9 - 15 September 2003

15 September 2003 The first official visit by a Croatian president to Belgrade since 1991 results in surprise apologies from both sides for wartime evils.

BELGRADE, Serbia and Montenegro and ZAGREB, Croatia--In a move seen as a significant step toward Serbo-Croatian reconciliation, Belgrade and Zagreb exchanged apologies last week for “all evils” committed in the past, though some tough issues are still far from being resolved.

“I want to apologize for all evils that any citizen of Serbia and Montenegro inflicted upon or committed against anyone in Croatia,” Serbia and Montenegro President Svetozar Marovic said during a 10 September press conference with his Croatian counterpart, Stipe Mesic.

Many--including Mesic himself, who was standing next to Marovic--were surprised at Serbia and Montenegro’s initiative. The Croatian side had no advance warning about the apology.

Mesic, however, quickly regained his composure and publicly accepted what he called a “symbolic apology.”

“I, for my part, apologize to all those who have suffered pain or damage at any time from citizens of Croatia who misused the law or abused their positions,” Mesic replied, repeating “at any time,” which was interpreted as a reference to atrocities committed by the Croatian Nazis, the Ustasha, against Serbs during World War II.

All those “who committed illegal acts during the war must answer for them,” Mesic said.

“In the name of the past, which cannot be forgotten, [Belgrade and Zagreb] must work together so that anyone who is guilty will face the law,” Marovic said.

The mutual apology was the highlight of the first official visit by a Croatian president to Belgrade since the breakup of socialist Yugoslavia in 1991.

The ensuing Serbo-Croatian war, which left 20,000 dead, ended in 1995, with Croatian forces taking over territories of the Republika Srpska Krajina, a self-proclaimed entity of the Croatian Serbs who were opposed to Croatia’s independence from Yugoslavia.

Some 200,000 Serbs then fled to Serbia and Republika Srpska, the Bosnian Serb-dominated entity in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Their return, as well as other consequences of the war, was at the center of discussions between Mesic and officials in Belgrade.

Despite an improvement in bilateral relations since the death of Croatian wartime leader Franjo Tudjman in 1999 and the ouster of his Serbian counterpart Slobodan Milosevic in 2000, “there are undoubtedly questions that remain open, which have not been solved,” Mesic said.

“There will be no faster improvement in relations between Croatia and Serbia and Montenegro without solving these painful and difficult issues,” the Croatian president said.

STILL ON THE AGENDA

Both presidents agreed that the return of Serb refugees to Croatia, along with their property claims, is “a key priority.” According to the Croatian government, some 100,000 Serbs have returned to Croatia, but many say they still face hurdles and discrimination in everyday life.

“It is in our interest that all our citizens return as soon as possible, because this is the only way for us to confirm that Croatia is a democratic country,” Mesic said.

Other contentious issues include further liberalization of the visa regime, border demarcation in the Danube area, weak economic cooperation, and a lawsuit filed by Croatia against Belgrade at the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

The process of liberalizing the visa regime between the two countries was initiated by Belgrade, which dropped all visa requirements for Croatian citizens this summer. Croatian authorities followed suit, though more modestly, suspending visa requirements for Serbian citizens for six months. Western officials have requested Zagreb to permanently drop its visa requirements.

In another positive move, Belgrade and Zagreb are again connected by air for the first time since 1991. Commercial flights between the two capitals resumed on 16 September.

Aspirations of joining the European Union have been the catalyst for improving relations between Serbia and Montenegro and Croatia.

“A united Europe is our common destiny. In order to join the EU we must help each other and be recognized as democratic, progressive societies,” Mesic said.

Belgrade analyst Ognjen Pribicevic of the Institute for Social Sciences said the exchange of apologies was a necessary step required by the EU.

“It is a tremendous step forward in the direction of the reconciliation of two nations and two states, a step that will contribute to peace and stability in the Balkans and in Europe,” Pribicevic told TOL.

“A lot of time will pass between the formal apology and true reconciliation, but this is the first step on that road,” he said.

The apologies were welcomed in Belgrade, although only a few politicians commented on the event.

Serbia and Montenegro Parliamentary President Dragoljub Micunovic, who also met with Mesic, said “everything should be done to heal the wounds of the past.”

The Reformists of Vojvodina (RV), a member of the ruling Democratic Opposition of Serbia (DOS) coalition, released a statement saying that the apologies were “the highest form of state wisdom.”

The Otpor movement, which played a key role in ousting Milosevic, said the move was “positive and necessary but not sufficient,” warning that the apology would remain empty if concrete problems are not resolved.

THE UNCERTAIN PUBLIC

The Serbian public, however, seemed largely unimpressed. Few in Belgrade have sympathy for Mesic, seen as a “gravedigger” of the former Yugoslavia as its last president and Tudjman’s “main ally” in the early 1990s.

“Marovic, too, was a high-ranking official at the time of the breakup of Yugoslavia,” Darko, an embittered Belgrade clerk, said, in a typical remark.

“They should apologize to each other, but in a cell in The Hague [at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia],” Darko said.

Nino, a banker from Belgrade, said he had mixed feelings about the future of Serbo-Croatian relations. This summer at a water polo European championship in Kranj, Slovenia, he barely escaped being beaten by Croatian supporters who went on a rampage at and around the stadium following their loss to Serbia and Montenegro.

“But after I calmed down, a few weeks later, I went to see a Croatian friend in Pula [on the Croatian coast], and we had a great time sailing in the Adriatic. It almost made me forget the horror in Kranj,” he said.

In Croatia reactions were much stronger, with moderates cautiously welcoming the apology and nationalists claiming that Mesic, by accepting and reciprocating Marovic’s apology, had equalized victims and aggressors.

