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OMRI Pursuing Balkan Peace, No. 43, 96-10-29
From: Open Media Research Institute <http://www.omri.cz>
Pursuing Balkan Peace
No. 43, 29 October 1996
CONTENTS
[01] BOSNIAN SERBS WILL NOT EXTEND OSCE MANDATE.
[02] BOSNIAN SERB LEADER SIGNS OATH TO BOSNIA.
[03] LOCAL ELECTIONS FACE UNCERTAINTIES.
[04] NATO TO TRY TO COUNTER BOMBINGS, ARSON.
[05] HAGUE TRIBUNAL UNDER A CLOUD?
[06] BOSNIAN UPDATE.
[07] RUSSIAN HUMANITARIAN AID FOR THE SERBS.
[08] HOW THE REPUBLIKA SRPSKA TAKES CARE OF ITS INDEPENDENT MEDIA.
[09] ZAGREB ROUNDTABLE: "SERBS IN CROATIA - YESTERDAY, TODAY, TOMORROW."
[10] TRADE SANCTIONS AND THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF YUGOSLAVIA.
[11] SLOVENIA'S CLAIM ON FORMER YUGOSLAVIA'S ASSETS NOW IN COURT.
[12] SLOVENIA'S FORMER COMMUNISTS DELIVER "NO" TO NATO.
[13] POLICE ARRESTS 30 KOSOVO ALBANIANS AFTER KILLING OF TWO SERBS.
[14] W.H.O. FINDS NO EVIDENCE IN MYSTERIOUS MACEDONIAN SCHOOL DISEASE.
[15] RUSSIA WANTS LARGE CUT IN MACEDONIAN PEACE KEEPING.
[16] OPPOSITION WINS IN FIRST ROUND OF BULGARIAN PRESIDENTIAL VOTE.
[17] BULGARIAN PRESIDENTIAL HOPEFULS ON FOREIGN POLICY, SECURITY.
[01] BOSNIAN SERBS WILL NOT EXTEND OSCE MANDATE.
Republika Srpska President Biljana Plavsic told U.S. envoy John Kornblum that
Pale will not agree to prolonging the OSCE's mission for organizing elections
into next year for the local vote, Nasa Borba reported on 24 October.
Kornblum said he will nonetheless try to persuade the Serbs to change their
mind, adding that he is also concerned "about a continuing record of less than
full implementation of the [peace] process" by the Republika Srpska, Reuters
noted on 23 October. Plavsic also met with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister
Nikolai Afansievskii and the head of the Russian mission to Bosnia, Yakov
Gerasimov. The deputy minister said that "Russia has a positive stance towards
the Republika Srpska's efforts to settle relations with the Bosnian Federation
peacefully," while Plavsic praised "our traditional friends, the Russians,"
Onasa stated. Finally, Nasa Borba discussed widespread but unconfirmed
reports that Plavsic has sacked Gens. Ratko Mladic, Milan Gvero, and Momir
Talic, together with some 80 other top officers, in the latest chapter in the
long-standing dispute between the Bosnian Serb civilian and military
leaderships. -- Patrick Moore
[02] BOSNIAN SERB LEADER SIGNS OATH TO BOSNIA.
Earlier, on 22 October, the Serbian member of the three-man presidency,
Momcilo Krajisnik, signed a "solemn declaration" promising to "uphold and
defend" the Bosnian constitution, international and local media reported. That
document is contained in the Dayton peace agreement and defines Bosnia-
Herzegovina as a unitary state consisting of two "entities." By taking this
oath, Krajisnik would appear to have abandoned formal claims to independence
for the Republika Srpska, which is, however, still a major policy goal of his
party. From a number of their recent statements and actions, it seems that the
Bosnian Serb leaders have decided at least to pay lip service to the Dayton
system while still seeking independence and unity with other Serbian lands in
the long run. -- Patrick Moore
[03] LOCAL ELECTIONS FACE UNCERTAINTIES.
Meanwhile, the decision of the OSCE to postpone the November ballot until
between April and June 1997 has opened a new Pandora's box of questions (see
). First, the three sides now have an opportunity to put fresh pressure on
the international community, which is anxious to have them agree to an
extension of the OSCE's mandate to supervise the vote. The immediate concern
here is with the Serbs, whose objections to new rules for voter registration
triggered the decision to postpone the November ballot in the first place.
