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RFE/RL Newsline, Vol. 3, No. 127, 99-07-01

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

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

RFE/RL NEWSLINE

Vol. 3, No. 127, 1 July 1999


CONTENTS

[A] TRANSCAUCASUS AND CENTRAL ASIA

  • [01] NEW NAGORNO-KARABAKH PREMIER NAMED
  • [02] KURDS IN ARMENIA, KAZAKHSTAN REACT TO OCALAN VERDICT
  • [03] MORE REPRISALS AGAINST PRESS IN AZERBAIJAN
  • [04] GEORGIAN PRESIDENT INSPECTS SPECIAL SECURITY DETACHMENTS
  • [05] GEORGIAN INTELLIGENTSIA WANTS CLEMENCY FOR JAILED WARLORD
  • [06] GEORGIAN DEFENSE MINISTRY EMPLOYEES FORM TRADE UNION
  • [07] KAZAKHSTAN TO CREATE POST OF HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSIONER
  • [08] PENSIONERS STAGE PROTEST IN KAZAKHSTAN'S FORMER CAPITAL
  • [09] TAJIKISTAN'S PARLIAMENT SCHEDULES REFERENDUM

  • [B] SOUTHEASTERN EUROPE

  • [10] ANNAN TO SPEED UP ESTABLISHING CIVILIAN MISSION IN KOSOVA
  • [11] CONTROVERSY SURROUNDS NEW KOSOVA COURT
  • [12] TRIBUNAL'S RISLEY SAYS SERBIAN AUTHORITIES LAUNCHED DESTRUCTION CAMPAIGN
  • [13] ADDITIONAL MASS GRAVES DISCOVERED IN KOSOVA
  • [14] UCK COMMANDER CALLS ON ALBANIANS NOT TO TAKE REVENGE
  • [15] MORE REPORTS OF KILLINGS OF SERBS
  • [16] FIRST TURKISH TROOPS LEAVE FOR KOSOVA
  • [17] DJINDJIC WARNS AGAINST ISOLATING SERBS
  • [18] MILOSEVIC TO RESHUFFLE CABINET?
  • [19] YUGOSLAV ARMY BLOCKS MONTENEGRIN FRONTIER WITH CROATIA
  • [20] CROATIAN FARMERS' PROTEST OVER
  • [21] ALBANIAN AIRPORT STRIKE ENDS
  • [22] ROMANIAN PARLIAMENT APPROVES LAND, FOREST RESTITUTION AMENDMENT...
  • [23] ...BUT RETURN OF REAL ESTATE PROVOKES CRITICISM
  • [24] HUNGARIAN MINORITY CONTENT WITH ROMANIAN EDUCATION LAW
  • [25] MOLDOVAN PREMIER SAYS ECONOMIC SECURITY ENDANGERED
  • [26] BULGARIA COMPLETES LIQUIDATION OF LOSS-MAKING STATE COMPANIES

  • [C] END NOTE

  • [27] WHY ORAL HISTORY MATTERS

  • [A] TRANSCAUCASUS AND CENTRAL ASIA

    [01] NEW NAGORNO-KARABAKH PREMIER NAMED

    Arkadii Ghukasian, president of the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, has named a Ukrainian citizen of Armenian origin to head the enclave's next government, RF/RL's Stepanakert correspondent reported on 30 June. Anushavan Danielian, who is 43, was born in Stepanakert but worked for many years in Crimea, where he held the posts of chairman of the parliamentary committee for state and legal affairs and then deputy speaker of the parliament, according to Noyan Tapan. He was named director of a state-run factory in Yerevan earlier this year. Ghukasian noted Danielian's role in coordinating humanitarian relief to Nagorno-Karabakh in the early 1990s. LF

