said he hoped they could
succeed to the point of reaching a full cessation of fighting.
Late Thursday, Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic, who has been out
of the capital for more than three weeks, arrived back in Sarajevo amid
a swirl of rumors over his political future.
Various Bosnian reports have hinted of Izetbegovic's possible
decision not to seek re-election in December and even darker hints that
he might be forced out early in a power struggle.
The fighting between Muslims and Croats, which broke out this week in
a series of towns north of Sarajevo, forced the U.N. High Commissioner
for Refugees to evacuate its main food supply warehouse feeding the
capital. Continued fighting threatened Thursday to spread to the Muslim
and Croats working together to defend the town of Mostar against Serbian
forces.
Croat forces late Wednesday surrounded the Bosnian military
headquarters in Mostar and occupied police and television facilities,
Sarajevo radio reported Thursday. The Croats also set up street
barricades and ordered a 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew, although no actual
fighting between the two uneasy allies had been reported, it said.
Muslim Slavs, who make up the majority of Bosnian forces, also were
reported arrested while returning from Croatia, the Bosnian radio
reported.
The fighting also persisted Thursday in the three affected towns
north of the capital, Travnik, Novi Travnik and Vitez, with artillery
fire reported throughout the night and morning.
At least one civilian died Thursday in Novi Travnik and soldiers
fired from a school building into Vitez, site of the abandoned U.N.
humanitarian aid warehouse, the radio said.
Muslim and Croat residents of Vitez pleaded publicly for a second day
for an peaceful resolution to the Croat-Bosnian split, which has been
attributed to growing signs of Croat dominance in their anti-Serb
alliance with the Muslim Slav-majority Bosnian forces, including new
reports of a Croat-Serb deal to carve up the republic.
Morillon said he believed, however, the situation in Vitez could soon
calm down enough to allow the UNHCR to return to its warehouse. The head
of the U.N. Protection Force's (UNPROFOR) Bosnian operations said the
fighting there was due mostly to a clash of personalities, and he said
late Thursday it was resolved by the removal of the Bosnian military
chief in the town.
Bosnian citizens in the republic's north, where Serbian forces have
been fighting to control a strip of land connecting Serbia with Serbian-
held areas of the northeast, suffered through another day of
devastation, Sarajevo radio said.
At least two people were killed and one was injured Thursday in
Gradacac, again the focus of some of the heaviest attacks of the war,
the radio said, with Serbian artillery, tank and infantry attacks all
along an expanding front line.
Olovo, already with barely a house left undamaged, faced a four-hour
artillery barrage, along with similar onslaughts against Maglaj, Doboj,
Brcko, Bihac, Tuzla and Tesanj, where at least five people were injured
Thursday, it said.
An exception was Jajce, which was relatively peaceful as both sides
observed an agreement to allow reconnections of electricity serving both
Jajce and Banja Luka, the radio said.
Also Thursday, Serbian forces command in Bileca in southeastern
Bosnia-Hercegovina said units of the ``regular Croatian army'' launched
for a second day in a row a ``fierce artillery attack'' on Serbian
positions around the Serbian-held town of Trebinje, 20 miles northeast
of the Croatian medieval city of Dubrovnik on the southern Adriatic
coast.
The Croatian army artillery fired from the strongholds of Brgat and
Zarkovica, outside Dubrovnik, and Serbian forces in the Trebinje area
``energetically responded to prevent the enemy's penetration into the
Serb-held territory,'' the Serbian command in Bileca said, according to
the Serbia-run Tanjug news agency.
Quoting Serbian sources, Tanjug reported from Bileca that Croat and
Muslim Slav forces also opened artillery fire on Serbian positions in
villages around the towns of Stolac and Capljina in southern Bosnia-
Hercegovina, northwest of Dubrovnik.
At least 40 people were killed and 111 injured across the republic in
the 24-hour period that ended at 10 a.m. Thursday, including 21 killed
and 38 injured in Sarajevo, Bosnian health officials said.
A total of 15 rounds of large artillery fire were observed falling
onto Serbian-controlled areas around Sarajevo and 33 rounds were seen
reaching Bosnian-controlled territory during the 24-hour period that
ended at 5 p.m. Wednesday, UNPROFOR officials said in their daily
survey.
Morillon said the military leaders meeting Friday would be asked to
work out details of a plan for jointly staffed checkpoints along the
road to Sarajevo that would greatly reduce interference with deliveries
of humanitarian aid.
He said new teams of UNPROFOR troops now arriving at points
throughout the republic would be asked to take similar steps in their
areas, although he declined to give exact timetables on how long that
would take.
The UNHCR relief operation for Sarajevo itself remained seriously
handicapped Thursday, with the road route cut off by the fighting in
Vitez and around Mostar, and with 11 planes reaching the Sarajevo
airport after a 24-hour suspension due to reports of fighting near the
runway.
UNHCR headquarters in Geneva ordered the temporary suspension of its
aid flights to the city Wednesday because of the reported fighting,
although UNPROFOR and UNHCR officials in Sarajevo questioned the
decision.
``I see no reason for it,'' as fighting was no heavier Wednesday than
at any other time during the month-long airlift of humanitarian aid to
Sarajevo, said one top UNPROFOR official, who asked not to be
identified.
No trucks reached the city Thursday and none were expected Friday, as
road convoys diverted from Vitez were unloading at Posusje, only about
one-third of the distance to Sarajevo from the coast.
``As an interim measure, we are sending at least 20 aid trucks from
Split via Zagreb to Belgrade and we will run a big convoy from Belgrade
to Sarajevo on Saturday,'' UNHCR spokesman Michael Keats said. ``It'll
take two days to arrive.''
Also Thursday, organizers of a huge road convoy of people hoping to
flee Sarajevo, due to leave Friday for the Croatian port city of Split
and the Serbian capital Belgrade, was canceled once again.
Bosnian Red Cross officials organizing the convoy said they decided
to postpone again for safety reasons, although both UNHCR and UNPROFOR
said they were not asked for assurances of protection and said it would
have been reckless to proceed without it.
``I'm very concerned with this idea,'' Morillon said.
He said UNPROFOR would try to cooperate with such a convoy if the
UNHCR gave its endorsement, but both he and UNHCR spokesman Larry
Hollingsworth said they were reluctant to help large-scale evacuations
of the city.
``My intention is not to help empty this city,'' Morillon said. ``On
the contrary, I will try to help this city survive and rebuild.''
``Our policy is to contain people and not add to the refugee problem,
'' Hollingsworth said. ``Our policy is that people should not
voluntarily become refugees.''
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: U.S. gives U.N. war crimes report in former Yugoslavia
Date: 22 Oct 92 19:41:44 GMT
WASHINGTON (UPI) -- The United States submitted to the U.N. War Crimes
Commission a compendium of human rights abuses in Bosnia-Hercegovina
that includes such atrocities as mass castrations of young men and human
organ pilfering by a Serbian physician, the State Department said
Thursday.
Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the submission, the
administration's second since the commission was established by U.N.
resolution last month, will be used to prosecute war crimes committed in
the former Yugoslavia.
He said the reports were extracted from interviews with refugees,
witnesses to atrocities, intelligence sources and reports by
journalists.
The document describes ``numerous, very abhorent incidents, including
willful killings, torture of prisoners, abuse of civilians in detention
camps, wanton devastation and destruction of property and the mass
forcible expulsion and deportation of civilians,'' Boucher said.
``A lot of the things in there make your blood boil and your stomach
turn.''
Alija Lujinovic, a 53-year-old Muslim engineer from Brcko who was
captured by Serbians May 3, told State Department investigators that he
saw a stack of 15 dead and naked 18 to 30 year old men ``with their
genitals torn out,'' the report says.
Lujinovic is quoted as saying he witnessed a Serbian physician ``slit
the throats of young, healthy people, cut out their organs, pack them
into plastic bags and load the organs into a refrigerator truck.''
A 33-year-old Bosnian Muslim woman from Sarajevo told State
Department investigators that she was raped in front of her 12-year-old
daughter and 9-year-old son at the Manjaca detention camp by two Serbian
interrogators named ``Todor and Srbo,'' the report said. Todor and Srbo
then raped her daughter twice.
Although the report contains hundreds of examples of atrocities
committed against Bosnian Muslims by Serbians, who are attempting to
annex the former Yugoslav republic and purge it of all non-Serbs, no
side involved in the mayhem is free of blame, Boucher said.
``Various Serb groups and factions are responsible for the
preponderance of the incidents, but they're not the only ones,'' he
said. ``There have been these kind of abuses on all sides.''
All members of the United Nations have been asked under the
resolution to submit to the War Crimes Commission reports of atrocities
to be catalogued and used for prosecution by a tribunal, which has not
been established.
The United States, Boucher said, is the only nation that has so far
complied with the request.
novine.129.bale.,
The New York Times
Thursday, October 22, 1992, page A10
Bosnian, in Shift, Says He'll Send an Officer to Talks on Sarajevo
by PAUL LEWIS
Special to The New York Times
GENEVA, Oct. 21 --The President of the Muslim-dominated Government
of Bosnia and Herzegovina offered a concession in the search for
peace there today when he said he would send a senior military
officer to take part in talks on ending the hostilities around his
capital, Sarajevo, and opening up the besieged city to the outside
world.
The Bosnian President, Alija Izetbegovic, made the announcement
before returning home after two and a half days of talks here with
the Presidents of Croatia and Yugoslavia, which consists of Serbia
and Montenegro, as well as with the two mediators in the Balkans
crisis, Cyrus R. Vance of the United Nations and Lord Owen repre-
senting the European Community.
The two mediators are trying to set up a military working group
that would be headed by Gen. Phillippe Morillon of France, the
commander of the United Nations peacekeeping force in Sarajevo, and
would include senior commanders from the rival Serbian, Croatian
end Muslim forces fighting one another there.
The aim is to agree on the demilitarization of Sarajevo and to open
up the
city so that those who want to leave can do so and relief workers
can take in needed supplies without hindrance or danger.
'Corridors' Into the Capital
Up to now, President Izetbegovic has refused to be represented at
the talks unless the Serbian forces ringing Sarajevo agree to fully
restore supplies of water, power and fuel. United Nations
negotiators said they believed the real reason for his reluctance
to join in is that he wants the 60,000 or so ethnic Serbs still
living in the city to remain
there as effective hostages and because he also fears that many
young Muslims might leave, weakening his
own forces and his political base.
In his talks with Mr. Vance and Lord Owen this morning and earlier
in the week, officials say, Mr. Izetbegovic did not clearly state
whether he was now prepared to allow people of military age to
leave the city. At present all those between 18 and 65 years of age
are forbidden by the Bosnian Government to leave Sarajevo, even if
they could find a way past the Serbian guns.
The officials said Mr. Izetbegovic supported the "demilitarization"
of Sarajevo and surrounding areas, and talked of negotiating
"corridors" into the capital, though it was not clear whether these
would be for bringing in relief supplies, letting people leave or
for both purposes, as the mediators want.
At present only a trickle of food, medicine and other relief
supplies passes through the lines, and that came to a halt today
when the United Nations military advisers suspended their airlift
into Sarajevo because of intense fighting between Croats and
Muslims to the west of the city where the planes begin their
descent.
United Nations peacekeeping forces in the region have been asked to
investigate the fighting and advise whether it is safe for the
flights to be resumed.
" It's one more nail in the coffin of the people we're Trying to
help," said Ron Redman, a spokesman for the United Nations refugee
commission, which coordinates all relief work in the former
Yugoslavian federation.
=================================================================
The New York Times
Thursday, October 22, 1992 page A1, cont. A10.
Serbs and Croats Now Join In Devouring Bosnia's Land
By JOHN F. BURNS
Special to The New York Times
SARAJEVO, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Oct. 21--After months of
merciless artillery bombardment, this mostly mountainous republic
has been reduced to a handful of desperate cities and towns
controlled by the Government, with its people increasingly ac-
cepting that their struggle for survival is lost.
Outside Sarajevo, Serbian forces have seized at least two-thirds of
the country. Croatian troops control most of the rest.
But what deepens the pessimism is the realization that the Croatian
forces have turned their hacks on their one time Bosnian allies and
are now joining with the Serbs to carve up Bosnian territory for
themselves.
Bosnia Being Partitioned
Indeed these two sides are now mopping up and consolidating their
gains in areas that nationalist leaders in their respective
homelands have coveted for a century.
Since April, the Serbian nationalists have unleashed murderous
fusillades on Sarajevo that have made casualties of at least 10
percent of the 400,000 residents. The Serbian strategy has been to
force the city to yield without a battle because of the pressure of
hunger, shelling and winter cold.
The Serbian forces have long enjoyed the logistical support of what
remains of Yugoslavia, which is dominated by the republic of
Serbia. But of equal significance, the Croatian Defense Council,
which has been leading the Croatian drive, has received weapons,
troops and leadership from Croatia's army, based in Zagreb.
"The Croats have proclaimed a Croatian state within the state of
Bosnia and Herzegovina," said Emir Fazilbegovic, a member of the
Muslim Council in Mostar, 85 miles southwest of the Capital.
"Muslims now see no difference between the policies of the Serbian
and Croatian leadership."
A significant sign of cooperation between Serbs and Croats in
carving up Bosnia occurred earlier this month when Franjo Tudjman,
the Croatian president, ordered Croatian forces under the control
of the Bosnian wing of Croatia's governing party to pull out of
Bosanski Brod, a refinery town along the Sava River border between
Croatia and Bosnia.
The pullout left Serbian forces with only two remaining hurdles to
completing a corridor between Belgrade in the east and
Serbian-controlled areas of Croatia in the west.
Gains for Croatia
And while international attention has been centered on the Serbian
offensives, Croatian forces have seized control of a broad chunk of
Bosnia west and south of Sarajevo. From the Croatian headquarters
in Mostar, forces of the Croatian Defense Council, nominally allied
to the Bosnian army but in practice following Mr.Tudjman's orders,
have cemented control of western Herzegovina, where more than 90
per cent of the population are Croats.
>From there, they have pushed north and east, capturing towns and
villages where Croats and Muslims are about equally numerous.
In areas of eastern Herzegovina, where Serbs are more numerous,
more signs of a Serbian and Croatian accord to partition Bosnia are
showing up.
According to Bosnian officials, Croatia has agreed not to challenge
Serbian control of the region around Trebinje, in a southern
triangle of Bosnia adjacent to Montenegro, Serbia's ally in the
truncated federation of what was once Yugoslavia.
Croatian Dissident Assassinated
In August, these accounts say, Croatia arranged for Croatian
Defense Council troops to ambush and assassinate Blaz Kraljevic,
commander of a fiercely anti-Serbian Croatian military faction
known as the Croatian Armed Forces, when Mr. Kraljevic's units
challenged Serbian units around Trebinje.
For months, Mr. Tudjman, the Croatian leader, encouraged the
Bosnian Government to hope that Croatia would join the battle
against Serbian forces, particularly around Sarajevo.
But pledges given to the President of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Alija
Izetbegovic, in visits to Zagreb were not fulfilled, and Mr.
Tudjman has recently dropped the pretense of being Mr. Izet-
begovic's ally.
A Shift in Alliances
Instead the Croatian leader has been speaking as if his alliance is
with Slobodan Milosevic, the Serbian leader, and
Government-controlled newspapers in Zagreb have been attacking the
Izetbegovic Government as "a hotbed of Islamic fundamentalists."
In Sarajevo, and in the handful of other towns under Government
control, the collusion between Serbia and Croatia in partitioning
Bosnia has fostered an increasing militancy among hard-line Muslims
particularly in the private militia groups that form a large part
of Bosnian fighting strength.
Threat of Assassination
Privately, some of these Muslim militia commanders have threatened
to assassinate Mr. Izetbegovic or any other Bosnian official who
accepts a peace settlement at the Geneva talks that stops short of
rolling back the gains that Serbian and Croatian forces have made.
"If Izetbegovic or anybody else thinks that we have fought as long
as we have to capitulate now, they will not live five minutes," one
militia commander said. He was speaking at a frontline Bosnian
position in Stup, a western suburb of Sarajevo where Croatian
troops pulled back in September and allowed Serbian units to
tighten the Sarajevo siege.
The Bosnian Government's hopes for survival had once rested on
Western military intervention, the possibility of an effective
military alliance with Croatian forces, or perhaps a coup in Bel-
grade that might have toppled Mr. Milosevic's nationalist
government.
Mr Izetbegovic has turned recently to a clandestine tour of the few
patches of territory his Government still controls, usually to
proclaim that the battle for a sovereign, unified Bosnia will
continue.
And although those in power here accept that Serbia and Croatia
have effectively annexed most of the country, and that the
Muslim-led Bosnian forces can only hope to hang on to the little
they still hold, still say they are a long way from giving up.
"We know only too well that fighting on involves enormous hardships
and dangers, but the alternative would be still worse," said Kemal
Muftic, a senior adviser in Mr.Izetbegovic's office. "What faces us
is genocide, the extinction of the Muslim people of Bosnia, and the
end of 500 years of history. So we must either confront our enemies
now, with all that entails, or accept still greater suffering and
death."
Appeal for Outside Aid
For months, senior officials here have been speaking in apocalyptic
terms, partly out of a desire to prick the conscience of the United
States and its European allies, which have said that they have no
intention of committing troops here in support of the Bosnian
Government.
But by almost every measure -casualty counts, refugees, cities and
towns emptied of their populations or substantially destroyed,
reports from the battlefronts of new setbacks and defeats--the
situation facing the government and those who depend on it could
scarcely be worse.
All figures here tend to be sketchy, since the Government has no
telephone connections outside Sarajevo, and the reports it does
receive, by messenger traveling through the mountains and by
short-wave radio links, are taken mostly from those areas it still
controls. These are augmented by sketchy accounts from tens of
thousands of Muslim refugees who survived Serbian "ethnic
cleansing" offensives only to end up living with a few miserable
bundles of belongings in tent camps and school gymnasiums.
>From these sources, the Health Ministry in Sarajevo has estimated
that 127,000 people are dead or missing, of whom 16,000 have been
confirmed as having been killed. Hospitals and clinics are said to
have treated 129,000 people who have been wounded: In Sarajevo
alone, more than 3,700 people have been killed, 30,000 wounded, and
7,150 have been listed as missing.
As for property damage, the Health Ministry has said that 80 per
cent of all the hospitals and clinics in the country have been
heavily damaged or destroyed, at a replacement cost of at least $2
billion.
Recently, the worst news has come from the battlefront. In hospital
wards in Sarajevo, men, women and children with debilitating wounds
lie listening to radios that blare scratchy accounts recorded from
short-wave radio links with towns like Gradacac and Jajce and
Bihac, Government-held outposts that have been hanging on in the
face of relentless Serbian offensives.
For weeks, there have been nothing but reverses, each one
lightening the pocket around the Government forces and the mostly
Muslim populations of the besieged towns.
A Dream Stillborn
Just 200 days ago, on April 6, Bosnia and Herzegovina emerged from
1,000 years of tumultuous history to a status many Bosnians had
dreamed of since childhood - that of an independent state,
recognized by the major powers of Europe, with many of its mixed
population of Muslims, Serbs and Croats eager to put years of
Communist stagnation as a republic of Yugoslavia behind them.
Now, the dream has been shattered by a war of a scale and
malevolence not seen in Europe since 1945.
According to documents possessed by the Bosnian Government, Mr.
Milosevic and Radovan Karadzic, the 47 year-old psychiatrist who
leads the Serbian nationalists in Bosnia, secretly agreed to annex
what they referred to in their own internal messages as a "frame"
around the small heartland of Bosnia.
The mood of desperation in Bosnia was captured two weeks ago when
the Government commander in Tuzla, center of Bosnia's chemical
industry threatened to create an ecological disaster by dynamiting
railroad cars and trucks full of chloride and chlorine.
Threat to Poison River
In Jajce, a besieged town 60 miles northwest of Sarajevo, another
commander threatened to pour cyanide into the Vrbas River, sending
it downstream to the junction with the Sava.
The Tuzla commander, Zeljko Knez said that use of the chemicals was
all that was left to the Tuzla defenders after Croatian forces had
intercepted and confiscated arms supplies.
"We have been reduced to the point where we can no longer mount an
adequate defense," he said.
In his tour of Government-held areas, Mr. Izetbegovic is said to
have worked to undermine Mr. Tudjman's control of Croatian Defense
Council forces by appealing to units with large numbers of Muslim
fighters to support the Government in defiance of Mr Tudjman's
orders. In Mostar, the commander of the Croatian units, Jasmin
Jaganac, is a Muslim, and in some areas Muslims are said to
comprise nearly half of the Croatian forces' fighting strength.
Croatia Controls Supplies
But the Croatian units' arms supplies and finance come through Cro-
atia, and so far there has been no sign of Croatian units, some of
them only 20 miles from Sarajevo, helping to break the Serbian
siege.
Nor has there been any let up in a practice sanctioned by Mr.
Tudjman, of imposing a "war tax" of 30 per cent on all supplies and
arms funneled through Croatian-held areas to Sarajevo. Often the
supplies, costing millions of dollars in cash to black marketeers,
have been seized before reaching the city.
Before the latest round of the Geneva talks on the future of the
Balkans, which began on Monday, Mr. Tudjman said that he expected
an agreement establishing a formal cease-fire between Croatian and
Serbian forces in Bosnia. In other interviews, he has suggested
that the "Muslims", meaning the Bosnian Government, may have to
accept that they have been reduced to a rump of central Bosnia,
where they can establish what the Croatian leader has called "a
small Muslim and Islamic state," separate from other Bosnian
territories that could be annexed to Croatia and Serbia.
novine.130.bale.,
Serbia, Croatia May Be Carving Up Bosnia, Diplomats Say (Zagreb)
By Roy Gutman
(c) 1992, Newsday
ZAGREB, Croatia _ In a strategic shift that could
have catastrophic consequences for civilians, ethnic Croat
forces in Bosnia have cut food supplies to their ostensible
Muslim allies as part of a broad military assault, senior
diplomats and aid experts said.
Diplomats closely involved in negotiations to
settle the conflict and international aid officials with
monitors on the ground said Serbia and Croatia appear to have
reached an agreement to carve up Bosnia.
``It appears that the parties have agreed to carve
out their territor ies. That will makes things a lot worse
for the people who have lost,'' said the top representative
of an international humanitarian aid organization in Zagreb.
The experts said the Croat assault will force
Muslims out of towns su ch as Jajce and Travnik where they
have lived for centuries, and herd them into a small region
in central Bosnia, centering on the cities of Sarajevo,
Zenica and Tuzla.
``This is serious,'' a senior Western diplomat
said Thursday night in Geneva, Switzerland. The Croats ``are
trying to push the Muslims back into the
Tuzla-Zenica-Sarajevo triangle. They have been thinking this
for a long time, but now they are coming out more openly for
it. It's the clearest-cut evidence. This is their `ethnic
cleansing.' ''
Tadeusz Mazowiecki, the former Polish prime
minister acting as a huma n rights investigator for the
United Nations, warned Thursday that ``international
indifference'' to the plight of the Bosnians may soon lead to
``a great tragedy.''
``Many people won't survive not only the winter,
but also the fall,'' said Mazowiecki, who toured Sarajevo and
a Muslim refugee camp in northern Bosnia looking into human
rights violations.
Mazowiecki also announced that his delegation had
uncovered an unmark ed mass grave in the east Croatian town
of Vukovar, which Serb forces conquered in November 1991. He
said U.N. forces are now guarding the site along with five
other suspected mass graves, and the United Nations will send
special forensic teams to exhume and examine the remains to
determine the origin of the victims and the manner in which
they died.
Officially, Serbia and Croatia deny any intention
to carve up Bosnia. But a spokeswoman for Croatia's President
Franjo Tudjman, in an interview with Newsday, endorsed the
militant anti-Muslim stance of his ethnic allies in Bosnia
including a demand to replace the leaders of the general staff.
Diplomatic and other sources said the pattern of
attacks this week in central Bosnia is a big step toward the
final carving up of the republic and the eventual takeover of
those territories by neighboring Serbia and Croatia. They
noted that there was at least one exception, namely in the
north-central region centering on the city of Tuzla, where
Croats continued to fight alongside Muslims against the Serbs.
The State Department, still studying the reports
of the fighting, res tated its support for the territorial
integrity of Bosnia. ``We've opposed its partition. We've
made that very clear to all parties involved,'' spokesman
Richard Boucher said in Washington.
One State Department official said that ``there is
evidence of collus ion between the Croats and the Serbians,
but it's not yet conclusive.'' Another said, ``We've been
hearing reports for some time that the Croatians may seek a
partnership with the Serbs, and we've been trying to prevent
it.''
At the United Nations in New York, Venezuela
Ambassador Diego Arria, currently a member of the Security
Council, called for the council to convene to discuss reports
that Serbians and Croatians were dividing Bosnia according to
a secret deal.
``They have carved up the territory in a very
public way,'' Arria sai d of the Croatian and Serbian
forces. ``The whole world has been able to watch, and there
doesn't seem to be enough collective will to put a stop to
this.''
The Bosnian Croats announced military gains across
a broad front Thur sday. Their ``Croatian Defense Council,''
or HVO, claimed it had forced Muslim forces out of the city
of Novi Travnik, and Zagreb radio reported that the HVO now
controlled many of the principal towns on the roads used to
move relief supplies to Sarajevo and other predominantly
Muslim towns in Bosnia.
Despite Holocaust Memory, World Slow to Respond to Serb Atrocities
By Nina Bernstein
(c) 1992, Newsday
The outcry last August rang with memories of the
Holocaust and drew o n the defining guilt of our time: The
world's failure to stop the Nazi slaughter of 6 million Jews
and others.
But since public outrage erupted over news that a
Serbian campaign of ``ethnic cleansing'' included thousands
of killings in concentration camps, further U.S. protest has
been stalled by divisions and political inhibitions that
critics say are only too evocative of the 1930s and '40s.
``There's been a lull all around _ in our own
government's response, in the international community and,
unfortunately, in the Jewish community as well, and I think
it's shameful,'' declared Henry Siegman, head of the American
Jewish Congress and a leader among 19 Jewish organizations
that protested the violence against Bosnian Muslims in August.
``What is the point of all of these (Holocaust)
commemorations if, wh en we are stared in the face with a
repetition, we haven't got the moral energy to fight it?''
said Siegman, 61, himself a Holocaust survivor.
To some, like Siegman, the evocation of the
Holocaust is an inescapab le and compelling goad to action
against Serbian ``ethnic cleansing,'' a campaign of expulsion
in which execution, torture, rape and terror have been used
as tools to carve out an ``ethnically pure'' Serbian region
in two-thirds of Bosnia.
Others, while decrying the violence, strongly
reject any such compari son as demeaning the memory of the
Holocaust and distorting atrocities that fall short of Adolf
Hitler's methodical campaign to annihilate all Europe's Jews.
The debate itself has been a drain on efforts to sustain or
step up protest, critics say.
Siegman's frustration was echoed in a dozen
interviews with leaders o f religious and humanitarian
groups, congressional staff members and others concerned
about violent ``ethnic cleansing'' in the former Yugoslavia.
Several observed parallels between present obstacles to
effective public protest and the factors that muted U.S.
response to the unfolding Holocaust in the 1930s and '40s.
They include wide public acceptance of the U.S.
administration's argu ments against military intervention;
State Department delays in disclosing or corroborating
atrocities that could increase public pressure for
intervention; distraction by other issues, including a dismal
economy; and political reluctance to advocate an open door
for a new group of refugees at a time when many Americans are
jobless.
Notwithstanding the response of the United
Nations, which used charte r provisions inspired by the
lessons of World War II to launch a war-crimes investigation,
critics point to a climate of public passivity.
The result can be seen in a series of abortive
attempts to follow up the August outcry, despite the urgent
plight of 500,000 non-Serbian Bosnians trapped and targeted
by a wave of ``ethnic cleansing'' as winter falls.
Elie Wiesel, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize and
literary voice of th e Nazi Holocaust, announced in August
that he would accept an invitation to visit camps in the
former Yugoslavia himself. The trip, which might have
refocused media attention on thousands of endangered camp
inmates that no country has offered to accept, has not taken
place.
Wiesel said last week that it had been prevented
by ``technical and political difficulties.'' Pressed to
explain, he said that he had been unable to put together a
delegation of influential people in the absence of Western
government support for the journey.
``I've rarely been as frustrated,'' Wiesel said.
``At the base, peopl e are getting more and more
disinterested. It's too far, they're less and less concerned,
and therefore those in power feel ... they can get away with
inaction in impunity.''
Attempts last month to hold congressional hearings
on whether ``ethni c cleansing'' fit the international
definition of genocide were also unsuccessful. The Helsinki
Commission twice tentatively scheduled a hearing on the
issue, but finally abandoned the effort, sources said,
because the availability of witnesses conflicted with
election campaign schedules.
``The interest seems to have died down,'' a
frustrated staffer on the House Foreign Affairs Committee
said recently. ``Everyone said `never again' after the
Holocaust, and now there's a situation that's very similar to
it and ... everybody's treading water,'' he declared.
One of the first institutions to speak out was the
Roman Catholic Chu rch, in part because of its links with
Croatian Catholics. ``The Serbians ... are conducting a
campaign of nearly genocidal proportions against civilians,''
a fact-finding delegation to Bosnia headed by Newark, N.J.,
Archbishop Theodore McCarrick reported in July. But church
leaders have not revised a consensus that the economic and
political climate here make it unwise to lobby for opening
U.S. immigration to Bosnian refugees, according to Brother
Austin David, director of programs for the Catholic Near East
Welfare Association, a papal agency covering the Balkans.
``Because of the economic situation, I don't think
there's a lot of s ympathy in this country,'' David said.
Jewish organizations have been gripped by events
in Bosnia, but deep disagreements over what policies to
advocate have hampered lobbying efforts, according to Phil
Baum, who led two delegations to the State Department for the
National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council, an
umbrella group.
``The problem is, you're expressing your
impatience without saying ex actly what you're
recommending,'' Baum said of the meeting last Friday with
Thomas Niles, assistant secretary of state for European
affairs. ``It's a very serious disability.''
Baum said that no real consensus had been reached
in a lengthy confer ence call to prepare for the meeting.
Niles reiterated the administration's position
that the United States is doing all it prudently can and that
some progress has been made in opening camps to international
inspection and delivering food relief, said Baum, who is
director of international affairs for the American Jewish
Congress. The Congress has called for limited air strikes and
arms for the Bosnians, among other measures, but because Baum
represented the umbrella organization at the meeting, he
couldn't advocate that view.
Widespread caution about what kind of action to
take has persisted in the face of the belated State
Department confirmation given by spokesman Richard Boucher
Sept. 28 that 3,000 Muslim men, women and children detained
in a camp in the Bosnian town of Brcko were slaughtered by
the Serbian militia last spring and many of the bodies
cremated in an animal-fat rendering plant. It has withstood a
growing body of evidence gathered by journalists and
international officials that systematic killings, rapes,
torture and deportation are being used to eliminate
non-Serbian Bosnians from most of Bosnia.
Despite Boucher's confirmation, George Bogdanich,
director of the Serbian-American Media Center and a spokesman
for the Serbian side, said Wednesday his organization's
contention that the State Department has never confirmed the
killings at Brcko. He argued that protest had died down
because ``we have yet to see any credible evidence of
systematic killings, and abuses are widespread on all
sides.'' a
Caution also has been fostered by a visceral
rejection by many Jews o f terms like ``concentration camp''
and ``death camp'' that drew what they considered
unacceptable comparisons to the Holocaust.
``In describing them as death camps and describing
it as a holocaust it demeans the memory of the Holocaust and
trivializes the very real atrocities going on today, because
you lose credibility,'' said Elan Steinberg, executive
director of the World Jewish Congress. Like others, he
stressed the difference between Hitler's ``Final Solution''
and what he called ``the horrors of warfare in a very complex
political situation.''
The debate over Holocaust terminology exasperates
George Kenney, who resigned his post as head of the State
Department's Yugoslav desk to protest U.S. government
inaction. Kenney detailed how the administration ignored or
minimized dozens of reports of systematic atrocities against
non-Serb Bosnians in order to avoid public pressure for
intervention.
``I've heard people argue about whether the term
genocide should be applied,'' Kenney said. ``People can call
it whatever the hell they want as long as they recognize
what's going on. You're having the whole Bosnian culture
wiped out, multicultural democratic government wiped out, the
killing of tens of thousands and the displacing of a million.''
novine.131.bale.,
U.N. Announces Week-Long Truce; More Croat-Muslim Fighting
Eds: New throughout to UPDATE with U.N. announcing week-long truce
to allow relief shipments, Sarajevo peace talks open, U.N. envoy
says abuse worsened in recent months as ethnic cleansing completed.
ADDS photo numbers. No pickup.
AP Photos SAR1, GNV1, BEL3
By JOHN DANISZEWSKI
Associated Press Writer
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) - U.N. officials said today
that warring factions have agreed to a one-week truce next month to
allow food, medicine and clothing to reach 1 million children
facing a winter of deprivation.
Representatives of Bosnia's Muslim, Serb and Croat factions met
today in Sarajevo for the first time since June to discuss ending
the 6-month siege of Bosnia's capital.
But Croat and Muslim militiamen were reported fighting for a
fourth straight day in central Bosnia, further straining their
shaky alliance against the Serbs. U.N. officials said leaders of
the two factions were trying to keep the feud from spreading.
Sarajevo radio said Serb fighters again violated a U.N. ban on
military flights by using helicopters in northern Bosnia to attack
troops loyal to the Muslim-led government. The leader of Bosnia's
Serbs had promised to abide by the order.
Local commanders, apparently ignoring the orders of their
leaders, have thwarted previous truce accords and agreements on
getting essential supplies to people victimized by the war over
Bosnia's secession from Yugoslavia.
The U.N. Children's Fund said all ethnic factions agreed to a
cease-fire throughout the former Yugoslav federation during the
first week of November. The truce would allow relief workers to
reach beseiged areas in Bosnia and elsewhere by land.
``We want to reach up to 1 million children with the basic
necessities to face the harsh winter,'' said Edith Simmons, UNICEF
spokeswoman in Sarajevo.
The group plans to bring in 300 tons of blankets, clothes for
200,000 children, up to 800 tons of high-protein biscuits,
medicine, vitamins, vaccines, and school books, UNICEF officials
said.
Most relief supplies for Bosnia now come sporadically through an
international airlift into Sarajevo, but other besieged cities are
almost impossible to reach because of fighting.
The U.N. peacekeepers plan to fan out to some of those areas.
Indian Gen. Satish Nambiar, commander of U.N. troops in former
Yugoslav states, said in Zagreb, Croatia, that 1,600 more soldiers
should arrive by mid-November. That would give him 8,000 troops.
In other developments:
-A U.N. envoy said human rights abuses in Bosnia worsened the
last two months as ``ethnic cleansing'' of regions by rival
factions was completed. Tadeusz Mazowiecki said in Geneva that most
of the abuses were committed against Muslims. He also called for an
investigation of suspected mass graves in Croatia, where Croats and
Serbs fought over Croatia's secession from Yugoslavia last year. He
declined to release details.
-Serbia's governing party of former Communists began a
closed-door congress at which opponents of President Slobodan
Milosevic's hard-line policies were expected to be purged. His
support for Serb insurgents in Bosnia led the U.N. Security Council
to impose trade and diplomatic sanctions on Yugoslavia, which now
includes only Serbia and Montenegro.
The war in Bosnia broke out after ethnic Serbs rebelled against
the Feb. 29 vote by the republic's majority Muslims and Croats to
secede. More than 14,000 people have died.
About 10,000 people died in Croatia last year after that
republic broke away, but both sides have generally observed a
cease-fire since early January.
The U.N.-mediated talks on ending the Serbs' siege of Sarajevo
had been stalled by a Muslim boycott over attacks on utility crews
trying to restore water and electricity to the city of 400,000.
Services were restored to about 70 percent of the city Thursday
after a month of outages.
``The fact alone that everyone is here and talking is a major
success,'' said French Gen. Phillipe Morillon, commander of U.N.
peacekeepers in Bosnia.
Sarajevo enjoyed a rare day of relative peace today. Pedestrians
clogged streets deemed safe from sniper fire on a lovely fall day.
But the fighting between Muslims and Croats north of the city
caused the Red Cross to cancel plans to evacuate 6,000 women,
children, elderly and handicapped people from Sarajevo.
Sarajevo radio and the Yugoslav news agency Tanjug reported
battles today around Novi Travnik, about 35 miles north of the
capital. Sarajevo radio said dozens of people were wounded.
Muslim and Croat fighters have clashed in several towns of
central Bosnia since Tuesday. Croat troops also fought Muslims in
Mostar, capital of the republic's Herzegovina region in the west.
The nominal alliance between Muslims and Croats has frayed as
Croat militiamen have taken control of much of Bosnian territory
not held by the Serbs. The Serbs control about 70 percent of
Bosnia.
Many Muslims fear the Croats and Serbs are planning to partition
Bosnia into ethnic enclaves, particularly after Croats gave up the
northern government stronghold of Bosanski Brod to the Serbs
earlier this month.
novine.132.bale.,
Reports Describe Atrocities In Former Yugoslavia
By JIM ABRAMS
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - The ethnic hatreds of disintegrated Yugoslavia
are producing levels of savagery uncommon even in war, with
aggressors decapitating and dismembering prisoners, shooting women
in the back, raping children and torturing clerics.
Thousands more are being expelled from their homes, confined to
camps with little heat or food, and terrorized by fears of
systematic execution.
Such were the conclusions of two reports, one by the State
Department and the other by the London-based human rights group
Amnesty International, issued Thursday on atrocities in the former
Yugoslav republic of Bosnia.
The State Department list, citing ``credible reports'' from U.S.
Foreign Service personnel, journalists and relief workers, was the
second it has turned over to the United Nations, which is setting
up a commission to investigate war crimes in Yugoslavia.
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the ``abhorrent
incidents'' include ``willful killings, torture of prisoners, abuse
of civilians in detention camps, wanton devastation and destruction
of property, and the mass forcible expulsion and deportation of
civilians.
``I was reading it this morning, and, frankly, a lot of the
things in there make your blood boil and your stomach turn,'' he
said.
Among the incidents with the most victims:
Serb irregulars near the Bosnian town of Brcko were said to have
executed 2,000 to 3,000 Muslims last spring at a brick factory and
a pig farm.
An additional 200 men and boys were massacred by Bosnian Serb
police on Aug. 21 on a mountain road north of Travnik.
On July 20, about 100 Muslim women in the town of Biscani were
shot in the back. Their bodies lay in the road for four days until
Serb trucks collected them.
The Amnesty International report detailed an alleged massacre of
Muslim villagers in Zaklopaca, 45 miles northwest of Sarajevo, on
May 16, when as many as 105 people were killed.
Witnesses said Serbs wearing uniforms of the Yugoslav People's
Army carried out the executions.
``Probably no one will ever know the full extent of the human
rights violations which have taken place, but it is clear that they
have been horrific,'' Amnesty International said.
The State Department report detailed more than 30 incidents,
almost all perpetrated by Serbs against Muslims in Bosnia.
One exception was evidence that Croats attacked a bus convoy on
Aug. 27, killing 53 Serbian women and children and leaving about 50
wounded. In another, a Serbian man seized by Muslims was made to
crawl on the asphalt and bark like a dog before being executed.
