From: trh@jack.sns.com (Al Trh)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.turkish
Subject: News Dec 20 (from Haluk)
Date: 21 Dec 1992 18:03:21 -0600
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 ----------------- Message requiring your approval (196 lines) -----------------
 : Arab League accuses Israel, Turkey of stealing Arab water
 : Ethnic Albanians boycott elections despite CSCE pressure
 : Yugoslav election results awaited amid allegations of fraud

 Subject: Arab League accuses Israel, Turkey of stealing Arab water

        CAIRO, Egypt (UPI) -- Israel has been ``stealing Arab water'' in the
 occupied territories, and Turkey has abused Arab rights to the waters of
 the Tigris-Euphrates River basin, the assistant secretary general of the
 Arab League, Adnan Omran, charged Sunday.
        ``From the time of its occupation of Palestine, Israel has stolen
 Arab water,'' Adnan said on the first day of the Arab seminar on water.
        ``Israel is aware of the connection between the map of Greater Israel
 and Arab waters, so it started from the time of its creation to transfer
 water and take land by force,'' Adnan told the three-day seminar.
        The official said that of the 600 million cubic meters of water in
 the occupied territories, Israel uses 485 million cubic meters, leaving
 the Palestinians with only 115 million.
        Adnan pointed to orders issued by the Israeli government prohibiting
 Palestinians from tapping new water wells, and to heavy taxes imposed on
 the Palestinians aimed at driving them away from the their land.
        Israel, Jordan and the occupied territories share the waters of the
 Jordan River basin. A report by the Worldwatch Institute, a private,
 non-profit research organization in Washigton, D.C., and quoted at the
 seminar estimated that 25-40 percent of Israel's sustainable water
 supply comes from an aquifer in the occupied territories that Israel has
 claimed since the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
        Israel sparked Palestinian anger in the territories by restricting
 the amount of water they can pump, while overdrawing the aquifer for its
 own uses, the report said.
        Regarding Turkish violations, Adnan said a study to be presented at
 the seminar will detail Turkish abuse of Arab rights to the waters of
 the Tigris-Euphrates River basin.
        He said Turkey was imposing its will on this water source,
 disregarding Syrian and Iraqi rights to it.
        Adnan also spoke of Turkey's plans to sell some of its water,
 including that which by right should belong to Syria and Iraq, to other
 Arab countries.
        He said Turkey plans to send this water in pipes for sale to Arab
 countries. Some of it will go toward ``development, progress and
 expansion in Israel,'' he said.
 =========================================================================
 Subject: Ethnic Albanians boycott elections despite CSCE pressure

        PRISTINA, Yugoslavia (UPI) -- The independence-seeking ethnic Albanian
 majority in Serbia's southern province of Kosovo boycotted Sunday's
 presidential and parliamentary elections, despite pressure from the
 Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe).
        The boycott deprived Yugoslav Prime Minister Milan Panic of
 considerable support in his long-shot bid to oust hard-line communist
 President Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia.
        ``Ethnic Albanians ignored the balloting, with very few exceptions,''
 said a spokesman for the Serbian regime-controlled Kosovo Electoral
 Commision. He said the turnout among the 150,000 minority Serbs in
 Kosovo was ``satisfactory''.
        Leaders of the 2 million-strong ethnic Albanian majority called for
 the boycott as part of a policy of disassociating themselves from
 Serbian state institutions.
        The boycott virtually guaranteed the elections of extreme Serbian
 nationalists, including Zeljko Raznatovic, a paramilitary leader
 suspected of war crimes in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia.
        CSCE observers met with leaders of the main ethnic Albanian party,
 the Democratic League of Kosovo, known by the initials of LDK, to
 persuade them to participate in the vote.
        ``The CSCE observers were determined to talk us out of the boycott,''
 said Rexep Ismailli, a members of the party's collective presidency.
        He said participation by the 1.7 million qualified ethnic Albanian
 voters would mean they ``accepted Serbian domination.''
        There was no comment from CSCE representatives on hand in the
 provincial capital of Pristina, 200 miles south of Belgrade, to monitor
 the human rights crisis.
        Panic has promised to return the autonomy Kosovo enjoyed until 1990
 when Milosevic tried to crush the ethnic Albanian independence movement
 by dismissing the provincial assembly, packing Kosovo with Serbian
 police and troops and sacking more than 100,000 ethnic Albanians from
 state jobs.
        The strict measures, however, have merely fueled the ethnic Albanian
 secessionist movement and stoked simmering tensions between Serbs and
 ethnic Albanians to the verge of open conflict.
        Political analysts said ethnic Albanian leaders may have decided on
 the boycott as a political tactic because their cause would attract more
 international sympathy if Milosevic remains in power.
        ``Some people in the LDK think saving Milosevic's head may be good
 for the cause,'' said Shquelzen Maliqui of the liberal ethnic Albanian
 Social Democratic Party.
        ``If Milosevic wins, the international pressure on Serbia will
 increase considerably,'' he explained. ``That would increase the chances
 of Kosovo's successful secession.''
        Western governments and international human rights groups are keeping
 a close watch on Kosovo, fearing a conflict there could easily spill
 over into neighboring Albania, Macedonia, Bulgaria and Greece.
        Kosovo has long been disputed between Christian Orthodox Serbs and
 predominantly Muslim ethnic Albanians, with both sides accusing the
 other of persecution.
        The 10 million Serbs inside and outside Serbia cherish Kosovo as the
 historic birthplace of their Orthodox faith and centuries-old culture
 and state.
 =========================================================================
 Subject: Yugoslav election results awaited amid allegations of fraud