    [02] KURDS IN ARMENIA, KAZAKHSTAN REACT TO OCALAN VERDICT

    Several hundred Kurds congregated in the center of Yerevan on 1 July to protest the death sentence handed down to Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Ocalan and to demand his release, RFE/RL's Yerevan bureau reported. The previous day, representatives of Kazakhstan's estimated 50, 000-strong Kurdish minority met in Almaty but decided to refrain from any demonstrations to protest the Ocalan verdict, according to RFE/RL correspondents in the former capital. Kurds in Shymkent and Zhambyl Oblasts were forbidden to travel to Almaty to attend that meeting. In Azerbaijan, State Foreign Policy Adviser Vafa Guluzade described Ocalan as "a primitive terrorist," adding that the death sentence was "absolutely correct," Turan reported. LF

    [03] MORE REPRISALS AGAINST PRESS IN AZERBAIJAN

    Ten men forced their way into the editorial offices of the newspaper "Hurriyet" on the evening of 29 June and beat up four of its employees, Turan reported. The assailants said the attack was in response to an article published in "Hurriyet" about the oil mafia in Gyanja. "Hurriyet" supports the Democratic Party, whose co-chairman is former parliamentary speaker Rasul Guliev. On 30 June, three people claiming to be employees of the National Security Ministry intercepted a car in which two journalists from the opposition newspaper "Yeni Musavat" were travelling and abducted the newspaper's deputy editor, Shirzad Mamedli. Mamedli was released one hour later after having been severely beaten. LF

    [04] GEORGIAN PRESIDENT INSPECTS SPECIAL SECURITY DETACHMENTS

    Eduard Shevardnadze attended a training exercise in Tbilisi on 30 June in which members of his bodyguard simulated deflecting an attack on a presidential motorcade, Interfax and Caucasus Press reported. Two of Shevardnadze's bodyguards were killed in such an attack in February 1998 (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 10 February 1998). The various branches of the Georgian Security Service are responsible for the safety of the president, foreign diplomats stationed in Georgia, and the Baku-Supsa oil export pipeline. LF

    [05] GEORGIAN INTELLIGENTSIA WANTS CLEMENCY FOR JAILED WARLORD

    A group of prominent-Soviet-era Georgian writers has appealed to President Shevardnadze to release Djaba Ioseliani, leader of the Mkhedrioni paramilitary formation, who was jailed for 11 years in November 1998 on charges of terrorism and attempting to assassinate Shevardnadze, Caucasus Press reported. Ioseliani, who denies those charges, recently underwent emergency surgery (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 28 June 1999). LF

    [06] GEORGIAN DEFENSE MINISTRY EMPLOYEES FORM TRADE UNION

    Some 102 delegates from 51 organizations subordinated to the Georgian Defense Ministry attended the founding congress in Tbilisi on 30 June of a trade union intended to protect their interests, Caucasus Press reported. The ministry is facing a serious funding shortage and intends to fire several thousand military and civilian personnel. LF

    [07] KAZAKHSTAN TO CREATE POST OF HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSIONER

    Bolat Baikadamov told Interfax on 30 June that the presidential commission on human rights, of which he is secretary, has drafted a bill on creating the office of ombudsman. That draft will be discussed at an OSCE-initiated forum in August. The commission has also drafted a report on the human rights situation in Kazakhstan for submission to President Nursultan Nazarbaev. LF

    [08] PENSIONERS STAGE PROTEST IN KAZAKHSTAN'S FORMER CAPITAL

    Some 200 pensioners blocked two main avenues in Almaty on 30 June to demand the restoration of their right to free travel on the city's public transportation system, Reuters and RFE/RL correspondents in Almaty reported. That right had been abolished on 1 June. The pensioners had earlier picketed the city mayor's office to demand that pensions be raised. Deputy Mayor Adil Ibraev told Reuters that the mayor is ready to meet pensioners to discuss their demands, but he said it is highly unlikely that the city can afford at present to fulfill them. Pensioners in the town of Semey (East Kazakhstan Oblast) staged a similar protest on 30 June, RFE/RL correspondents reported. LF