Among the other incidents:
-A Muslim locksmith reported that on July 24, Serb guards with
automatic weapons systematically killed as many as 160 men at the
Keraterm camp in northwestern Bosnia.
-A Muslim refugee woman said that last June she saw a Serbian
soldier use an ax to hack off the arms and legs of two prisoners.
-Another refugee told of seeing a soldier drag a man out of the
Luka camp outside Brcko and return with a blood-soaked knife in one
hand and the man's head in the other.
-A 52-year-old Bosnian Muslim cleric said he witnessed torture
in the Omarska camp, including the cutting off of prisoners' hands
and genitals as punishments.
-Serb guards slit the throat of a Muslim cleric who refused to
cross himself.
-Guards raped a seven-year-old girl in front of her mother and
other women at the Manjaca camp. The girl died soon after.
-A refugee woman in another camp claimed she was burned with a
cattle prod and raped in front of her children, and her 12-year-old
daughter was raped.
Many of the abuses, Boucher said, were related to the ``ethnic
cleansing'' drive of Serbs intent on expelling Muslims from areas
of Bosnia that come under Serbian domination. Thousands have been
forced into detention camps, where many of the atrocities are
alleged to have occurred.
novine.133.bale.,
Sarajevo Sets Journalistic Trend: Reporters in Hard Shell
Eds: Also moved for PMs
With AM-Yugoslavia, Bjt
By JOHN DANISZEWSKI
Associated Press Writer
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) - BBC journalist Malcolm
Brabant found himself stuck behind a stalled bus when he suddenly
heard a loud explosion and saw a blinding flash.
He lurched forward. The rifle round intended for him was stopped
cold by multiple layers of hardened glass in his customized Land
Rover's side window.
``Thank God it works, that's all I can say,'' Brabant said.
Television networks and news services are equipping their staff
with bulletproof jackets and armored cars for the war in former
Yugoslavia, a battlefield on which at least 28 journalists have
been killed.
Some reporters fear they are deliberately targeted in the bitter
civil war in Bosnia, where more than 14,000 people have died since
fighting broke out in February.
Since August, at least eight television networks and news
services, including The Associated Press, have equipped employees
with cars or small trucks designed to withstand bullets, shrapnel
and even land mines.
Journalists have long worn flak jackets, bulletproof vests and
combat helmets when covering particularly perilous stories. In time
of war, they also sometimes traveled with the military in protected
vehicles.
But the acquisition of armored cars by major news organizations
themselves is something new, veteran reporters say.
``In Beirut, it never crossed my mind as far as I can recall,''
said the BBC's Bob Simpson. ``I think I was just stupid.''
The trend reflects the unique, largely unavoidable risks of
Sarajevo - where the population is subject to mortars, artillery
shelling and sniper fire in almost any street in the city.
The armored cars are especially needed because of the frequent
gunfire on the road between Sarajevo's center and the airport, a
route that cannot be avoided by journalists entering or leaving the
city.
A CNN staffer was seriously wounded on the way to the airport in
July. On Aug. 13, just-arrived ABC producer David Kaplan, 45, was
killed by a bullet that penetrated the unarmored car he was riding
in from the airport.
``Attacks can come from anywhere,'' said Christian Millet of
Agence France-Presse.
``Elsewhere, when a journalist was shot at, it was - broadly
speaking - an accident,'' he said. ``Here everybody is a target.
... If they see you are a journalist they shoot. They either don't
care or they actually want to shoot journalists.''
Foreign journalists in Sarajevo routinely wear flak jackets or
bulletproof vests - often inscribed with the wearer's name, news
organization and blood type.
Photographers and camera operators whose work takes them into
the most dangerous areas usually put on battle helmets made of
Kevlar, the lightweight, bulletproof plastic used by many NATO
armies.
Flak vests have been stolen from journalists by armed gunmen.
``It saved my life,'' said Morten Hvaal, an AP photographer, who
displays a flak jacket with eight tear marks from bullets that
struck him June 24 when he was riding in an ambulance riddled by
bullets in the Dobrinja district. He suffered for four cracked
ribs.
The steel-plating around the passenger compartments and gas
tanks make the armored cars heavy and hard to navigate, and they
still are not foolproof against every threat.
But the armor adds enormously to peace of mind, journalists say.
``It does help you face things,'' said Brabant. ``I used to feel
almost physically sick in a soft car when the sniper is shooting
fairly close. ... Now I feel a lot more relaxed.''
novine.134.bale.,
The New York Times Friday, October 23
JOHN F. BURNS, from Sarajevo - In a step hailed by the UN military
commander here as "the first signal of hope" for the relief of 400 000
civilians trapped since April, repair crews drawn from both sides in the
Sarajevo siege have worked together to restore electrical power to 70
percent of the city and running water to a still wider area.
The repairs, begun three weeks ago, started to bring electricity
and water back to the city sporadically and in widely scattered areas
last week. But in the last 48 hours, as major transmission lines damaged
in the fighting have been repaired, utilities denied to hospitals,
private homes and many other places for weeks, and in some cases
months, have been restored.
................................................................
General Morillon said he would meet on Friday with officers from
all three fighting forces engaged in the Bosnian war - Serbs, Croats,
and the Muslim-led Bosnian Government - to push for a cease-fire.
UN commanders took particular encouragement from the fact that
the repairs to power lines were carried out by crews drawn equally
from Serbian engineers and workers living outside the siege lines and
Muslim counterparts living in Sarajevo.
...............................................................
PAUL LEWIS, from Belgrade - The Yugoslav Prime Minister reiterated
his call for an and to the UN trade embargo against his country today,
saying it weakened him in his political struglle against the forces of
reactionary Serbian nationalism.
.................................................................
But MR. Panic's appeal, made in an interview aboard his plane while
flying back from talks in Geneva, came a day after the UN and 12
EuropeanCommunity countries said sanctions must remain so long as
Milosevic, the President of the Serbian Republic and Mr.Panic's archrival,
refused to denounce violence by Serbs in B&H.
The statement said the trade embargo would remain until all human
rights abuses in B&H ceased, naming the Bosnian Serbs as "the principal
offenders.
FRANK J. PRIAL, from UN, Oct.22. - The US turned over to the UN
today a compilation of data it has gathered from a variety of sources
recounting the killing and torture of thousands of men, women, and
children, most of them Muslims, by Serbian irregular forces in B&H.
It is the seckond such report submitted to the UN by the US since
August, when the Security Council called on all UN members to present
evidence of breaches of the Geneva Convention to new war-crime
commission. The first American report was submitted in September.
The new document draws together what it calls "credible reports"
from American Embassies and Consulates and interviews with refugees
and journalists. Those reports, it says, document "numerous abhhorent
incidents, including wilfull killings, torture of prisoners, abuse of
civilians in detention camps, wanton devastation and destruction of
property and mass forcible expulsion and deportation of civilians."
Among the incidents reported are the killing of more than 100
men and boys by Serbian soldiers in the village of Bjelaj in late
September; the massacre of 200 men and boys by Bosnian Serbs near
Varjanta on Aug.21, and the killing of 100 Muslim women in Biscani
on July 20. The report further recounts dozens of rapes and cases
of abuse of civilians in detention centers.
While nothing yhe vaule of the information it has compiled,
the State Department said: "The international community needs to
conduct investigations within yhe territory of the former Yugoslavia
to assemble a more complete picture. Further, there is need for
forensic evidence regarding the various allegations of mass atrocities."
In another report released today, a joint team of UN inspectors
and representatives of Physicians for Human Rights, a private group,
said that they had discovered evidence of what might be the mass
grave of 174 Croatian hospital patients apparently killed by Serbs
in November.
According to Dr. H. Jack Geiger, president of the physician's
group and a professor at the City University of New York Medical
School, a survivor's story led them to a site near the town of Vukovar
where they found the remains of four skeletons "amid many indications
that other bodies may be buried there."
Dr. Geiger, who returned from Yugoslavia today, said his team
immediately called on the UN Protection Forces in the area to secure
the site until a full-scale forensic team could be assembled and a
thorough search made.
novine.135.bale.,
RFE/RL Daily Report
No. 205, October 23, 1992
SUCCESSOR STATES TO THE USSR
YELTSIN ATTACKS PARLIAMENT FOR REFUSING TO POSTPONE CONGRESS. On
22 October, Russian President Boris Yeltsin criticized
parliament's refusal to postpone December's session of the
Congress of People's Deputies, Interfax reported. Yeltsin said he
would not "dramatize" the Supreme Soviet's decision, but he added
that he was "displeased" with it. On 21 October, the parliament
decided that the congress would open on 1 December, as scheduled,
rather than postponing it until March. Yeltsin had requested the
delay, saying that more time was needed to complete work on a new
constitution, which would be discussed at the congress. The draft
constitution stipulates that the congress must be abolished. (Vera
Tolz, RFE/RL Inc.)
RUTSKOI CALLS FOR COALITION GOVERNMENT. Speaking at a meeting of
the People's Party of Free Russia on 22 October, Russian Vice
President Aleksandr Rutskoi called on the government to share
power in a coalition with the Civic Union, which is supported by
heavy industry and favors a slower pace of reform. (Rutskoi is a
founding member of the Civic Union.) In his speech, Rutskoi called
for the ouster of six unnamed, high-level government officials,
according to Rossiiskaya gazeta and Moskovsky komsomolets. Rutskoi
was quoted as saying that under the current government's
leadership, Russia had become "a political and economic trash
can." The same day, AFP quoted Yeltsin's press secretary,
Vyacheslav Kostikov, as saying Yeltsin was unlikely "to offer any
sacrifices" to the Civic Union. Yeltsin has already made several
governmental appointments due to pressure from the "industrial
lobby." (Vera Tolz & Alexander Rahr, RFE/RL Inc.)
KOZYREV WARNS PARLIAMENT. "There is the danger that our debate on
foreign policy, which we welcome in every possible way, sometimes
goes beyond the framework of searching for the best ways to
[guarantee] the interests of the country," Russian Foreign
Minister Andrei Kozyrev said in his address before the Russian
parliament on 22 October. He took aim at those who operate "under
the guise of slogans" such as "a third way," "Eurasianism," or
"great power patriotism." In his remarks, which were aired on
Russian TV, Kozyrev also warned that such behavior was not
consistent with Russia's choice for democracy. (Suzanne Crow,
RFE/RL Inc.)
KOZYREV ON GREAT POWER STATUS, CIS. In the same address, Kozyrev
rejected the "panicky" and "defeatist mood" circulating in the
Russian parliament, which concluded that Russia had become "a
banana republic." He assured members of parliament that his
meetings at the United Nations had confirmed that Russia is still
regarded as a great power. Kozyrev offered assurances that the
member-states of the CIS were a priority of Russian foreign policy
and highlighted the trend toward integration for which some CIS
members have lent support. (Suzanne Crow, RFE/RL Inc.)
ECONOMIC AGREEMENTS SIGNED BETWEEN RUSSIA AND UKRAINE. Acting
Russian Prime Minister Egor Gaidar and the newly appointed
Ukrainian Prime Minister Leonid Kuchma signed three agreements on
economic cooperation on 22 October, ITAR-TASS reported. The
agreements stipulated that the signatories will exchange trade
missions, introduce most favored treatment in mutual trading, and
cooperate in construction projects in third countries. Gaidar told
the agency that the talks also touched on the problems of payments
and credits arising from Ukraine's plans to introduce its own
currency and other issues. (Keith Bush, RFE/RL Inc.)
AGREEMENT ON GAS DELIVERIES TO EUROPE. Russian Deputy Prime
Minister Viktor Chernmyrdin told Interfax on 22 October that an
agreement was also reached between the Russian and Ukrainian prime
ministers on gas supplies to Europe. It was agreed that,
"regardless of the internal political situation," the obligations
of energy suppliers to Western Europe must be met. Chernomyrdin
said that Ukraine owed Russia some twenty-five to thirty billion
rubles for gas deliveries. (Keith Bush, RFE/RL Inc.)
INTERENTERPRISE DEBTS DOWN. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Georgii
Khizha told parliament on 22 October that the total volume of
interenterprise debts in the former Soviet Union had declined from
3.4 trillion rubles to 648 billion rubles by the end of September,
Interfax reported. He said that the netting-out of debts had been
virtually completed. Enterprises had requested 760 billion rubles
in new credits, but had been given 300 billion rubles. Acting
Russian Central Bank Chairman Viktor Gerashchenko was cited as
saying that the netting-out had not resolved the financial
problems of enterprises because wholesale prices had risen by a
factor of 16 since 1 January, while their "turnover resources" had
risen by a mere 150%. (Keith Bush, RFE/RL Inc.)
EBRD REPORT ON RUSSIAN ECONOMY. In its latest quarterly review,
the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) says
that a rise in popular discontent is likely in Russia during the
coming months, Reuters reported on 22 October. The Bank also
states that without a clear return to monetary and fiscal
discipline, inflation in Russia could turn into hyperinflation
during the final months of 1992. It notes further that the Russian
budget deficit is heading towards the equivalent of 17% of GNP,
that is, more than three times the 5% level agreed with the IMF in
early July. (Keith Bush, RFE/RL Inc.)
PRESIDENT OF EBRD FORECASTS MASS UNEMPLOYMENT IN CIS. In an
apocalyptic speech on the problems of the CIS, Jacques Attali,
President of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development,
warned of mass dismissals and plant closures in 1993, western
press agencies reported on 22 October. His predictions are based
on an International Labor Organization (ILO) study presented in
Moscow this week. This study contests the idea held by many
Western economists that enterprises are still hanging onto
employees, and it claims that many unemployed are not receiving
unemployment benefits or employment services. The ILO has
expressed concern at the lack of preparation for mass
unemployment, and is planning to advise Russia on ways of creating
new industrial jobs. The ILO forecasts are based on the assumption
that economic reform will impose hard budget constraints on
enterprises, which is not yet the case. (Sheila Marnie, RFE/RL
Inc.)
RUBLE EXCHANGE RATE UNCHANGED IN MOSCOW. The ruble exchange rate
at the Moscow Interbank Currency Exchange on 22 October remained
unchanged at 368 rubles to the US dollar, Interfax reported. The
volume traded was $39.3 million. At the St. Petersburg currency
auction on 21 October, the ruble had dropped to 375 rubles to the
dollar. (Keith Bush, RFE/RL Inc.)
SETTLING TROOPS IN THE MOSCOW REGION. Problems in redeploying
troops from Eastern Europe, the Baltic States, and other regions
were discussed on 22 October at a meeting of the Moscow oblast
government, ITAR-TASS reported. Plans call for 26 formations,
units, and military institutions to be relocated in the oblast,
primarily in the Naro-Fominsk, Odintsovsk, and Solnechnogorsk
regions, and in the city of Dubna. Newly arriving officers will
occupy temporary housing, with several thousand apartments
scheduled to be constructed in 1993. Colonel General Leontii
Kuznetsov, commander of the Moscow Military District, told
ITAR-TASS that regional administrators have been cooperative in
all regions, with the exception of Dubna, where deputies are
protesting the deployment of troops and weaponry. Kuznetsov also
said there were few problems housing conscripts because most units
were only 50% manned. (Stephen Foye, RFE/RL Inc.)
KRAVCHUK ON CRIMEAN TATARS. Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk
has suggested forming a trilateral commission to deal with the
practical problems of resettling the Crimean Tatars in the Crimea,
Interfax reported on 22 October. The members of the commission
would include representatives of Ukraine, the Crimea, and the
Crimean Tatar Mejlis. The Mejlis was recently ruled to be
unconstitutional by the Crimean parliament. (Roman Solchanyk,
RFE/RL Inc.)
US TO HELP BELARUS GET RID OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS. Belarus Deputy
Minister of Defense Aleksandr Tushinskiy and US Under Secretary of
Defense Frank Wisner initialed a series of nuclear agreements in
Washington on 22 October. According to Pentagon spokesman Bob
Hall, these included an umbrella agreement providing the legal
framework for US assistance and two implementing agreements. One
calls for up to $5 million in US aid to equip and train Belarus
personnel to deal with any emergency that might arise during the
removal of ex-Soviet nuclear weapons from the Republic. The second
is designed to help Belarus establish export control systems to
prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction. Hall said that
up to $1 million is available for this purpose. The money will be
drawn from the $400 million which the US Congress has authorized
to aid the former Soviet Union. (Doug Clarke, RFE/RL Inc.)
BELARUS FORCE LEVELS; COLLECTIVE SECURITY. Belarus Defense
Minister Pavel Kozlovsky told reporters in Minsk on 21 October
that the CFE agreement permitted Belarus to retain 1,800 tanks,
2,000 armored vehicles, and 130 combat aircraft, Interfax reported
the next day. Over the next 40 months, he said, the manpower of
the armed forces could not exceed 100,000. His remarks followed a
closed session of the parliament at which the CFE treaty was
ratified. According to Belinform-TASS on 21 October, Deputies also
discussed participation by Belarus in the CIS Collective Security
Treaty signed in Tashkent, but were unable to reach a consensus.
They decided to return to the issue at a later date. (Stephen
Foye, RFE/RL Inc.)
BUFFER ZONE IN TAJIKISTAN? ITAR-TASS reported on 22 October that
its Dushanbe correspondent has learned of plans to establish a
buffer zone between the Tajik capital and Kulyab Oblast, the main
center of support for deposed President Rakhmon Nabiev in the
southern part of the country. The buffer zone, proposed by acting
President Akbarsho Iskandarov to keep pro- and anti-government
fighters apart, is to be occupied by Russian soldiers. The Russian
division stationed in Tajikistan is already guarding the Nurek
power plant, which supplies electricity to Dushanbe and was seized
by fighters from Kulyab during the summer. The correspondent noted
that fighting continues between pro-government forces in
Kurgan-Tyube Oblast and anti-government forces from Kulyab;
despite high losses both sides are determined to continue. (Bess
Brown, RFE/RL Inc.)
HELICOPTER HIJACKERS TRADED CARPETS FOR ARMS. The commander of a
unit of Russian border guards in Tajikistan told ITAR-TASS on 21
October that a helicopter hijacked from Tajikistan to Afghanistan
on 19 October had returned the following day with a load of
weapons and had landed undisturbed, unloading the weapons obtained
in Afghanistan. According to an Interfax report, the hijackers
traded Tajik carpets for the weapons. The border guards were
prevented from approaching the helicopter when it returned;
apparently local representatives of the Tajik National Security
Committee took charge of the weapons. A protest by Russian border
troops to local authorities was ignored. (Bess Brown, RFE/RL Inc.)
MILITARY TEST SITES CLOSED IN KAZAKHSTAN. KazTAG reported on 21
October that Sagat Tugelbaev, head of the Atyrau Oblast
administration, has ordered that nuclear missile test sites in the
oblast be closed down. The report indicated that officials from
the Russian Federation, who had come to Atyrau (formerly Gurev) to
meet with oblast officials and a special commission headed by
Kazakhstan's defense minister, had argued hotly against the
closure. Troop commanders at the sites have been ordered to clean
them up. There have been press reports and inquiries about the
military test sites in western Kazakhstan for more than a year. It
appears that in the Atyrau case, Alma-Ata is permitting local
interest to take precedence over CIS agreements. (Bess Brown,
RFE/RL Inc.)
RUSSIAN GROUP'S APARTMENT CONFISCATED IN ALMA-ATA. The
largely-Russian independent trade-union organization Birlesu has
had an apartment confiscated for use by Kazakhs, Birlesu's
information agency complained on 20 October. The apartment,
according to the report, is owned by the group, which wanted to
use it as a center representing the AFL-CIO in Kazakhstan. The
Union of Homeless has told Kazakhs that they may occupy the
apartments of Russians who have left the country; although the
apartment in question did not fall into this category, it was
apparently seen by the Kazakh organization as Russian housing that
was not currently in use. Birlesu complained that neither the
mayor's office nor the state prosecutor was willing to do anything
about the forcible takeover. (Bess Brown, RFE/RL Inc.)
TURKMENISTAN TO REMAIN IN RUBLE ZONE. Nazar Suyunov,
Turkmenistan's deputy prime minister responsible for economic
issues, signed an agreement on a unified CIS currency system,
ITAR-TASS reported on 22 October. Turkmenistan had not subscribed
to the agreement during the Bishkek summit "for technical
reasons," according to the report. Suyunov's signature
demonstrates that Turkmenistan intends to remain within the "ruble
zone," although the same day Turkmen President Saparmurad Niyazov
said on Russian TV that Turkmenistan intends to introduce its own
currency, in consultation with Russia and other states, because a
national currency is a necessary attribute of national
independence. (Bess Brown, RFE/RL Inc.)
MOSCOW BOMBER A "DNIESTER" SUPPORTER. The main perpetrator of the
incident involving the throwing of an army hand grenade on 20
October near a MacDonald's restaurant in Moscow, which injured
eight people, is Valerii Zakharenkov, a former leader of Moscow
youth gangs, who has been convicted twice of rape and robbery.
Disclosing these details upon apprehending him, the police added
that Zakharenkov had recently moved to the "Dniester republic" and
received a residence permit from the latter's authorities, and
that he accused the Russian authorities of not doing enough to
help Russians in that part of Moldova, Reuters and TASS reported
on 20 October. (Vladimir Socor, RFE/RL Inc.)
CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE
MASS GRAVE FOUND AT VUKOVAR? The BBC and AFP on 22 October
reported that UN human rights inspectors said they believed they
had found at least one mass grave near Vukovar. The team was
headed by special envoy and former Polish Prime Minister Tadeusz
Mazowiecki and included a forensic pathologist. Mazowiecki asked
Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali to send UN troops to
protect the site until more forensic experts could arrive. The
eastern Slavonian city was a symbol of Croatian resistance to
virtually constant Serbian shelling until it fell in November
1991. AFP quoted Croatian officials as saying that 3,000 Vukovar
residents are listed as missing, including 300 hospital patients.
The BBC also noted that the US had sent the UN its second report
since September on probable human rights violations in
Bosnia-Herzegovina, chiefly involving attacks by Serbs against
Muslims. (Patrick Moore, RFE/RL Inc.)
BOSNIAN UPDATE. International media on 22 October said that the UN
had decided to resume relief flights to Sarajevo after a 24-hour
hiatus. Responsible authorities had meanwhile concluded that
fighting between Muslims and Croats in central Bosnia did not pose
a danger to the flights. Reuters added that the Croats appeared to
be consolidating their hold on a string of towns northwest of
Sarajevo on the overland route used by UN convoys from Zagreb.
Fighting continued between Serbs and Croats at Trebinje in
Herzegovina near Dubrovnik, a scene of massacres of Serbs by
Croats during World War II. Ethnic strife returned there with a
vengeance in the current conflict, which some observers have
called a resumption of the World War II violence after a 46-year
break. (Patrick Moore, RFE/RL Inc.)
SERB-ALBANIAN TALKS YIELD NO PROGRESS. No progress was reported in
talks between education ministry officials of Serbia, the federal
rump Yugoslavia, and the self-proclaimed Kosovo government, which
resumed in Belgrade on 22 October. The talks center on reopening
Albanian-language schools in Kosovo province, where Albanians make
up more than 90% of the population. Serbia closed the schools in
1990. The talks opened on 14 October in Pristina. The Albanians
want the restoration of Albanian-language curriculum to be based
on a broad policy that applies to all educational levels, from
primary to university. The Serbs want a step-by-step review
dealing with each level separately. In another development, Borba
reports on 20 October that Milan Panic, Prime Minister of rump
Yugoslavia, asked Kosovo leader Ibrahim Rugova to select three
capable Albanians to serve in Panic's federal cabinet. (Milan
Andrejevich, RFE/RL Inc.)
PANIC-MILOSEVIC SHOWDOWN IMMINENT. Serbian and international media
report on 22 October that a showdown between Milan Panic and
Serbia's President Slobodan Milosevic is imminent in the wake of
the 19 October takeover of the federal interior ministry building
by Serbian republican police. But both sides are dismissing the
possibility of a coup as "absurd" and "self-defeating." Coup
rumors spread after Belgrade TV on 21 October reported in a lead
story on Milosevic's visit to the federal military's Technical
Institute. Belgrade's independent radio B-92 suggested the TV
report was a signal to Panic that Milosevic has the army's
backing. Meanwhile Serbia's ruling Socialist Party announced that
Milosevic will seek reelection as Serbia's President despite the
fact that he is doing poorly in recent opinion polls. (Milan
Andrejevich, RFE/RL Inc.)
RUSSIAN PARLIAMENT WANTS OMON LEADER RETURNED TO RUSSIA. Baltfax
reported on 22 October that the Russian Supreme Soviet has asked
Latvia "to return [to Russia] its citizen Sergei Parfenov in view
of the clear lack of evidence of his guilt," although Parfenov's
trial has not yet ended. Parfenov is being tried in Riga on
charges of abuse of power while a leader of OMON forces in Latvia
in 1991. He was extradited to Latvia by the Russian State
Prosecutor's Office. In 1991 and 1992 members of OMON attacked
Latvia's Ministry of Internal Affairs as well as the civilian
population; scores of individuals were injured and several persons
were killed. (Dzintra Bungs, RFE/RL Inc.)
TALKS ON DANUBE DIVERSION BREAK DOWN. According to several news
agency reports, talks to resolve the long-standing conflict
between Czechoslovakia and Hungary over the proposed diversion of
the Danube river broke down in Brussels on 22 October. The
Hungarian negotiator said the talks, which are mediated by the
European Community, broke down because the Czechoslovak side did
not accept the conditions that had been clearly specified by the
EC commission earlier. Czechoslovakia plans to divert the river on
3 November. Despite the breakdown in Brussels, environmental
committees of the two countries' parliaments held their first
talks in Budapest yesterday. (Judith Pataki, RFE/RL Inc.)
CZECH PARLIAMENT APPROVES LAW ON INTELLIGENCE SERVICE. The Czech
National Council passed a law on the creation of the Czech
Security and Information Service (BIS) on 22 October. The BIS will
succeed the Federal Security and Information Service (FBIS) after
the disintegration of Czechoslovakia. The activities of the new
intelligence service will be monitored by a special commission
elected by the parliament. The law also stipulates that BIS
employees may not be members of a political party. Opposition
deputies walked out in protest before the vote on the law. They
charged that the draft provided insufficient control over the use
of "intelligence devices." (Jan Obrman, RFE/RL Inc.)
CZECH AND SLOVAK MINISTERS GUARANTEE PROPERTY RIGHTS. The
privatization ministers of the Czech and Slovak republics, Jiri
Skalicky and Lubomir Dolgos assured shareholders in privatized
companies on 22 October that their shares will be safe after the
breakup of Czechoslovakia, CSTK reported. Skalicky told
journalists in Prague that property rights will not be infringed
upon. Dolgos said the rights of Czechs who invested in Slovak
companies will be guaranteed, although they will effectively own
shares in a foreign company after 1 January 1993. The two
ministers also announced that the republics will pursue separate
privatization programs after the disintegration of Czechoslovakia.
(Jan Obrman, RFE/RL Inc.)
HUNGARIAN CHIEF PROSECUTOR ORDERS INVESTIGATION. MTI reported on
22 October that the Chief Prosecutor has ordered an investigation
into alleged war crimes committed in connection with the 1956
Hungarian Revolution. The investigation was requested by three
Hungarian Democratic Forum deputies. By the deputies' definition,
war crimes committed during or after the 1956 revolution include:
initiating Soviet aggression against the legitimate Hungarian
government in October 1956, inspiring the Soviet occupation of the
country, participating in acts of revenge against freedom
fighters, and hindering the restoration of peace in Eastern
Europe. (Judith Pataki, RFE/RL Inc.)
ROMAN REFUSES TO JOIN COALITION GOVERNMENT. National Salvation
Front (NSF) leader and former prime minister Petre Roman has ruled
out joining a coalition government led by the rival Democratic
National Salvation Front, the party behind President Ion Iliescu.
In an interview with Reuters, Roman said on 22 October that the
solution would likely be a minority government with an acceptable
program supported by both his party and the Democratic Convention,
an alliance of the main opposition forces. In a separate statement
broadcast by Radio Bucharest, the NSF insisted that a "social
pact" cabinet could not be formed without broad political
negotiations. (Dan Ionescu, RFE/RL Inc.)
FORMER DISSIDENT TO BE ROMANIA'S PRIME MINISTER? Former Romanian
dissident Mihai Botez returned to Bucharest from the United States
on 22 October. The 51-year-old Botez left Romania in 1987 after a
decade of dissent against late dictator Nicolae Ceausescu. Quoting
unnamed sources in Bucharest, Reuter said that Romania's President
Ion Iliescu had asked Botez, a mathematician and futurologist, to
become the non-partisan prime minister of a coalition government.
Inconclusive elections on 27 September produced a hung parliament
in Romania. In what Romanian media describe as a "Panic complex,"
(a reference to Milan Panic, prime minister of rump Yugoslavia),
some observers believe that Botez might be the person to lead the
country out of the current crisis. (Dan Ionescu, RFE/RL Inc.)
MACDEONIAN PRESIDENT, DEFENSE MINISTER, VISIT BULGARIA. On 22
October the President of the Republic of Macedonia, Kiro Gligorov,
paid a brief surprise visit to Sofia. Gligorov said he had come
mainly to see the staging of a play written by a Macedonian
playwright, but that it was also a "good occasion to exchange
opinions" with Bulgarian President Zhelyu Zhelev. According to
BTA, the two discussed regional and bilateral problems. At the
same time a Macedonian military delegation, led by Defense
Minister Vlado Popovski, visited Sofia. The Bulgarian Defense
Ministry released a statement saying that the Macedonians, in the
process of creating their own army, were interested in military
expert assistance. The talks were also reported to have covered
trade in military equipment, although both sides committed
themselves to respect international treaties and domestic
legislation. (Kjell Engelbrekt, RFE/RL Inc.)
BULGARIAN MINISTERS DEFEND GOVERNMENT PERFORMANCE. At a plenary
session of the National Assembly on 22 October, leading members of
the present Bulgarian cabinet came forward to defend their
policies and, on some occasions, to regret their mistakes. Whereas
Prime Minister Filip Dimitrov and Finance Minister Ivan Kostov
mainly blamed the opposition for the recent political turmoil,
Deputy Premier and Minister of Education and Science Nikolay
Vasilev said the government had not sought wide public support for
its actions. The confidence vote requested by the government was
postponed until next week. (Kjell Engelbrekt, RFE/RL Inc.)
SUCHOCKA PRESSES FOR DEBT CONCESSIONS. Polish Prime Minister Hanna
Suchocka urged Western creditors and the International Monetary
Fund to exercise greater leniency in setting targets for the
Polish economy. In an interview with Reuter on 22 October,
Suchocka said that foreign debt payments will soon consume
one-third of export income if no compromise is reached. The IMF
should agree to an increase in the budget deficit to exceed the
original 5%-of-GDP ceiling, she added. Suchocka travels to Rome
for a two-day private visit on 23 October. She is to be received
twice by the Pope and meet with the Italian prime minister and
foreign minister. (Louisa Vinton, RFE/RL Inc.)
LATVIAN COURT SUSPENSION OF NEWSPAPER. On 19 October a Riga court
ordered the suspension of the registration certificate of the
Latvian citizen's movement's newspaper Pilsonis. The order means
that the newspaper can no longer be published. Charges against
Pilsonis were brought by the Latvian State Prosecutor Janis
Skrastins and supported by Minister of Justice Viktors Skudra, BNS
reported on 20 October. The newspaper was known to have published
controversial reports and critical assessments of the policies and
actions of the government. It is not clear if the publishers will
appeal decision. (Dzintra Bungs, RFE/RL Inc.)
LATVIAN-RUSSIAN TALKS RESUME. LatvianRussian troop withdrawal
talks resumed on 23 October in Moscow. The Latvian side wants to
discuss the detailed proposal on ways to remove all troops by 1993
that it presented at the last round of talks in September. The
Russian side appears determined to keep 1994 as the deadline for
the pullout, Baltic media report. (Dzintra Bungs, RFE/RL Inc.)
LITHUANIAN INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTION DROPS. Industrial production in
Lithuania in the last nine months has dropped 47.5% compared to
the same period last year, BNS reported on 20 October. Oil
refining production decreased 66%, batteries - 72%, paper - 61%,
sugar - 56%, bicycles - 53%, laundry detergents - 51%, and canned
fish - 50%. Exports for hard currency in the nine months, however,
rose from 2.9% to 9.4% of total production. Compared to August,
September production of grain rose 87%, chemical fibers and yarn -
67%, woolen fabrics - 56%, knitwear 42%, refrigerators and
stockings - 26%. Production costs in September were 18 times
greater than in September 1991 and 1.8 times greater than in
August 1992. Consumer prices in the same periods increased 6 and
1.3 times. (Saulius Girnius, RFE/RL Inc.)
WORLD BANK LOANS TO LITHUANIA AND LATVIA. On 22 October the World
Bank approved loans of $60 million to Lithuania and $45 million to
Latvia, a RFE/RL correspondent in Washington reports. The loans
will be used to buy medicines, feed grain, and energy. Japan's
import-export bank has also promised to provide additional
co-financing of $100 million to the three Baltic republics. In an
unrelated measure, Reuters reported that Sweden was donating one
coastguard vessel each to Latvia and Lithuania to monitor fishing,
for customs and border control, and for environmental protection.
(Saulius Girnius, RFE/RL Inc.)
LITHUANIA, CZECHOSLOVAKIA TO END VISA REQUIREMENT. On 21 October
Lithuanian deputy foreign minister Valdemaras Katkus and his
Czechoslovak counterpart Jaroslav Suchanek exchanged official
notes on establishing visa-free travel between the two countries
beginning on 19 November, Radio Lithuania reports. During his
visit to Czechoslovakia Katkus also held meetings with Czech
deputy foreign minister Sasa Vondra and Slovak foreign minister
Vladimir Kniazko. (Saulius Girnius, RFE/RL Inc.)
novine.136.bale.,
A Hospital Crib Is His Home, the Staff His Only Family
By JOHN DANISZEWSKI
Associated Press Writer
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) _ From a dingy crib in
the pediatrics ward of Kosevo Hospital, 20-month-old Darko
Plecic casts brown eyes on a stranger and whimpers a
wordless plea to be picked up.
Once in the visitor's arms, the tot with a wire-brush
tuft of chestnut hair snuggles and clings like a frightened
monkey.
So rarely does anyone come to see him that a young girl
looks up curiously: ``Darko, who's visiting you?''
Although Darko is basically healthy, his entire world
for seven months has been the inside of this frequently
shelled hospital, filled with the maimed and dying, often
lit only by candlelight because electricity shortages.
Darko is among at least 10 children here whose parents
have been separated from them in the fighting and who have
nowhere to go because of the war tearing apart Bosnia-
Herzegovina.
``We're his unofficial parents. The staff here is the
only family he has,'' said Dr. Adnan Hadzimuratovic.
Darko's parents sent him to the capital last March 17
from Visegrad, 50 miles east of Sarajevo, for treatment of
an intestinal disorder.
Then war came. Now no one at the hospital knows whether
Darko's parents are alive.
``Can anyone in America understand that in Bosnia-
Herzegovina, there are dozens of `concentration camps' cut
off from one another?'' said Dr. Lutvo Hodzic, the
pediatrics director.
``One of these camps is called Sarajevo, and another is
Visegrad,'' he said. ``So we have no idea what is going on
with his parents because we are surrounded by a fascist
army, and so are they.''
Sarajevo and other Muslim-dominated Bosnian cities have
been besieged by Serbian rebels in a six-month war that has
killed over 14,000 people.
Darko spends most of his time on a cot with sheets that
are washed infrequently because of a lack of running water.
He wears borrowed clothes. Rags substitute for diapers.
The harried staff spares him as much time as possible,
but fears his emotional growth will suffer as he spends
month after month a prisoner of his crib.
``He was everyone's favorite. When Darko started to cry,
we all raced to pick him up,'' said Hadzimuratovic. ``But he
started not to grow as quickly as he should. We moved him to
pediatrics because we thought the food there might be
better.''
``He was our mascot,'' said head nurse Fatima Zaimovic.
``The other children come and go, and he stayed with us.''
Most of the other children are victims of shelling and
sniping. Some have lost legs and must learn to walk with
crutches. Others grimace in pain as nurses clean their deep
shrapnel wounds.
Despite their own suffering, many spend time with Darko.
``He learned to walk here, with the other children
helping,'' said physical therapist Sabina Raic.
``I played dolls with him. We didn't have cars,'' said
11-year-old Mustafa Osmanovic, another child cut off from
his parents.
Darko might be better off in a foster home, Raic said,
but ``nobody asked to take him.'' The city orphanage, which
lacks heat, has been turned over to refugees.
Parents often beg the hospital to keep their children as
long as possible. ``Here they have three meals a day and
it's probably less dangerous,'' Raic said.
But Hodzic, the pediatrics chief, said shortages are
starting to affect the hospital.
``It's not only that Darko is hungry and thirsty to be
touched,'' he said. ``You should see him when I offer him a
piece of bread. He is jumping in his bed for joy. He can't
wait to get it in his mouth.''
Hodzic said hundreds of children like Darko could die if
the international community doesn't start sending more food
instead of ``empty declarations.''
``Yesterday the main judge of the main court in Bosnia-
Herzegovina came to me and cried like a baby, begging for
one liter of milk for his three grandchildren,'' he said.
``Can you imagine something like that in your country?''
novine.137.bale.,
Czechs Mourn Short-Lived Dream of Fairy Tale Revolution (Prague)
By Tyler Marshall and Iva Drapalova
Special to the Los Angeles Times
PRAGUE, Czechoslovakia _ Amid the grass and autumn
leaves of the capi tal's Vysehrad Cemetery, a part of Europe
came full circle Saturday.
It was here nearly three years ago, with communism
teetering on the b rink of collapse throughout Eastern
Europe, that thousands of young Czechoslovaks gathered before
marching to the center of Prague to demand their nation's
freedom.
That night was in many ways the apex of an
extraordinary European autumn _ the start of a fairy tale
revolution where no one died, the good guys won, and an
enlightened philosopher-poet named Vaclav Havel emerged to
lead his people to democracy.
As events Saturday underscored, the Czechoslovaks
did not live happil y ever after.
On a remarkably similar chilly autumn day, several
thousand people gathered near the gates of the same cemetery
Saturday to mark a very different event: the dissolution of
their country.
The mood was melancholy. More in sadness than in
anger, Czechoslovakia has effectively come apart.
``The framework of our nation has disintegrated,''
Czech Prime Minister Vaclav Klaus told the somber crowd. ``It
is now up to us to build an independent Czech state on its
ruins.''
Although events here contain none of the horror of
the civil war ripping apart the nearby republics of the old
Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia's demise carries equally
disturbing implications for those who dream of a unified,
peaceful Europe.
If this state can fall apart despite its rich
cultural heritage, a proven industrial potential and long
democratic traditions, Europeans ask themselves, then what
hope is there for the less stable, struggling nations of
southeastern Europe and what used to be the Soviet Union?
``Czechoslovakia could have been an example for
Europe and the whole world that different peoples can live
together,'' said Karel Schwarzenberk, who ran Havel's
presidential office until Havel resigned last summer. ``That
we can't (live together) is a sad fact.''