Krajisnik made clear that the Serbs still insist on a change in the rules,
Nasa Borba reported on 23 October. Plavsic's rejection of the extension (see
above) should probably be seen as the first move in a cat-and-mouse game that
is likely to drag on for months. Second, all parties concerned have gained at
least another six months to posture, to campaign, and to threaten boycotts.
The Serb threat to ban parties from the Muslim-Croat federation is part of
this picture (see ). Third, big organizational problems across Bosnia remain,
with no simple solution on the horizon. As election supervisor Robert Frowick
told the VOA on 22 October, the nature of the difficulties can vary greatly
from place to place. Fourth, the issue also remains open as to what kind of
international military presence -- if any -- will be authorized to help police
the vote. -- Patrick Moore
[04] NATO TO TRY TO COUNTER BOMBINGS, ARSON.
And recent events suggest that such a presence will be necessary for some time
to come. IFOR commander Adm. Joseph Lopez met on 26 October with Krajisnik,
while on 28 October Lopez also talked with the Croatian presidency member
Kresimir Zubak and with the Muslim Alija Izetbegovic, news agencies reported.
The purpose of the discussions was to end a recent spate of attacks on
buildings, which are apparently aimed at intimidating refugees from returning
to areas from which they have been "ethnically cleansed" (see ). At
issue especially were the systematic blasting of more than 90 Muslim homes and
two mosques near Serb-held Prijedor, as well as the torching of 65 Serbian
houses in Croat-held Drvar. The Dayton agreement guarantees refugees the right
to go home, and since August groups of Muslims have been trying to move back
to their villages just inside the Serbian side of the inter-entity frontier
in northeast Bosnia. Serbs from Drvar have also tried to go back to their
homes. -- Patrick Moore
[05] HAGUE TRIBUNAL UNDER A CLOUD?
Still on the subject of ethnic cleansing, Dusan Tadic, a Bosnian Serb on trial
in The Hague for war crimes, denied that he was ever in two of the three
concentration camps where he is accused of abusing and murdering Muslim or
Croatian prisoners, the VOA reported on 28 October. The case of Tadic was
weakened considerably on 25 October when the presiding judge told the tribunal
to disregard testimony from the Serb who had been the main witness against the
indicted man. Dragan Opacic admitted that he had been forced into taking the
stand against Tadic by the Bosnian authorities, whom he said had coached him
daily as to how to testify. -- Patrick Moore
[06] BOSNIAN UPDATE.
In other news, IFOR opened a rebuilt railway bridge at Bosansko Petrovo Selo
near Doboj on 28 October to reconnect Bosnian lines with Western Europe, the
VOA reported. It is now possible to travel by train from Zagreb to Belgrade,
too, Onasa added. Meanwhile at Ploce on the Adriatic, the U.S. ship bringing
arms for the Bosnian army has left its moorings and headed out to sea to await
further instructions from Washington, Nasa Borba and Oslobodjenje wrote on
28 October. The Americans are making delivery contingent on the sacking of
Bosnian Deputy Minister of Defense Hasan Cengic, whom Washington feels is the
main obstacle to integrating the Muslim and Croat armies (see ). Cengic is
also well-known for his Iranian links. -- Patrick Moore
[07] RUSSIAN HUMANITARIAN AID FOR THE SERBS.
And Moscow has been active in the region, too. The Russian Ministry for
Emergency Situations, headed by Colonel Alexander Baranov, sent 15 trucks and
5 fuel trucks to the Republika Srpska, ITAR-TASS reported from Belgrade on 20
October. The vehicles brought "250 prefabricated houses" for Bosnian and
Croatian Serb refugees, as well as 250 tones of fuel. The trucks were also
given "to the authorities of the Republika Srpska." Many Bosnian Serbs have a
traditional devotion to Russia, which in turn cultivated its ties to the Serbs
during most of the conflict. Russian diplomats, meanwhile, have had frequent
contacts recently with the Bosnian Serb leadership, news agencies reported.
Pale seems concerned that Russia as well as Western states plays a role in
Bosnia's future. -- Patrick Moore
[08] HOW THE REPUBLIKA SRPSKA TAKES CARE OF ITS INDEPENDENT MEDIA.
Still with the Bosnian Serbs, after the general elections of 14 September, and
even more, since the first session of the new RS parliament convened in Banja
Luka on 19 October, the RS authorities are feeling triumphant. "Victoriously
strong" is the way that one top official in Pale characterized the mood for
OMRI. "We got all we wanted," he declared. Not only are they flaunting it in
the face of international organizations and the U.S. mediators, but armed with
their endorsement at the ballot box they are also starting to go after their
most outspoken and vulnerable opponents: times are definitely getting rougher
for independent journalists and the independent media in the RS.
