RFE/RL Newsline, Vol. 4, No. 49, 00-03-09

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

RFE/RL NEWSLINE

Vol. 4, No. 49, 9 March 2000

CONTENTS

[A] TRANSCAUCASUS AND CENTRAL ASIA

[01] LAWYER CLAIMS INVESTIGATORS DRUGGED ARMENIAN PARLIAMENT

[02] ARMENIAN PARLIAMENT MAJORITY PONDERS NEW CHALLENGE TO

[03] ARMENIAN FOREIGN MINISTER SAYS DOMESTIC TENSIONS HINDER

[04] TWO MORE GEORGIAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES FAIL TO REGISTER

[05] STALIN'S GRANDSON TO BACK PROMINENT GEORGIAN OPPOSITION

[06] KAZAKH OPPOSITION LEADER UNDER PRESSURE

[07] PARTICIPANTS IN KYRGYZ RUN-OFF POLL STILL UNCLEAR

[08] HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH MATERIALS CONFISCATED IN UZBEKISTAN

[B] SOUTHEASTERN EUROPE

[09] YUGOSLAV ARMY CHIEF SAYS ETHNIC ALBANIANS MASSING WEAPONS ON

[10] YUGOSLAV GOVERNMENT CLOSES DOWN RADIO STATION

[11] NATO DENIES BELGRADE HAD SPY DURING AIR STRIKES

[12] BRCKO DECLARED A NEUTRAL DISTRICT

[13] ALBRIGHT SAYS AID TO BOSNIAN CROATS TO BE TRANSPARENT

[14] THOUSANDS IN BOSNIA, CROATIA PROTEST WAR CRIMES TRIBUNAL

[15] NATO SECRETARY-GENERAL SAYS PROVOCATIONS WON'T BE TOLERATED

[16] CROATIAN PREMIER SAYS ACCUSED WAR CRIMINAL LIKELY TO BE TRIED

[17] CROATIA SAYS CHANGES TO BE MADE AT STATE TV

[18] ALBANIAN FOREIGN MINISTER URGES WEST TO CONCENTRATE ON

[19] ROMANIAN PARLIAMENT APPROVES LINEUP OF 'SECURITATE COLLEGE'

[20] BULGARIA READY TO START EU TALKS ON EIGHT CHAPTERS

[C] END NOTE

[21] BELARUSIAN PRESIDENT WANTS NO WESTERN MEDIATORS

[A] TRANSCAUCASUS AND CENTRAL ASIA

[01] LAWYER CLAIMS INVESTIGATORS DRUGGED ARMENIAN PARLIAMENT

Ruben Rshtuni, who represents Armenian

National Television Deputy Director Harutiun Harutiunian,

told journalists in Yerevan on 8 March that his client was

drugged on 8 March by investigators seeking to extract

testimony about the 27 October Armenian parliament shootings,

RFE/RL's Yerevan bureau reported. Harutiunian was detained in

January on suspicion of complicity in the shootings (see

"RFE/RL Newsline," 10 January 2000). LF

[02] ARMENIAN PARLIAMENT MAJORITY PONDERS NEW CHALLENGE TO

Andranik Markarian, who heads the majority

Miasnutiun parliamentary alliance, said on 8 March that the

bloc is considering appealing to the Constitutional Court to

annul President Robert Kocharian's 6 March decree

underscoring his right to make senior appointments within the

armed forces, RFE/RL's Yerevan bureau reported. Other

deputies from the Republican Party of Armenia expressed their

support for such an appeal. But two deputies from the

People's Party of Armenia, the other member of Miasnutiun,

disagreed, saying that Kocharian's decree does not violate

the constitution and that challenging its legality would

serve only to compound tensions. LF

[03] ARMENIAN FOREIGN MINISTER SAYS DOMESTIC TENSIONS HINDER

Addressing the Armenian parliament on

8 March, Vartan Oskanian said that rising domestic political

tensions have negatively affected the ongoing search for a

solution to the Karabakh conflict within the framework of the

OSCE Minsk Group, RFE/RL's Yerevan bureau reported. Oskanian,

who is a close political ally of President Kocharian, said

that as a result of those tensions, he has cancelled planned

trips abroad over the last three weeks. LF

[04] TWO MORE GEORGIAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES FAIL TO REGISTER

