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RFE/RL Newsline, Vol. 3, No. 182, 99-09-17

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

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

RFE/RL NEWSLINE

Vol. 3, No. 182, 17 September 1999


CONTENTS

[A] TRANSCAUCASUS AND CENTRAL ASIA

  • [01] OSCE CHAIRMAN-IN-OFFICE VISITS YEREVAN
  • [02] ARMENIA, IMF REACH AGREEMENT
  • [03] PACE PRESIDENT IN GEORGIA
  • [04] JOURNALISTS CALL FOR MORE KAZAKH-LANGUAGE BROADCASTING
  • [05] ANOTHER CACHE OF EXPLOSIVES DISCOVERED IN KAZAKHSTAN
  • [06] KYRGYZ PRESIDENTIAL AIDES DENY GERMAN MEDIA REPORT
  • [07] KYRGYZ OPPOSITION POLITICIAN DELIVERS HUMANITARIAN AID TO
  • [08] IRANIAN FOREIGN MINISTER ENDS VISIT TO TAJIKISTAN

  • [B] SOUTHEASTERN EUROPE

  • [09] RUSSIAN GENERAL URGES ETHNIC ALBANIANS TO TRUST HIS SOLDIERS
  • [10] UNMIK PREPARES VOTER REGISTRATION
  • [11] OSCE, UN LAUNCH 'RADIO AND TELEVISION KOSOVA'...
  • [12] ...DISAPPOINTING SACKED 'RADIO AND TELEVISION PRISHTINA'
  • [13] U.S. GENERAL SAYS UCK LEADERSHIP 'COMMITTED' TO DISARM
  • [14] BELGRADE CALLS UCK DISARMAMENT 'FARCE'
  • [15] FBI BACKS STORIES OF MASSACRES
  • [16] GLIGOROV SAYS WEST MISREAD SERBS, MISLED MACEDONIA
  • [17] ANTI-MILOSEVIC COALITION CALLS FOR 'PEACEFUL REVOLUTION'
  • [18] PENSIONERS WANT MILOSEVIC TO GO
  • [19] WILL HIS FRIENDS OUST HIM?
  • [20] MONTENEGRO: MILOSEVIC MOBILIZING POLICE
  • [21] ALBANIA'S MAJKO SLAMS POLITICIANS FOR LINKS TO CRIMINALS...
  • [22] ...AND CHALLENGES NANO
  • [23] HUNGARY SIDES WITH BULGARIA IN DISPUTE WITH ROMANIA
  • [24] CLUJ EXTREME NATIONALIST MAYOR DOES IT AGAIN
  • [25] ROMANIA, RUSSIA, DIFFER ON EVALUATING EXPERT MEETING
  • [26] COMPROMISE IN OFFING ON MOLDOVAN PRESIDENTIAL SYSTEM?
  • [27] BULGARIAN LOCAL ELECTION CAMPAIGN OFFICIALLY LAUNCHED

  • [C] END NOTE

  • [28] AMBIGUOUS ANNIVERSARY

  • [A] TRANSCAUCASUS AND CENTRAL ASIA

    [01] OSCE CHAIRMAN-IN-OFFICE VISITS YEREVAN

    On the first leg of a

    tour of the South Caucasus originally scheduled for April

    (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 8 April 1999), Knut Vollebaek held