Most of the independent press used to be printed in the official printing
house in Banja Luka, which is an offshoot of the daily of the governing
Serbian Democratic Party (SDS),Glas Srpski. In mid-October, however, the
print shop suddenly announced that "for technical reasons" it had to
suspend production of certain publications. Not too surprisingly, all the
titles they were no longer going to produce happened to be from the
independent press. The list included: Nezavisne Novine, the only independent
daily; Alternativa, a weekly from Doboj; and Novi Prelom, the oldest
of all independent publications located in Banja Luka. Why the Glas
Srpski decided on such a move at a time when its presses are not running
at anything close to full capacity has not been answered directly. All that
the printers said was that they are running a purely commercial operation
and that the content of publications has no bearing on business decisions.
In any case, their decision to no longer produce the papers came at the moment
that the independent press was providing some real competition for the Glas
Srpski daily, gaining a significantly higher circulation than the official
paper. The fact that the successful Nezavisne Novine changed from a weekly
to a daily is widely seen as having led the producers of Glas Srpski to
limit access to their presses.
Doboj's Alternativa, which managed to print a strong protest against the
pending suspension in its 17 October issue, did receive something of an
explanation from Glas Srpski's management. The official reason, its editors
were told, was that it had earlier published a critical article headlined: "A
Slap in the Face of Truth," protesting against the refusal to print Nezavisne
Novine. Alternativa's editor-in-chief said: "Nice proof that the reasons
are strictly technical."
In another indication of the RS leadership's intention to silence and squelch
independent voices, local observers in Banja Luka pointed to the pressure that
has been applied on Radio Krajina, which is run by the Bosnian Serb Army and
is the most independent radio station in the RS. Its head, Maj. Col.
Milutinovic, started to broadcast on 13 September 1995 without any government
permission. "This was like an uprising against the government after they lost
Krajina in such a strange way," Milutinovic told OMRI. "If we were not housed
in [an army building] from the very beginning, we would have been probably
bombed out ten times by now." The Army pays rent and utility bills, and
supplies the Radio with its transmitter on Mt. Kozara. In January and March
1996, Milutinovic applied to register the station as a cooperative but was
turned down on both occasions. "For the government we are traitors, and the
SDS is mad at us and makes sure no one places any commercials here."
Since September, however, Radio Krajina has experienced transmitting
difficulties. A new Radio Sveti Jovan -- registered under its private owner
Sonja Karadzic, daughter of Radovan Karadzic, but financed by the SDS --
operates very close to Radio Krajina's frequency. With the help of the federal
Yugoslav army, Milutinovic managed to get a stronger transmitter within 48
hours. But immediately afterward, the pop music station Radio Big -- with
strong ties to the RS interior ministry -- encroached on their frequency.
The peak of the SDS' campaign against the more liberal voices in the RS is a
libel case against Pavle Stanisic and Zivko Savkovic, both journalists with
Doboj's Alternativa.. They have been sued by the minister for veterans'
affairs, Vojo Radiskovic, and Doboj's post and telecom director, Dusan Panic.
The journalists in one article had linked the two officials to SDS activists
who blocked several opposition election meetings. The coverage of the trial in
local media suggests a strong anti-Alternativa campaign is underway, and the
defense minister has accused the defendants on Radio Doboj of "selling
information to great-power spies."
While the RS opposition views this trial as a bad omen for things to come and
as an intimidation of all independent media, the opposition has so far failed
to attract the sort of international or even domestic attention it feels it
needs to survive. -- Yvonne Badal in Sarajevo
[09] ZAGREB ROUNDTABLE: "SERBS IN CROATIA - YESTERDAY, TODAY, TOMORROW."
Moving to Croatia, the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights from 18-20
October organized a roundtable in Zagreb entitled "Serbs in Croatia -
Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow." Since June, when it was first scheduled, the
conference has been put off until October, owing largely to a negative
campaign conducted by official Croatian media and because of open threats
against the conference organizers. One of them, Yale University Prof. Ivo
Banac, resigned his membership in the Croatian Writers' Association. His
reason was that one of the Association members openly called for lynching the
organizers, labeling them "enemies of the state."