Sovdagari, told Caucasus Press on 8 March that another two

candidates have been denied registration to contest the 9

April presidential poll. She said that David the Builder

Party leader Roin Liparteliani and Unity of Georgian

Nationalists leader Gaioz Mamaladze failed to submit the

minimum 50,000 signatures supporting their candidacies. Nine

candidates out of the original 12 remain in the race,

including incumbent President Eduard Shevardnadze and former

Georgian Communist Party First Secretary Djumber Patiashvili.

A spokesman for Adjar Supreme Council Chairman Aslan

Abashidze said that Abashidze may withdraw his candidacy if

the Georgian parliament fails to amend the election law to

require that voters be marked with indelible ink after

casting their ballots to prevent multiple voting. The

parliamentary majority opposes that proposal. LF

[05] STALIN'S GRANDSON TO BACK PROMINENT GEORGIAN OPPOSITION

Yevgenii Djughashvili will join

Patiashvili's campaign and tour Georgia calling on his own

supporters to back Patiashvili, Caucasus Press reported on 9

March, citing "Dilis gazeti." The Central Electoral

Commission barred Djughashvili from contesting the poll on

the grounds that he is a Russian citizen (see "RFE/RL

Newsline," 22 and 29 February 2000). LF

[06] KAZAKH OPPOSITION LEADER UNDER PRESSURE

Asylbek, leader of the Attan-Kazakhstan movement, has been

summoned by the Almaty police for questioning after

participating in an unsanctioned protest demonstration,

RFE/RL's correspondent in the former capital reported on 9

March. On 29 February, Asylbek had joined pensioners who

demonstrate on the last day of every month to demand that

their pensions be paid on time. Asylbek was barred from

contesting the January 1999 presidential election on the

grounds that he had participated in such protests in 1998. LF

[07] PARTICIPANTS IN KYRGYZ RUN-OFF POLL STILL UNCLEAR

March, Kyrgyzstan's Central Electoral Commission had still

not issued a list of candidates to contest the 12 March

runoff elections in an estimated 82 single-mandate

constituencies where no candidate won a clear majority in the

20 February poll, RFE/RL's Bishkek bureau reported. Also on 8

March, Ar-Namys Party representative Emil Aliev told RFE/RL

that he has written to the Central Electoral Commission and

the OSCE monitoring mission to protest canvassing by the

Kyrgyz authorities for Ar-Namys chairman Feliks Kulov's rival

in the run-off poll in a Talas Oblast constituency. LF

[08] HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH MATERIALS CONFISCATED IN UZBEKISTAN

police on 7 March confiscated materials from a Human Rights

Watch representative who was monitoring the trial at the

Syrdarya district court of 12 men accused of membership in

Muslim Hizb-ut-Takhrir. That peaceable organization is banned

in Uzbekistan. LF

[B] SOUTHEASTERN EUROPE

[09] YUGOSLAV ARMY CHIEF SAYS ETHNIC ALBANIANS MASSING WEAPONS ON

General Nebojsa Pavkovic said on 8 March in Belgrade

that ethnic Albanian "terrorists" are gathering weapons in

Kosova on the border with southern Serbia, Reuters reported.

Pavkovic said that "under KFOR protection" they are massing

weapons and "building facilities for attacks and protection."