Croatian Prime Minister Ivica Racan told local media on 10 September that the gesture is significant, especially if “we have in mind recent history, that is, aggression against Croatia.”

Vena Pusic, president of the Croatian People's Party, a member of the ruling coalition, welcomed Marovic’s apology, but said that Mesic’s reply was less an apology than an expression of regret for all crimes committed in the region.

According to Croatian Party of Rights leader Anto Djapic, Mesic’s response was nothing more than an attempt to at once please his host and avoid upsetting the Croatian public.

The Federation of Associations of Croatian Armed Forces called Mesic’s apology another slap in the face of Croatia’s defenders, families of the dead and missing, and of all values achieved in the “Homeland” Serbo-Croatian war.

In the West, though, the apology appeared a clear victory for the reconciliation process.

“The United States welcomes the steps taken by Croatian President Mesic and Serbian and Montenegrin President Marovic … to heal the wounds suffered during the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia,” U.S. State Department deputy spokesman Adam Ereli said in a statement.

“Their exchange of apologies and the concrete actions they took to resolve outstanding issues related to refugee returns, border demarcation, and visa regimes should further the normalization of their relations and add to regional stability,” he said.

--by Sasa Grubanovic, with additional reporting by Lovorka Kozole in Zagreb.

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Estonia: Seven Down, One to Go
Surprise drop in Russian minority’s support for EU entry puts a blot on resounding victory for the ‘Yes’ camp.

TARTU, Estonia--Estonia became the seventh Central and East European candidate country to hold and pass a referendum to join the European Union. Latvians go to the polls on 20 September.

The vote, held on 14 September, promised few surprises, as--in contrast to referendums in other accession countries--a simple majority was enough to produce success for the ‘Yes’ camp. Ultimately, the result was resounding, with two-thirds of voters (66.9 percent) voting to join the European Union in May 2004.

The result would have been safe even if a minimum turnout had been required. Well over half the electorate (63.4 percent) went to the polling stations. Some said the figure was low, as opinion polls suggested nearly 70 percent would turn out and 20 percent of the electorate had already posted by proxy by polling day. Sociologist Tonis Saarts told the daily Eesti Paevaleht* that some voters opted not to cast their votes, thinking the result was a formality. Other commentators argued that participation was high, as the turnout was five percentage points higher than in the parliamentary elections.

The real surprise of the referendum, however, was the unpopularity of the EU among Estonia’s large Russian-speaking minority. Ida-Virumaa, a largely ethnic-Russian region, returned the lowest ‘Yes’ vote of the night--just 57 percent--overturning the notion that the Russian minority was enthusiastically pro-EU.

Evald Mikkel, who teaches political science at Tartu University, told TOL that the ‘Yes’ camp’s frequent reference to Russia as a possible threat may have contributed to the fall of EU enthusiasm amongst Russian-speakers in Estonia.

A number of other counties in southern Estonian and the island of Saaremaa were almost as euroskeptic, with majorities close to 60 percent, but only in a handful of small communities did the ‘No’ camp win.

In fact, a hard-line euroskeptic Kalle Kulbok may cause more of a ripple, as he is challenging the legality of the vote in the courts. This may delay the announcement of the official result.

Despite this fly in the ointment, as the unofficial results became clear on Sunday evening, President Arnold Ruutel, Prime Minister Juhan Parts, and Parliamentary Speaker Ene Ergma issued a joint statement welcoming the result and saying that the Estonian people had had few chances to decide its own destiny in history.

“Through this referendum, the Estonian people confirmed their commitment to the common values of Europe,” they said. “Joining the EU and NATO next year shows the readiness of the Estonian people to shoulder the responsibility for the future of this part of the world with other nations.”

Even the Center Party, a former governing party that only decided to vote ‘Yes’ late in the campaign, came out with a strong statement in favor the decision. The EU is not primarily about a common market, it said, but about European dignity and values common to all Estonians.

It party, though, signaled that it would voice its concerns loudly in the EU, saying that “the Center Party is ready to defend Estonia in Europe and European values in Estonia.”

Leaders of the ‘No’ campaign made a similar attempt to re-profile themselves. The Research Center for a Free Europe, the leading force behind the ‘No’ campaign, said that it would take on board the promises made by the ‘Yes’ campaign--and try to ensure that they were met.

THE CAMPAIGN

Ivar Raig of the Research Center for a Free Europe voiced criticism of the conduct of the campaign. Though he believed that Estonians debated EU accession more deeply than other candidate countries during the campaign, the campaign “did not meet the best democratic standards as funding was completely unequal, and the media leaned on one side.”

Evald Mikkel from Tartu University also voiced reservations. The picture painted by the media was “heavily dominated by government and other public institutions campaigning for a ‘Yes’ vote.”

The campaign subsumed political life to such a degree that over the “last few weeks or the past month, other politically sensitive and possibly relevant questions were somehow cast aside,” Mikkel said.

The Tax Board, for example, was due to decide in August whether to order an inquiry into the private financial dealings of Estonia’s finance minister, Tonis Palts. No decision was made. The morning after the referendum, normal political life resumed with the Tax Board saying it had launched an inquiry.

WHAT WILL CHANGE?

It was probably only natural that the campaign focused on the changes that people will feel most directly after the country joins the EU in May 2004. For many younger people and ‘Yes’ voters, the ease of travel proved a very strong argument.

For the older generation, rising prices were a particular concern.

In the long run, Estonia will have to wait for free movement of labor with all EU countries. Most EU members, with the exception of UK, Denmark and Sweden, have placed a moratorium on the free labor movement for periods ranging from three to seven years.

