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RFE/RL Newsline, Vol. 3, No. 117, 99-06-16Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty: Newsline Directory - Previous Article - Next ArticleFrom: Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty <http://www.rferl.org>RFE/RL NEWSLINEVol. 3, No. 117, 16 June 1999CONTENTS[A] TRANSCAUCASUS AND CENTRAL ASIA
[B] SOUTHEASTERN EUROPE
[C] END NOTE
[A] TRANSCAUCASUS AND CENTRAL ASIA[01] NEW ARMENIAN CABINET NAMEDPresident Robert Kocharian announced the lineup of the new cabinet late on 15 June, RFE/RL's Yerevan bureau reported. Nine ministers from the previous cabinet retained their posts, including Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian. Former Premier Armen Darpinian was appointed economy minister, while the Interior and National Security Ministry was split into two component parts, with Serzh Sarkisian retaining responsibility only for internal affairs. Yerevan Mayor Suren Abrahamian was named national security minister. A young army general, Vagharshak Harutunian, who formerly served at the Armenian embassy in Moscow, succeeds Vazgen Sargsian as defense minister. The People's Party of Armenia, one of the two partners in the majority Miasnutyun bloc, acquired only one minor ministerial post (postal services and telecommunications). The Armenian Revolutionary Federation--Dashnaktsutiun--lost one of its two ministerial posts, retaining only the Ministry of Culture. LF[02] ARMENIAN FOREIGN MINISTER ADVOCATES NEW FRIENDSHIP AGREEMENT WITH GEORGIAIn an interview with Armenian Television, Vartan Oskanian said that Armenia and Georgia should sign a new and "more global" agreement that would reflect the changed state of relations between the two countries, Caucasus Press reported on 15 June. Oskanian added that he hopes the new agreement will "include elements of strategic partnership." He said that the agreement could be signed during a visit to Armenia within the next few months by Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze. LF[03] U.S. CALLS ON ARMENIA, AZERBAIJAN TO OBSERVE KARABAKH CEASE- FIRE...In a statement issued on 15 June, U.S. State Department spokesman James Rubin called on "all sides" in the Karabakh conflict to heed the appeal last month by the three co-chairmen of the OSCE Minsk Group to observe the cease-fire agreement of May 1994, Reuters reported. Rubin also stressed the need "to negotiate urgently a comprehensive and durable solution to the conflict based on the proposals advanced by the Minsk Group co-chairs." Turan on 11 June had quoted Azerbaijani State Foreign Policy Advisor Vafa Guluzade as stating that all points in the Minsk Group proposals that "counter in spirit" international norms should be dropped. Guluzade added that if Baku's opinion is not taken into consideration, no progress can be expected during the co- chairs' next visit to the region. No date has yet been set for that visit. LF[04] ... AS BOTH SIDES CONTINUE TO DISCLAIM RESPONSIBILITYIn a statement issued on 15 June, the Foreign Ministry of the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic blamed Azerbaijan for the fighting along the region's northeastern border the previous day, RFE/RL's Stepanakert correspondent reported. The statement said that the Nagorno-Karabakh Defense Army repulsed an attempt by Azerbaijani troops to bring their positions closer to the border. In Baku, the head of the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry's press service, Colonel Ramiz Melikov, told Turan that it was Armenian forces who launched the offensive. Melikov said the attack demonstrated that "Armenian military leaders still dream of capturing Ter- ter and Yevlakh," which would enable them to isolate Gyanja, the second city in Azerbaijan. He added that the Armenian losses in the fighting were higher than those sustained by Azerbaijan. LF[05] BAKU-NOVOROSSIISK PIPELINE CLOSED INDEFINITELYThe ill- starred northern export pipeline for Azerbaijan's Caspian oil will be shut down indefinitely following the explosion that damaged the Chechen sector on 14 June, Interfax reported the following day quoting unnamed Transneft officials. Transneft had threatened to halt transportation of crude through the pipeline unless the Chechen government took effective measures to prevent thieves tapping into it and siphoning off oil (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 10 June 1999). LF[06] TWO