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THE MERITS AND PERILS OF TEACHING ABOUT OTHER CULTURES - May 17, 1999
THE TAIWAN RELATIONS ACT: DURABLE AGREEMENT OR FRAYING FRAMEWORK? - September 8,1999
NATO'S KLA PROBLEM - September 8, 1999

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May 17, 1999

Walter A. McDougall is Co-Director of FPRI's History Academy and Alloy-Ansin Professor of International Relations at the University of Pennsylvania, where he directs the International Relations program. He is author of Promised Land, Crusader State: America's Encounter with the World Since 1776 (Houghton Mifflin, 1997).

THE MERITS AND PERILS OF TEACHING ABOUT OTHER CULTURES
by Walter A. McDougall

Nothing in my experience sums up the merits and perils of studying other cultures better than an appalling week I spent at Fort Sill in February 1969. Almost all of us recent graduates from artillery school had orders for Vietnam, and so we were herded through a week of what the Army called "In-Country Orientation." A model Vietnamese village had been constructed there on the Oklahoma plains, and our instructor, a butter-bar lieutenant no older than I, assured us that the defenses in such villages were impregnable. We were told what to do in case of an ambush: which is not to get pinned down, but charge the enemy's guns! And we learned all about poisonous serpents and insects. Far from boosting our morale and making us gung- ho, the course left us feeling utterly terrified and unprepared. But worst of all was when they herded hundreds of us into an auditorium to hear a lecture on Vietnamese culture and society. The instructor was not an academic expert on Vietnam, nor even a veteran Green Beret who knew Vietnamese and had lived with the people. Rather, the teacher was a grizzled drill sergeant who read the lecture, stumbling over words, from a manual. "Awright, you mens, listen up! You will now git orientated into Vit-mese so- ciety. Da mostly thing y-all gots to know is dat Vit-nam is a Confusion So-ciety. Dat means that ever-body is in a kind of high-arky: like the chilun obey deir parents, and the womens obey deir mens, and ever-body obeys the guv-ment. It's sorta like da Army chain o' command."

I must have stopped listening, because that's all I remember. But looking back, I can imagine that orientation as a metaphor of the whole U.S. enterprise in southeast Asia. As our current fiasco in the Balkans demonstrates anew, Americans make a habit of declaring a war, sending over massive firepower, then expressing amazement when the locals do not bend at once to our will. Only then do we finally decide that it might be a good idea to learn something about the history and culture of the people we are trying to bludgeon, help, and change. Not that a common soldier needs an advanced degree in multicultural studies, but it would help if our policymakers took time to study the world over which they profess to exercise a benevolent hegemony.

The value of studying other cultures is not something we Americans, or Westerners, discovered only recently, thanks to the advocacy of the multiculturalists. Medieval Christians were fascinated by their Muslim adversaries. The Age of Exploration inspired Europeans to collect information about the strange lands they discovered, begin to think of themselves as one civilization among many, and to ask what caused the differences, as well as similarities, among cultures. The Enlightenment systematized cultural studies, and eventually gave birth to world history and cultural anthropology. In the 19th century archaeology and comparative religion, and the renewed burst of European imperialism expanded and enriched the study of other cultures, however much Westerners took for granted the solipsism that they were the measure of high civilization, and that all other peoples must inevitably follow in their path. As Walt Whitman wrote,


Today's radical multiculturalists accordingly disparage what they call Europe's "Enlightenment Project" as a campaign to explore, subdue, and study the whole world for the purpose of controlling it, exploiting it, and ultimately making it an extension of western civilization. That is tendentious in the extreme, but it does have a measure of truth. At Amherst College in 1964, all of us freshman were obliged to take History 1, a course that developed themes in world history, and as such was very progressive. But the themes were invariably Western themes projected on to the history of other civilizations. One early block of material dealt with the conquest of Mexico by Cortes. To be sure, we were taught about pre-Colombian cultures, but whereas I remember a good deal about the Spanish side of this culture clash, literally all I remember about the Aztec side was their belief that a hummingbird-on-the-left was an omen of good luck--or was it bad luck? Anyway, "hummingbird-on-the-left" became a stock laugh line for Amherst students.

A later instruction block compared the Mexican, Chinese, and Young Turk revolutions of the early 20th century, which was really an interesting exercise. But the theme uniting them was, not surprisingly, "paths to modernization." At issue was not the essence of historic Mexican, Chinese, or Islamic culture, but rather the struggles of those civilizations to come to grips with their backwardness, and adopt Western ways. Indeed, I do not think I ever studied other cultures on their own terms--independent of Western intrusions--until my graduate years at Chicago, when I read every book written by William H. McNeill, beginning with The Rise of the West, a History of the Human Community. To be sure, Amherst and Chicago had many professors who specialized in other cultures and offered courses on them. But those of us in mainstream fields such as European and American history were not exposed to true multicultural education in the survey courses of high school and college.

McNeill was a tireless advocate for world history, and genuine study of other cultures, long before it became fashionable. But alas, no sooner did his campaign for world history, as opposed to Western Civ surveys, begin to gain ground than the whole movement was captured by the ideological Multiculturalists, Afrocentrists, ethnic lobbies, and victim groups who damned curricula that implied that Western Civ was a story of progress, but often substituted curricula that damned Western Civ as a story of plunder, rapine, imperialism, exploitation, and slavery. In other words, the focus was still on the West, while other cultures appeared mostly as virginal victims.

Another expression of the multicultural trend is less subjective, but in its own way just as anodyne, and that is the "non-Western" requirement so many majors, including the International Relations Program which I direct, impose on their students. We feel we must bow toward multiculturalism, so we just insist that students take one or two courses that are non-Western in focus. The implicit purpose would seem to be to sensitize students to other cultural traditions, and alert them to the astonishing fact that there's a whole world out there, beyond Great Neck, Long Island, and Newport Beach, California. (I recently asked an I.R. major if he had had any experience traveling abroad. He proudly said yes, he had been to Cancun.) But what good does one course on sub-Saharan Africa or Ming China really achieve? It is not enough to make one really conversant in African or Chinese history, religion, culture, and society, and it certainly tells one nothing about the variety of human experience. All non-Western cultures are not "like China": each is unique. And thus, instead of acquiring new categories to use in thinking about human nature and history, the student merely receives a smattering of knowledge that is hors de categorie: outside Western norms, and therefore just strange. It's like the high school physical education curriculum that--in addition to swimming, wrestling, gymnastics, and basketball--schedules two days of lacrosse or handball: just to let students know that those games exist.

Should we teach our students about other cultures? Absolutely! But do we succeed? I don't think most of us do. First, because how many of us are qualified to teach about Islam, or India, or traditional China or Japan? We may do better than that sergeant, but do we risk just conveying new stereotypes to students, rather than getting beyond stereotypes? And how do we integrate non-Western material into existing courses? The recent debate over the National History Standards reveals the difficulty in doing this, even leaving aside all political controversy. The easiest way is to retain the old Western Civ chronology, but to insert flashback sections on other cultures at the moment Europeans first come into contact with them. Needless to say, that is still Eurocentric. Another way is to relegate Western Civ to merely equal status, and study each culture in turn: a month on China, a month on India, a month on Europe, and so forth. But that artificially disconnects civilizations from each other, ignoring perhaps the most powerful theme in McNeill's works, which is the cross- cultural borrowing, challenge and response mechanism that is so often the engine of historical change.

What is more, to go into some depth about other cultures on their own terms, clearly a good thing to do on the face of it, runs the risk, the frightening risk, of offending someone's self-esteem and landing in the principal's or dean's office on charges of insensitivity or even racism! If you are going to teach about other cultures on their own terms, and not just as victims of Western imperialism, then we must stress the bad and ugly as well as the good: the oppression, slavery, and reciprocal racism and brutality among Asian and Africans peoples themselves. We must teach about the binding of girls' feet in China, the forced suicide of widows in India, the Islamic texts that place women somewhere above goats but below cattle, the genital mutilation of women in Africa. Now, we can try to deflect criticism by drumming into children's heads that they must not make value-judgments, especially ones based, after all, on Western traditions: the Bible and the Enlightenment. But to try to be value-free about, for instance, Aztec human sacrifice or the barbaric tortures practiced by the Comanches and Apaches, is to do exactly what we all say must not be done with regard to the darker chapters of Western history! Thus, even as we try to explain to students why the Spanish Inquisition was set up, or how the Nazis could come to power in Germany, we quickly add that whereas we must try to understand the past on its own terms, to understand is not to forgive: zu verstehen ist nicht zu vergeben. So we cannot just give all other cultures a "pass" when it comes to their inhumane practices. But to condemn the bad in other cultures is by definition to impose a Western standard of good and bad.

Above all, to treat other cultures in isolation, to censor aspects of their history that might damage some student's self-esteem, or to refrain from making any moral judgments at all, is to cheat students of the one thing they need to learn most, and which only multicultural history can teach them: and that is, the many ways in which all human beings, all cultures and civilizations, are alike. For no real toleration among peoples can exist unless they are given a reason to imagine themselves as "we", and not just as "we" and "they". In what ways are all people alike? They are all homo sapiens, they are all conceived and born the same way, and they all face the certainty of death. They all live on the same planet and need food and shelter. They all wonder about the meaning of life, love, tragedy, and what if anything happens after they die. They have different answers to the eternal questions, and they invent different political and social forms to order their brief and toilsome time on this earth. But at bottom they are all alike. Thus, Chinese are not angels, but neither are they aliens.

I have no solution to the curricular issues, except to insist that all high school students take at least three full years of history--one being world history. Alas, in many states the trend is to cut back, not expand, history requirements. But I did hit upon a technique this semester for handling the "self-esteem" issue that seemed to work. At least, I have not as yet been summoned to the office of the Penn ombudsperson. In my last lecture in the modern history survey, I asked students to recall a question that I had posed in the first lecture: not why people and societies so often do bad things, but rather why on occasion they do good things, why on occasion people have taken risks and made sacrifices in order to improve the lot of others? Evil is banal and universal. What is shocking and in need of explanation in history is the good.

Thus, I granted that European and American civilization has been imperialistic and exploitative. But so has every other civilization in history! What is unique about the West is that it invented anti-imperialism. I granted that the West practiced slavery. But so has every other civilization in history! What is unique about the West is that it gave rise to an anti-slavery movement! I granted that the West has waged war on a ferocious scale. But so has every other civilization at one time or another. What is unique about the West is that it tried over and over to devise international systems that might prevent war. I granted that women were in a subordinate status throughout Western history. But so were they in every other civilization. What is unique about the West is that spawned a movement for female equality. And I granted that the West has known tyranny and indeed totalitarianism of the most brutal sort. But forms of tyranny and even genocide have appeared in all other civilizations. What is unique about the West is that it alone has declared universal human rights and devised governments to expand, not crush, liberty.

What is needed to ensure that multicultural education can be a glue and not a solvent of American community, is dedicated, knowledgeable, and above all honest teaching. All civilizations are worthy of celebration by dint of their being civilizations, that is, extraordinary examples of collective human invention. But all have also been horribly flawed by dint of their being human creations. If Western civilization appears to have done quantifiably more nasty things in recent centuries, it is not because it is worse than others, but only because it is more powerful. What is more, the three ways in which people from all the world, while cherishing their diversity, can nevertheless identify themselves as part of a single human community are gifts of Western civilization. Those unifying forces are science and technology, the Enlightenment doctrine of natural law and natural rights, and the astounding Judaeo-Christian theology to the effect that all human beings are children of one and the same loving God.