    talks in Yerevan on 16 September with President Robert

    Kocharian, Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian, parliament

    deputy chairman Ruben Mirzoyan, and Arkadii Ghukasian,

    president of the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic,

    Noyan Tapan reported. At a press conference after those

    meetings, Vollebaek expressed approval of the recent direct

    talks between Kocharian and his Azerbaijani counterpart,

    Heidar Aliev, saying that the Minsk Group and the OSCE are

    ready to rejoin the negotiating process, in which, he added,

    representatives of Karabakh should also be included. He

    suggested that there is no need for a new draft peace plan

    for Karabakh, given that previous Minsk Group initiatives are

    still on the table. Vollebaek also greeted Oskanian's

    announcement that Armenia is releasing three Azerbaijani

    prisoners of war as a gesture of good will. LF

    [02] ARMENIA, IMF REACH AGREEMENT

    Armenian Finance Minister Levon

    Barkhudarian said on 16 September that the Armenian

    government and the IMF have reached agreement on the terms of

    the release of a vital new $28 million loan tranche, which

    will almost certainly be made available by the end of 1999,

    RFE/RL's Yerevan bureau reported. That agreement also paves

    the way for disbursement of a $25 million World Bank loan to

    cover Armenia's budget deficit. Originally expected in June,

    the IMF and World Bank loan tranches were frozen due to a

    higher-than-projected budget deficit. The Armenian parliament

    last month approved the government's package of austerity

    measures aimed at reducing that deficit (see "RFE/RL

    Newsline," 30 August 1999). The freezing of the funds has led

    to widespread wage arrears in the public sector. Barkhudarian

    said the government will pay all back salaries and pensions

    by mid-October provided that the World Bank makes the money

    available. LF

    [03] PACE PRESIDENT IN GEORGIA

    Lord Russell Johnston, head of the

    parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe, held talks

    in Tbilisi on 14 September with Georgian Minister of State

    Vazha Lortkipanidze and President Eduard Shevardnadze,

    Caucasus Press reported. Those talks focused on the prospects

    for the admission of Armenia and Azerbaijan to full

    membership of the Council of Europe, the possibility of

    Georgian mediation in the Karabakh conflict, and the

    situation in the North Caucasus. Shevardnadze argued that

    Armenia and Azerbaijan should be admitted simultaneously to

    full membership of the Council of Europe. Shevardnadze

    emphasized the importance of the planned meeting under the

    aegis of the U.S. of the prime ministers of the three South

    Caucasus states, adding that Russia, Turkey and the OSCE may

    also be invited to send representatives, "Nezavisimaya

    gazeta" reported on 17 September. The meeting is to focus on

    the security problems in the South Caucasus. LF

    [04] JOURNALISTS CALL FOR MORE KAZAKH-LANGUAGE BROADCASTING

    Union

    of Journalists of Kazakhstan chairman Kamal Smailov told a

    press conference in Almaty on 15 September that of the 150

    hours of programming broadcast weekly by the electronic

    media, only 10 percent is in Kazakh, RFE/RL's bureau in the

    former capital reported. The Law on the State Languages

    requires that a minimum of 50 percent of all broadcasts

    should be in the Kazakh language. LF

    [05] ANOTHER CACHE OF EXPLOSIVES DISCOVERED IN KAZAKHSTAN

    Security officials have discovered 1.5 tons of the explosive

    ammonal, together with 190 electric detonators, in a

    warehouse in a town near Almaty, Interfax reported on 16

    September. In late August, police found grenades, detonators

    and two explosive devices in an abandoned garage in Astana

    (see RFE/RL Newsline," 31 August 1999). LF

    [06] KYRGYZ PRESIDENTIAL AIDES DENY GERMAN MEDIA REPORT

    Two aides

    to Kyrgyzstan's President Askar Akaev on 16 September said a

    report in the Berlin daily "Der Tagesspiegel" that Akaev may

    return to academic work rather than contend next year's

    presidential poll is incorrect and based on a

    misunderstanding, Reuters and RFE/RL's Bishkek bureau

    reported (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 16 September 1999).

    Presidential press spokesman Kanybek Imanaliev explained that

    in referring to "elections of a new president" in 2000, Akaev

    had not excluded the possibility that he would run himself.