GEORGIAN POLICEMEN SHOT NEAR BORDER WITH CHECHNYAFour people--including two Georgian police officers--were killed in a shootout on 15 June in the Pankisi gorge in eastern Georgia when five masked men flagged down a police car and opened fire on the two occupants, Caucasus Press reported. The motives for the attack are unclear. LF[07] KAZAKH OPPOSITION PARTY PESSIMISTIC OVER ELECTION PROSPECTS...Bigeldy Gabdullin, who is editor of the newspaper "21 Vek" and vice chairman of former Premier Akezhan Kazhegeldin's People's Republican Party of Kazakhstan, told RFE/RL correspondents in Astana on 11 June that local authorities are obstructing the registration of the party's regional branches. Gabdullin said the party has succeeded in registering branches in only three of Kazakhstan's 14 oblasts. Under the new election law, only those parties that have registered branches in at least seven oblasts are eligible to contend the parliamentary elections scheduled for this fall. LF[08] ...AS IS EX-MAYOR OF KYRGYZ CAPITALIn an interview published in "Vechernii Bishkek" on 11 June, Feliks Kulov announced his intention of founding a new political movement named Ar-Namys (Honor), the founding conference of which will take place "soon," RFE/RL's Bishkek bureau reported. Kulov, who resigned in late April accusing President Askar Akaev of condoning undemocratic practices by his subordinates, said that he has decided to remain in politics because the Kyrgyz economy "is headed for disaster" (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 28 April 1999). Kulov said that he will appeal to the Constitutional Court to abrogate as anti-constitutional the article of the election law that stipulates that only political parties that were officially registered no later than one year prior to the election date are eligible to contend the next parliamentary elections. That poll is scheduled for February 2000. LF[09] MINIMAL PROGRESS TOWARDS TAJIK RAPPROCHEMENTTalks last week between working groups representing the Tajik government and United Tajik Opposition (UTO) on the terms for a resumption of cooperation between the two sides within the Commission for National Reconciliation failed to reach a compromise solution on unspecified disputed issues, Interfax reported on 15 June citing a press release from the UN mission in Tajikistan. "Nezavisimaya gazeta" on 16 June quoted the head of the UTO working group, Mukhammadsharif Himmatzoda, as saying that the talks achieved no positive results. Himmatzoda added that he hopes the UN will embark on a further round of discussions with both opposition and government representatives. The two working groups were scheduled to meet on 16 June to discusss a possible meeting between UTO leader Said Abdullo Nuri and President Imomali Rakhmonov. LF[B] SOUTHEASTERN EUROPE[10] SERBIAN WITHDRAWAL PROCEDING ON SCHEDULENATO officials said in a statement in Brussels on 16 June that KFOR deployment in Kosova is going according to plan. The text added that withdrawal of Serbian troops and paramilitary police is also on schedule except for some minor delays due to "traffic congestion." Earlier that day, the Atlantic alliance extended by 24 hours its deadline for Serbian forces to leave "Zone I" of southern Kosova on the grounds that the Serbs were making "genuine efforts" to stick to the agreed schedule for their retreat, Reuters reported. The Serbian withdrawal from all of Kosova is slated to end on 20 June. PM[11] SUPPLY CONVOY REACHES RUSSIAN TROOPS IN KOSOVAA Russian supply convoy from Bosnia reached the 200 Russian troops at the Prishtina airport on 15 June and another convoy left for Prishtina the following day, Reuters reported. Russian officials received NATO approval for sending the two convoys, a Russian Defense Ministry spokesman said in Moscow. Meanwhile, Russian commanders in Prishtina asked British KFOR troops to resupply them with water on 15 June, but continued to deny them and French troops access to the airport (see "RFE/RL Newsline" 15 June 1999). FS[12] SERBIAN CHURCH WANTS MILOSEVIC TO GOThe Holy Synod of the Serbian Orthodox Church issued a statement in Belgrade on 15 June in which it called for Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic and his government to resign and be replaced by a "government of national salvation," RFE/RL's South Slavic Service reported. The statement added: "It should be evident to every thinking person that [our] numerous