While full integration into the labor market may be some time away, integration with the euro-zone may come relatively soon. The Estonian Central Bank believes the euro could replace the kroon in as early as 2007.

As it is, Estonia looks set to join the European Union in good shape. For some years now the Estonian economy, like that of its Baltic neighbors Latvia and Lithuania, has grown by 5 or more percent annually. Against the backdrop of a global slowdown and, recession in some places, this has been a stellar performance. Nonetheless, the Baltic “tigers” still lag far behind European average income. If Estonia keeps up its present pace, it could catch up with the rest of the Europe in 15-20 years.

--by Raimo Poom

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Romania: Euro-Corruption Arrives
Minister faces an EU inquiry into her family's acquisition of $150,000 in vocational training grants.

BUCHAREST, Romania--First it was sick palm trees. Now Prime Minister Adrian Nastase's government is facing another corruption allegation--the foul play of the Minister for European Integration, Hildegard Puwak.

In late July, investigative journalist Liviu Avram of the Adevarul daily uncovered evidence that companies run by Puwak’s husband and son received a total of $150,000 in grants from the European Union after she took office following the November 2000 elections.

The government's efforts to downplay the reports backfired. Now, Prime Minister Adrian Nastase's government faces an investigation by the EU's European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) and Nastase, himself, is in the bad books of the American ambassador.

Initially, both the government and the ruling Social Democratic Party (SDP) closed ranks against the media's continual harping on the Puwak story. The case was closed, said spokespersons for both the government and the party. On his recent visit to France, Nastase addressed the issue to the foreign media that, until now, he had reserved for domestic use, saying the Romanian correspondent of Le Monde was at fault for printing such bad news about Romania.

As for Romanian journalists, they were accused by both Nastase and Foreign Minister Mircea Geoana of endangering Romania’s chances of achieving full European integration by 2007. On 1 September Geoana said the media had overplayed the Puwak affair, which he called a "tempest in a teacup."

PUWAK FIGHTS BACK

When Adevarul broke the story, Puwak immediately exercised her right of reply, writing to the paper on 29 July that there had been no foul play because “EU regulations do not prevent relatives of acting officials from applying for such grants.”

Nor had she been obligated to list the grants in the declaration of financial interests she filed as a government official, she said.

The EU entered the fray on 2 September, when the European Commission's head of delegation in Romania, Jonathan Scheele, issued a statement stressing the EU's "zero tolerance" policy on corruption and saying OLAF had been informed of the minister's alleged wrongdoing.

The same day, Puwak issued a press release stating her “appreciation for the speedy action of the European Commission into clarifying the media allegations.”

She also said that asked both OLAF and the Romanian National Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office to look into the case.

OLAF does intend to open an investigation into the allegations against Puwak, spokesperson Alessandro Buttice told Romanian media and RFE/RL. But the Prime Minister's Control Department, where the OLAF liaison office is located, had received no information to that effect by 12 September, its spokesperson Luiza Coman told TOL.

In early September, a fact-finding mission from the European Commission Directorate-General for Education and Culture came to Bucharest. This directorate administers the Leonardo da Vinci vocational training program that awarded the grants to Puwak's husband and son. The spokesperson for the Delegation of the European Commission to Bucharest, Angela Filote, told TOL she could not release the names or even the number of people on the mission, nor their findings.

Robert Cazanciuc, a prosecutor with the Prime Minister's Control Department, told TOL that OLAF has sent the national investigative body dozens of cases of alleged fraud involving EU money for further investigation.

Some of those cases were passed on to police and prosecutors when the Control Department found grounds to open a judicial investigation, Cazanciuc said. Not a single case has gone through the court system, he said, nor has anyone been made to return improperly gained funds.

THE GERMAN CONNECTION

OLAF also will have to look into the Western end of the cross-border business conducted by the companies owned by Puwak’s family members. The grants were supposed to support training for Romanian construction workers in Germany.

In order to receive grants under the Leonardo da Vinci program, Romanian companies have to partner with firms based in an EU member state. But journalist Avram found that one of the Puwaks' German partner companies was bankrupt, and another was not listed in the German Trade Registry. Avram alleged that the companies were owned by Puwak family relatives.

(Avram's reporting on government corruption won him an honorable mention in this year's Kurt Schork Awards in International Journalism administered by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.)

While the official investigations are pending, the verbal tug-of-war continues, with the Romanian opposition asking for Puwak’s resignation.

And once again, the topic of corruption is setting Romanian officials' teeth on edge, and setting them in opposition to Western diplomats.

The most prominent recent exchange of words occurred between Nastase and the American ambassador to Bucharest, Michael Guest.

Although the ambassador has not commented on the Puwak investigation, he commented on the not-always transparent way public money is spent in Romania in an interview with Romanian media. He singled out the hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on palm trees in a Black Sea resort by former Tourism Minister Dan Matei Agathon, in spite of the trees' obvious failure to adapt to Romanian harsh winters.

The prime minister stated publicly that “the issue is for us to decide if someone should tell us where to plant the palm trees.”

Guest replied in a press release that he took issue not with the location of the palm trees but with the “accountability for the use of public funds.” Guest said that “he regrets if the prime minister doesn’t share that concern, but he knows that many Romanians do.”

The statement went on to say that Guest was “astonished at the suggestion that foreigners--whether himself, various European Union officials, World Bank officials, or the many others who have spoken to this issue--are attempting to use this issue against the Romanian people. To the contrary, all of us want to help this country, and we want our respective partnerships with Romania to grow.”

The bottom line, concluded the statement, "is that corruption remains a serious problem for this country, and those in power are responsible for taking committed, concrete steps to curb it."