    Presidential aide Gulnara Myrzhambetova said that the

    Constitutional Court ruled in 1998 that Akaev had been

    elected president of Kyrgyzstan only once (in December 1995)

    since the adoption of the present constitution in May 1993,

    and may therefore seek re-election for a second term. Akaev

    was first elected president in October 1991. The 1993

    constitution bans one individual from serving three

    consecutive terms. LF

    [07] KYRGYZ OPPOSITION POLITICIAN DELIVERS HUMANITARIAN AID TO

    FUGITIVES IN SOUTH

    Former Bishkek mayor Feliks Kulov, the

    most authoritative potential challenger to Akaev in next

    year's presidential poll, on 16 September delivered food,

    clothing, and medication worth some $5,000 to villagers who

    fled their homes in Batken Raion to escape from the Uzbek

    guerrillas who entered the region in August and took

    hostages, RFE/RL's Bishkek bureau reported. Kulov publicly

    blamed the National Security Ministry, which he headed from

    1996 to March 1998, for the hostage crisis. LF

    [08] IRANIAN FOREIGN MINISTER ENDS VISIT TO TAJIKISTAN

    Visiting

    Dushanbe on 13-15 September, Kamal Kharrazi met with his

    Tajik counterpart, Talbak Nazarov, President Imomali

    Rakhmonov, and Prime Minister Yahyo Azimov to discuss

    expanding bilateral relations, in particular economic

    cooperation, and the civil war in Afghanistan, which they

    agreed should be resolved through further meetings of the so-

    called "Six Plus Two" group under the aegis of the UN, Asia

    Plus-Blitz reported. Kharrazi also discussed the situation in

    Afghanistan with that country's ousted president, Burhanuddin

    Rabbani, who likewise called for a new meeting as soon as

    possible of the "Six Plus Two" group," Nezavisimaya gazeta"

    reported on 17 September. Kharrazi and United Tajik

    Opposition (UTO) leader Said Abdullo Nuri discussed the

    possible participation of both Iran and Tajikistan in

    securing the release of the four Japanese geologists held

    hostage in Kyrgyzstan by ethnic Uzbek guerrillas, according

    to ITAR-TASS. Nuri said the UTO has already sent

    representatives at Kyrgyzstan's request to try to mediate

    with the guerrillas. LF


    [B] SOUTHEASTERN EUROPE

    [09] RUSSIAN GENERAL URGES ETHNIC ALBANIANS TO TRUST HIS SOLDIERS

    Major-General Valerii Yevtukovich told journalists in

    Prishtina on 16 September: "We will not use force, but we

    will continue our talks to find a solution that allows

    Russian troops to deploy in [Rahovec]. We believe that we

    will find a positive result," an RFE/RL South Slavic Service

    correspondent reported. Ethnic Albanians have been blocking

    the roads to that town since late August to prevent the

    deployment of the Russian KFOR contingent there, arguing that

    Russian mercenaries committed atrocities in that region

    during the war. Yevtukovich stressed that the Russian forces

    must go to Rahovec as part of the [18 June] Helsinki

    agreements and reassured the Kosovar Albanians that the

    Russian forces are neutral. He stressed that "the Russian

    Federation [is] not responsible for the things that

    [mercenaries had done, and those things] must not be linked

    to the Russian peacekeeping mission." FS

    [10] UNMIK PREPARES VOTER REGISTRATION

    Officials from the UN

    Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) announced in Prishtina on 16

    September that on 1 October they will begin to register

    voters for the upcoming elections, for which no date has been

    set. The registration process will last for six months,

    RFE/RL's South Slavic Service reported. Meanwhile, several

    key political parties of Kosova have decided to form a joint

    body which will assist with organizing the upcoming

    elections. FS

    [11] OSCE, UN LAUNCH 'RADIO AND TELEVISION KOSOVA'...

    Richard

    Dill, the interim director of Radio and Television Kosova

    (RTK), told an RFE/RL South Slavic Service correspondent in

    Prishtina on 16 September that the UN and OSCE have given the

    green light for his station to begin broadcasting on 19

    September. Dill said that the program will be transmitted via

    satellite. He stressed that RTK is a public service that does

    not belong to any government or investor but exclusively to

    the people of Kosova. Dill added that RTK intends to

    broadcast programs from Kosova, which are produced by

    Kosovars in Kosova in cooperation with UN television. He

    predicted that it will become the basis for the creation of a

    full-fledged public service broadcaster and train the staff

    of such a station. The programs will be in Albanian and

    Serbian. FS

    [12] ...DISAPPOINTING SACKED 'RADIO AND TELEVISION PRISHTINA'