Unfortunately, the radical multiculturalists attack science and technology as an evil, masculine "discourse" that oppresses, pollutes, and privileges "linear thinking." They attack the "Enlightenment Project" as an ideological cover for Western cultural imperialism. And they hate the Bible for promoting patriarchy and heterosexism. In so doing, they are attempting to destroy the very principles under which toleration of diverse cultures has in fact the best chance of flowering! In so doing, the multiculturalists help to perpetuate the tragedy that Alexander Solzhenitsyn called "A World Split Apart." Asked to deliver the Harvard commencement address in 1978, Solzhenitsyn, a survivor of the Soviet gulag, shocked his audience by proclaiming that the line that divides the world does not run between communism and capitalism, or along the boundaries between nations, races, social classes, or genders. The line that splits the world apart runs straight through the middle of each human heart.

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September 8, 1999

Avery Goldstein is director of FPRI's Asia Program and Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania.


THE TAIWAN RELATIONS ACT: DURABLE AGREEMENT OR FRAYING FRAMEWORK?
A Conference Report by Avery Goldstein


On June 17, 1999 the Foreign Policy Research Institute held a day-long conference to discuss the meaning and significance of the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA) at the dawn of its third decade as the U.S. law governing relations between Washington and Taipei. Rather than rely on delivery of papers summarizing research, FPRI invited a group of prominent experts on East Asian affairs to convene for a wide-ranging discussion about the TRA and its role in the complex relations among the United States, China, and Taiwan. While we did not anticipate events, some of the issues subsequently raised by the recent controversy over the remarks by ROC President Lee on Taiwan's status were explored at the conference. The conversation included give and take among panelists, as well as free-wheeling participation from an invited audience that included experts on many of the topics covered. No attempt was made to arrive at a consensus in response to the questions posed. On some matters there was broad agreement; on others, strong differences of opinion.

Panelists included: Thomas Christensen, MIT; Jacques deLisle, University of Pennsylvania Law School/FPRI; June Teufel Dreyer, University of Miami at Coral Gables/FPRI; Avery Goldstein, FPRI/University of Pennsylvania; Robert Ross, Boston College; Harvey Sicherman, President, FPRI; Arthur Waldron, University of Pennsylvania/AEI/FPRI; and Suisheng Zhao, Colby College. The Hon. Stephen Chen, Representative of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office, delivered the keynote address.

PURPOSES OF THE TRA

Participants agreed that the original reasons for drafting and passing the TRA were both legal and political. The legal rationale was most obvious. The U.S. needed a basis for arrangements to govern economic, diplomatic, and military relations with the government on Taiwan following the decision to recognize the People's Republic of China without maintaining formal diplomatic ties to the Republic of China. President Carter's administration had drafted a legal document to cover many matters, but the TRA prepared in the US Congress offered a more comprehensive treatment of the relevant legal issues. Although the TRA has not entirely prevented complications over the past twenty years, conference participants viewed the legal arrangements it established as relatively noncontroversial and generally effective.

Participants agreed that the political purposes and implications of the TRA have been more controversial. A central political motivation for the TRA was the fact that in 1979 Congress was unwilling to cede China-Taiwan policy to the White House for two broad reasons. One was the determination of Congress to reassert its role in the American foreign policy process. For some, this determination was rooted in unhappiness about executive branch dominance of policy during much of the US military involvement in Vietnam. For others, the determination was rooted in resentment of the frequently secret diplomacy that had characterized the Nixon-Kissinger years. With this background, in December 1979 Congress reacted harshly to the surprise announcement by the Carter White House that secret negotiations had resulted in an agreement to recognize the PRC, a decision about whose timing Congress had had little input, and a policy shift on which congressional opinion was divided.

TRA AS A CONSTRAINING FRAMEWORK

Congressional insistence on having its say about US policy toward East Asia and strong support among many legislators to ensure that the recognition decision would not sever long-standing American ties to Taiwan resulted in the drafting of the TRA. The TRA addressed not only legal, technical, and logistical issues, but also expressed the sense of the Congress that the U.S. retained an interest in the security of the people on Taiwan, justified continued arms sales to Taipei, and required consultations between the president and Congress to craft an appropriate response in the event Taiwan's security were jeopardized. Yet the TRA language governing arms sales and any US response to threats against Taiwan was vague, requiring only timely consultations between the executive and legislative branches. To the subsequent chagrin of some in Congress, the TRA did not fundamentally alter the reality that such decisions would in practice be dominated by the president and his advisers. Some participants expressed the view that such vagueness reflected a typical congressional preference to "have its cake and eat it too"-- in this case, avoiding responsibility for scuttling relations with either China or Taiwan, but insisting that the executive branch figure out how to square the apparent circle of pursuing the US interest in maintaining good relations with regimes on both sides of the strait. The result in the two decades since April 1979, however, has been that China policy and decisions about the closeness of US-Taiwan relations have been governed more by unilateral presidential decisions (e.g., joint communiques, public proclamations of intent, and private assurances to Beijing and Taipei) than by the language contained in the TRA.

The ineffectiveness of the TRA in practice as a tight constraint on presidential prerogative and the uncertain constitutionality of congressional attempts to bind the president in exercising his role as commander in chief (much as in the case of the War Powers Act) notwithstanding, most participants suggested that the TRA has played an important role by establishing a political framework that affects decision-making in Washington, Taipei, and Beijing. Despite its lack of standing in international law, this domestic US law provides the clearest formal statement of American interest in the well-being of the people on Taiwan. For US presidents, this creates a political reality (formal recognition of the PRC, but the expectation that the US will not simply ignore actions Beijing might take that jeopardize Taiwan's security) that becomes part of deliberations about a wide range of US policy decisions in the region (including, though not limited to arms sales and the process of cross-strait negotiation). For leaders on Taiwan, the TRA confirms the US interest in the island's security and the expectation that a substantial segment of the political leadership in Washington DC, particularly in the US Congress, will remain sensitive to those interests, despite the termination of formal diplomatic ties and the security treaty that had been in place since 1955. Indeed, Taiwan's view, in light of the China policy crafted during the Nixon/Kissinger years and the Carter administration's recognition decision, was that US backing increasingly depended on the island's friends on Capitol Hill rather than in the White House. For leaders in Beijing, the TRA signaled that China's Taiwan policy would continue to be conditioned by the reality that diplomatic recognition notwithstanding, the US had not irreversibly agreed to refrain from intervening in a resolution of cross-strait relations and, thus, that Beijing's options would be constrained by the way Washington decided to employ its overwhelming capabilities in the region.

POLITICAL SUPPORT FOR TRA

One of the enduring features of the US experience with the TRA, participants suggested, has been the bipartisanship that characterizes its congressional base of support. Because it could at once be viewed as a method to facilitate the new relationship with the PRC, an expression of US support for the human rights of the people on Taiwan, a restatement of support for a Cold War ally, and a reassertion of Congress's role in the foreign policy process, the TRA gathered and retained the support of legislators across the American political spectrum. Such bipartisanship may well have grown broader still over the past twenty years, even as its basis has shifted with the end of the strategic calculus that informed US China policy during the Cold War and with the emergence of a more critical view of China's domestic politics following the tragic events of June 1989.

Despite providing a consistent framework that was sufficiently ambiguous to permit presidents to adjust US China policy with changing circumstances, participants emphasized the dramatic international political changes (the end of the Cold War and China's growing military power) and domestic political changes in Taiwan (democratization and the growing role of islanders in the political leadership) that have gradually altered the significance of the TRA. In the immediate aftermath of recognition, Sino-American strategic alignment against the Soviet threat contributed to the credibility of US assurances to Beijing that the TRA was not designed to thwart Chinese aspirations, and induced a willingness on the part of the Chinese to at least temporarily set aside disagreements about the continuing US support for Taiwan (especially arms sales). By the 1990s, the unifying common adversary had disappeared, US perceptions of China had taken a turn for the worse after Beijing's bloody suppression of demonstrations in 1989, China's economic modernization and assertiveness in regional disputes were increasing American worries about the PRC's future capabilities and intentions, and Taiwan was well on the way to building a prosperous democratic society. The result was a strengthening of the US commitment to live up to the spirit of the TRA. By chance or by design, the TRA in the mid-1990s had become a key element of a post-Cold War US foreign policy that places heavy emphasis on fostering the spread of democracy and hedging against potential threats to the status quo in Asia.

CHINA'S REACTION TO THE TRA

From Beijing's perspective, however, the TRA looked increasingly like part of a broader US effort (including revision of security arrangements with Japan and Australia) to foster close relations with others in East Asia in order to block China's emergence as a great power. As such, the TRA looked less like an annoying temporary arrangement for a problem whose resolution had been postponed (Beijing's view circa 1979), and more like an arrangement of frustratingly indefinite duration. Participants noted that the occasionally intense disagreements between Beijing and Washington about Taiwan may reflect an underlying problem in Sino-American relations as they bear on this issue. Several participants noted that many American political leaders fail to appreciate the depth of China's nationalist sentiment on this issue. Those emphasizing this view pointed out that Beijing sees the Taiwan question as a nonnegotiable sovereignty issue that is especially sensitive because of China's experience with foreign infringements on its political and territorial integrity beginning in the early nineteenth century (including the cession of Taiwan to Japan in the Treaty of Shimonoseki following China's defeat in the 1894-1895 Sino-Japanese War). To the extent leaders in Washington fail to grasp how large the issue looms in China's thinking, American policymakers may believe that finessing the Taiwan question with vague formulations about Taiwan's status reflect Beijing's pragmatic willingness to "agree to disagree." Yet, from China's perspective, setting aside the issue may instead reflect only an inability to reach agreement at the moment, and a willingness to postpone the matter while higher priority issues are addressed, but with the expectation that the matter remains an important item that must be addressed when the time is ripe.

THE TRA AND US INTERESTS

Participants noted that for two decades the ambiguity of the TRA had served the US interest in neither provoking China nor abandoning Taiwan. The status quo that it has reinforced encouraged both Beijing and Taipei to search for a peaceful resolution of their differences, and provided a context that both permitted and encouraged Taiwan's leaders to promote democratization of their political system in ways that have solidified the US interest in the island's continued security. Less clear, some noted, is the extent to which these US interests (peaceful cross-strait relations and democratization) will remain compatible. As Taipei's policy is increasingly shaped by public opinion on the island and the dynamics of competitive party politics, cross-strait politics have grown more complex. When the TRA was drafted, it was conceivable that cross-strait relations could be managed by a small group of the political elite in Taipei and Beijing who shared a unifying vision reflecting the nationalist aspirations of Chinese dating to the early twentieth century. Now that Taiwan has become democratic, any agreement must be politically sustainable among a constituency without recent ties to the mainland and that expects its preference for continued autonomy to be respected.

Though the political dynamic in the authoritarian PRC obviously differs from that on democratic Taiwan, participants also emphasized the way the changing political character of the regime on the mainland is complicating cross-strait relations. Participants noted especially the growing importance of nationalism as an ideological underpinning for China's foreign policy, now that discredited Marxism has lost its inspirational value. While democratization on Taiwan makes any deal for reunification difficult, nationalism on the mainland increases the imperative to press for reunification. Such contradictory pressures pose a threat to the sustainability of the status quo, the US interest partly embodied in the TRA.

Participants speculated about the potential consequences for US policy and cross-strait relations in the event of democratization on the mainland, however implausible it may be in the short term. Participants sharply disagreed about the likely consequences of such a development. Some suggested that democracy on the mainland might foster a political culture that would be more tolerant of the idea of self-determination for Taiwan, thereby rendering a resolution of the problem a simple technical matter (e.g., through some combination of plebiscite and elite negotiation). Others suggested that, to the extent Chinese nationalism is a genuine reflection of public, as opposed to manipulated elite, opinion on the mainland, democratization might increase pressure for competing political leaders in Beijing to pursue reunification. Those who anticipated the continuation of cross-strait tension regardless of political democratization on the mainland noted also the importance of generational change that may result in the emergence of more strident nationalistic voices with growing influence in China and Taiwan. Some suggested it is unclear whether the US would retain an abiding interest in the outcome of a dispute between two democracies. Others pointed out that the US commitment to the security of the people on Taiwan, reflected in the general language of the TRA, has multiple bases. These include ethical obligations rooted in the role the US played in facilitating the island's post-World War II autonomy. The resulting economic and then political modernization of Taiwan mean that even if strategic obligations or political litmus tests become less relevant, it will remain difficult for Washington to write off the US commitment to the people of Taiwan most visibly embodied in the TRA.