Czechoslovakia's fate as an independent federal
state was all but sealed by the Czech decision not to
challenge a Slovak declaration of independence last July.
Officially, Saturday's rally was called to
celebrate the ``restoration'' of the Czech state _ a logical
consequence of the breakup.
With the date of the federation's formal breakup
set for Jan. 1, therally was an attempt to instill a degree
of Czech identity and affirm Czech independence. In fact, it
seemed more a public mourning of the death of Czechoslovakia.
The re-emergence of Slovakian nationalism came as
part of a broader political assertiveness by ethnic and
national groups throughout the former Soviet Bloc after the
collapse of communism.
Emotions were fueled further as Slovaks watched
the overwhelming majority of foreign investment during the
past two years flow into the Czech lands.
Tough post-revolution economic policies designed
by Klaus also hit Slovakia's obsolete, Soviet-designed heavy
industry disproportionately hard.
After an initial attempt last summer to meet
Slovak demands for independence within a loose confederation
with the Czech lands, Klaus has since insisted on a clean
break.
``On both sides, people aren't sure this is the
right way,'' said Martin Palous, a leader of the 1989
revolution who later became deputy foreign minister. ``The
biggest problem for professional politicians is to convince
people there are no alternatives.''
Saturday's rally showed that for many, the split
has already occurred.
Before leaving, those present held candles high
and sang Czechoslovakia's national anthem _ a slow, soulful
Czech melody that is followed by strains of brisk Slovak
music. The Slovak portion was missing.
Anti-Yeltsin Hard-Liners Stage Huge Show of Strength (Moscow)
By Carey Goldberg
(c) 1992, Los Angeles Times
MOSCOW _ With President Boris N. Yeltsin already
on the defensive, Russia's hard-line opposition staged its
most coordinated show of strength yet Saturday, holding
protest rallies in 60 cities across the country and gathering
its disparate leaders into a new National Salvation Front.
Yeltsin summoned his Cabinet for urgent talks on
``the state of the country,'' official Russian news agencies
reported, sparking widespread speculation that he was
deciding which ministers would have to be sacrificed to
public discontent.
There was no word from the Cabinet meeting
Saturday night, but some national media even predicted that
the Russian president could soon jettison the entire Cabinet,
a group of bright young economists whom he has accused of
caring too much about theory and not enough about people.
Tens of thousands of protesters, organized mainly
by labor unions, demonstrated in cities from Vladivostok to
St. Petersburg Saturday to demand the Cabinet's resignation
and an end to its attempts to push Russia toward a
market-driven economy.
``We absolutely must get rid of this illegitimate
government that came to power without people's support,''
unemployed architect Nadezhda Yuyukina said as she stood
among about 5,000 other largely elderly demonstrators in the
freezing cold of Moscow's October Square. ``They must go away
in disgrace. What we have now is chaos.''
About 2,000 delegates, gathered at the founding
congress of the National Salvation Front, applauded as
organizer Ilya Konstantinov told them that the new group
must ``struggle for power, and struggle for power in the
nearest future.''
The new front ``must be capable of changing the
course of history in our country,'' Konstantinov, a member of
Parliament, said.
The upsurge in opposition activity came just days
after Yeltsin lost his bid to postpone a session of the
Congress of People's Deputies, the country's highest
legislative body, that is expected to take him to task for
failures in his reform program. He rebuked lawmakers
afterward for ``sliding too far to the right'' and said that
he would not forget their disrespect.
But he was nonetheless clearly on the defensive,
and the prestigious Nezavisimaya Gazeta, or Independent
Newspaper, headlined its Saturday edition: ``Yeltsin will
have to change his team very soon _ fully or partially, that
is the question.''
Critical remarks that Yeltsin made in a recent
speech to Parliament have focused attention on Foreign Trade
Minister Pyotr Aven and Economics Minister Andrei Nechayev,
both of whom were singled out for censure. Most scenarios
hold that Yeltsin will replace them with choices that will
please conservatives in a preemptive move before the Dec. 1
congress.
That would not be enough to satisfy leaders of the
National Salvation Front. In speech after speech, they
condemned the poverty and injustice that they said Yeltsin's
reforms have brought Russia and demanded that the entire
Cabinet resign.
The Front must not resort to violence, they said,
but if Yeltsin refuses to change his policies, it must bring
about his resignation and a premature round of new elections
to the presidency and Parliament.
``We must act within the law, but act more
decisively than ever,'' Konstantinov said, ``because full
collapse ... is only a few months away.''
Alexander Prokhanov, editor of the nationalist
newspaper Den, or Day, said that life in Russia was now good
``only for rats and lies.''
``The Democrats in the city governments do nothing
but drink and steal,'' he said. ``Our writers die of hunger.
Our icons are stolen from our museums. Our girls are taught
to be prostitutes and our boys taught to be speculators.''
Yeltsin's nationalist opposition has tried
repeatedly to organize itself into a coordinated bloc and
failed, and although front leaders have gathered together an
impressive array of politicians and ideologues, it was not
clear that they would do any better.
Already, cracks could be seen between the
``right-wing'' or nationalist opposition and the
``left-wing'' or old-style Communist opposition, with
left-wing leaders pointedly staying away from the Front's
congress and running their own rallies instead.
And despite the opposition's growing strength,
Russian commentators continued to put their money on Yeltsin,
having seen him pull through many a bad situation using pure
political skill.
``In ancient Sparta, there were two kinds of
czars _ one for peace and one for war,'' analyst Nikolai
Svanidze said on Russian Television's nightly news. ``Boris
Yeltsin would have been a warring czar. In situations of
sharp conflict, he demonstrates his best qualities, making
quick and definite decisions.''
``Right now, that's the kind of situation we're
in,'' Svanidze said.
Pentagon Warned Bush Not to Send Weak Message to Hussein (Washn)
By Douglas Frantz
(c) 1992, Los Angeles Times
WASHINGTON _ Senior Pentagon officials tried
unsuccessfully to prevent President Bush from sending a
message to Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein a few days before the
invasion of Kuwait because they feared it was too weak to
halt Iraqi aggression, former administration officials said
Sunday.
The attempt to block the president's message came
as the Pentagon and Central Intelligence Agency were
increasingly convinced that Iraqi troops were preparing an
invasion of Kuwait, according to former officials and sources.
However, the State Department and White House
blocked the Pentagon attempt and Bush sent a cautious
communique to Hussein on July 28, 1990, just five days before
the invasion. Bush asked Hussein to avoid military action but
he did not name Kuwait and couched the request in terms of a
continued desire for friendship.
``By the 24th (of July), when the Iraqi troops
were moving, there was no question about how serious this
was,'' Henry S. Rowen, then the assistant secretary of
defense for international affairs, said in an interview.
``The particular instruction was unnecessarily weak in our
view.''
The disclosure of the Pentagon objection to Bush's
message, first reported in the New York Times, fuels the
debate over whether the Bush administration was stern enough
in dealing with Hussein in the days leading up to the invasion.
White House Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater
attributed the flap over the message to Hussein to a heated
presidential campaign in which Bush appears to be narrowing
the gap that Democratic nominee Bill Clinton enjoys.
He said that a lot of people are trying ``to
embarrass the president by saying: `I told him to do this and
he didn't want to do it. I advised him to be tough and be
weak or be strong.' It's crazy.''
Bush was first urged to send a strong warning to
Hussein in an administration options paper in May 1990. The
Iraqi leader was threatening to use his army to settle a
dispute with Kuwait over oil prices and the border between
the two countries.
The White House rejected the proposal, preferring
the assurances of its Arab allies that Hussein would not
resort to force and that he should be dealt with
diplomatically.
By late July, the Department of Defense was
concerned as 35,000 Iraqi troops moved to the border with
Kuwait. Sources said that reconnaissance satellites spotted
the Iraqis laying secure communications lines near the
border, evidence that they were serious about an invasion.
``Those of us at Defense were deeply concerned
about the Iraqi troop buildup and we thought they were going
to go,'' said Marvin C. Feuerwerger, a Middle East strategist
at the Department of Defense at the time and now an analyst
at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
On July 25, Hussein had met with U.S. Ambassador
April Glaspie and discussed his dispute with Kuwait and
U.S.-Iraq relations.
A personal response to Hussein from Bush was
drafted at the White House and State Department. The draft
was shown to Pentagon officials on July 27 and Rowen said
that they feared its cautious tone did not indicate a U.S.
willingness to defend Kuwait with military forces.
``We voiced objections to the State Department and
thought we had a hold on it,'' said Rowen, now a professor at
Stanford University and senior fellow at the conservative
Hoover Institution. ``It needed to be much tougher.''
By late July, CIA officials were alarmed by Iraq's
buildup on the Kuwaiti border. Infrared photography from a
spy satellite showed Iraqi troops hauling ammunition, fuel
and water to forces along the northern border with Kuwait,
according to ``Eclipse,'' a new book on the CIA by Mark Perry.
On the morning of July 28, according to the book,
CIA Director William H. Webster led a contingent of agency
officials to the White House to brief Bush. The satellite
photographs were presented to Bush, along with the CIA's
assessment that Hussein might attack Kuwait.
But later that day, the three-paragraph message
was sent to Hussein. Five days later, on Aug. 2, Iraq invaded
Kuwait.
A senior Bush administration official involved in
drafting the message to Hussein said that Saudi Arabia, Egypt
and Kuwait were urging Bush not to respond harshly. He
pointed out that Hussein had told Glaspie that he intended to
negotiate a resolution to his differences with Kuwait.
``The sense at that point was not to roil the
waters just when they w ere getting calm,'' said the official.
Congressional Democrats have accused Bush of being
too soft on Iraq in a number of areas, including continuing
U.S. credits for loans in the face of strong evidence of
Iraqi abuse. The administration has defended extending the
aid in part by citing a May 21, 1990, report by the
Department of Agriculture which found little evidence of
serious Iraqi abuses in the program.
An internal Department of Justice document
obtained by the Los Angeles Times provides the harshest
criticism yet of the report. The May 21, 1990, memo by a
federal prosecutor in Atlanta warned that the report was
inaccurate and could constitute misleading Congress if it
were released.
Prosecutor Gale McKenzie, who was leading the
investigation into the abuses in connection with a massive
bank fraud, urged the department to try to block the report's
release. But it was released anyway.
Baker Intervened for Iraq, Documents Show (Washn)
By R. Jeffrey Smith
(c) 1992, The Washington Post
WASHINGTON _ Then-Secretary of State James A.
Baker III personally intervened to extend U.S. loan
guarantees to Iraq three years ago, contravening explicit,
detailed warnings from a federal prosecutor that Iraqi
officials were implicated in criminal wrongdoing on past loan
guarantees, according to government documents.
Baker, who now is White House chief of staff, took
the action at a time the State Department was anxious to
obtain Iraqi support for a U.S. plan, worked out with Egypt,
for a new dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians on peace
in the Middle East, the documents indicate.
The prosecutor's warnings included details of
``criminal complicity'' in the Banca Nazionale del Lavoro
(BNL) scandal by Iraqi officials who participated in
negotiations with the Bush administration for $1 billion in
loan guarantees, which were granted in November 1989.
The prosecutor, however, did not secure indictment
of the Iraqis until the end of the Persian Gulf War in
February 1991. By then, the United States had released $500
million of the loan guarantees, which Iraq is now considered
unlikely to repay.
The documents, released Saturday by the Senate
Agriculture Committee, shed new light on events surrounding
the 1989 loan guarantee decision, the most generous of the
Bush administration's myriad efforts to curry favor with
Iraqi President Saddam Hussein before the gulf war.
They raise new questions whether Baker's
insistence on the loan guarantee program prompted other
goverment officials, including senior officials at the
Agriculture Department, to ignore or deliberately
misrepresent the prosecutor's warnings of Iraqi wrongdoing.
``This is just another example of how the Bush
administration ignored the warning signs in its blind pursuit
of closer ties with Saddam Hussein,'' Senate Agriculture
Committee Chairman Patrick J. Leahy, D-Vt., said.
The documents reveal that Baker responded angrily
when the Agriculture Department cited the reports of Iraqi
wrongdoing in briefly suspending negotiations on new loan
guarantees in October 1989. At an Oct. 13 meeting, Baker told
staff members that was ``a step in the wrong direction'' and
ordered them to ``get it back onto the table,'' according to
notes taken at the meeting.
State Department legal adviser Abraham D. Sofaer
subsequently dispatched one of his deputies, Michael K.
Young, to lobby the Agriculture Department for a reversal of
its decision, while then-Deputy Secretary of State Lawrence
S. Eagleburger lobbied senior Treasury Department officials
who also opposed granting new guarantees.
Undersecretary of State Robert M. Kimmitt also
lobbied various officials at Baker's request, according to
the documents. On Nov. 9, after an interagency decision to
approve the $1 billion in loan guarantees, Kimmitt told Baker
he could ``break the good news to Foreign Minister Tariq
Aziz, since he raised the issue with you, and you promised to
take a personal interest in it.''
``This decision by the administration reflects the
importance we attach to our relationship with Iraq,'' Baker
told Aziz in a confidential telex the same day. Baker added
that ``it would be useful if you could weigh in with (the
Palestinians) and ... urge them to give a positive response
to Egypt's suggestions'' about Middle East peace.
The memos make clear how unsettling the
revelations from the BNL probe were to the officials charged
with keeping the loan guarantee program on track. The
investigation of the Italian-owned bank began in late July
1989, when two employees from BNL's Atlanta branch told
authorities of a massive, unreported effort to help Iraq
finance billions of dollars' worth of food and arms purchases.
Within two weeks, federal agents raided the
Atlanta branch and learned that more than $1 billion of BNL's
illegal loans to Iraq had been guaranteed by the Agriculture
Department's Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC). They also
discovered that senior Iraqi officials were deeply involved
in kickbacks, bribes and other illicit BNL loans that did not
involve the CCC.
novine.138.bale.,
The New York Times Sunday, October 25
CONVERSATIONS / Emir Kusturica
A Bosnian Movie Maker Laments
The Death of the Yugoslav Nation
He is a desplaced person; a Bosnian who cannot return to
Bosnia, a Slav of Muslim origin who never practiced Islam, a
Yugoslav patriot whose Yugoslav culture has been demolished.
Emir Kusturica, the director from Sarajevo whose films
have won major international awards, is living the title of
his last movie, "Time of the Gypsies." as he alternates
residences between a room in Morningside Heights in Manhattan
and an apartmant in Paris, he wonderes whether anything
remains of his family memorabilia in his place of birth the
shattered capital of B&H.
Talk pours out of him like the water of the swift-flowing
rivers of his homeland; he spoke recently for a stretchof
three hours in an Upper West Side cafe near Columbia
University , where, with breaks for filming he teaches film
studies.
He said that for several years after Tito died in 1980,
Yugoslavia was a kind of superpower. Great movies. Beautiful
novels. Great rock-and-roll. We became a superpower in
basketball.
"I never wanted an independant Bosnia," he said of his
homeland, the breakaway Yugoslav republic now engulfed by
war."I wanted Yugoslavia. That is my country."
"The problem is that people needed to identify more
strongly with it after Tito and his awful, tricky way of
leading the country,"Mr.Kus- turica said. "Instead, religion
got in the way through nationalism -the same as 500 years
ago - as the main generator of emotions .At a certain moment,
Yugoslavia stopped being rational, and then you end up going
to war".
At the beginning of October, Mr. Kusturica ,37 years old,
returned briefly to a fragment of the former Yugoslavia, the
Montenegrin coastal town of Herceg Novi. He went there to
bury his father, who had died of a heart attack at age 70 in
an apartment the son had leased after getting him out of the
war zone.
"This war killed him too," he said."My father got hit by
invisible lightning. I compare the death of my father and the
death of the country."
While on the Adriatic coast, the director encountered
Bosnian Serbs on furlough from the front lines of fighting in
the republic. one of them related an experience that to Mr.
Kusturica epitomized the absurdity of the Balkan war.
"I spoke to a Serbian warrior who told me of coming home
to his belongings and money," Mr.Kusturica said. "They
actually scraped the wallpaper off his walls." He said the
pillagers apparently presumed that the dwelling belonged not
to a Serb but to a Muslim.
"Scratching off wallpaper, that is the symbol of this
war,"Mr.Kus- turica said. "The essence of this war is plunder
on all sides. In May, Muslim militiamen looted my father's
apartment in Sarajevo. They even took my film prizes."
Mr. Kusturica said his personal heritage reflects the
essential Bosnian experience of domination by the Ottoman
Turks from the 15th century until early this century.
"I am a living illustration of Bosnian mixing and
converting," he said. "My greandparents lived in eastern
Hercegovina. Very poor. The Turks came and brought Islam.
There were three brothers in the family. One was Ortodox
Christian. The other two took Islam to survive.
Bosnians, in Mr. Kusturica's view , are not very
religious, and though he read the Bible and the Koran "for
personal educati on," he described himself as having "a nice
pagan, tolerant point of view." This, he said, corresponds to
the "certain paganism which appears in paintings, in movies,
in books" that is characteristic of Bosnian culture, although
Bosnia was also a nexus of Catolic, Ortodox andIslamic faiths
and a center of Jewish culture as well.
Mr.Kusturica's films have almost by definition been
transcultural-the oddball Sarajevo love story ,"Do you
remember Dolly Bell?" (Gold lion 1981) ;the growing up in
Sarajevo story,"When Father Was Away on Business" (Golden
Palm 1985); and "Time of Gypsies" (Rosellini award for
directing 1989) His Sarajevo films got him into a lot of
trouble with Bosnian Muslims "because I showed that Muslims
could be silly , too."
He has just completed his first English-speaking film, a
view of American society called "Arizona Dream", which is
scheduled for release early next year, and he soon will start
work on a version of "Crime and Punishment" set in Brighton
Beach.
A conversation with Emir Kusturica comes back again and
again to Ivo Andric , the Bosnian writer who won the Nobel
prise for Literature in 1961 for his epic "Bridge on the
Drina".The late author's 100th birthday on Oct.10 went
unmarked in the lands of the former Yugoslavia.
Since Mr.Andric's death in 1975, Mr. Kusturica has wanted
to make a film based on the novel, which chronicles Bosnian
history using the Turkish bridge of stone at Visegrad and the
role it plays in the lives of people living along the
river."I should make this film", he said. "But they would
kill me."
"It is like the Bible," he said. "Andric was a Serb with a
Croat name, Ivo. He was one of the very few people who
understood Bosnian Muslims. He tells what it means when
people's minds are poisoned. But I know people in Sarajevo
who think Andric was a criminal. "One of those ,he said, is
Alija Izetbegovic, the President of B&H, who is a
Muslimfundamentalist.
He said that when a Muslim blew up the Andric statue at
the Visegrad bridge, the Izetbegovic Government hailed the
bomber as a hero. "You can't lead the country thinking Andric
was an awful writer and a bed person," he said.
At 6 feet 3 inches and 185 pounds , Mr.Kusturica has tha
look of an athlete. He was once offered a contract by a
soccer team, he said "I was a big fighter when I was younger
,"he recalled ."In bars I was ready to explode and fight.
"The last fight I had was in Sarajevo,"he said."May 1990,a
literary club was to be opened ,with a chair dedicated to
Andric.I was invited to speak. I was going to read an Andric
story on hatred in Bosnia. Before I came to it, a drunk poet,
not a good poet ,started screaming, 'You traitors ,Serbs, go
to Belgrade!' A second, a third time. He was destroying the
evening. I just lost it. I pulled him out. I hit him. I came
back breathing hard while I was reciting Andric, that Andric
warning against hatred. Next day those small Titoists who
became democrats all of sudden started attacking me as a Serb.
"That was the time I said ,'So long' "
Was the creation of Yugoslavia - mixing nations
,religions and languages under one Government - a mistake? "I
don't think so. No Yugoslavia means no Andric."
Could he return to Sarajevo?
"I don't think so. They told me they're going to kill me
if I came."
By David Binder
novine.139.bale.,
RFE/RL Daily Report
No. 206, 26 October 1992
SUCCESSOR STATES TO THE USSR
ANTI-GOVERNMENT FORCES REACH DUSHANBE. In the morning of 24
October, forces from Kulyab Oblast who support deposed Tajik
President Rakhmon Nabiev entered Dushanbe and seized the
presidential palace, the Supreme Soviet building and the radio and
TV centers, Interfax and other news agencies reported. The former
speaker of the Tajik parliament, Safarali Kenzhaev, broadcast a
statement accusing the anti-Communist coalition of democratic,
nationalist and Islamic groups of seeking to force Muslim
fundamentalism on Tajikistan and of having started the civil war
that has raged in the country since June. Kenzhaev, who was forced
out of office in May in a compromise between Nabiev and the
opposition coalition, announced that the Kulyab "National Front"
intended to restore the government that had been in office before
opposition figures were added in May. (Bess Brown, RFE/RL, Inc.)
FIGHTING IN DUSHANBE. Fighting continued in Dushanbe on 24 and 25
October, according to Interfax and other agencies in the Tajik
capital. Hundreds of people were reported to have been killed.
According to some reports, government supporters, hastily
reinforced by pro-government fighters from outside Dushanbe,
succeeded in recapturing some of the buildings occupied by the
forces from Kulyab. On 25 October a ceasefire was agreed to.
Russian forces stationed in Tajikistan were ordered to remain
neutral; their commander persuaded Kenzhaev and acting President
Akbarsho Iskandarov to meet. The two agreed on convening an
emergency session of the Tajik legislature to discuss the forced
resignation of Nabiev and to try to end the civil war. (Bess Brown,
RFE/RL, Inc.)
RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTRY ON TAJIKISTAN. On 24 October, the Russian
Foreign Ministry issued an official statement on developments in
Tajikistan. "A real threat of a further escalation of the conflict
and of expansion of the civil war persists. This is fraught with
disastrous consequences for the territorial integrity of Tajikistan
and the security of the entire Central Asian region. The destiny
of Russian citizens and the Russian-speaking population in that
country is a matter of particular concern for the leadership of the
Russian Federation." The statement also explained that Russian
troops, while neutral, had been instructed to guarantee the
security of certain installations, ITAR-TASS reported on 25
October. (Suzanne Crow, RFE/RL, Inc.)
KOZYREV THREATENS "IRRESPONSIBLE ELEMENTS." Russian Foreign
Minister Andrei Kozyrev said in an interview with ITAR-TASS
published on 25 October that the Russian Federation's Security
Council and the Russian parliament should hold special sessions to
discuss the security of Russians and Russian-speakers in
Tajikistan. The point of such meetings would be a "coordinated
strategy of legislative and executive power which would leave
irresponsible elements, wherever they may be, in no doubt that the
entire might of the Russian state is poised to defend human rights,
including the rights of Russians and of the Russian-speaking
population." (Suzanne Crow, RFE/RL, Inc.)
REPORTS OF CHANGES IN RUSSIAN CABINET. Amid a flurry of reports
that cabinet changes were imminent, a cabinet meeting, and a
one-on-one meeting between Yeltsin and Gaidar took place on 24
October, according to Russian and Western agencies. No official
announcement of changes has been reported. During a visit to
Tolyatti on 25 October, Gaidar denied that a government shakeup was
imminent. He did not completely exclude changes, but said that
radical changes would not be made before the session of the
Congress of People's Deputies, scheduled for 1 December. (Keith
Bush, RFE/RL, Inc.)
ANTI-GOVERNMENT DEMONSTRATIONS. Weekend anti-government
demonstrations took place in various Russian cities on 24 and 25
October, Western news agencies reported on 26 October.
Approximately 10,000 demonstrators gathered in the center of Moscow
to demand the resignation of President Yeltsin. Similar
demonstrations were reported in St. Petersburg, the Far East, and
Siberia. In Moscow, leading hardliners, such as General Albert
Makashov, Colonel Viktor Alksnis, the Communist deputy leader
Sergei Baburin, and the writer Aleksandr Prokhanov, founded a
"National Salvation Front," which declared as its goal the removal
of the president and his cabinet by "constitutional means." The
front advocated new elections for all constitutional bodies in
early 1993. (Alexander Rahr, RFE/RL, Inc.)
YELTSIN'S AIDES SAID TO ADVOCATE DISSOLUTION OF PARLIAMENT. On 23
and 24 October, "Vesti" cited unidentified "circles close to
Russian President [Yeltsin]" as advocating the introduction of what
was termed "direct presidential rule" in Russia. One result of this
move would be the "dissolution of parliament," according to
"Vesti." On 24 October, Russian TV broadcast a special meeting of
the leaders of the Russian Democratic Reform Movement, whose
chairman, the former mayor of Moscow, Gavrill Popov, asserted that
the introduction of direct presidential rule would be only "a
temporary retreat from democracy." The idea to disband parliament
arose in response to the refusal of Russian legislators to postpone
the next Congress of People's Deputies, whose membership includes
many ex-communists who are critical of Yeltsin's reform program.
(Julia Wishnevsky, RFE/RL, Inc.)
KHASBULATOV'S HEALTH SUFFERS; HIS GUARD AT ODDS WITH POLICE.
Parliamentary speaker Ruslan Khasbulatov has been hospitalized
suffering after suffering a sudden increase in blood pressure at a
parliamentary session on 22 October, Rossiiskaya gazeta reported on
23 October. Before the session, Khasbulatov had told journalists
that he did not expect to die a natural death, and complained that
the former KGB was keeping him under constant surveillance. Some
officials have accused Khasbulatov of planning a coup. More
information is coming to light about the speaker's 5,000-strong
parliamentary guard, three members of which exchanged shots last
week with Moscow police, who were intervening in defense of a taxi
driver who was being threatened by a relative of Khasbulatov.
(Alexander Rahr, RFE/RL, Inc.)
GRACHEV: MILITARY SUPPORTS PRESIDENT. Russian Defense Minister
Pavel Grachev released a statement on 23 October in which he
reaffirmed that the military supported the lawfully elected Russian
President, according to ITAR-TASS. Grachev rather ambiguously
warned politicians who criticized the government and President that
they were not aware of the consequences, both political and
potentially violent, of their actions. The statement came after a
22 October Defense Ministry Collegium meeting, in which the members
unanimously disagreed with the sentiments of the open letter
published in Pravda on 21 October by conservative deputies.
According to an Izvestiya account of 24 October, the officers were
upset over the increasingly confrontational approach taken by the
Russian Supreme Soviet and conservative groups. (John Lepingwell,
RFE/RL, Inc.)
ADVISERS TO RUSSIAN DEFENSE MINISTER RESIGN. Three advisers to the
Russian Defense Minister have resigned, according to an Interfax
report of 24 October. The advisers, A. Yevstigneev, G. Melkov, and
V.Sadovnik, reportedly were protesting Grachev's statement of
support for Yeltsin. According to the "Shield" union, the advisers
felt it inappropriate to support the person of the President,
rather than the Constitution, and were concerned that Grachev was
interfering in a political matter. They called for the armed
forces to remain neutral. The Russian Defense Ministry claimed,
however, that the advisers had been dismissed on 21 October for
failing to fulfill their duties. (John Lepingwell, RFE/RL, Inc.)
NATIONAL SALVATION FRONT ORGANIZER CLAIMS OFFICERS' BACKING. The
Chairman of the Russian Officers' Union, Stanislav Terekhov,
claimed that 99% of Russian officers support the goals of the new
National Salvation Front, and dismissed Grachev's declaration of
support for Yeltsin. While admitting that the officers may support
Yeltsin more than the Gaidar government, he brushed off Grachev's
comments as coming from a "well-fed corrupted military" in contrast
to the hardships faced by regular officers. Terekhov's union
claims only 10,000 members, and no evidence was provided to support
his statements. (John Lepingwell, RFE/RL, Inc.)
RYZHOV TO SECURITY COUNCIL? On 24 October, Interfax reported that
Yuri Ryzhov, the Russian Ambassador to France, had been summoned to
Moscow to attend a conference on 27 October. According to
Interfax, reform-oriented groups are urging that Ryzhov be placed
on the Russian Security Council in order to counterbalance the
conservative Council Secretary, Yurii Skokov. Before becoming
Ambassador, Ryzhov was director of the Moscow Aviation Institute.
He was also a member of the Soviet Congress of People's Deputies
where he advocated radical military reform. (John Lepingwell,
RFE/RL, Inc.)
RUSSIA CAN REPORTEDLY KEEP MISSILE RADAR IN LATVIA. Sergei Zotov,
the leader of the Russian delegation to the talks with Latvia on
the withdrawal of Russian military forces, said that Latvia has
agreed to allow Russia to continue using the missile-warning radars
at Skrunda (120 kilometers west of Riga) after the departure of
Russian troops from Latvia. Zotov's remarks were reported by the
Baltic News Service. The Skrunda complex formed a vital link in the
Soviet Union's anti-ballistic missile defenses. A "Hen House"
radar used for missile warning and space tracking is located there,
and a new, large phased-array radar similar to the one built near
Krasnoyarsk has been under construction there for years. (Doug
Clarke, RFE/RL, Inc.)
BULK OF RUSSIAN BALTIC FLEET TO KALININGRAD. Admiral Feliks
Gromov, the commander in chief of the Russian Navy, was quoted by
Mayak Radio on 23 October as saying that the bulk of the former
Soviet Baltic Fleet would be transferred from the Baltic states to
the naval base at Baltiisk, in Kaliningrad Oblast--the 15,000
square kilometer Russian enclave cut off from the rest of Russia by
Lithuania and Belarus. A small part of the forces would be
transferred to locations in northwestern Russia and to the
Kronstadt naval base near St. Petersburg. Baltiisk has long been
the headquarters for the Baltic Fleet and the homeport for some of
the largest ships of the fleet. However, most of the warships have
been based in Estonia and Latvia, particularly at Liepaja. (Doug
Clarke, RFE/RL, Inc.)
UKRAINIAN OPPOSITION FORCES TO UNITE? Representatives of several
opposition groups held a news conference on 23 October in Kiev at
which they announced their intention to form a united bloc,
DR-Press reported. The press conference was attended by
representatives from New Ukraine, the Congress of National
Democratic Forces, the Union of Ukrainian Students, and the
All-Ukrainian Association of Solidarity with Toilers. "Rukh" was
reportedly not represented because of Vyacheslav Chornovil's
participation at a local conference in Lviv. The participants
called attention to the danger of a "red putsch" in Ukraine.
(Roman Solchanyk, RFE/RL, Inc.)
INTRODUCTION OF NEW UKRAINIAN CURRENCY. On 25 October, Andrei
Nechayev, citing Ukrainian Prime Minister Leonid Kuchma, said that
Ukraine will delay the introduction of the accounting unit, the
karbovanets, until next year, while the introduction of the
Ukrainian national currency, the grivna, will be delayed
"indefinitely," Interfax reported. The deputy head of the
Ukrainian National Bank told Reuters on 25 October that Ukraine
will introduce the karbovanets by the end of 1992. He confirmed
that Ukraine must delay the introduction of a convertible national
currency until it has built up foreign currency reserves, and
suggested that "it would be good if our Western partners could
support us with a stabilization fund worth $1-1.5 billion." (Keith
Bush, RFE/RL, Inc.)
UKRAINE PROTESTS BLACK SEA FLEET APPOINTMENT. Ukrainian Defense
Minister Constantin Morozov on 24 October described the recent
appointment of Vice Admiral Petr Svyatashov to be chief of staff of
the Black Sea Fleet as a "one-sided action" breaching the Yalta
agreements on the future of the fleet. According to Interfax,
Ukraine has barred the admiral from assuming his new duties.
Svyatashov was appointed by Russian Defense Minister Pavel Grachev.
In August, Yeltsin and Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk agreed
to place the disputed Black Sea Fleet under joint control for a
three-year interim period. The leaders of Russia and Ukraine were
to share authority over the fleet and jointly appoint its
commanders. (Doug Clarke, RFE/RL, Inc.)
NAKHICHEVAN "COUP ATTEMPT" FAILS. A group of some 200 armed
supporters of the ruling Azerbaijan Popular Front (AzPF) occupied
the Interior Ministry and TV center in Nakhichevan for five hours
on 24 October before being dislodged by police, ITAR-TASS and
Interfax reported. Some 35,000 people assembled in front of the
occupied buildings to protest what Nakhichevan Parliament Chairman
Geidar Aliev, in an interview given to Radio Liberty, termed a coup
attempt by the Baku government. An Azerbaijan Popular Front
spokesman in Baku denied Aliev's claims. Relations between Aliev
and the AzPF deteriorated when the Nakhichevan parliament rejected
Baku's proposed candidate for the post of Nakhichevan Interior
Minister. (Liz Fuller, RFE/RL, Inc.)
MOLDOVA APPEALS TO U.N. The office of the U.N. Secretary General
Boutros Ghali on 25 October distributed as a U.N. document a
message addressed to Ghali by Moldovan Foreign Minister Nicolae
Tiu, protesting Russia's "interference in the internal affairs" of
Moldova and other independent states "on the pretext of defending
the rights of ethnic Russians." Russia's policy, Tiu wrote, poses
"the threat of destabilization" to Moldova and other states. The
message renewed Moldova's appeal to the U.N. to send military
observers to monitor the implementation of the Moldovan-Russian
convention on settling the conflict in eastern Moldova and also to
attend as observers the Moldovan-Russian negotiations on the
withdrawal of Russia's 14th Army from Moldova, the Moldovan media
reported. (Vladimir Socor, RFE/RL, Inc.)
CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE
POSTCOMMUNIST PARTY TOPS VOTE IN LITHUANIAN ELECTIONS. In the
elections to the Lithuanian Seimas held on 25 October, the
successor to the Lithuanian Communist Party appears to have
captured the largest share of the vote, Radio Lithuania reports.
According to initial reports by the German-French polling firm
INFAS, the postcommunist Lithuanian Democratic Labor Party (LDLP)
captured about 40% of the vote and is likely win 35 of the 70 seats
awarded in the proportional system. The Sajudis coalition is set to
win 18 seats, the Christian-Democratic Party (in coalition with the
Democratic Party and Union of Political Prisoners) - 10 seats, the
Social-Democratic Party - 5, and the Union of Poles - 2 seats. The
numbers may change as the "Young Lithuania" coalition, now with
3.9% of the vote, may pass the 4% barrier when all the votes are
counted. At a press conference on 26 October, election commission
chairman Vaclovas Litvinas said that preliminary results from the
71 single-mandate districts so far show 14 winners, 10 of whom are
members of the LDLP. (Saulius Girnius, RFE/RL, Inc.).
CONSTITUTION APPROVED IN LITHUANIAN REFERENDUM. Election
commission chairman Litvinas added that preliminary results
indicated that the referendum on the new Lithuanian Constitution
had been approved by about 53% of eligible voters and had thus
passed. Radio Lithuania reports that about 85% of those taking part
in the elections supported the referendum. Voter turnout was over
70%. (Saulius Girnius, RFE/RL, Inc.)
CZECHOSLOVAKIA BEGINS DAMMING THE DANUBE. On 24 October
Czechoslovak authorities started damming the Danube riverbed at
Cunovo with the aim of diverting some of the river's water to the
canal leading to the hydroelectric power plant at Gabcikovo, CSTK
reported. The work started despite protests by the Hungarian
government that the diversion of the Danube unilaterally changes
the Slovak-Hungarian border and will cause widespread ecological
damage. On 23 October Hungary officially invoked the CSCE
emergency procedure designed to resolve international conflicts.
Hungary also turned to the International Court of Justice in the
Hague. The European Community's executive arm reported on 23
October that it had failed to resolve the conflict in talks with
Hungarian and Czechoslovak officials. Also on 23 October, Slovak
Prime Minister Vladimir Meciar accused Hungary of using the issue
for political purposes. Michal Kovac, chairman of the Federal
Assembly, said that Hungary is using the issue "to stop the march
of Slovakia toward sovereignty." On 24 October, Hungary asked
United Nations Secretary-General Boutrous Boutrous-Ghali to "help
find means for a peaceful settlement of the debate," MTI reported.
The Slovak Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement on 24
October in which it said that the dam dispute is "being needlessly
dramatized." (Jiri Pehe, RFE/RL, Inc.)
HUNGARIAN PRESIDENT JEERED AT 1956 COMMEMORATION. A hostile crowd
consisting mostly of skinheads prevented President Arpad Goncz from
delivering an address commemorating the 36th anniversary of the
1956 revolution, MTI reported on October 23. Before Goncz could
start speaking, the crowd began to boo and shouted "Down with
Goncz," and "Resign." The crowd also called out its support for the
government and for Istvan Csurka, the controversial Hungarian
Democratic Forum deputy chairman, Western news agencies report. The
Prime Minister's Office and the Ministry of the Interior expressed
regret over the incident and denied opposition charges that the
government and the coalition parties bore responsibility for it.
The Ministry of the Interior categorically rejected charges that it
had supported or organized the incident. Budapest deputy police
chief Janos Lazar argued that the police could not have intervened
because under Hungarian law it is not a crime to shout Nazi slogans
or wear Nazi symbols. (Edith Oltay, RFE/RL, Inc.)
END-GAME APPROACHING FOR BOSNIAN MUSLIMS? International media on
24-25 October reported that Serbian forces in northern Bosnia were
moving in on Gradacac, a largely Muslim town defended by Croats and
Muslims. Meanwhile in central Bosnia, fighting between Croats and
Muslims spread from the Travnik-Vitez area northwest of Sarajevo to
Prozor, which is almost due west of the capital. The 25 October
Washington Post quoted a local Croatian commander as saying that
"this was a war, not a misunderstanding," and the Post charged that
Croatian troops "were hunting Muslims" as the anti-Serb marriage of
convenience between the two nationalities increasingly seemed to
have broken down. Reuters on 25 October reported a rise on
Croat-Muslim tensions in Mostar. Muslims fear that the Croats and
Serbs have already agreed on a plan to partition Bosnia-Herzegovina
between them, leaving the Muslims with a tiny, landlocked state at
best. According to this theory, the current Croat attacks on
Muslims are an effort to consolidate their positions. (Patrick
Moore, RFE/RL, Inc.)
MILOSEVIC AGAIN ELECTED AS SOCIALIST PARTY PRESIDENT. Radio Serbia
reported on 24 October that Serbia's President Slobodan Milosevic
was elected as president of the ruling Socialist Party of Serbia
(SPS, formerly the communist party) during the party's two-day
congress. Of the 934 delegates, 915 voted for Milosevic, who was
the only candidate. Milosevic was SPS president when the party was
founded over two years ago, but resigned soon after being elected
president of the republic in December 1990. Serbia's constitution
does not permit the President of the republic to hold the
chairmanship of any political party. Before the party congress,
Milosevic said that if re-elected he would not resign as Serbia's
president, but would turn his party duties over to general
secretary Milomir Minic. He told the congress that the crisis in
the country was not the result of developments in Serbia alone, but
was largely due to international factors. (Milan Andrejevich,
RFE/RL, Inc.)
PANIC'S 100 DAYS. On 25 October, Prime Minister of the federal
rump Yugoslav government Milan Panic said Milosevic's re-election
reminded him of "the best communist traditions." Panic added that
if the people still vote for Milosevic and the SPS in December
"they deserve what they get." On 24 October Panic held a news
conference to distribute a list of 46 achievements from his first
100 days in office. These included his own election, his meetings
in Kosovo with ethnic Albanian leaders, and the arrest of
paramilitary leaders accused of atrocities in Bosnia and
Herzegovina. His major aims--peace in Bosnia and the lifting of UN
sanctions--remain unfulfilled. He announced that elections to the
federal Chamber of Citizens will be held on 20 December, with
elections to the Chamber of Republics to follow within 30 days.