    JOURNALISTS

    Martin Cuni, the chairman of the Coordinating

    Council of Radio and Television Prishtina, issued a

    declaration in Prishtina on 16 September saying that his

    council has nothing in common with RTK. The council was

    founded by ethnic-Albanian journalists who were

    demonstratively sacked by the Belgrade regime in 1990. Cuni

    stressed that neither the UN nor the OSCE or the European

    Broadcasting Union have consulted his council about the

    creation of RTK. Dill, however, made clear that RTK is not a

    continuation of Radio and Television Prishtina, even though

    it will broadcast from its former premises. FS

    [13] U.S. GENERAL SAYS UCK LEADERSHIP 'COMMITTED' TO DISARM

    General Henry Shelton, who is the chairman of the U.S. Joint

    Chiefs of Staff, said in Prague on 16 September that the

    Kosova Liberation Army (UCK) has "not complied as rapidly as

    any of us would have liked to have in terms of the local

    level, but at the leadership level they have remained

    committed," Reuters reported. He added: "As of right now they

    are moving steadily toward that and we have no reason to

    believe that they don't intend to comply." Shelton declined

    to answer what he called "hypothetical" questions about what

    NATO will do if the UCK does not fulfill its obligations. He

    said: "It is something we will deal with when and if the date

    comes and they do not comply." FS

    [14] BELGRADE CALLS UCK DISARMAMENT 'FARCE'

    Vladislav Jovanovic,

    who is Yugoslavia's top diplomat at the UN, said in New York

    on 16 September that the disarmament of the UCK is a "farce"

    because the guerrillas are handing in only outdated weapons.

    He charged that the UCK is hiding its best weapons in

    Albania, Macedonia, and secret locations in Kosova. Jovanovic

    did not provide any proof of his assertions, but added that

    "everybody knows" that what he says is true, AP reported. He

    stressed that the UCK seeks to become the dominant military

    and political force in the province. PM

    [15] FBI BACKS STORIES OF MASSACRES

    FBI forensic experts said in

    Washington on 16 September that they are prepared to

    substantiate eyewitness claims of massacres in Kosova during

    the recent conflict. The experts noted that their conclusion

    is based on having examined 124 bodies from 21 sites in

    Kosova. One spokesman noted that the victims ranged between 2

    and 94 years of age. PM

    [16] GLIGOROV SAYS WEST MISREAD SERBS, MISLED MACEDONIA

    Macedonian President Kiro Gligorov told the Belgrade weekly

    "Vreme" that he well remembers the 40 years he spent in the

    Serbian capital as a communist official. He stressed that

    Western governments were mistaken if they thought that the

    Serbs could be defeated by only a few weeks' bombing. He

    added that those same governments made "big promises" to

    Macedonia but did little to help with his country's huge

    refugee burden during the recent conflict. His political

    rival, Prime Minister Ljubco Georgievski, was wrong to treat

    the UCK's Hashim Thaci as "almost a head of state," Gligorov

    argued. He noted that ethnic Albanians could constitute the

    majority of the population in Macedonia by 2015 if present

    demographic trends continue. PM

    [17] ANTI-MILOSEVIC COALITION CALLS FOR 'PEACEFUL REVOLUTION'

    Some 5,000 supporters of the Alliance for Change attended the

    organization's convention in Novi Sad on 16 September.

    Alliance leader Vladan Batic told cheering crowds that the

    nationwide protests slated to begin on 21 September will mark

    the start of a "peaceful, social revolution." He stressed

    that Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic "must go." Several

    other prominent speakers--including senior banker Dragoslav

    Avramovic and Democratic Party leader Zoran Djindjic--echoed

    a key theme of the convention's resolution, namely that

    prosperity and integration into Europe will come only after

    Milosevic goes. Other prominent persons in attendance

    included Vojvodina's Nenad Canak, Cacak's Velimir Ilic,

    former General Vuk Obradovic, and Archbishop Artemije, who is

    a key leader of the Kosova Serbs. PM

    [18] PENSIONERS WANT MILOSEVIC TO GO

    Several hundred pensioners

    demonstrated in Belgrade and Kragujevac against the

    government on 16 September. They protested plans by the

    authorities to give them vouchers for electricity payments in

    place of unpaid pensions. PM

    [19] WILL HIS FRIENDS OUST HIM?

