No. 23, 04 February 1993

RUSSIA



NATIONALIST, COMMUNIST DEPUTIES PLAN TO PREVENT REFERENDUM. Deputies
from conservative and centrist factions have managed to collect
the necessary number of signatures for the convening of an extraordinary
Congress in March. Deputy Oleg Plotnikov from the centrist faction
"Smena" told an RFE/RL correspondent on 3 February that at this
Congress, nationalist, communist and centrist deputies will seek
to prevent the referendum on the new constitution scheduled for
11 April. Opponents of President Yeltsin argue that a referendum
would completely destabilize Russian politics. Alexander Rahr


YELTSIN CREATES COMMISSION TO PREPARE FOR REFERENDUM. On 3 February,
President Yeltsin ordered the establishment of a government commission
to prepare for the April referendum, ITAR-TASS reported. Headed
by Deputy Prime Minister Vladimir Shumeiko, the commission will
coordinate the activities of central and regional executive offices
as they make technical and financial preparations related to
the referendum. The commission will also analyze the new constitutional
principles proposed by parliament. The presidential side will
have its own set of principles. It seems that the two sides will
have to reach a compromise on the final wording of referendum
questions. The commission will also have to analyze the positions
of various political parties and movements towards the referendum.
Vera Tolz

MORE CALLS FOR EARLY ELECTIONS IN RUSSIA. Russian Constitutional
Court Chairman Valerii Zorkin said in an interview with Komsomolskaya
pravda on 3-February that presidential and parliamentary elections
should be held in Russia before 1996 and 1995 respectively. The
same day, Literaturnaya gazeta published an interview with former
Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, who said he also favored
early elections. He said such elections were needed to break
the stalemate between President Yeltsin and the Russian parliament
over reforms. The main advocate of the early elections is parliament's
speaker Ruslan Khasbulatov, who says the question of the elections
should be included in the April referendum. Vera Tolz

KHASBULATOV, CHERNOMYRDIN MEET NORTH OSSETIAN LEADERS. The chairman
of the North Ossetian parliament, Akhsarbek Galazov, and the
North Ossetian prime minister, Sergei Khetagurov, met Russian
parliamentary chairman Ruslan Khasbulatov and Prime Minister
Viktor Chernomyrdin in Moscow on 3-February, ITAR- TASS reported.
The agency said they discussed measures for stabilizing the political
situation in the North Caucasus, paying particular attention
to the solution of economic problems. North Ossetian and Ingush
delegations resumed talks in Kislovodsk on 2-February. Vladimir
Solodin, spokesman for Russia's temporary administration for
North Ossetia and Ingushetia, told an RFE/RL correspondent on
the same day in Moscow that the delegations were discussing hostages
and compensation for damages. Ann Sheehy

DUDAEV COUNTERATTACKS. The press service of Chechen president
Dzhokhar Dudaev replied on 3-February to accusations by General
Anatolii Kulikov, the commander of Russia's internal troops that
Chechnya was a source of tension in the Caucasus, ITAR- TASS
reported. The statement said that the allegations about crimes
in Chechnya were completely unreal, and went on to accuse Russian
authorities of conducting a policy of state terrorism against
the Chechen people. It accused the Russian government of encouraging
Russian citizens to raid trains passing through Chechnya, of
bringing large quantities of drugs and arms into the republic,
and even of allocating 30 billion rubles to destabilize Chechnya.
Recent events, it stated, were making the inhabitants of Chechnya
doubt Russia's sincerity in conducting talks with Chechnya. Ann
Sheehy

IMF: INFLATION THREATENS AID TO RUSSIA. The managing director
of the International Monetary Fund, Michel Camdessus told Izvestiya
in Washington on 3-February that Russian policy still lacks the
credibility to earn Western assistance. Although Russia has made
progress implementing structural reforms, "deficiencies in monetary
policy were a key element" contributing to a growing danger of
hyperinflation, Camdessus said. As a result, he continued, Russian
authorities "willingly or not destroyed the condition" for receiving
the $6-billion ruble stabilization fund. Camdessus noted, however,
that if the government produced a solid program for getting its
economic house in order, negotiations could begin as early as
next month for credit totaling $3-billion, the next available
installment in Russia's stand-by arrangement with the Fund. Erik
Whitlock and Robert Lyle