He said the ethnic Albanians are working together with their

supporters in the southern Serbian towns of Bujanovac,

Presevo, and Medvedja. Deputy Serbian Premier Dragan

Todorovic said the Serbian government expects an

intensification of "terrorist activities" in the spring aimed

at creating a "Greater Albania." PB

[10] YUGOSLAV GOVERNMENT CLOSES DOWN RADIO STATION

Telecommunications Ministry officials closed down the

independent Boom 93 radio station on 8 March, Reuters

reported. Boom 93's owner and editor, Milorad Tomic, said the

officials arrived at the Pozarevac headquarters and told the

staff it must stop broadcasting. Tomic was informed that the

station's application for a frequency has been refused

because Boom 93 "failed to satisfy the required demands."

Pozarevac is the hometown of Yugoslav President Slobodan

Milosevic. Tomic said the closure is the latest in a series

of events aimed at "silencing free media in Serbia." PB

[11] NATO DENIES BELGRADE HAD SPY DURING AIR STRIKES

spokesman Jamie Shea said on 9 March that there is

"absolutely no evidence" that Yugoslavia had a spy within

NATO who passed on top secret details about the alliance's

bombing raids, Reuters reported. Shea was commenting on a

story in the previous day's edition of London's "The

Guardian" that quoted unidentified high-level U.S. sources as

saying a spy within NATO had provided Belgrade with details

of targets and flight paths of NATO planes during last year's

air strikes. It also quoted a senior NATO source as saying

the alliance's supreme commander in Europe, General Wesley

Clark was heard to comment, "I know I've got a spy, I want to

find him." Shea said the fact that Yugoslav forces shot down

only two NATO planes during the 78-day bombing campaign

suggests the Serbs did not have a spy. PB

[12] BRCKO DECLARED A NEUTRAL DISTRICT

was officially proclaimed a multiethnic district to be run

jointly by Muslims, Serbs, and Croats while remaining under

the sovereignty of the Bosnian state, an RFE/RL correspondent

reported. U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said

Brcko represents a "model solution" to the political problems

in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The chairman of the Bosnian

presidency, Alija Izetbegovic, said at a ceremony in Brcko

that the town has become "a point that unites us...we cannot

change history, but we can create a better future," Radio

Bosnia-Herzegovina reported. Bosnian Serb Premier Milorad

Dodik said the statute of Brcko "contains a lot of idealistic

things which should be translated into reality." The final

status of Brcko, which was predominantly populated by Muslims

and Croats before the 1992-1995 war but was ethnically

cleansed by Serbs, was the only territorial issue left

unresolved by the Dayton peace agreement. PB

[13] ALBRIGHT SAYS AID TO BOSNIAN CROATS TO BE TRANSPARENT

March that the U.S., Bosnia, and Croatia have agreed to make

foreign military assistance to the Muslim-Croatian

Federation's army more transparent, AFP reported. Albright

said after meeting with Bosnia's tripartite presidency that

all future requests for military aid to the federation will

have to go through Bosnia's joint state military body.

Albright and the members of the presidency also discussed the

implementation of the Dayton accord. Bosnian President

Izetbegovic said he was dissapointed by the poor state of the

economy and the failure of refugees to return to their pre-

war homes. PB

[14] THOUSANDS IN BOSNIA, CROATIA PROTEST WAR CRIMES TRIBUNAL

Thousands of Bosnian Croats on 8 March protested

the decision by the war crimes tribunal at The Hague to

sentence General Tihomir Blaskic to 45 years in prison,

Reuters reported. Several thousand demonstrated in Blaskic's

hometown of Kiseljak, about 30 kilometers west of Sarajevo,

while thousands more--many of them war veterans--protested in

Mostar. Meanwhile in Zagreb, a demonstration was held outside

the U.S. embassy. Croatian President Stipe Mesic objected to

the fact that the protest was held outside the embassy

because, he said, the U.S. "has nothing to do with the

sentence." PB

[15] NATO SECRETARY-GENERAL SAYS PROVOCATIONS WON'T BE TOLERATED

allow "extremists and troublemakers" to sow "division,

separatism, and ethnic hatred" in Kosova, Reuters reported.