--by Dumitru Balaci

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Belarus: NGOs in the Crosshairs
Legal-aid group becomes the latest civic organization to fall victim to Belarusian authorities' deep distrust of the third sector.

MINSK, Belarus--Belarusian authorities recently reprimanded one civic group because of missing quotation marks on letterhead. Another was closed down for using the word "organization" instead of "association" on official papers.

The most recent nongovernmental organization to lose its official standing is a legal-aid and human rights monitoring group, Legal Assistance to the Population (LAP). Minsk city judge Natalia Zhupikova made the ruling on 8 September on grounds that the group had improperly rendered paid legal services to the public. She also said LAP had the wrong official stamp.

LAP became the first human-rights nongovernmental organization to be closed by the courts or the government. On 13 September, a second human-rights group, Viasna, was notified that the Supreme Court will consider a Justice Ministry lawsuit to close it down, according to the Web site of the Charter 97 opposition group.

After Zhupikova's ruling, LAP released a statement saying the group would continue monitoring human-rights violations committed by the Belarusian government and the judicial system, Charter 97 reported.

The judge ordered the hearing to be held on video, because there was no suitable hall for an open hearing. LAP head Aleh Volchak demanded the hearing be moved to a larger space and refused to participate in the proceedings, which went ahead in the absence of any representative of the organization.

LAP was founded in 1998 to help citizens who were unable to pay for legal services. It became well-known for its role in the investigations related to disappearances of opposition politicians Yuri Zakharanka and Viktar Hanchar, businessman Anatol Krasowski, journalist Dzmitry Zavadski, and also for assisting the relatives of victims of a stampede at a Minsk subway station in 1999.

LAP members said the judge's ruling was ordered by the government. The International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights (IHF) agreed, saying it was deeply concerned about the decision, which seemed to be part of an ongoing process of thwarting the work of human-rights defenders. The IHF charged that "a new, orchestrated campaign against civil society" was under way in Belarus.

The ambassador of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to Belarus, Eberhard Heyken, reacted to the court ruling in a more measured tone, commenting on 12 September that “To liquidate an established and well-functioning NGO under such circumstances seems too harsh a measure and disproportionate in relation to [its] deeds."

Heyken also communicated his concern over the government's crackdown on nongovernmental organizations in a letter to Justice Minister Viktar Galavanaw. The OSCE cooperates with a number of these organizations, including the Belarusian Helsinki Committee, the Lev Sapeha Foundation, and LAP.

In late August, authorities denied a visa to the OSCE's Representative on Freedom of the Media,
Freimut Duve, who had intended to meet with independent journalists.

CRACKDOWN ON THE THIRD SECTOR

In 2003, five organizations, ranging from the Christian-Social Youth Union to Ratusha, a resource center for other nongovernmental organizations, were "liquidated" for alleged violations relating to the use of foreign aid and rules on registration. In the case of the regional resource center Varuta, the violation was the use of the word "organization" instead of "association" on official papers.

In addition to Viasna, several others have been reprimanded or told they face closure by legal action for minor irregularities. The Belarusian Helsinki Committee was warned that its name appeared without quotation marks on its letterhead, seal, and official stamp. Under Belarusian law, two such warnings during a year constitute grounds for an nongovernmental organization’s closure.

The warning given in August to the Union of Poles forbade it to use the Polish language even in internal papers.

The government also has moved against foreign organizations. In July, a U.S.-based nongovernmental educational and media-support organization, IREX, closed its Belarusian operations when its application to renew its accreditation was denied on grounds that the organization was funding opposition political groups and media. The authorities also closed the Minsk bureau of Russia’s NTV television channel, saying it had slandered the police in its coverage of the funeral of writer Vasil Bykau, a vocal critic of the Lukashenka regime.

In recent years, the Belarusian authorities have expanded their arsenal of regulations and decrees pertaining to civil society. Presidential Decree No. 13, issued on 15 April, for all practical purposes bars public organizations from representing ordinary citizens in court. The decree marks another attempt to isolate civil society in a "democratic ghetto" by driving a wedge between public organizations and the public, in words of the International Helsinki Federation.

According to amendments to the law on public meetings and demonstrations adopted on 11 July, political parties and nongovernmental organizations can be closed for one gross violation during actions they organize.

Against this background and disregarding criticism coming from independent experts who say that a non-governmental organization cannot be a state organization by definition, on 1 August President Lukashenka issued a decree on "republican state-public associations." This new legal class of association will be financially supported by and devoted to undertaking tasks assigned by the state.

--by Dzmitry Markusheuski

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Russia: Shock (and Awe) Therapy for Iraq?
The U.S. interim administration in Iraq chooses Yegor Gaidar, Russia’s “shock therapist,” as an advisor.

ULYANOVSK, Russia--Could Yegor Gaidar, the mastermind of the “shock therapy” applied to Russia’s economy in the 1990s, be called to do the same job in Iraq? In a country where 33 million live below the poverty line, the revelation that Gaidar, who many believe played a major role in their impoverishment, has been invited to talk with U.S. officials in Baghdad has come as a shock and caused widespread anger.

It has also become a source of black humor. A joke now doing the rounds is that the Americans may have pledged not to unleash weapons of mass destruction in Iraq but they are now inviting one: Gaidar.

When the news was first broken by Boris Nemtsov, the joint leader of the Union of Right Forces (SPS), many assumed that this a public-relations ploy by the SPS, in which Gaidar is a leading member. The timing of the announcement--at the party’s congress on 8 September--added to the suspicion.

The SPS’s spokeswoman, Yelena Dikun, was then forced to produce more specific information.

