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Date:         Mon, 17 Aug 1992 01:16:18 -0600
From:         "VALENTINE M. SMITH" <CDELL@UMKCVAX1.BITNET>
Subject:      Russia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia, Romania and ..., (#755)
Comments: To: val-l@ucf1vm.BITNET, jwales@iubvm.BITNET, olsenj@stolaf.edu,
              shlyakhter@huhepl.harvard.edu, kousen@rayleigh.res.utc.com,
              christic@igc.org, 76701.103@compuserve.com

Please forgive my three day "lapse" in commenting/reporting, the whole
city is plagued by some VERY contagious stomach flu (according to our
local news), I got laid low for two whole days with a VERY puny gut!
So what follows is a compendium from Thursday through today.

Russia-

NPR reported on 14 August that several hundred "leaders of
agriculture and industry" had met last week, plunking for a "slower"
plan to reform than that advocated by Acting Prime Minister Gaidar.
That story also identified three members of a "shadow governmemt"
that might replace Gaidar's if the latter is toppled - with A. Volsky as
the probable Prime Minsiter.

OMON has been restricted from breaking up "demonstrations and mass
meetings," RFE/RL reported on 13 August, by the Interior Ministry. In
future, only written instructions signed by the Minister of the
Interior would engage OMON in the future.

CNN reported 16 August that off the island Novaya Zemlya, the nuclear
test site for much of Soviet weaponry since the 1950s, may have as
much as 1 billion curies worth of nuclear waste buried in the Kara
Sea. This would be twenty times what was released at Chernobyl, and
there is a lot of concern that this radiation could, or already has
been, be contaminating the entire food chain in the "northern seas,"
one of the richest fisheries in the world.

RFE/RL, the only place I've read or heard anything about this, had
reported last week the "deregistration" of Zhirnovsky's Liberal
Democratic party, claiming many of the signatures on the original
registration petitions "were duplicates," and that 4000 of the 6142
signatures were Abkhaz. Reportedly, the reson Zhirnovsky's party got
registered at all (the second "registered party") was "pressure from
Lukyanov," the former speaker of Parliament, now under arrest for
favoring the coup last year. Zhirnovsky, in Germany, stated that the
party would be re-registered.

RFE/RL also reported on 13 August that a prominent Russian figure,
Yurii Vlasov, who has admitted a shift from "democratic" views to
those of the "nationalist/communist" camp, had stated that reports
that the KGB had "dismantled" their "political surveillance"
operations were false. Vlasov reportedly said that "state security"
operations HAD been dismantled, but NOT political surveillance, which
he claimed had "been strengthened."

Ukraine-

RFE/RL reported 14 August that Prime Minister Vitold Fokin would be
out of a job "in three weeks."

Georgia-

CNN reported on 14 August that the Georgian Interior Minister had
been released by the Abkhaz "separatists" who had allegedly grabbed
him. 20,000 Georgian troops had poured into the western part of the
country, but still have not recovered the aide to Shevardnadze or the
other ten kidnapped last week.

The Abkhaz Minister of Internal Affairs, A. Ankvab, offered to
mediate in the hostage-taking affair, RFE/RL reported, but Georgia
did not take up his offer.

Fighting broke out in Sukhumi yesterday, Russian paratroopers
evacuated 1700 people in Black Sea resorts in the area to other
places to avoid the fighting. Twenty people were reported killed in
the fighting between Georgians and Abkhaz rebels over the weekend.

Azerbaijan-

A state of emergency was announced by the Nagorno-Karabak Parliament,
and all men between the ages of 18-45 have been called for military
service in the enclave controlled by Armenians, and reportedly under
attack, according to RFE/RL.

Bosnia-

CNN reported 16 August that 150 mortar rounds had been fired at
Sarajevo today, and that four cities in Bosnia and Croatia were under
fire by "Serbian gunners." They also reported that while the US and
UK were unwilling to commit ground troops to the conflict, France was
willing to commit 1100 troops for getting food to Sarajevo, while
Human Rights Commission for Refugees refused to accept the 28,000
primarily Muslims from Bosnia that Bosnian Serbs wanted to expel into
Croatia.

NATO rejected on Friday a plan for placing 100,000 NATO troops in
Bosnia as too expensive and too unwieldy, NPR reported.

The ABC TV producer David Kaplan, killed on Thursday by a sniper in
Sarajevo while filming a segment of "Primetime Live," was eulogized
by his colleagues today, including Sam Donaldson, who had just
returned from Sarajevo. Kaplan was 46.

Afghanistan-

A Russian diplomat was killed in the recent shelling of Kabul by
forces loyal to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, while the Hekmatyar-backed Prime
Minister Ustad Farid was dismissed by Afghansian's President on 14
August, AP reported today.

Romania-

RFE/RL reported 14 August that former King Michael had been denied a
visa to return prior to the 27 September elections, the government
stating that his presence "would be disruptive." The King, in exile
since 1947, had been enthusiastically greeted in his visit in April,
the first since he was exiled. This visit was deemed "inopportune."

China-

A Party Congress is on the verge of convening, with Deng Xiao Peng
trying hard to order the succession before he fades from the scene.
The 88 year old de facto leader of the country is reportedly unhappy
with his current Premier, Li Peng, on the grounds that Li Peng is
lukewarm on economic reform.


Elections in Estonia and Romania in September will probably not make
the future any clearer in either place. Ossetia and Abkhazia are
determined to break away from Georgia, the same continues to look to
like it might try to happen between Tatarstan and two other areas of
Russia and the central regime in Moscow. As I recall, Presidential
elections are scheduled in Georgia for October, whoever gets elected
(Shevardnadze is the reported front-runner) will have his hands full.
So will Russia. The KGB report is disturbing, but not all that
surprising. Where does the army stand in Russia is the more
significant question. VMS
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