GOVERNMENT VACILLATES ON PRICE CONTROLS. Having just backed down
from imposing price controls on a broad range of goods, the Russian
government has now published a resolution regulating the price
of bread and bread products, according to ITAR- TASS on 3-February.
The resolution sets a maximum purchasing price of 12,000 rubles
per metric ton for grain used in bread production for the first
quarter of 1993. Any difference between this and the actual price
paid for grain used for bread flour will be made up by funds
from the federal budget. The resolution also places a profit
limit of 15% on all bread factories, mills and shops. As inflation
nears the 50% mark, calls for further price controls are becoming
more persistent. Sheila Marnie

RUSSIAN AGRICULTURE MINISTER CALLS FOR MORE SUBSIDIES FOR FARMERS.
The Russian Minister of Agriculture, Viktor Khlystun, has claimed
that farmers will need more help than that promised to them in
a government resolution of 23 January, according to Reuters on
3 February. The resolution proposes subsidies in the form of
low-interest loans and the writing off of farmers' debts, the
cost of which is estimated at 160-billion rubles. Agriculture
has been caught in a so-called "scissors crisis," reminiscent
of that in the 1920s, with the prices for agricultural equipment,
fuel, fertilizers etc. rising far more sharply then the prices
paid for agricultural produce. The resolution also apparently
proposes a 3% tax on the profits of enterprises in other sectors
of the economy to raise money for agriculture. According to Khlystun,
a further 600 billion rubles is needed just to cover spring sowing
costs. Sheila Marnie

TOKYO UNDECIDED ON YELTSIN VISIT. A spokesman for the Japanese
government said on 4 February that the group of seven (G-7) major
industrialized nations had not yet decided on whether to invite
Russian President Yeltsin to its next summit in Tokyo, scheduled
for July. News reports had speculated that Yeltsin would be invited
to the meeting in order to discuss financial aid for Russia,
and on 3 February Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Georgii Kunadze
had suggested that Tokyo favored extending the invitation. He
also said that Yeltsin might visit Japan prior to the summit
if the two sides could reach compromises on several sticky issues,
including the disposition of four Russian-held islands situated
north of Japan. Developments were reported by Reuters and Kyodo
on 4-February. Stephen Foye

NEWSPAPER LISTS 100 MOST INFLUENTIAL POLITICIANS. The liberal
newspaper Nezavisimaya gazeta in its 3 February issue published
a ranking of "the 100-leading Russian politicians." The list,
compiled from a table of the top 125 posts in public life by
a team of academics and journalists commissioned by the newspaper,
was intended to show the relative influence of Russian politicians
during January 1993, and will be updated monthly. President Yeltsin
took first place and was rated as far more influential than parliamentary
speaker Ruslan Khasbulatov, who came in second. Prime Minister
Viktor Chernomyrdin and Vice President Aleksandr Rutskoi were
placed third and fourth, respectively. Foreign Minister Andrei
Kozyrev took ninth place, and Security Minister Viktor Barannikov
was placed twenty-first. Civic Union leader Arkadii Volsky was
considered only the seventeenth most influential politician.
Wendy Slater & Alexander Rahr

RUSSIA TO CUT OFFICER CORPS BY 40,000 PER YEAR. During the course
of the planned military reforms the Russian officers corps will
be reduced by 40-50,000 officers per year, according to the Russian
Ministry of Defense press center. An ITAR-TASS report of 4-February
reports that three centers have been established to provide training
in civilian skills for those being retired and another ten are
being planned. The German government is providing DM 129 million
to support retraining, DM 22.8 million of which is to be used
to provide training in Germany for 11,500 members of the Russian
group of forces located there. John Lepingwell

TRANSCAUCASIA AND CENTRAL ASIA



TURKEY COMPROMISES OVER AID TO ARMENIA. Following talks in Ankara
with advisors to Armenian President Levon Ter-Petrossyan, Turkish
Prime Minister Suleyman Demirel has agreed despite pressure from
Azerbaijan to allow French and US consignments of humanitarian
aid to transit Turkey to Armenia, Western agencies reported on
3 February. Turkey will also proceed with the shipment to Armenia
of fuel, oil, and wheat. A request that Turkey sell electricity
to Armenia to compensate for the shortfall resulting from the
cutoff of gas to the sole functioning Armenian thermal power
station at Hrazdan will depend on the outcome of the next round
of Armenian-Azerbaijani peace talks in Rome on 22 February; Turkish
Deputy Premier Erdal Inonu stated in December that electricity
supplies to Armenia are conditional on a withdrawal of Armenian
forces from Azerbaijani territory. Liz Fuller