Gaidar, she said, was invited by the U.S. interim administration in Baghdad and would stay in Iraq from 19 to 21 September, “after which, he will assess the situation and unveil his proposals for Iraq's reconstruction."

Even that failed to lift the fog entirely. Ultimately, the clearest basic facts were given by the think tank that Gaidar now heads, the Institute for the Economy in Transition. It said Gaidar would take part in an international conference to discuss how lessons from transition countries could be used to help in the rebuilding of the Iraqi economy.

The invitation of a delegation of economists is viewed as part of U.S. President George Bush’s plan to deepen the international community’s involvement in the post-war reconstruction in Iraq.

Gaidar told the radio station Ekho Moskvy that he was invited by the head of the head of the interim administration in Baghdad, Paul Bremer.

That, though, did not calm reports that Gaidar might play a much grander role than that of a mere delegate. Initially, there was talk that Gaidar might even become the main adviser to the Americans.

Even the normally serious-minded weekly Argumenty i fakty wrote on 10 September that “we can't rule out the possibility that the well-known economist Yegor Gaidar has received an offer from the new Iraqi government to become its economic consultant.”

The paper claimed to know the value of the contract that Gaidar allegedly had been given: $300,000 a month. “However, this information requires confirmation,” it added.

THE KAMIKAZE PILOT

While Gaidar’s role in Iraq is something of a mystery--or, at least, a source of speculation--what is clear is just how deeply Russians feel toward the man. As acting prime minister, Gaidar swiftly began to reform the Russian economy in 1992.

To fight food shortages that had resulted in huge queues across the country, he freed prices. As prices soared, many people lost their savings literally overnight.

Gaidar’s government also launched the greatest privatization in world history. A small group of men with close ties to the Kremlin, later called “oligarchs,” gained control over large swathes of Russia’s industrial landscape. Many Russians felt deceived and disappointed in democracy. Since then Gaidar has become a villain in popular eyes and a target for criticism.

In his defense, Gaidar argues that his government balanced the budget and, eventually, stabilized prices.

The depth of animosity toward Gaidar has raised questions about the electoral strategy of the SPS. Gaidar, already an SPS deputy in the Duma, heads its lists of candidates in Moscow. If the SPS enters parliament after December’s vote--and it may not get the 5 percent support needed--Gaidar would be a certainty to regain his seat in the Duma. So, too, would Anatoly Chubais, the main implementer of privatization in the early 1990s. Unlike Gaidar, he does not have a seat in parliament. Chubais, though, now appears third in the SPS's national list of candidates.

Some critics argue that having the “father of shock therapy”--Gaidar--and “the father of the privatization”--Chubais--on the same ticket is like taking a double dose of a suicide pill. In 1995, a Gaidar-led bloc of parties failed to get into parliament. But the leadership of the SPS, a marginal party, insists that as many as 20 million have benefited from the reforms and are natural supporters of the SPS.

Gaidar’s elevation to the international stage was met with some savage heckling from political opponents. The leader of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR), the controversial populist figure Vladimir Zhirinovsky, has been the loudest. On 12 September, deputies approved an initiative by Zhirinovsky, vice-chairman of the Duma, demanding that the Foreign Ministry take action to remove the “offensive spit” aimed at the country “in the form of Gaidar’s invitation to be a consultant on the Iraqi economy.”

Zhirinovsky said the invitation confirms “full approval by the West of Gaidar’s reforms that led to the collapse of the Russian economy and the impoverishment of an overwhelming number of the Russian population.”

But neither the Duma nor the Foreign Ministry can prevent Gaidar from going to Baghdad. Moreover, his role, whatever it proves to be, could boost the Kremlin’s effort to gain influence in Iraq and, potentially, increase its stake in the Iraqi economy.

Russia’s official position on Iraq is that the UN should take charge of the political decision-making process in the country.

According to an anonymous source in the Russian delegation for talks on Iraq in Geneva, the Kremlin said “a specific program for the restoration of sovereignty needs to be developed.” It must be something like the “road map” to peace in Israel, the source said.

Russia has ruled out sending troops to Iraq. On 9 September, Russia’s permanent representative at the United Nations, Sergei Lavrov, said that Russia could offer “different forms of support of Iraq’s sovereignty.”

Whether Gaidar could prove “a different form” of support or a “weapon of mass destruction” may or may not be discovered. But Gaidar clearly believes that his invitation could lead to deeper involvement in Iraq. His Institute for the Economy in Transition, along with Poland’s Center for Social and Economic Research (CASE), could have a good chance of involvement in finding solutions to problems that Iraq will face, Gaidar said.

CASE is an independent, non-profit institute dealing with problems of post-communist transition, European integration, and the world economy.

Gaidar said that that the Soviet and Iraqi economies have much in common, despite the huge differences between the two societies.

Speaking to Ekho Moskvy, Gaidar said the fundamental problem in the Soviet Union in 1991 was the collapse of the political institutions of the totalitarian regime. The same holds for Iraq in 2003, he said. Iraq had its own all-embracing party, the Baath party. In both countries, party orders determined economic activity.

The huge work that should be done in Iraq to build new institutions and traditions is something common to Russia in 1991 and Iraq in 2003, Gaidar said.

But has Gaidar been scarred by his experiences in the 1990s and by becoming a widely reviled figure?

The man who once called himself a kamikaze for spearheading reform says he has not. “If I were a timorous man, I would not have gotten down to what I got down to in 1991,” he asserts. Fear that Iraqis calling him “a collaborator working with occupants” will not put him off.

--by Sergei Borisov

For more articles on Russia, visit our Russia country file, at http://russia.tol.cz.