The round-table was unique in terms of bringing together Croatian and Serbian
intellectuals for the first time in five years to discuss the role of Croatian
Serbs in a historical perspective. Although it was attended by some high-
ranking government officials -- including Deputy Premier Ivica Kostovic and
the head of the Government Office for Refugees, Damir Zoric -- the absence of
some prominent opposition figures and representatives of the Catholic Church
was noteworthy. However, such an eventuality was anticipated in the
introductory paper by Banac, who claimed that the current program of the
Croatian leadership has been reduced "to national engineering and assimilation,"$
which is silently supported by the major opposition parties and a large part
of the intelligentsia and clerical officials.
In the past, the Croatian Serbs recognized only one Croatia, that of Tito's
Yugoslavia. They rejected Tudjman's independent state, which for its part made
the Serbs uneasy by stressing that Croatia is a state of Croats only. Nor does
the current situation of most Croatian Serbs seem promising. According to some
sources, of the 581,000 registered in the 1981 census, some 150,000-200,000
remain in the country, excluding those in eastern Slavonia. Thus from 12% of
the total population, Croatia's Serbs today constitute some 4%. Many surveys
show that Serbs who left do not plan to return, while those who want to go
back encounter many administrative obstacles set up by the Croatian
government.
Predictions of the future of Serbs in Croatia remained vague but tended
towards the optimistic. Vlado Gotovac, president of the main opposition
Croatian Social Liberal Party (HSLS), said Croatia was entering a new phase in
which national concerns -- including anti-Serb feelings -- have been gradually
replaced by economic ones. -- Daria Sito Sucic
[10] TRADE SANCTIONS AND THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF YUGOSLAVIA.
Speaking of economic issues, the last session of the U.S. Congress passed
legislation effectively prolonging into 1997 trade sanctions against the
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, despite a 1 October UN resolution outlining
their lifting. According to Nasa Borba on 23 October, Washington's action,
amounting to enforcing the "outer wall" of sanctions against Serbia and
Montenegro, is tied to Dayton provisions calling for an improvement in
internal conditions in Serbia's predominantly ethnic Albanian province of
Kosovo. Congress' legislation includes specific stipulations for lifting
sanctions, such as renewed autonomy for the region, guarantees of human rights,
and the return of international observers to the province. -- Stan
Markotich
[11] SLOVENIA'S CLAIM ON FORMER YUGOSLAVIA'S ASSETS NOW IN COURT.
And Serbia has had problems with Slovenia as well. Hearings to determine the
status of assets held by the Cyprus branch of Belgrade's Beobanka resumed in a
Nicosia court on 21 October, Radio Slovenija reported . While Ljubljana's
representatives have laid claim to a portion of the assets, Borka Vucic,
Beobanka's director on Cyprus, counter-charged that Slovenian officials have
no proof that any Slovenian commercial banks made deposits with the former
National Bank of Yugoslavia from 1978 to 1988, and that thus any assets have
come to be held by Beobanka. Vucic also alleged that in fact Slovenia owed
Beobanka some $2 billion, purportedly withheld since the collapse of socialist
Yugoslavia. Earlier this year, Slovenia succeeded in having Beobanka's assets
in Cyprus frozen by court order. -- Stan Markotich
[12] SLOVENIA'S FORMER COMMUNISTS DELIVER "NO" TO NATO.
Meanwhile in Slovenia itself, the United List of Social Democrats (ZLSD) --
the successors to the communist party and led by Janez Kocijancic -- are on
the campaign trail for the 10 November elections. They have promised that a
government under their influence would most likely not back NATO membership.
Reuters on 21 October quoted Kocijancic as saying: "NATO is not the only
alternative. The other is neutrality like in Austria, Sweden and Ireland." But
the ZLSD leader says he has no plans to abandon the aim of joining the
European Union. EU membership is a "process [that] cannot be stopped as there
are no alternatives. Slovenes do not want to go back to the Balkans," he said.
The ZLSD, holding 14 out of 90 legislative seats, was a member of the three-
party governing coalition -- including the Liberal Democrats and the Christian
Democrats -- until it split early this year. -- Stan Markotich
[13] POLICE ARRESTS 30 KOSOVO ALBANIANS AFTER KILLING OF TWO SERBS.