Both houses will then elect a President and Prime Minister. Panic
is not a candidate for either house, but expressed confidence that
the federal assembly would reelect him as prime minister, Radio
Serbia reported. (Milan Andrejevich, RFE/RL, Inc.)
SUCHOCKA RETURNS FROM ROME. Speaking to journalists in Warsaw after
returning from a two-day private visit to Rome, Polish Prime
Minister Hanna Suchocka said that Pope John Paul II had expressed
confidence that Poland will be a stabilizing factor in Eastern
Europe. Suchocka had a 40-minute private audience with the Pope on
23 October. She also met with Italian prime minister Giuliano
Amato. Suchocka told reporters that her talks with Amato had
helped to ease Italy's qualms about allowing Poland to use the $10
billion stabilization fund provided by Western countries for
banking reform. (Louisa Vinton, RFE/RL, Inc.)
POLISH ECONOMY SHOWS IMPROVEMENT. At a joint press conference in
Warsaw on 23 October, Poland's Main Statistical Office and Central
Planning Board presented a cautiously optimistic economic
prognosis. Industrial production has risen steadily since April.
Production for the first three quarters of 1992 was 1.2% higher
than at the same point in 1991; by the end of 1992, it could exceed
the 1991 tallies by 2%. This growth was attributed to the creeping
devaluation of the zloty, which promotes exports; increased demand
for better quality domestic products; and a 10.5% leap in labor
productivity. Exports are so far 11.8% higher than in the
comparable period of 1991, and Poland posted a third-quarter trade
surplus of over $1 billion. Despite these positive trends,
national income is still expected to be 2% below 1991 figures, and
investment, 3%. The budget deficit is expected to amount to 8.1%
of GDP by year's end; unemployment is to rise to 14.7%; and real
wages are to drop by 5%. Yearly inflation is forecast at 47% for
1992. (Louisa Vinton, RFE/RL, Inc.)
POLISH DEFENSE REFORM MOVES FORWARD. Defense Minister Janusz
Onyszkiewicz signed an order on 22 October that restricts the
ministry to the civilian role of political oversight over the armed
forces and puts the general staff in charge of strictly military
matters. This measure, eliminating the dual function performed by
the ministry under communism, is designed to make the armed forces
immune to political interference. The defense ministry now has
three departments: training; strategy; and military infrastructure.
Military intelligence and military courts answer directly to the
defense minister. President Lech Walesa and Prime Minister Hanna
Suchocka addressed a meeting of the officer corps on 22 October.
Walesa restated his opposition to legislated lustration of the army
and criticized draft evasion. While pledging to increase defense
spending as soon as possible, Suchocka expressed doubt that new
funds would be available in 1993. (Louisa Vinton, RFE/RL, Inc.)
ILIESCU AIDE SUGGESTS OPPOSITION MAY BE INVITED TO FORM CABINET.
Romania's Foreign Minister Adrian Nastase, a top aide to President
Ion Iliescu, suggested on 24 October that the opposition Democratic
Convention might be asked to form the next government if the
Democratic National Salvation Front (DNSF) declined to do it.
Nastase told Rompres that the DNSF, the party that backed Iliescu's
re-election, did not want to rule "at any price" without support
from reformist parties. The DNSF emerged from the 27 September
elections as the strongest party but failed to win a majority.
(Dan Ionescu, RFE/RL, Inc.)
ROMANIAN OPPOSITION PLEDGES TO SUPPORT DNSF MINORITY GOVERNMENT.
On 25 October four groups belonging to the centrist Democratic
Convention (DC) issued jointly with the National Salvation Front
(NSF) a statement pledging support for a minority government led by
their rival, the Democratic National Salvation Front (DNSF), on the
condition that that party continues political and economic reforms.
The four DC members are the National Peasant Party--Christian
Democratic, the Liberal Alliance, the Party of Civic Alliance, and
the Romanian Social-Democratic Party. The statement says that the
move is designed to obviate the need for the DNSF to court
extremist political groups, which could "push the country to the
brink of disaster." (Dan Ionescu, RFE/RL, Inc.)
LATVIAN-RUSSIAN TALKS INCONCLUSIVE. A two-day round of
Latvian-Russian talks on the withdrawal of Russian troops from
Latvia ended inconclusively on 24 October. Russian delegation
leader Sergei Zotov told Interfax on 24 October that a wide range
of problems had been resolved, suggesting that the Latvian side had
acquiesced to most of the Russian demands, including Russian
oversight of the Skrunda radar station even after the troops
depart. Although a report by the Latvian side is not yet
available, the protocol signed by both sides indicates that no
breakthrough was achieved on any of the major issues; for example,
no accord was reached on the Skrunda radar. Moreover, the Latvian
side wants the troops out by 1993, while the Russian side "does not
rule out the possibility of pulling out its troops in 1994" if
other conditions are met. (Dzintra Bungs, RFE/RL, Inc.)
PEOPLE'S FRONT OF LATVIA HOLDS FIFTH CONGRESS. At its fifth
congress on 24-25 October in Riga, the People's Front of Latvia
adopted new statutes that define the front as a political
organization that will field candidates for national and local
offices. The People's Front faction in the Supreme Council was
criticized for not upholding the PFL program; delegates demanded
that the faction no longer use the PFL name. Uldis Augskalns was
elected as the new PFL chairman on the second ballot; he defeated
Andrejs Rucs. Previous chairman Romualdas Razukas did not run,
Radio Riga reported on 25 October. (Dzintra Bungs, RFE/RL, Inc.)
BULGARIAN AGRARIAN PARTIES FINALLY TO UNITE? At a meeting of the
ruling bodies of BANU-United and BANU-Nikola Petkov on 25 October,
both parties approved a protocol confirming that they are to merge,
BTA reports. Formal unification will take place at a joint
congress, scheduled for 7 and 8 November, which is also to adopt a
new party platform and statutes. At the meeting agrarian leaders
claimed 95% of the local chapters are already in the process of
merging and that this time there is "no going back." During the
past three years there have been repeated efforts to reconcile the
vehemently anticommunist BANU--Nikola Petkov with its sister party
BANU--United, the successor of a communist satellite organization.
(Kjell Engelbrekt, RFE/RL, Inc.)
novine.140.bale.,
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Hercegovina (UPI) -- A coalition of
Bosnian and Croat defenders Monday claimed to have beaten
back a Serbian offensive against the central Bosnian town of
Jajce, forcing the Serbs to flee so fast they left their
weapons.
Also Monday, military leaders of the republic's three main
warring factions were gathering again in Sarajevo amid a rash
of local conflicts to open talks on ways of easing the
Bosnian war and preparing for a cease-fire.
Serbian forces reportedly entered Jajce during a heavy
artillery assault Sunday. Sarajevo radio said the allied
Croat and Muslim Slav- majority Bosnian forces fully repulsed
the invasion by Monday morning.
``The aggressor fled in panic, leaving behind weapons and
armored vehicles,'' said the radio, which relays official
Bosnian reports.
Bosnian-Croat skirmishes also were slowing Monday in towns
around Sarajevo, and leaders of the two ethnic factions in
Konjic formally agreed not to fight each other and to keep
the Serbs as their common enemy, Sarajevo radio reported.
The hotly-contested northern town of Gradacac came under
another night and morning of heavy Serbian artillery fire, it
said, but otherwise towns were relatively quiet along the
contested line between Serbia and the large region of
Serbian-controlled northwest Bosnia- Hercegovina.
Monday's meeting of the republic's Bosnian, Croat and Serb
military chiefs followed their unprecedented gathering Friday
at Sarajevo airport, where they planned to continue a regular
series of U.N.- mediated talks on ways of implementing
political agreements on ending the six-month-old Bosnian
conflict.
Sarajevo and much of the rest of the republic was
relatively quiet overnight and into Monday, although Serbian
forces in hills overlooking the capital unleashed a loud
artillery barrage in the morning on the Dobrinja apartment
complex near the airport.
U.N. Protection Force military observers counted 148
rounds of large artillery falling onto Bosnian-controlled
areas around Sarajevo during the 24- hour period that ended
at 5 p.m. Sunday and 41 rounds reaching Serbian- controlled
territory.
At least seven people were killed and 83 injured across
the republic in the 24-hour period that ended at 10 a.m.
Sunday, including two killed and 27 injured in Sarajevo,
Bosnian health officials said.
Also in Sarajevo, Stjepan Kljujic, one of two Croat
members of the multi-ethnic Bosnian presidency, said Sunday
he had not been informed of and would not recognize his
reported removal by the Croatian democratic community, HDZ.
Leaders of HDZ, the main party of Croats in
Bosnia-Hercegovina, voted Saturday to replace Kljujic with
party activist Miro Lasic in protest with Kljujic's refusal
to support a peace settlement in which the republic would be
divided along ethnic lines.
Bosnian Foreign Minister Haris Silajdzic, back in the
capital for his first time since war broke out more than six
months ago, criticized western governments for not providing
more support to the Bosnian people and said he was appealing
next to Gulf Arab states.
French Maj. Gen. Philippe Morillon, head of UNPROFOR's
Bosnian operations, planned to chair Monday's meeting of the
rival military leaders in Sarajevo before visiting Serb
leaders in the suburb of Ilidza and then returning downtown
to officially open his new headquarters.
A total of 19 relief flights carrying some 200 tons of aid
reached the city Sunday, but for the third straight day no
supplies were brought in by truck.
The U.N. relief effort by road into Sarajevo remained
hampered both by the loss of the Vitez warehouse and the
shutdown due to fighting of the main highway through Mostar.
Also Sunday, Serbian militiamen used heavy farm equipment
to block the Belgrade-Zagreb highway, barring U.N.-organized
convoys of journalists from meeting halfway and dealing a
setback to efforts to reopen the main land link between
Europe and the Middle East.
The Belgrade journalists convoy was seen off by Yugoslav
Prime Minister Milan Panic, who has been seeking the
reopening of the 200-mile highway as part of efforts to
normalize relations with Croatia broken by the Serb-Croat war.
Dobrica Cosic, president of the rump Yugoslav federation
of Serbia and Montenegro, was in Italy on Monday for talks
with Italian president Oscar Luigi Scalfaro and other
officials.
Although informal, the meeting with Scalfaro was to be the
first a western head of state has held with Cosic since the
communist-turned- nationalist and popular author was chosen
as president of the truncated Yugoslav union formed in April.
Cosic's trip was apparently aimed at promoting efforts by
him and his chief ally, Panic, to end the rump federation's
international isolation, which was deepened by the imposition
in may of U.N. economic sanctions.
novine.141.bale.,
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) -- Bosnia's war flared
on three fronts Sunday as Serbs, Croats and Muslims fought
for pieces of the disintegrating republic before peace
efforts intensify this week.
Bosnia's Muslim-led government, abandoned by its former
Croat allies as Serb rebels made more military gains, sent
700 reinforcements to central Bosnia, where Croat-Muslim
clashes have raged for days, Bosnian radio reported.
Croat militia leader Mate Boban moved to cripple
government forces further by calling on Croatian President
Franjo Tudjman to block any arms deliveries to Bosnian troops
through Croatia, Croatian television reported.
"Weapons coming from foreign countries for the Muslims are
presumed to be coming through Croatia," Boban said.
Fights between Serbs and Croats continued near Bosnia's
southern border with Croatia. Serb rebel leader Radovan
Karadzic threatened to relaunch warplanes, grounded by a U.N.
flight ban, to repel Croatian attacks, the Bosnian Serbs'
news agency, SRNA, reported.
Bosnia's war began after Serbs rebelled against majority
Muslims and Croats who voted for secession from Yugoslavia in
February. More than 14,000 people have died in the fighting.
When the fighting started, the Croats and Muslims formed
an alliance. But as it has collapsed, Serbs and Croats
increasingly have aligned their positions on partitioning
Bosnia along ethnic lines.
This development isolates Bosnia's government as
international mediators prepare to present a draft
constitution this week in Geneva as a basis for a peace deal.
Serbs and Croats, whose militias have seized virtually all
of Bosnia, want the document to enshrine the republic's
partition along ethnic lines.
Muslims oppose that idea, fearing Serbs and Croats will
annex large regions to Serbia and Croatia, disenfranchising
Muslims, Bosnia's most populous group.
Although Serbs and Croats seem to agree on splitting
Bosnia, they are still fighting over who gets what.
Fierce Serb-Croat clashes entered their fifth day Sunday
on a 42-mile front around Trebinje, a Serb stronghold in
eastern Herzegovina bordering Croatia.
The Belgrade-based Tanjug news agency said the Croats,
backed by a "hurricane" of artillery, tanks and rockets, were
advancing "regardless of human cost." It gave no casualty
figures.
In response, SRNA said Karadzic was seeking permission
from Geneva mediators to deploy his air force's 50 warplanes
there "because Serbian land ... is attacked by a foreign
country -- the republic of Croatia."
Croatian troops reportedly launched a major offensive on
Trebinje after the Yugoslav army withdrew earlier this month
from the nearby Prevlaka peninsula. Yugoslav President
Dobrica Cosic, who negotiated the Yugoslav pullout, protested
the attack in a letter to mediators at the Geneva conference.
Meanwhile, the Bosnian government sent 700 extra troops to
halt Croat-Muslim fighting around Prozor, 30 miles west of
Sarajevo, radio reported.
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) -- Bosnia's Muslim
led-government was further isolated Saturday as its former
Croat allies chose a radical separatist leader and Serb
rebels reported military gains.
Ejup Ganic, a senior Bosnian government official, said his
republic was being "attacked from both sides" and indicated
the Croat-Muslim clashes were being steered by the Croatian
government of President Franjo Tudjman.
The Bosnian arm of Tudjman's Croatian Democratic Union
chose radical Croat leader Mate Boban as its new leader in a
meeting at Posusje, near the Croatian border, according to
Croatian TV reporter Marinko Cavar.
Boban's militia, once allied with the Muslims, has taken
most of the one-third of Bosnia not already held by Serb
rebels, and has clashed with Bosnian government troops in
recent days, opening a second front in the war.
Earlier this year, Boban's forces declared the semi-state
of Herceg-Bosna in western Herzegovina bordering Croatia,
where Croatian flags now fly and the Croatian dinar is
accepted as legal tender.
The Serbs also have announced their own state.
The Democratic Union, while nominally declaring support
for a sovereign Bosnia, also announced that Croat communities
in the former Yugoslav republic would now "associate with
Herceg-Bosna," Cavar said.
In Belgrade meanwhile, Yugoslavia's President Dobrica
Cosic announced that early federal elections would be held
Dec. 20 in the country now comprising only Serbia and tiny
Montenegro. The election could weaken hardline Serbian
President Slobodan Milosevic.
Early elections are among the conditions set by the United
Nations for lifting tough economic sanctions against
Yugoslavia, imposed May 30 to punish it for provoking war in
Croatia and Bosnia.
But in a show of support for Milosevic, his Socialist
Party, formerly the Communists, elected him party president
by a 915-2 vote, the Belgrade-based Tanjug news agency
reported.
According to Tanjug, Bosnian Serb forces were closing in
on Gradacac, a government-held town in northern Bosnia. After
several days of fighting, Serbs had reached a hospital and
industrial zone on the town's edges, Tanjug reported.
If Gradacac falls, the rebel Serbs could move on Tuzla,
the government's last major northern stronghold after
Bosanski Brod fell earlier this month.
On the second front emerging in Bosnia's brutal civil war,
which has already claimed more than 14,000 lives,
Croat-Muslim fighting spread despite orders for calm on both
sides.
Croatian radio reported that Sefer Halilovic, Bosnia's
army chief, and leaders of the Croatian Defense Council, the
main Bosnian Croat militia, issued orders to cease hostilities.
The main Serbian opposition parties, which say federal
election rules favor the Socialists, plan to meet Monday to
consider whether to participate in the election, the Belgrade
daily Borba reported. They boycotted elections in May, the
first since the six-republic federation disintegrated in
1991.
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Hercegovina (OCT. 25) UPI - Serbian
forces Sunday stormed the central Bosnian town of Jajce,
while formerly allied Croat and Bosnian forces appeared
headed for a clash in the western Sarajevo suburb of Prozor,
officials and news reports said.
Also Sunday, in a new political skirmish, a Croat member
of the republic's multi-ethnic ruling presidency said he
would defy Croat nationalists who ordered his dismissal.
And Serbian militiamen used heavy farm equipment to block
the Belgrade-Zagreb highway, barring U.N.-organized convoys
of journalists from meeting halfway and dealing a setback to
efforts to reopen the main land link between Europe and the
Middle East.
The SRNA news agency of Bosnian Serb leader Radovan
Karadzic quoted radio in the Serb-held northwest city of
Banja Luka as saying Serbian forces entered Jajce amid heavy
street fighting.
SRNA said Serbian military sources had no comment on the
Banja Luka report, while Sarajevo radio, which relays
official Bosnian information, reported more intense fighting
and shelling around Jajce but said it could not confirm the
report.
The Croatian Defense Council has been the main defender
through months of heavy Serbian tacks on Jajce, the town
where Marshal Tito and his communist partisans declared the
founding of the former Yugoslavia in 1941.
New Croat-Bosnian fighting died down Sunday in towns
surrounding Sarajevo but worsened in the western suburb of
Prozor, where hundreds of both Croat and Bosnian
reinforcements were headed amid reports of heavy shelling,
Sarajevo radio said.
Serbian forces also made new threats in the republic's far
south, with Karadzic complaining of Croat attacks on Trebinje
and warning he would again use warplanes in spite of a
U.N.-ordered ban if they continued, Belgrade radio reported.
The Serbs also complained that Croats were violating terms
of a cease-fire on the Prevlaka peninsula near Dubrovnik by
flying their flag there, it said.
And the northwest Bosnian town of Gradacac, the focus of
heavy Serbian attacks since Croatian defenders withdrew from
nearby Bosanski Brod two weeks ago, suffered another day of
heavy artillery attacks, the radio said.
Sarajevo and much of the rest of the republic was
relatively quiet, although at least two people were killed
and four injured in artillery attacks on the capital, it said.
Also in Sarajevo, Stjepan Kljujic, one of two Croat
members of the multi-ethnic Bosnian presidency, said had not
been informed of and would not recognize his reported removal
by the Croatian Democratic Community, HDZ.
Leaders of HDZ, the main party of Croats in
Bosnia-Hercegovina, voted Saturday to replace Kljujic with
party activist Miro Lasic in a show of displeasure with
Kljujic's refusal to support a peace settlement in which the
republic would be divided along ethnic lines.
Kljujic, in an interview Sunday with United Press
International, rejected as "catastrophic" plans for
ethnically based separation advanced both by nationalist
Serbs and Croats and said he would not leave office.
Bosnian Foreign Minister Haris Silajdzic, back in the
capital for his first time since war broke out more than six
months ago, criticized western governments for not providing
more support to the Bosnian people and said he would appeal
next to Gulf Arab states.
Silajdzic, speaking to reporters while wrapped in an
overcoat inside an office of the artillery-shattered
presidency complex, said the fate of thousands of people now
facing sub-zero temperatures without heat or even homes
depended on the republic's ability to defend itself militarily.
"If they do not do anything, and I mean especially the
Western governments, to alleviate this situation, there will
be enough limbless, blind, parentless children to haunt their
civilizations for years to come," Silajdzic said. Silajdzic
said he was headed next to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab
Emirates to ask for financial aid from them and possibly
their neighbors.
He said his government would use any money it receives to
buy food, medicines, home building materials and "arms,
wherever we can buy it."
At least seven people were killed and 83 injured across
the republic in the 24-hour period that ended at 10 a.m.
Sunday, including two killed and 27 injured in Sarajevo,
Bosnian health officials said.
UNPROFOR military observers counted 53 rounds of large
artillery falling onto Bosnian-controlled areas around
Sarajevo during the 24-hour period that ended at 5 p.m.
Saturday and no rounds reaching Serbian- controlled territory.
But some 10 rounds of artillery fell around 11:45 a.m.
Sunday near the U.N. checkpoint on the main access road to
the Sarajevo airport, prompting UNPROFOR troops to retreat
from the area for about 15 minutes.
A total of 19 relief flights carrying some 200 tons of aid
reached the city Sunday, but for the third straight day no
supplies were brought in by truck. The U.N. relief effort by
road into Sarajevo remained hampered both by the loss of the
Vitez warehouse and the shutdown due to fighting of the main
highway through Mostar.
The Belgrade journalists' convoy was seen off by Yugoslav
Prime Minister Milan Panic, who has been seeking the
reopening of the 200-mile highway as part of efforts to
normalize relations with Croatia broken by the Serb-Croat war.
But Serbian militiamen under the command of Dusko Vitez,
the self- proclaimed mayor of the Serb-controlled eastern
Croatian town of Okucani, where the journalists were to meet,
set up barricades of combine harvesters and tractors on the
roadway, 5 miles from each side of the town.
"There will be no reopening until we get our own customs
officers collecting taxes on our stretch of the highway and
our own police controlling the traffic, " Vitez told the 50
reporters who travelled from Belgrade.
"Of course, we can easily break through their (Serbian)
barricades," said Gen. Carlos Maria Zabala, commander of U.N.
Sector West, in which Okucani is located. "But, I do not
think it would help improve the situation."
Also Sunday, Dobrica Cosic, president of the rump Yugoslav
federation of Serbia and Montenegro, departed Sunday on an
unofficial two-day visit to Italy for talks with Italian
President Oscar Luigi Scalfaro and other officials.
Although informal, the meeting with Scalfaro was to be the
first a Western head of state has held with Cosic since the
communist-turned- nationalist and popular author was chosen
as president of the truncated Yugoslav union forged on April
27.
SARAJEVO, BOSNIA-HERCEGOVINA (OCT. 25) UPI - Serbian
forces struck hard Saturday against the northern Bosnian town
of Gradacac, raining artillery on civilian areas, while U.N.
peace-keepers in the capital were both thanked and shot at.
Bosnian troops in Gradacac, along the fiercely contested
northern line connecting Serbia with Serb-held territories of
northwest Bosnia-Hercegovina, pushed back Serbian tank and
infantry offensives amid heavy artillery attacks on civilian
areas, Sarajevo radio reported.
Defense forces in Gradacac also said they found the
mutilated bodies of seven civilians attacked in apparent
retaliation after Bosnian forces destroyed an armored Serbian
supply train and confiscated large supplies of arms and
ammunition, Bosnian radio said.
In Sarajevo, which like much of the rest of the republic
enjoyed another relatively quiet day, the Bosnian presidency
met for the first time since last week's high-level peace
talks in Geneva.
A spokesman for the multi-ethnic presidency said
afterward, however, there was relatively little discussion of
the main settlements proposed in Geneva, all of which involve
some degree of disintegration of the republic.
And the city's U.N. peace-keeping force, on the the 47th
anniversary of the founding of the United Nations, was both
feted and fired upon.
Several of Sarajevo's leading artists ventured inside a
bomb-scarred U.N. Protection Force cafeteria to treat scores
of gun-toting UNPROFOR troops to hand-clapping birthday
celebration and modern and folk music.
The party, decorated by Christmas garland and evergreen
boughs tucked into sandbags lining the taped-over windows,
was punctuated by a brief dance between the city's UNPROFOR
chief, Egyptian Brig. Gen. Hussein Abdul Razek, and renowned
Yugoslav opera star Gertruda Munitic.
"Thank you for everything, thank you for everything you
have done," Sarajevo choreographer and ballet dancer Gordana
Magaj told the U.N. staff and soldiers.
But at virtually the same time, less than a mile away, a
French UNPROFOR soldier was shot while guarding a delivery of
humanitarian aid. The soldier, who suffered only a minor leg
wound, was hit by a sniper only three days after a similar
attack on a French soldier also escorting aid deliveries.
"There's no doubt that this was a deliberate attack by a
sniper," UNPROFOR spokesman Mik Magnusson said of the midday
attack on the soldier standing next to a clearly marked U.N.
vehicle at the Vojnicko Polje housing complex.
The area is controlled mostly by Bosnian forces, although
Magnusson said he could not place blame on one side. "We know
where it came from, but not who did it," he said. The shot
Wednesday at a French soldier came from Bosnian territory.
The Bosnian military claimed a small military victory east
of the capital, saying its forces captured the village of
Praca and were headed toward Podgrab, only 10 miles east of
the main Bonian Serb headquarters at Pale, Sarajevo radio
said Saturday.
In Belgrade, President Dobrica Cosic of the rump Yugoslav
union of Serbia and Montenegro called early federal
parliamentary elections for Dec. 20, setting the stage for a
political showdown that could determine the course of efforts
to restore stability to the strife-torn Balkans.
novine.142.bale.,
Bosnia's Muslims Finding No Country Wants to Rescue Them (Trnopolje)
By Roy Gutman
(c) 1992, Newsday
TRNOPOLJE, Bosnia-Herzegovina _ The outdoor
privies overflow with human waste, and inside the cold and
dirty elementary school building across the muddy schoolyard
there is no running water. The refugees have only straw,
cardboard and thin blankets to sleep on.
``Perfect conditions for an epidemic,'' commented
Dr. Jack Geiger, a professor of community medicine at the
City University of New York, on a visit last week.
But for 3,500 Muslims who pack the squalid former
concentration camp, Trnopolje is the last hope of escaping
from the bloodletting in northern Bosnia. That civilians
would seek refuge at the place where witnesses say hundreds
were murdered and raped by Serbs last summer testifies to
their desperation.
They flocked here in hopes they might follow the
1,571 survivors of two death camps who were transported from
Trnopolje to Croatia at the beginning of October. But coming
here was a miscalculation. For today, there is no exit from
Bosnia.
``The world really doesn't care. Nobody wants the
Muslims,'' said an official of the United Nations High
Commission for Refugees, who spoke on condition of
anonymity. ``It is very reminiscent of World War II. Nobody
wanted the Jews or even to make a fuss about `the Final
Solution' because then they would have to take them in as
refugees.''
The Trnopolje refugees share the plight of the
Bosnian nation, which, having been recognized by the United
States and European nations last spring, now appears to have
been abandoned to its fate.
After raising an outcry in August over atrocities
in Serbian camps, Western nations will not open their doors
even to survivors of the camps. As a result, the Swiss-based
International Red Cross suspended plans to liberate Monday as
many as 10,000 still being held.
``We are bitterly disappointed that the failure of
the international community to open its doors is preventing
the victims of the horrific events in former Yugoslavia from
finding a temporary new home,'' Jose Maria Mendeluce, of the
U.N. refugee commission said Sunday.
``This is a shame for the international
community,'' Roland Siedler,a Red Cross spokesman, said.
With no certainty about rescuing the former
detainees, aid officials have all but abandoned hope of doing
anything soon for the expellees who crowd Trnopolje even
though the officials agree they are refugees by any
definition of the word. Instead, in a remarkable departure
from their usual reserve, they say the humanitarian crisis in
Bosnia is at the point where it can be solved only through
the use of outside force.
``They have never seen suffering on this scale
when no one seemed to care,'' said Geiger, who visited
northern Bosnia with Tadeusz Mazowiecki, the U.N. special
investigator on human rights.
Meanwhile, the Serbs, blamed by the international
community for initiating the violence, exude confidence even
as they step up the terror tactics that comprise ``ethnic
cleansing'' against the 150,000 non-Serbs still living in
northern Bosnia.
Radomir Kosic, a Banja Luka official who hosted
Mazowiecki on his tour, caustically remarked to reporters
accompanying Mazowiecki to Trnopolje last week that Muslim
civilians came here ``thinking they would have a free ticket
to paradise.''
Actually, the reasons were mundane. ``Our houses
have been destroyedand pillaged. My friends have been killed.
We had to get out,'' Erna Muric, a 21-year-old woman from
Prijedor, said. Others said that non-Serbs were no longer
allowed to use public transportation for the seven-mile trip
into Prijedor, although women are allowed to walk the
distance in order to forage for food.
Others came because they were ``cleansed'' from
homes they had built after years of working abroad. ``I was
an honest worker. I fed my family until I was forced out of
my house,'' Hasan Dzonlagic, 29, said. ``Now they (the Serbs)
live in my house. They drive my car. All I have left is the
head on my shoulders. But what use is that because I have
nothing else?''
The camp director, Pero Curguz, confirmed that
Serbs from the town of Bugojno in Croatian-controlled Bosnia
had moved into Dzonlagic's house and those of other refugees
here, including some from Trnopolje itself.
The school is too small to house all who seek
refuge, and one group of about 180 are living in a barnlike
building of about 18 by 25 feet. About 100 of them huddle in
small family groups on the concrete ground floor and about 80
are in a loft. They have one primitive heater downstairs, and
only blankets and cardboard on the ground floor and the
upstairs floorboards to stop the draft. Rain drips through
gaps in the tile roof, and there is no place for all to
stretch out at night.
Many have passports with valid visas for West
European countries, while others have invitations complete
with written guarantees of support. But they have no way to
leave Bosnia.
One man said he was from Macedonia. ``I have a
house here, but also a house in Macedonia. I don't need to go
to Western Europe. I just want to go home to Macedonia. Can
you tell me how I can get home?''
Travel by refugees in convoys into central Bosnia,
which had been treacherous, now has become too dangerous even
for those desperate to get out. This is the outcome of a
strategic realignment in which the relatively well-armed
Bosnian Croats, who had been allied with the predominantly
Muslim government, now have begun attacking government forces
across a broad front.
``The bottleneck has been effectively stoppered,''
commented a U.N. refugee official in Banja Luka. If the
refugees were able to reach Travnik in central Bosnia, they
might be forced at gunpoint by Serbs or Croats to flee still
further into a small predominantly Muslim area, only to
arrive in a safe haven where there is little or no food. The
reason: Croats are blocking all food shipments.
The problem for the international agencies is that
they lack any means to stop the process of ``ethnic
cleansing,'' have no mandate to remove the victims from the
area, and have nowhere to take them.
``In my notebook, I have page after page of
atrocities,'' the head of one humanitarian aid office in
Banja Luka said. ``There are house-to-house searches,
bombings, murders. All we can say is `we hear your pain.
There is nothing we can do to help you.' ''
Pierre Gassmann, head of the Zagreb office of the
Red Cross, attacked the ``hypocritical stance of the
international community'' for assuming that the dispatch of
food aid and winter insulation will enable people to remain
in their homes and that ``the mere presence'' of the
international agencies ``will protect them against the
criminal intents of the people who want to ethnically
cleanse.''
Too many Western countries act like France, he
said, whose media-conscious health minister, Bernard
Kouchner, makes it a point ``to be there (on the spot), to be
seen to be there, to be aggressive, then to go back home and
do zilch about the problem.''
He said the U.N. refugee agency and the Red Cross
are incapable of protecting civilian targets.
``We have come to the conclusion we cannot help
people where they are. We have to deal with a context in
which there is zero respect for the (humanitarian) values we
carry. We have no means to coerce. The only people capable of
bringing any change in behavior is the international
community.''
In the absence of that coercion, no one sees a
bright future for the Muslims of Bosnia, or even survival.
``This is anarchic genocide,'' Geiger said. ``It lacks German
efficiency, but the result is the same.''
U.S. Agrees to Allow 1,000 Bosnia Refugees Into Country (Washn)
By Norman Kempster
(c) 1992, Los Angeles Times
WASHINGTON _ The Bush administration yielded to
appeals from international relief organizations Monday and
agreed to permit the immigration of up to 1,000 Bosnian
refugees, all former internment camp prisoners and their
immediate families.
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher, who
announced the new policy, said that the refugees would be
admitted under a program that would allow them to apply
eventually for U.S. citizenship.
The number is less than 10 percent of the
internment camp prisoners that the International Committee of
the Red Cross expects to be released soon. And the policy
will do nothing for about 2 million persons displaced by the
fighting who were not interned.
Meanwhile, the administration held a special State
Department press conference in which Clyde Snow, an American
forensic anthropologist working as a consultant to the U.N.
Human Rights Commission, described the discovery of a mass
grave said to be holding the remains of patients from a
Croatian hospital who were murdered by a unit of the Serb-led
Yugoslav National Army.
Although Snow said that as much as three months of
additional investigation would be required to identify the
victims and determine how they died, he said the physical
evidence seemed to corroborate the accounts of witnesses who
said that 179 hospital patients, mostly wounded Croatian
soldiers, were beaten and killed by Yugoslav Army units and
Serb militia forces.
The decision regarding Bosnian refugees reversed
an administration policy of refusing to accept most refugees
because moving them out of the region would make it much more
difficult for them to return to their homes and would,
indirectly, enhance the policy of ``ethnic cleansing'' _ a
term used to describe the warfare being waged by the Serbs
against other groups in the former Yugoslavia.
Previously, the United States agreed to take 100
Bosnians needing urgent medical care but refused to take
others, despite requests from the Red Cross, the U.N. High
Commissioner for Refugees and other relief organizations.
Boucher said that the administration continued to
reject any sort of general resettlement of refugees from the
bitter ethnic warfare to avoid playing into the hands of the
``ethnic cleansers.''
``The goal is to see that people can return to
their homes,'' he said. ``For the crisis as a whole, there
are more than 2 million refugees and displaced persons, and
our priority has been the material assistance to get people
through the winter.''
However, he said, the administration decided to
make an exception for former prisoners because ``humanitarian
concerns have to weigh heavily ... these former detainees
have already suffered very much.''
He said that Washington had contributed $6 million
to pay for food and other relief supplies for refugees who
remain in the area. He said the relief organizations
estimated that the money would support up to 10,000 persons
this winter.
The Red Cross, which is trying to negotiate the
release of internment camp prisoners, has agreed to the
demands of the Bosnian Serb militias that released prisoners
be sent out of the region to prevent them from rejoining the
war. About 1,600 released prisoners are being held in camps
in Croatia awaiting resettlement, Boucher said.
Boucher said that the Red Cross and the U.N.
refugee organization had estimated that ``as many as 10,000
or maybe more than 10,000'' persons are still in detention.
novine.143.bale.,
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: President of rump Yugoslavia calls early federal elections
Subject: Gradacac hit; U.N. feted and fired upon
Subject: Twenty-fourth Fischer-Spassky game a draw
Subject: Bosnian negotiators back divisions
Subject: Serbs block U.N. journalists convoy
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: President of rump Yugoslavia calls early federal elections
Date: 24 Oct 92 22:01:36 GMT
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (UPI) -- President Dobrica Cosic of the rump
Yugoslav union of Serbia and Montenegro Saturday called early federal
parliamentary elections for Dec. 20, setting the stage for a political
showdown that could affect efforts to restore stability to the strife-
torn Balkans.
``The future of Serbia and Montenegro is being decided,'' declared
Cosic at a Federation Palace ceremony at which he signed the order for
the polls.
Cosic's long-expected move came only hours before his main adversary,
communist President Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia, effectively opened his
Socialist Party of Serbia's (SPS) campaign by presiding over a
leadership shakeup on the final day of a two-day party congress.
Milosevic assumed the SPS presidency in an apparent bid to use his
prestige to ensure the party retains its lock on Parliament amid rising
popular dissatisfaction over economic and social chaos unleashed by the
collapse of former Yugoslavia and the wars in Croatia and Bosnia-
Hercegovina.
``Even though the crisis we are faced with is not only a result of
events in Serbia but also a result of international interests and
politics, we are obliged to do everythig we can to solve the (economic)
crisis,'' said Milosevic in his speech before congress.
Cosic and his main ally, Yugoslav Prime Minister Milan Panic, as well
as the opposition, all are critical of Milosevic. They largely blame the
upheaval in the federation on Milosevic's revival of Serbian nationalism
and his support for Serbian territorial conquests in Croatia and Bosnia-
Hercegovina.
They see an SPS electoral defeat in parliament as the only way to end
devastating U.N. economic sanctions imposed on Serbia in May for its
role in the conflict in Bosnia-Hercegovina.
Cosic, using his powers under the constitution of the rump Yugoslav
successor stage forged by Serbia and Montenegro after the collapse of
its defunct namesake, set Dec. 20 for direct elections for the federal
Parliament's 138-member Chamber of Deputies.
Thirty days later, he said, the Serbian and Montenegrin assemblies
would each select 20 members for the federal Chamber of Republics.
The present legislature, controlled by Milosevic through SPS
majorities, was chosen for a four-year term in May.
Political analysts viewed the Dec. 20 polls as crucial to ongoing
international efforts to prevent new conflicts in former Yugoslavia and
restore stability to the historic Balkan ``powderkeg.''
The efforts, spearheaded by the ongoing U.N.- and European Community-
mediated peace conference in Geneva, are aimed at normalizing ties
between rump Yugoslavia and Croatia, ending the Bosnia-Hercegovina war
and preventing explosions of grave ethnic tensions in Serbia's minority-
packed provinces of Kosovo and Vojvodina that many fear could drag in
neighboring states.
Panic and Cosic cooperation in those efforts have prompted fierce
attacks on them by Milosevic, his party and their proxies in Croatia and
Bosnia-Hercegovina.
The two camps are locked in a fierce power struggle. Milosevic and
his loyalists have accused Cosic and Panic -- a Belgrade-born naturalized
U.S. citizen -- of being foreign agents and betraying Serbian national
interests by seeking normal relations with arch-rival Croatia.
In a show of strength this week by Milosevic, Serbian police seized
the federal Interior Ministry building in downtown Belgrade.
Before signing the election order, Cosic indirectly blamed the SPS
and its leader for the ``grave and lengthy economic, political,
spiritual and moral crisis (and) a stoppage and decay of human and
natural forces of our country.''
``Free democratic elections are the way out from the present,
unbearable political conflicts, squabbling and tensions,'' Cosic said.
At an earlier news conference marking his 100th day in office, Panic
-- tapped as a ``non-political'' prime minister by Cosic -- appeared to
rule out the possibility of heading an opposition slate, saying: ``As of
today, I will not be a candidate.''
``But ... I will be supporting people,'' Panic added, indicating he
would campaign for the opposition.
He said he would take steps to ensure fair polling, including
international monitoring. He said former U.S. president Jimmy Carter had
tentatively agreed to be an observer.
A Western diplomat warned, ``If the Socialists and Milosevic come out
on top by hook or by crook, what is this is going to mean for
establishing peace in the Balkans? The answer will be a resounding 'Not
now.'''
It was also not known if Serbia's main opposition groups -- the
Democratic Movement of Serbia, the Democratic Party and the Civic
Alliance -- would participate in the polls because of dissatisfaction
with a new proportional electoral system and Milosevic's iron grip on
state-run Belgrade Television, the greatest influence of public opinion
in Serbia.
Panic said he planned to convene Monday a ``roundtable'' of federal
government, SPS, and opposition representatives to establish guidelines
ensuring equal access to television and objective and fair reporting.
Ratomir Tonic, the president of the Republican Club, a Civic Alliance
member, said the opposition groups would also meet on Monday to decide
whether they would participate in the elections as a unified coalition.
Tonic said he believed the opposition should take part.``
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Subject: Gradacac hit; U.N. feted and fired upon
Date: 25 Oct 92 00:44:57 GMT
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Hercegovina (UPI) -- Serbian forces struck hard
Saturday against the northern Bosnian town of Gradacac, raining
artillery on civilian areas, while U.N. peace-keepers in the capital
were both thanked and shot at.