Slovenia Abolishes the Draft

LJUBLJANA, Slovenia--The day of 9 September unexpectedly became one to rejoice for many of Slovenia’s young men. On that date, the Slovenian Defense Ministry abolished its seven-month compulsory military service policy, paving the way for professional armed forces to defend the country as it prepares for NATO accession in 2004.

Mandatory military service was cancelled nine months earlier than planned, and the army is expected to be fully professional by 2010.

Slovenian Prime Minister Anton Rop hailed the move as “historic” not only for Slovenia, but also for some 300 young draftees that have just learned they will not be called up for military service in October.

“This is a historic step that will make many young people who have decided that they do not want to serve in the military, very happy,” Rop said in a 9 September statement.

“On the other hand, the move opens up several possibilities for those who wish to become professional soldiers. We will get a small, flexible, effective, and able army, which will ensure the highest possible defense capability of Slovenia,” the prime minister said, adding that the reorganized army will be more compatible with NATO and other peacekeeping operations.

According to Defense Minister Anton Grizold, maintaining conscription until June 2004--which was the original target date for abolishing compulsory military service--would have been unjustifiable. Though Grizold failed to elaborate, his message was clear: Fewer and fewer young Slovenes are interested in joining the military, and an expedited transition to a professional army was therefore vital for the country’s defense capability.

Compulsory military service in the Slovenian Armed Forces was first introduced on 15 May 1991, less than two months before the ex-Yugoslav republic declared independence on 25 June 1991. Since then over 91,820 young men have been conscripted to serve the motherland. The number of young Slovenes serving in the army gradually increased until the turning point in the Serbo-Croatian war in 1994, after which the figures started to drop. The all-time low was reached in 2002, when only 4,475 were called up.

More and more young people have chosen the civil service rather than the armed forces, citing either ethical, moral, or religious reasons to avoid conscription. If a special commission of military officials and sociologists discovered that a candidate’s reasons for not serving in the army were justifiable, that candidate would then be required to serve for seven months in a civil institution, including retirement homes, the local Red Cross, fire departments, and so on.

In 1996, 1,729 young men applied for civil service, only 372 of which were approved. In 2002 the number of approved applications jumped to 1,593 out of 3,250 applicants.

With compulsory military service abolished, citizens will have the option of joining the voluntary reserves, which will be introduced in January 2004. The state will pay wages and medical and retirement benefits for voluntary reservists, and citizens between 18 and 27 years old are eligible to enroll in a three-month military training program.

In the meantime, the Defense Ministry is accelerating the hiring process for professional soldiers. This year alone, 540 new soldiers were hired, raising the number of professional soldiers to approximately 3,200. Slovenia expects to have a professional force of up to 8,500 men by 2010.

However, critics argue that Slovenia abolished the draft prematurely, as no real guidelines for employment of professional soldiers have yet been outlined.

It also remains unclear what effect the abolition of the draft will have on Slovenia’s defense budget, and officials have so far avoided any clear-cut answers as to whether a smaller, professional army will result in budgetary savings or increased expenditures. Though the army is, in effect, being downsized, the new professional army will require improved wages and social benefits, including modernized barracks and apartments.

--by Ales Gaube

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Montenegrin President Flip-Flops on War Crimes

PODGORICA, Serbia and Montenegro--After refusing a request last week from prosecutors in The Hague to testify in the trial of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, Montenegrin Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic backtracked on 13 September, saying he would answer a direct summons from the tribunal itself.

Djukanovic had initially told local media that he had refused the request from the prosecution at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) because he is not the kind of person who rushes to The Hague to offer evidence against someone.

“I do not belong to such people. Fortunately, I ended my battles with Milosevic successfully, and he now has an opportunity to prove what he thinks he has to prove before the Hague tribunal, but without my participation,” Djukanovic said at the time.

Djukanovic--who has been in power continuously since 1989, first as prime minister, then president, and then again prime minister of Montenegro--was considered until 1997 a Milosevic protégée. But in 1997, he turned against Milosevic, defeating Milosevic’s closest loyalist in Montenegro, Montenegrin President Momir Bulatovic, and leading Montenegro to an ever-widening separation from Belgrade.

But after the initial refusal, Djukanovic appeared less resolute.

“The Hague Tribunal asked me to testify against Slobodan Milosevic but I refused,” Djukanovic said a week later on 13 September, but “Tribunal orders are a different matter, and if someone is summoned as a witness he has an obligation to respond.”

A MYSTERIOUS CHANGE OF TACT

Djukanovic’s initial refusal to testify against Milosevic sparked controversy, including theories that his decision was based on fear of the former Belgrade strongman--a theory the prime minister has called “ridiculous.”

The Montenegrin prime minister’s hesitation came as a surprise to many local analysts. In the past, Djukanovic had always upheld the principle of full cooperation with The Hague. As Milan Popovic, a professor of law in the Montenegrin capital of Podgorica, recalled in a commentary for the daily Vijesti, Djukanovic has even repeatedly said it would be his duty to testify as a witness or suspect in The Hague.

Popovic is worried that Djukanovic’s wavering over his Tribunal duties will shed doubts on everything he has said up until now and could create a negative trend in regard to working with the international court. “He directly redefined cooperation with the Hague tribunal,” Popovic wrote.

“If Djukanovic is not a Montenegrin who rushes around with evidence, is Croatian President Stjepan Mesic a Croatian who rushes to offer evidence, or is former Slovenian President Milan Kucan? ...What about all those Montenegrins who have agreed to testify?” asks Popovic.

The Montenegrin opposition People’s Party (NS) has dubbed the prime minister a “coward,” claiming that Djukanovic is afraid of facing Milosevic in court. The Serbian People’s Party (SNS) says the prime minister does not wish to look Milosevic in the eye as a witness for the prosecution after having “shared his political and other beliefs for seven years.”