TAJIKISTAN: CONSERVATIVE RESTORATION CONTINUES. Khovar-TASS reported
on 3-February that Tajikistan's State Committee for Foreign Economic
Relations has been transformed into a Ministry. The upgrading
of the government agency is in accord with the importance the
present conservative government ascribes to attracting foreign
capital to help rebuild the country's economy, shattered in the
1992 civil war . The previous coalition government of moderate
Communists and members of democratic- Islamic groups also sought
foreign investment. The conservatives, however, have entrusted
the quest for outside help to Izatullo Khaeev, the relatively
hardline Communist, who was Chairman of Tajikistan's Council
of Ministers from 1986 to 1990, and again for a few months in
1991. He resigned for health reasons at the beginning of 1992.
Bess Brown

BROADCASTING DISPUTE IN KAZAKHSTAN. Employees of the Karaganda
Radio Broadcasting Company have refused to go on the air during
the last few days in protest over the removal of their chief
, ITAR-TASS reported on 3 February. (Karaganda is in north-central
Kazakhstan.) The oblast administration and Kazakhstan's quasi-governmental
Radio and TV Company fired the Karaganda Broadcasting chief,
Bakhytdzhan Mukushev, ostensibly for not coping adequately with
his job, but his subordinates claim he was removed for defying
the new head of the oblast administration. The Karaganda radio
employees have appealed to Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbaev
to intervene. Meanwhile, Kazakhstan's most important industrial
center is without local radio. Bess Brown

CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE



CONTROVERSY MOUNTS OVER PEACE PLAN FOR BOSNIA. The 4 February
New York Times said that the Clinton administration "considers
the [Owen-Vance] plan impractical and unenforceable, and maintains
that it rewards so-called ethnic cleansing by assigning to the
Bosnian Serbs some areas that they seized control of only by
driving out other ethnic communities." The daily also quoted
White House communications director George Stephanopoulos as
saying that the United States would put forward its own "announcement
relatively soon" on the Bosnian crisis. The Times added that
American officials said they "would not press the Bosnian Muslims
to accept" the Vance-Owen proposal to divide their republic into
10 cantons within a decentralized state. Meanwhile, the Boston
Globe quoted EC peace negotiator David Owen as urging backing
for his plan on the grounds that it is the only one on offer.
He said: "I know that the world, the Western world, the United
States, Europe - for right or wrong - are not going to intervene.
They're not going to do it and therefore we've got to get a settlement."
-Patrick Moore

A FRENCH PLAN TO RESCUE SARAJEVO? THE GUARDIAN ON 3 FEBRUARY
AND THE BBC'S EUROPEAN SERVICE ON 4 FEBRUARY REPORTED THAT FRANCE
IS DEVELOPING A PROPOSAL FOR AMERICAN, BRITISH, AND FRENCH TROOPS
TO IMPOSE A LARGE CORDON SANITAIRE AROUND THE BOSNIAN CAPITAL
TO END THE SIEGE AND ENSURE THE FREE MOVEMENT OF PEOPLE AND GOODS.
French commentators on the BBC, however, expressed doubts that
the plan was really serious. They said that leaking the story
was possibly designed to "force" the American government into
taking a stand on Bosnia, and above all, to influence French
voters in next month's elections. -Patrick Moore

CROATIAN FORCES PUSH SERBS AWAY FROM ZADAR. Western news agencies
said on 3-February that Croatian authorities had lifted their
red alert for the city of Zadar, which presumably meant that
Croatian troops had meanwhile succeeded in pushing Serb forces
well out of artillery range of the Adriatic port. Croatian units
launched Operation Maslenica on 22-January to recapture and rebuild
the Maslenica bridge linking Zagreb and the Dalmatian coast,
as well as to retake Zadar's airport at Zemunik and the Peruca
dam inland from Split. Croatian President Franjo Tudjman has
repeatedly said that his country was impatient with the UN's
failure to end Serbian control over large sections of Croatian
territory in keeping with the peace plan launched in January
1992. Tudjman has pledged to recapture all territory in the former
Yugoslav republic of Croatia, but many observers think he is
trying to improve his negotiating position with the UN and impress
the Croatian electorate prior to next month's local elections.
-Patrick Moore