    [09] TAJIKISTAN'S PARLIAMENT SCHEDULES REFERENDUM

    Tajikistan's parliament voted on 30 June to submit to a nationwide referendum a package of constitutional amendments, including some demanded by the United Tajik Opposition, Reuters and AP reported. The referendum is set for 26 September. The amendments extend the presidential term of office from five to seven years but restrict the incumbent to one term. They also provide for the creation of a bicameral parliament and abolish the current ban on political parties with a religious orientation. Addressing the session, President Imomali Rakhmonov sought to allay some deputies' fears that the latter provision could lead to the establishment of an Islamic state in Tajikistan. He assured them that other articles of the constitution ensure that the country will remain a secular state, according to AP. LF

    [B] SOUTHEASTERN EUROPE

    [10] ANNAN TO SPEED UP ESTABLISHING CIVILIAN MISSION IN KOSOVA

    UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan chaired a meeting in New York on 30 June aimed at quickly developing the civilian administration in Kosova and setting up an international police force there. Present were top officials from the G-8 countries, 10 other states, the EU, the OSCE, and the Organization of the Islamic Conference. Participants made pledges to bolster the new police force from 1,000 to 1,938 members, but this still falls short of the 3,110 Annan wants to send urgently to the troubled province. Participants differed over whether reconstruction aid should be supplied to Yugoslavia and over the role that the Kosova Liberation Army (UCK) should play in an eventual local police force. Annan appealed to his guests to increase their contributions for the reconstruction of Kosova, "The New York Times" reported. PM

    [11] CONTROVERSY SURROUNDS NEW KOSOVA COURT

    In Prishtina on 30 June, Sergio Vieira de Mello, who is Annan's special representative in Kosova, swore in nine judges for Kosova's new independent judiciary, including two judges in absentia. The nine are five ethnic Albanians, three Serbs, and one ethnic Turk. The judges' first task will be to try 221 people, recently detained by KFOR, for murder, looting, and other crimes. De Mello called the swearing in "a most important step forward toward building a new multi-ethnic, independent judiciary." Aziz Rexha, who is one of the five Albanian judges, told Reuters, however, that he and the other Albanians will not assume their duties unless the ethnic balance of the judiciary is altered to more accurately reflect that of Kosova, which is approximately 90 percent Albanian. Djordje Aksic, who was a judge under the former Serbian administration but not under the new one, argued that there must be additional Serbian judges if the exodus of Serbs from the province is to stop. PM

    [12] TRIBUNAL'S RISLEY SAYS SERBIAN AUTHORITIES LAUNCHED DESTRUCTION CAMPAIGN

    Paul Risley, who is a spokesman of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, told RFE/RL on 30 June that that Serbian forces deliberately destroyed houses in Kosova. He argued that the scale of destruction proves that the buildings were not damaged in fighting but that the perpetrators must have set fire to them systematically. He stressed that cities such as Peja and Gjakova are almost completely leveled and that in some cases artillery and mortar fire destroyed entire areas. Risley stressed that army, paramilitary, or police units "must have been directed or told to go to some areas [and]...create these fires, and then move on." There are currently five teams of international forensic experts working in Kosova, while up to five more teams are expected soon. The number of investigators will then total about 350. FS

    [13] ADDITIONAL MASS GRAVES DISCOVERED IN KOSOVA

    KFOR troops on 30 June discovered several mass graves, including the bodies of 119 people in two locations northwest of Prizren, dpa reported. Elsewhere, KFOR soldiers found 11 burned bodies in a house in Kalilane near Peja. A KFOR spokesman in Prishtina said all 11 appeared to be members of a single ethnic Albanian family. FS

    [14] UCK COMMANDER CALLS ON ALBANIANS NOT TO TAKE REVENGE

    UCK commander Rustem Mustafa Remi has called on ethnic Albanians not to take revenge on local Serbs, RFE/RL's South Slavic Service reported on 30 June. Remi said that "revenge brings nothing good to the Albanian people" and is "unacceptable to the UCK." He stressed that the UCK intends to introduce the rule of law and a democratic society for all citizens, independent of their ethnic origin. Remi harshly condemned the killings and maltreatment of Serbian civilians as well as the burning of their homes and property by ethnic Albanians. FS