Djukanovic’s advisor, Milan Rocen, was quick to quell any such theories.

“Djukanovic refused to testify due to highly moral reasons. During his meeting with Hague representatives he clearly explained his position,” Rocen told Montenegrin public radio.

In the absence of a more specific public explanation, the media has speculated about Djukanovic’s motivations. Some concluded that the prime minister was not looking forward to being reminded publicly of the time when he worked closely with Milosevic. Others thought his hesitation might have something to do with the cigarette smuggling investigations in Italy in which Djukanovic has been implicated.

The ICTY, in the meantime, has said that it regrets Djukanovic’s wavering.

“We think that anybody who is invited to testify should come. It’s too early to speak about it, but should Djukanovic refuse another invitation from the Tribunal he would face consequences,” Tribunal spokesperson Florence Hartmann said in a 7 September statement.

--by Aida Ramusovic

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Uzbekistan Needs British-Style Democracy, Says President

TASHKENT, Uzbekistan--If Uzbekistan’s president succeeds in turning his vision into reality, Uzbeks could eventually see public figures be given the type of grilling that British Prime Minister Tony Blair received at the inquiry into the apparent suicide of leading UN weapons inspector David Kelly.

President Islam Karimov told reporters on 29 August that "I would like to have a system that people living in Uzbekistan would trust, that is a system in which there are three branches of power that meet democratic requirements, and in which each branch of power of the government implements its own tasks. Only then, if a branch of power has too high an opinion of itself, can the relevant judicial body bring it down to earth with a bump.”

He said the judiciary “must not care whether it is a president or anyone else,” pointing to Watergate and British inquiry into Kelly’s death as “the system that must suit us.”

But the gap between the authorities’ words and deeds has, arguably, been thrown into clear relief in recent weeks by the specific issues of torture and human rights.

Long-standing concerns about torture in police cells and prisons reached a new level late last year when the United Nations sent its first delegation to Uzbekistan to look at the issue of torture. Theo Van Boven, the UN’s special rapporteur, who visited Uzbekistan in December and wrote up his findings in a report in March, talked of the “systematic” use of torture in law enforcement and judicial processes and the “considerable” number of people tortured to death. He said the UN was "concerned about many confessions obtained through torture, which has been used systematically by the Uzbek law enforcement and then used as evidence in trials."

Van Boven also pinpointed other forms of police abuse, saying that “religious leaflets, weapons, and bullets are planted as evidence to connect a person with banned groups, such as Hizb ut-Tahrir.”

The Uzbek authorities put up a partial defense, saying that torture was “not systematic.” But an official response also said that “the Uzbek authorities make no secret of the gross violations of human rights committed in prisons and are working to put an end to this practice.”

Six months after the UN report, Uzbekistan received some faint praise for its work. Speaking on 1 September, to mark the 12th anniversary of Uzbekistan’s independence, the German ambassador in Tashkent, Kurt Stokl Stiffruet, thanked the Uzbek government for letting international observers and visitors visit prisons.

Uzbekistan has taken a number of other steps. On 27 August, the Uzbek cabinet decided to create a special human-rights committee. The watchdog would not be independent, however, and would answer to the Justice Ministry.

The government-backed National Human Rights Center is also drawing up a national plan on how to implement the UN’s recommendations to stop the use of torture, working with the Tashkent office of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP).

On 3 September, the center held a public meeting attended by independent human-rights organizations and international officials, as well as the parliamentary commissioner for human rights, officials from the interior ministry and secret services, members of the Constitutional and Supreme Courts, and other lawyers.

While the meetings held by the National Human Rights Center represent an effort to increase debate, most participants criticized the plan for setting the implementation date at the end of 2005.

Some also questioned the need for a national plan, saying that the law-enforcement bodies could deal with the problem in its own ranks unilaterally, and that the president could immediately issue a decree banning torture.

International assessments of progress remain largely negative. Speaking in early September to the U.S. Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, an independent U.S. government agency created to monitor human rights, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Lorne Craner said there had been signs of progress over the past year but not in recent months. He specifically mentioned the death of two prisoners by torture, saying that the authorities had failed to produce a credible account of their deaths.

On the specific issue of torture, the British and French ambassadors have called on the authorities to apologize to the nation. The British ambassador, Craig Murray, said that the Interior Ministry and the National Security Service should criticize themselves in public for using torture, while the French envoy said that it was important for the Uzbek government to issue a statement on torture.

The United Nations had earlier demanded a similar step, advising the Uzbek authorities to publicly condemn torture in all its forms and to make torture a crime. Uzbek law does not explicitly call police torture a crime.

There has been no sign that the international community is ready to act on earlier threats to cut aid. Van Boven had warned that the United Nations might reduce humanitarian and other kinds of aid unless Uzbekistan improved its record. But Craner issued another warning at the hearing of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe. "I've been telling the Central Asians that time is not on their side, that they need to show the U.S. and show the Congress that they are serious about reform, if they wish our relations to grow stronger and our assistance to continue," Craner said in remarks picked up by Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty (RFE/RL).

TORTURE CONTINUING

Groups have questioned how seriously the Uzbek authorities take international concerns and threats. In December, Human Rights Watch said that the Uzbek authorities appeared indifferent to international opinion and threats. Shortly before Van Boven visited, prisoner Iskandar Khudoiberganov was sentenced to death on charges of terrorism, murder, and propagating religious extremism. The judge said his verdict was based exclusively on Khudoiberganov's written testimony and confessions. Khudoiberganov's family said he confessed to the charges, only after he was subjected to beatings and electric shocks.

