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<TITLE>August</TITLE>
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<CENTER><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="+4">Events
of August 1997</FONT></FONT></FONT></CENTER>
<HR WIDTH="100%">
<CENTER><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="+1">Anne
D. Baylon and Anne Brooks</FONT></FONT></FONT></CENTER>
<CENTER><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="+1"></FONT></FONT></FONT></CENTER>
<CENTER><HR WIDTH="100%"></CENTER>
<CENTER></CENTER>
<CENTER><B><I><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="+1">CENTRALEUROPE</FONT></FONT></FONT></I></B></CENTER>
<CENTER></CENTER>
<CENTER><B><I><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000">Czech
Republic</FONT></FONT></I></B></CENTER>
<P><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><B>NY Times, Aug. 26</B>
Discrimination by the Czech population has driven Gypsies (a minority of
200,000 in a population of 10 million) to emigrate to Canada where visas
are not required for Czech citizens, and seek asylum on grounds of racial
discrimination. Recent citizen laws in the Czech Republic have denied many
poorly educated Gypsies basic services like schooling and health care, and
over 70 percent of Gypsies are without work in a country where
unemployment, at only 4%, is the lowest in Europe.</FONT></FONT> </P>
<CENTER></CENTER>
<CENTER><B><I><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000">Poland</FONT></FONT></I></B></CENTER>
<P><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><B>Aug. 26</B> Under
pressure from the Polish Peasant Party which is its coalition partner, the
ruling former Communist Party agrees to buy more grain from farmers before
the end of the year. The Polish Peasant Party had threatened to push for a
vote to dissolve the government if the government refused to buy more
grain.</FONT></FONT> </P>
<CENTER></CENTER>
<CENTER><B><I><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000">Romania</FONT></FONT></I></B></CENTER>
<P><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><B>Aug. 8</B> Throughout
Romania, up to 5,000 citizens protest Prime Minister Victor Ciorbea's new
phase of market reform that would close 17 money-losing factories at the
urging of the International Monetary Fund. An estimated 30,000 jobs are at
stake.</FONT></FONT> </P>
<CENTER></CENTER>
<CENTER><B><I><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="+1">EASTERN
EUROPE</FONT></FONT></FONT></I></B></CENTER>
<CENTER></CENTER>
<CENTER><B><I><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000">Belarus/Russia</FONT></FONT></I></B></CENTER>
<P><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><B>Aug. 22</B> Pressed by
Russia, President Aleksandr Lukashenko of Belarus frees four Russian
journalists who had been held in jail for a week after being accused of
crossing the Belarus border illegally. The journalists had been
investigating smuggling over Belarus's borders.</FONT></FONT> </P>
<CENTER></CENTER>
<CENTER><B><I><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000">Russia</FONT></FONT></I></B></CENTER>
<P><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><B>Aug. 4</B> President
Boris Yeltsin announces that the denomination of the ruble will change by
a factor of 1,000 on Jan. 1, causing the exchange rate to be 6 rubles to
the dollar instead of the current 6,000 rubles to the dollar. Russians
will have until Jan. 1, 2000 to trade in their old bills.</FONT></FONT>
</P>
<P><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><B>Aug. 5</B> In a move
that could discredit the government's pledge to eliminate the favoritism
that has plagued the sale of state assets, the powerful Oneksim Bank wins
38 percent of Norilsk Nickel, one of the world's largest producers of
nickel, copper, and platinum. With one of its subsidiaries managing the
bids and barring foreign investors, Oneksim Bank won easily against its
competitor, a small Russian industrial consortium.</FONT></FONT> </P>
<P><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><B>Aug. 15 </B>Promising
to do better in the future, President Yeltsin criticizes on television the
handling of the recent sale of Norilsk Nickel and the telecommunications
giant Svyazinvest, two state properties. So far, privatization in Russia
has been marred by blatant favoritism and abuses.</FONT></FONT> </P>
<P><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><B>Aug. 25</B> For the
first time in a decade, Moscow is undergoing a baby boom. Although it is
not clear yet whether the increase in Moscow's birth rate reflects a
national trend, it underscores a new sense of optimism that has emerged as
a result of a better standard of living, more job opportunities, and a
reverse in Russia's industrial decline.</FONT></FONT> </P>
<P><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><B>Aug. 28</B> President
Boris Yeltsin dismisses Yuri Baturin, the secretary of his Defense
Council, the main agency for military reform. Mr. Baturin is to be
replaced by First Deputy Defense Minister Andrei Kokoshin, who would
acquire additional powers and head a new body, the State Military
Inspectorate. Mr. Yeltsin has vowed during his re-election campaign to
transform the Soviet-era military into a leaner and better equipped force.</FONT></FONT>
</P>
<CENTER></CENTER>
<CENTER><B><I><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000">Russia/Chechnya</FONT></FONT></I></B></CENTER>
<P><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><B>Aug. 18</B> Expressing
"cautious optimism," Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov and
Russian President Boris Yeltsin meet in the Kremlin to find ways to
improve their two governments' hostile relations. The meeting follows the