        BELGRADE, Yugoslav (UPI) -- The main Serbian opposition coalition gave
 Yugoslav Prime Minister Milan Panic an early lead among Belgrade voters
 Monday in his long-shot electoral battle to oust communist President
 Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia amid complaints of widespread voting
 irregularities.
        Election officials said they expected to begin announcing by midday
 official returns from the 13 hours of balloting held on Sunday.
        Many analysts believe that the future stability of the Balkans hinges
 on the outcome.
        Panic ran on promises of peace, real democracy and ending the U.N.
 economic sanctions imposed on the rump Yugoslav union of Serbia and
 Montenegro on May 30 because of Milosevic's support for Serbian
 territorial conquests in war-ravaged Bosnia-Herzegovina.
        Milosevic, on the other hand, remains wedded to the idea of uniting
 all Serbs in a single state dominating the Balkans, a policy widely
 blamed for igniting last year's Serb-Croat conflict in Croatia and the
 ongoing carnage in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
        Tens of thousands of people have been killed and injured and almost 3
 million left homeless in fighting in which Milosevic-backed Serbian
 forces have overrun self-declared states in both former Yugoslav
 republics.
        Western governments have expressed grave fear that Milosevic's re-
 election could be the harbinger of new ethnic conflicts in the former
 Yugoslavia.
        Serbia's main opposition group, the Democratic Movement of Serbia, or
 DEPOS, said that preliminary returns reported by its field staff from
 Belgrade after the close of polling gave Panic 56 percent to 45 percent
 for Milosevic.
        Belgrade, however, is considered a stronghold for Panic, who was born
 in the city. He emigrated to the United States in 1956 and became a
 naturalized citizen. Milosevic's base is among Serbia's illiterate
 peasant majority.
        An exit poll by the Partner Agency forecast a dead heat between the
 pair, with Panic, an independent, and Milosevic each garnering 47
 percent of the vote. A tie would force the contest into a second round
 in two weeks.
        DEPOS spokesmen told a Sunday midnight news conference that their
 reports put the opposition coalition ahead of Milosevic's Socialist
 Party of Serbia (SPS) in preliminary results from races for the 138-seat
 Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of the Yugoslav Parliament, and the
 250-member Serbian Assembly.
        The SPS controls massive majorities in both legislatures.
        The Partner Agency exit poll projected DEPOS winning 36 percent of
 the votes in the legislative races, followed by the SPS with 31 percent,
 its ultra-nationalist ally, the Serbian Radical Party, with 17 percent,
 and the Democratic Party with 12 percent.
        The exit poll was based on a survey of 1,370 people at 60 polling
 stations throughout Serbia, except in the southern province of Kosovo,
 where the independence-seeking ethnic Albanian majority boycotted the
 elections.
        Races were also held for the presidency of Montenegro, which
 communist incumbent Momir Bulatovic was expected to retain. His
 Democratic Party of Socialists was expected to maintain its grip on the
 tiny republic's 85-member legislature.
        There was no final overall turnout figure available for Serbia, where
 6.95 million people were eligible to cast ballots. Figures reported from
 different areas indicated a turnout of about 60 percent. Montenegro
 reported that 64 percent of its 428,680 voters participated in the
 elections.
        The elections in Serbia were marred by reports of widespread
 irregularities from Panic's campaign, major opposition groups and
 independent media.
        Jack Zetkulic, the head of a Conference on Security and Cooperation
 in Europe monitoring mission, said he could not determine the extent of
 the problems until he reviewed reports from some 90 international
 monitors.
        ``It's tough this early to tell,'' he said. But, he acknowleged that
 he had reports that at some polling stations, ``up to 10 percent'' of
 those who turned up were unable to vote because their names were not on
 the official lists.
        ``It's not yet clear if it will add up to systematic fraud,'' he
 said.
        Monitors expressed fears before the elections over possible fraud and
 deep misgivings over an intense anti-Panic smear campaign broadcast by
 Milosevic-controlled Belgrade television during the campaign.
        The poll monitoring board of the Milosevic-controlled Serbian
 Election Commission vehemently rejected the claims of widespread
 irregularities.
        But its credibility was seriously undermined by the resignation of
 one of its members, Pavle Zoric. He said he quit because the board ``was
 more and more turning into an information service'' for the regime and a
 ``collective body that only represents government ideology and policy.''
        He protested its ``manipulative tendencies'' and disassociated
 himself from the board's call for legal action against Belgrade's
 independent Studio B Television for airing complaints of irregularities
 phoned in by voters.
        Most of the examples of irregularities cited by Panic's campaign
 staff and major Serbian opposition groups concerned the omission of
 voters' names from registration lists.
        ``There were numerous reports of citizens whose names were removed
 from the lists, while dead people or people who did not live there
 received their voting invitation slips,'' said DEPOS.
        Other reports said members of Milosevic's party were inside some
 polling stations telling voters how to mark their ballots.
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