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September 8, 1999

Michael Radu is a Senior Fellow at FPRI. His previous E-Notes on this subject are: "Don't Arm The KLA," April 6, 1999; "Bombs for Peace? Misreading Kosovo," March 26, 1999; Dangerous Incoherence in Kosovo," October 21, 1998, and "Who Wants a Greater Albania?" July 10, 1998.

On October 14, Dr. Radu will be speaking on "The Lessons of Kosovo" at a luncheon program jointly sponsored by FPRI and the World Affairs Council of Greater Valley Forge. For details, call 215-732-3774, ext. 201.


NATO'S KLA PROBLEM

by Michael Radu

The war in Kosovo ended a few months ago, but the practice of "ethnic cleansing" is flourishing, this time perpetrated by ethnic Albanians who are proving even more adept at it than the Serbs. Whereas Serbian brutality and the war itself pushed only about half of the Albanian population into temporary exile, fully 90 percent of the non-Albanian minority (which numbered about 200,000 at the beginning of the year) have now left the region -- this, during three months of "peace" and under the oversight of the United Nations and NATO.

Simply and undiplomatically put, the Kosovo Force (KFOR) and the United Nation's viceroy in Kosovo, France's Bernard Kouchner, are losing their half-hearted struggle to maintain the myth of a "multinational" Kosovo.

The reason: the behavior of the Albanians led by the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). First, the KLA and its supporters claimed, probably with some justification, that the Gypsy minority of 30,000 participated in the looting of Albanian property during the war. As a result, the entire Gypsy population was successfully hounded out of Kosovo. The larger Serbian minority has been subject to murder, harrassment, and destruction of Serbian historic monuments, churches, and other property. Almost 300 Serbs have been killed by Albanians since the end of the war.

And yet somehow, in the face of incontrovertible evidence of these crimes, the KLA-led Albanians have succeeded in maintaining the widespread perception that they are merely the "victims" of Serbian brutality, and as such, must be beyond reproach.

The problem is that the KLA wants to have it both ways -- it seeks international recognition as the effective government of Kosovo while simultaneously denying any responsibility for ethnic cleansing. On the one hand, the organization claims to be in control, and its unelected government claims to be the legitimate authority in Kosovo. It has appointed "mayors," has established what it calls a "police force," and generally acts as if it is the government of a sovereign state of Kosovo -- which has been its stated goal ever since Albania's collapse in 1997 made unification with that country an unattractive option in the short term.

On the other hand, the KLA military commander, Agim Ceku, claims that whatever abuses against non-Albanians have taken place are the work of rogue elements over which his organization has no control. His political boss, the self- proclaimed Prime Minister of the "Kosovo government," Hashim Thaqi, even sheds crocodile tears over the fate of minorities. No matter that KLA commanders were directing "spontaneous" Albanian demonstrations and attacks on French KFOR troops in Mitrovica. KLA commanders are in tight control of most, if not all, armed Albanian groups in Kosovo and thus directly responsible for the killings of Serbs and Gypsies.

Nor has the Albanian leadership earned any credibility for its adherence to agreements it signed. On June 21, 1999, Hashim Thaqi signed an Undertaking of Demilitarization and Transformation by the UCK (the Albanian acronym of the KLA). Since then, it has violated each and every provision of that document. According to point 10 (a), it was to cease firing all weapons, and yet Albanians even in Pristina fire at will. Point 10 (d) states that the KLA is not to attack, detain or intimidate civilians; nor is it to attack, confiscate or violate the property of civilians. But the KLA "police" are doing nothing but encouraging and participating in the veritable pogroms that now terrorize the Serbs. Article 23 provides for the KLA to surrender its heavy weapons. It has not, and mortar attacks on Serbian peasants have killed dozens.

What should be obvious is that these violations are not emotional outbursts by isolated individuals. Rather, they are part and parcel of a longstanding KLA policy of emptying Kosovo of non-Albanians, a policy unchanged since ethnic Albanians enjoyed political autonomy in Kosovo from 1974 to 1989. Consider that when the KLA had temporary control over the Drenica area in 1998, its first decisions were to ban political parties and expel non-Albanians.

None of this is surprising, and in fact the KLA's deeds are fully consistent with its ideology of authoritarianism and ethnic exclusionism. What is completely inexcusable, however, is the response of the international community. Mr. Kouchner said that he was shocked at what he chose to call "Albanian revenge attacks," as if history began with the Serbian expulsion of Albanians. And how could General Wesley Clark's willfully ignorant claim that there is no evidence of KLA involvement in ethnic cleansing be interpreted as anything but permission to finish the job?

True, KFOR and Kouchner have few choices at this point, and certainly no pleasant ones. Once NATO went to war portraying Serbs as evil and Albanians as angels, it became impossible to admit that there are no angels in Kosovo, but only a shifting balance of evil against evil. To hope, as President Clinton did, for a "multicultural and multiethnic" Kosovo, or to lament the zero-sum game played by both Serbs and Albanians, as Kouchner did, is nonsensical.

The Western powers' misplaced good-vs.-evil dichotomy was already evident last October, when the United States and NATO imposed a de facto capitulation upon Serbia by requiring it to cease counterinsurgency operations against the KLA. It continued with the June 1999 agreement ending the war, which eliminated all Serbian administrative, police, and military presence in Kosovo -- everything, in short, but the pretense that the region was still part of Serbia.

NATO's misjudgment was compounded by the fact that, after it eliminated the Serb presence, it was unprepared to replace it. The porous border with chaotic Albania is left to Italian troops -- tantamount to making it even more open. And there is virtually no international police presence to challenge the KLA, the promised Fijians (!) notwithstanding. But most egregious is the lack of any long-term strategy to deal with the KLA.

The cold reality is that, except for a few tenuous Serbian enclaves (parts of Mitrovica being the largest), Kosovo is on the way to becoming a purely Albanian area under the de facto control of a profoundly anti-democratic, duplicitous and violent organization. And Thaqi and co. are no doubt aware that as the minority exodus from Kosovo nears completion there will be even less incentive for KFOR to crack down on the KLA. Worse still, the growth of this totalitarian cancer is being encouraged by KFOR's inability or unwillingness to stop it, and paid for by West European and American taxpayers.

But the costs of the "humanitarian" intervention advocated by Clinton, Blair, and Albright will be measured in more than just dollars. The credibility of NATO, the United States, and the United Nations have all suffered severe damage. And within Serbia itself, the Serbian refugees from Kosovo will join those who left Croatia and Bosnia to create a volatile and vengeful mass of some 800,000 -- 10 percent of the electorate -- that will be unlikely to support any Serbian government prepared to accept a more democratic and less nationalistic government. Whether Milosevic or the nationalists of Vojislav Seselj will be able to take advantage of these people's frustrations remains to be seen. What is clear, however, is that they have left their homes behind, but not their grievances.

NATO's bombs are only as smart as its leaders, and victory in Kosovo has so far gone to the tyrants.

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News:

 RFE/RL WATCHLIST
Vol. 1, No. 18, 13 May 1999

A Weekly Checklist Of Events Affecting Civil Societies In Eastern Europe And The Post-Soviet States

90 PERCENT OF KOSOVAR ALBANIANS EXPELLED, U.S. DECLARES. Serbian forces have expelled more than 90 percent of all ethnic Albanians from their homes in the province of Kosova, the U.S. State Department charges in a 30-page report released on May 10. Titled "Erasing History: Ethnic Cleansing in Kosovo," it describes the emergence of "horrific patterns of war crimes and crimes against humanity," including "systematic executions" in at least 70 communities, and "organized rape and a well-planned program of terror and expulsion." Human rights organizations welcomed the report as the first overview of the ethnic cleansing campaign in Kosovo. But several of these groups criticized the figures for understating the dimensions of the tragedy, especially one estimate which claims the execution of "at least 4,000 Kosovars." Most of these organizations suggest that the number of ethnic Albanians killed has been much higher. The report stops short of calling Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic a war criminal -- possibly to avoid jeopardizing ongoing diplomatic talks. However, investigators at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague make no secret of their gathering data to convict him.

SETTLEMENT MUST NOT LEAVE MILOSEVIC IN POWER, RIGHTS GROUP SAYS. In an unusually sharp statement, the Vienna-based International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights said on May 10 that the Serbian regime's crimes against humanity cannot be tolerated and the people responsible for the crimes must be brought before The Hague tribunal. Representing 39 human rights organizations in North America, Europe, and the former Soviet Union, IHF said it would be "deeply skeptical" of any diplomatic agreement that left Slobodan Milosevic in power and did not guarantee that Kosovar Albanians would be able to return to their homes. The group concluded that any such settlement "would legitimate the genocidal tactics of the Serbian government and would serve as a precedent for other governments seeking to suppress ethnic constituencies."

RUSSIAN HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVISTS FEAR BOMBING'S IMPACT. . . NATO's campaign in Yugoslavia may undermine the process of building a civil society in Russia, two leading Russian human rights activists told a May 7 meeting in New York. At a conference sponsored by the Forced Migration Projects, Lyudmila Alexeeva, who heads the Moscow Helsinki Group, spoke of "a terrible explosion of anti-Western feeling" in Russia and warned against a destruction of links to the West which "serve as the main ally in the effort to build civil society in Russia." Seconding her views, Professor Boris Topornin of the Moscow Institute of State and Law described many Russians as perceiving the bombing as an arbitrary use of force which erodes support for Western values.

. . . BUT NO RUSSIAN BACKLASH YET AGAINST MISSIONARIES. Popular anger at NATO's airstrikes has not led the Russian people to turn against Western missionaries, according to the Oxford-based Keston News Service. But Keston's survey of a cross-section of clergy and laity did find that some Western missionaries believe that the NATO campaign might ultimately have that effect. A few of them, including Pentecostal Bishop Sergei Ryakhovsky, believe that could lead to calls for the expulsion of Western missionaries.

BELARUSIAN ELECTION PROCEEDS; OPPOSITION LEADER DISAPPEARS. Despite arrests and threats of severe punishment by Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka's regime, thousands of activists have been going from door to door to allow people to vote. From May 6 to 10 they collected ballots from 1,722,042 voters, or 22 percent of registered voters in Belarus, opposition leaders announced on May 11. Though many election organizers have been arrested and thousands of ballots confiscated, the election continues until May 16. But the democratic opposition is alarmed by the disappearance of one of its leaders, Gen. Yury Zakharanka, the former Minister of Internal Affairs fired by Lukashenka in 1996 for criticizing his policies. Zakharanka was active in the election, working for presidential candidate and former Prime Minister Mikhail Chygir, now in jail. Zakharanka was last heard from around 9 pm, May 7, when he called his wife Olga to say he was on his way home. Later in the evening his portable phone no longer responded. Olga Zakharenko says that for the past two weeks two cars followed him and that "reliable people" warned him that someone wanted to kill him. The New York-based International League for Human Rights has expressed "grave concern" with Zakharanka's fate, "especially in the context of the rapid deterioration of human rights in Belarus in the past several months."

U.S. CONTINUES TO HOPE FOR RELEASE OF AZERBAIJANI JOURNALIST. At a State Department press briefing on May 10, spokesman James Rubin expressed disappointment that Baku has not responded to appeals for the release of journalist Fuad Gakhramanly and voiced hope that he would come under an amnesty to mark Independence Day on May 28. Last November Gakhramanly was sentenced to 18 months' imprisonment for writing an article which the prosecution described as outlining tactics for toppling President Heidar Aliev. The article was never published.