Bosnian troops in Gradacac, along the fiercely contested northern
line connecting Serbia with Serb-held territories of northwest Bosnia-
Hercegovina, pushed back Serbian tank and infantry offensives amid heavy
artillery attacks on civilian areas, Sarajevo radio reported.
Defense forces in Gradacac also said they found the mutilated bodies
of seven civilians attacked in apparent retaliation after Bosnian forces
destroyed an armored Serbian supply train and confiscated large supplies
of arms and ammunition, Bosnian radio said.
In Sarajevo, which like much of the rest of the republic enjoyed
another relatively quiet day, the Bosnian presidency met for the first
time since last week's high-level peace talks in Geneva.
A spokesman for the multi-ethnic presidency said afterward, however,
there was relatively little discussion of the main settlements proposed
in Geneva, all of which involve some degree of disintegration of the
republic.
And the city's U.N. peace-keeping force, on the the 47th anniversary
of the founding of the United Nations, was both feted and fired upon.
Several of Sarajevo's leading artists ventured inside a bomb-scarred
U.N. Protection Force cafeteria to treat scores of gun-toting UNPROFOR
troops to hand-clapping birthday celebration and modern and folk music.
The party, decorated by Christmas garland and evergreen boughs tucked
into sandbags lining the taped-over windows, was punctuated by a brief
dance between the city's UNPROFOR chief, Egyptian Brig. Gen. Hussein
Abdul Razek, and renowned Yugoslav opera star Gertruda Munitic.
``Thank you for everything, thank you for everything you have done,''
Sarajevo choreographer and ballet dancer Gordana Magaj told the U.N.
staff and soldiers.
But at virtually the same time, less than a mile away, a French
UNPROFOR soldier was shot while guarding a delivery of humanitarian aid.
The soldier, who suffered only a minor leg wound, was hit by a sniper
only three days after a similar attack on a French soldier also
escorting aid deliveries.
``There's no doubt that this was a deliberate attack by a sniper,''
UNPROFOR spokesman Mik Magnusson said of the midday attack on the
soldier standing next to a clearly marked U.N. vehicle at the Vojnicko
Polje housing complex.
The area is controlled mostly by Bosnian forces, although Magnusson
said he could not place blame on one side. ``We know where it came from,
but not who did it,'' he said. The shot Wednesday at a French soldier
came from Bosnian territory.
The Bosnian military claimed a small military victory east of the
capital, saying its forces captured the village of Praca and were headed
toward Podgrab, only 10 miles east of the main Bonian Serb headquarters
at Pale, Sarajevo radio said Saturday.
In Belgrade, President Dobrica Cosic of the rump Yugoslav union of
Serbia and Montenegro called early federal parliamentary elections for
Dec. 20, setting the stage for a political showdown that could determine
the course of efforts to restore stability to the strife-torn Balkans.
``The future of Serbia and Montenegro is being decided,'' Cosic said
Saturday at a federation palace ceremony at which he signed the order
for the polls.
Also Saturday, some 370 refugees who said they were evicted by
Serbian forces from Banja Luka and Prijedor in the northwest part of the
republic arrived in the Croatian border town of Noska, claiming they
were forced to pay Serbs more than $1,000 apiece to leave, Bosnian radio
said.
And the German government agreed to provide several million dollars
to house some 2,500 Bosnian refugees in the Croatian city of Karlovac
after they spent three weeks waiting for Western nations to accept them,
it said.
At least 14 people were killed and 107 injured across the republic in
the 24-hour period that ended at 10 a.m. Saturday, including six killed
and 42 wounded in Sarajevo, Bosnian health officials said.
The capital remained relatively quiet Saturday. UNPROFOR, in its
daily survey for the 24-hour period that ended at 5 p.m. Friday, said
its military observers counted 68 rounds of large artillery falling onto
Bosnian-controlled areas around Sarajevo and no rounds reaching Serbian-
controlled territory.
Fighting between formerly allied Croat and Bosnian forces in Vitez
appeared to have ended, raising hopes the U.N. High Commission for
Refugees could resume using its main supply warehouse for aid convoys
supplying Sarajevo.
But the UNHCR'S highway supply line to Sarajevo remained totally shut
from the fighting around both Vitez and Mostar and the only supplies
reaching Sarajevo either Thursday or Friday were a schedule of UNHCR
planes already reduced by a 24-hour suspension attributed to reports of
fighting near the airport runway.
The UNHCR planned as part of its interim measures to run a large road
convoy Saturday on a scheduled two-day trip from Belgrade to Sarajevo. A
total of 16 U.N. relief flights reached the capital Saturday.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Twenty-fourth Fischer-Spassky game a draw
Date: 25 Oct 92 01:19:18 GMT
BELGRADE, Yugosalvia (UPI) -- The 24th game of the controversial
rematch between former world chess champion Bobby Fischer and former
Soviet grandmaster Boris Spassky ended in a draw Saturday on the 39th
move.
Fischer played black and employed what is known as a Sicilian
defense. Chess experts said his moves represented a ``theoretical
novelty,'' but added they did not change the outcome.
It was the 12th draw in the series that began Sept. 3 in the posh
Adriatic resort hotel of Sveti Stefan in Montenegro. The competition was
transferred to the Sava Congress Center in Belgrade after three weeks.
Fischer retains his 8-4 lead in games. The first player to win 10
matches will receive $3.35 million from Jezdimir Vasiljevic, a Serbian
bank owner.
Whatever the case, Fischer still faces a $250,000 fine and a maximum
10-year jail sentence for playing in the rump Yugoslav union of Serbia
and Montenegro.
Fischer defied a U.S. Treasury Department warning him not to engage
in financial transactions with Yugoslavia because of its involvement in
the war in neighboring Bosnia-Hercegovina.
Although the next game is scheduled for Sunday, organizers said the
match may be postponed because Spassky has a cold and complained of
feeling ill.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Bosnian negotiators back divisions
Date: 25 Oct 92 02:34:11 GMT
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Hercegovina (UPI) -- Fresh from Yugoslav peace talks
in Geneva, Bosnian negotiators said Saturday they endorsed plans to
partly dissolve the republic as part of a negotiated peace settlement as
long as such a plan not ethnically based.
Muhamed Filipovic, vice president of the Muslim Bosnian organization,
and Mirko Pejanovic, the only Serbian member of the multi-ethnic Bosnian
presidency, told a news conference they were optimistic an acceptable
settlement that could permit a cease-fire might be very near.
Filipovic and Pejanovic returned to the capital after a week of high-
level meetings at the ongoing U.N- and European Community-sponsored
talks in Geneva, where general agreement was reached on a plan for
breaking Bosnia-Hercegovina into between eight and 13 largely autonomous
districts.
Both negotiators endorsed such plans, but said they would oppose
Serbian efforts to base the districts along already-developing ethnic
lines and would insist the divisions are not designed in ways that would
further fracture the republic.
``The autonomous divisions cannont be bearers of sovereignty,''
Filipovic said. ``Each administrative division should be the limit of
dissoulution (of the republic), not the stimulus for further
dissolution.''
Geneva conference spokesman Fred Eckhard said the current plans would
let the central Bosnian government oversee defense, foreign affairs,
finance and internal security, while providing Serbs, Croats and Muslim
Slavs with a large measure of responsibility for their other affairs.
U.N. mediator Cyrus Vance and European Community representative Lord
David Owen said after the talks that an agreement would involve
condemnation by all sides of the ``ethnic cleansing,'' the installation
of a cease-fire in Sarajevo before winter sets in, and a new
constitution, probably along the lines of that of multi-ethnic
Switzerland.
Pejanovic suggested another model, that of geographically small
Washington, D.C., as a possibility for Sarajevo.
``We proposed Sarajevo as one specialized administrative unit, the
capital of the republic, where foreign police, defense, (currency),
media, transportation, mail, telephones and other utilities would be
under the authority of the capital, while the police would be under the
authority of the regions,'' he said.
Owen said work on a new Bosnian constitution was well advanced and
should be completed and made public in the coming week.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Serbs block U.N. journalists convoy
Date: 25 Oct 92 22:00:37 GMT
DRAGALIC, Croatia (UPI) -- Serbian militiamen used combine harvesters
and tractors to block the Belgrade-Zagreb highway Sunday, barring U.N.-
organized convoys of journalists from meeting halfway and dealing a
setback to efforts to reopen the main land link between Europe and the
Middle East.
``There will be no reopening of the highway before our demands are
met,'' declared Dusko Vitez, the self-proclaimed mayor of the Serb-
controlled eastern Croatian town of Okucani, where the journalists were
to have met.
One convoy departed from Belgrade, the capital of the rump Yugoslav
union of Serbia and Montenegro, and a second left from Zagreb, the
capital of Croatia. Both were escorted by U.N. military vehicles and
were to have met in downtown Okucani, some 80 miles from Zagreb.
But local Serbian militiamen under Vitez' command set up barricades
of combine harvesters and tractors on the roadway, 5 miles from each
side of the town, and refused to allow the convoys to precede to a U.N.-
planned rendezvous.
``There will be no reopening until we get our own customs officers
collecting taxes on our stretch of the highway and our own police
controlling the traffic,'' Vitez told the 50 reporters who travelled
from Belgrade.
The Belgrade convoy was seen off by Yugoslav Prime Minister Milan
Panic. He has seeking the reopening of the 200-mile highway as part of
his efforts to normalize relations with Croatia broken by the Serb-Croat
war that erupted after Zagreb declared independence from former
Yugoslavia in June 1991.
Rebels of Croatia's Serbian minority proclaimed their own state. With
the backing of the Serb-dominated Yugoslav army, they captured 35
percent of Croatia before a Jan. 3 truce went into effect as part of a
U.N.-brokered peace plan.
Under the plan, more than 14,000 troops and police of the U.N.
Protection Force (UNPROFOR) were deployed in Serb-held areas of Croatia.
Only U.N. vehicles have been able to travel on the highway, portions of
which run through one of the three areas where peace-keeping units are
stationed.
``Of course, we can easily break through their (Serbian) barricades,''
said Gen. Carlos Maria Zabala, commander of U.N. Sector West, in which
Okucani is located. ``But, I do not think it would help improve the
situation.''
Zabala described relations between UNPROFOR and the local Serbs as
``more than good, until today.''
``I just don't understand these people. Two days ago, we had
everything arranged. They even promised to let us use their municipality
building for the celebration,'' he said.
But Vitez was adamant in his refusal to let the journalists meet.
``It is true we had an agreement, but we have to obey our
government's decision,'' he said, referring to the leadership of the
self-proclaimed Serbian state based in the town of Knin, 140 miles
southeast from Zagreb.
``I know that Panic said that the highway will be reopened, but he
should have asked us first,'' said one local Serbian militiamen.
``He doesn't own this road. We do,'' he said.
UNPROFOR went ahead with the convoys despite warnings Saturday that
Serbian forces would block the roadway.
The Serbs control several stretches of the highway totalling about 25
miles, and their leaders have said they would not relinquish control of
their sections until Croatia recognized their self-declared state.
Before the Belgrade convoy set out from the center of the city, Panic
was joined at an outdoor news conference by Jeannie Peterson, a
representative of UNPROFOR. Both expressed optimism that the highway
would be reopened.
``I am happy that this is taking place because it is a part of my
plan for establishing peace in the Balkans,'' said Panic, a Belgrade-
born naturalized U.S. citizen.
Peterson said the UNPROFOR-organized media trip to Okucani was a
``symbolic preview to the reopening of the highway.''
Panic said he hoped the highway would be reopened for commercial use
and added ``tolerance on both sides'' was needed to normalize relations.
He said the name of the roadway would be changed from the communist-
era ``Brotherhood and Unity Highway'' to the ``Highway of Peace.''
The Belgrade-Zagreb roadway is just one link in the main land route
connecting Western Europe and the Middle East.
Its closure has forced economically important commercial traffic to
take costly, time-consuming diversions through neighboring states,
depriving both rump Yugoslavia and Croatia of badly needed revenues.
The highway's reopening was a key issue in talks last week at the U.
N.- and European Community-mediated Geneva peace conference on former
Yugoslavia between Yugoslav federation President Dobrica Cosic and
Croatian President Franjo Tudjman.
Both agreed the move was a pre-condition to normalizing relations.
novine.144.bale.,
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Fischer-Spassky 25th game postponed
Subject: Bosnian-Croat allies defend central Bosnian town
Subject: U.N. aid flights often targeted by anti-aircraft weapons
Subject: President of two-republic Yugoslavia meets with Italian leaders
Subject: U.S. to resettle 1,000 Bosnians
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Fischer-Spassky 25th game postponed
Date: 26 Oct 92 00:10:50 GMT
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (UPI) -- Former Soviet grandmaster Boris Spassky
postponed the 25th game of his controversial rematch with former world
chess champion Bobby Fischer Sunday because he had a cold.
It was the third and last time Spassky will be able to put off
playing Fischer. Fischer has not yet used the privilege.
Fischer leads the series 8-4. The first player to win 10 matches will
receive $3.35 million and the loser $1.65 million from Jezdimir
Vasiljevic, a Serbian bank owner who organized the rematch.
Whatever the outcome, Fischer faces a $250,000 fine and a maximum 10-
year jail sentence for playing in the rump Yugoslav union of Serbia and
Montenegro.
Fischer defied a U.S. Treasury Department order warning him not to
engage in financial transactions with Yugoslavia because of its
involvement in the war in neighboring Bosnia-Hercegovina.
The next game is scheduled for Wednesday at Belgrade's Sava Congress
Center.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Bosnian-Croat allies defend central Bosnian town
Date: 26 Oct 92 12:20:17 GMT
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Hercegovina (UPI) -- A coalition of Bosnian and Croat
defenders Monday claimed to have beaten back a Serbian offensive against
the central Bosnian town of Jajce, forcing the Serbs to flee so fast
they left their weapons.
Also Monday, military leaders of the republic's three main warring
factions were gathering again in Sarajevo amid a rash of local conflicts
to open talks on ways of easing the Bosnian war and preparing for a
cease-fire.
Serbian forces reportedly entered Jajce during a heavy artillery
assault Sunday. Sarajevo radio said the allied Croat and Muslim Slav-
majority Bosnian forces fully repulsed the invasion by Monday morning.
``The aggressor fled in panic, leaving behind weapons and armored
vehicles,'' said the radio, which relays official Bosnian reports.
Bosnian-Croat skirmishes also were slowing Monday in towns around
Sarajevo, and leaders of the two ethnic factions in Konjic formally
agreed not to fight each other and to keep the Serbs as their common
enemy, Sarajevo radio reported.
The hotly-contested northern town of Gradacac came under another
night and morning of heavy Serbian artillery fire, it said, but
otherwise towns were relatively quiet along the contested line between
Serbia and the large region of Serbian-controlled northwest Bosnia-
Hercegovina.
Monday's meeting of the republic's Bosnian, Croat and Serb military
chiefs followed their unprecedented gathering Friday at Sarajevo
airport, where they planned to continue a regular series of U.N.-
mediated talks on ways of implementing political agreements on ending
the six-month-old Bosnian conflict.
Sarajevo and much of the rest of the republic was relatively quiet
overnight and into Monday, although Serbian forces in hills overlooking
the capital unleashed a loud artillery barrage in the morning on the
Dobrinja apartment complex near the airport.
U.N. Protection Force military observers counted 148 rounds of large
artillery falling onto Bosnian-controlled areas around Sarajevo during
the 24- hour period that ended at 5 p.m. Sunday and 41 rounds reaching
Serbian- controlled territory.
At least seven people were killed and 83 injured across the republic
in the 24-hour period that ended at 10 a.m. Sunday, including two killed
and 27 injured in Sarajevo, Bosnian health officials said.
Also in Sarajevo, Stjepan Kljujic, one of two Croat members of the
multi-ethnic Bosnian presidency, said Sunday he had not been informed of
and would not recognize his reported removal by the Croatian democratic
community, HDZ.
Leaders of HDZ, the main party of Croats in Bosnia-Hercegovina, voted
Saturday to replace Kljujic with party activist Miro Lasic in protest
with Kljujic's refusal to support a peace settlement in which the
republic would be divided along ethnic lines.
Bosnian Foreign Minister Haris Silajdzic, back in the capital for his
first time since war broke out more than six months ago, criticized
western governments for not providing more support to the Bosnian people
and said he was appealing next to Gulf Arab states.
French Maj. Gen. Philippe Morillon, head of UNPROFOR's Bosnian
operations, planned to chair Monday's meeting of the rival military
leaders in Sarajevo before visiting Serb leaders in the suburb of Ilidza
and then returning downtown to officially open his new headquarters.
A total of 19 relief flights carrying some 200 tons of aid reached
the city Sunday, but for the third straight day no supplies were brought
in by truck.
The U.N. relief effort by road into Sarajevo remained hampered both
by the loss of the Vitez warehouse and the shutdown due to fighting of
the main highway through Mostar.
Also Sunday, Serbian militiamen used heavy farm equipment to block
the Belgrade-Zagreb highway, barring U.N.-organized convoys of
journalists from meeting halfway and dealing a setback to efforts to
reopen the main land link between Europe and the Middle East.
The Belgrade journalists convoy was seen off by Yugoslav Prime
Minister Milan Panic, who has been seeking the reopening of the 200-mile
highway as part of efforts to normalize relations with Croatia broken by
the Serb-Croat war.
Dobrica Cosic, president of the rump Yugoslav federation of Serbia
and Montenegro, was in Italy on Monday for talks with Italian president
Oscar Luigi Scalfaro and other officials.
Although informal, the meeting with Scalfaro was to be the first a
western head of state has held with Cosic since the communist-turned-
nationalist and popular author was chosen as president of the truncated
Yugoslav union formed in April.
Cosic's trip was apparently aimed at promoting efforts by him and his
chief ally, Panic, to end the rump federation's international isolation,
which was deepened by the imposition in may of U.N. economic sanctions.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: U.N. aid flights often targeted by anti-aircraft weapons
Date: 26 Oct 92 17:58:31 GMT
ZAGREB, Croatia (UPI) -- U.N. relief airplanes flying into Sarajevo
have been frequently targeted by anti-aircraft weapons since the aid
airlift resumed this month, often forcing pilots to release flares as a
precaution against ground fire, a U.N. official said Monday.
Although no U.N. airplane has been fired upon by anti-aircraft
missiles or guns, the almost daily targeting of the planes has increased
concerns about the possibility of another shootdown like the one Sept.
3, which brought down an Italian cargo plane on a U.N. mission and
killed all four crew members.
``The airlift operation is in a fragile state at the moment,'' warned
the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The official said relief planes have been locked on by radar systems
and also have been targeted by heat-seeking missiles. He would not
elaborate on exactly how many times pilots had reported the problem,
saying only that it happens frequently and nearly daily, forcing pilots
to discharge flares as a protection against the ground fire.
``You can see the flares dropping from Sarajevo if you watch,'' said
the U.N. official.
The Sarajevo airlift operation was canceled for one month on Sept. 3
after the Italian cargo plane was shot down over Croatian territory
while en route to Sarajevo, the beseiged capital of Bosnia-Hercegovina.
The shooting incident killed all four crew members aboard.
Since the airlift resumed, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees
has been flying an average of 9 to 10 aid flights per day into the
Bosnian capital, about half of the number of flights prior to the Sept.
3 shootdown. The drop is due to a combination of heightened levels of
danger as well as increasing weather problems as the harsh Balkan winter
approaches.
In addition to problems with the airlift, the relief effort also has
been hampered by new fighting between Croat and Muslim forces in Bosnia-
Hercegovina. The fighting between the nominal allies has prevented any
land convoys of relief supplies from traveling to Sarajevo, said Peter
Kessler, the UNHCR spokesman in Zareb.
``Not one land convoy has been able to get into Sarajevo since the
fighting began,'' Kessler said. The UNHCR had organized 42 land convoys
to Sarajevo in the two months before the outbreak of fighting.
``We are very concerned about the Croat and Muslim clashes and that
it is worsening,'' Kessler said. ``It has hurt aid operations not just
to Sarajevo but everywhere else as well.''
``Every day there is a delay, it is a life or death situation for
many individuals,'' Kessler said.
The U.N. refugee agency has a supply wharehouse in Vitez, about 30
miles northwest of Sarajevo, that it has not been able to reach since
the Croat-Muslim fighting began last week.
U.N. aid workers had to be evacuated by a special U.N. Protection
Force last week becuase of heavy fighting between Muslims and Croats
outside UNHCR headquarters on Oct 20.
In Vitez 10,000 shelter kits, including 3 million square yards of
plastic sheeting to temproarily repair the damage done by the fighting
and prepare residents for the up-comming winter are waiting to be
delivered, Kessler said.
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Subject: President of two-republic Yugoslavia meets with Italian leaders
Date: 26 Oct 92 18:40:21 GMT
ROME (UPI) -- Dobrica Cosic, president of the rump Yugoslav federation
of Serbia and Montenegro, met with Italian leaders Monday to seek their
support in bringing the federation out of isolation and easing economic
sanctions imposed by the U.N. Security Council, Italian officials said.
Cosic, accompanied by Foreign Minister Ilija Djukic and other aides,
started a two-day private visit to Rome by meeting for more than three
hours with Italian Foreign Minister Emilio Colombo at the 16th century
Villa Madama government guest house.
The talks, described by Italian officials as ``in-depth and
fruitful'', continued over lunch, at which the ministers were joined by
``experts'' on both sides.
Later, at 6 p.m., Cosic was received by Italian President Oscar Luigi
Scalfaro at the presidential Quirinale Palace. He was expected to have
further talks with Socialist Prime Minister Giuliano Amato Tuesday
morning, the officials said.
Italy, along with most other western countries, does not officially
recognize Cosic's rump republic and Scalfaro was the first Western head
of state to receive the former communist-turned-nationalist, who
presides over the truncated Yugoslav union forged on April 27.
Serbia's communist regime, which engineered the alliance, is regarded
by the international community as being mainly responsible for the
violent collapse of the former Yugoslav federation.
The international isolation of Cosic's rump Yugoslavia was deepened
by the imposition in May of U.N. economic sanctions because of the
support Serbia and Montenegro have given to the Serbian territorial
offensive in Bosnia-Hercegovina.
But Italian officials said Italy was anxious to encourage Cosic and
Prime Minister Milan Panic in moves they have made toward a negotiated
settlement of the situation in the former Yugoslav Republics.
Foreign Minister Colombo insisted on the need for Cosic's republic to
carry out in full all the agreements which all parties signed in
conferences on Yugoslavia in London and Geneva.
Colombo told Cosic it was obvious that such action would greatly help
him to achieve his main aim of obtaining an easing of the U.N.
sanctions.
The officials said the Yugoslav president told Colombo that the
sanctions had transformed his country into ``a real and proper
concentration camp.''
``We have 500,000 unemployed and as many refugees,'' Cosic told the
Italian foreign minister. ``Without oil, we cannot sow crops, for lack
of heating we must close hospitals and schools.
``How can we, in these conditions, normalize our relations with the
other republics of the ex-Yugoslavia?'' he asked.
The officials said Cosic asked Colombo ``to take action within the
United Nations and the European Community to obtain an easing of the
sanctions.''
Colombo said Italy, which as a country neighboring the former
Yugoslav Republic has a major interest in a peaceful settlment, told the
president Italy would do what it could to help.
But he stressed that Cosic and his government must first put into
effect the London and Geneva agreements. He said Italy was particularly
interested in seeing the outcome of municipal, republican and federal
elections to be held in the rump Yugoslav republic in December, in which
Cosic's conciliatory line will be opposed by the hard line of Serbian
President Slobodan Milosevic.
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Subject: U.S. to resettle 1,000 Bosnians
Date: 26 Oct 92 19:35:54 GMT
WASHINGTON (UPI) -- Up to 1,000 Bosnians scheduled to be released from
Serbian detention camps will be resettled in the United States, the
administration said Monday.
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher, who said numerous times
during the growing crisis in Bosnia-Hercegovina that the United States
was not prepared to resettle a large group of refugees, denied that the
latest announcement represented a change in policy.
He said the administration, which has already offered to bring 100
severly injured Bosnians to the United States for medical care, and its
allies still feel that ``the most appropriate policy is to assist the
people as close to home as possible and not to commence a resettlement
program.''
But, Boucher said, ``the detainees are a discrete population'' who
are ``of special concern because of what they had to go through.''
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said last week that
there was a special need to remove released detention camp prisoners
from a situation in which they may very well be recaptured.
That assessment prompted the administration to alter its stance on
the resettlement of Bosnian refugees, Boucher said.
novine.145.bale.,
RFE/RL Daily Report
No. 207, 27 October 1992
SUCCESSOR STATES TO THE USSR
YELTSIN VERSUS CONGRESS. The last weekend meeting of Russian
President Boris Yeltsin with senior ministers at the government
datcha in Staro-Ogarevo was not a meeting of the Security Council
to select a new prime minister as reported by Russian media but a
routine government meeting, Vice Prime Minister Aleksandr Shokhin
was quoted by Radio Rossii on 25 October as saying. Shokhin
denied that any talks on government personnel changes had been
discussed. He stated that the meeting focused on the government's
tactics at the forthcoming Congress. He hinted that Yeltsin may
organize a referendum concerning the abolition of the Congress--an
idea which is being supported by democratic leaders such as
Gavriil Popov, Anatolii Sobchak and others. (Alexander Rahr,
RFE/RL, Inc.)
RUSSIAN TRADE UNION CHALLENGES GOVERNMENT. The chairman of the
Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Russia, Igor Klochkov,
told journalists that 1.5 million people have participated in
anti-government demonstrations throughout the country on 24
October. ITAR-TASS quoted him as saying on 26 October that these
have been the largest trade union demonstrations in Russia in
recent memory. He stressed that the trade unions demand a
correction of the government's economic reform policy away from
shock therapy. He warned that if the government rejects the
demands, the trade unions will press for the creation of a
government of national trust. According to Klochkov, the Russian
trade unions are being supported by trade unions in other CIS
states. (Alexander Rahr, RFE/RL, Inc.)
RUSSIAN TROOPS ORDERED TO RETURN FIRE IN ABKHAZIA. Russian troops
have been ordered to return fire if they come under attack in
Abkhazia, AFP reported on 26 October, quoting a Russian defense
ministry spokesman. To date, the Russian defense ministry has
insisted that its troops are remaining neutral in the
Abkhaz-Georgian conflict. In an interview given to Ostankino TV on
26 October and summarized by ITAR-TASS, Georgian parliament
Chairman-elect Eduard Shevardnadze argued in favour of a
"civilized solution" to the continued stationing of Russian troops
in Georgia. In a Tbilisi Radio address Shevardnadze argued that
Georgia still needs Russian troops to guard its borders and to
provide anti-aircraft missile defenses. (Liz Fuller, RFE/RL, Inc.)
YELTSIN ON REFORMS; BONNER WARNS OF FASCISM. Russian President
Boris Yeltsin told a delegation of US financiers that although he
may replace some of the present ministers, his strategy of reform
remains unchanged and that the main obstacles to reform have been
overcome, ITAR-TASS reported on 26 October. The same day, some
former Russian human rights activists, including Elena Bonner,
criticized the National Salvation Front's struggle for power in an
open letter in Izvestiya, warning of the danger of fascism.
(Alexander Rahr, RFE/RL, Inc.)
BLACK SEA FLEET VESSELS BLOCKADED IN POTI. ITAR-TASS reported on
26 October that ships and sailors of the Black Sea Fleet were
being blockaded in the Georgian port of Poti. Tanks have been
positioned on the approach to the naval base, while barges have
been positioned in the harbor to prevent the departure of naval
vessels. Weapons are reportedly being demanded from the sailors.
The Black Sea Fleet has been conducting refugee evacuation
operations from Abkhazia, moving over 20,000 refugees from the
region. (John Lepingwell, RFE/RL, Inc.)
TAJIK GOVERNMENT AGAIN CONTROLS DUSHANBE. On 26 October the
government of Tajikistan regained control of the capital,
according to domestic and Russian news agencies, and armed forces
from Kulyab Oblast had left Dushanbe, escorted out of the city by
Russian armored vehicles. The fighters from Kulyab had tried to
overthrow the government during two days of fighting in Dushanbe
that caused considerable damage to the city and paralyzed public
services and retail trade. The number of casualties is unknown,
but Western correspondents in Dushanbe report a number of bodies
lying in the streets. Occasional gunfire could still be heard in
the city, according to various reports. Acting President Akbarsho
Iskandarov, encountered by a Reuters correspondent as he surveyed
the wreckage of the Supreme Soviet chamber, said that the Kulyab
forces were regrouping in Tursunzade near the Uzbek border. (Bess
Brown, RFE/RL, Inc.)
DISPUTE OVER BLACK SEA FLEET APPOINTMENTS. The command of the
Black Sea Fleet has rejected Ukrainian Defense Minister Morozov's
complaint that its chief of staff, Vice Admiral Petr Svyatashov,
had been improperly appointed. According to an ITAR-TASS report
of 26 October, the Black Sea Fleet claims it is under the joint
command of the Russian and Ukrainian presidents, and therefore the
Ukrainian minister of defense should not interfere in the
direction of the fleet. The statement did not indicate whether the
decision to appoint Svyatashov was coordinated between the
presidents. ITAR-TASS reported on 27 October that Admiral
Kasatonov in an interview with Krasnaya zvezda had called for
maintaining a strong Russian Navy and stated that Russian and
Ukrainian interests in the Black Sea coincided rather than
conflicted. (John Lepingwell, RFE/RL, Inc.)
KHASBULATOV BACK AT WORK. Parliamentary speaker Ruslan Khasbulatov
recovered from his collapse last week and chaired a meeting of the
Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, ITAR-TASS reported on 26 October.
He rejected congressional plans to oust the government, noting
that, according to the Constitution, parliament can pass a vote of
no confidence against the government without convening a Congress.
He also stated that the Congress should adopt a basic law on land
ownership which would end accusations that the parliament was
against private land ownership. He emphasized that he personally
was in favor of convening the Congress next year, but since
parliament had decided differently, everyone must obey. (Alexander
Rahr, RFE/RL, Inc.)
RUSSIAN PARLIAMENT REJECTS PROPOSAL TO ACCELERATE WORK ON NEW
CONSTITUTION. On 23 October the Russian parliament rejected a
proposal to speed up work on the draft of the new Russian
constitution to have it ready by the opening of the 7th Congress
of People's Deputies on 1 December, ITAR-TASS reported. Nikolai
Ryabov, the chairman of the Council of the Republic, who put
forward the proposal, argued that, if the draft was not ready, the
integrity of the Russian Federation would be threatened inasmuch
as the majority of the republics of the Russian Federation are
likely to adopt new constitutions before the end of the year and
they will not be based on the new Russian constitution, which will
create a very complicated legal situation. (Ann Sheehy, RFE/RL,
Inc.)
RUSSIAN PARLIAMENT RATIFIES AGREEMENT ON STATUS OF CIS ECONOMIC
COURT. On 23 October the Russian parliament ratified the
agreement on the status of the CIS Economic Court, signed in
Moscow in June by the heads of state of Armenia, Belorussia,
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, and
Uzbekistan, ITAR-TASS reported. Each signatory state is to
appoint or elect two judges for ten years. The chairman of the
court and his deputy will be elected by the court's judges and
approved by the Council of the CIS Heads of State. The economic
court, which will adjudicate disputes between enterprises in
different CIS states, is one of the five coordinating bodies
called for by Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbaev. (Ann
Sheehy, RFE/RL, Inc.)
DELAY SOUGHT IN REPAYMENT OF RUSSIAN FOREIGN DEBT. The Russian
Foreign Economic Relations Minister Petr Aven told Interfax on 26
October that Russia will seek a two month delay in this year's
payments on its foreign debt. The proposal will be made at the 28
October meeting of the Paris Club of Western creditor-nations.
Aven said that Russia will seek the short-term postponement
because creditor-nations "are not ready" to make "a final decision
with respect to a ten or fifteen year delay of the Russian debt"
in the near future. Aven thought that Russia will be able to repay
$2.5-3 billion in 1993. (Roughly the same amount will be repaid
this year, against a non-deferred due amount of about $10
billion). (Keith Bush, RFE/RL, Inc.)
RUSSIA AND KAZAKHSTAN SIGN ECONOMIC PROTOCOL. The Prime Ministers
of Russia and Kazakhstan, Egor Gaidar and Sergei Tereshchenko, on
22 October signed economic agreements concerning debt settlement
and coordination of economic policies, Interfax reported. The
central bank chairmen of the two countries were also present at
the signing in Moscow. The protocol included measures for rapidly
reducing mutual enterprise debts (Kazakh enterprises owe Russian
enterprises about 75 billion rubles, Russian enterprises owe
Kazakhstan about 150 billion rubles) as well as creating a special
bilateral committee to help coordinate interest rate, credit
emission, trade, taxation and state spending policies. (Erik
Whitlock, RFE/RL, Inc.)
ELECTIONS FAIL TO TAKE PLACE IN KARACHAEVO-CHERKESIA. The
elections that were to have been held in Karachaevo-Cherkesia on
25 October did not take place, ITAR-TASS reported. Voters were
supposed to elect deputies to the new republican bodies to be set
up as a result of the transformation of the territory from an
oblast into a republic, but the various nationalities inhabiting
the republic have been unable to agree on what the structure of
the new institutions should be. It has been suggested that the
oblast soviet of deputies, elected at the last election, be
allowed to function until 1995 as the republic's supreme soviet.
(Ann Sheehy, RFE/RL, Inc.)
PRESENTATION OF NEW UKRAINIAN GOVERNMENT. The newly-chosen
Ukrainian prime minister, Leonid Kuchma, is scheduled to present
his choices to the Ukrainian parliament for consideration on 27
October. During the past week Kuchma has been holding talks with
various political parties concerning the composition of the new
government. Thus far, only two former cabinet ministers, Minister
of Defense Konstantin Morozov and Minister of Foreign Affairs
Anatolii Zlenko, can rest assured that they will retain their
jobs. The formation of the new Ukrainian government is taking
place against a backdrop of disarray within the camp of the
reformist opposition and growing popular dissatisfaction with the
economic situation, particularly price increases. (Roman
Solchanyk, RFE/RL, Inc.)
SCHEDULE FOR PULLOUT OF RUSSIAN MISSILES FROM BELARUS. Interfax
reported on 26 October that a schedule had been drawn up and
approved for the withdrawal of nuclear-armed strategic missiles
from Belarus to Russia. It calls for the pullout of eight missile
brigades in 1993 and the remaining eight in 1994. By the end of
that year, Belarus will be free of nuclear weapons. The last
command and support sub-unit will leave for Russia in June 1995.
(As of 1 September 1990 there were 54 mobile SS-25 missiles based
at Mozyr and Lida in Belarus. Subsequently, additional missiles
were deployed, bringing the total to 81.) (Doug Clarke, RFE/RL,
Inc.)
BELARUS TO RECALL TROOPS. The Belarusian government has called for
all citizens of Belarus serving in the Caucasus, Central Asia, and
Baltic states to return to Belarus by 1 January 1993, according to
an ITAR-TASS report of 26 October. Apparently, troops located in
Russia and Ukraine will remain with their units. (John Lepingwell,
RFE/RL, Inc.)
RUSSIAN SPACE ROCKET BUILDER SIGNS US DEAL. NPO Energomash, the
builder of rocket engines that have placed all Soviet space
vehicles and payloads in orbit since the 1957 Sputnik launch,
signed an agreement on 26 October with the American firm Pratt &
Whitney Space Propulsion. According to a U.S. Information Agency
report, the deal provides Pratt & Whitney with exclusive U.S.
rights to market the Russian firm's rocket engines and other
technology. The American company is particularly interested in the
giant RD-170 rocket engine, capable of delivering over 734,000
kilograms of thrust and considered to be the most powerful
liquid-fueling rocket engine in the world. An official of Pratt &
Whitney said that the company might eventually manufacture the
RD-170 in the United States under license. (Doug Clarke, RFE/RL,
Inc.)
AKAEV FEARS TENSIONS IN SOUTHERN KYRGYZSTAN. Kyrgyzstan's
President Askar Akaev met with demonstrators in Dzhalal-Abad in
southern Tajikistan on 26 October, Interfax reported, to try to
defuse tensions that he said could lead to a Tajikistan-style
civil war in the region. The demonstrators, supporters of
Dzhalal-Abad oblast administration chief Bekmamet Osmanov, were
protesting the Kyrgyz government's decision to monitor the
activities of the Dzhalal-Abad oblast administration in Osmanov's
absence. Akaev intended to discuss the situation in Dzhalal-Abad
Oblast with both supporters and opponents of Osmanov. The report
gives no indication whether interethnic tensions are involved, but
Dzhalal-Abad is located in the Fergana Valley, the site of bloody
fighting between local Uzbeks and Kyrgyz in 1990. (Bess Brown,
RFE/RL, Inc.)
MOLDOVAN-UKRAINIAN TREATY. The Presidents of Moldova and Ukraine,
Mircea Snegur and Leonid Kravchuk, met in Chisinau on 23 October
to sign a "treaty of good neighborliness, friendship and
cooperation." It provides for the observance of the rights of
Moldovans in Ukraine and of Ukrainians in Moldova in accordance
with internationally recognized standards; expanded cooperation in
the fields of education and culture; bilateral coordination of
customs procedures; transit facilities across Moldova for
Ukraine's western trade and across Ukraine for Moldova's eastern
trade; and the prohibition of the formation and transit of armed
groups hostile to one of the sides on the territory of the other.
The latter two provisions clearly benefit Moldova, 80% of whose
foreign trade moves across Ukraine, and which contends with
irregular Russian armed groups crossing Ukraine from Russia to
fight on the Dniester. (Vladimir Socor, RFE/RL, Inc.)
CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE
MORE LITHUANIAN ELECTION RESULTS. Preliminary results of the
Seimas elections on 25 October indicate that five groups captured
the 70 seats allocated proportionally, Radio Lithuania reports.
The Lithuanian Democratic Labor Party (LDLP), the successor to the
Lithuanian Communist Party, won 44.7% of the vote; Sajudis -
19.8%; the three-party Christian Democratic coalition - 11.6%; the
Social-Democratic Party (LSDP) - 5.9%; and the Union of Poles
(UP)-2.3%. Only 14 of the 71 contests for seats in single-mandate
districts were decided on 25 October; 11 of these went to the
LDLP. The fate of the rest of the single-mandate districts will be
determined in the second round of the elections, to be held on 8
November. (Saulius Girnius, RFE/RL, Inc.)
BRAZAUSKAS CALLS FOR BROAD COALITION IN LITHUANIA. At a press
conference on 25 October, chairman of the Lithuanian Democratic
Labor Party Algirdas Brazauskas urged all political forces in the
future Seimas to form "a broad coalition in the name of civil
concord and prosperity in Lithuania," Radio Lithuania reports. He
said that relations with Russia should be normalized, with
adjustments on economic matters and trade, but added that he will
continue to demand both the complete withdrawal of Russian troops
from Lithuania and compensation for the damages they inflicted.
(Saulius Girnius, RFE/RL, Inc.)