He said KFOR will respond vigorously to any attacks on NATO-

led troops, and he appealed to Serbs and ethnic Albanians in

Kosova to "reject violence and hate-mongering." Momcilo

Trajkovic, the chairman of the Serb Executive Council in

Kosovo, said in Sofia after talks with Bulgarian Premier Ivan

Kostov that "a solution (to the violence) can be found only

through establishing the principles of democracy and

multiethnic tolerance throughout Kosovo." He was accompanied

on his trip by Serbian Orthodox Bishop Artemije. PB

[16] CROATIAN PREMIER SAYS ACCUSED WAR CRIMINAL LIKELY TO BE TRIED

Ivica Racan said on 8 March that Mladen "Tuta"

Naletilic, indicted by war crimes tribunal in The Hague, will

likely be tried for his crimes in Croatia, AP reported. Racan

made that comment during a visit to Berlin. The previous

government refused to send Natletilic to The Hague, citing

his bad heart. UN doctors said last week that Naletilic was

well enough to travel to Holland in order to stand trial. PB

[17] CROATIA SAYS CHANGES TO BE MADE AT STATE TV

Premier Zeljka Antunovic said on 8 March that the government

will "undertake some urgent changes at HRT," Croatian Radio

reported. Antunovic said the HRT's "unwillingness to accept

[political] changes are forcing us to take those steps,

although it does not make us happy." The administration of

HRT was closely linked to late President Franjo Tudjman. It's

three television channels are the main source of information

for most Croats. PB

[18] ALBANIAN FOREIGN MINISTER URGES WEST TO CONCENTRATE ON

Paskal Milo said on 9 March that there

can be no stability in southeastern Europe until Albania and

Macedonia get "special support from the Stability Pact," AP

reported. Paskal said Albania and Macedonia are the two

countries outside Yugoslavia most affected by the Kosova

crisis and therefore need more aid. Paskal was speaking after

meeting with his Greek and Macedonian counterparts in the

Macedonian resort town of Ohrid. Macedonian Foreign Minister

Aleksander Dimitrov said violence in Kosova and southern

Serbia "represents a substantial threat to stability not only

in Macedonia, but in the whole region." Greek Foreign

Minister George Papandreou was two hours late for the meeting

after he refused to board a plane in Athens because the

flight plan included the name Macedonia, and not the Former

Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. PB

[19] ROMANIAN PARLIAMENT APPROVES LINEUP OF 'SECURITATE COLLEGE'

leadership of the National College for the Study of the

Securitate Archives, which is to supervise access to personal

secret police files and verify the accuracy of public

officials' statements about their links with the Securitate.

The vote was 248 to two. The opposition Party of Social

Democracy in Romania (PDSR), the Greater Romania Party, and

the Party of Romanian National Unity boycotted the vote and

said they will contest it in the Constitutional Court on

grounds that the line-up contravenes legislation forbidding

membership of people who were or are members of a political

party. Those parties are opposed to the inclusion in the

college lineup of Andrei Plesu and Mircea Dinescu, who were

Communist party members but also dissidents. They also oppose

Horia Roman Patapievici, whose press articles are very

critical of those parties. MS

[20] BULGARIA READY TO START EU TALKS ON EIGHT CHAPTERS

Ministry spokesman Radko Vlaikov said on 8 March that

Bulgaria is ready to start accession talks with the EU on

eight out of the 31 chapters of the aquis communautaire,

Reuters reported. Vlaikov said Sofia might be ready to open

talks on another four chapters in May and on another five by

the end of this year. He said the chapters Bulgaria is now

ready to discuss are those on education, culture, science and

research, foreign policy and security, small and medium-sized

enterprises, statistics, foreign relations. and

telecommunications. Also on 8 March, the EU announced that it

will open talks with Sofia on just six chapters. MS

[C] END NOTE

[21] BELARUSIAN PRESIDENT WANTS NO WESTERN MEDIATORS

The latest attempt by European multilateral

organizations to persuade Belarus President Alyaksandr

Lukashenka to adopt more democratic practices has again

demonstrated how contemptuous the authoritarian leader has

become of international efforts to influence him.