** UPDATE ** Russia's Ministry of Justice has re-registered Jehovah's Witnesses as a legitimate religious organization authorized to work in the country. But there is still no word on the disposition of the case against Jehovah's Witnesses in Moscow City Court. That case, which began three years ago, was adjourned on March 19 with the appointment of a committee to study the teachings of the church and to determine whether the church threatens social peace (see "RFE/RL Watchlist," 1 April 1999.) "We are pleased that the federal government took the step of re-registering us," spokesman Judah Schroeder of Brooklyn, N.Y. told RFE/RL. "The action suggests that we are not in violation of the law. But we have not heard from the court as yet."

IS MILOSEVIC IN FACT A FASCIST?

By Charles Fenyvesi

Because of the brutality his regime has inflicted on Kosova, many people around the world are already calling Slobodan Milosevic a fascist. In many cases, they are doing so more because that is the most insulting thing they think they can say rather than because they understand what a fascist is and whether Milosevic corresponds to it. A new study titled "The Fascist Revolution" and released coincidentally only one day after NATO air strikes began provides some useful standards against which Milosevic can be measured as well as some important clues to understanding why he enjoys so much support among many Serbs.

Written by University of Wisconsin history professor George L. Mosse, this book defines fascism as a genuine revolutionary movement comparable to communism, but one that in contrast to communism rests on a popular consensus about the unique mystique of the nation. "A revolution from the political Right is as possible as one from the political Left," Mosse writes, "once revolution is defined as the forceful reordering of society in the light of a projected utopia."

To many historians and social scientists, the dictatorships of Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler constituted a freak phenomenon which occurred in a unique historic moment and resulted from an unlikely concatenation of political, social, and economic emergencies. But Mosse is not afraid to challenge such a conception which appears to distance ourselves from the fascist threat. In his understanding, Mussolini and Hitler were leaders who enjoyed popular support that was both broad and deep, and they championed an ideology embedded in European culture and traditions. Mosse's thesis is that acting out the potent myths of nationalism and spurning democracy and the rule of law, fascism did rise in other countries as well, and, he implies, could do so again.

Mosse also breaks rank with many of his colleagues when he declares that "fascism can no longer be thought of simply as a movement of the bourgeoisie." Instead, Mosse emphasizes fascism's "cross-class appeal," which, he writes, worked well not only in "highly-developed" Italy and Germany, but also "in undeveloped nations like Romania and Hungary." The book presents a convincing case that with a reflexive stress on economic and social factors, important as they may be, "class analysis cannot really capture the essence of fascism."

Calling attention to the fascist appeal to nationalism is not unique to Mosse. But he defines nationalism as the belief system which provided "the bedrock" upon which fascism was built. Mosse denies the comfortable liberal view that fascist ideology was an aberration peculiar to a few minor theorists out of sync with the acknowledged master thinkers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, or, as others proposed, fascism is an illness that infected minds shellshocked in the trenches of the first World War.

Mosse identifies fascism's expansionist drives as fueled by long-standing national ambitions thwarted by groups fascist leaders demonized as perfidious, cowardly, and congenitally inferior. Mosse reminds us that a fervently expressed popular will once embraced fascist objectives such as transforming the Mediterranean into Italy's Mare Nostrum and conquering Eastern Europe as Germany's "natural inheritance" and "legitimate Lebensraum." Not many Italians and Germans questioned then that a strong, superior nation has the right to seize, plunder, or destroy what weaker nations or minorities built for themselves.

Mosse advances strong arguments that in their resolve to fight wars -- an engagement they worshipped -- Hitler and Mussolini had little to do with such bourgeois notions as common sense, reason, or reasonableness. He points out that the messianism which fascism promoted was advertised as ready to overcome the dialectic of earthly life. The highest pedestal of glory was death -- martyrdom in the service of the sacred nation. Mosse cites the slogan which both German and Italian propaganda repeated endlessly during the second World War: Death in battle makes life worthwhile.

Milosevic is not mentioned in Mosse's book. But it should come as no surprise that several reviewers have noted the parallels: The Serbian dictator's brand of Serbian nationalism has attracted plenty of followers, many of them fanatics, and he has been adept in stirring nationalist frenzy by playing up the tragedies of Serbian victimhood through the centuries of Ottoman oppression. But perhaps the most disturbing parallel is that many Serbs find satisfaction, if not historic redemption, in seizing the opportunity to wreak vengeance on Bosnians and Albanians of the Muslim faith, pilloried as "the Turks of today."

Mosse's work will not be the last word in the longstanding debate about the nature of fascism. But by suggesting that it is a phenomenon that can emerge now and in the future as well as in the past, Mosse presents an intellectual as well as a political challenge to us all.

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May 20, 1999

Vol. 1, No. 19, 20 May 1999

A Weekly Checklist Of Events Affecting Civil Societies In Eastern Europe And The Post-Soviet States

SERBIAN NGO MORAL EQUIVALENCE STANCE CRITICIZED. Since early April, Serbian NGOs have issued appeals to both NATO and Yugoslavia calling for a resumption of the peace process. Most recently, on May 10, 24 of them urged the Yugoslav, Serbian, and Montenegrin governments to move toward a solution of the Kosova problem and accept compromises. The signatories of this appeal included the Trade Union Confederation (Nezavisnost), the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia, and several women's groups. But on May 18, the Norwegian Helsinki Committee and the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights described themselves "deeply disturbed" by one aspect of the Serbian appeals. The Western rights groups said their staffers had interviewed Kosovar Albanians and found that they suffered "ethnic cleansing on a horrific scale" and that they were driven from their homes not by NATO but by Serbs -- a reality they pointed out that the Serbian NGOs had ignored. While expressing respect for the Serbian NGOs and their "lonely and courageous struggle for democratization," the Western rights groups stressed that it is "intellectually and morally unsound to equate" NATO's campaign and Serbia's "grave crimes of war and crimes against humanity in Kosovo."

U.S. ASKED NOT TO CUT YUGOSLAV INTERNET LINK. Help B92, a support group for independent broadcast media in Yugoslavia, expressed "deep concern" on May 13 about reports that the U.S. trade embargo might sever Yugoslavia's "vital Internet links to the outside world." The group fears that the U.S. government could order the American satellite carrier Loral Orion to drop a satellite uplink arrangement which supplies bandwidths to two of Yugoslavia's major Internet service providers, infosky.net and BEOnet.yu. The loss of this link, Help B92 said, "would deal a fatal blow to freedom of expression in Yugoslavia," as Internet communications represent the last remaining routes to censorship-free information and unfettered communications with friends, family, and organizations around the world.

BELGRADE TARGETS MONTENEGRIN JOURNALISTS. Article 19, a London-based organization monitoring freedom of expression, condemned Yugoslavia's use of military courts to try Montenegrin journalists on criminal charges. In a statement on May 14, the group contended that the Belgrade authorities are targeting journalists working for Montenegro's independent media for call-ups to the Yugoslav army. Charges have been brought against Nebojsa Redzic, editor-in-chief of the independent Radio Free Montenegro, Miodrag Perovic, founder of the weekly magazine "Monitor," and "Monitor" staffer Beba Marusic.

INDEPENDENT AZERBAIJANI TV FED UP WITH RUSSIAN PROGRAMS. The independent Baku TV channel ANS has protested that Azerbaijanis find themselves "under the wheel of the Russian propaganda machine, and not without injury" when they have no alternative but to watch rebroadcasts of Russian TV programs critical of NATO and supportive of Yugoslavia, according to BBC's summary of world broadcasts on May 14. ANS argues that as Azerbaijan seeks to join NATO, the constant dissemination of Russian opinions is "not in our favor." ANS also criticized state TV for devoting half of its news programs to retrospectives of President Heidar Aliev's U.S. visit.

MOSCOW'S CHIEF RABBI SEES NO GAINS BY ANTI-SEMITES. Episodes such as the recent attacks on synagogues and the anti-Semitic outburst of General Albert Makashov do not indicate an increase in anti-Semitic feelings in Russia, Moscow Chief Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt told Keston News Service. In his opinion, according to a May 13 KNS release, the incidents instead showed that the efforts of the anti-Semites to attract support for their position have been in vain. Goldschmidt argued that the principal change in Russian Jewish life occurred at the end of the 1980s when official anti-Semitism died and freedom of the press was born. Yet to the disappointment of the anti-Semites, the rabbi concluded, the open venting of their hatred has received "practically no response" from the population.

CRIMEAN TATARS MARK ANNIVERSARY OF EXPULSION. To protest discrimination and to launch a "campaign of civil disobedience," the Mejlis, or parliament representing some 270,000 Crimean Tatars in Ukraine, organized seven marches starting on May 6. The marches converged on Simferopol, the region's capital, on May 18, "the Day of Sorrow" 55 years ago when the Soviet government began deporting the entire Crimean Tatar community to Siberia and Central Asia. As many as half of the 500,00 of those deported died during this process. Marchers this year also protested a series of hate crimes over the past few months: 30 Crimean Tatar gravestones destroyed in one cemetery, a village mosque set on fire, and the monument to expulsion victims vandalized.

AZERBAIJAN'S MUNICIPAL ELECTION LAW CRITICIZED. On May 14 Azerbaijan's Democratic Bloc, composed of 17 opposition members of parliament, issued a statement condemning as "reactionary" and "anti-democratic" draft legislation on the status of municipalities and on municipal elections endorsed by the parliament at the first reading on May 4. The statement says that the drafts differed significantly from the ones that Council of Europe experts had approved.

ELECTION IRREGULARITIES SPARK PROTESTS IN KARACHAI- CHERKESSIA. On May 17, 15,000 supporters of Cherkessk Mayor Stanislav Derev assembled in the town's central square to protest what they said had been falsification of the results of the second round of voting for the president of the Republic of Karachai-Cherkessia, "Nezavisimaya gazeta" reported. While 40 percent of voters backed Derev in the first round, his support dropped to half of that in the second round.

BASHKIR BROADCASTER CONDITIONALLY RELEASED. On April 30, Altaf Galeev, director of the independent radio station Titan in Ufa, in Russia's Republic of Bashkortostan, was released for the duration of his judicial investigation, according to the Glasnost Defence Foundation in Moscow. Galeev agreed not to leave his residence in Ufa and to testify. He had been in custody since May 27, 1998, when Interior Ministry officers stormed his office and charged him with "armed hoologanism." His real offense, says Glasnost, was that his radio station provided equal air time to alternative candidates for the presidency.

TAIWAN LEADER URGES BEIJING TO GRANT REGIONS AUTONOMY. In a new book, Taiwan's first native-born president, Lee Teng-hui, calls on Beijing to abandon its ideology of "Great China" and offer autonomy to Tibet, Xinjiang, Mongolia, and northeast China. As for Taiwan, Lee argues that its de facto independence is sufficient and that Chinese communists "have no right to make any claims" as "Taiwan's democracy and economic achievement were the sole efforts of the Taiwanese." Excerpts from the book appeared in the "United Daily News" on May 15, AP reported.

SHEVARDNADZE CALLS MINORITIES 'OUR ASSETS.' "We will continue to be attentive towards ethnic minorities residing in Georgia, for we perceive them as our assets and our achievement," Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze wrote in a May 15 letter addressed to an international conference in Tbilisi on the subject of ethnic minorities in the Caucasus.

END NOTE

AN OPPOSITION VICTORY IN BELARUS

By Charles Fenyvesi

Observers in and out of Belarus had thought the presidential election there sponsored by the democratic opposition but declared illegal by President Alyaksandr Lukashenka would fail either because its organizers would give up or because few Belarusians would take part. But in the event, some 15,000 volunteers defied these predictions and collected ballots from four million people -- some 53 percent of eligible voters.

These results stunned virtually everyone, especially since one of the two presidential candidates, Zenon Poznyak, had quit the race because of the unconventional voting methods, and the head of the opposition's Central Electoral Commission, Viktar Hanchar, afterwards declared the election "invalid" because of "irregularities." Whether or not the volunteers and more than half of the adult Belarusian population followed all the rules fastidiously crafted by that commission, these results suggest that Belarusians have voted against Lukashenka.