release against ransom of three Russian journalists who had been held in
Chechnya for over two months.</FONT></FONT> </P>
<CENTER></CENTER>
<CENTER><B><I><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000">Tajikistan</FONT></FONT></I></B></CENTER>
<P><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><B>Aug. 10</B> After
fighting erupts between followers of rival government officials who are
accusing each other of trying to gain power, President Emomali Rakhmonov
calls an emergency session of his Security Council in an attempt to regain
control over what he calls "warring groups with links to organized
crime."</FONT></FONT> </P>
<P><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><B>Aug. 21</B>
Tajikistan, a country of 6 million people, has been plagued for over five
years by civil war (between Islamic-led Tajiks based in Afghanistan and
warlords within Tajikistan to whom President Emomali Rakhmonov owes his
power). A peace accord, brokered by Moscow, is to take effect this month
between the two factions. In order to make the implementation of the
accord possible, Tajikistan routs Makhmud Khudoyberdiev, the country's
strongest rebel warlord, who has threatened the accord because he was left
out of the new power arrangement.</FONT></FONT> </P>
<CENTER></CENTER>
<CENTER><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><B><I>Ukraine</I></B></FONT></FONT></CENTER>
<P><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><B>Aug. 24</B>
Pro-Russian protesters and separatists demonstrate in Crimea, a part of
Ukraine, against closer ties between Ukraine and NATO. The protest takes
place near the Donuzlav naval base, on Crimea's western coast.</FONT></FONT>
</P>
<CENTER><FONT SIZE="+1"></FONT></CENTER>
<CENTER><B><I><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="+1">THE
FORMER YUGOSLAVIA</FONT></FONT></FONT></I></B></CENTER>
<CENTER></CENTER>
<CENTER><B><I><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000">Bosnia</FONT></FONT></I></B></CENTER>
<P><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><B>Aug. 3</B> In
accordance with the Dayton agreement (under which Bosnian Muslims and
Croats jointly control one part of Bosnia and Bosnian Serbs the other) one
thousand Bosnian Muslims who had been forced by Bosnian Croats to leave in
1993 returned in mid-July to their homes in the town of Kruscica with the
cooperation of the Croats who control this part of the territory. But in a
brutal reversal and without explanations, Croatian political leaders are
now ousting the refugees again back to a Muslim area.</FONT></FONT> </P>
<P><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><B>Aug. 4</B> As a result
of the failure by Bosnia's three-member presidency in Sarajevo to appoint
diplomats who would represent all three ethnic factions in Bosnia,
Washington announces that it will suspend its contacts with Bosnia's
Ambassador to the U.S. An Aug. 1 deadline had been set in the peace
accords for these appointments. Other countries--Germany, France, Britain,
Austria, Sweden, and Italy--have already taken similar actions.</FONT></FONT>
</P>
<P><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><B>Aug. 8</B> Gen.
Shinseki, the U.S. general in charge of NATO forces in Bosnia, announces
plans to compel paramilitary forces in Bosnia to disband or face arrest by
NATO troops. Although the plan applies to all paramilitary forces, it aims
in particular at the large number of Bosnian Serb units who often serve as
bodyguards to indicted war criminals. In the 19 months that the NATO
military mission has operated in Bosnia, paramilitary police forces have
been most responsible for preventing the return of refugees to their
pre-war homes.</FONT></FONT> </P>
<P><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><B>Aug. 9</B> After
spending four days in Croatia, Bosnia, and Serbia trying to salvage the
Dayton peace agreement, U.S. special envoy to Bosnia Richard Holbrooke
leaves without having achieved a breakthrough in the two main threats to
peace--the inability of refugees to return home and the continuing power
of Radovan Karadzic.</FONT></FONT> </P>
<P><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><B>NY Times, Aug. 13</B>
According to Western diplomats, the latest obstacle to unifying Bosnia is
the millions of dollars political leaders make by smuggling goods into the
three separate mini-states within Bosnia since "the peaceful melding
of three fractious states could endanger their illicit income."</FONT></FONT>
</P>
<P><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><B>Aug. 17</B> NATO-led
troops prevent a clash between Bosnian Serb President Biljana Plavsic's
police forces and police forces loyal to former Bosnian Serb political
leader Radovan Karadzic. Mrs. Plavsic's forces have accused Mr. Karadzic's
units of tapping her telephones.</FONT></FONT> </P>
<P><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><B>Aug. 18 </B>Since NATO
forces are preparing for a more interventionist role, 350 British troops
backed by armored vehicles seize six police sites in Banja Luka,
confiscating large supplies of weapons from Radovan Karadzic's supporters
and effectively dismantling Mr. Karadzic's local power base.</FONT></FONT>
</P>
<P><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><B>Aug. 19</B> Searching
the police headquarters they just seized, British troops helped by United
Nations workers find evidence that President Plavsic's phones were tapped
and her office bugged.</FONT></FONT> </P>
<P><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><B>Aug. 21</B> British
troops escort one hundred Muslims back to Donja Sibenica, the village in
which they formed a majority before the war. The village, which was seized