    Dusan Mihajlovic, who heads the

    New Democracy Party, said that the main threat to Milosevic

    comes not from the opposition but from those members of the

    ruling establishment who want to end Serbia's international

    pariah status, AP reported from Belgrade on 17 September. PM

    [20] MONTENEGRO: MILOSEVIC MOBILIZING POLICE

    Prime Minister Filip

    Vujanovic said in Podgorica on 16 September that Milosevic

    has increased the number of his military police in Montenegro

    without consulting with or informing the republic's

    authorities, Reuters reported. He did not provide any details

    but added that the Montenegrin government will not "take any

    countermeasures." The Belgrade press is wrong when it reports

    that Montenegro has set up paramilitary formations, Vujanovic

    added. He stressed that his government will seek

    international aid in response to Serbia's blockade on food

    shipments to his mountainous republic (see "RFE/RL Newsline,"

    10 September 1999). In other news, the Montenegrin parliament

    began discussions of Podgorica's future relations with

    Belgrade, RFE/RL's South Slavic Service reported. And Serbian

    Renewal Movement leader Vuk Draskovic told Montenegrin

    Television that he helped block a plan by Yugoslav Prime

    Minister Momir Bulatovic to launch a putsch in Montenegro in

    April. PM

    [21] ALBANIA'S MAJKO SLAMS POLITICIANS FOR LINKS TO CRIMINALS...

    Prime Minister Pandeli Majko said in Tirana on 16 September

    that unspecified Albanian politicians have "encouraged crime,

    supporting it not only morally," AP reported. He added that

    these politicians, abusing their parliamentary immunity, have

    protected criminals who would have had to be convicted under

    the law. Majko explicitly said that this applied to both his

    Socialist Party and the opposition Democrats. He said:

    "Before shooting, a policeman has to think first which

    political clan a given criminal represents." Majko pledged

    that his government "will work for a definitive and full

    separation of politics from crime [and attack] crime without

    any compromise." FS

    [22] ...AND CHALLENGES NANO

    Majko announced in Tirana on 16

    September that he will run against his predecessor Fatos Nano

    for the chair of the Socialist Party on 10 October, an RFE/RL

    South Slavic Service correspondent reported. Majko dismissed

    recent charges by Nano that he is too close to opposition

    leader Sali Berisha by saying that "it is better to shake

    hands with Berisha than with Milosevic." He was referring to

    a Balkan summit on Crete in 1997, where Nano met Milosevic.

    Responding to recent claims by Nano that Majko has allowed

    Kosovar guerrillas to smuggle arms through Albania,

    Information Minister Musa Ulqini said that "the Albanian

    government has acted in accordance with the constitution and

    has fulfilled all its obligations towards what is called the

    'national question.'" FS

    [23] HUNGARY SIDES WITH BULGARIA IN DISPUTE WITH ROMANIA

    Defense

    Minister Janos Szabo on 16 September told his visiting

    Bulgarian counterpart Georgi Ananiev that he will inform his

    NATO colleagues at an informal meeting in Toronto next week

    on "the need to build a bridge between Vidin and Calafat" and

    will "insist on their support." Bulgaria and Romania have

    long disagreed on the location of a new bridge over the

    Danube River, with Romania wanting the bridge to be built

    further east than the Vidin-Calafat stretch favored by

    Bulgaria. Szabo said that he is convinced that the passage of

    NATO troops, including Hungarian troops, across Bulgaria to

    Kosova would be greatly facilitated by a Vidin-Calafat

    bridge, BTA reported. MS

    [24] CLUJ EXTREME NATIONALIST MAYOR DOES IT AGAIN

    Police on 17

    September dismantled a sign put up during the night in front

    of the Hungarian general consulate in Cluj at the order of

    extreme nationalist Mayor Gheorghe Funar, Romanian radio

    reported. The inscription read "Seat of Hungarian espionage."