"This is an extraordinary feat," declared Catherine A. Fitzpatrick, director of the New York-based International League for Human Rights and active in Belarusian affairs for many years. "The election should force European leaders to ask themselves: What else should it take to recognize the opposition as the legitimate government?"

Also impressed with the turnout, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe issued a statement on May 18 which said that the involvement of many citizens in the balloting "deserve the respect of democratically governed states within the family of all OSCE states." The OSCE also noted that the elections "were not expected to meet OSCE standards" and called for "a meaningful dialogue" between the government and the opposition to create conditions for free parliamentary and presidential elections in the future.

The OSCE envoy there, former Romanian Foreign Minister Adrian Severin, did not mince words in calling the detention of presidential candidate Mikhail Chyhir, a former prime minister, "highly questionable," adding that this action "should be terminated immediately."

But perhaps most important: the vote suggests that the Belarusian people are not nearly as apathetic as some observers have suggested or as supportive of Lukashenka as others have claimed. And this vote may also mean that the long list of failures by the democratic opposition is now coming to an end: the failure to block the introduction of a strong presidency in the constitution of 1993, the defeat of democratic candidates in the 1994 presidential election, Lukashenka's victory in changing the constitution and dissolving the parliament called the Supreme Soviet, and the fizzling out of the massive street demonstrations held between 1996 and 1998.

However that may be, there is no sign that Lukashenka will respect the results or moderate his disregard for the law and human rights. Even worse, some observers fear that his failure to intimidate people by threats may lead him and his minions to adopt tougher measures. That possibility has been suggested by the recent "disappearance" of two well- known public figures, the imprisonment of Chyhir, the beating up of several opposition leaders, and the arrest of several hundred activists for organizing the election.

Moreover, these election results may lead to some rethinking by the international community. Before the vote, Ambassador Hans-Georg Wieck -- the head of the OSCE's permanent mission in Minsk, the Advisory and Monitoring Group -- had counseled against holding the election and called it "invalid." Opposition leaders did not appreciate his attitude. Stubbornly, they insisted on making what Andrey Sannikau, former deputy foreign minister, had characterized as "a salient ideological point": Lukashenka's constitution and parliament are illegal, and for democracy to function, the status quo ante should be restored.

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May 25, 1999

RFE/RL Poland, Ukraine and Belarus Report
Vol. 1, No. 1, 25 May 1999
A Survey of Developments in Poland, Ukraine and Belarus by the Staff of RFE/RL Newsline

INVITATION TO READERS

The "RFE/RL Poland, Ukraine and Belarus Report" seeks to draw the attention of its readers to three countries that are in three different stages of the post-communist transformation.
Poland, a new NATO member, is also on the "fast track" for integration with the European Union. It enjoys the highest growth rate among the former communist nations of Central and Eastern Europe. However, even though successful on most counts, the country faces a host of specific problems in adapting itself to EU legislative, economic, and social standards. It may therefore serve as an excellent example of a European nation struggling to break with its socialist past and embrace a free-market system.
Developments in Belarus are in many ways the reverse of what is taking place in Poland. Of all the former Soviet republics, Belarus is on the "fastest track" for reintegration with Russia into a union state that some consider the seed of a 21st-century version of the USSR. Belarus's Soviet-style economy remains virtually unreformed, while in terms of its management it has become even more state-controlled than it was in the Soviet Union. With the strongly anti-Western and popular authoritarian regime of President Alyaksandr Lukashenka, Belarus is a classic case of a country beset by an overpowering "back-to-the-USSR" nostalgia.
Ukraine has been described as "two nations in one," with its eastern "socialist" part leaning toward Russia and its western "nationalist" part oriented toward the West. Its performance since the collapse of communism falls somewhere in between the Polish and Belarusian models. For nine years it has thus been a country in "unstable equilibrium," seeming to defy any more precise definition.
Since the three countries share not only borders but also much history, they unavoidably have a lot of common and/or conflicting interests. One of the major goals of this newsletter is to highlight these interests within a general picture of developments in Poland, Ukraine and Belarus.

*********************************************************

POLAND

EU DEMANDS ABOLITION OF SPECIAL ECONOMIC ZONES... The EU demands that Poland abolish its special economic zones by 2002, PAP reported on 18 May. According to EU officials, the creation of the zones violates Poland's association treaty with the EU. The demand comes in response to Poland's request to be allowed a transition period in which the zones would be allowed to exist until 2017. According to the EU, tax breaks offered by Polish special economic zones "exceed all norms" admissible in the union.

...WHILE BELARUS INVITES POLES TO ITS TAX-FREE ZONES. Entrepreneurs from Poland's northeastern Podlasie province have been invited to conduct business in Belarus's tax-free zones. Managers operating in such zones in the Minsk and Brest oblasts encouraged Polish businessmen in Bialystok on 17 May to invest in the special economic areas, PAP reported. Under Belarusian legislation, companies operating in special economic zones are exempt from paying income tax for five years. Goods entering such zones are tax- and duty-free.
Poland is currently Belarus's fourth-largest trade partner. According to figures quoted by the Belarusian consul general in Bialystok, Mikalay Krechka, Belarus imported $238 million worth of goods from Poland last year, while Belarusian exports to Poland amounted to $184 million.

CIA SPY TO BE SUED? According to the right-wing daily "Zycie," the State Protection Office in 1996 unmasked and detained a CIA spy, Colonel Zbigniew Wlodzimierz Sz., who held an important post in the Military Intelligence Service. Although he confessed to being guilty, Colonel Sz. Did not appear in court. The daily says the Polish authorities hushed up the case--in order not to damage relations between Warsaw and Washington--and agreed to transfer Sz. to the U.S., where he is still living. According to "Zycie," it was President Aleksander Kwasniewski who decided that the spy would not be put on trial.
The Supreme Military Prosecutor's Office, responding to questions posed by "Zycie" journalists several weeks ago, admitted that it did not conduct an investigation into the Sz. spy case in 1996. The 21 May "Rzeczpospolita" reported that a military prosecutor pointed out to the "Zycie" journalists that anybody who knew about a crime was obliged to inform the authorities or face punishment. "Rzeczpospolita" wrote that the "Zycie" journalists interpreted that comment as a "warning" and subsequently notified the Warsaw District Military Prosecutor's Office about Sz.'s crime.
It is unclear what kind of action--if any--will be taken by the Military Prosecutor's Office. Meanwhile, Marek Siwiec, head of the presidential National Security Bureau, has denied that the president instructed anyone suspected of spying to be released. Moreover, Kwasniewski's lawyer, Ryszard Kalisz, has notified the military prosecutor that "Zycie" committed a crime by reporting the Sz. case and thus disclosing official secrets.
"We do not regard the case of the American spy in the Polish army as a superficial sensation or scandal," "Zycie" chief editor Tomasz Wolek wrote on 22 May, "but as a matter worthy of deeper, balanced consideration. For the good of democracy and also for the sake of greater openness and transparency in public life, we feel that this case should not be swept under the carpet in embarrassment. It is precisely in the best interests of Poland and of its loyal obligations toward allies that efforts should be made to defuse this explosive charge."
Wolek is believed to be a staunch opponent of the leftist Kwasniewski. In 1995, Wolek--at the time chief editor of "Zycie Warszawy"--actively supported Lech Walesa's presidential bid. When Lech Walesa lost the election, Wolek was fired from "Zycie Warszawy" in what was widely seen as leftist retribution for the journalist's political involvement. Along with most of the "Zycie Warszawy" journalists who quit the Warsaw daily when he did, Wolek successfully launched the nationwide daily "Zycie." In 1997, "Zycie" published a report alleging that Kwasniewski had held meetings with a KGB agent. Kwasniewski sued the daily for libel, but the investigation into that case has not yet been completed.

UKRAINE

CRIMEAN TATARS COMMEMORATE THE DEAD, SPEAK OUT FOR THE LIVING. Some 35,000 Crimean Tatars converged on Simferopol on 18 May to hold a rally commemorating the 55th anniversary of the deportation of Crimean Tatars to the east of the Urals, mainly to Uzbekistan. Joseph Stalin's regime accused the Tatars of collaboration during the Nazi occupation of the Crimean peninsula in World War II. According to official data, some 180,000 Crimean Tatars were deported. Some Tatar sources, however, put the number of deported at 500,000. Some 45 percent of the Crimean Tatar population perished as a result of the deportations. A 1967 Soviet government decree exonerated the Crimean Tatars of any wrongdoing during World War II. However, the mass return of Tatars from Central Asia to their ancestral homeland was not possible until the Gorbachev era. It is estimated that today some 275,000 Tatars are living on the peninsula, while at least as many remain in exile.
The marches on Simferopol and the 18 May rally were in protest against what Crimean Tatars perceive as their political repression and discrimination by both the Ukrainian and Crimean autonomous governments. Participants in the Simferopol rally made several demands vis-a-vis both Kyiv and Simferopol. Those demands included providing housing and employment programs for Crimean Tatars; simplifying procedures whereby Tatars can acquire Ukrainian citizenship (some 90,000 have been prevented from doing so owing to bureaucratic obstacles in Uzbekistan and Ukraine); granting plots of land to Tatars returning to Crimea; recognizing the Mejlis and the Kurultay as Tatar representative bodies endowed with some self-governing functions; granting the Tatar language an official status equal to that of Russian and Ukrainian; establishing representative quotas of Tatars in the Crimean parliament, government, and local authorities as well as in the Ukrainian parliament in Kyiv.
Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma responded to the Tatar demands by creating a presidential advisory body--the Council of Representatives of Crimean Tatars, headed by Crimean Tatar leader Mustafa Dzhemilev. Another Tatar leader, Refat Chubarov, said that with the establishment of that body the work to resolve the political and legal problems of Crimean Tatars has begun.
Ukrainian media reported that no deputy from the Communist-dominated Crimean parliament attended the 18 May rally. According to Ukrainian sources, those addressing the demonstrators mostly signaled out Crimean parliamentary speaker Leonid Hrach and his colleagues from the Communist Party as responsible for the problems faced by Crimean Tatars. Crimean Prime Minister Serhiy Kunitsyn, according to "Ukrayina moloda," proposed a meeting with Tatar representatives to discuss "possible candidacies for some posts in the executive branch of the peninsula."
After the rally, Tatars set up a tent camp outside the Crimean government building. Dzhemilev said some 250 people will remain in the camp until the government makes progress on meeting the Tatars' demands.