internal problems and the international isolation of [our] state cannot be overcome with such a government and under the present conditions." The bishops urged Kosova's Serbs not to leave the province. Observers note that the Church has never trusted Milosevic because of his communist background. This is the first time, however, that the Church has openly called for his ouster. A Serbian political analyst told RFE/RL's South Slavic Service that the bishops' "call may mobilize resistance against Milosevic's political power." PM[13] NATO NEGOTIATES DISARMAMENT WITH UCKU.S. Army General John Craddock told dpa from Skopje on 16 June that NATO officials are negotiating with the Kosova Liberation Army (UCK) about its demilitarization. Craddock did not release details about the content or location of the talks. He added that the UCK's possible disarmament is up to the "discretion" of the respective peacekeeping troops. Craddock said that "we approach it in a fair and even-handed manner...Our soldiers are not instructed to routinely disarm [the guerrillas]. However, we have got to make sure we defuse explosive situations. We don't want armed [UCK] in proximity with withdrawing Serbs." Pentagon officials said in Washington that both the Serbs and the UCK have initiated confrontations resulting in as many as "two dozen" deaths. They added, however, that "we are generally satisfied with the amount of compliance" with NATO's ban on armed violence. FS[14] KFOR TROOPS PULL BACK FROM CONFRONTATION WITH UCKAbout 200 UCK fighters refused to turn in their weapons to French forces near Gjilan on 15 June and withdrew to the mountains, a French army spokesman told Reuters. British paratroopers pulled back from a confrontation with about 50 UCK fighters who set up a headquarters in a building in northeast Prishtina. The fighters threatened to resist any attempt to disarm them. In Prizren, UCK forces moved into vacant Yugoslav army headquarters and held victory parades in the city. The "Berliner Zeitung" quoted the local UCK leader Rexha Ekrem as saying that his forces took "control of the city together with German KFOR soldiers." German army spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Dietmar Jeserich, however, stressed that "the Germans control this city...The UCK is walking the streets with its weapons, but the authority lies with KFOR and not with the UCK." The BBC quoted an unnamed German KFOR official as saying that disarming the UCK would be futile because the guerrillas have more arms hidden away. FS[15] MORE REFUGEES RETURNING TO KOSOVA DESPITE UNHCR WARNINGSA UNHCR spokeswoman in Geneva told AP that about 8,000 Kosovars returned from Macedonia and Albania into Kosova on 15 June. She added that many more are expected the following day. Long lines of cars backed up at border crossings, according to unnamed UN officials in Macedonia and Albania. Meanwhile, aid agencies stepped up their efforts to warn the refugees of the danger of landmines. Two people were killed and one injured on 15 June by a mine as they crossed a field between Macedonia and Kosova. UNHCR officials registered returnees and set up two supply stations on the road between Kukes and Prizren to provide people with food and water during their return. FS[16] SERBIAN CIVILIANS CONTINUE EXODUS...A spokeswoman for the UNHCR said in Geneva on 15 June that some 23,000 Serbs left Kosova for Serbia and Montenegro during the previous four days. Most appeared to be heading for Nis, she added. Officials of the International Committee of the Red Cross reported that some 33,000 Serbian civilians left the province in less than a week, of whom 24,000 went to Serbia and the rest to Montenegro. In Prishtina, Zoran Andjelkovic, who is Milosevic's governor of the province, said: "Yes, it is a panic, and it is growing into a stampede," the "Financial Times" reported on 16 June. He accused KFOR of not doing enough to provide security for Kosova's Serbs. PM[17] ...BUT PROBLEMS AWAIT MANYThe Red Cross officials in Geneva noted on 15 June that most of the departing Serbs plan to stay with relatives. But many Serbs arriving in Belgrade complained that the authorities have done nothing to help them, AP reported. A representative of the Belgrade city government said: "The best thing would have been if they had not come here at all--not because we don't want them, but because there are guarantees for their safety in [Kosova]. Unfortunately, they