    Funar said the inscription had been put up "in line with the

    provisions of the law" and that it came to "draw attention to

    the appointment of Laszlo Alfoldi as general consul, a person

    declared persona non grata and expelled from the country in

    1988." Interior Minister Constantin Dudu Ionescu ordered

    police to dismantle the inscription after being warned by

    Hungarian Democratic Federation of Romania Executive

    Secretary Csaba Takacs that a diplomatic incident was

    imminent. MS

    [25] ROMANIA, RUSSIA, DIFFER ON EVALUATING EXPERT MEETING

    Following a meeting in Bucharest of experts from the Romanian

    and Russian foreign ministries on 16 September, Romanian

    radio reported that the two sides agreed to further develop

    "pragmatic collaborative relations" and that "the absence of

    a bilateral treaty must not hinder" such ties. But the head

    of the Russian team, Aleksandr Tolkach, was cited by ITAR-

    TASS as saying that "Romania lacks the political will to

    really sign a bilateral treaty." Tolkach said Russia rejected

    Bucharest's insistence on having the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact

    mentioned in the document, as well as the Romanian raising of

    the state treasure deposited in Russia during World War I. MS

    [26] COMPROMISE IN OFFING ON MOLDOVAN PRESIDENTIAL SYSTEM?

    Presidential spokesman Anatol Golea said on 16 September that

    President Petru Lucinschi is "satisfied" with the results

    achieved at a meeting held one day earlier with leaders of

    political parties represented in the parliament, at which he

    presented his proposals for changing the political system

    into a presidential one, Infotag reported. Golea said that

    Lucinschi "once more stated that he is open to a compromise

    and once again invited the party leaders to join him in the

    search for a mutually-acceptable formula." Former President

    Mircea Snegur, leader of the Democratic Convention of

    Moldova, said that the meeting revealed that Lucinschi and

    the parliamentary leaders were "ready to compromise in order

    to avoid confrontation between the two power branches." MS

    [27] BULGARIAN LOCAL ELECTION CAMPAIGN OFFICIALLY LAUNCHED

    Campaigning for local elections officially started on 16

    September. Ninety-six parties are competing in the elections,

    compared with 64 in 1995. Fifteen parties registered

    candidates for the post of Sofia mayor, for which the ruling

    United Democratic Forces nominated Mayor Stefan Sofiyansky

    for a second term. Thirty parties, nine party coalitions, and

    three initiative committees are running lists for the

    municipal council in the capital, BTA reported. The first

    round of the elections will be held on 16 October, and a run-

    off a week later between the two front runners in localities

    where no mayoral candidate wins more than half of the votes

    cast in the first round. MS


    [C] END NOTE

    [28] AMBIGUOUS ANNIVERSARY

    by Jan Maksymiuk

    Poland marks the 60th anniversary of the Soviet invasion

    today. While Polish armies were involved in an unequal but

    heroic fight against Nazi Germany, some 600,000 Soviet troops

    moved into Poland on 17 September 1939. The 25 border guard

    and police units in eastern Poland were no match for the

    Soviet forces. On 25 September, German and Soviet troops met

    along the length of the demarcation line that had been

    determined in a secret protocol to the Molotov-Ribbentrop

    Pact of 23 August 1939. Three days later, Berlin and Moscow

    signed a friendship and border treaty erasing Poland from the

    map of Europe for almost six years.

    The Soviet annexation of eastern Poland was presented by

    Moscow as the "liberation of Belarusian and Ukrainian

    brothers from the oppression of Polish landlords." Eyewitness

    accounts testify that most Belarusians and Ukrainians greeted

    the Soviet troops as friends, if not liberators, and promptly

    cooperated in organizing a Soviet system of power. "Popular

    assemblies" of western Belarus and western Ukraine were

    swiftly elected in October 1939 and requested the unification

    of the newly conquered areas with the Belarusian SSR and

    Ukrainian SSR, in particular, and with the USSR in general.

    Historians have cited many reasons for this Belarusian

    and Ukrainian attitude toward the Soviet invasion. Two appear

    especially persuasive.