BELARUS

MUZZLING DISSENT BY RE-REGISTRATION. In late January, President Alyaksandr Lukashenka issued a decree ordering all political parties, trade unions, and public associations in Belarus to re-register by 1 July. The same decree set up a special commission for (re-)registration of public associations headed by Deputy Prime Minister Uladzimir Zamyatalin. According to the decree, the Justice Ministry takes a decision on (re-)registering an organization "on the basis of a conclusion" reached by Zamyatalin's commission. In theory, the Justice Ministry can overturn the commission's decision, but in light of legal practices in Belarus under Lukashenka's regime, such a development is highly improbable.
In keeping with Soviet bureaucratic tradition, the decree stipulates that any organization that desires to be registered must supply a host of documents and certificates "typed on A4 paper with one-and-a-half spacing." Any formal or procedural flaws in the registration process on the part of the applicant may be considered a reason for denying official recognition. Registration can also be denied if an organization's charter does not conform with legal requirements or if it has been officially warned within the past year that it has broken the law.
Numerous Belarusian opposition parties and NGOs have protested the decree, pointing out that its real goal is to outlaw all opposition and independent organizations in Belarus. So far, 13 major Belarusian opposition parties and human rights organizations have been "warned" by the Justice Ministry for taking part in the opposition presidential elections. Under Lukashenka's re-registration decree, they are now facing a ban. Belarusian NGOs say the authorities also aim to force organizations undergoing re-registration to pledge allegiance to the 1996 constitution in their charters. That basic law--adopted in the controversial referendum of the same year, which has not been recognized by the Council of Europe or the OSCE--is the main bone of contention between the authorities and the opposition.
Belarusian Television reported on 15 May that only some 130 organizations out of the 2,500 registered in Belarus have filed re-registration requests to date. With only six weeks remaining until the re-registration deadline, it appears that the bulk of Belarusian NGOs have decided to boycott the re- registration decree. A Justice Ministry official seemed to confirm that theory when, speaking on national television, he stressed that the organizations do not have to fully specify the constitution to which they pledge loyalty. "There was a ertain overstress in the first stage [of re-registration], when we suggested that everyone should put the full name of the constitution [in the charter]. But now this has sunk into oblivion," he said.
But the participation of Uladzimir Zamyatalin in the re- registration process has led Belarusian NGOs to suspect the worst. Zamyatalin is widely seen as having been behind some of Belarus's harshest restraints on the press and on freedom of expression, including a ban on providing official information to independent media and an order to eliminate those history textbooks that contradict the "state policy that is being implemented by President Alyaksandr Lukashenka."
It is interesting to note that in the 1994 presidential elections Zamyatalin was press secretary to then-Prime Minister Vyachaslau Kebich, Lukashenka's main presidential rival. Zamyatalin was reported to have orchestrated a television feature suggesting Lukashenka was a petty thief and had stolen a hair-dryer from a stewardess while on his flight to China. The electorate, however, did not believe that allegation and overwhelmingly voted for Lukashenka. Instead of punishing Zamyatalin, Lukashenka offered him a job--first as head of the Presidential Information Department and later as deputy chief of the presidential staff. Before his nomination as deputy premier in July 1997, Zamyatalin headed the State Press Committee for more than five months.

PROFITEERING: ILL-DEFINED, BUT PUNISHABLE BY LAW. On 18 May, the Chamber of Representatives, the lower house of the Belarusian legislature, adopted a new Criminal Code. One of the most controversial parts of the code was Article 256, which envisages criminal responsibility for "profiteering" (spekulatsiya). Belarusian media reported that some deputies objected to introducing this article because of the lack of a clear definition of the term "profiteering." Belapan reported on 18 May that one deputy voiced his opposition by pointing out that "profiteering" is punishable only in two countries, namely Cuba and North Korea. Chamber of Representatives speaker Anatol Malafeyeu, for his part, told the legislature that by eliminating this article, deputies "would stab the economy in the back." In the end, supporters of the provision prevailed, and the article on "profiteering" was duly included in the code.

HARBINGERS OF AGRICULTURAL DOOM? Severe and unusual cold spells--in which temperatures dropped to 12 degrees Centigrade below zero-- have destroyed grain covering some 20,000 hectares in Belarus this month, Belapan reported on 18 May. According to Mikhail Kadyrau, an agricultural expert, because of these cold spells, the expected average yield of potatoes in 1999 will be 25 percent down on last year's level.
In late April, Belarusian media reported that huge swarms of gnats were attacking people and animals in 66 of Belarus's 120 raions, mainly in the southern part of the country. Some 20,000 livestock became sick after being bitten by insects. According to the Agricultural Ministry, 400 animals died and another 1,000 had to be slaughtered.
More than 23 raions, mainly in the Brest and Homel oblasts, suffered from spring floods in March: 204 settlements and 100,000 hectares of land were covered in water, and more than 2,100 people had to be resettled.

QUOTATIONS OF THE WEEK

"Why do we need foreign troops on our territory? Something is foul here." -- A Peasant Party deputy during the 20 May parliamentary debate on a bill regulating the deployment of foreign troops in Poland.

"Foreign troops helped us a little in the Battle of Grunwald." -- Polish Foreign Minister Bronislaw Geremek's retort in the same debate, referring to the defeat of the Teutonic Knights by the united armies of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the Battle of Grunwald in 1410.

"If I discover today that someone has taken an irresponsible stance toward fulfilling my [previous] instructions, [he] can go at once, taking [his] portfolio with [him] or leaving it in [his] offices.... We have a controllable state, we have a strong authority, and we are able to resolve any problem in pricing policy." -- Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka ordering his ministers on 19 May to put an end to price hikes by 1 June.

"Today's lines [of vehicles waiting] to enter Poland--given the virtually empty border checkpoints and quick checks on our side--most likely reflect NATO's political directive to its [Polish] member: to erect a barrier at the border as long as the hawks in the sky are destroying [our] Slavic allies." -- Belarusian Television on 19 May, commenting on recent traffic jams at Belarusian-Polish border checkpoints.

"Even if a majority of people back Lukashenka, it means only that they will get what they deserve, not what they want." -- Belarusian writer Vasil Bykau, before his voluntary exile to Finland one year ago.

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June 1, 1999

Vol. 1, No. 2, 1 June 1999

A Survey of Developments in Poland, Belarus, and Ukraine by the Staff of "RFE/RL Newsline"

POLAND

ILLEGAL EMPLOYMENT SHRINKS. The Main Statistical Office (GUS) reports that shadow economy employees in January-August 1998 totaled 1.4 million and made up 9 percent of Poland's official labor force during that period. GUS Deputy Chairman Janusz Witkowski said Poland's illegal employment is shrinking. The previous GUS study, conducted in 1995, showed that the number of illegal employees totaled 2.2 million. GUS attributes this decrease to the growing number of legal job offers in recent years.

GUS also reported that 60.3 percent of shadow economy employees work illegally because their legal incomes are too small, while 41.7 percent are unable to find regular jobs. Illegal employment is usually temporary and brief; almost two-thirds of those polled by GUS worked illegally for no longer than 20 days. The average monthly pay in the shadow economy sector--calculated on the basis of data provided by respondents--amounted to 276 zlotys ($70).

PRIVATIZATION PROGRESSES, BUT DOES IT PRODUCE PRIVATE BUSINESSES? The 26 May "Rzeczpospolita" reported that by the end of 1998, Poland had "transformed" under its privatization program 4,647 companies out of the 8,453 state-owned companies that had existed in 1990. The daily adds, however, that there are fewer privately owned companies than "transformed" ones. In many "transformed" companies, the state possesses a controlling interest and has a say in their personnel policy and management.

Poland is pursuing three forms of privatization: direct privatization, liquidation and bankruptcy, and indirect privatization.

In direct privatization (which applies to 36.6 percent of transformed companies), state-owned companies are either sold 100 percent, fused with an investor company, or transferred on leasing terms to a company created by the original company's employees. In either case, the state has no control over "transformed" companies.

Liquidation and bankruptcy (34 percent of transformed companies) means selling the property of state-owned companies to individuals or economic entities that are not controlled by the state. This form of privatization is usually pursued with regard to unattractive businesses.

Indirect privatization means creating new companies with the participation of private capital and the state treasury. This method is applied to transforming the largest and most attractive state-owned enterprises, which exert a major influence on the Polish economy as a whole. The state has majority stakes in most of the 1,364 companies subject to this form of privatization.

BELARUS

LUKASHENKA DECREES PUNISHMENT FOR OVERREPORTING. The Belarusian president has issued a decree envisaging punishment for overreporting and/or distorting statistical data. In particular, an official who provides false data may be fined 50-100 minimum wages ($110-$220, according to the street exchange rate). If an official has done "significant harm to rights and legal interests of citizens or to the state and public interests" by providing distorted information, he can be sentenced to correctional labor or two years in prison.

DISMISSAL DENIED UNTIL SITUATION DETERIORATES FURTHER? The Brest Oblast branch of the State Control Committee has examined the work of Yakau Bukhavetski, chairman of the oblast department for agriculture and food, and concluded that his performance has been "unsatisfactory," Belapan reported on 24 May. The committee ruled that Bukhavetski "deserves" to be dismissed from his post, but it gave him only a reprimand and warned that a final decision on his future will be adopted once his performance during the whole of 1999 has been assessed.

Bukhavetski has tendered his resignation, arguing that he is not responsible for the agricultural production slump in Brest Oblast. He suggested that the 1999 agricultural results may be even worse than for any previous year, owing to spring floods, an invasion of gnats, and severe cold spells in May. However, the oblast executive committee refused to accept Bukhavetski's resignation.

Bukhavetski's subordinates, according to Belapan, are also "indignant" that he was not allowed to leave a "hot post." According to them, Bukhavetski should not be blamed for the fact that "the oblast agriculture is going to pieces, purchase prices for agricultural products are low, while those for manufactured feed concentrates and diesel fuel are high."

COMMUNIST HEROES GIVE NAMES AND PRESTIGE TO COLLECTIVE LAND. The Brest Oblast Executive Committee, headed by Uladzimir Zalamay, has announced it will give the names of Communist heroes and activists to land plots in collective farms of the oblast, Belapan reported on 24 May. Thus, a 70-hectare land plot in the "Malech" collective farm in Byaroza Raion was named after Pyotr Masherau, former first secretary of the Soviet-era Communist Party of Belarus. Another 171-hectare land plot in the same farm has been named after Alyaksey Tsabruk, a tractor operator and Hero of Socialist Labor. The payment for work on named plots has been increased by 10 percent, compared with the remuneration for working on nameless ones. According to the oblast authorities, this increase will make collective farmers feel proud to work on such fields.

HOW TO PACIFY BELARUSIAN POLES? "Belorusskaya delovaya gazeta" on 26 May reported that the State Committee for Religions and Nationalities has drawn up a document in response to the cabinet's request to provide information about the activity of the Union of Poles of Belarus (SPB). The document was signed by committee head A. Bilyk and drafted by someone identified as Uralski.

According to official data, Belarus has slightly more than 400,000 Poles, of whom some 300,000 live in Hrodna Oblast. The SPB headquarters are located in Hrodna. Two Polish-language schools have existed in Belarus since 1996: in Hrodna and in Vaukavysk. However, the SPB has not received permission to build a Polish school in the town of Navahradak, where some 1,500 residents claim Polish origin.

The document says SPB chairman Tadeusz Gawin is guilty of participation in "political activity on behalf of radical opposition forces." It also calls the problem of Polish- language education in Belarus "far-fetched." The committee's arguments against developing Polish-language education in Belarus are as follows: "The instruction of all subjects in Polish put future graduates from such schools in an unfavorable position when seeking entrance to [Belarusian] higher educational institutions.... A specific problem is also posed by those students [from Belarus] who are educated at universities in Poland. According to our experience, a majority of young people remain [in that country]." Another passage provides deeper insight into the official reluctance to endorse Polish education: "Special attention paid to [Polish-language school] students by the SPB, Poland's diplomatic missions, various Polish charitable organizations and funds, the Catholic Church, as well as the continued practice of giving gifts to students and their parents, organizing summer trips to Poland, etc., instill [in those students] a feeling of being exceptional and privileged, while in their peers instructed in the official [Russian and Belarusian] languages [is ingrained] the idea that Polish education and all things connected with Poland are more prestigious."

The document ends with a 10-point plan, which "Belorusskaya delovaya gazeta" calls a "program of measures to pacify the SPB." In particular, the committee advises the government "to focus on cooperation with other associations that, owing to different reasons, have split from the SPB." It also advises the cabinet to take advantage of controversies between the SPB's local branches and top leadership. It recommends "comprehensive monitoring of the SPB's economic activity [as well as its] distribution of humanitarian aid and assets obtained from abroad." The committee offers to work out amendments to the laws on political parties and on public associations in order to prohibit the political activities of ethnic cultural associations.

"We have shown our naivete in believing that the State Committee for Religions and Nationalities has been created to render assistance to ethnic cultural associations.... The committee has drawn up the letter to the Council of Ministers of Belarus in order to suppress us," Belapan quoted Gawin as saying.