don't believe us." PM[18] ARTEMIJE TO LEAVE PRIZRENBishop Artemije, who is the leading Serbian Orthodox cleric in Kosova, said in Prizren on 16 June that he will leave that city because it is no longer safe for him there amid UCK patrols on the streets, Reuters reported. He added that he will leave for Prishtina with nine priests and 200 Serbian civilians later in the day. It is not clear why KFOR has not been able to ensure their security. Earlier, some 60 Serbian families took refuge with Artemije in the Monastery of the Holy Archangels, "Danas" reported. Artemije is a critic of Milosevic and advocates reconciliation of Serbs and Albanians. PM[19] SERB TOSSES GRENADE AT ALBANIANSA Serbian paramilitary man leaving Gjilan on 15 June threw a grenade from his car at a group of Kosovar civilians nearby, wounding 13, including several children, AFP reported. The Kosovars were celebrating the departure of Yugoslav forces. It is not clear what action, if any, French peacekeepers took against the paramilitary. PM[20] MORE INDICATIONS OF ATROCITIESItalian peacekeepers found two mass graves near Peja on 15 June. One of the two sites appears to contain at least 120 bodies. Britain's Sky Television reported that its journalists saw 82 mounds of freshly dug graves, some with limbs sticking out, north of Prishtina near a base of Serbian paramilitaries. On 16 June, Reuters reported from the Drenica region that villagers found bodies in four wells in an area where local people said that Serbian forces had killed up to 100 Kosovars. The villagers also found "dozens" of bodies in "freshly dug pits" nearby. PM[21] SURROI REAPPEARSLeading Kosovar journalist, Rambouillet negotiator, and political figure Veton Surroi has emerged "safe and sound" in Prishtina, where he has been in hiding for the past 11 weeks, Human Rights Watch said in a statement in New York on 15 June. Surroi is now "under the protection of British NATO forces," the statement continued. PM[22] MILOSEVIC OUT ON CAMPAIGN TRAIL...Milosevic spoke in Aleksinac on 15 June in what appears to be an effort to identify himself with resistance to NATO and with national reconstruction in a runup to possible new elections (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 15 June 1999). He said: "By rebuilding our country we will renew ties with the whole world, first of all by correcting an image which for the whole decade had been created by those who were dissatisfied with our resistance to [their] colonization of the Balkans." PM[23] ...AND WITH THE ARMYMilosevic told guests at a reception to mark Army Day at Belgrade's Sava Center on 15 June that "after 11 weeks of [NATO] aggression, we can say that we have seen peace arrive with [our] combat potentials no less [intact] than at the beginning of this war imposed on us." General Dragoljub Ojdanic, who is a political ally of Milosevic and chief of the General Staff, said that the army will "obtain new, modern weapons that can strike at aggressor countries wherever they may be." Ojdanic praised the country's political leadership for "preventing the total occupation of our country as well as a total capitulation and loss" of Kosova. Milosevic promoted or decorated some 3,000 officers, including Ojdanic. The Hague- based war crimes tribunal recently indicted Milosevic and Ojdanic for atrocities in Kosova. PM[24] HERZEGOVINIAN TAKES OVER JOINT PRESIDENCYAnte Jelavic, who belongs to the Croatian Democratic Community (HDZ) of Croatian President Franjo Tudjman, replaced moderate Serbian leader Zivko Radisic as rotating head of the Bosnian joint presidency on 15 June in Sarajevo. Jelavic, who represents the hard-line Herzegovinian faction of the HDZ, said that his "three priorities" are to promote Bosnia's membership in the EU, the Council of Europe, and the World Trade Organization. He also pledged to develop joint institutions within Bosnia and promote political and economic reconstruction aimed at strengthening the country as a "multiethnic, multiconfessional, and decentralized state," RFE/RL's South Slavic Service reported. PM[25] MUSLIMS EXHUME MASS GRAVEJasmin Odobasic of the Committee for Missing Persons said in Mostar on 16 June that representatives of that organization have exhumed the remains of some 55 persons, presumably Muslim civilians, near Zijemlje. Odobasic added that Serbian forces reportedly killed the civilians in 1992. During the Bosnian war, some 200,000 