UPDATE ON FIGHTING IN BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA. The 4 February
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung said that Serbian forces were
stepping up a wave of ethnic cleansing in southeastern Herzegovina
near Trebinje. The town is a traditional center of Serbian nationalism,
but the local Serbs had largely left the Muslim population in
peace in the current conflict. The German daily quoted Muslims
as saying that "98%" of Trebinje's Serbs were against ethnic
cleansing but that Serbian irregulars and other outsiders had
forced them to "sell" their homes for $200 and their cars for
$12. Meanwhile, The Guardian on 3 February reported that Croatian
forces were consolidating their hold on territories assigned
to them under the Vance-Owen plan, pressuring the local Muslims
to leave and "twisting the arms of the Muslims by treating refugees
as hostages." -Patrick Moore

ROMANIA AGAIN DENIES PASSAGE THROUGH LOCKS TO SERB BARGES. Romania
has again refused to allow two Serb ships towing barges down
the Danube to pass through the Iron Gates 2 locks, Rompres and
Romanian television said on 3 February. A spokesman for the hydro-electric
station which controls the locks said this was the second time
the two ships requested right of passage. The ships remained
at anchor up the river of the locks. Rompres said Romania repeated
on 3 February its request for help from the UN in enforcing the
embargo against rump Yugoslavia. -Michael Shafir

ROMANIAN PROSECUTOR ON CORNEA'S SUMMONS. A Romanian prosecutor
said human rights activist Doina Cornea has been summoned to
appear at a "routine hearing to clarify complaints against her"
and explain an appeal she made in September 1991 for a general
strike to topple President Ion Iliescu, Reuters reported on 3
February. Michael Shafir

HAVEL DECLARES AMNESTY. On 3 February, one day after his inauguration
as Czech president, Vaclav Havel declared a limited amnesty.
CTK reports that the amnesty applies only to those imprisoned
for up to three years for crimes of negligence. Only 129 prisoners
will be set free as a result of the amnesty. In January 1990,
an amnesty declared by Havel after his election as president
of the now-defunct Czechoslovakia led to the release of some
30,000 prisoners. Havel was subsequently criticized for his decision
because many of the freed prisoners committed criminal acts after
their release. -- Jiri Pehe

ROMANY LEADERS CALL FOR PROSECUTION OF RACIST GROUPS. Leaders
of political and civic groups representing Romanies living in
the Czech Republic issued a statement on 3-February in which
they urged the government to prosecute racist and fascist groups.
CTK reports that the Romany leaders accuse the government of
indirectly supporting illegal actions by racist groups and evading
responsibility for solving Romanies' social problems. CTK quotes
a Romany leader as saying that while Romanies are prosecuted
for breaking the law, the same standard is not applied to the
"racist and fascist groups of skinheads." Jiri Pehe

LITHUANIAN LAW ON CONSTITUTIONAL COURT PASSED. On 3 February
the Lithuanian Seimas passed a law on the Constitutional Court,
Radio Lithuania reports. The Constitution, approved in a referendum
on 25 October 1992, provides that the court, serving in the same
way as the US Supreme Court, will rule whether any laws or government
decrees conflict with the Constitution or other passed legislation.
The court will consist of nine judges, serving nine year terms,
one-third rotating every three years. The President, Seimas chairman,
and Supreme Court chairman present nominees to the Seimas for
confirmation. Seimas Chairman Ceslovas Jursenas said that 32
people have already been nominated for the court. The Supreme
Court chairman is charged with administering the oath of office
to the President, but it is unclear whether the Seimas will be
able to confirm him in time for the first president to be elected
on 14 February. -Saulius Girnius

ETHNIC MAGYARS UPSET ABOUT STATUE, TV PROGRAMS. Radio Budapest
reported on 3 February that a deputy of the Hungarian Democratic
Union of Romania has asked that the ban on timely political topics
on Romanian Television's Hungarian and German-language programs
be rescinded. He called the decision a violation of the Romanian
constitution. The radio also reported that a Hungarian parliamentary
deputy has asked the Council of Europe to help save the statue
of Hungarian king Matthias Corvin in the main square of Transylvania's
capital city of Cluj. The city's ultranationalist mayor George
Funar, after putting a Romanian-language sign on the statue,
has proposed to melt it down as an "act of historical justice."
The Bucharest daily Romania Libera found Funar's idea incomprehensible,
noting that the statue was on UNESCO's list of historical monuments.
-Alfred Reisch