UKRAINE

UKRAINIAN RUSSIANS OUT OF TUNE WITH KUCHMA. On 22-23 May in Kyiv, 309 delegates representing Russian organizations from 19 Ukrainian oblasts and Crimea held the First Congress of Russians of Ukraine. According to the 27 May "Nezavisimaya gazeta," the congress was primarily financed by Ukraine's Rus association, which was the initiator and organizer of the event, as well as by the State Committee for Nationalities and the presidential administration. The newspaper suggests that the congress was organized by "Rus" association activists Valentina Yermolova, Aleksandr Svistunov, and Aleksandr Oleynikov in order to seize the leadership of the Russian Council of Ukraine, an umbrella organization for Ukrainian Russians set up by the Kyiv gathering. Yermolova was elected chairwoman of the council, while Svistunov and Oleynikov became her deputies.

"Nezavisimaya gazeta" reports that the congress strongly differed over a resolution on whether to support Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma's re-election bid. In the end, despite what the newspaper called Svistunov's "orchestration" and "obstruction," 60 delegates voted in favor of the following resolution: "Given that the incumbent president of Ukraine, [Leonid] Kuchma, has not fulfilled his electoral promise to grant official status to the Russian language, the Congress of Russians of Ukraine announces that it is against the re-election of...Kuchma for the post of president." No one voted against the resolution.

UNIAN added an interesting detail by reporting that Ukrainian Deputy Premier Valeriy Smoliy, who represented official Kyiv at the congress, was deprived of the opportunity to extend greetings from Kuchma to the delegates. In connection with this incident, the All-Ukrainian Association "Prosvita" and some other groups issued a protest saying that the congress "has overstepped not only the constitutional and legal norms but also elementary norms of the civilized and cultural behavior." The protesters demand that the president and the government take measures to prevent an "outburst of the chauvinist forces" in Ukraine.

On the other hand, "Nezavisimaya gazeta" noted that the congress did not meet the expectations of those politicians in Russia who would like to have a united and strong organization of Russians in Ukraine to campaign for Ukraine's integration into the Russian-Belarusian Union. The Council of Russians of Ukraine, according to the newspaper, cannot claim that it is a widely recognized representation of Ukraine's 12 million Russians. Moreover, it did not even mention the issue of integration during its two-day congress.

PROSELYTIZING WITH CHEAPER OIL? "Novye izvestiya" on 21 May published an article reviewing controversies between the two Orthodox Churches in Ukraine: the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate, led by Patriarch Filaret, and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, headed by Metropolitan Volodymyr. According to the Russian daily, both Churches are involved in a continued struggle for influence among Ukrainian Orthodox believers.

The open split appeared in 1992 after the Russian Orthodox Church had refused to grant autonomy to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. Those bishops in favor of an independent church administration went on to form the Kyiv Patriarchate with some 6,000 parishes. Some 9,000 parishes, most of them in eastern Ukraine, have remained loyal to the Moscow Patriarchate. According to a poll conducted by the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, 33 percent of Ukrainians supports the Kyiv Patriarchate, while the Moscow-linked Church has only 7.8 percent backing.

The harshest clash between the two opposing Churches occurred in Mariupol in April, when Patriarch Filaret and his retinue were attacked and beaten by Moscow-linked Church believers. In response, a Synod of the Kyiv Patriarchate branded the Moscow-subordinated Church an "anti-Ukrainian and anti-state force."

Metropolitan Volodymyr recently addressed a letter to Russian State Duma Chairman Gennadii Seleznev asking him to help purchase at Russia's domestic market price and without value-added tax 6 million tons of Russian oil for processing at the Lysychansk oil refinery. The request was prompted, according to Volodymyr, by his "concern about the worthy observance of the 2000th anniversary of Christianity. In the event of a positive answer, we will name a firm that will deal on our behalf with implementing this project," "Novye izvestiya" quoted from Volodymyr's letter. By helping with this project, the letter adds, "you will render support to the traditional brotherly relations between Orthodox believers of Russia and Ukraine."

The newspaper suggests that both Ukrainian Metropolitan Volodymyr and his superior, Patriarch of Moscow and Russia Aleksii II, have close ties with Russia's oil and gas moguls, in particular, with Gazprom's Rem Vyakhirev and LUKoil's Vagit Alekperov. The newspaper concludes that while the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate expands its ranks by appealing to supporters of Ukraine's independence, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate intends to strengthen its influence by offering cheaper gasoline.

WHO IS PULLING THE STRINGS? In April, the Kyiv-based Institute of Politics, headed by political scientist Mykola Tomenko, published a list of Ukraine's most important "oligarchs." The list included people who supposedly "control or influence at least one parliamentary caucus, group, political party, public organization, nationwide television or radio channel, or nationwide newspaper." According to Tomenko, Ukrainian oligarchs will play a "dominant role" in the presidential elections on 31 October.

The top five on the list are:

1) Ihor Bakay, who is president of the "Naftohaz Ukrayiny" Joint-Stock Company, controls the Revival of Regions caucus, ICTV television, and the newspaper "Segodnya."

2. Oleksandr Volkov, who is a parliamentary deputy and presidential aide, controls the Revival of Regions caucus, the Agrarian Party of Ukraine, part of the Democratic Party of Ukraine, and the Party of Regional Revival of Ukraine. His media empire includes Ukrainian Television-1, Studio 1+1 Television, Gravis Television, and Europa+ Radio.

3. Viktor Pinchuk, also a parliamentary deputy, wields influence through the Working Ukraine caucus and the newspaper "Fakty."

4. Vadym Rabynovych, the president of the United Jewish Community of Ukraine, controls part of the Green Party caucus, the ERA Channel on Ukrainian Television-1, NTU Television, the Uniar information agency, Super Nova Radio, and the newspapers "Stolichnyye novosti" and "Delovaya nedelya."

5. Hryhoriy Surkis, who is a parliamentary deputy and honorary president of the Dynamo Kyiv Soccer Club, wields influence through the Social Democratic Party of Ukraine (United) and its parliamentary caucus, as well as Inter Television and the newspaper "Biznes."

Initially, the list also included former Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko, who has left Ukraine and applied for political asylum in the U.S. While in Ukraine, Lazarenko controlled the Hromada party and its parliamentary caucus, YuTAR Television, Television Channel 11 in Dnipropetrovsk, and the newspapers "Pravda Ukrayiny" and "Kiyevskiye vedomosti." According to the Institute of Politics, the Lazarenko case is a "textbook case of a struggle between competing oligarchs or oligarchic associations in Ukraine."

QUOTATIONS OF THE WEEK. "Warsaw owes a statue to the author of the real end of the Cold War, Ronald Reagan." -- Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski on 25 May.

"If all Polish private companies pooled their assets to buy Microsoft's shares on the stock market, they would be able to acquire no more than 4 percent. This is an estimate of the combined power of Polish [private] capital." -- "Gazeta Bankowa" on 22 May.

"Can you tell me please in what other country [than Belarus] the opposition is allowed to mark a birthday in such a way?" -- A Belarusian Television journalist on a 24 May opposition rally to demand the release of former Prime Minister Mikhail Chyhir from prison. The rally's date coincided with Chyhir's birthday.

"As regards the number of criminal cases launched against well-known bankers and businessmen, Belarus is one of the indisputable leaders in the CIS, if not on the entire planet." -- The Minsk official daily "Zvyazda" on 27 May.

"It has become difficult to provide villagers with many goods that are not manufactured by Belarusian enterprises but are indispensable in life and farming: scythes, sickles, pitchforks, churns, separators [for milk], saws, files, straw cutters, milk cans, sewing needles, thimbles, and other products. All these are imported. Are we really unable to manufacture such goods? You have three months--[after that] you will report to me how many of these goods, listed as well as unlisted by me here, which are so necessary to people everyday, you manufacture in Belarus, in our talented, science-intensive industry." -- Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka on 27 May, addressing the Belarusian Union of Consumer Cooperatives, an organization dealing with trade in consumer products in the countryside.

"Consider yourselves to have already been a public organization. Now you will be a state-run public oganization." -- Lukashenka on the same occasion, announcing his imminent decree to nationalize the consumer trade sector in the countryside and to transform the Union of Consumer Cooperatives into a governmental agency.

"I propose to set up a council of mayoral candidates that will accumulate all the good ideas included in their election programs." -- Kyiv Mayor Oleksandr Omelchenko on 26 May, referring to the 32 candidates in the Kyiv mayoral elections.

"There is no democratic country with media as biased as those in Ukraine." -- Ukrainian parliamentary speaker Oleksandr Tkachenko on 11 May.

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June 3, 1999

Vol. 1, No. 21, 3 June 1999

A Weekly Checklist Of Events Affecting Civil Societies In Eastern Europe And The Post-Soviet States

CLINTON SAYS EARLY INTERVENTION IN KOSOVA SAVES LIVES. Speaking at Arlington National Cemetery on May 31, Memorial Day, U.S. President Bill Clinton said that many of those buried there had died "because of what was allowed to go on too long before people intervened." And he argued that NATO's intervention in Yugoslavia was intended to save lives as well as demonstrating "our commitment to leave our children a world where people are not uprooted and ravaged and slaughtered because of their race, their ethnicity, or their religion."

MILOSEVIC INDICTMENT SEEN SPLITTING SUPPORTERS. Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's indictment for war crimes is dividing his supporters, according to Sonja Biserko, director of the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia, now abroad, and Anthony Borden, head of the London-based Institute for War & Peace Reporting. The two argue that some of his earlier backers--"business interests, political supporters, war-profiteers, and Mafia operators"--may conclude that it is now too late for them to turn against him but that others now want to distance themselves from his regime.

PENTECOSTAL CHURCH WINS ROUND IN RUSSIAN COURT. Last week a Magadan court rejected prosecution demands that a local Pentecostal church be banned, AP reported from Moscow. The prosecutors had claimed that the pastor of the World of Life Pentecoastal Church had hypnotized congregants in order to secure donations.

KYRGYZ AUTHORITIES BREAK UP BAPTIST MEETING. On May 20 Kyrgyz authorities disrupted a Baptist evangelistic meeting in Kyzyl Kiya, detained 10 participants, and fined each the equivalent of one month's wages, according to Keston News Service. As collateral for payment, the authorities took the passports and drove the detainees across the border into Uzbekistan.

NORTH ATLANTIC ASSEMBLY CONDEMNS MILOSEVIC, LUKASHENKA. Meeting in Warsaw, the North Atlantic Assembly condemned on May 31 Slobodan Milosevic's policies in Kosova and noted that after Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka's term expires on July 20, he will no longer be a democratically elected head of state. The session further declared that the Supreme Soviet, outlawed by Lukashenka, is the country's only legal legislative body.

RELATIVES OF TIANANMEN VICTIMS CALL FOR INVESTIGATION. Ten years after the Chinese government crushed a pro-democracy demonstration in Tiananmen Square, 105 relatives of those killed or wounded have petitioned the Supreme People's Procuratorate to open a criminal investigation of the officials responsible, "The New York Times" reported on May 31. And the group promised that they will press their case in an international forum if Beijing refuses to undertake the invesitigation. In a related development, the opposition group China Democratic Party (CDP) on May 31 called on the authorities to stop their suppression of commemorative events and to release those arrested so far for organizing them. One of the measures the CDP is protesting concerns the shutting down of a computer chatroom for the first third of June in order to prevent pro-democracy groups from communicating with one another.

END NOTE

PRAGUE OPPOSES USTI PLANS FOR ANTI-ROMA WALL

By Charles Fenyvesi

The Czech cabinet on May 26 urged authorities in the Bohemian city of Usti nad Labem not to follow through on their plans to build a wall that would separate some 300 Roma from a middle-class ethnic Czech neighborhood.

