KGRKJGETMRETU895U-589TY5MIGM5JGB5SDFESFREWTGR54TY
Server : Apache/2.4.62
System : FreeBSD fbsdweb2.web.rcn.net 14.1-RELEASE FreeBSD 14.1-RELEASE releng/14.1-n267679-10e31f0946d8 GENERIC amd64
User : www ( 80)
PHP Version : 8.3.8
Disable Function : NONE
Directory :  /domains/roger.dnai/96Timelines/

Upload File :
current_dir [ Writeable ] document_root [ Writeable ]

 

Current File : /domains/roger.dnai/96Timelines/january96.htm
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//IETF//DTD HTML//EN">

<HTML>
  
  <HEAD>
    <TITLE>Events of January 1996</TITLE>
    <META NAME="GENERATOR" CONTENT="Microsoft FrontPage 1.1">
  </HEAD>
  
  <BODY BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" BGPROPERTIES="FIXED">
    <HR SIZE="1">
    
    <P ALIGN="center"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="7">Events of January
      1996 </FONT></FONT></P>
    <HR SIZE="1">
    
    <P ALIGN="center"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="5">Anne D. Baylon</FONT></FONT></P>
    <DIV ALIGN="center"><ADDRESS> <FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="4"><B><FONT>CENTRAL
    EUROPE</FONT> </B></FONT></FONT></ADDRESS></DIV>
    
    <P ALIGN="center"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="4"><B><I>Poland
      </I></B></FONT></FONT></P>
    
    <P ALIGN="left"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="3"><B>Jan. 6</B>
      Former President Lech Walesa has started a campaign to discredit the new
      government and President Aleksander Kwasniewski with allegations that new
      Prime Minister Jozef Oleksy, a former Communist, spied for the Soviet
      Union. The accusation concerns Mr. Oleksy's friendship with Vladimir
      Alganov, a Soviet diplomat and K.G.B. spy in Poland. Mr. Oleksy has denied
      the charges. </FONT></FONT></P>
    
    <P ALIGN="left"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="3">President
      Kwasniewski chooses Dariusz Rosati, an economist, as Foreign Minister and
      Stanislaw Dobrzanski from the Peasants' Party as Defense Minister. </FONT></FONT></P>
    
    <P ALIGN="left"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="3"><B>Jan. 22 </B>Jacek
      Kuron and Karol Modzelewski, two prominent Polish dissidents who were
      repeatedly jailed by the Communist secret police, write in an open letter
      that Poland's secret service today is just as powerful as it was during
      the Communist era. Both dissidents claim that the secret service merely
      switched allegiance to President Lech Walesa and prepared the allegations
      that Prime Minister Jozef Oleksy spied for Moscow. </FONT></FONT></P>
    
    <P ALIGN="left"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="3"><B>Jan. 24 </B>As
      Poland's military prosecutor announces an espionage investigation of Mr.
      Oleksy and two Russian diplomats alleged to be K.G.B. agents, the Prime
      Minister resigns while protesting that he is innocent. </FONT></FONT></P>
    
    <P ALIGN="left"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="3"><B>Jan. 27 </B>The
      Social Democratic Party (former Communist Party) chooses Jozef Oleksy as
      its leader; the party is the core faction of the Democratic Left Alliance,
      a coalition in which the Peasants' Party is a junior partner. </FONT></FONT></P>
    
    <P ALIGN="left"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="3"><B>Jan. 31 </B>Poland's
      governing coalition (the Democratic Left Alliance) nominates Wlodzimierz
      Cimoszewicz, a former Communist and deputy speaker of parliament, to
      become the next Prime Minister. </FONT></FONT></P>
    
    <P ALIGN="center"> <FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="4"><B><I>EASTERN
      EUROPE</I></B></FONT> </FONT> </P>
    
    <P ALIGN="center"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="4"><B><I>Russia</I></B></FONT></FONT></P>
    
    <P ALIGN="left"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="3"><B>Jan. 5</B> In a
      move that was long predicted, President Boris Yeltsin accepts the
      resignation of Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev, one of the last liberals
      in his cabinet. </FONT></FONT></P>
    