    [15] MORE REPORTS OF KILLINGS OF SERBS

    Serbian Orthodox Father Radomir Nikcevic told the independent FoNet news agency on 30 June that unknown persons killed four Serbian civilians near Rahovec during the previous 24 hours and that an additional 19 Serbs have "disappeared." A local Serbian Red Cross official added that 4,000 Serbs fear revenge attacks by ethnic Albanians and have taken shelter at a church, AP reported. During the spring, Rahovec was the scene of some particularly grisly killings of Kosovars by Serbian forces. In Mitrovica on 30 June, KFOR sent doctors for the first time into the Serbian part of the city, RFE/RL's South Slavic Service reported. PM

    [16] FIRST TURKISH TROOPS LEAVE FOR KOSOVA

    A convoy of 52 military vehicles left Ankara on 1 July for Kosova via Bulgaria and Macedonia. Turkey's NATO ally Greece refused to allow the convoy to cross its territory, thereby causing a delay in the departure of the vehicles, Reuters reported. A second group of troops will travel by train to Prizren on 2 July and a third and final contingent will fly to Skopje on 7 July before going on to Kosova. The Turks will be stationed in southwestern Kosova, where many ethnic Turks live. Since the collapse of communism, Turkey has shown a keen interest in reestablishing close ties with several Balkan countries that formerly belonged to the Ottoman Empire. PM

    [17] DJINDJIC WARNS AGAINST ISOLATING SERBS

    Zoran Djindjic, who heads Serbia's opposition Democratic Party, said on a visit to Prague on 30 June that democracy will not come to Serbia so long as Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic stays in power, AP reported. Djindjic added, however, that the international community should not isolate the Serbian people in the meantime. "Isolation of the government must not mean isolation of the nation. We cannot expect people who have nothing to support democracy. They could become an easy victim of demagogy," Djindjic concluded. PM

    [18] MILOSEVIC TO RESHUFFLE CABINET?

    Yugoslav Prime Minister Momir Bulatovic met in Belgrade on 30 June with representatives of all parties represented in the parliament to discuss reconstruction following the NATO bombing campaign. The Serbian opposition parties belonging to the Alliance for Change have no parliamentary representation and were not invited. Montenegrin parties opposed to Milosevic rejected the invitation because they do not recognize the Bulatovic government as legitimate. Observers suggested that Milosevic may be seeking to solidify his power base by ensuring that Vojislav Seselj's Serbian Radical Party stays in government and by persuading Vuk Draskovic's Serbian Renewal Movement to return to the cabinet after having left earlier in the year. PM

    [19] YUGOSLAV ARMY BLOCKS MONTENEGRIN FRONTIER WITH CROATIA

    Yugoslav troops continue to prevent trucks and persons without Yugoslav passports from entering Montenegro from Croatia, "The Daily Telegraph" reported on 1 July (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 29 June 1999). The army recently turned back "hundreds" of trucks in a single day. The London-based daily added that Belgrade's goal is to prevent supplies from entering Montenegro by land and "place the country under partial siege." PM

    [20] CROATIAN FARMERS' PROTEST OVER

    Farmers dismantled their roadblocks at various locations throughout Croatia on 30 June after reaching agreement with the government on back payments to farmers and on the price of wheat (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 30 June 1999). PM

    [21] ALBANIAN AIRPORT STRIKE ENDS

    Tirana airport ground staff returned to work on 30 June after being awarded a 30 percent salary increase, Reuters reported. The workers will receive an additional 20 percent wage hike in September. Commercial flights to and from the airport have meanwhile resumed. They were halted on 28 June when the 150 staff stopped work (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 29 June 1999). FS

    [22] ROMANIAN PARLIAMENT APPROVES LAND, FOREST RESTITUTION AMENDMENT...