A tripartite delegation of representatives from the

European Parliament, the Parliamentary Assembly of the

Council of Europe, and the OSCE was in Belarus on a three-day

visit last week. The delegation met with both Lukashenka and

members of the Belarus opposition. whom he has been trying to

squeeze out of the country's political life. It sought not

only to encourage dialogue between the opposition and the

government but also to secure Lukashenka's agreement to hold

democratic parliamentary elections in October and allow the

opposition press to operate freely. It failed to achieve any

of these aims.

The representatives from the three European

organizations had hoped to build on the OSCE 's work eight

months earlier. The 54-state organization had reached an

agreement with Lukashenka allowing it to mediate talks

between his government and the opposition and advise on

organizing elections that would be recognized as free and

fair by the international community.

Many Western countries do not recognize Belarus's

current parliament, which Lukashenka filled with obedient

supporters in 1996 after amending the constitution and

dissolving an elected and troublesome parliament. Belarusian

opposition leaders--many of them members of the former

parliament-- say Lukashenka, who was elected president in

1994, has stayed in power illegally beyond his term, which

expired last July.

On the eve of the delegation's visit, the Belarus

monitoring association Vyasna issued a report saying that the

country's human rights situation had worsened last year, as

many members of the opposition were either jailed or simply

disappeared. Vyasna also said the regime routinely harassed

and arrested opposition protesters.

As if to illustrate that point, just hours before the

delegation arrived, police arrested three protesters who

demanded that the government explain what happened to

opposition figures who had disappeared. Those figures include

opposition leader Viktar Hanchar, former Interior Minister

General Yury Zakharanka, and Hanchar's friend, publisher

Anatol Krasouski.

In the days before the European groups' arrival,

Lukashenka himself sent overtly negative signals about their

visit. He said that his country does not need outside

mediation and that, in any case, he wants to hold what he

called "broad" talks with a representative spectrum of

Belarusian society. Without consulting the opposition,

Lukashenka also changed the rules for the upcoming elections

in a manner that opposition spokesmen say is designed to

diminish their chances of winning seats.

In his meeting with the European delegation, Lukashenka

said the same things--and more. He made clear that he does

not regard the opposition as part of any broad spectrum of

national society. He did say that he would talk to the

opposition, but not with the help of outside mediators.

Also, Lukashenka indignantly told the delegation that

Belarus has a good human rights record and that the elections

will be conducted in keeping with the highest international

standards. He added that he sees no need for the OSCE, which

maintains a mission office in Minsk, to remain in the

country.

After the meeting, the European delegation issued a

statement that expressed "shock [at the] the derailment of

the negotiation process that was begun last year [by the

OSCE]." The group urged the government to re-open talks with

the opposition and ensure equal electoral opportunities,

including media access for the opposition.

The head of the OSCE mission in Minsk, Hans-Georg Wieck

said later he had pointed out to Lukashenka that the

Belarusian president had agreed to an OSCE presence in Minsk

"for advice and consent" and that this is the basis of the

OSCE's presence in the Belarusian capital. .The government,

he added, no longer wants something that they it had agreed

and implemented eight months ago, "namely the OSCE aegis for

negotiations between government and opposition."

Wieck said that although the OSCE's mediation role

between government and opposition is now no longer feasible,

the mission will stay on to monitor the preparations for and

the holding of parliamentary elections in October. He urged

the opposition to explore whether the kind of talks

Lukashenka has offered will be serious. And he warned that if

the elections are not fair, they will not be internationally

recognized.

If preparations for the elections continue as they have

begun, it seems those elections will not be fair. Lukashenka,

for his part, has given no indication that he will halt the

crackdown on political dissent.

The author is an RFE/RL correspondent based in Prague.

09-03-00

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

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