    <P ALIGN="left"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="3"><B>Jan. 9</B>
      President Boris Yeltsin chooses Yevgeny Primakov, director of Russia's
      foreign intelligence service and a member of the powerful Russian Security
      Council, as his new Foreign Minister. A longtime Communist Party member,
      Mr. Primakov is an experienced bureaucrat with a sense for public
      relations. </FONT></FONT></P>
    
    <P ALIGN="left"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="3"><B>Jan. 12</B> In
      his first news conference, Foreign Minister Yevgeny Primakov emphasizes
      that &#147;Russia &#160;remains a great power,&#148; and states that
      Russia's partnership with the U.S. should become more &#147;equitable.&#148;
      He also stresses that Russia needs to show more leadership in Bosnia and
      in its relationship with former Soviet Republics, and he reiterates
      Russia's opposition to NATO expansion. </FONT></FONT></P>
    
    <P ALIGN="left"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="3"><B>Jan. 16 </B>Distancing
      himself from the government's less than popular economic reforms,
      President Boris Yeltsin accepts the resignation of Deputy Prime Minister
      Anatoly Chubais, the last liberal in his cabinet. Mr. Chubais, who
      designed Russia's privatization program, had won the trust of Western
      institutions; he resigns on the eve of final crucial negotiations for a $9
      billion International Monetary Fund loan. </FONT></FONT></P>
    
    <P ALIGN="left"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="3"><B>Jan. 25</B>
      President Boris Yeltsin picks Vladimir Kadannikov, the director of
      Avtovaz, Russia's largest state-owned automobile company, as Deputy Prime
      Minister, replacing Anatoly Chubais. A Soviet-schooled industrialist, Mr.
      Kadannikov is an advocate of government measures to protect Russian
      industry. </FONT></FONT></P>
    
    <P ALIGN="left"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="3"><B>Jan. 27 </B>Oneksim
      Bank, the largest commercial bank in Russia, has caused a major political
      scandal after it initiated a privatization program that resulted in
      favoritism and inequities. Under the bank's scheme, known as &#147;loans
      for shares,&#148; a few Kremlin-favored banks lent the government money in
      1995 in exchange for the ability to buy at very low prices shares in
      Russia's most valuable industries (oil, shipping, and metals). Unpopular
      with Russian voters, privatization has been nicknamed &#147;grabification,&#148;
      or the giving away of government wealth to a few well-connected and
      unscrupulous businessmen.</FONT></FONT></P>
    
    <P ALIGN="center"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="4"><B><I>Russia/Chechnya</I></B></FONT></FONT></P>
    
    <P ALIGN="left"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="3"><B>Jan. 9 </B>Slipping
      into Russia, a band of Chechen rebels seize a large hospital in Kizlyar, a
      city of 40,000 in the plains of Dagestan, taking about 2,000 hostages and
      promising to leave only when Russian troops withdraw from Chechnya.
      Russian special army forces surround the hospital and close off the city.
      </FONT></FONT></P>
    
    <P ALIGN="left"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="3"><B>Jan. 10 </B>Russian
      leaders allow the Chechen rebels to leave Kizlyar in 11 buses with 143
      hostages, but Russian forces fire on the rebels near the border with
      Chechnya. In turn, the rebels seize 25 new hostages and take over the
      small farming village of Pervomayskoye. </FONT></FONT></P>
    
    <P ALIGN="left"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="3"><B>Jan. 11</B> The
      Chechen rebels demand freedom for Chechnya. As the Russian military
      leaders ask for the hostages' freedom first, the rebels return to
      Pervomayskoye and threaten to kill the 143 hostages they hold. </FONT></FONT></P>
    
    <P ALIGN="left"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="3"><B>Jan. 13 </B>After
      releasing children who have been held hostage, no progress is made in the
      talks between Russian negotiators and Chechen rebels about releasing the
      remaining captives. </FONT></FONT></P>
    