    The Chamber of Deputies on 30 June approved the amended law on land and forest restitution, RFE/RL's Bucharest bureau reported. The maximum amount of land that can be restituted to individuals has been raised from 10 to 50 hectares. The limit on forest restitution (which was not included in the previous version of the law) has been set at 10 hectares for individuals and 30 hectares for monasteries and churches, as demanded by the Democratic Party. The Senate has not yet debated the law. MS

    [23] ...BUT RETURN OF REAL ESTATE PROVOKES CRITICISM

    Also on 30 June, Prime Minister Radu Vasile rejected criticism from within the ranks of his own National Peasant Party Christian Democratic and the Liberal Party about the government's decision one day earlier to submit the amended law on real estate restitution to parliamentary debate under the so- called "urgency procedure" rather than issuing a government regulation. Vasile said the decision came after opposition threats to move a no-confidence vote and differences of opinion within the cabinet and among members of the coalition majority. MS

    [24] HUNGARIAN MINORITY CONTENT WITH ROMANIAN EDUCATION LAW

    Bela Marko, chairman of the Hungarian Democratic Federation of Romania, said on 30 June he is "satisfied" with the Senate's decision earlier that day to approve the amended version of the Education Law recommended by a mediation commission of the parliament's two chambers. The law allows the setting up within existing universities of departments offering instruction in national minority languages and the establishment of "multicultural" universities, whose language of tuition is to be established by separate laws. In high schools that offer instruction in minority languages, history and geography must be taught in Romanian. MS

    [25] MOLDOVAN PREMIER SAYS ECONOMIC SECURITY ENDANGERED

    In an article published in the daily "Moldova suverana" on 30 June, Prime Minister Ion Sturza said the country's economic security is in danger and speedy, far-reaching reforms are the only solution to that situation, RFE/RL's Chisinau bureau reported. Sturza said Moldovan GDP has shrunk by 60 percent since the country became independent and per capita annual income is $500, thus making poverty "the number one problem" for the government. Also on 30 June, Sturza told journalists that the cabinet has approved a number of draft laws aimed at accelerating reforms, including legislation on guaranteeing against the expropriation of property, land- leasing, small and medium-sized enterprises, and various social measures. MS

    [26] BULGARIA COMPLETES LIQUIDATION OF LOSS-MAKING STATE COMPANIES

    Finance Minister Muravei Radev on 30 June announced that Bulgaria has sold 40 percent of its state assets and met the IMF-set deadline for selling or closing 41 large loss-making companies as part of its market reform program, AP reported. Under the terms of a 1997 three-year stand-by agreement for a $800 million loan, the companies had to be closed in order to cut losses in the public sector. Of the 41 companies, 30 have been sold, including the national carrier Balkan Air. Radev said that 7,000 jobs were cut and there will be another 6,000 layoffs by year's end if none of the nine remaining companies slated for closure is sold. MS

    [C] END NOTE

    [27] WHY ORAL HISTORY MATTERS

    by Michael J. Jordan

    Placed before the conference participants was a plastic three-ring binder, with three inches' worth of newly declassified documents. Those documents revealed the content of the Hungarian Politburo and Soviet-Hungarian meetings during the country's 1989 transition from Communist dictatorship to parliamentary democracy.

    But early on at the Budapest conference, as ex- dissidents debated that peaceful "negotiated" transition with their communist-era adversaries, those records took a back seat. The former opposition was more preoccupied with intrigue--wire-tapping, secret agents, back-room deals.

    On the hot seat was Gyorgy Fejti, the Politburo member who had controlled the Ministry of Interior and its police, secret police, spies and informants. But the tight-lipped Fejti gave his interrogators little satisfaction. As he would later tell a foreign journalist: "I'm here because 1989 was an exciting time and I'm curious what their perceptions were, but I have no desire to earn the everlasting love of these people. I'm not an angel, nor am I the devil. I'm just an average, down-to-earth guy."