MORE BUDGET WOES FOR POLISH GOVERNMENT. The seven-party governing
coalition's recent attempts to encourage unity and discipline
on budgetary issues were dealt a blow on 3-February, when the
Sejm approved revisions to the pensions law that are expected
to cost the budget an additional 30 trillion zloty (almost $2
billion). The revisions restore pension privileges for workers
in certain onerous occupations. They were passed, over the government's
objections, by a margin of only a few votes; forty deputies from
the governing coalition were absent at the time. Finance Minister
Jerzy Osiatynski said he is counting on the Senate to overturn
the Sejm's decision. He lamented that efforts to enforce coalition
discipline had failed just as crucial votes on the 1993 budget
are approaching. The cabinet met on 3 February to approve a final
version of the budget; it agreed to hold the deficit to 81.5-trillion
zloty ($5.1 billion), with inflation set at 32%. The government
will press the Sejm to suspend earlier votes on pension and public
sector wage indexing which increased the deficit by 20 trillion
zloty ($1.3-billion). Meanwhile, the fiscal daredevils in the
Confederation for an Independent Poland proposed their "alternative
budget," with a deficit of more than 140 trillion zloty ($9 billion).
-Louisa Vinton

UKRAINIAN PARLIAMENT APPROVES ECONOMIC PLAN. The Ukrainian parliament
adopted on 3 February an economic plan that promises both financial
austerity and active economic restructuring programs. The plan
promises to bring the Ukrainian budget deficit down from the
current 36% of GNP to 6% this year. It also forbids the state
to finance its deficits through printing, providing, rather,
for borrowing from commercial or foreign banks and issuing bonds,
according to Reuters. Other Western news agencies and Ukrinform-TASS
report details of the plan's tax incentives. Enterprises producing
goods not currently manufactured in Ukraine will be exempted
from certain taxes. Export and import taxes will be eliminated
for enterprises fulfilling interstate contracts with other countries
of the Commonwealth of Independent States. The plan also intends
to channel scarce investment resources to priority branches:
energy, consumer goods and export- oriented machine-building.
-Erik Whitlock

ROMANIAN ECONOMIC FIGURES. Romania released economic figures
on 2 February, showing a continued fall in Gross Domestic Product,
but also significant growth in the private sector and exports,
Reuters and Radio Bucharest reported on the same day. Preliminary
data from the National Statistics Board show GDP fell 15-per
cent in 1992 from the year before. Industrial output fell for
the third year in a row and was almost 22-percent down from 1991.
However, the trade deficit narrowed to 938 million US dollars
(down from 1,350-million the previous year) and exports increased
13.6-percent over 1991. Private firms contributed a record 26-percent
of the exports in 1992, up seven percent from the year before.
According to figures released on the same day by the Ministry
for Social Protection, unemployment reached 8.5 percent of the
active workforce. -Michael Shafir

TATARSTAN OPENS TRADE MISSION IN LITHUANIA. On 3 February Tatarstan
Vice President Vasilii Likhachev participated in the opening
of a trade mission in Kaunas, Radio Lithuania reports. The Tatarstan
delegation met with Prime Minister Bronislovas Lubys earlier
that day and intends to spend three days in Lithuania visiting
the oil refinery in Mazeikiai and the port of Klaipeda. In November
1992 Lithuania and Tatarstan signed a long term agreement on
trade, scientific, technical, and cultural cooperation and are
preparing to approve a trade and bank cooperation agreement for
1993. Tatarstan is planning to send about 1 million tons of oil
in exchange for Lithuanian consumer goods, such as refrigerators,
TVs, and furniture. Saulius Girnius

UKRAINIAN RATIFICATION OF START-1 INCREASINGLY PROBLEMATIC. The
Ukrainian Deputy Minister of Defense, General Colonel Ivan Bizhan
told the Kiev newspaper Kievskie vedomosti of 3 February that
"in today's economic situation, Ukraine cannot consider the destruction
of nuclear weapons its priority task." If other states are interested
in seeing the process speeded up, he said, they could help with
financial and technical assistance. According to the deputy head
of the Ukrainian parliamentary commission on foreign affairs,
Bohdan Horyn, as reported in Holos Ukrainy on 3 February, Ukrainian
experts estimate that the cost of destroying the nuclear weapons
based on Ukrainian territory to be about two billion US dollars,
as compared with the $175 million which Washington has offered
Kiev for this purpose. That same day, Reuters reported that the
chairman of the same commission, Dmytro Pavlychko, said that
he does not expect parliament to begin discussing ratification
of the START-1 treaty for at least another month. -Bohdan Nahaylo