    <P ALIGN="left"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="3"><B>Jan. 14 </B>At
      the request of Dagestan's leadership, the Russian government backs away
      from a deadline that had been set for freeing the hostages; but Salman
      Raduyev, the leader of the Chechen raid and a relative of Chechen leader
      Dzhokhar Dudayev, insists that he will not lay down his arms. </FONT></FONT></P>
    
    <P ALIGN="left"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="3"><B>Jan. 15 </B>Russian
      troops launch a furious assault on Pervomayskoye. In Moscow, President
      Yeltsin defends the assault by saying that all peaceful means of ending
      the standoff have been exhausted. </FONT></FONT></P>
    
    <P ALIGN="left"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="3"><B>Jan. 16 </B>While
      the Chechen rebels withstand a second day of attack by Russian troops in
      Pervomayskoye, another group of rebels carries the Chechen war beyond
      Russian borders by hijacking a Russia-bound ferry in the Turkish Black Sea
      port of Trebizond and threatening to kill Russian passengers if the
      Russian army does not stop its assault. Also in Grozny, Chechnya's
      capital, other rebels declare a campaign of &#147;widespread terrorist
      activity&#148; and kidnap 30 employees of a Russian power plant. </FONT></FONT></P>
    
    <P ALIGN="left"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="3"><B>Jan. 17 </B>Saying
      that the hostages are dead, the Russian army acknowledges its failure to
      rescue them and withdraws its ground troops in order to flatten
      Pervomayskoye with &#147;devastating missiles.&#148; </FONT></FONT></P>
    
    <P ALIGN="left"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="3"><B>Jan. 18</B> The
      Russian army finally overcomes the Chechen rebels in Pervomayskoye, but
      the number of casualties cannot be assessed. As the hijacked Turkish ferry
      approaches Istanbul, Chechen hijackers pull back from their threats to
      blow up the ship and say that they only seek to bring Chechnya's plight to
      world attention. </FONT></FONT></P>
    
    <P ALIGN="left"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="3"><B>Jan. 19 </B>Turkey
      ends the ferry hostage crisis without bloodshed by persuading the Chechen
      hijackers to surrender and release the approximately 200 hostages. </FONT></FONT></P>
    
    <P ALIGN="left"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="3"><B>Jan. 22 </B>Salman
      Raduyev, the Chechen raid leader, emerges from seclusion for an interview
      and vows that the fight will continue. The number of casualties in
      Pervomayskoye is still unknown. </FONT></FONT></P>
    
    <P ALIGN="left"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="3"><B>Jan. 24 </B>Chechen
      rebels release 46 of the 100 Pervomayskoye hostages but continue to hold
      14 Russian policemen captured after the Jan. 9 raid on Kizlyar and the 30
      Russian power-plant workers seized in Grozny on Jan. 16. </FONT></FONT></P>
    
    <P ALIGN="center"> <FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="4"><B><I><FONT>THE
      FORMER YUGOSLAVIA</FONT> </I></B></FONT></FONT> </P>
    
    <P ALIGN="center"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="4"><B><I>Bosnia</I></B></FONT></FONT></P>
    
    <P ALIGN="left"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="3"><B>Jan. 1 </B>Since
      the Dayton Agreement, Sarajevo residents are free to travel throughout the
      city, but a Serbian checkpoint on a bridge linking parts of Sarajevo has
      prevented Muslims from crossing to the Serbian side. NATO, which denied
      the checkpoint's existence at first, says that the matter will be
      addressed immediately. </FONT></FONT></P>
    
    <P ALIGN="left"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="3"><B>Jan. &#160;2</B>
      The Bosnian Muslim government accuses Bosnian Serbs of violating the
      Dayton Agreement by abducting 16 civilians traveling through Serbian-held
      areas of Sarajevo and holds NATO forces responsible for the missing
      people. Although NATO's job is to make the country secure, civilian
      protection should lie ultimately with the international civilian police
      force to be created under former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt.
      </FONT></FONT></P>
    