But things have not been so genteel in Kosovo, where tensions have been on the
rise. Serbian police there arrested 30 ethnic Albanians in Surkis near
Podujevo, after a police officer and a civil servant had been killed in an
ambush with automatic weapons on 25 October, Reuters reported. Funerals for
the victims were held on 27 October in Surkis and Velika Reka with a heavy
Serbian police presence, AFP reported. Deputy Prime Minister of the Federal
Republic of Yugoslavia Nikola Sainovic and Serbian Interior Minister Zoran
Sokolovic visited representatives of the Serb community in Podujevo the
previous evening. Sokolovic promised that a police intervention unit be
stationed in the town, and said he would ask the federal government to set up
an army garrison in Podujevo. -- Fabian Schmidt
[14] W.H.O. FINDS NO EVIDENCE IN MYSTERIOUS MACEDONIAN SCHOOL DISEASE.
There have been tensions between Albanians and Slavs in Macedonia, too. An
experts' group of the WHO has issued a report on investigations into a
mysterious illness which broke out in Tetovo earlier this month. The malady
infected some 1,000 ethnic Albanian teen-age school children, 600 of whom were
hospitalized for up to three days. The team conducted various tests but found
no evidence of infection or poisoning to explain the illness, which causes
headaches, stomach and muscle pains, breathing difficulties, and dizziness,
AFP reported. The WHO will continue to investigate. Albanian political parties
have alleged there is a conspiracy by Macedonians to poison Albanian children.
-- Fabian Schmidt
[15] RUSSIA WANTS LARGE CUT IN MACEDONIAN PEACE KEEPING.
Meanwhile, the Russian presence has been felt in Macedonia as well as in
Bosnia. Russia's UN representative Sergei Lavrov on 28 October stated in
Skopje that "Russia believes the [UNPREDEP] mandate should stay the same but
with a major reduction in troops," AFP reported. He held talks with President
Kiro Gligorov and Foreign Minister Ljubomir Frckovski. The mandate of the 1,
100 troops runs out on 30 November, but Skopje has asked for an extension
because of the weakness of its own army. Lavrov also visited UN special
representative in Macedonia Henryk Sokalski and representatives of the OSCE.
Meanwhile, the Macedonian defense ministry said it will buy arms for $200
million over the next five years. NATO had asked that the weapons comply with
Western standards but Skopje made it clear that Macedonia was under no
obligation to buy Western-made weapons. Macedonia joined NATO's Partnership
for Peace program in late 1995. -- Fabian Schmidt
[16] OPPOSITION WINS IN FIRST ROUND OF BULGARIAN PRESIDENTIAL VOTE.
But one of the top Balkan stories this week was the 27 October Bulgarian
presidential elections. The vote showed three main trends: the opposition
clearly dominated the poll; the results were disastrous for the governing
Bulgarian Socialist Party; and a relatively low voter turnout suggests that
people are becoming increasingly disillusioned with politics.
The presidential and vice-presidential candidates of the united opposition,
Petar Stoyanov and Todor Kavaldzhiev, garnered 44.09% of the popular vote on
27 October, according to preliminary results released by the Central
Electoral Commission the following day. The candidates of the BSP, Culture
Minister Ivan Marazov and Deputy Foreign Minister Irina Bokova, were a distant
second with only 26.98%. Bulgarian Business Bloc (BBB) leader Georges Ganchev
and his running mate Arlin Antonov received 21.86% of the vote. The other
candidates are trailing far behind. Aleksandar Tomov and Gen. Lyudmil
Marinchevski received 3.18%, and the comedians Hristo Boychev and Ivan Kulekov,
1.34%. The other eight teams received less than 1 percentage point. Voter
turnout was 62.7%, the electoral commission said. Since no candidate received
an outright majority, Stoyanov and Marazov will compete in a 3 November
runoff.
It had been expected that Stoyanov would win the first round by a comfortable
margin. The actual vote showed that the opposition indeed managed to
capitalize on widespread discontent with the Socialist government. To what
extent the showing can be attributed to the candidates personally and to the
parties supporting them is a different question, which only the next round
will answer. At this point, Stoyanov's victory should not be mistaken for a
turning of the tide and a sign that the opposition is close to driving the
Socialists from power.