    Still, the conference filled in gaps that could never be drawn from archives. Other players explained their actions, motivations, and emotions.

    On the heels of a similar meeting between U.S. and Vietnamese officials earlier this month, it was the latest in a growing number of "collective, critical" oral-history projects that are bringing together players from main Cold War events, from the 1962 Cuban missile crisis to the Vietnam War and martial law in Poland in 1980-81. As more archives are released, historians hustle to confirm all that they can while "witnesses" are alive to recount their role in history.

    "Reality is composed of both fact and perception, so documents alone don't come close to telling the whole truth," says Thomas Blanton, executive director of the Washington- based National Security Archive, a backer of these conferences. "While you can't fully re-create that reality or atmosphere of that period...you can get close enough by restoring human will and human agency to what happened."

    Oral history itself is nothing new--it predates written history. But this new trend was spurred by a need to learn the lessons of the past. In October 1987, with a spiraling nuclear arms race between the U.S. and Soviet Union, a small group of U.S. historians organized a conference in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to discuss the Cuban missile crisis.

    Later, during the mid-1990s, the nonprofit National Security Archive and the Cold War International History Project of the Washington-based Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars teamed up to organize a series of conferences in Central Europe, titled "Cold War Flashpoints," on the anti- Soviet uprising in Hungary in 1956, the Prague Spring in 1968, and the birth of Solidarity in Poland, 1980- 1981.

    One of the highlights of that series was in November 1997, when Polish General Wojciech Jaruzelski was forced to defend his decision to impose martial law. Jaruzelski claimed he was a patriot, not a traitor, and that he had prevented a Soviet invasion. But the evidence presented at the conference, combined with the live testimony of Soviet military officials, indicated the Soviets would not have invaded.

    History, of course, is typically told by the winners. But today there is a drive to get numerous perspectives. Moreover, until 1989 most U.S. Cold War historians relied on English-language texts based primarily on U.S. or British accounts.

    Today, more archives are being unearthed, transcribed, and translated. And that has triggered a domino effect, says James Hershberg, director-emeritus of the Woodrow Wilson project. "We're creating an international openness movement, where openness is used as...leverage against closed archives everywhere," Hershberg said. "An opening in one place encourages an opening in another. We take newly released Soviet archives to the CIA, which pressures the CIA to release even more."

    While the key figures in history can freely publish one- sided, self- serving memoirs of how events unfolded, in these oral history roundtable discussions historians can confront those figures with the evidence. Such was the case in Budapest.

    "By preparing all those documents, we gave scholars a chance to have an impact on how events are remembered," says Csaba Bekes, director of the Cold War History Research Center in Budapest. Participants "can't just tell us anything, to mislead us as they would like. We...squeezed more information out of them than they otherwise would have produced."

    Conferences like the Budapest one also overcome the initial suspicion of participants, build trust, and encourage further participation. "Witnesses" have a vested interest in attending these conferences, say organizers. They cite the case of Jaruzelski, whose actions continue to be a politically sensitive topic in Poland.

    "History is going to get written one way or another, so you might as well try to influence it," Hershberg says. "If you don't show up, you're leaving your history to someone you may disagree with. Sometimes, just to hear what their counterpart says is incentive enough. We don't have to bribe them with honorariums."

    On the agenda this October are conferences in Warsaw and Prague, with others perhaps in Germany, Romania, and Bulgaria. They will conclude in 2000 with a large-scale conference in Moscow.

    But no one should expect a similar conference on NATO's campaign against Yugoslavia. A "critical mass" is necessary, says Blanton of the National Security Archive. "Unless there is sufficient distance from those events, with enough memoirs written and enough archives released, it may be premature," he says. "We spend a lot of energy trying to generate that critical mass."

    The author is a Budapest-based journalist [michaeljjordan@csi.com]

    01-07-99


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


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