    <P ALIGN="left"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="3"><B>Jan. 3 </B>As
      part of the Dayton Agreement, Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic will
      not be able to run for office in the late spring elections. Increasingly
      isolated from the one million Serbs he rules, he is under attack from
      opposition figures and members of his own party who want him removed from
      power. NATO officials visit the Serbian-held suburb of Ilidza to press for
      the release of the detained Bosnian Muslim civilians but obtain no
      assurances that they will be freed.</FONT></FONT></P>
    
    <P ALIGN="left"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="3"><B>Jan. 4 </B>Under
      pressure from NATO and the U.S., the Bosnian Serbs release 16 Bosnians
      they had detained for 13 days. According to Carl Bildt, the international
      police force to be created will have only 1,700 officers to cover the
      whole country; freedom of movement, therefore, will be very difficult to
      ensure and diplomatic pressure will be more effective. </FONT></FONT></P>
    
    <P ALIGN="left"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="3"><B>Jan. 6</B>
      Mostar, the capital of what the Dayton Agreement has planned as a
      federation in which Croats and Muslims will jointly govern about half of
      Bosnia (the other half being under Bosnian Serb control), remains a tense
      city. Shootings between Croats and Muslims there have prompted the
      European Union administrator to consider closing the bridge that connects
      the two communities for their protection. </FONT></FONT></P>
    
    <P ALIGN="left"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="3"><B>Jan. 7</B>
      Mostar's Muslim officials ask NATO to take the EU's place in administering
      the city. The EU started administering Mostar after the 1994 accord that
      ended the fighting between Bosnian Croats and Muslims, and the Western
      European Union&#151;the military arm of the EU&#151;sent 180 police
      monitors to help create a joint Muslim-Croat police force. Recently, local
      Croatian leaders who disagree with the Dayton Agreement have fomented
      violence to undermine it. Muslim officials believe that only NATO can stop
      the rising violence. But NATO commanders state that they lack the manpower
      to get involved in police work and reaffirm that their task is to separate
      factions, not law enforcement. </FONT></FONT></P>
    
    <P ALIGN="left"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="3"><B>Jan. 8</B> After
      receiving instructions from Zagreb, Croatia's capital, Bosnian Croat
      leaders in Mostar assure the EU administrator for the first time that they
      will work to reunify the city as planned under the Dayton Agreement.
      Croatia has supported Bosnian Croats politically and militarily throughout
      the Bosnian war. </FONT></FONT></P>
    
    <P ALIGN="left"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="3"><B>NY Times, Jan.
      11</B> The Ljubija mine in northern Bosnia may contain as many as 8,000
      bodies and could document the Bosnian Serbs' campaign of &#147;ethnic
      cleansing&#148; against Muslims and Croats living in this region. As NATO
      troops move into the area, the Bosnian Serbs are exhuming bodies from
      numerous mass graves and transferring them to the mine where the remains
      are doused with chemicals and hidden under tons of debris. </FONT></FONT></P>
    
    <P ALIGN="left"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="3"><STRONG>J</STRONG><B>an.
      11 </B>As Bosnian Serb forces continue to withdraw from front lines in
      Sarajevo, Bosnian Serb families who are not prepared to accept Muslim rule
      leave the city with their belongings (sometimes exhuming their dead) and
      head toward Serbian-controlled territory. </FONT></FONT></P>
    
    <P ALIGN="left"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="3"><B>Jan. 12 </B>Departing
      from the way U.S. and other Allied troops have operated until now, Defense
      Secretary William Perry says that, starting later this month, the
      peace-enforcing troops will provide security for human rights
      investigators searching for evidence of war crimes in Bosnia and that once
      enough NATO forces are deployed, these forces will guarantee &#147;freedom
      of movement and security to all civilians and international organizations
      traveling through Bosnia.&#148; One hundred and fifty Russian elite
      paratroopers arrive in Bosnia to join the peace-enforcement troops. They
      will take their orders from a Russian general who is a deputy commander at
      NATO headquarters in Brussels, but their actions will be coordinated by
      Maj. Gen. William Nash, the U.S. commander in Bosnia. </FONT></FONT></P>
    