    First, pre-war Poland--which experienced a measure of

    democracy during its initial years of independence but became

    an authoritarian state following Jozef Pilsudski's coup

    d'etat in May 1926--did not develop a policy toward its

    ethnic minorities that those minorities, accounting for

    nearly 30 percent of the country's population, found

    acceptable. Belarusians and Ukrainians were especially

    treated by the state as second-rate citizens in terms of

    their civil rights. In Poland's "eastern outlands" (kresy

    wschodnie, the name applied to eastern parts of pre-war

    Poland), economic, social, and ethnic inequality and

    injustice were widespread.

    Second, Belarusians and Ukrainians suffered under the

    delusion--skillfully promoted by Soviet propaganda at the

    time--that Soviet Belarus and Soviet Ukraine embodied the

    national statehood that they so intensely desired. The

    Polish-Soviet border was hermetically sealed, as a result of

    which Polish Belarusians and Ukrainians were completely

    unfamiliar with the real state of affairs in the Soviet Union

    (as, incidentally, was the rest of Europe). Therefore, even

    anti-Communists among Belarusian and Ukrainian political

    circles in pre-war Poland generally welcomed the unification

    of all Belarusian and Ukrainian ethnic territories as an "act

    of historical justice."

    Some 20 months later, when Hitler's armies invaded the

    Soviet Union, many people in western Belarus and Ukraine who

    had greeted Stalin's soldiers were now somewhat inclined to

    welcome the Germans as the "liberator." From September 1939

    to June 1941, Stalin's persecution machine was used against

    not only "Polish landlords" but also their allegedly

    liberated victims: Belarusian and Ukrainian peasants. The

    legendary communist paradise proved a socio-economic hell for

    those hapless "brothers" of the Soviet Union.

    The 1945 Yalta Conference endorsed the Polish-Soviet

    border foreseen by the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact (with some

    post-war corrections), leaving Poland without its former

    "eastern outlands." For more than 40 years, the official

    Soviet interpretation of the 17 September 1939 military

    operation as the "liberation of the oppressed" prevailed in

    Poland's communist historiography. Only after Solidarity took

    over in 1989 were Polish historians able to openly identify

    the invasion by its proper name.

    Belarusian and Ukrainian historians, or at least those

    who have renounced the Soviet historiography tradition, offer

    interpretations of the significance of the 17 September

    anniversary that are more ambiguous. The notion of

    "liberation" appears to be gradually disappearing from their

    versions. However, there is hardly any historian in Belarus

    and Ukraine who would take issue with the argument that the

    Soviet invasion against Poland 60 years ago was "positive"

    for their nations in so far as it unified formerly divided

    nations into one political organism. That organism collapsed

    in 1991 and gave birth to two independent states--Belarus and

    Ukraine.

    At a recent conference of Belarusian historians in

    Minsk, one delegate spoke for many when he argued that the

    Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and its territorial consequences

    cannot be viewed as separate from the Polish-Bolshevik Treaty

    of Riga in 1921. Under that treaty, Warsaw and Moscow

    arbitrarily carved up between themselves Belarusian and

    Ukrainian ethnic territories without taking into account the

    interests of the indigenous people who inhabited them.

    According to this line of argument, the Soviet Union in 1939-

    -even in the role of an aggressor--ensured that justice was

    done by bringing Belarusians and Ukrainians together.

    Whether Polish historians will accept such a viewpoint

    remains to be seen. Currently, the differing attitudes toward

    the Soviet invasion 60 years ago are reflected in the planned

    official commemorations of the anniversary. Polish President

    Aleksander Kwasniewski has visited sites in Russia and

    Ukraine of the mass murders of Polish officers taken prisoner

    by Soviet troops in 1939. Belarus's Alyaksandr Lukashenka

    will preside over official events in his country marking the

    60th anniversary of the reunification of Belarus. And Lviv in

    Ukraine will host a congress of anti-Communists from Eastern

    Europe who will discuss Soviet repression in the 1930s and

    early 1940s. When history serves different policies, a single

    historical interpretation is the exception rather than the

    rule.

    17-09-99


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


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