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OMRI Daily Digest II, No. 234, 4 December 1995
CONTENTS
[1] GENERAL MLADIC REJECTS DAYTON AGREEMENT . . .
[2] . . . BUT CLINTON EXPECTS MILOSEVIC TO BRING HIM INTO LINE.
[3] NATO AGREES TO SEND FORCES TO BOSNIA.
[4] POLITICAL SHOWDOWN IN ZAGREB.
[5] SERBIAN OPPOSITION PARTY PURGES RANKS.
[6] HUNGARIAN OFFICIAL ON ROMANIAN-HUNGARIAN RELATIONS.
[7] YELTSIN RESPONDS TO MOLDOVAN PRESIDENT'S LETTER.
[8] BULGARIAN PARLIAMENT BACKS GOVERNMENT BID FOR EU MEMBERSHIP.
[9] BULGARIA PROTESTS ROMANIAN SEIZURE OF NUCLEAR FUEL.
[10] INVESTIGATION LAUNCHED INTO HEAD OF BALLI KOMBETAR.
OMRI DAILY DIGEST
No. 234, Part II, 4 December 1995
SOUTHEASTERN EUROPE
[1] GENERAL MLADIC REJECTS DAYTON AGREEMENT . . .
International media on 3
December reported that the Bosnian Serb military commander the previous
day made his first public statements on the peace treaty. He said it was
unacceptable because "some territories in which Serbs have lived for
centuries have been handed over to the Croat-Muslim coalition.'' CNN
showed the internationally wanted war criminal reviewing smartly dressed
and well-disciplined troops whom he told that "we cannot allow our
people to come under the rule of butchers." The network also interviewed
U.S. Chief of Staff General John Shalikashvili, who said that NATO
troops would not conduct a house-to-house search for Mladic and other
Bosnian Serb war criminals but would hand them over "to the civilian
authorities" if caught. -- Patrick Moore
[2] . . . BUT CLINTON EXPECTS MILOSEVIC TO BRING HIM INTO LINE.
In apparent
response to Mladic's implicit threats, President Bill Clinton on 3
December said that "we fully expect that [Serbian] President [Slobodan]
Milosevic will take the appropriate steps to ensure that the treaty will
be honored as it is written, and that we will not have undue
interference with implementing it," the International Herald Tribune
reported. On 2 December, the BBC said that Clinton again defended his
call for U.S. forces to help enforce the Bosnian settlement. He said
that the presidents of Serbia, Croatia, and Bosnia "asked us to help
implement their peace treaty." -- Patrick Moore
[3] NATO AGREES TO SEND FORCES TO BOSNIA.
The NATO Council, at a meeting in
Brussels on 1 December, agreed to send a 2,600-strong "enabling" force
to Bosnia to prepare for the deployment of the 60,000 troops comprising
the NATO implementation force, Western agencies reported. U.S. President
Bill Clinton the next day authorized the participation of the 700-strong
U.S. contingent. This is the first time that American troops will be
deployed in Bosnia. The "enabling" force will prepare headquarters,
communications, and transport sites in anticipation of the arrival of
the main force, expected to take place after the peace treaty is signed
in Paris later this month. -- Michael Mihalka
[4] POLITICAL SHOWDOWN IN ZAGREB.
Croatia's seven-party opposition coalition
on 2 December elected new officials to the Zagreb City Assembly after
deputies from the ruling Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) and the
Croatian Party of Rights had walked out the previous day, international
media reported on 4 December. Hina quoted President Franjo Tudjman on 1
December as saying that he "cannot allow Zagreb, whose population
constitutes a quarter of the whole of Croatia's, to get a city or county
authority that would oppose state policy" and that "all democratic
means" will be used to prevent such a scenario. The next day, HDZ
members, who hold a third of the city assembly's 50 seats, walked out in
an attempt to block an opposition coalition from taking power in Zagreb.
Nonetheless, Zdravko Tomac was unanimously elected speaker of the
assembly and Goran Granic Zagreb mayor, Novi List reported. Meanwhile,
10,000 Posavina Croats gathered at a protest rally in Zagreb on 2
December to demand an emergency session of the Croatian Assembly over
the Dayton accord, the BBC reported on 4 December. -- Daria Sito Sucic
[5] SERBIAN OPPOSITION PARTY PURGES RANKS.