BELARUS PARLIAMENT TO DEMAND COMPENSATION FOR NUKES? ACCORDING
TO A REUTERS REPORT OF 3-FEBRUARY, THE LARGEST FACTION OF THE
BELARUSIAN PARLIAMENT IS DEMANDING COMPENSATION FOR THE 81 NUCLEAR
WARHEADS ON ITS SS-25 MISSILES. The Belarus faction has also
reportedly stated that it is "inopportune to rush ratification"
of the START- 1 treaty, which was to be debated on 4 February.
This position contradicts that of President Stanislau Shushkevich,
who recently reaffirmed Belarus' position that the missiles and
warheads belong to Russia and must be withdrawn to Russia by
the end of 1994. -John Lepingwell

BULGARIA, TURKEY SIGN SECURITY AGREEMENT. On 3 February Bulgaria
and Turkey signed a security agreement promoting joint measures
against drug trafficking, organized crime and terrorism. Quoting
the semi-official Anatolian news agency, Reuters in Ankara says
the accord envisages exchanges of information, documents and
personnel. The agreement was signed by the Bulgarian and Turkish
interior ministers, Viktor Mihaylov and Ismet Sezgin. Mihaylov
is currently on a five-day visit to Turkey. Kjell Engelbrekt


POLAND, UKRAINE SIGN MILITARY AGREEMENT. Polish Defense Minister
Janusz Onyszkiewicz and his Ukrainian counterpart, Konstantin
Morozov, signed a defense cooperation agreement on 3 February
in Kiev. The agreement covers disarmament, training, and information
exchanges. At a press conference after the signing, the ministers
stressed that the agreement does not represent a military pact
and is not directed against any other country. They noted that
the two countries are not just neighbors but "strategic partners."
On his return to Warsaw, Onyszkiewicz told Polish TV that Poland's
primary foreign policy goal remains membership in the EC and
NATO, but that "we cannot turn our backs on our eastern neighbors."
Onyszkiewicz dismissed as "nonsense" allegations that he had
ordered the destruction of files on martial law. These charges
were made by ousted Deputy Defense Minister Romuald Szeremietiew
as part of the on-going campaign to discredit the president and
the government. Louisa Vinton

HUNGARIAN-SLOVAK CONSULTATIONS. Slovakia's State Secretary for
Foreign Affairs Jan Lisuch and his Hungarian counterpart Janos
Martonyi met in Budapest on 3 February to discuss the widening
of bilateral ties and regional cooperation, MTI and Radio Budapest
report. The two sides agreed to set up soon a joint Hungarian-Slovak
national minority committee. Lisuch will lead the Slovak delegation
at the trilateral talks on the Gabcikovo hydroelectric project
with the EC next week in Brussels. Also on 3 February, a delegation
of the Slovak parliament's state and public administration and
nationality committee held talks in Budapest with Hungarian parliament
chairman Gyorgy Szabad, various Hungarian parliamentary committees,
and government officials in charge of minority affairs. -Alfred
Reisch

LATVIAN-RUSSIAN ACCORD ON LEGAL COOPERATION. Diena reported on
3 February that Latvian and Russian ministers of justice, Viktors
Skudra and Nikolai Fyodorov, respectively, have signed an agreement
of legal cooperation between their two countries. The accord,
which took a year to draft, still has to be ratified by both
the Latvian and Russian parliaments. The agreement deals with
various issues, including exchange of information, apprehension
and extradition of criminals, payment of alimony and inheritance.
-Dzintra Bungs

EXHUMATION OF SOVIET GRAVES IN LATVIA? ON 2 FEBRUARY THE LATVIAN
SUPREME COUNCIL VOTED ON A PLAN TO RESTORE AND MAINTAIN IN GOOD
ORDER TWO SYMBOLS OF LATVIA'S INDEPENDENCE: THE STATUE OF LIBERTY
IN THE CENTER OF RIGA AND THE CEMETERY OF THE BRETHREN LOCATED
ON THE OUTSKIRTS OF RIGA. Though the cemetery had been envisaged
as a memorial and last resting place for those who fought for
Latvia's independence in 1918-1920, in the 1970s and 1980s scores
of Soviet officials were also buried there. In order to restore
the original concept of that cemetery, the Latvian legislators
approved in principle a plan that would allow for the reburial
of some of the Soviet officials elsewhere. Russian media has
sharply criticized this plan and claimed that graves of Soviet
soldiers who fought Nazi Germany would be exhumed, Diena reported
on 3 February. -Dzintra Bungs

[As of 1200 CET] Compiled by Hal Kosiba and Anna Sabbat-Swidlicka