CZECHS AND SLOVAKS AGREE ON CUSTOMS UNION, COMMON CURRENCY. On 26
October Czech and Slovak leaders, meeting in Javorina, Slovakia,
agreed on a customs union between the Czech and Slovak republics
after Czechoslovakia splits on 1 January 1993. Under the terms of
the agreement, there will be duty-free exchange of goods and
services between the Czech Republic and Slovakia and the two
states will have common trade and customs policies toward third
countries. A joint council and a permanent secretariat will
coordinate these policies. The two sides also reached agreement
on retaining a common currency. CSTK reports Slovak Premier
Vladimir Meciar as saying that the Czechoslovak koruna will remain
the common currency indefinitely, but that either side could pull
out of the arrangement at any time. Meciar also said that he and
Czech Premier Vaclav Klaus had decided against a "common
citizenship." The status of Czechs in Slovakia and Slovaks in the
Czech Republic will be decided by the two republics' parliaments.
Czech and Slovak leaders also approved draft laws on the abolition
of federal laws and federal institutions. The federal government
approved these drafts the same day and submitted them to the
Federal Assembly. (Jiri Pehe, RFE/RL, Inc.)
MORE ON MASS GRAVE NEAR VUKOVAR. The 27 October Los Angeles Times
says that a mass grave found near Vukovar appears to contain the
remains of over 170 Croatian soldiers. The paper quotes Clyde
Snow, a US forensic anthropologist working with the UN human
rights investigation team headed by former Polish Prime Minister
Tadeusz Mazowiecki, as saying that three more months of
investigations will be needed. The wounded men were reportedly
taken by Yugoslav army soldiers and Serbian irregulars from the
Vukovar hospital following that strategic town's fall last
November. Witnesses claim that the men were beaten and killed by
their abductors. (Patrick Moore, RFE/RL, Inc.)
US TO TAKE 1,000 BOSNIANS. Major US dailies report on 27 October
that the State Department announced the previous day that
Washington has agreed to allow 1,000 Bosnian camp inmates to
immigrate. The US had sought to keep the refugees as close to
Bosnia as possible to permit their eventual easy return home, but
international aid agencies have been urging Washington to take
some former camp inmates to help speed up emptying the camps. Over
10,000 inmates are awaiting resettlement. Some two million people
have been displaced in the Yugoslav conflict, and the lives of up
to 400,000 people may be at stake in the upcoming harsh Bosnian
winter. (Patrick Moore, RFE/RL, Inc.)
BOSNIAN TOWN REPORTED WIPED OFF THE MAP. Radios Bosnia-Herzegovina
and Serbia reported on 26 October that the predominantly Muslim
town of Prozor was wiped off the map by forces of the Croatian
Defense Council (HVO) during an attack on 24 October. A statement
released by the Bosnian Army command in Sarajevo said "Prozor no
longer exists." There has been no independent confirmation of the
report, however. The Bosnian presidency has refused comment,
fearing a chain reaction in other villages where tension between
Croats and Muslims is running high. Radio Croatia reports on 26
October that key Muslim leaders and the army are on the verge of
breaking with Bosnia's President Alija Izetbegovic, on the grounds
that his policy of maintaining a close alliance with Croatia has
failed to benefit Muslim interests. (Milan Andrejevich, RFE/RL,
Inc.)
TENSIONS RUNNING HIGH IN THE SANDZAK. Tensions are also rising in
the Sandzak in southwest Serbia after the abduction on 22 October
of some 20 Muslims traveling from Bosnia to their jobs in the town
of Priboj. Unconfirmed reports say the Muslims were executed near
Priboj. Rump Yugoslavia's Prime Minister Milan Panic ordered an
investigation on 26 October and said that every effort will be
made to reduce tension. Panic and cabinet members also met with
military officials and ordered increased border patrols in the
Priboj region along the border with Bosnia-Herzegovina. Sandzak
Muslim leaders urged local residents to remain calm. Radio Serbia
carried the reports. Muslims have been complaining of
provocations and other incidents since the summer, and about
60,000 of them have moved from mixed areas to largely Muslim areas
as a result. (Milan Andrejevich, RFE/RL, Inc.)
CZECHOSLOVAK GOVERNMENT UNABLE TO AGREE ON GABCIKOVO. Meeting in
the early hours of 27 October, the Czechoslovak federal government
failed to reach agreement on stopping work on the controversial
Gabcikovo hydroelectrical dam project. Speaking to reporters in
Prague, Federal Premier Jan Strasky said that "the Slovak
ministers were against stopping work at Gabcikovo." Deputy Prime
Minister Miroslav Macek said that the Czech ministers had demanded
that "the damming of the Danube be stopped immediately," which
would create conditions for a special EC commission to evaluate
the project and for further negotiations. According to Macek, the
Slovak ministers insisted that the damming of the Danube, which
began on 24 October, must continue so that shipping on the river
can be renewed on 3 November. (Jiri Pehe, RFE/RL, Inc.)
HUNGARIAN PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE ON GONCZ INCIDENT. Hungarian
deputies debated at the 26 October parliamentary session the
demonstration that prevented President Arpad Goncz from delivering
his address at the commemoration of the 1956 revolution on 23
October, MTI reports. Opposition parties called for an ad hoc
committee to investigate the incident. Sandor Olah, a member of
the Smallholder deputies in the governing coalition, said that
Nazi symbols had surfaced for the first time at an official
celebration organized by the interior ministry and urged the
interior minister to draw the consequences and resign. Prime
Minister Jozsef Antall rejected charges that his government was in
any way responsible for the incident and said no investigation was
necessary. Several Hungarian Democratic Forum deputies, including
parliamentary caucus leader Imre Konya, said that the major reason
for the incident was that Goncz opened himself to criticism by
getting involved in everyday politics. (Edith Oltay, RFE/RL,
Inc.)
DEADLOCK REPORTED IN ROMANIAN GOVERNMENT TALKS. Petre Roman,
National Salvation Front (NSF) leader and Romania's former prime
minister, suggested on 26 October that political leaders had
reached an impasse in efforts to form a government. He accused
President Ion Iliescu and his Democratic National Salvation Front
(DNSF) of continuing a campaign of calumnies against his party.
The DNSF, which broke away from the NSF in March-April, is
generally seen as opposing radical reforms. In a statement
broadcast by Radio Bucharest, DNSF deputy leader Adrian Nastase
said that his party might withdraw from the race to form a new
cabinet and join the opposition instead. Neither the DNSF, which
failed to win a majority in recent elections, nor the opposition
seems eager to govern during what is likely to be a difficult
winter. (Dan Ionescu, RFE/RL, Inc.)
TENSION OVER ETHNIC AUTONOMY IN ROMANIA. Radio Bucharest broadcast
on 26 October excerpts from a statement adopted the previous day
by the Hungarian Democratic Union of Romania (HDUR) at a
conference in Cluj-Napoca. The statement, which insisted that
ethnic Hungarians "neither want to emigrate nor be assimilated
into the Romanian nation," demanded "self-administration" for
Hungarian communities. It also said that "autonomy for ethnic and
religious communities" is part of Transylvania's political
tradition. The extreme nationalist Greater Romania Party warned in
a communique of possible ethnic strife following the HDUR
declaration, which it described as "an irresponsible attack on the
country's Constitution." (Dan Ionescu, RFE/RL, Inc.)
LATVIAN FOREIGN MINISTER RESIGNS. Latvia's Minister of Foreign
Affairs Janis Jurkans has resigned, according to an RFE/RL
correspondent's report on 27 October. Jurkans had been widely
criticized by members of the Latvian Supreme Council. He survived
a parliamentary vote of confidence last week after legislators
evaluated the performance of the government of Prime Minister
Ivars Godmanis. (Dzintra Bungs, RFE/RL, Inc.)
DANISH LEADER OFFERS ASSISTANCE FOR TROOP WITHDRAWAL. While
discussing the Russian troop withdrawal from the Baltic States,
Danish Foreign Minister Uffe Ellemann-Jensen told his Russian
counterpart Andrei Kozyrev that Denmark had worked vigorously to
establish an international fund to finance the construction of
military housing in Russia, Interfax reported on 26 October.
Ellemann-Jensen said that the efforts had led nowhere so far and
his country had thus decided on a unilateral initiative to expand
housing in Russia using Danish funds. Kozyrev endorsed this idea.
(Dzintra Bungs, RFE/RL, Inc.)
KOZYREV LINKS HUMAN RIGHTS WITH TROOP WITHDRAWAL. Kozyrev also
told the Danish Foreign Minister that the issues of Russian troop
withdrawal from the Baltic States and the rights of Russian
speakers in the Baltics are interrelated. When asked how far
Moscow would go to protect Russian speakers in the former USSR
republics, Kozyrev said: "We are prepared to resort to the most
far-reaching, tough, radical measures, but within the framework of
international law." He did not rule out the possibility of using
force "for the purpose of ceasefire and other peacekeeping
functions in the areas of armed conflicts," but not for the
purpose of "ethnic cleansing." Kozyrev stressed that Russia "is
categorically against the Yugoslav version," Interfax reported on
26 October. (Dzintra Bungs, RFE/RL, Inc.)
SALVATION FRONT PLANS ACTIONS IN THE BALTIC STATES. The program
of the newly formed National Salvation Front in Russia includes
actions in the Baltic States, according to BNS and Interfax
reports of 24 and 26 October. The organization has announced plans
to visit Russian army garrisons in the Baltic States in the period
20-30 November for the purpose of securing the rights of the
troops and their families. Among the leaders of the Salvation
Front are Col. Viktor Alksnis and Russian TV journalist Aleksandr
Nevzorov. (Dzintra Bungs, RFE/RL, Inc.)
BULGARIA TO LAUNCH LARGE-SCALE PRIVATIZATION. According to a
detailed plan distributed to the media on 26 October, the
Bulgarian government aims to begin the privatization of at least
92 companies before the end of the year. The Agency on
Privatization, which prepared the plan, is to deal with eleven
companies worth more than 10 million leva. While the agency has
attributed first priority to companies involved in industry and
agriculture, it is advising municipalities to concentrate on
sectors such as building, trade, services, transport, and
communications. Although political differences have delayed
large-scale privatization, the government has in the meantime
managed to spread ownership through its policy of restoring
property rights to precommunist owners. (Kjell Engelbrekt, RFE/RL,
Inc.)
POLAND COURTS WESTERN INVESTMENT. A three-day forum designed to
promote Western investment in Poland, sponsored by the Polish
government and the United Nations Industrial Development
Organization, opened in Warsaw on 26 October. President Lech
Walesa, the forum's honorary chairman, said that without foreign
capital Poland's economic transformation would take a hundred
years. Deputy Prime Minister Henryk Goryszewski pledged that
Poland will remain friendly to investors, despite public fears of
foreign domination. An opinion poll published in Rzeczpospolita on
26 October showed that 44% of respondents feel there is too little
foreign investment in Poland; 25% think the level is just right;
and only 20% believe that there is too much. However, 51% of
respondents said they would oppose the sale of their own work
place to a foreign investor. (Louisa Vinton, RFE/RL, Inc.)
WORLD BANK OPENS BUDAPEST OFFICE. The World Bank opened a new
office for the East Central European region in Budapest on 26
October, MTI reports. Finance Minister Mihaly Kupa said at the
inauguration ceremony that the presence of the office will
facilitate the Hungarian government's goal of turning Budapest
into the region's financial center. Kemal Dervis, the director of
the World Bank's East Central European department, told Radio
Budapest that the World Bank is concerned about Hungary's large
budget deficit and hopes that the government will take resolute
measures to reduce it. (Edith Oltay, RFE/RL, Inc.)
novine.146.bale.,
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: U.S. forensics expert uncovers mass grave in former Yugoslavia
Subject: Legal experts named to Balkans war-crimes panel
Subject: Heavy fighting rocks Bosnian north
Subject: Mediators unveil proposed constitution to rival Bosnian factions
Subject: Serbia's assembly approves early elections amendment
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: U.S. forensics expert uncovers mass grave in former Yugoslavia
Date: 26 Oct 92 23:10:15 GMT
WASHINGTON (UPI) -- A U.S. forensics consultant to the United Nations
said Monday he uncovered overwhelming evidence in Croatia that 174
wounded men were removed from a hospital by senior officers of the
Yugoslav National Army in late 1991 and executed then buried in a mass
grave.
Dr. Clyde Snow, a forensic anthropoligist who travelled to the region
this month with the U.N. Human Rights Commission to gather evidence of
Serbian atrocities for a potential war-crimes tribunal, told reporters
at the State Department that he believes there are ``dozens or hundreds''
of mass graves spread across what was once Yugoslavia.
Although the United Nations has not yet decided on its next step,
Assistant Secretary of State John Bolton said, the administration is
``determined to get these facts out.''
Bolton sent a stern warning to those who may have been involved in
abuses that any attempts to hide or alter such evidence as mass graves
would be considered a war crime.
``We want to warn all the parties that may have been involved in
these atrocities that any attempt to cover up the evidence or destroy it
would of course be what in our system is called obstruction of justice
and in turn a war crime,'' Bolton told reporters.
The U.N. War Crimes Commission, which was created by a Security
Council resolution earlier this month, is charged with investigating and
prosecuting human rights abuses in the former Yugoslavia.
The panel is currently in the process of gathering information,
Bolton said, and will determine in the future how to use it as evidence
in a war-crimes tribunal.
``The most important thing now is to make sure that all the evidence
that can be preserved will be preserved,'' he said.
Dr. Snow gave a chilling account of the evidence he gathered at a
mass grave near the Croatian town of Vukovar and during interviews with
witnesses to events leading up to the mass execution.
In November, 1991, after Croatia declared independence from
Yugoslavia, Belgrade began its brutal offensive to reclaim the
territory. Slovenia and Bosnia-Hercegovina in the following months also
declared independence and have suffered similar if not worse abuse at
the hands of Belgrade's troops.
Snow said Yugoslav Army troops, seeking a medical facility to treat
its soldiers, went to a hospital in Vukovar and removed 400 Croatian
patients.
He said 174 wounded Croats were singled out ``by a (Yugoslav Army)
Colonel'' and taken on three buses to a farming community named Ovcara.``
``These 174 men were never seen again,'' Snow said.
Later that evening, Snow said he was told by witnesses, the men were
taken to a field by Yugoslav Army soldiers as well as Serbian irregulars
and executed then buried in shallow graves.
Snow travelled to the field Oct. 18 and ``immediatelly encountered a
human skeleton, then another.'' Although Snow left the ``crime scene''
undisturbed, he discovered two more bodies and one skull with a bullet
hole in the temple.
``We have strong reason to believe this grave probably contains the
bodies of the men who...were kidnapped from the hospital Nov. 20.''
He said the United Nations was treating the field ``as a homicide
scene,'' and Russian troops were currently guarding it.``
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Subject: Legal experts named to Balkans war-crimes panel
Date: 26 Oct 92 20:03:41 GMT
UNITED NATIONS (UPI) -- Secretary-General Boutros Ghali appointed five
legal experts Monday to the U.N. war crimes commission that will
``examine and analyze'' reports of atrocities by warring ethnic groups
in the former republics of Yugoslavia.
The work of the commission could lead to an international trial of
those charged with allegedly torturing and killing thousands of
civilians, mostly in Bosnia-Hercegovina, where six months of fighting
between Serbs, Croats and Muslims has brought widespread reports of
racially motivated killings.
The U.N. war-crimes commission was set up by the Security Council on
Oct. 6 after Serbian irregulars were accused of executing Muslim Slavs
in detention camps. The council also asked governments to provide to the
commission information related to severe violations of human rights.
Ghali said the five experts will ``examine and analyze information
concerning possible breaches of international humanitarian law and the
Geneva Conventions in the territory of the former Yugoslavia.''
The secretary-general named Frits Kalshoven, a professor from the
Netherlands, to head the commission. He currently is a legal adviser for
international affairs of the Netherlands Red Cross Society.
Other members are Cherif Bassiouni, an Egyptian professor teaching at
De Paul University in Chicago who is president of the university's
International Human Rights Institute; William Fenrick, Director of
Canada's Law Operations and Training at the National Defense
Headquarters; Judge Keba Mbaye of Senegal, a former judge of the U.N.
International Court of Justice; and, Professor Torkel Opsahl, president
of the Norwegian Institute of Human Rights.
When it constituted the war-crimes commission, the Security Council
called on the experts to contact governments and international
organizations or conduct their own investigations to gather evidence on
war crimes committed during the conflict in the former Yugoslav
republics.
Government representatives on the Security Council said that they
would seek to prosecute those responsible of human rights violations,
particularly the ``ethnic cleansing'' campaign against the Muslim
population in Bosnia-Hercegovina.
The governments of Bosnia-Hercegovina and the United States have been
the only two to have provided written records of allegations of war
crimes.
The U.S. State Department last week submitted its second series of
reports dealing with the issues, drawing heavily from interviews done by
U.S. embassies in the Eastern and Central Europe.
The State Department said the documents showed ``numerous abhorrent
incidents, including willful killings, torture of prisoners, abuse of
civilians in detention camps, wanton devastation and destruction of
property and mass forcible expulsion and deportation of civilians.''
The documents cited several cases of mass killings. The report said
in one instance near Brcko, Serbian irregulars allegedly killed between
2,000 and 3,000 Muslim men, women and children.
The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees appealed Monday to
governments to admit thousands of detainees from camps in the former
Yugoslavia. It said many of the refugees have been ``subjected to
horrendous abuses and torture.''
It said the United States on Monday offered to take 1,000 refugees,
the largest number by any governments. Finland, Italy, Norway, New
Zealand and Switzerland have offered to admit some refugees.
The refugee agency's deputy commissioner Douglas Stafford said in the
appeal that the refugees have suffered the worst atrocities.
``These people have been beaten, tortured and have experienced
atrocities of the worst kinds,'' Stafford said. ``They are in need of
immediate protection.''
The United Nations has reported a slow response from governments to
assist the refugees. UNHCR and the International Committee of the Red
Cross have been interviewing refugees in camps in Bosnia-Hercegovina,
but they said plans to evacuate them were postponed because not enough
countries have come forward to admit the refugees.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Heavy fighting rocks Bosnian north
Date: 27 Oct 92 15:27:23 GMT
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Hercegovina (UPI) -- Serbian forces Tuesday
reportedly shelled towns across northern and central Bosnia-Hercegovina
and launched a new ``ethnic cleansing'' operation.
Meantime, in Geneva, international peace mediators presented the
warring factions with a plan for a political settlement of the war.
Commanders of the former Yugoslav republic's Serbian, Croatian and
Muslim Slav-dominated Bosnian forces held the first of a series of U.N.-
mediated working-level talks in Sarajevo aimed at demilitarizing the
capital and guaranteeing humanitarian aid deliveries.
On the war front, Yugoslav army-equipped Serbian forces launched
artillery barrages into and around the northern and central towns of
Jajce, Gradacac, Brcko, Maglaj, Tuzla and Bihac, Sarajevo radio
reported.
In Brcko, the radio said, Serbian soldiers embarked on a new round of
``ethnic cleansing,'' destroying mosques, cemeteries and a Catholic
church, while forcing non-Serbs into signing documents at a local Red
Cross office saying that they were voluntarily abandoning their homes
and leaving the town.
There was no independent confirmation of the report, although U.N.
officials have accused Serbian forces in the past of coercing non-Serbs
into signing such documents in other areas of the war-torn state.
The United States has said it has presented information to U.N. war
crimes investigators on previous Serbian ethnic cleansing measures in
Brcko, including the alleged massacre of some 3,000 non-Serbs.
Brcko, which has a pre-war ethnic mix of 44 percent Muslim Slav, 25
percent Croatian and 21 percent Serbian, was one of the first towns
conquered in a Serbian drive launched in late March to rip a self-
declared state out of 70 percent of Europe's newest state.
The Serbs are confronted by Croatian nationalist forces and the
Bosnian army, which mostly comprises Muslim Slavs, but also includes
moderate Serbs and Croats opposed to the partition of the republic,
which won international recognition of its independence in early April.
Western governments and U.N. officials and international human rights
groups say Serbian soldiers have systematically expelled tens of
thousands of non-Serbs from areas claimed for the Serbian ``state'' in
operations involving forced evictions, house-burnings and killings.
Croatian and Muslim forces have been accused of pursuing similar
tactics, but not on the same massive scale as allegedly employed by the
Serbs.
In Geneva, U.N. special envoy Cyrus Vance and European Community
mediator David Owen presented representatives of the three sides with
their proposal for a new republic constitution that sources said would
create a federal structure similar to the Swiss-style system of cantonal
districts.
The local divisions would not be ethnically based and the federal
government would oversee foreign affairs, finance and security.
Serbian and nationalist Croatian leaders have been insisting on a
division of Bosnia-Hercegovina into autonomous ethnic regions with
little or no central linkage.
Vance and Owen planned to begin a three-day visit to former
Yugoslavia on Wednesday as part of an apparent bid to elicit support for
their plan.
Sarajevo radio quoted Bosnian officials in the eastern town of
Srebrenica as reporting the deaths over the past seven months of at
least 173 children among a total of some 80,000 refugees who fled
Serbian ``ethnic cleansing'' and are now living homeless, hungry and
cold in surrounding forests.
The officials said 342 children among the refugees were injured, 1,
837 lost one parent, 563 lost both parents, and more than 10,000
children have been stricken by various illnesses, the radio said.
Sarajevo saw another day of sporadic artillery and sniper fire.
The working-level U.N.-mediated talks between Bosnian, Croatian and
Serbian military commanders were called to discuss a proposal for a 12-
mile-wide demilitarized zone around the capital and its airport to
facilitate deliveries of humanitarian aid.
U.N. Protection Force (UNPROFOR) negotiators said they were not
greatly optimistic that the plan could be quickly approved and
implemented.
``A start has been made,'' said UNPROFOR spokesman Mik Magnusson.
``All we can say is the machinery is now in motion. It may not even be
going very fast, but it is in motion.''
UNPROFOR, in its daily survey, said its military observers detected a
total of 43 Serbian heavy artillery rounds hitting Bosnian-controlled
territory in the Sarajevo area during the 24-hour period that ended at 5
p.m. Monday. By contrast, only seven Bosnian-fired shells hit Serb-
controlled areas, it said.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Mediators unveil proposed constitution to rival Bosnian factions
Date: 27 Oct 92 17:38:29 GMT
GENEVA (UPI) -- Cyrus Vance and David Owen, the co-chairmen of the U.
N.-European Community peace conference on the former Yugoslavia, Tuesday
unveiled to the rival factions of Bosnia-Hercegovina a proposed
constitution that would be the basis for a political settlement of their
almost seven-month-old war.
Public disclosure of the plan was delayed until Wednesday due to
difficulties in translating the English-language draft into French as
required by U.N. regulations, said Fred Eckhard, a spokesman for the co-
chairmen.
But, according to earlier extensive leaks of its details, the plan
calls for the establishment of a federal system in Bosnia-Hercegovina
similar to the cantonal structure of Switzerland, with a central
government retaining control of foreign relations, economic affairs and
internal security.
Most other political responsibilities would be transferred to the
administrations of an unspecified number of regions that would be
established without regard to the local ethnic mixes in the newly
independent republic.
There have been no official responses from leaders of the republic's
Muslim Slav, Croatian and Serbian communities, whose negotiators met
behind closed doors with Owen and Vance to review the proposed
constitution.
Bosnia-Hercegovina's Muslim Slavs, who comprise 44 percent of the 4.4
million-strong population, and the small number of moderate Serbs and
Croats advocate maintaining the republic as a unified, federal state.
But most of 1.4 million Christian Orthodox Serbs, and 750,000 Roman
Catholic Croats, backed respectively by the regimes in neighboring
Serbia and Croatia, want to divide Bosnia-Hercegovina in autonomous
ethnic regions.
Serbian forces, backed by the Serb-dominated Yugoslav army, ignited
the conflict in late March when they launched an offensive aimed at pre-
empting international recognition of the republic's independence and
capturing a self-declared state proclaimed on 70 percent of Bosnia-
Hercegovina.
Nationalist Croatian forces this summer proclaimed an ``Autonomous
Croatian Community of Herceg-Bosna'' in Croat-dominated Western
Hercegovina and other Croatian pockets.
``This is a unique constitution for a unique situation,'' Eckhard
said of the Vance-Owen proposal. ``The co-chairmen have ignored the
question of ethnic purity in trying to set up the embryo regions, but of
course most of them will have a dominant ethnic group.''
He said the proposed central government would comprise members of all
three ethnic groups, as does the current one, in addition ``other
persons.'' Asked who these persons would be, he pointed out that two out
of every five marriages in Bosnia-Hercegovina are mixed.
Vance and Owen were to depart Wednesday for Belgrade, where Eckhard
said they would hold talks with Dobrica Cosic, the president of the rump
Yugoslav union of Serbia and Montenegro, its prime minister, Milan
Panic.
They also hoped to meet President Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia,
widely regarded as the prime architect of the Serbian land-grab
offensive, although the talks had not yet been confirmed.
Eckhard said Vance and Owen were seeking ``as much of a one-on-one
meeting as possible'' with Milosevic.
On Thursday, the pair was to swing through Macedonia, Kosovo and
Albania, where they were to overnight after a meeting with government
officials.
They planned to return to Geneva Friday, Eckhard said, via Montenegro
and Croatia, where they would meet Croatian President Franjo Tudjman,
Gen. Satish Nambiar, the commander of U.N. forces in ex-Yugoslavia, and
Cedric Thornberry the senior U.N. political officer.
In a related development, the U.N. Childrens Fund said it had
received assurances from all parties that a week-long truce would be
observed beginning Nov. 1 to enable humanitarian aid to be distributed
to children and other refugees, mostly in Bosnia-Hercegovina, but also
in Montenegro.
The International Organization for Migration (IOM), a non-
governmental organization affiliated with the United Nations, announced
it was moving 208 former prisoners from Serbian detention camps, plus
their families, to Switzerland within the next few days.
The refugees were among 1,500 former inmates brought out of camps in
Serb-held areas of Bosnia-Hercegovina by the International Red Cross and
the U.H. High Commission for Refugees. They were given temporary refuge
in the Croatian town of Karlovac.
The IOM said it hopes to move another 70 former prisoners to Finland
shortly.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Serbia's assembly approves early elections amendment
Date: 27 Oct 92 17:52:30 GMT
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (UPI) -- The communist-controlled Serbian
Assembly Tuesday passed a constitutional amendment authorizing early
parliamentary and presidential polls, but allowing President Slobodan
Milosevic to maintain his grip on the state media, election machinery
and police forces during the campaign.
In a bid to loosen Milosevic's control of the media and ensure
opposition participation in the polls, the Yugoslav federal government
demanded the resignation of the top official of state-run Belgrade radio
and television.
The Serbian legislature approved a constitutional amendment that
permitted early elections by the end of the year and ``foresees the
continuity of the current government until new elections are held, when
the mandate of the president and parliamentary deputies will end.''
The provision allowed Milosevic to retain control of the opinion-
shaping state-run media, Serbia's pervasive security network and the
communist-run election bureaucracy.
Normally, early elections in parliamentary democracies are triggered
when a government chief dismisses a legislature and submits his own
resignation.
Political analysts believe that Milosevic sought to avoid such steps
not just to maintain a pre-poll lock on power, but to avoid giving an
impression that he and his Socialist Party of Serbia are responsible for
dire economic, social and political chaos stemming from their roles in
the wars in Croatia and Bosnia-Hercegovina.
Early federal and republic elections have been pushed by President
Dobrica Cosic of the rump Yugoslav federation of Serbia and Montenegro,
and his prime minister, Milan Panic, a Belgrade-born naturalized U.S.
citizen, as part of a peace-seeking initiative.
Both regard Milosevic's ouster as the main requisite for the lifting
of severe economic sanctions imposed on Serbia and Montenegro by the
United Nations on May 30 for underwriting the Serbian territorial
conquests in neighboring Bosnia-Hercegovina.
Their efforts have ignited a major power struggle with Milosevic.
Cosic on Saturday set Dec. 20 for early multi-party elections for the
federal Parliament, control of which Milosevic's party captured in May.
Milosevic and his supporters have accused Cosic and Panic of
betraying Serbian national interests through their efforts to end the
war in Bosnia-Hercegovina and normalize relations Croatia severed by
last year's Serb-Croat war.
Serbian Justice Minister Zoran Cetkovic, defending the constitutional
amendment for early elections, said it only ``enables the constitutional
and legal continuity of the authorities until new ones are elected.''
Serbian Assembly Chairman Aleksandar Bakocevic urged Serbian Prime
Minister Radoman Bozovic to prepare by Thursday decrees so that Serbian
elections could be held simultaneously with the Dec. 20 federal polls
and Montenegrin assembly contests.
A federal commission appointed by Panic to monitor the federal
elections announced that it demanded the resignation of Milorad Vucelic,
the general manager of Serbian radio and television, because he was
named to the leadership of Milosevic's party over the weekend.
Panic presided over the commission, which said that Vucelic's two
posts were ``incompatible.''
``Having in mind that the television is the most powerful medium...,
its influence on votes is a decisive one,'' the commission said in a
statement.
The federal government wants ``all political parties to be given an
equal chance'' to publicize their platforms, the commission said.
The commission said the federal government believed that Vecelic's
departure would mark the beginning of ``freeing the media from (ruling
party) control.''
In December 1990, Milosevic and his communists won a massive five-
year mandate in Serbia's first multi-party elections following a
campaign strongly supported by the state-run media.
novine.147.bale.,
UNITED NATIONS (UPI) -- Secretary-General Boutros
Ghali appointed five legal experts Monday to the U.N. war
crimes commission that will ``examine and analyze'' reports
of atrocities by warring ethnic groups in the former
republics of Yugoslavia.
The work of the commission could lead to an
international trial of those charged with allegedly
torturing and killing thousands of civilians, mostly in
Bosnia-Hercegovina, where six months of fighting between
Serbs, Croats and Muslims has brought widespread reports of
racially motivated killings.
The U.N. war-crimes commission was set up by the
Security Council on Oct. 6 after Serbian irregulars were
accused of executing Muslim Slavs in detention camps. The
council also asked governments to provide to the commission
information related to severe violations of human rights.
Ghali said the five experts will ``examine and
analyze information concerning possible breaches of
international humanitarian law and the Geneva Conventions in
the territory of the former Yugoslavia.''
The secretary-general named Frits Kalshoven, a
professor from the Netherlands, to head the commission. He
currently is a legal adviser for international affairs of
the Netherlands Red Cross Society.
Other members are Cherif Bassiouni, an Egyptian
professor teaching at De Paul University in Chicago who is
president of the university's International Human Rights
Institute; William Fenrick, Director of Canada's Law
Operations and Training at the National Defense
Headquarters; Judge Keba Mbaye of Senegal, a former judge of
the U.N. International Court of Justice; and, Professor
Torkel Opsahl, president of the Norwegian Institute of Human
Rights.
When it constituted the war-crimes commission, the
Security Council called on the experts to contact
governments and international organizations or conduct their
own investigations to gather evidence on war crimes
committed during the conflict in the former Yugoslav
republics.
Government representatives on the Security Council
said that they would seek to prosecute those responsible of
human rights violations, particularly the ``ethnic
cleansing'' campaign against the Muslim population in
Bosnia-Hercegovina.
The governments of Bosnia-Hercegovina and the United
States have been the only two to have provided written
records of allegations of war crimes.
The U.S. State Department last week submitted its
second series of reports dealing with the issues, drawing
heavily from interviews done by U.S. embassies in the
Eastern and Central Europe.
The State Department said the documents showed
``numerous abhorrent incidents, including willful killings,
torture of prisoners, abuse of civilians in detention camps,
wanton devastation and destruction of property and mass
forcible expulsion and deportation of civilians.''
The documents cited several cases of mass killings.
The report said in one instance near Brcko, Serbian
irregulars allegedly killed between 2,000 and 3,000 Muslim
men, women and children.
The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees appealed
Monday to governments to admit thousands of detainees from
camps in the former Yugoslavia. It said many of the refugees
have been ``subjected to horrendous abuses and torture.''
It said the United States on Monday offered to take
1,000 refugees, the largest number by any governments.
Finland, Italy, Norway, New Zealand and Switzerland have
offered to admit some refugees.
The refugee agency's deputy commissioner Douglas
Stafford said in the appeal that the refugees have suffered
the worst atrocities.
``These people have been beaten, tortured and have
experienced atrocities of the worst kinds,'' Stafford said.
``They are in need of immediate protection.''
The United Nations has reported a slow response from
governments to assist the refugees. UNHCR and the
International Committee of the Red Cross have been
interviewing refugees in camps in Bosnia-Hercegovina, but
they said plans to evacuate them were postponed because not
enough countries have come forward to admit the refugees.
novine.148.bale.,
U.N. Says Muslims Face Extermination, Reports On Mass Graves
GENEVA (AP) - A U.N. investigator said Wednesday that
Muslims in Bosnia-Herzegovina ``are virtually threatened with
extermination'' because of ethnic cleansing by Serbs.
Tadeusz Mazowiecki's report reiterated what has long been
charged - that ethnic cleansing does not appear to be a
consequence of the war, but its goal.
``This goal, to a large extent, has already been achieved
through killings, beatings, rape, destruction of houses and
threats,'' the former Polish premier said.
Mazowiecki, who had announced his main findings Monday
ahead of the report's publication, said Bosnian Serb leaders
have pursued their plan while negotiating peace in Geneva.
Muslims are the ``principal victims and are virtually
threatened with extermination,'' he said.
The report, given to the U.N. Human Rights Commission,
also detailed evidence of mass graves near the town of
Vukovar in the neighboring republic of Croatia, ``some of
which contain victims of atrocities.'' Vukovar fell to Serb
forces in a fierce battle in last year's war in Croatia.
Clyde Snow, an American forensic expert, said in the
report he found remains of young men buried over an area of
10 by 30 yards at the head of a ravine about a mile southeast
of the village of Ovcara.
The discovery appeared to confirm witness accounts that
about 175 patients from Vukovar hospital disappeared after
its evacuation last Nov. 20, Snow said.
Witnesses said lightly wounded civilian men and soldiers
were separated from women, children and the elderly and taken
away on buses of the Yugoslav National Army, which backed
Croatia's ethnic Serbs.
The captives were taken to a garage in Ovcara, where two
were beaten to death by Yugoslav soldiers and Serb
paramilitary fighters, the witnesses said. By the evening,
they said, the prisonsers were divided into groups of 20 and
driven by truck to the ravine.
Snow did not say how many bodies might be in the mass
grave or indicate where or how the victims might have been
killed.
Mazowiecki visited former Yugoslavia this month and said
the human rights situation had worsened since his last trip
in August.
He urged other countries to admit more victims of ethnic
cleansing, especially people detained in camps, because they
otherwise face death.
novine.149.bale.,
WASHINGTON (UPI) -- U.N. sanctions against Serbia are
not working as goods get through on the Danube River and by
trucks that are supposedly only crossing through, not
unloading, in that nation, a Senate report said Monday.
A Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff report,
released by Sen. Claiborne Pell, D-R.I., the chairman, said
panel investigators found ``major holes'' in the U.N.
sanctions.
``Allowing Serbia to evade sanctions permits it to
continue a ruthless war in Bosnia-Hercegovina and deprives
the world community of the one non-military tool to check
Serbian aggression,'' Pell said. ``Failing to enforce
sanctions makes the military option inevitable.''
The report said ``a large volume of of goods reaches
Serbia'' on the Danube, providing Serbia with most of its
oil. The document said that fewer that 5 percent of the
barges are inspected by Romanian and Bulgarian customs.
The staff report added that the U.S. Customs Service
and other observers ``believe the overwhelming majaority of
barges violating the sanctions regime are Ukranian flag
vessels.''
False invoicing for truck cargo and phony ship
manifests allow the traffic to evade the sanctions.
International monitors on the Danube River and at land
crossings to Serbia cannot do their job because they do not
have essential communications systems, the staff
investigators said.
The report said that to make the sanctions more
effective, transit traffic to Bosnia-Hercegovina and Croatia
should be banned and an inspection system set up to inspect
and verify all transit cargoes as they enter and leave Serbia.
novine.150.bale.,
RFE/RL Daily Report
No. 208, 28 October 1992
SUCCESSOR STATES TO THE USSR
YELTSIN BANS NATIONAL SALVATION FRONT. Russian President Boris
Yeltsin has called for the banning of the National Salvation
Front, which was founded last weekend by an assortment of
communist, nationalist, and other political groups. Yeltsin said
that he decided to ban the Front because it had called for the
overthrow of the lawful authorities, including the president,
ITAR-TASS reported on 27 October. Leaders of the Front asserted
that Yeltsin was panicking. Izvestiya reported on the same day
that Yeltsin had created a "working group" of senior ministers who
will plan to hold a referendum on the constitution while also
temporarily suspending parliament. Ex-Soviet leader Mikhail
Gorbachev stated that during its last meeting, the Security
Council had discussed the introduction of emergency rule, but that
no consensus had been reached. (Alexander Rahr, RFE/RL, Inc.)
PARLIAMENTARY GUARDS SURROUND IZVESTIYA. The parliamentary guards,
under the command of parliamentary speaker Ruslan Khasbulatov,
have surrounded the publication house and the editorial offices of
the newsapaper Izvestiya in order to enforce a parliamentary
decision to return the newspaper to the legislature's control,
ITAR-TASS reported on 27 October. Izvestiya first became
independent after the failed August 1991 putsch, but parliament
subsequently voted to subordinate the newspaper once again to
parliament. President Yeltsin had previously promised that he
would defend Izvestiya against seizure by parliamentary
hardliners. (Alexander Rahr, RFE/RL, Inc.)
YELTSIN CRITICIZES FOREIGN MINISTRY. In a highly critical speech
at the Russian Foreign Ministry on 27 October, President Yeltsin
noted that there had been "improvisations, inconsistencies and
contradictions" in the work of the Foreign Ministry, whereas its
personnel reform was progressing "very, very slowly." Yeltsin
claimed that Russia must advocate its foreign policy interests
more directly, and not be overly concerned with charges of Russian
imperialism. Rather, Russian foreign policy should focus on
protecting Russia's interests and security, and Russia should not
allow itself to be insulted in a manner which the USSR would not
have tolerated. Overall, the speech was a clear call to greater
action, and tougher stands, by the Foreign Ministry. The speech
was reported by Interfax. (John Lepingwell, RFE/RL, Inc.)
YELTSIN VOICES SUPPORT FOR GAIDAR, KOZYREV. In his 27 October
speech at the Russian Foreign Ministry, President Yeltsin voiced
his support for Prime Minister Gaidar and Foreign Minister
Kozyrev. Yeltsin noted that he had no intention of "sacrificing"
either Gaidar or Kozyrev, but his support for Kozyrev seemed more
qualified. Yeltsin described Gaidar's retention as "essential" but
did not say the same for Kozyrev. While Yeltsin did dismiss
rumors of Kozyrev's resignation as speculation, the harshness of
Yeltsin's criticism of the Foreign Ministry would seem to imply
that Kozyrev's days as Foreign Minister are numbered. Yeltsin
also praised the work of the Russian embassy in Washington which
is headed by Vladimir Lukin, a critic of, and potential successor
to, Kozyrev. (John Lepingwell, RFE/RL, Inc.)