    <P ALIGN="left"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="3"><B>Jan. 14 </B>The
      White House announces that U.S. civilian contractors, mostly retired
      American military officers, will start training Bosnian Muslim soldiers in
      the next 60 days in order to insure that they can defend themselves after
      NATO peacekeepers leave. Under the plan, Bosnian Muslim troops would be
      trained in Bosnia or in a NATO country such as Turkey. Islamic countries
      would pay for most of the training. </FONT></FONT></P>
    
    <P ALIGN="left"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="3"><B>Jan. 15</B> The
      Bosnian government postpones a large exchange of prisoners that was
      planned under the Dayton Agreement until the Bosnian Serbs provide
      information on about 24,000 missing Muslims. Of those, 4,000 are believed
      to be detained, but the fate of the remaining 20,000 is unknown. </FONT></FONT></P>
    
    <P ALIGN="left"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="3"><B>Jan. 19</B>
      Having no means to make arrests and little ability to carry out
      investigations, the international war crimes tribunal asks NATO for help
      in securing mass graves in Bosnia (i.e., guarding sites) and arresting
      indicted war criminals. Both Gen. George Joulwan, the senior NATO
      commander, and NATO Sec. Gen. Javier Solana make no commitments. They
      emphasize that NATO forces have no mandate to act as a police force and
      that maintaining an overall secure environment is their primary goal.
      </FONT></FONT></P>
    
    <P ALIGN="left"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="3">In accordance with
      the Dayton Agreement, Bosnian Serb and Bosnian government forces complete
      the withdrawal of their forces and heavy weapons from the 1,000-mile-long
      cease-fire line to create a two-mile separation zone. But they only
      exchange about 225 prisoners of war on each side (leaving about 700
      behind) as Bosnian government officials reiterate their demands about the
      24,000 Muslims missing in Serb-held Bosnia. </FONT></FONT></P>
    
    <P ALIGN="left"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="3"><B>Jan. 27 </B>The
      release of prisoners under the Bosnia peace plan resumes, but there is a &#147;long
      way to go,&#148;according to Jacques Demaio, coordinator of the
      International Committee of the Red Cross in Sarajevo. </FONT></FONT></P>
    
    <P ALIGN="left"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="3"><B>Jan. 29</B> Over
      the past 10 days, more than 500 prisoners have been released by all sides,
      but 112 prisoners known to be held have yet to be released. </FONT></FONT></P>
    
    <P ALIGN="center"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="4"><B><I>Croatia</I></B></FONT></FONT></P>
    
    <P ALIGN="left"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="3"><B>Jan. 9</B>
      Eastern Slavonia, the last region of Croatia still held by Croatian Serbs,
      is expected to return to Croatian administration with provisions for the
      protection of the Croatian Serbs living there. A U.N. peacekeeping force
      of about 5,000 men, which will be created for a one-year period and led by
      a U.S. diplomat, Jacques Klein, is to disarm the region, including the
      city of Vukovar. NATO will assist the peacekeepers by giving them &#147;close
      air support&#148; and intervening militarily to defend them if needed.
      </FONT></FONT></P>
    
    <P ALIGN="left"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="3"><STRONG>J</STRONG><B>an.
      31</B> Serbian officials in eastern Slavonia are refusing to acknowledge
      that the region will return to Croatia. Through TV and radio broadcasts,
      they are urging the 30,000 Serbian refugees who were expelled from other
      parts of Croatia and are now in Serbia to settle in eastern Slavonia.
      </FONT></FONT></P>
    
    <P ALIGN="center"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="4"><B><I>Serbia/Croatia</I></B></FONT></FONT></P>
    
    <P ALIGN="left"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="3"><B>Jan. 18</B> A
      fight between Serbia and Croatia for control over the Prevlaka Peninsula,
      a small piece of land at the tip of Croatia's Dalmatian coast that ends at
      the entrance to Kotor Bay&#151;owned by Montenegro and home to the
      Yugoslav Navy&#151;is an obstacle to the Dayton Agreement provisions.
      According to the agreement, all countries in the region must recognize
      each other's borders; but Serbia refuses to recognize Croatia's borders,
      because whoever controls the peninsula also controls the bay and the
      Yugoslav Navy vessels. </FONT></FONT></P>
    