from the Serbs by the Bosnian Croats at the end of the war, is now part of
the Muslim-Croat federation. It is the second attempt by NATO forces to
resettle Muslims in the area since ethnic Croats drove out a first group
of returning Muslims earlier this month.</FONT></FONT> </P>
<P><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000">In a closed-door meeting
of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Russia blocks
a proposal by Bosnian Serb President Biljana Plavsic in which the OSCE
would supervise October elections in the Bosnian Serb territory. As a
long-time ally of the Serbs, Russia has been reluctant to interfere in
internal Serbian power struggles. Russia is the only dissenting voice in
the otherwise unanimous position of the other 53 OSCE members.</FONT></FONT>
</P>
<P><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><B>Aug. 22</B> A
television station controlled by Bosnian Serb hard-liners in Pale has
started broadcasting anti-NATO propaganda. The program mixes images of
NATO troops with images of Nazi soldiers and depicts the NATO-led force as
a force of occupation.</FONT></FONT> </P>
<P><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000">Six Bosnian Serb police
officers return to work at Banja Luka's central police headquarters for
the first time since British troops seized the police stations on <B>Aug.
18.</B> The officers are defying the hard-line supporters of Radovan
Karadzic in Pale who have said that all police returning to work would do
so in defiance of the legal authority.</FONT></FONT> </P>
<P><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><B>Aug. 23</B> As NATO
peacekeepers press forward to save the goals of the Dayton peace
agreement--a united Bosnia and the return of refugees to their homes--by
working with Bosnian Serb leaders opposed to Radovan Karadzic and
supporting Bosnian Serb President Biljana Plavsic, foreign and local
officials fear that Mr. Karadzic will retaliate with violence.</FONT></FONT>
</P>
<P><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><B>Aug. 25</B> The power
struggle between hard-liners in Pale and President Plavsic's supporters in
Banja Luka intensifies as television reporters in Banja Luka indicate that
they will no longer work under the direction of Pale (from where the TV
signal originates). In response, Pale cuts its TV link with Banja Luka,
therefore severing its ties with its former partners.</FONT></FONT> </P>
<P><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><B>Aug. 26</B> In a
demonstration that the power still lies in Pale, President Plavsic summons
military leaders to discuss her fight with Mr. Karadzic for control, but
four of the eight top Bosnian Serb generals boycott the meeting. She also
dissolves the Bosnian Serb Parliament, but it declares her authority
illegitimate.</FONT></FONT> </P>
<P><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><B>Aug. 28</B> During a
NATO operation in Brcko intended to take away the control of the police
station from Dr. Karadzic's loyalists, mobs of rock-throwing Bosnian Serbs
confront American peacekeeping troops, wounding two soldiers.</FONT></FONT>
</P>
<P><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><B>Aug. 29</B> Outbreaks
of violence continue in Brcko where angry Serbs throw stones at a U.N.
inspection team and an explosion in Banja Luka kills one person and
injures two others.</FONT></FONT> </P>
<CENTER></CENTER>
<CENTER><I><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><B>Croatia</B></FONT></FONT></I></CENTER>
<P><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><B>Aug. 22</B> As part of
establishing diplomatic relations with Israel, Croatia issues an apology
to Jews for crimes committed by its Ustashe Administration, a "Nazi
puppet regime" that was responsible for killing tens of thousands of
Serbs and Jews.</FONT></FONT> </P>
<P><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><B>Aug. 27</B> Allies of
President Plavsic seize control of a key television transmission tower in
Doboj but the police loyal to Dr. Karadzic regain control of the
transmitter.</FONT></FONT> </P>
<CENTER></CENTER>
<CENTER><B><I><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000">Montenegro</FONT></FONT></I></B></CENTER>
<P><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><B>NY Times of Aug. 7
</B>Annexed by Serbia in 1918 and forming with Serbia all that is left of
Yugoslavia, Montenegro is becoming restless under the authority of
Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic.</FONT></FONT> </P>
<CENTER><FONT SIZE="+1"></FONT></CENTER>
<CENTER><B><I><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="+1">WESTERN
EUROPE/EASTERN EUROPE</FONT></FONT></FONT></I></B></CENTER>
<CENTER></CENTER>
<CENTER><B><I><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000">Ban on
Anti-personnel Land Mines</FONT></FONT></I></B></CENTER>
<P><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><B>Aug. 18</B> Under
growing international pressure, the United States agrees to join
negotiations on the ban on land mines that are to begin in September in
Oslo. Until now, the U.S. had refused to join the talks because of Korea,
where Pentagon planners count on land mines to deter any North Korean
incursion.</FONT></FONT> </P>
<CENTER></CENTER>
<CENTER><B><I><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000">Chemical
Weapons Convention</FONT></FONT></I></B></CENTER>
<P><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><B>Aug. 15</B> Three
months after the Chemical Weapons Convention (an international treaty
banning the production or use of chemical weapons) went into effect, over
half a dozen nations, including India, openly admit to possessing such
weapons or being able to manufacture them. Only two countries--the U.S.