But many Roma and their supporters in the international human rights community remain unconvinced that the cabinet decision will in fact put an end to the project. "Czech officials--including cabinet members--are adept in assuring concerned foreigners in English, especially behind closed doors, that no wall will be built, absolutely not," says one observer who requested anonymity. "But they do not make it clear in Czech to their own people that such a wall is clearly an outrage and a violation of international conventions that the Czech Republic must comply with."

The controversy rose to the level of a cabinet vote in Prague after a year of legal and public relations maneuvering by leading citizens of Usti nad Labem and only a few days after a building permit was issued there to construct "just a fence" rather than a wall. The Czech authorities also faced a rising tide of international criticism. In March, at the most recent meeting of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, Ion Diaconu, the rapporteur on the Czech Republic, criticized Prague for deciding to take legal measures only if and when the local authorities actually started building the barrier.

In a letter to Czech Prime Minister Milos Zeman dated May 28, the Budapest-based European Roma Rights Center expressed satisfaction with the Czech cabinet's "belated" recommendation to Usti nad Labem. But then the letter cautioned that "the threat of segregation continues to hang over Romany residents" and voiced "wonder" as to why it took almost a year for the Czech government "to act in response to such a blatantly unlawful act, and why it has not been possible, not merely to recommend, but rather to require as a matter of law, rescission of the decision to build the wall."

Since the plan for the wall reached the newspapers in early 1998, President Vaclav Havel and numerous Czech and international human rights leaders have condemned the wall as a step toward apartheid. Several of them followed Havel's example and visited Usti nad Labem in an attempt to explain to the townspeople that building such a wall would be an act of racism which would stain the reputation of the Czech Republic, in which the 300,000-strong Romany minority was already having its share of problems with the majority.

But some local residents stoutly denied that they were engaged in racism, arguing that a wall against the Roma was simply a "measure of social hygiene," perhaps unaware that they were using Nazi-era terminology. They argued that they were only trying to shield themselves from the noise and the rubbish created by the Roma. And they complained that property values declined to the point that they could no longer sell their houses.

This April, some Usti residents went to the town council to endorse what seemed to them a clever compromise: Instead of the original idea of a 4 meter high cinderblock or brick wall which might have reminded some of the Berlin Wall, they proposed a visually attractive 1.80 meter high ceramic "fence." The council awarded the building contract to an influential local Roma who was to add a playground as well on the Roma side of the barrier and new pavement. What is more, the town council subcontracted Romany Rainbow, the contractor's civic organization, to clean up the Roma side of Maticni street.

The town council hailed the compromise as a breakthrough. One important town official, Pavel Tosovsky, boasted to the Czech news agency CTK that the solution was arrived at without "any special mediators and human rights activists from outside Usti nad Labem," a slur aimed primarily at Czech Human Rights Commissioner and former political prisoner Petr Uhl, who had vowed to block any attempt to build any kind of wall on Maticni street.

Another outsider demanding action has been Congressman Christopher Smith (R-NJ), the co-chairman of the U.S. Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE). He and his colleagues have missed no opportunity to tell Czech officials visiting Washington that the wall was turning into "the symbol of rampant racism that plagues Europe's Romany minority." Within 24 hours of receiving word on the Czech cabinet's May 26 vote, the commission issued a statement praising the cabinet for its "courage and leadership."

Since then, commission members have been watching the impact. The townspeople in Usti nad Labem are quiet, neither canceling their plans nor preparing to build. But it appears that the cabinet is no longer so sure about the legal foundation of its authority to stop the building of the wall. Informal conversations suggest that the government is especially worried about a recent public opinion poll which had 72 percent of Czech citizens saying that they see nothing wrong about a wall in Usti nad Labem.

"We look to the Czech parliament to lay down a marker," says Erika Schlager, the U.S. CSCE commission's counsel on international law. "We are watching two developments. One, will Usti officials drop their project, and, two, if they do not, will parliament reinforce the cabinet's position?"

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June 10, 1999



Vol. 1, No. 22, 10 June 1999

A Weekly Checklist Of Events Affecting Civil Societies In Eastern Europe And The Post-Soviet States

**NOTE TO READERS** "RFE/RL Watchlist" will not appear next week but will be issued again on 24 June 1999.


FULL SETTLEMENT WITH BELGRADE TO FOCUS ON MINORITY RIGHTS. Officials from NATO countries have told RFE/RL that once the Yugoslav military evacuates Kosova, the next stage in the negotiations will be a comprehensive settlement with Yugoslavia in which the West will insist on full compliance with international human rights conventions, especially in the area of minority rights. Moreover, the West will insist that Belgrade live up to these standards across the country. Vojvodina, the once autonomous Serbian province with 16 ethnic groups, they said, will be singled out for particular insistence on this point. Western delay in making public statements on the issue so far has to do with the uncertainty about the shape of the next government in Belgrade. In the American assessment, the odds are just about equal for either the ultranationalist right or the anti-Milosevic democrats gaining the upper hand in post-Milosevic Serbia.

RIGHTS GROUPS SAY KOSOVA PEACE ACCORD IGNORES HUMAN RIGHTS. Human Rights groups were less than wholehearted in welcoming the peace accord announced by NATO and Yugoslavia on June 4. Within hours of the announcement, both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch reacted by protesting that the agreement failed to address itself to the long-term protection of human rights of all ethnic groups in Kosova and to the arrest of those responsible for war crimes. "The human rights violations that have taken place in Kosova during the past 10 years might have been prevented if effective steps had been taken," AI Secretary General Pierre Sane said. "Amnesty International fears for any civilian returning in the immediate aftermath of an armed conflict where they may face deprivations and dangers, such as booby-traps, minefields, and further killings and 'disappearances.'" He called for "unhindered access" for independent human rights monitors to all parts of Kosova and Yugoslavia. Citing the experience of the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Holly Cartner of Human Rights Watch warned that "withdrawing troops often use the closing days of war to exact revenge and express their frustration through brutal attacks on civilians."

KOSOVO PRISONERS BEATEN AND TORTURED. Veteran journalist Cerkin Ibishi is among the hundreds of Kosovo Albanians released from Kosova's Smerkovnica prison between the end of May and the beginning of June, Human Rights Watch reports on June 7. Like Ibisi, the men, now in Albania, show signs of physical abuse and torture.

EU URGED TO LEAD BALKAN RECONSTRUCTION. A position paper by European experts released in the first days of June urges the European Union to take the lead in postwar Balkan reconstruction by integrating the region in "the European civil order." Published by the Center for European Policy Studies, the paper also recommends giving Balkan nations "associate member" status in the EU, provided that they comply with international conventions on human and minority rights.

LITHUANIAN PARLIAMENT PASSES LAW AGAINST KGB FRONTS. On June 8, Lithuania's parliament voted 63 to 11 for legislation to outlaw organizations and businesses that serve as fronts for foreign intelligence services, according to the Baltic News Service. The law also stipulates that the heads of organizations and businesses that worked for Soviet intelligence must report to the State Security Department. If a court finds that a business or organization is a "front," the law calls for its liquidation. Observers expect that the Constitutional Court will be asked to examine the law.

ARMENIAN JOURNALISTS RESIST ATTEMPT TO SHUT DOWN PAPER. A brawl broke out at the editorial office of the independent newspaper "Oragir" last week when justice ministry officials attempted to confiscate its property in lieu of $25,000 in compensatory damages imposed on the daily by a Yerevan court last April, RFE/RL reports. The court ruled that "Oragir" inflicted financial and moral damages to Mika Armenia trade company by repeatedly implicating it in questionable connections with Interior and National Security Minister Serzh Sarkisian. The paper refused to pay, calling the verdict "illegal and unconstitutional." The brawl stopped after law-enforcement officials were told that the bulk of the paper's equipment is leased.

NEW RUSSIAN PREMIER CALLS FOR RELIGIOUS TOLERANCE. At a June 3 news conference Prime Minister Sergei Stepashin called for religious tolerance in Russia and acknowledged that he would have acted differently during the Chechnya war if at the time of the conflict he had had a better understanding of Islamic tradition, according to a Reuters report. "We have many faiths--not only Christians but also Muslims, Buddhists, and Jews," he said. "They are also our roots, our Russia." Known as a hardliner, Stepashin was a top security officer in 1994 when President Boris Yeltsin sent troops to the mostly Muslim region. In 1995 Stepashin resigned following a botched operation to free hostages.

TIANANMEN REMEMBERED. On June 4, the tenth anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre, thousands attended a candlelight vigil in central Hong Kong in what organizers said was the highest turnout since 1992, Reuters reports. But in Beijing, what Reuters called a "heavy security presence" prevented any commemoration. Police promptly arrested one young man who scattered leaflets calling for democracy and hours later a second man who opened a white umbrella with characters painted on it, urging the government to remember the student movement of 1989. Near the Chinese embassy in Ulan Bator, a handful of Mongolians demonstrated, demanding that Beijing release all jailed human rights activists and give freedom to Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, and Tibet. The protesters also burned a Chinese flag. In its dispatch from Hong Kong, Reuters quoted a tourist from eastern China: "I'm lucky to be in the only place in China where we can openly remember."

**UPDATE** The Pacific Fleet military court postponed the in- camera trial of journalist Grigorii Pasko, who stands accused of espionage, according to a report on Moscow's NTV June 4. A former naval captain, Pasko has been under detention since November 1997, after he revealed on Japanese TV the illegal dumping of toxic waste by Russia's Pacific Fleet (see "RFE/RL Watchlist" April 15 and April 29, 1999). According to NTV's Vladivostok correspondent Ilya Zimin, the court questioned the authenticity of the record of the search of Pasko's apartment and ordered a new expert examination. Zimin's sources say that the court's action is based on suspicions that those conducting the search planted incriminating material in what they confiscated and that the search record might have been altered post facto.

END NOTE

DESPITE YELTSIN ACTION, RUSSIA STILL HAS DEATH PENALTY

By Charles Fenyvesi

On June 3 President Boris Yeltsin signed a decree commuting the sentence of the last remaining prisoner on Russia's death row, the Russian government announced. In the preceding months, Yeltsin had commuted 716 death sentences, according to statistics gathered by Amnesty International.

"We applaud the step taken by President Yeltsin," Sam Jordan of Amnesty International told RFE/RL. "But we are concerned that the Russian judiciary and the Duma still have not acted on a specific law to eliminate the death penalty. We also think that Yeltsin triggered the growth of [the] death penalty by his campaign to get tough on crime." Jordan, AI's specialist in the death penalty issue, argues that Yeltsin's action is insufficient. "The Russian parliament must repeal the death penalty," Jordan says, "so when Yeltsin steps down his successor will be bound by the law."

But experts agree that the current Duma is firmly opposed to the abolition of the death penalty, which in turn reflects popular opinion. In January this year the daily "Izvestiya" reported a poll showing that 50 percent of Russians favor keeping the death penalty in its current form and 22 percent would like to see its use extended. The paper adds that in 1994 only 37 percent favored the death penalty. According to a poll of Moscow residents published on April 26 by Interfax, a stunningly low 2 percent of the people interviewed thought that the abolition of the death penalty was a good idea.

Reflecting these attitudes, Aleksandr Lebed, now governor of Krasnoyarsk, recently called for the repeal of the current moratorium on the death penalty. He argued that abolishing capital punishment in the current crime wave would be the equivalent of banning a vaccine during an epidemic.

In Jordan's opinion, the issue needs to be depoliticized. "The crime problem requires a lot more serious attention in Russia," he says.

"The death penalty cannot be abolished by presidential decree alone," says Peter Roudik, a specialist in East European law at the U.S. Library of Congress. "Such a major change requires some kind of administrative action. Then people might swallow it."

Yeltsin's use of executive privilege in commuting death sentences is a temporary measure to deal with a glaring instance of Russia's noncompliance with international obligations. The problem dates back to February 1996 when Russia joined the Council of Europe. Conditions of membership included two key promises by Russia: to impose an immediate moratorium on executions and to agree to the abolishment of the death penalty by signing Protocol 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights which was to be ratified within