YELTSIN CALLS FOR TOUGHER POLICY TOWARD BALTIC STATES. President
Yeltsin accused the West of double standards concerning the
"persecution" of the Russian-speaking population in the Baltic
States in his 27 October speech at the Russian Foreign Ministry.
According to Interfax, he urged the Foreign Ministry to make
greater efforts to raise the issue, and complained that in this
area, as in others, the Foreign Ministry was only reacting to
events rather than anticipating them. (John Lepingwell, RFE/RL,
Inc.)
RUSSIAN SHOW OF FORCE STOPS GEORGIAN SHELLING IN ABKHAZIA.
According to an ITAR-TASS report of 27 October, two Russian Su-25
attack aircraft flew over Georgian artillery emplacements shelling
a Russian military garrison in Eshery. While the aircraft did not
open fire, the shelling stopped under the threat of attack. In a
separate incident reported by AFP on 28 October, a Russian Su-25
fired an air-to-air missile at a Georgian aircraft that had opened
fire on it. Neither aircraft was hit. Both incidents appear to
reflect the first implementation of a new policy that allows
Russian forces to return fire without warning. (John Lepingwell,
RFE/RL, Inc.)
GERASHCHENKO DETAILS POSITION ON ECONOMIC ISSUES. Russian Central
Bank Chairman Viktor Gerashchenko gave what may be the most
informative presentation to date of his positions on economic
reform policy in an interview with Trud on 27 October. His major
point was that an excessively tight credit policy had largely
caused the drastic fall in Russian economic production, and urged
that "we should not repeat the mistakes of the USA in 1929, when
[such a policy contributed to] the country collapsing into a deep
economic crisis." Although appreciative of the need to continue
anti-inflation measures and clearly against such policies as
indexation of wages, he argued for a reorientation of economic
policy towards ending the plunge in economic activity in the
country. Gerashchenko also touched on weaknesses of current
pricing, interest rate and privatization policies. (Erik
Whitlock, RFE/RL, Inc.)
RUSSIA'S RECESSION DEEPENS. During the interview with
Gerashchenko, the interviewer cited some statistical data that was
presumably taken from the Goskomstat report for the first nine
months of 1992. Industrial output in August was said to be 27%
lower than in August 1991, while industrial output in September
was down by 28-29%. He also mentioned a monthly inflation rate of
25%. Reuters of the same date cited Izvestiya to the effect that
inflation in October could rise to 25%. The original source could
not be obtained. (Keith Bush, RFE/RL, Inc.)
RUBLE FALLS FURTHER. At the Moscow Interbank Currency Exchange
session on 27 October, the ruble fell further, Bizness-TASS
reported. It closed the day at 393 rubles to the US dollar,
against 368 rubles to the dollar on 22 October. Volume traded was
$45 million, up from $39 million on 22 October. (Keith Bush,
RFE/RL, Inc.)
RUSSIAN COUNCIL OF ENTREPRENEURS. During his visit to Tolyatti on
25 October, Gaidar addressed an assembly of some 60 industrial
executives, Interfax and Western agencies reported. In return for
their support, he promised greater consultation with them and
their peers, and announced a number of concessions to industry.
Gaidar said that a government resolution would be adopted on 26
October to set up a Council of Entrepreneurs under the Russian
government. It was not immediately clear how this body would
differ from, or interact with the Council on Entrepreneurship,
which was set up on 2 March,and the Trilateral Commission, of
which little has been heard of late. (Keith Bush, RFE/RL, Inc.)
PERSONNEL CHANGES IN RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT. On 23 October, ITAR-TASS
reported that Russian Health Minister Andrei Vorobiev had been
replaced. He had suffered a heart attack on 22 October while
presenting his plans to reform the health care system to the
cabinet. His replacement was not named, nor was a reason for his
retirement given. Russia's chief representative to the
International Monetary Fund, Konstantin Kagalovsky, was replaced
on the same day. ITAR-TASS reported that he would become an
adviser to Gaidar. No replacement for Kagalovsky was named, but
it is thought that Aleksei Mozhin is in line for the post. (Keith
Bush, RFE/RL, Inc.)
CHEMICAL WEAPONS ELIMINATION SITES NAMED. The presidium of the
Russian parliament discussed a draft program for the elimination
of Russian chemical weapons on 26 October. ITAR-TASS reported the
names of the four sites where elimination facilities will be
built. They are Novocheboksarsk (in the Chuvash autonomous
republic, some 650 kilometers east of Moscow), Kambarka (in the
Udmurt autonomous republic), and two locations in Saratov oblast:
Volsk-17 and Gornyi. Russia has said it has 40,000 tons of
chemical weapons. A destruction facility had been built in
Chapayevsk in 1989, but local protests forced the government to
limit its use to research. The new sites mentioned in the draft
program appear to be declared chemical weapons storage facilities.
Kambarka, for example, is a depot for nearly 7,000 tons of
lewisite, a poisonous blister gas used in World War I. (Doug
Clarke, RFE/RL, Inc.)
RUSSIAN DELEGATION TO IRAN DISCUSSES NUCLEAR TECHNOLOGY SALES.
According to a report published in Kommersant on 27 October, a
delegation that included representatives of the Russian Atomic
Energy Ministry and Russian nuclear technology exporting
organizations, met with Iranian officials from 15 through 24
October. The group discussed the timetable for the construction in
Iran of a VVER nuclear reactor, the sale of which was agreed in
August 1992 despite US objections. Other discussions concerned
possible joint uranium prospecting projects, and a chemical
process for extracting uranium from low-grade ores. (John
Lepingwell, RFE/RL, Inc.)
NEW UKRAINIAN CABINET OF MINISTERS. The Ukrainian parliament on 27
October approved the new cabinet of ministers presented by Prime
Minister Leonid Kuchma, Ukrinform-TASS reported. Ihor Yukhnovsky,
the former head of the opposition People's Council in the
parliament, was named first deputy prime minister. He will be
assisted by five deputy prime ministers. A total of 21 ministers
were named; three ministerial posts remain vacant. Kuchma, in his
address to parliament, said that the composition of the new
government is not final and may be changed if the need arises.
(Roman Solchanyk, RFE/RL, Inc.)
RUSSIAN-TAJIK FORCES COOPERATE FOR STABILITY IN DUSHANBE.
Tajikistan's acting President Akbarsho Iskandarov told a press
conference on 27 October that the Tajik government has adequate
forces at its disposal to prevent a repetition of the attempt by
fighters from Kulyab Oblast to overthrow it, Interfax reported.
He admitted that authorities in Dushanbe had been warned that the
Kulyab forces would attack the capital on 24 October, but had not
believed the warning. The Russian division stationed in
Tajikistan will continue to guard important sites, including
government buildings, the Nurek power station and industrial
installations. Iskandarov said that an assembly of representatives
of all political parties and movements, public organizations and
ethnic groups is to be convened to find a solution to the
country's crisis. (Bess Brown, RFE/RL, Inc.)
KYRGYZ VICE-PRESIDENT HAS DOUBTS. Kyrgyzstan's Vice-President
Feliks Kulov told Interfax on 27 October that Iskandarov had asked
him to resume his peace mission but he has been unable to reach
the Tajik leader. Kulov said that he had been told by Tajikistan's
National Security Committee that the situation in Dushanbe was
completely out of control and that Pamiris from Gorno-Badakhshan
were seizing motor vehicles and taking hostages. Kulov's
information appears to confirm a Tajik diplomat's statement to an
RFE/RL correspondent in Moscow that forces from Badakhshan and
supporters of the Islamic Renaissance Party (IRP) have been
robbing the populace and commandeering vehicles. According to the
diplomat, the Pamiris and IRP supporters had started fighting each
other. The IRP and Badakhshan's nationalist movement are both
members of the anti-Communist coalition. (Bess Brown, RFE/RL,
Inc.)
DZHALAL-ABAD CRISIS APPARENTLY DEFUSED. Kyrgyzstan's President
Askar Akaev has apparently defused a crisis that, according to
Akaev, threatened to create a Tajik-type situation in Dzhalal-Abad
Oblast in the southern part of the country, Interfax reported on
27 October. During a lightening visit to Dzhalal-Abad, Akaev
managed to persuade supporters of the chief of the oblast
administration (akim), Bekmamat Osmonov, to give up their
demonstrations demanding the resignations of Vice-President Feliks
Kulov and Prime Minister Tursunbek Chyngyshev for having demanded
an investigation of Osmonov's rule. Osmonov himself offered his
resignation, admitting that a sharp division between supporters
and adversaries of his policies endangered stability in the
oblast, where the presence of a large Uzbek minority creates the
potential for interethnic violence. (Bess Brown, RFE/RL, Inc.)
MOLDOVAN HUMAN RIGHTS BODY APPEALS TO INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS.
The Moldovan Parliament's Commission for Human Rights and
Interethnic Relations on 21 October appealed to international
organizations to defend the rights of Moldovans in areas on both
banks of the Dniester controlled by "Dniester" insurgents and by
Russia's 14th Army. The appeal, carried by Moldovapres, noted the
ongoing "liquidation of constitutional bodies," the imposition of
the Russian script in place of the Latin for the "Moldovan"
language, the closure of many "Moldovan"-language kindergartens,
the eviction from jobs and/or homes of thousands of Moldovans who
disagree with the "Dniester republic"'s policies, and the illegal
detention of several local Moldovan activists on unsubstantiated
charges. The appeal also noted that "in its difficult situation,
Moldova is not in a position to defend its citizens in its eastern
area." (Vladimir Socor, RFE/RL, Inc.)
MORE ON UKRAINIAN-MOLDOVAN SUMMIT. The presidents of Moldova and
Ukraine, Mircea Snegur and Leonid Kravchuk, declared at the
signing ceremony of the Ukrainian-Moldovan treaty on 23 October,
as cited by TASS, that the sides agree on respecting each other's
territorial integrity and not raising territorial issues stemming
from the second world war; but that they do not rule out a future
examination of the issue of northern Bukovina and southern
Bessarabia (former parts of Moldova and, later, of Romania, which
were transferred to Ukraine following the Soviet annexation of
these areas). Kravchuk told a news conference in Chisinau, as
reported by the Moldovan media, that Ukraine regards the "Dniester
region" as an inseparable part of Moldova; and that Moldova's
independence and territorial integrity is important to Ukraine.
He said that any legal-political status of that region is for the
Moldovan parliament to determine. (Vladimir Socor, RFE/RL, Inc.)
CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE
"VISEGRAD TRIANGLE" MEETS EC REPRESENTATIVES AT LONDON SUMMIT.
The prime ministers of Poland and Hungary, Hanna Suchocka and
Jozsef Antall, and Deputy Prime Minister Antonin Baudys of
Czechoslovakia, are scheduled to meet with the current EC
President, British Prime Minister John Major, and European
Commission President Jacques Delors in London on 28 October. The
Czech and Slovak prime ministers Vaclav Klaus and Vladimir Meciar
will also be present at the meeting. According to Western media
reports, the chances for any concrete results are small. Major
has already indicated that the three countries will not be offered
a timetable for membership as the EC gives priority to the
applications of European Free Trade Association (EFTA) member
countries. Although the dispute over the Gabcikovo dam project is
not on the official agenda, the issue is likely to overshadow the
meeting. (Jan Obrman, RFE/RL, Inc.)
CZECHOSLOVAK PREMIER SAYS GOVERNMENT MAY RESIGN. Speaking at a
press conference in Prague on 27 October, Czechoslovak Premier Jan
Strasky said that his government may resign because of
Czech-Slovak disagreements within the government over the
Gabcikovo hydroelectric dam project. CSTK quotes Strasky as
saying that in the 10-member cabinet, all five Czech members want
to suspend work on the dam project and seek mediation, while all
five Slovak members want the work to continue. Strasky said that
the resignation would be "a logical step" considering the fact
that the federal government is unable to take any decision when
interests of Czechs and Slovaks are not the same. Also on 27
October, Czech Prime Minister Vaclav Klaus told CSTK that his
government will play a minimum role in the dispute between Hungary
and Slovakia over the Gabcikovo dam. According to Klaus, the
dispute can only be solved by a compromise between the Slovak and
Hungarian governments. (Jiri Pehe, RFE/RL, Inc.)
BOSNIAN FIGHTING UPDATE. Western news agencies on 27 October
reported continued heavy fighting in and around the western
Bosnian town of Jajce. Serbian forces have been shelling the
Muslim-held settlement for several days, and Serbian media said
that Jajce had fallen. There has been no independent confirmation
of the Serbian reports, nor of those in the Croatian media, as
quoted in the 28 October Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, that
Serbian planes flew nine missions against Jajce in defiance of the
UN's ban on flights. Meanwhile, Reuters on 28 October said that
media reports that the central Bosnian town of Prozor had been
leveled were wrong. The news agency added, however, that the
Croats appear to have driven out the town's civilian Muslims after
several days of fighting between Croats and Muslims. Reuters
quoted a Bosnian military officer as saying that the Croats no
longer appeared to be simply consolidating their positions, but
rather practicing their own form of "ethnic cleansing." (Patrick
Moore, RFE/RL, Inc.)
UN NEGOTIATORS URGE HELP FOR FREED CAMP INMATES. Cyrus Vance and
Lord Owen urged the countries involved in the Yugoslav peace
process to "save the lives" of the thousands of people being
released from detention camps, AFP said on 27 October. The
refugees are mainly Muslims who are victims of Serbian "ethnic
cleansing" and cannot return to their homes in Serb-held
territory. Elsewhere, Reuters quoted UN human rights envoy and
former Polish Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki as saying that all
nationalities in the conflict had committed atrocities but that
the Muslims had suffered the most. He added that "those
responsible for this conflict are those carrying out a policy of
ethnic purification,' that is the Serbs." Mazowiecki said "words
fail me" when he tried to describe the conditions at the Serb-run
Trnopolje camp he had visited. (Patrick Moore, RFE/RL, Inc.)
ROMANIAN POLITICIANS DENOUNCE HUNGARIANS' AUTONOMY QUEST.
Romanian politicians of various persuasions attacked the Hungarian
Democratic Federation of Romania (HDFR) for calling for
"self-administration on the basis of community autonomy." Romanian
National Unity Party leader Gheorghe Funar called the statement a
"provocative action against the Romanian people" and appealed to
parliament to outlaw ethnic parties, Rompres said on 27 October.
Former prime minister Petre Roman said the HDFR statement
challenges state unity and may lead to tensions and "dangerous
situations." In statements carried by the daily Evenimentul zilei
the same day, Ion Ratiu of the National Peasant Party Christian
Democratic ruled out autonomy based on geographic criteria; and
Emil Constantinescu, the Democratic Convention of Romania's
candidate in the last elections, said that national integrity and
the state's national character are issues that cannot be
questioned. Civic Alliance Party leader Nicolae Manolescu, on the
other hand, called the HDFR statement "perfectly acceptable."
(Michael Shafir, RFE/RL, Inc.).
PROGRESS IN ROMANIAN GOVERNMENT TALKS. A new round of negotiations
on the future government was held on 27 October in Bucharest. The
Democratic National Salvation Front (DNSF), on one hand, and the
Democratic Convention of Romania and the National Salvation Front,
on the other, made some progress towards reaching an agreement on
a political pact and a "parliamentary moratorium," Radio Bucharest
reported. This solution, proposed by president Ion Iliescu on 21
October, involves a grace period during which the opposition would
refrain from obstructing a narrow coalition or minority government
led by the DNSF. Radio Bucharest said agreement had been reached
on the preamble to a joint declaration, the general aims of the
future government, and the immediate goals to be pursued in the
approaching winter. (Michael Shafir, RFE/RL, Inc.).
YELTSIN AGAIN CHARGES RIGHTS VIOLATIONS IN BALTIC STATES. Russian
President Boris Yeltsin has reiterated his appeal to the Russian
Foreign Ministry to become more active in drawing the West's
attention to alleged "human rights violations in the Baltic
states." Yeltsin told the Foreign Ministry Council session on 27
October that the West is maintaining "double standards" in the
matter of human rights. "We are afraid of speaking of our own
interests, fearing charges of imperialism, even when our interests
are ignored, " Yeltsin said. BNS, quoting Interfax, covered
Yeltsin's remarks. (Riina Kionka, RFE/RL, Inc.)
DISCORD PROMPTED LATVIAN FOREIGN MINISTER'S RESIGNATION. Janis
Jurkans told the press on 27 October that his resignation from the
post of Minister of Foreign Affairs was prompted by discord
between himself and the parliament and members of the government
on issues directly or indirectly related to Latvia's relations
with other countries, especially Russia. He spoke of these
differences in a Latvian TV interview aired on 26 October; the
following morning Prime Minister Ivars Godmanis asked for his
resignation, Radio Riga reported on 27 October. In recent months
Jurkans openly criticized the work of the legislature and
expressed views contradicting the decisions of the legislators and
members of the government, thus gradually losing his support base
in Latvia. (Dzintra Bungs, RFE/RL, Inc.)
DELAYS IN TROOP WITHDRAWAL FROM LITHUANIA? Stasys Knesys, the
Lithuanian government commissioner for the Russian troop
withdrawal, noted that although the withdrawal is proceeding on
schedule, some army units have not submitted the applications
necessary to remove weapons and equipment, BNS reported on 27
October. Only two months remain before the deadline for the
withdrawal of all aviation units, yet no units have completed
withdrawal applications. Moreover, the commanders of the Panevezys
transport aviation division mentioned 30 May 1993 as the final
date for their withdrawal. Although Lithuania has given some
Russian navy ships permission to enter Klaipeda, none has yet
arrived. The 3rd coast guard division based there has not
submitted a withdrawal application. (Saulius Girnius, RFE/RL,
Inc.)
RUSSIAN OFFICERS UNWILLING TO LEAVE KLAIPEDA. Officers from the
3rd Klaipeda division of the Russian coast guard said on the
"Aty-Baty" program of Russian television on 25 October that they
have no intention of leaving Lithuania because conditions at their
new bases are unsatisfactory. Baltic Fleet commander Vladimir
Egorov admitted during the program that there were difficulties in
providing decent living conditions for the withdrawing troops,
adding: "Of course, to live in Klaipeda is better and more simple
than in Russia." (Saulius Girnius, RFE/RL, Inc.)
WALESA PROPOSES "NATO II." President Lech Walesa's chief security
adviser, Jerzy Milewski, told a press conference on 27 October
that the final version of Poland's defense doctrine will be ready
within two weeks. Milewski also described Walesa's idea of
NATO-II, a transitional defense alliance meant to include Eastern
European countries and former Soviet republics. In Walesa's view,
NATO-II could help defuse conflicts in the region until formal
membership in NATO is possible, thereby preventing
"Yugoslavianization." Milewski stressed that NATO-II was an idea
for discussion, not a policy proposal. (Louisa Vinton, RFE/RL,
Inc.)
SERBIA-MONTENEGRO ARMY REORGANIZATION ANNOUNCED. According to the
Belgrade daily Politika on 24 October, the federal army of rump
Yugoslavia plans to dismiss 17,000 civilian employees and 3,500
officers and non-commissioned officers under a reorganization
scheme. The dismissals will mainly involve personnel in the
Serbian-dominated "Army of Yugoslavia" not directly involved in
the fighting in Slovenia, Croatia, or Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Politika said that the peacetime armed forces of the rump
Yugoslavia would be reduced to 120,000 troops, about half of whom
would be professional soldiers. The armed forces of Yugoslavia at
the beginning of 1991 were made up of 70,000 career soldiers and
120,000 conscripts. The reorganization plan also calls for the
abolition of the Territorial Defense system, which military
officials say has served the interests of individual political
parties and their paramilitary units. Last month a proposal
called for mandatory military service of twelve months, with a
two-year term for those granted alternate service. (Milan
Andrejevich, RFE/RL, Inc.)
SERBIA'S ASSEMBLY DECIDES ON EARLY ELECTIONS. Radio Serbia
reported on 27 October that the National Assembly unanimously
adopted an addendum to a constitutional law that makes possible
early republican elections before year's end. Assembly president
Aleksandar Bakocevic said he will soon call the elections, which
would be held within 45 to 90 days. In mid-October the Assembly
agreed to hold republic-wide elections on the same day as the
federal elections scheduled for 20 December. Meanwhile, a federal
commission headed by rump Yugoslav Prime Minister Milan Panic
demanded the resignation of Belgrade TV director Milorad Vucelic,
who is a staunch supporter of Serbia's President Slobodan
Milosevic. Opposition parties threaten to boycott the December
elections if Vucelic and the ruling Socialists continue to
dominate Belgrade TV. (Milan Andrejevich, RFE/RL, Inc.)
HUNGARIAN BUDGET DEBATED IN PARLIAMENT. The introduction of a
double-level value added tax was the focus of controversy in
parliament on 27 October, as debate on the 1993 budget began.
Finance Minister Mihaly Kupa called the introduction of the new
tax system "essential," but even the coalition parties are divided
over the issue. The Smallholders charge the new system would
place too heavy a financial burden on large segments of the
population. Deputies from the Christian Democratic party and the
Hungarian Democratic Forum announced they would submit amendments
aimed at easing the burden on low-income families. The opposition
rejects the entire draft budget, claiming that it is not based on
sound economic calculations. (Edith Oltay, RFE/RL, Inc.)
BULGARIAN GOVERNMENT TO TAKE OVER OLD DEBTS. The Bulgarian
government plans to use 5 billion leva ($215 million) of state
funds to resolve part of the problem of overdue debts between
state firms and banks. In a Bulgarian radio interview on 26
October, deputy prime minister and economic policy coordinator
Ilko Eskenazi revealed that the government intends in a one-off
action to assume responsibility for nearly all investment credits
granted before 1991. Eskenazi said experts were preparing an
"ambitious program" for selecting companies that would have their
debts reduced. Total inter-enterprise debt in Bulgaria is
estimated at above 60 billion leva ($2.55 billion). (Kjell
Engelbrekt, RFE/RL, Inc.)
HUNGARIAN TALKS ON MEDIA LAWS BREAK DOWN. Despite hours of talks
on 27 October, coalition and opposition parties failed to reach
agreement on draft media laws. The most controversial issues are:
the parliamentary majority needed to pass the laws, the
appointment of new radio and television chiefs, and the new
satellite station Hungaria TV. State Secretary in the Prime
Minister's Office Tamas Katona told MTI and Radio Budapest that
the government will soon submit some draft media laws to
parliament, and will seek the approval of parliament's cultural
committee for its candidates to head radio and television.
Coalition and opposition parties traded blame for the breakdown of
the talks. The Constitutional Court had set 30 November as the
deadline for the adoption of media laws. (Edith Oltay, RFE/RL,
Inc.)
300 ABKHAZIA ESTONIANS AWAIT EVACUATION. Some 300 ethnic Estonians
trapped by the fighting in Georgia's Abkhazia area are still
waiting to be evacuated to Estonia. According to BNS of 27
October, Estonian authorities have promised the residents of two
ethnic Estonian villages in Abkhazia--Salme and Sulev--that they
will be airlifted out within days. On Sunday, 59 Abkhazia
Estonians were brought to Tallinn on an emergency aid flight.
(Riina Kionka, RFE/RL, Inc.)
novine.151.bale.,
Subject: Heavy fighting rocks Bosnian north as crucial Geneva session begins
Date: Tue, 27 Oct 92 13:56:56 PST
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Hercegovina (UPI) -- Serbian forces
shelled towns across north and central Bosnia-Hercegovina and
launched a new ``ethnic cleansing'' operation Tuesday as the
Geneva-based international peace mediators presented the
warring factions with a plan for a political settlement of
the conflict.
Commanders of the former Yugoslav republic's Serbian,
Croatian and Muslim Slav-dominated Bosnian forces held the
first of a series of U.N.- mediated working-level talks in
Sarajevo aimed at demilitarizing the capital and providing
better security for humanitarian aid deliveries.
At about the same time, local Croatian and Muslim Slav
forces resolved the last in a recent series of battles that
jolted their already shaky alliance against the Serbs,
reaching a cease-fire in Prozor, a town just west of
Sarajevo, Sarajevo radio said.
The Croat-Muslim Slav clashes, which erupted last week
north of Sarajevo and forced the closure of a U.N. aid
warehouse in the town of Vitez, were reportedly the fiercest
in Prozor.
Prozor was left virtually deserted of civilians and
some homes still smoldered as the cease-fire went into
effect. A strong contingent of Croatian infantry and weaponry
remained in town, Sarajevo radio said.
Elsewhere on the war front, Yugoslav army-equipped
Serbian forces launched artillery barrages into and around
the northern and central towns of Jajce, Gradacac, Brcko,
Maglaj, Tuzla and Bihac, Sarajevo radio reported.
In Brcko, the radio said, Serbian soldiers embarked on
a new round of ``ethnic cleansing,'' destroying mosques,
cemeteries and a Catholic church while forcing non-Serbs into
signing documents at a local Red Cross office saying that
they were voluntarily abandoning their homes and leaving the
town.
There was no independent confirmation of the report,
although U.N. officials have accused Serbian forces in the
past of coercing non-Serbs into signing such documents in
other areas of the war-torn state.
The United States has said it has presented
information to U.N. war crimes investigators on previous
Serbian ethnic cleansing measures in Brcko, including the
alleged massacre of some 3,000 non-Serbs.
Brcko, which has a pre-war ethnic mix of 44 percent
Muslim Slav, 25 percent Croatian and 21 percent Serbian, was
one of the first towns conquered in a Serbian drive launched
in late March to rip a self- declared state out of 70 percent
of Europe's newest republic.
The Serbs are confronted by Croatian nationalist
forces and the Bosnian army, which mostly comprises Muslim
Slavs, but also includes moderate Serbs and Croats opposed to
the partition of the republic, which won international
recognition of its independence in early April.
Western governments and U.N. officials and
international human rights groups say Serbian soldiers have
systematically expelled tens of thousands of non-Serbs from
areas claimed for the Serbian ``state'' in operations
involving forced evictions, house-burnings and killings.
Croatian and Muslim forces have been accused of
pursuing similar tactics, but not on the same massive scale
as that allegedly employed by the Serbs.
In Geneva, U.N. special envoy Cyrus Vance and European
Community mediator David Owen presented representatives of
the three sides with their proposal for a new republic
constitution that sources said would create a federal
structure similar to the Swiss-style system of cantonal
districts.
The local divisions would not be ethnically based and
the federal government would oversee foreign affairs, finance
and security.
Serbian and nationalist Croatian leaders have been
insisting on a division of Bosnia-Hercegovina into autonomous
ethnic regions with little or no central linkage.
Vance and Owen planned to begin a three-day visit to
former Yugoslavia on Wednesday as part of an apparent bid to
elicit support for their plan.
Sarajevo radio quoted Bosnian officials in the eastern
town of Srebrenica as reporting the deaths over the past
seven months of at least 173 children among a total of some
80,000 refugees who fled Serbian ``ethnic cleansing'' and are
now living homeless, hungry and cold in surrounding forests.
The officials said 342 children among the refugees
were injured, 1, 837 lost one parent, 563 lost both parents
and more than 10,000 children have been stricken by various
illnesses, the radio said.
The day again began relatively quiet in Sarajevo, but
was broken around 2:30 p.m. by a heavy barrage of artillery
fire in various locations around the city.
At least six people were killed and 25 wounded Tuesday
throughout the capital, as Serbian forces unloaded with their
large 155mm shells, Bosnian television reported.
At least one person was killed and three were injured
by sniper fire in the frontline Pero Kosoric Square, Sarajevo
radio said.
Subject: Slow U.N. troop deployment forces relief convoys to travel Date:
Tue, 27 Oct 92 13:21:40 PST
ZAGREB, Croatia (UPI) -- Only a handful of soldiers
for the expanded U.N. military force has arrived in the
Balkans, forcing U.N. relief convoys to attempt to resume
trips into Bosnia-Hercegovina without a military escort and
despite heavy fighting, a U.N. official said Tuesday.
Michael Keats, a spokesman for the U.N. High
Commissioner for Refugees in Zagreb, said relief convoys
would try to travel to Sarajevo and Vitez in central
Bosnia-Hercegovina Wednesday despite the heavy fighting
reported along the roads in the region.
Keats said the relief agency asked the U.N. Protection
Force for an escort but its request was denied because only
about 150 soldiers have arrived in the Balkans as part of the
buildup to a 6,000-strong multi- national U.N. force. Spanish
troops are supposed to be deployed along the route but only
15 of the 700 soldiers have arrived so far, said Sergio
Apollonio, a UNPROFOR spokesman.
A relief convoy traveling into central
Bosnia-Hercegovina came under shell fire last week. The
drivers of the trucks said the U.N. vehicles were
deliberately attacked despite assurances from local
authorities that they would be granted safe passage.
``We will probably run into the same bunch of villains
at the same road blocks as we did last week,'' Keats said. No
land convoys have reached Sarajevo since fierce fighting
between the nominally allied Croat and Muslim forces erupted
on Oct. 19, he said.
The convoy scheduled to leave Wednesday will take five
truckloads of supplies to Sarajevo and 10 truckloads to
Vitez. Humanitarian aid organizations have been asking since
August for the United Nations to quickly deploy the 6,000
troops which are supposed to escort the unarmed relief
convoys through dangerous routes in Bosnia-Hercegovina.
About 150 have arrived and full deployment will not take place until
mid-November, Apollonio said. But UNHCR representatives said with the
harsh Bosnian winter almost upon them, the troops are desperately needed
now.
``If they arrived last month, they would be too
late,'' said Peter Kessler, a spokesman for the U.N. refugee
agency in Zagreb. ``The UNHCR estimates that up to 400,000
people could die from lack of water, shelter, food and
electricity if supplies do not begin arriving soon.''
Of the 6,000 troops, approximately 1,100 will be
Canadians, 1,400 French, 700 Spanish, 2,300 British and 500
Dutch and Belgian, Apollonio said.
The Candadians will be deployed in Banja Luka to
secure routes in the northern region of the republic, the
French in Bihac for the northwestern region, the Spanish near
Mostar for the south central region and the British will be
in Vitez for the eastern region, Apollonio said.
A central command station is scheduled to be set up in
Kiseljak about 15 miles northeast of Sarajevo.
Apollonio said the deployment was being delayed in
central Bosnia because of clashes between Muslims and Croats.
He said deployment was being delayed in Serb-controlled areas
because of Serb unwillingness to accept the soldiers.
``The Serbs in Banja Luka simply say that don't have
the approval to let the U.N. in,'' Apollonio said.
novine.152.bale.,
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Slow U.N. troop deployment forces relief convoys to travel unescorted
Subject: Islamic group to seek lifting of U.N. arms embargo against Bosnia
Subject: Mediators propose a constitutional structure for Bosnia-Hercegovina
Subject: Montenegro signals break in alliance with Serbian regime
Subject: International mediators bring Bosnian peace plan to former Yugoslavia
Subject: Fighting persists in Bosnia as peace mediators begin Balkans tour
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Slow U.N. troop deployment forces relief convoys to travel unescorted
Date: 27 Oct 92 21:21:40 GMT
ZAGREB, Croatia (UPI) -- Only a handful of soldiers
for the expanded U.N. military force has arrived in the
Balkans, forcing U.N. relief convoys to attempt to resume
trips into Bosnia-Hercegovina without a military escort and
despite heavy fighting, a U.N. official said Tuesday.
Michael Keats, a spokesman for the U.N. High
Commissioner for Refugees in Zagreb, said relief convoys
would try to travel to Sarajevo and Vitez in central
Bosnia-Hercegovina Wednesday despite the heavy fighting
reported along the roads in the region.
Keats said the relief agency asked the U.N.
Protection Force for an escort but its request was denied
because only about 150 soldiers have arrived in the Balkans
as part of the buildup to a 6,000-strong multi- national U.N.
force. Spanish troops are supposed to be deployed along the
route but only 15 of the 700 soldiers have arrived so far,
said Sergio Apollonio, a UNPROFOR spokesman.
A relief convoy traveling into central
Bosnia-Hercegovina came under shell fire last week. The
drivers of the trucks said the U.N. vehicles were
deliberately attacked despite assurances from local
authorities that they would be granted safe passage.
``We will probably run into the same bunch of
villains at the same road blocks as we did last week,'' Keats
said. No land convoys have reached Sarajevo since fierce
fighting between the nominally allied Croat and Muslim forces
erupted on Oct. 19, he said.
The convoy scheduled to leave Wednesday will take
five truckloads of supplies to Sarajevo and 10 truckloads to
Vitez. Humanitarian aid organizations have been asking since
August for the United Nations to quickly deploy the 6,000
troops which are supposed to escort the unarmed relief
convoys through dangerous routes in Bosnia-Hercegovina.
About 150 have arrived and full deployment will not
take place until mid-November, Apollonio said. But UNHCR
representatives said with the harsh Bosnian winter almost
upon them, the troops are desperately needed now.
``If they arrived last month, they would be too
late,'' said Peter Kessler, a spokesman for the U.N. refugee
agency in Zagreb. ``The UNHCR estimates that up to 400,000
people could die from lack of water, shelter, food and
electricity if supplies do not begin arriving soon.''
Of the 6,000 troops, approximately 1,100 will be
Canadians, 1,400 French, 700 Spanish, 2,300 British and 500
Dutch and Belgian, Apollonio said.
The Candadians will be deployed in Banja Luka to
secure routes in the northern region of the republic, the
French in Bihac for the northwestern region, the Spanish near
Mostar for the south central region and the British will be
in Vitez for the eastern region, Apollonio said.
A central command station is scheduled to be set up
in Kiseljak about 15 miles northeast of Sarajevo.
Apollonio said the deployment was being delayed in
central Bosnia because of clashes between Muslims and Croats.
He said deployment was being delayed in Serb-controlled areas
because of Serb unwillingness to accept the soldiers.
``The Serbs in Banja Luka simply say that don't have
the approval to let the U.N. in,'' Apollonio said.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Islamic group to seek lifting of U.N. arms embargo against Bosnia
Date: 28 Oct 92 14:24:00 GMT
ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN (UPI) -- Pakistan, elected
Tuesday to the U.N. Security Council, is expected to ask the
United Nations to lift its arms embargo against Bosnia, said
a spokesman for the Foreign Office.
Foreign Affairs Secretary Shaharyar Khan said
Pakistan and other members of the Islamic contact group would
raise the Bosnian issue at the world body.
The group, which includes Pakistan, Iran, Turkey,
Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Senegal, plans to present a
four-point action program before the Security Council. The
plan demands an end to arms embargo against Bosnia.
The group will also seek effective measures to
strengthen Bosnia's defense and the continued delivery of
humanitarian relief to that country.
Meanwhile, Khan told a news conference in Islamabad
Wednesday the Islamic group played an effective role in
getting Pakistan elected to the Security Council.
He said Pakistan received 161 out of 172 votes but
this, he said, was only possible after two Muslim countries,
Iran and Indonesia, withdrew their candidacy, in its favor.
He said India, otherwise a traditional rival, also
favored Pakistan's quest for the Asian seat in the Security
Council.
Pakistan has been a member of the Security Council
four times before.
Other non-permanent members of the Security Council
are Djibouti, Brazil, Spain and New Zealand.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Mediators propose a constitutional structure for Bosnia-Hercegovina
Date: 28 Oct 92 16:00:54 GMT
GENEVA (UPI) -- U.N. and European Community mediators
on ex-Yugoslavia proposed Wednesday a new constiotutional
structure for war-torn Bosnia- Hercegovina based on seven to
10 autonomous regions but rejecting any ethnic or religious
divisions.
The proposal had been rejected even before being
made, however, by Radovan Karadzic, leader of the Bosnian
Serbs.
Mediators Cyrus Vance for the U.N. and Lord David
Owen for the E.C. said the population of Bosnia-Hercegovina
``is inextricably intermingled.''
``Thus there appears to be no viable way to create
three territorially-distinct states based on ethnic or
confessional principles,'' they said in an introduction to
their proposed structure.
``Any plan to do so would involve incorporating a
very large number of members of the other ethnic/confessional
groups, or consist of a number of separate enclaves of each
ethnic/confessional group.
``Such a plan could achieve homogeneity and coherent
boundaries only by a process of enforced population transfer
which has already been condemned by the International
Conference (on former Yugoslavia),'' the two men said.
Vance and Owen, who are based in geneva, were in
Belgrade Wednesday and had aides release their proposal. They
had wanted to do it on Tuesday but the French language
translation was not ready in time.
Bosnian Serbs leader Karadzic said in Bosnia on
Tuesday that the state should be divided on ethnic lines,
which would mean the Serbs having by far the largest amount
of territory.
``His position is hardly surprising seeing that the
Bosnian Serbs now have 70 percent of which much was taken at
the point of a gun,'' one U. N. official close to the peace
talks told United Press International.
Vance and Owen argued that a division of
Bosnia-Hercegovina on ethnic and/or confessional lines --
Serbs, Croats and Muslims -- would service little purpose and
only lead to continued fighting.
GENEVA (UPI) -- U.N. and European Community mediators
on ex-Yugoslavia proposed Wednesday a new constiotutional
structure for war-torn Bosnia- Hercegovina based on seven to
10 autonomous regions but rejecting any ethnic or religious
divisions.
The proposal had been rejected even before being
made, however, by Radovan Karadzic, leader of the Bosnian
Serbs.
Mediators Cyrus Vance for the U.N. and Lord David
Owen for the E.C. said the population of Bosnia-Hercegovina
``is inextricably intermingled.''
``Thus there appears to be no viable way to create
three territorially-distinct states based on ethnic or
confessional principles,'' they said in an introduction to
their proposed structure.
``Any plan to do so would involve incorporating a
very large number of members of the other ethnic/confessional
groups, or consist of a number of separate enclaves of each
ethnic/confessional group.
``Such a plan could achieve homogeneity and coherent
boundaries only by a process of enforced population transfer
which has already been condemned by the International
Conference (on former Yugoslavia),'' the two men said.
Vance and Owen, who are based in geneva, were in
Belgrade Wednesday and had aides release their proposal. They
had wanted to do it on Tuesday but the French language
translation was not ready in time.
Bosnian Serbs leader Karadzic said in Bosnia on
Tuesday that the state should be divided on ethnic lines,
which would mean the Serbs having by far the largest amount
of territory.
``His position is hardly surprising seeing that the
Bosnian Serbs now have 70 percent of which much was taken at
the point of a gun,'' one U. N. official close to the peace
talks told United Press International.
Vance and Owen argued that a division of
Bosnia-Hercegovina on ethnic and/or confessional lines --
Serbs, Croats and Muslims -- would service little purpose and
only lead to continued fighting.
``A confederation formed of three such states would
be inherently unstable,'' they argued. ``At least two would
surely forge immediate and stronger connections with
neighboring sdtates of the former Yugoslavia than they would
with the two other units of Bosn ia and Hercegovina,'' they
said.
Officials said this meant a Serbs would move toward a
Serbian state and Croats toward Croatia, leaving the Muslim
community isolated.
Vance and Owen said they also realized that a
centralized state was unacceptable to at least two of the
ethnic communities -- officials said Croats and Muslims were
meant -- as their interests would not be protected.
``Consequently, the only viable and stable solution
that does not acquiesce in already-accomplished ethnic
cleansing, and in further internationally unacceptable
practices, appears to be the establishment of a decentralized
state,'' they said.
``This would mean a state in which many of its
principal functions, especially those directly affecting
persons, would be carried out by a number of autonomous
provinces.