and Russia--had made such admissions until then.</FONT></FONT> </P>
<CENTER></CENTER>
<CENTER><B><I><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000">Germany</FONT></FONT></I></B></CENTER>
<P><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><B>Aug. 25</B> Germany's
most ambitious effort to hold East Germany's top political leaders
accountable for the police shootings of people trying to escape to the
West during the Cold War is rewarded after a German court condemns Egon
Krenz, the last East German hard-line Communist leader, to six years in
prison for his responsibility in deaths at the Berlin Wall.</FONT></FONT>
</P>
<CENTER></CENTER>
<CENTER><B><I><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000">Turkey</FONT></FONT></I></B></CENTER>
<P><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><B>Aug. 14</B> With over
70 journalists imprisoned for violating Turkey's strict press laws (a
number greater than in any other country), the Turkish Parliament approves
an amnesty that could lead to the release of six editors, who are obliged
to share criminal liability with the authors of "illegal"
articles.</FONT></FONT> </P>
<P><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><B>Aug. 15</B> Ocak Isik
Yurtcu, a newspaper editor who had been jailed for publishing articles on
Kurdish insurgents in southeastern Turkey and is a symbol of Turkey's
imprisoned journalists, is released under the new amnesty. Turkey's
restrictions on the freedom of the press have been cited as a reason for
the country's inability to become a member of the European Union.</FONT></FONT>
</P>
<P><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><B>Aug. 16</B> Prime
Minister Mesut Yilmaz wins passage of a law that is intended to limit
religious education by requiring that schoolchildren spend eight years
instead of five in the public schools before being allowed to enroll in
religious academies. The bill, which has the support of military
commanders and secularists but is hotly opposed by religious Turks, will
decrease the number of children in these academies while permitting those
already there to question fundamentalism.</FONT></FONT> </P>
<P><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><B>Aug. 23</B> As the
Supreme Court is about to possibly ban the Islamic Welfare Party of former
Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan for "subverting the secular order in
Turkey," Mr. Erbakan has appealed to the West to help save his party.
By collecting information on whether political parties can be banned in
Western countries, he is hoping to prove that shutting down parties "violates
democratic standards widely accepted in the West."</FONT></FONT> </P>
<CENTER></CENTER>
<CENTER><B><I><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000">United
States/Britain/Russia</FONT></FONT></I></B></CENTER>
<P><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><B>NY Times, Aug. 4</B>
An annual arms survey by the U.S. Congressional Research Service reports
that the United States has become the world's biggest arms merchant, with
sales increasing nearly 23 percent in 1996; Britain was second and Russia
third. Together, the three countries are responsible for nearly two-thirds
of the world's arms sales.</FONT></FONT> </P>
<CENTER></CENTER>
<CENTER><B><I><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000">United
States/Russia/Iran</FONT></FONT></I></B></CENTER>
<P><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><B>NY Times, Aug. 22</B>
Despite U.S. efforts to stop Russian scientists and institutes from
helping Iran to develop a ballistic missile that could hit Israel, Saudi
Arabia, and U.S. troops in the Persian Gulf, Russian assistance is
continuing, U.S. officials report. With Russian military spending in
decline, many scientists and institutes that were part of the state-owned
Soviet military complex have sought private contracts and funding.</FONT></FONT><FONT FACE="Palatino"><FONT COLOR="#000000"></FONT></FONT>
</P>
<P></P>
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<P><BR>
<FONT COLOR="#083250"><FONT SIZE="-2">Copyright @ Center for Strategic
Decision Research 1998</FONT></FONT> <BR><FONT COLOR="#083250"><FONT SIZE="-2">Strategic Decision Press</FONT></FONT>
</P>
<P><FONT COLOR="#083250"><FONT SIZE="+1"><A HREF="aug.htm">Return to Top
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