Marazov's and Bokova's weak showing of course indicates that they had to pay
the price for the BSP government's policies. But it is also true (and should
not be forgotten) that the BSP had to change its candidates after Foreign
Minister Georgi Pirinski was barred from running on grounds of not being a
"Bulgarian citizen by birth." Still, the results are more embarrassing for the
party than for the two candidates, and it will certainly put Prime Minister
and BSP Chairman Zhan Videnov in a bad light. Marazov distanced himself
form Videnov by saying that "the government is one thing, and the head of
state [is] something completely different." At a BSP plenary meeting on 28
October, several leading Socialist politicians asked for Videnov's resignation
as party leader and premier. The decision has essentially been put on hold
until after the second round of the presidential elections, but Videnov's
political career seems to be drawing to a close, at least for now. The
sociologist Andrey Raychev -- a leading member of the Alliance for a Social
Democracy, the most important reformist faction within the BSP -- did not,
moreover, rule out a split of the party.
Even more indicative of the BSP's problems is the fact that Ganchev garnered
only 5% less than Marazov. While in the end the difference between Marazov and
Ganchev is big enough to prevent a total disaster for the Socialists, it
reinforces Ganchev's position as one of the major political actors in the
country. After this vote, Ganchev has consolidated his position in Bulgarian
politics and his BBB is a force to be reckoned with.
The turnout, finally, was around 12-15% lower than in the previous
presidential elections in 1992 and the last parliamentary elections in 1994,
and compares to that in last years local elections. The fact that no more
people bothered to vote for their president than did for their mayors is a
clear sign that Bulgarians are fed up with their politicians and disillusioned
with the state of politics in general. There appears to be widespread feeling
that politics is just a dirty business and that it is useless to participate.
It is still early to predict the outcome of the runoff, since it remains to be
seen whether Tomov-- and especially Ganchev -- will call on their voters to
cast their ballot for one of the two remaining candidates. But since
conventional wisdom has it that both Stoyanov and Marazov will profit from the
votes Ganchev received in the first round, a victory of the opposition
candidate seems very likely. The question is how big the difference between
the two candidates will be, and whether Stoyanov's victory will prove to be
the first in a series of opposition successes. Another question is whether
more Bulgarians will bother to show up at the polling station in that
decisive round. -- Stefan Krause in Sofia
[17] BULGARIAN PRESIDENTIAL HOPEFULS ON FOREIGN POLICY, SECURITY.
Before the 27 October presidential elections , the main candidates laid out
their foreign and security policy priorities in two debates in the national
media and in lectures at Sofia's Atlantic Club. Marazov addressed the Atlantic
Club on 16 October. He said the main foreign and security policy issues such
as EU and NATO membership should be solved by consensus and warned against
attempts to exploit the disputed issue of NATO membership in the election
campaign. Marazov proposed that referenda be held to decide on EU and NATO
membership but did not say whether he favors NATO membership. The BSP has
still not taken a definite position although it is generally critical of
joining the Alliance. But Marazov -- in a reference to Russian objections to
NATO enlargement -- noted that this is a matter only for NATO and the country
wishing to join.
Stoyanov had already delivered a lecture at the Atlantic Club on 7 October.
Unlike Marazov, Stoyanov insisted that Bulgaria must join NATO. He said a
refusal to join would result in isolation not only from the West but also from
the Visegrad countries and Bulgaria's Balkan neighbors. Stoyanov also noted
his intention to work toward good relations with Russia but said that the
present Bulgarian government's foreign policy led to an estrangement from
Europe and the U.S. without bringing Bulgaria closer to Russia. As to the
Balkans, Stoyanov said Bulgaria must have a "completely balanced"
policy.
The debates on national TV and radio on 10 and 17 October only served to
highlight the differences between the two main candidates. Here, Marazov was
joined by his running mate, Bokova. Stoyanov again said Bulgaria should join
NATO to secure its security interests, while Marazov and Bokova said the
parliament or the people should decide on that question. The disputes were
mainly a show that brought little insight or new positions. At any rate,
Standart on 12 October noted that Stoyanov's appearance during the first
debate met with 28% approval, against 14% for Marazov, while the Socialist
daily Duma's headline suggested that "Ivan and Irina razed their opponent to
the ground."
Ganchev used his three minutes to complain about the law allotting air time to
the candidates according to their parties' strength in parliament. Ganchev --
whose poll ratings had risen and almost caught up with Marazov's -- met with
Russian Ambassador Aleksandr Avdeev and told him that NATO membership is
"unrealistic" and that Bulgaria should pursue a policy of "active neutrality."
-- Stefan Krause
Edited by Patrick Moore
This material was reprinted with permission of the Open Media
Research Institute, a nonprofit organization with research offices in
Prague, Czech Republic.
For more information on OMRI publications please write to info@omri.cz.
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