people--mostly civilians--were killed on all sides and more than 24,000 persons are still missing. The remains of some 2,500 people have been exhumed since 1995, AP reported. PM[26] CONSTANTINESCU EXPLAINS REFUSAL OF RUSSIAN AIRSPACE USEIn an interview on Romanian television on 15 June, President Emil Constantinescu said Russia had requested a response to its request to use Romanian air space for transiting troops to Kosova within five hours. Constantinescu said that the use of air space granted to NATO had followed a long legal procedure, including approval by the parliament, and this could not apply to such a short-timed demand (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 15 June 1999). MS[27] ROMANIAN PARLIAMENT APPROVES COMPROMISE ON EDUCATION LAWThe Chamber of Deputies on 16 June approved a compromise on the article of the amended education law dealing with instruction at university level in the languages of national minorities, Romanian radio reported. The deputies voted to accept the formulation proposed by a commission that mediated between the chamber's stricter text of the law and the more liberal text approved by the Senate. The law now allows teaching in the mother tongue in existing universities and the setting up of so-called "multicultural universities." The amended law stipulates that in schools of national minorities Romanian history and geography are taught in the mother tongue at the primary school level and in Romanian at the secondary level, examinations being conducted in the language of the minorities. The Senate has yet to examine the compromise. MS[28] ROMANIAN PARTIES' MERGER FINALIZEDTwenty-five local branches of the Party of Romanian Unity Alliance on 15 June approved the leadership's decision to merge into the main opposition Party of Social Democracy in Romania, Mediafax reported (see "RFE/RL Newsline, 31 May 1999). In other news, the striking teachers said they will continue the labor sanctions till 17 June, awaiting the government's approval on that day of a protocol agreed on by their representatives after meetings with Premier Radu Vasile and Finance Minister Decebal Train Remes. MS[29] MOLDOVAN CONSTITUTIONAL COURT APPROVES REFERENDUM VALIDITYWith a vote of five to one, the Constitutional Court on 15 June approved the validity of the non-binding 23 May referendum called by President Petru Lucinschi on changing the system to a presidential one, RFE/RL's Chisinau bureau reported. The court said the referendum has no "judicial effect," since it was not a binding plebiscite. It also said that the Central Electoral Commission's decision of 5 June to recognize the validity of the referendum was legal, because the electoral law allows the commission to annul a referendum if participation was below 60 percent, but does not oblige it to do so. Presidential counselor Mihail Petrache said Lucinschi now intends to set up a "constitutional commission" to work on a draft law on changing the constitution. MS[30] MOLDOVAN PREMIER VISITS TRANSDNIESTERIon Sturza on 15 June met with Viktor Sinev, deputy leader of the breakaway Transdniester region, and discussed economic cooperation, Infotag reported. Sturza and Sinev visited the Moldavskaya power plant in Kuchurgan, which supplies electricity to Moldova, and said they were interested in attracting foreign investors to improve the plant's output, to modernize it, and make the exporting of electricity a possibility. The estimated costs are $150-200 million. At present, only two out of the plant's 12 power generating blocks are working. Sturza and Sinev also visited a truck repair plant in Bedery- Tighina, which assembles Russian-made trucks. MS[31] BULGARIA PROTESTS AGAINST TRIAL OF ETHNIC LEADER IN YUGOSLAVIAForeign Ministry spokesman Radko Vlaikov on 15 June warned Yugoslavia that if it goes ahead with plans to put ethnic Bulgarian leader Marko Shukarev on trial for desertion from his army unit, Sofia will seek "intervention" by the international community, dpa reported. The trial is to begin on 16 June. Vlaikov called on Yugoslavia to show "leniency" (see "RFE/RL Newsline, " 7 and 10 June 1999).