    <P ALIGN="center"> <FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="4"><B><I>WESTERN
      EUROPE / EASTERN EUROPE</I></B></FONT> </FONT> </P>
    
    <P ALIGN="center"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="4"><B><I>France</I></B></FONT></FONT></P>
    
    <P ALIGN="left"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="3"><B>Jan. 8</B>
      Former President Francois Mitterand, a strong proponent of European unity,
      dies in Paris. </FONT></FONT></P>
    
    <P ALIGN="left"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="3"><B>Jan. 29 </B>France
      ends its nuclear weapon-testing program definitively after its last
      underground blast in the South Pacific on Jan. 27 generates enough data
      for computer simulations that make future tests unnecessary. </FONT></FONT></P>
    
    <P ALIGN="center"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="4"><B><I>France/NATO</I></B></FONT></FONT></P>
    
    <P ALIGN="left"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="3"><B>Jan. 17 </B>France,
      which returned to NATO's Military Committee in December, expresses its
      willingness to discuss the role its independent nuclear deterrent could
      play &#147;as part of a strengthened European pillar within the Alliance.&#148;
      But its ambassador, Gerard Errera, says France will not join NATO's
      Nuclear Planning Group or its Defense Planning Committee. </FONT></FONT></P>
    
    <P ALIGN="center"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="4"><B><I>Greece</I></B></FONT></FONT></P>
    
    <P ALIGN="left"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="3"><B>Jan. 15 </B>After
      two months of hospitalization that paralyzed the government, Prime
      Minister Andreas Papandreou cites his illness to formally resign and urges
      his party, the Panhellenic Socialist Movement, to elect a successor within
      three days. </FONT></FONT></P>
    
    <P ALIGN="left"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="3"><B>Jan. 18 </B>The
      governing Greek Socialist Party elects Costas Simitis, a Papandreou rival,
      as the new Prime Minister. Mr. Simitis, who was the architect of the
      government's recent fiscal austerity plan, is expected to keep the Greek
      economy in line with the Maastricht Treaty. He is also a pro-European
      modernizing reformer who &#147;will clean up the party as it heads to
      elections in 1997.&#148; </FONT></FONT></P>
    
    <P ALIGN="center"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="4"><B><I>Portugal</I></B></FONT></FONT></P>
    
    <P ALIGN="left"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="3"><B>Jan. 14</B> With
      53.8% of the votes, Socialist candidate Jorge Sampaio is elected to
      succeed Mario Soares as President of Portugal, defeating former Prime
      Minister Anibal Cavaco Silva, his conservative rival. </FONT></FONT></P>
    
    <P ALIGN="center"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="4"><I><B>Turkey</B></I></FONT></FONT></P>
    
    <P ALIGN="left"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="3"><B>Jan. 9 </B>President
      Suleyman Demirel invites Necmettin Erbakan, the leader of the Islamic
      Welfare Party who won the largest number of seats in parliament in
      December elections (leaving Prime Minister Tansu Ciller's True Path Party
      and its rival, the Motherland Party, behind), to form a coalition
      government. Mr. Erbakan is not expected to succeed because of his
      anti-secular and anti-Western positions. </FONT></FONT> </P>
    
    <P ALIGN="left"><FONT SIZE="+1"><A HREF="january96.htm">Go to top of page</A></FONT></P>
    
    <P ALIGN="left"><FONT SIZE="+1"><A HREF="96timelines.htm">Return to 1996
        Timeline Table of Contents</A></FONT></P>
    
    <P ALIGN="left"><FONT SIZE="+1"><A HREF="../index.html">Return to NATO
        Workshop Homepage</A></FONT></P>
    
    <P ALIGN="left">Copyright &copy; Center for Strategic Decision Research
      1997</P>
  </BODY>
</HTML>

Anon7 - 2021