``The central government, in turn, would have only
those minimal responsibilities that are necessary for a state
to function as such, and to carry out its responsibil+ities
as a member of the international community,'' the two
mediators said.
Vance and Owen argued that their proposed provinces
should be neither too small oir too big to ensure they were
administratively and economically viable.
``To meet these criteria, the number of provinces
might range from seven to ten, with the precise number to be
established by negotiations among the parties in the light of
the proposed boundaries of the provinces,'' they said.
The boundaries, they said, would take ethnic factors
into account but also geographical features like rivers,
historical factors, existing road and railroad networks and
economic viability.
Both central and provincial governments would be
structured on classical lines with legislative upper and
lower houses, a presidency consisting of all the provincial
governors, and central government president elected by that
joint presidency, a prime minister, a cabinet, and a national
civil service which would be small because of its limited
functions.
The judiciary would be ``a shared responsibility of
the central and provincial governments,'' Vance and Owen
proposed, with courts dealing respectively with provincial or
with central state matters.
``As the central government is to be solely
responsible for national defense, the military forces are to
be entirely under its control,'' the proposed constitutional
structure stated.
U.N. and other officials close to the Vance-Owen
mediation effort ackowledged privately that it would take
monthsd and months and possibly be impossible for all sides
in Bosnia-Hercegovina to agree on provincial boundaries.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Montenegro signals break in alliance with Serbian regime
Date: 28 Oct 92 17:33:01 GMT
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (UPI) -- The tiny Republic of
Montenegro Wednesday expressed strong support for the
Yugoslav federal government's efforts to bring peace to the
region and end punishing U.N. economic sanctions.
The development signaled a break in Montenegro's
political alliance with communist President Slobodan
Milosevic of Serbia.
It also represented a potentially important boost to
Yugoslav Prime Minister Milan Panic in his ongoing power
struggle with Milosevic.
``The fact is that the Montenegrin government
supports the politics of Mr. Panic,'' Montenegrin Prime
Minister Milo Djukanovic declared at a news conference in
Belgrade.
``The best thing for Yugoslavia right now, especially
under the current political circumstances, is to continue the
politics of Mr. Panic,'' he asserted.
Djukanovic's comments signaled an end to what had
been Montenegro's unstinting support for Milosevic's
policies, including backing for rebel Serbs who seized 35
percent of Croatia in last year's Serb-Croat war and the
ongoing Serbian territorial conquests in Bosnia-Hercegovina.
``At this moment we should realize that we only have
federal Yugoslavia...and that everyone has to take care of
their own problems,'' said Djukanovic, implying that Serbs in
Croatia and Bosnia-Hercegovina may have to go it alone.
Montenegro and Serbia were the only two of the six
republics of former Yugoslavia that did not secede, and they
forged a rump federation in an unsuccessful bid to inherit
the international status of its defunct namesake.
A tiny mountainous land with few resources,
Montenegro has suffered graver consequences than Serbia from
U.N. economic sanctions imposed on the two for backing the
Serbian land-grab in Bosnia-Hercegovina.
Panic, a Belgrade-born naturalized U.S. citizen and
self-made millionaire, has made lifting the sanctions his
main priority, and believes that the ouster of Milosevic
through Dec. 20 elections is the prime condition for
achieving that goal.
Milosevic, his party and its Serbian proxies in
Croatia and Bosnia- Hercegovina have attacked Panic as a
traitor to Serbian national interests and a foreign spy for
his efforts to normalize relations with Zagreb and opposition
to the division of Bosnia-Hercegovina.
Djukanovic, whose communist government was widely
regarded as a puppet of Serbia's regime, appeared to have
determined that trying to salvage Montenegro's economic
well-being was of greater importance than continued support
for Milosevic's nationalist agenda.
He indicated such a decision in saying that his
Democratic Party of Socialists would not forge any alliances
in the December polls. But he denied there were growing
demands in Montenegro for an outright break with Serbia and
leaving rump Yugoslavia.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: International mediators bring Bosnian peace plan to former Yugoslavia
Date: 28 Oct 92 18:50:52 GMT
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (UPI) -- International mediators
Cyrus Vance and Lord David Owen began a three-day swing
Wednesday through former Yugoslavia to win support for a
proposed new constitution for Bosnia- Hercegovina intended as
the cornerstone of a settlement of the seven- month-old war.
Vance and Owen, co-chairmen of the Geneva-based
U.N.-European Community peace conference on the defunct
six-republic Balkan federation, first met briefly with
Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic at the Intercontinental
Hotel.
They then drove to the federal government
headquarters for talks with President Dobrica Cosic of the
rump Yugoslav union of Serbia and Montenegro and his prime
minister, Milan Panic, who have been cooperating closely in
peace-seeking efforts in a bid to end harsh U.N. economic
sanctions.
Vance and Owen then crossed to the other side of
Belgrade for two hours of talks with Panic's main rival,
communist President Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia, widely
regarded as the main political and financial patron of
Serbian forces fighting to carve a self-declared state out of
Bosnia-Hercegovina.
Vance later called the meeting with Milosevic
``satisfactory.''
The pair capped the day by bringing Panic and
Karadzic together in the unusual setting of the Yugoslav
Defense Ministry, where they were joined by Yugoslav Army
chief of staff Col. Gen. Zivota Panic. He is no relation of
the federal prime minister.
The meetings all focused on a proposed new
constitution for Bosnia- Hercegovina that Vance, a U.N.
special envoy and former U.S. secretary of state, and EC
representative Owen, a onetime British foreign secretary,
unveiled Tuesday in Geneva to negotiators of the newly
independent republic's Serbs, Croats and Muslim Slav
communities.
Cosic indicated strong support for the Vance-Owen
plan, saying they showed ``exceptional understanding for our
situation.''
``Our talks were very substantial,'' he told
reporters after meeting the mediators. ``Between us there
were no vital differences.''
The draft, made public Wednesday in Geneva before its
presentation to the U.N. Security Council in New York, is
intended as the basis for a settlement of the war that
erupted when Karadzic's forces in late March launched their
drive to capture 70 percent of Bosnia-Hercegovina.
According to the documents released in Geneva, Vance
and Owen rejected Karadzic's demand for the division of the
republic into autonomous ethnic districts, raising a serious
question as to how he could be made to accept the plan.
The draft would create seven to 10 semi-autonomous
Swiss-style cantonal divisions with large degrees of local
autonomy. A federal government would oversee foreign policy,
internal security and finances.
In a statement issued in Geneva, Vance and Owen said
Bosnia- Hercegovina's ethnic groups are ``inextricably
intermingled. Thus, there appears to be no viable way to
create three territorially-distinct states based on ethnic or
confessional principles.''
``Such a plan could achieve homogeneity and coherent
boundaries only by a process of enforced population transfer
which has already been condemned by the International
Conference (on former Yugoslavia),'' they said.
Nationalist Croatian militias backed by the rightwing
regime of the former Yugoslav republic of Croatia are also
bent on severing their enclaves. Many observers believe there
is an agreement between Croatian President Franjo Tudjman and
Milosevic to divide Bosnia-Hercegovina at the expense of its
Muslim Slavs.
Partition is opposed by forces loyal to the Bosnian
government, which is dominated by Muslim Slavs, but also
includes moderate Serbs and Croats who reject a division of
Europe's newest state.
There are 1.9 million Slavic Muslims, 1.4 million
Christian Orthodox Serbs and 750,000 Roman Catholic Croats in
Bosnia-Hercegovina.
After overnighting in Belgrade, the capital of both
Serbia and the rump Yugoslav federation, Vance and Owen were
to travel Thursday to Pristina, the capital of Serbia's
restive province of Kosovo, for talks with leaders of the
independence-seeking ethnic Albanian majority.
They were then to go to Skopje, the capital of the
former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia, which has yet to win
international recognition of its independence, and then make
a side trip to Albania.
On Friday, they were to return to Geneva via the
Croatian capital of Zagreb, where they were to meet Tudjman.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Fighting persists in Bosnia as peace mediators begin Balkans tour
Date: 28 Oct 92 19:58:55 GMT
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Hercegovina (UPI) -- Fresh clashes
flared Wednesday across Bosnia-Hercegovina as international
mediators Cyrus Vance and Lord David Owen began a three-day
swing through former Yugoslavia to build support for a
proposal to end the bloody 7-month-old Balkan conflict.
The first U.N. humanitarian aid convoy to reach
Sarajevo in 10 days arrived from Croatia's port city of
Split, completing the two-day trip via the war-torn towns of
Mostar and Vitez without military escorts, although one truck
was lost when it toppled into a shallow river.
``The bank of the road fell away and the vehicle went
tumbling down into the river,'' said Larry Hollingsworth, the
U.N. refugee agency's logistics coordinator, adding the
driver was not hurt.
``The Mostar road, as far as I'm concerned, is
open,'' Hollingsworth said. ``All we have to do is use it, as
much as I did today.''
Hollingsworth dropped 10 truckloads of aid off in
Vitez and took six others into Sarajevo, where some 500,000
residents and refugees have been trapped and bombarded by
surrounding Serbian forces since early April.
It was the first convoy to reach Sarajevo since Oct.
19, when the Split-Sarajevo road was shut by fighting in
Mostar and Vitez. Combat has since subsided around both towns.
Michael Keats, a spokesman for the U.N. High
Commissioner for Refugees, said the agency asked for escorts
from the U.N. Protection Force (UNPROFOR), but was refused
because only about 150 troops have arrived as part of a
6,000-solder expansion of the 1,500-member contingent
authorized almost two months ago by the U.N. Security Council.
The expansion is intended to provide greater security
to humanitarian aid distribution operations across the
war-ravaged former Yugoslav republic of Muslim Slavs, Serbs
and Croats.
U.N. aid officials have expressed increasing anger
with the NATO countries contributing troops to the UNPROFOR
buildup for taking so long to deploy their forces amid the
approach of the fierce Balkan winter.
U.N.-organized aid flights have continued to reach
the capital, this week reaching their largest daily totals
since a month-long suspension ended Oct. 3. But, without
truck supplies, deliveries have remained well below the
city's estimated 225-ton-per-day minimum needs.
In a related development, a 19-truck UNHCR relief
convoy bearing 207 tons of food departed Belgrade on a
two-day trip to Sarajevo. About 40 tons of cargo were to be
left in Pale, the main Serbian headquarters, just to the east
of Sarajevo. The convoy was to have set out Tuesday, but was
delayed by security concerns for a day.
It was the first time that a UNHCR convoy has been
dispatched from Belgrade to Sarajevo in a move that U.N.
officials said was aimed at establishing another regular
supply route to the stricken city.
In Belgrade, Vance and Owen, the co-chairmen of the
Geneva-based U.N. -European Community-sponsored peace
conference on former Yugoslavia, held the first meetings of a
three-day trip mainly aimed at gaining support for a proposed
new Bosnian constitution intended as the cornerstone of a
political settlement.
After a brief talk with Bosnian Serb leader Radovan
Karadzic, Vance, a U.N. special envoy and former U.S.
secretary of state, and Owen, an EC representative and
onetime British foreign minister, met with President Dobrica
Cosic of the rump Yugoslav union of Serbia and Montenegro,
and his prime minister, Milan Panic.
Afterwards, Cosic appeared to signal strong support
for the draft constitution, praising Vance and Owen for
their ``exceptional understanding of our situation.''
``Between us there were no vital differences,'' he
said.
The proposal, presented Tuesday in Geneva to
representatives of the warring factions, rejects Serbian and
Croatian extremist demands for a partition of the newly
independent former Yugoslav republic into autonomous ethnic
districts.
Instead, it would create an undisclosed number of
Swiss-style cantonal districts that would have a high degree
of local autonomy. A federal government would oversee
internal security, finances and foreign affairs.
Partition of the republic is opposed by forces loyal
to the Bosnian government, which is dominated by Muslim
Slavs, but also includes moderate Serbs and Croats.
Official reaction to the plan, which was due to be
presented later in the day to the U.N. Security Council, was
still not forthcoming from the warring factions.
The conflict erupted after Yugoslav army-armed
Serbian forces launched an offensive in late March to
pre-empt international recognition of the republic's
independence and seize a self-declared state. Serbian leaders
ultimately seek to merge their territories with
communist-ruled Serbia, their chief economic and political
patron.
In the latest frontline developments, Serbian forces
launched artillery and infantry attacks in areas around the
northern and central towns of Gradacac, Jajce, Brcko, Tesanj
and Teslic, Sarajevo radio reported.
The estimated 50,000 residents of Jajce were
sheltering in basements amid a heavy Serbian barrage, the
radio said.
Serbian forces rushed new reinforcements to Gradacac,
which suffered through a night of artillery attacks that
continued Wednesday, the radio said.
Sarajevo was relatively calm after moderately heavy
Serbian artillery and infantry attacks Tuesday.
Military commanders of the warring factions met at
Sarajevo airport for another day of talks on improving the
flow of humanitarian aid into therepublic, with discussions
focusing on the possible demilitarization of thecapital, U.N.
mediators said.
At least 11 people were killed and 113 injured
republic-wide in the 24-hour period that ended at 10 a.m.,
including seven dead and 60 wounded in Sarajevo, Bosnian
health officials said.
novine.153dejanr,
Dogovorili smo se sa Baletom da od sada ove zanimljive priloge šalje u
konferenciju NOVOSTI, tema world.news. Pratićemo ih, dakle, tamo.
novine.154banusko,
Danas 22.11.92. u 22.15 TV Beograd je objavio da Mađar SO,
jedini list na Mađarskom jeziku sutra neće izaći zbog nedostatka
rotopapira i ostalih repro-materijala. Slučajno mi kuma radi u
redakciji Mađar So-a i ona mi se poslepodne javila i pohvalila da
Mađar So ŠTRAJKUJE. Štrajkuju zbog malih plata, zbog nesposobnog
direktora koga je postavio Kepec i sličnih stvari. Politika nije
razlog.
Eto toliko što se tiče TV i istinitog obaveštavanja.A vi glasajte
za koga hoćete......
novine.155dejanr,
>> Eto toliko što se tiče TV i istinitog obaveštavanja.
Još bolje je kad objavljuju Ćosićev intervju na II dnevniku, pa prenesu
ceo onaj "dosadni" deo a ono gde napada Miloševića samo "preskoče" :(
novine.156balinda,
[POLITIKA - 22. novembar 1990.]
Veliki narodni miting u Nišu:
za Srbiju, za slogu, za jedinstvo
N A J V A č N I J I J E M I R
Slobodan Milošević:
"Srbija se nalazi pred izborima da li ćemo se
opredeliti za mir i ekonomski i kulturni
prosperitet ili za sukobe i mržnje koji će
blokirati sve dosadašnje napore da izađemo iz
krize i živimo bolje."
.......
.......
"Put u moderno, razvijeno i pravedno društvo,
nespojiv je sa bilo kakvim mističkim porukama
koje kao aveti prošlosti kruže u nekim delovima
Srbije i koje razni lažni proroci i ludaci
nude srpskom narodu kao zalog budućnosti. Ovo
se pogotovo odnosi na one koji u ime te
prošlosti nude nacionalističke obračune,
revanšizam i opšti haos."
.......
.......
novine.157djovicevic,
1818r tm--a
u i bc-bosnia 12-27 0978
bc-bosnia<
(wap) (ATTN: Foreign editors)<
No Panic in Britain's Thin Red Bosnian Line (Vitez)<
By Peter Maass=
Special to The Washington Post=
VITEZ, Bosnia _ It was, as a British officer might say, a cracking good
show.
During a recent patrol near the northeast Bosnian city of Tuzla, a
convoy of British žžWarrior'' armored fighting vehicles was ambushed by
Serb militia forces. The Serbs opened fire with everything they had _
mortars, rocket-propelled grenades and other heavy weapons.
The Serbs never made a dent. The 45 tracked British Warriors in Bosnia
weigh 30 tons each, have reinforced armor plating, are armed with 30mm
rapid-fire cannon and can race across the countryside at more than 50
miles an hour. The next best thing to being in a bunker on a Balkan
battlefield is to be in a Warrior.
The Serb grenades ricocheted off the British armor, making žžpoing''
sounds and leaving, at worst, small burn marks on the white paint
identifying the Warriors as being under United Nations command. Instead
of firing back, the British plowed ahead and did not stop until they
reached the local Serb militia headquarters.
žžWe got out and shook their hands,'' said a British military spokesman.
žžThe Serbs couldn't believe it; they were amazed.'' There was no
immediate explanation of why the Serbs opened fire on the clearly marked
U.N. vehicles, but Serb commanders have explained such incidents in the
past as regretable accidents, or as the understandable reaction of Serb
militiamen believing they were under attack.
Nevertheless, that engagement _ in which Serb pride was the only
casualty _ may have been the best demonstration yet that the U.N.
troops most at risk in Bosnia's bloody factional war may not be as
vulnerable as some Western leaders contend.
žžWe must be very careful we don't needlessly put young men and women
who are there in harm's way more than they are,'' said President Bush
last week after discussing possible Western military intervention in
Bosnia with British Prime Minister John Major.
Major reluctantly joined Bush in supporting Western enforcement of a
U.N. žžno-fly zone'' over Bosnia that could lead to the downing of Serb
aircraft there, but he has argued vigorously for a long grace period
before the flight ban would take effect and for other Western
constraints as well.
Major's contention _ as well as, to lesser extent, that of the French _
has been that the destruction of Bosnian Serb aircraft, or their bases,
could provoke Serb militia forces to launch revenge attacks against
British and French ground troops helping deliver U.N. humanitarian aid
to suffering Bosnian civilians.
But British troops operating near the frontline here seem more than a
bit bemused by such hand-wringing. Veterans of the Persian Gulf War and
sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland, they don't quite understand what
the fuss is about, and they especially don't like politicians portraying
them as frightened, defenseless Boy Scouts. žžWe don't feel so
vulnerable,'' said the spokesman, who asked that his name not be used.
žžWe could give (the Serbs) a nasty headache if we wanted.''
Indeed, officials of Bosnia's embattled Slavic Muslim-led government and
some Western diplomats in the region argue that the continued focus on
the vulnerability of U.N. relief troops is merely an excuse to put off
intervention. žžThere's this myth that the day you shoot down a Serb
jet these 10-foot-tall, man-eating Serbs will slaughter all the
innocents,'' said one Western diplomat in neighboring Croatia. He noted
that the Serb nationalist forces that now control about 70 percent of
Bosnia seized much of that territory in a well-camouflaged spring blitz
against poorly armed Muslims and Croats, and that since then they have
shown litte discipline or cohesion.
žžThe West is looking for excuses to not intervene,'' said Besim Spahic,
the Muslim mayor of Zenica, a city 15 miles northwest of this British
staging base and about 40 miles north of Sarajevo, the Bosnian capital.
Muslim advocates of intervention propose Western air strikes against
Serb air bases, artillery batteries and other military targets in
Serb-held Bosnia, and perhaps on their support bases in neighboring
Serbia as well.
This, the argument goes, would allow the Muslim-led government's lightly
armed ground forces to engage the Serbs on more even terms; all the
U.N. relief troops would have to do is hunker down and curtail their
civilian aid operations. Bosnian government leaders have said
repeatedly that they would gladly swap the relief operation for Western
military intervention against the Serbs.
The main threat to British and other U.N. ground forces would come from
heavy artillery fire, according to the military spokesman. The front
line is about nine miles from the base here at Vitez, well within range
of the Serbs' 155mm howitzers, and an accurate salvo could cause heavy
casualties.
But British officers here say that in a hostile situation, the Serbs
would have to be precisely on target with their first shot, because
their batteries would likely be silenced before a second or third round
could be fired. The British army, like the U.S. Army, has advanced
radar and thermal-sensing equipment that can quickly locate smoking
artillery pieces and target them for retaliation.
Serb artillery could be taken out in several ways, military officers
say. The easiest method would be with air strikes, and although the
British now have no long-range guns in place with which to return Serb
artillery fire, such weapons could speedily be shipped here.
žžThe Serbs would be pretty stupid to take us on,'' boasted one British
soldier as he relaxed here at an off-hours cafe.
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Freezing People of Sarajevo Scavenge for Fuel (Sarajevo)<
By Peter Maass=
Special to The Washington Post=
SARAJEVO _ Desperate to stay alive, the freezing people of Sarajevo have
begun to devour what's left of their shattered city.
Trees in parks and along once stately boulevards are being cut down at a
hurricane pace as men, women and children scavenge for firewood.
Buildings shelled by Serb forces besieging the city are being stripped
of anything that burns-beams, flooring, roofing, wallpaper, foam
insulation.
Usually, it is government militiamen with chainsaws who fell the
decades-old trees and appropriate the biggest chunks. Civilian men with
axes cut up the branches, then grandmothers and children move in,
scurrying around to pick up the twigs.
žžIt's cold, and we have to stay alive, so we cut the trees,'' said
Sarija Misut, 19, as he sawed through one of the last pine trees in
Sarajevo's main cemetery. Nodding toward the frozen mounds marking new
graves around him, the young man added: žžIt's better than ending up
like the ones here.''
Many people, unable to find a tree to cut down, are reduced to hacking
away at tree stumps, and a recent lull in the fighting has seen the
boom-boom-boom of mortars replaced with the chip-chip-chip of axes
attacking wood. Sidewalks are crowded with people carrying, pushing or
dragging loads of firewood. Some bear sacks of wood on their backs,
sherpa-like. Some transport sticks and logs and broken boards in
wheelbarrows or baby carriages. Some tote huge beams on their
shoulders, like workers at a construction site. But Sarajevo, if
anything, is a deconstruction site.
There are those like Himzo Babic, 42, who roamed through a shell-blasted
store Monday looking for cardboard to burn in his 12th-floor apartment
so that his 18-month-old infant would not freeze to death. Babic, a
Slavic Muslim who sought refuge in Sarajevo to escape the advancing
Serbs, has neither saw nor axe with which to forage for fuel, and the
hammer and screwdriver he does have don't work very well. So it's
easier to collect cardboard _ and to burn everything loose around him.
žžI have burned most of my furniture,'' he said. žžI burned the wood
parquet from the floor. I've also burned books.''
There has been no electricity in Sarajevo for three weeks. That means
no lights, no running water and, most importantly as sub-freezing
weather sets in, no central heating. Mild fall weather has turned nasty
all of a sudden, with a light snowfall dusting the city Sunday night and
temperatures hovering around 10 degrees.
Without central heating, most of the 350,000 people trapped in Sarajevo
have rigged up makeshift stoves, and entire families eat and sleep
together in one room because it's impossible to find enough wood to heat
two. For the people of Sarajevo, it's the same battle against death
they've waged for eight months now, except that the cold could kill more
of them than Serb bullets and bombs.
žžThere is no wood left in my neighborhood,'' said an off-duty policeman
named Zoran who walked two miles before finding a thick tree stump to
hack at. žžEverything has been wiped out, even the stumps.'' There were
open blisters on Zoran's hands as he flailed away at the stump, his
labored breathing forming a cloud of steam in front of his haggard face.
He has two children at home, aged four and eight, and no powdered milk
or fresh food to feed them. žžPlease tell the outside world to stop
this siege,'' he pleaded. žžAny way it can. This is insanity.''
But bad as things are now, some officials of Bosnia's Muslim-led
government fear they will soon get worse. Fuad Babic, who is in charge
of civil defense in Sarajevo, estimates that with winter only barely
begun, nearly half the city's trees are already gone. žžI have tried to
physically stop people from cutting the trees, but I lost the will to do
it after a woman came to me crying and said she needed the wood to keep
her two babies warm,'' Babic said.
It is the weakest who give out first. At a nursing home in Nedarici, a
frontline suburb between Sarajevo and its airport, eight elderly people
have died of the cold in the past four days, staff members say. The
remaining 114 patients live in filthy, unheated rooms and, for the
bedridden ones, fouled sheets. žžThe meals they are getting are
adequate,'' said a spokesman for the U.N. refugee agency. žžIt's the
cold they are succumbing to. ... This is just a microcosm of what
we're going to see across Sarajevo.''
At the State Hospital, nurse Stanislava Pasagic, 24, has been unable to
work for five days because her hands are frostbitten _ covered with
blisters and cold as a corpse. žžFive other nurses have the same
problem,'' she said. The hospital's emergency heating system is powered
by generators that have enough fuel to operate for just three hours
during the day and three at night, and patients shiver under layers of
blankets.
But staying alive in Sarajevo is not just a matter of staying warm. It
also means finding water to drink and wash with. Because there is no
electricity, water pumps are idle except in the rare buildings that have
their own generators and fuel to run them. And so the streets are
filled with people lining up to fill containers at wells and water
storage tanks.
Walking anywhere in Sarajevo can be deadly because most streets are
within range of Serb snipers and mortar batteries, and malnourished
people do not walk very briskly. Weighed down with buckets of water,
they walk even slower, and when they stand in line for hours at an open
well, they become stationary targets.
According to doctors here, several people are being shot every day as
they stand in water lines. On Sunday, one middle-aged man was rushed to
a hospital after a sniper's bullet tore through his chest. Doctors took
one look at him and wrote down a Latin phrase that is becoming more and
more common in their log book: Mortus ad latus. Dead on arrival.
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U.N. Chief Confirms Bosnia Trip (Geneva)<
By John Parry=
Special to The Washington Post=
GENEVA _ U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali confirmed Monday
that he will visit war-ravaged Bosnia this week, even as talks here
among the U.N. chief and the presidents of Bosnia, Croatia and the new
two-republic Yugoslav state apparently produced little hope of a
breakthrough toward peace in the region.
U.N. officials said all three presidents reiterated long-standing
positions on the eight-month-old fratricidal conflict, while
Boutros-Ghali repeated his calls for a concerted effort toward a
peaceful solution of the Bosnian war.
Each of the presidents _ Franjo Tudjman of Croatia, Alija Izetbegovic of
Bosnia and Dobrica Cosic of the new Serb-controlled Yugoslavia _ spent
little more than an hour with Boutros-Ghali, and none made a statement
afterward. At separate press conferences, however, Tudjman repeated
accusations that Russian mercenaries are aiding the Serb nationalist
cause in Bosnia, while Cosic reiterated charges that Muslim mercenaries
are helping the Slavic Muslim-led Bosnian government.
Meanwhile, Therese Gastaut, Boutros-Ghali's spokeswoman, confirmed a
statement by the secretary general on Sunday that he will travel to
Sarajevo, Bosnia's besieged capital, žžwithin the next few days'' to
visit U.N. military forces providing humanitarian aid to civilians
there. Details of the trip will not be made public ahead of time for
security reasons, Gastaut said.
A new round of negotiations among Bosnia's warring factions is scheduled
for Geneva on Jan. 2, when representatives of the former Yugoslav
republic's Serbs, Croats and Muslims will try to formulate the terms of
a lasting military cease-fire, establish permanent safe corridors for
delivery of humanitarian aid and lay the groundwork for a comprehensive
peace throughout the region.
Cyrus Vance and David Owen, cochairmen of the permanent Balkan peace
conference here, have called the Jan. 2 talks especially significant
because they will involve both civilian and military leaders of the
warring Bosnians, plus representatives of neighboring Croatia and
Yugoslavia, which have supported rival factions.
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Kosovo's Albanians Assert Nationalism (Pristina, Serbia)<
By Christine Spolar=
Special to The Washington Post=
PRISTINA, Serbia _ In two small rooms of a home here in the capital of
Serbia's Kosovo province, the future of an ethnic Albanian independence
movement is being prepared.
In one room, 28 students sit shoulder to shoulder on cloth-covered mats
and listen to a lecture on statistics. In another, two dozen teenagers
jam together on a chilly day to take careful notes on Albanian grammar.
There are no desks or chairs, few books and little chalk for the one
small blackboard.
žžWe want to learn. It is our only weapon to resist our enemy,'' said
Arben Kuqi, 16, an ethnic Albanian and one of a thousand youngsters who
walk miles every day for lessons that allow them to avoid contact with
the žženemy'' _ their Serbian neighbors and their schools.
The intensity of that attitude in largely Albanian Kosovo worries those
who fear a spread of ethnic purges in the Balkans. To many, Kosovo _ a
Connecticut-sized region of southern Serbia where Albanians outnumber
Serbs by nine to one _ seems the obvious next venue for Serb žžethnic
cleansing.''
If guns are drawn, neighboring Albania as well as large Albanian
communities in two other Balkan republics _ Montenegro, now a satellite
of Serbia in the new Yugoslav state, and newly independent Macedonia _
are considered likely to come to the aid of the 1.8 million Albanians
here. Serbian leaders have said they will do whatever is necessary to
defend their land, in Kosovo or wherever else foreign powers might
intervene.
The underground school here, and dozens like it set up in homes
throughout Kosovo, has been one way the Albanians have shown their
antipathy toward the repressive Serb-controlled provincial government
that was installed here three years ago. Thousands of Albanian children
have used such schools since last January as their only source of
education.
Their existence _ and the creation of a whole system of other community
services _ underscores the extent to which the Albanians passively
resist Serbian control and the ultranationalist policies of Serbian
President Slobodan Milosevic, who rose to power by whipping up
xenophobic fears.
Two weeks ago, the Albanians of Kosovo exercised that resistance, with
considerable political consequences. In Serbian and Yugoslav elections,
they saw no candidate willing to focus on their plight, so they refused
to vote. That aided the reelection of Milosevic and cleared the way for
election of dozens of militant Serbian nationalists to parliament, a
move that Western observers said diminishes hopes for ending the war in
Bosnia and defusing tensions in Kosovo.
Three years ago, as the old Yugoslav federation began to break up and
Kosovo's Albanian leaders talked of independence, Serbia moved to quash
the threat, ordering ethnic Albanian teachers, doctors, judges and high
government workers to sign loyalty oaths to keep their jobs. By some
estimates, as many as 70,000 people were dismissed or left their jobs as
a result. Others reportedly were imprisoned without charge.
In the ensuing months, Albanians accused Serbian security forces of
harassment, beatings and killings, and they say these increased in the
months leading to the recent elections.
žžIt is tense and confrontational'' in Kosovo now, one observer said,
žžand things could go wrong.''
One Serbian politician who has promised to make trouble is Zelko
Raznjatovic, leader of a Belgrade-based paramilitary unit who is accused
by the United States of responsibility for mass killings of Slavic
Muslim civilians in Bosnia. Raznjatovic won a seat in parliament and
vowed the next day to push the new assembly to declare žžopen war'' on
the Albanian separatist movement in Kosovo.
The Albanian political hierarchy, exiled from local government, elected
its own žžgovernment'' this spring and has worked to set up its own
services. Boycotting Serb-controlled services, it has developed a
system of welfare from donations and encouraged establishment of
roadside health clinics, schools in homes and university classes taught
by unemployed Albanians.
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The History of Kosovo (Pristina, Serbia)<
By Christine Spolar=
Special to The Washington Post=
PRISTINA, Serbia _ The history of Kosovo is often detailed painstakingly
by Serbs and Albanians alike in even casual conversations and cannot be
overrestimated in the current confrontation. Serbs view it as the
birthplace of Serbian nationhood, and Albanians see it as theirs by
right of possession and the dictates of more recent history.
Six hundred years ago, the Serbs fought against the invading Turks and
lost decisively at the Battle of Kosovo _ a battle that welded Serbs
together as a people and one that is still discussed here as if it
happened yesterday. So too, is the decision by Yugoslav communist ruler
Marshal Tito two decades ago to grant virtual home rule to Kosovo, which
by then was heavily populated with Albanians left out of neighboring
Albania when its borders were redrawn earlier this century.
Three years ago, as the old Yugoslav federation began to break up and
Kosovo's Albanian leaders talked of independence, Serbia moved to quash
the threat, ordering ethnic Albanian professionals to sign loyalty oaths
to keep their jobs. In the ensuing months, Albanians accused Serbian
security forces of harassment, beatings and killings. Human rights
organizations, including Amnesty International and the Helsinki
Commission, have decried the repression.
But Serbian leaders here and in Belgrade deny there is any orchestrated
oppression of the Albanians and say they have caused most of their own
problems by not working with the Serb-controlled government.
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Serbian Radicals Vote to Oust Prime Minister Panic (Belgrade)<
By Laura Silber and Carol J. Williams=
(c) 1992, Los Angeles Times=
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia _ Encouraged by their recent electoral triumph,
ultranationalist Serbian radicals voted Tuesday to oust Milan Panic, the
California millionaire, from the office of federal prime minister.
The no-confidence motion against the moderate Panic easily passed both
houses of the federal Parliament, spurred on by the wave of extremism
that has washed over the remains of Yugoslavia since a Dec. 20 election
defeated proponents of peace and reform.
Panic was closeted with advisers late Tuesday and made no immediate
comment on the move to depose him. An aide, reached at the prime
minister's Belgrade residence, said Panic would make an announcement
Wednesday morning.
The vote aimed at forcing Panic's resignation was the third called by
Serb nationalists in the past four months, the two previous moves having
failed because deputies from the republic of Montenegro came to the
prime minister's rescue.
But in the wake of elections that strengthened the hand of the hard-line
nationalists rule in what is left of Yugoslavia, the Montenegrins closed
ranks with their longtime Serbian allies to deal Panic a crushing, if
mostly symbolic defeat.
Thunderous applause broke out in the upper parliamentary chamber when
the Montenegrins withdrew their backing of Panic and voted
overwhelmingly to unseat him.
Panic had already hinted he would resign as head of the virtually
powerless federal government following his loss to Serbian strongman
Slobodan Milosevic after a hard-fought campaign for the republic
presidency.
Western diplomats described the vote of no-confidence _ proposed by a
militant deputy accused of war crimes _ as an attempt to complete the
humiliation of Panic and the conciliatory course he proposed to spare
the rump Yugoslavia a future of isolation and despair.
The political swing toward nationalist extremism that gave Milosevic a
wide margin of victory 10 days ago was reflected in the no-confidence
vote. The lower house, dominated by Milosevic's Serbian Socialist Party
and their Serbian Radical allies, voted 95-2 against Panic, with 12
deputies abstaining. The upper house, evenly split between the two
remaining Yugoslav republics, Serbia and Montenegro, voted 30-5 with one
abstention to remove the prime minister.
Despite the vote, Panic and his federal Cabinet were expected to remain
in power in a caretaker status until a new slate of ministers is
appointed by the Parliament that will take office some time next month.
Western diplomats also speculated that Serbian Radical Party leader
Vojislav Seselj called for the vote against Panic as a means of forcing
the fence-sitting Montenegrins to choose sides.
(Begin optional trim)
Montenegrin President Momir Bulatovic and his Democratic Socialist Party
supported Panic's unsuccessful bid to replace Milosevic.
Parliamentary sources said a Montenegrin official, Svetozar Marovic, was
likely to be named prime minister by the new regime in an effort to
appease Montenegro, the republic that makes up only 5 percent of the
population of the rump Yugoslavia. But other deputies indicated Panic
would be replaced by Deputy Prime Minister Radoje Kontic, also from
Montenegro.
Seselj, who was singled out by U.S. Secretary of State Lawrence
Eagleburger last week as likely to be brought before a war crimes
tribunal, had warned a day earlier that Panic might be arrested if he
remained in Belgrade.
(End optional trim)
Panic, 63, had returned to his native Yugoslavia in July in a
much-publicized quest to bring peace to Bosnia-Herzegovina and turn the
attention of his fellow Serbs to repairing their shattered economy.
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Caged in Sarajevo _ By the United Nations (Sarajevo)<
By Peter Maass=
Special to The Washington Post=
SARAJEVO, Bosnia _ Every night, hundreds of exhausted men, women and
children try to flee this besieged, freezing city on a dangerous escape
route that crosses the airport tarmac. Most are stopped by well-armed
troops who force them back to the ruins of Sarajevo, for here the
keepers of the siege are U.N. soldiers.
žžIt breaks our hearts,'' said a French soldier who has turned back old
women and mothers with babies. žžThey cry, they plead with us for help
to cross. They even offer money. But we're under orders to stop
them.''
The airport forms a crucial part of a tight siege line thrown around
Sarajevo by powerful Serb nationalist forces who have been bombarding
the city for months. Under heavy international pressure, the Serbs
agreed to allow U.N. control of the airport so that relief flights for
Sarajevo's trapped civilians could land. But, apparently in exchange,
U.N. commanders have adopted a strict policy of stopping any residents
of the largely Slavic Muslim city from crossing the tarmac to escape the
siege.
U.N. officials here have never hidden the fact that they turn back
people at the airport, but until icy winter temperatures took hold here
in the past week, the numbers were small. Now the number of intercepted
civilians is soaring _ there were more than 500 Monday night _ and U.N.
officials here acknowledge that the no-passage policy represents a
troubling moral trade-off. žžIt's a tremendous compromise,'' said one.
When the civilians are stopped, the U.N. troops search them for
weapons; everyone is frisked, including children. They are then taken
in U.N. patrol vehicles to the starting point of their sprint to
freedom _ back where they started, in Sarajevo.
Scenes of wrenching pathos take place every night, according to four
French soldiers who spoke on condition that they be identified only by
their first names. They expressed misgivings about the no-passage
policy but said they were soldiers first and that means following
orders. žžWe are not here to think,'' said Paul. žžWe are here to
follow orders. There are others, higher up, who do the thinking.''
Women drop to their knees begging to cross the tarmac, the soldiers
said. Men who are caught heading into the city with sacks of potatoes
or dried meat take family pictures from their wallets and plead that
they are carrying food to their trapped wives and children.
Some people who hobble onto the tarmac have shrapnel wounds or other
injuries and say they are trying to get medical attention on the other
side. Mothers carry newborn babies wrapped in blankets; old people
move as quickly as they can, which is rarely quick enough.
All are turned back.
The U.N. policy is also burdened by the fact that troops here, on at
least one occasion, have stood by without taking any action as fleeing
civilians came under Serb machine-gun fire on the exposed tarmac. U.N.
troops at the airport are allowed to fire their weapons only in
self-defense, which precludes intervention to save people who are being
shot down before their eyes.
According to U.N. spokesman Mik Magnusson, if civilians fleeing
Sarajevo were allowed to cross the tarmac, the besieging Serbs would
attack the airport, shutting it down. The choice, he indicated, is to
help enforce the Serb siege or give up any hope of continuing
humanitarian aid flights that are keeping thousands of people alive.
The airport dilemma demonstrates the cloudy moral ground that the U.N.
Protection Force sometimes occupies in Bosnia. Its compromises with the
Bosnian Serbs _ who have been condemned the world over for waging
aggressive war in Bosnia _ havee infuriated the Slavic Muslim-led
Bosnian government, which has charged that the United Nations is
knuckling under to international pariahs and war criminals.
U.N. officials say they must consider the situation pragmatically. At
a recent news conference, the top U.N. generals in Bosnia were asked if
they minded dealing with alleged war criminals _ which the United States
has branded a number of top Serb leaders _ and they responded by saying
they have no choice.
žžThe international community is dealing with them,'' said Indian Lt.
Gen. Satish Nambiar, commander of U.N. forces in the Balkans. žžThey
are leaders of one of the parties of the conflict, like it or not.''
novine.160milan,
Sve ove vesti (prema zaglavlju mi se čini da je to servis Los
Angeles Times-a i Washington Post-a) baca .bale. na world.news.
Tako, da ovo ispada dupliranje posla.
Pl poz M