RADIO FREE EUROPE/RADIO LIBERTY, PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC
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RFE/RL NEWSLINE 12 April 1999
RUSSIAN CONVOY TO YUGOSLAVIA BLOCKED AT HUNGARIAN
BORDER. A convoy of 73 trucks carrying "humanitarian
aid" to Yugoslavia from Russia and Belarus was held up
at the Ukrainian-Hungarian border on 10 April, after
custom officials found that some of the vehicles and
their cargo violate the UN embargo against Yugoslavia,
Hungarian media reported. The officials said that five
lorries had armored cabins equipped with embrasures,
while eight other were carrying nearly 57 tons of fuel.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Gabor Horvath said that if
the Russians withdraw these parts, the convoy can move
on. Russian Emergency Minister Sergei Shoigu arrived in
Budapest on 12 April. Before leaving Moscow, he said
that Budapest was breaking international agreements by
stopping the convoy and that President Boris Yeltsin and
the government were "extremely disturbed by Hungary's
position." Yeltsin and Premier Yevgenii Primakov on 12
April discussed the blocking of the convoy, ITAR-TASS
reported. Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said that
"if there is not a solution in the coming hours, it will
have the most serious results for Russian-Hungarian
relations," Reuters reported. MSZ/MS
MOSCOW AND MINSK VIRTUALLY ALONE IN SUPPORT OF MILOSEVIC
By Pete Baumgartner
The vehement opposition by the governments of
Russia and Belarus to NATO's air campaign in Yugoslavia
has placed them in a small group of countries within
Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union that tend to
support Belgrade over NATO in the Kosova crisis.
Though the three newest members of NATO--the Czech
Republic, Hungary, and Poland--obviously back the
alliance's actions in Yugoslavia, absolute support has
not been forthcoming in every case.
The weakest link for NATO has been in Prague.
Though Czech President Vaclav Havel has spoken strongly
in support of the air strikes, the governing Social
Democrats (CSSD) have made only lukewarm statements in
favor of NATO's actions. Additionally, on 10 April 341
delegates at a CSSD conference in Prague signed a letter
condemning the NATO air campaign. Among conservatives,
parliament speaker and former Premier Vaclav Klaus said
on 8 April that the air strikes "were not the right
policy," and that since the bombing began "the suffering
in Kosova has increased manifold." The rival Freedom
Union party called for Klaus to be dismissed as speaker
for "severely damaging the Czech Republic's credibility
and prestige within NATO."
Hungary, the only NATO country that shares a border
with Yugoslavia, has solidly endorsed NATO action. So
much so, in fact, that one ethnic Hungarian leader in
Serbia's Vojvodina region said Budapest's "extreme"
support for the air strikes could have negative
consequences for ethnic Hungarians there. Hungarian
Premier Viktor Orban even spoke favorably of NATO's
bombing of the bridges spanning the Danube River in Novi
Sad, despite the fact that Hungarian companies will
suffer substantial economic losses as a result of the
stoppage in shipping traffic the bridge debris has
caused. (Orban reasons that destruction of the bridge
will help prevent Yugoslav troops stationed in
Vojvodina, which includes many ethnic Hungarians, from
being transferred to Kosova.)
In Warsaw, official backing for the air campaign
has been solid, and only a small group of pacifist
Catholic deputies and the Peasant Party have spoken
against the NATO operation. Polish Foreign Minister
Bronislaw Geremek gave an impassioned speech to
parliament in support of air strikes on 9 April, and
former President Lech Walesa even called for the
alliance to send in ground troops.
Perhaps even more vocal than the fledgling NATO
members in their support for military action against
Yugoslavia are the seven countries striving to be part
of the next wave of NATO expansion: Bulgaria, Estonia,
Latvia, Lithuanian, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia.
These countries sent a joint letter to U.S. President
Bill Clinton on 9 April expressing their full support
for action necessary to end "...the suffering and
violence in Kosova."
In Bratislava, Slovak Prime Minister Mikulas
Dzurinda called the decision to bomb Yugoslavia the
lesser "of two evils." But the party of former Premier
Vladimir Meciar called the air strikes "modern
barbarism" in parliament on 25 March and declared its
"solidarity" with Yugoslavia.
In Bulgaria and Romania, government backing for
NATO's actions faces harsh criticism from the major
opposition parties--criticism that resonates somewhat
within the public, who are uncomfortable with the close
proximity of the military operations and who feel for
the ethnic Romanian and ethnic Bulgarian minorities
living in Serbia. Though the government of Bulgarian
Premier Ivan Kostov supported the strikes, it was
criticized in some Western circles for closing its
borders to all Yugoslav refugees except ethnic
Bulgarians. Romania and Bulgaria also stand to lose
millions of dollars from the shutdown in shipping on the
Danube, something the threadbare economies of those
countries can ill afford.
The Moldovan Foreign Ministry said on 25 March that
it notes that the Atlantic alliance's decision to use
force was "to a large extent imposed by the
irreconcilable position" of one side in the conflict,
RFE/RL's Chisinau bureau reported.
Croatian officials, whose country has not yet been
accepted into NATO's Partnership for Peace program, have
publicly supported NATO. In Bosnia-Herzegovina, pledges
of official support for either Yugoslavia or NATO fall
largely, predictably, along ethnic lines. Leaders in
both countries no doubt feel a touch of schadenfreude
that Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic is enduring
the kind of destruction that other former Yugoslav
republics experienced during the 1991-1995 wars of
Yugoslav succession.
In Kyiv, government officials have mixed
condemnations of NATO air strikes, with calls for
resumed negotiations. The Defense Ministry also
maintained that "strong relations with NATO are within
Ukraine's interests." And despite virulent statements by
deputies against NATO, resolutions reducing ties with
NATO as well as one calling for Ukraine to renege on its
nuclear-free status have failed to pass a largely
leftist parliament. President Leonid Kuchma has also
turned down all calls for military aid to be sent to
Belgrade and called Yugoslavia's proposal to join the
Belarusian-Russian Union "unrealistic."
In the Caucasus, both Armenia and Georgia expressed
disappointment at the failure of negotiations to solve
the conflict and concern at the decision by the alliance
to use force against Yugoslavia. Most political groups
in Yerevan spoke against the air strikes, though the
Foreign Ministry said on 25 March that "Armenia has
always stood up for the right of peoples to self-
determination." Though on the same day, its defense
minister signed a CIS joint statement in Moscow calling
the NATO air strikes "inhuman." Meanwhile, the People's
Front of Azerbaijan Party praised NATO actions against
Yugoslavia "...which has committed genocide against
Albanians." It said that "the same policy of ethnic
cleansing has been carried out against Azerbaijanis
living in...Nagorno-Karabakh" and was hopeful that "such
[NATO] action will be carried out against Armenia..."
The Central Asian states have been relatively quiet
and ever cautious in their official statements regarding
the Kosova conflict. Kazakhstan neither endorsed nor
condemned the air strikes but did call for Yugoslav
forces to withdraw from Kosova. The Tajik Foreign
Ministry condemned the air campaign as "destabilizing
the global situation."
So while Belgrade knows it has little support in
the West, unequivocal support in the East is also rare.
Though in a global sense, Yugoslavia appears to be doing
alright: Yugoslav Deputy Foreign Minister Zoran
Novakovic pointed out on 9 April that Russia, China, and
India oppose the NATO military campaign, and those
countries "account for a majority of the world's
population," he said.
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