[C] END NOTE[32] RUSSIA'S NEW BEZPRIZORNIKIBy Paul GobleThe social and economic disorder in the Russian Federation has pushed more than 1.5 million school-age children into the streets, a larger number of "unsupervised" youths than the Soviet state faced in the 1920s and a development which casts a shadow over that country's future. According to the journal of the Russian Ministry of Education, unemployment, alcoholism, and assorted social pathologies in the home are not only driving ever more young people into the streets where they frequently drift into crime but also having a serious impact on their physiological development. Ministry analysts suggest that the rising tide of criminal behavior by such young people reflects the collapse of Soviet-era arrangements for structuring leisure time activity and the rise of alternative and largely Western role models in the media. One of these analysts, Vladimir Andreev, bemoans the fact that Russian children today face a situation in which the old system of organized activities and camps "is basically in ruins." As a result, he says, an ever increasing number of children take their behavioral cues from media which glorify violence and get-rich-quick schemes and from youths not much older than themselves who are already pursuing what this analyst calls a false and perverted goal. In this, Andreev writes, the children have been following their parents and Russian society as a whole. In 1991, he notes, Russians "once again decided to restructure everything at one fell swoop, to start over again as we did back in 1917--this time, however, exclusively on a solid, 'democratic' foundation. The new starting point was found as well--just do everything completely opposite" to what had been done. That radical change of sign posts, Andreev suggests, has subverted the moral order without providing a new one. And that pattern has been exacerbated by the fact that "every autumn and every spring a new Moses swears that stabilization" and prosperity "are just around the corner," thus undercutting any willingness by children or their parents to defer gratification. Meanwhile, Vladimir Bazarnyi, a ministry doctor who keeps track of child health issues, suggests in the same journal that more than 90 percent of those who do remain in secondary schools now have developmental problems, with 85 our of every 100 school-age girls suffering from physical abnormalities in pelvic development. This latter figure, he suggests, is "simply horrifying" because it points to a future in which "the overwhelming majority of future mothers will not be able to give birth to healthy offspring who are normal 'in all parameters.'" And such statistics, the ministry figures imply, are even worse for those 1.5 million children who have left school early. This is not the first time Moscow has faced the problem of unsupervised youth or "bezprizorniki," as they are called in Russian. Following the Russian Civil War, Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin ordered his secret police chief Feliks Dzerzinskiy to commit half of the Cheka's employees to combatting the plague of homeless youth. And later, other Soviet leaders used the police to limit the number of such people on various occasions. The Russian Federation Ministry of Education refers to these earlier approaches, but its officials call for more money to be devoted to the health and well-being of children. At present, they note that "there is a catastrophic lack of funds everywhere" children are involved. But they complain that even now there is "more than enough money" for other things: There is "more than enough" for "the maintenance of two parallel governments," for "squadrons of flights to places like Davos and Strasbourg, " for "multiple channels to transfer money abroad," and even for "the purchase of luxurious villas on the Cote d'Azur" where "obviously no kindergartens are going to be built for our little ones." "Sackfulls of brand-new banknotes," these officials continue, "are being spent to build marble and crystal bank interiors, nightclub casinos, and personal mansions and estates in the suburbs, and to pay for the foreign schooling of the offspring of the hard-currency families that especially distinguished themselves during the era of the initial accumulation of capital." Such a cry from the heart of educators is perhaps not surprising in the tough budgetary struggles in the Russian capital. But the problems they point to affect not only Russia's children but Russia's future. And analogous problems are to be found in many other post-Soviet states as well. 16-06-99 Reprinted with permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
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