BETA on 2 December reported that
the Democratic Party (DS) voted to dismiss two prominent members from
its ranks. Dragoljub Micunovic, former party president and member of the
federal legislature, and Veselin Simonovic, a deputy in the Serbian
legislature. DS Vice President Miodrag Perisic explained that "the
[party's] main committee considered that through their recent
activities, [the two men] had caused political harm to the party."
Micunovic responded that the dismissals meant that from now on, the DS
is a party "without either a soul or a brain." -- Stan Markotich
[6] HUNGARIAN OFFICIAL ON ROMANIAN-HUNGARIAN RELATIONS.
Following a one-week
visit to Romania, Laszlo Labody, director of the office in charge of
Hungarians living abroad, told a press conference in the Transylvanian
city of Cluj that the Romanian education law should be modified. Labody
said it was "not normal that street demonstrations by a few thousand
students [in Bucharest] could lead to the amendment of the law, whereas
the 500,000 signatures gathered from among members of the Hungarian
community in a legislative initiative to amend that law are being
ignored." Radio Bucharest on 3 December quoted him as saying that
Romania and Hungary will certainly reach a historic reconciliation
because the Hungarian government's program and Romanian President Ion
Iliescu's proposal have the same aim. According to Duna TV Budapest,
Labody said the only remaining impediment to concluding the basic treaty
between the two countries is the disagreement over the paragraph on
national minorities. -- Matyas Szabo
[7] YELTSIN RESPONDS TO MOLDOVAN PRESIDENT'S LETTER.
Russian President Boris
Yeltsin, responding to a 17 November letter from Mircea Snegur on the
Russian State Duma's resolution on the Transdniester (see OMRI Daily
Digest, 20 November 1995), stressed that his country's policy toward
Moldova has not changed and that Moscow continues to support a political
solution to the conflict with the breakaway region. He added that the
Transdniester should be granted a "special status" and that "Moldova's
independence and territorial integrity" should be preserved. Infotag on
1 December reported that Yeltsin reiterated his readiness to hold a
summit meeting with Snegur after an agreement is reached between
Chisinau and Tiraspol and that he added such an agreement would also
allow for the participation in the summit of the Tiraspol leadership. --
Michael Shafir
[8] BULGARIAN PARLIAMENT BACKS GOVERNMENT BID FOR EU MEMBERSHIP.
The
Bulgarian National Assembly on 1 December voted to authorize the
government to request full EU membership, RFE/RL reported. The motion
was approved by a vote of 212 to one. The Bulgarian government the
previous day had decided to formally apply for full EU membership. In an
address on state-owned TV and radio, Prime Minister Zhan Videnov said EU
membership is in the strategic interest of the country. Videnov will
submit Bulgaria's application during the EU summit in Madrid in
December. Bulgaria has been an associate EU member since February 1995.
-- Stefan Krause
[9] BULGARIA PROTESTS ROMANIAN SEIZURE OF NUCLEAR FUEL.
Bulgaria on 1
December protested Romania's decision to halt a cargo of nuclear fuel
bound for Bulgaria's Kozloduy nuclear plant (see OMRI Daily Digest, 1
December 1995). Reuters cited Yanko Yanev, head of the Atomic Energy
Committee, as saying that Romania's action contravenes an international
convention. A transport of nuclear waste would have needed permission to
transit Romanian waters but "such requirements do not refer to fresh
fuel, which is not radioactive," he argued. According to Yanev, such
fuel transports have been going on for 20 years. An official at the
Romanian port of Cernavoda on 2 December said the two Bulgarian vessels
are still being held there. -- Stefan Krause
[10] INVESTIGATION LAUNCHED INTO HEAD OF BALLI KOMBETAR.
An investigation has
been launched into Abaz Ermenji, chairman of the Balli Kombetar
(National Front), Zeri i Popullit reported on 1 December. According to
the Prosecutor-General's Office, the National Committee of World War II
Veterans has charged Ermenji with committing crimes against humanity
between 1941-1945. The former partisans claim that Ermenji was involved
in the massacre of 114 innocent citizens in the southern region of
Skrapari and the killing of 24 family heads. Ermenji returned to Albania
on 21 October 1995 after 49 years in exile and was welcomed by friends
and party members of the Balli Kombetar, which was reestablished after
1991. -- Fabian Schmidt
This material was reprinted with permission of the Open Media Research Institute, a nonprofit organization with research offices in Prague, Czech Republic.
For more information on OMRI publications please write to [email protected]
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