"The failure to investigate these torture claims, even while the UN special rapporteur on torture is in the country, shows that the authorities remain indifferent," Elizabeth Andersen, executive director of Human Rights Watch's Europe and Central Asia Division, said at the time.

Similar doubts were fed in recent weeks by the abduction of a leader of the Independent Group for Human Rights Defenders, Surat Ikromov. He was stopped on the street on 28 August by three men, beaten up, and bundled into a car with a sack over his head. The men threatened to kill him if he did not pay $10,000.

Ikromov was eventually left on the side of the road, still trussed up and nursing two broken ribs.

The International League for Human Rights, an international nongovernmental organization that has special consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council (UN ECOSOC), issued a statement saying that “given the history of persecution and unfair treatment of human rights activists and journalists in Uzbekistan, the attack on Ikromov appears to be politically motivated.”

The Independent Group for Human Rights Defenders is a local partner of the International League for Human Rights.

Ikromov defended Ruslan Sharipov, an Uzbek journalist recently jailed for five and a half years for sodomy. He also has been active in monitoring trials of alleged members of the banned Hizb ut-Tahrir movement, an Islamist group that calls for the creation of a caliphate, or Islamist government, that would rule Central Asia. The movement does not espouse violence, though Kyrygz authorities allege that the group is forging closer ties with militant groups and Uighurs seeking independence from China.

The International League for Human Rights said it believes Ikromov’s abduction is directly connected to his defense of Sharipov. The attack came as Ikromov was returning from a meeting to set a court date for an appeal against Sharipov’s conviction.

In a statement, Rachel Denber, a senior figure at New York-based Human Rights Watch, said that “we suspect that there may be more to this incident than mere criminal thuggery." And U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Craner said the case raised further questions about Uzbekistan's commitment to human rights.

Allegations of torture also continue to surface, most recently from the head of a regional branch of the Human Rights Society of Uzbekistan (HRSU). Jora Murodov, who heads the Nishon branch of the HRSU emerged from prison to tell the media that, in his 12 months in prison, he had come across many cases of torture. In comments reported by RFE/RL on 8 September, Murodov also reported that prison conditions are “inhuman” and that bribery is rife among prison officials.

Muradov and two colleagues were jailed in September 2002. HRSU said the sentences were handed down because of the group’s efforts to fight bribery and corruption among local authorities.

Their release brings the number to eight of HRSU members to have been freed since October 2002. One member remains in custody, Tursunboy Otamurodov from Karakalpakstan, a near-desert region close to the Aral Sea.

The chairman of the HRSU, Tolib Yoqubov, believes that torture remains systematic.

In related news, the United Nations human-rights committee said on 4 September that it currently is looking into reports that “six individuals under sentence of death in Uzbekistan, whose cases are currently pending before the Human Rights Committee, and who alleged that they had not received a fair trial, had been executed, despite the fact that requests for interim measures of protection had been issued by the Committee.”

--by Faruk Turaev

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For more articles on Uzbekistan, visit http://uzbekistan.tol.cz.



Polish Teachers Taking a Beating, Literally

KATOWICE, Poland--Last May, several 18-year-olds at a vocational school in Torun decided to end the school year in style. They brought a video camera to English class. What they taped, however, was meant to remain secret, and it caused a scandal when local reporters got their hands on it and aired it on television.

The tape shows the teacher being bullied and verbally abused by students, who crowned their efforts by upending a dustbin on the teacher's head. The case became national news when the TVN television channel screened the tape on 5 and 7 September and the daily Gazeta Wyborcza ran a front-page story. The following week, eight of the perpetrators were suspended and then expelled from the school, which specialized in training students for the construction industry. They are likely to face charges of assault.

School officials say the class will probably be disbanded soon and the students will be dispersed among other classes at the school.

The 33-year-old teacher, interviewed by TVN, said that he had experienced similar behavior for the past six months of the school year. He said he reported the trouble to the school’s headmistress, who told him “this is the way [pupils] are in this class.” The headmistress denied hearing any problems from the teacher and asserted that the pupils “were not at all like that."

According to Wieslawa Wyszynska, a local education official in Torun, the blame for the incident lies with both the pupils and the teacher. “On one hand there was a group of demoralized youths, and on the other a weak teacher,” she told reporters from the local edition of Gazeta Wyborcza.

Her words may provide an insight into the Polish school system in which, according to numerous teachers, pupils enjoy all the rights while teachers have nothing but duties.

“You have to follow the curriculum since you’re going to be assessed on its fulfillment. If there is trouble, the most you can do is to report it to the headmaster. You can’t even leave the classroom since pupils are not supposed to stay without supervision, and if anything happened, you’d be held responsible,” a teacher from Katowice told TOL.

Several teenagers interviewed by TOL were unanimous in saying that their Torun colleagues went much too far, though some said they would take advantage of a teacher who seemed weak and likely to allow disruptive behavior.

After Torun, other reports of teacher bullying appeared in the press. In Opole, where teenage students were immediately punished for insulting a young chemistry teacher, local education authorities worried whether the pupils’ outburst was inspired by the events in Torun.

RETURN TO THE OLD WAYS?

Even if the Torun incident is seen as a drastic, yet isolated occurrence, disruptive behavior in schools is becoming a concern for teachers and parents alike--for teachers, since it is most often directed at them, and for parents, who feel they aren't given enough say in what is going on in schools.

According to a European-Commission backed research group, the European Research Network About Parents in Education, parents finance about 60 percent of the school system in Poland through taxes and in direct help, such as organizing school events, and deserve to have a bigger influence on the education process. Coincidentally, the group was holding a conference in Gdansk just as the Torun incident was making headlines.

The root cause of pupils' bad behavior lies elsewhere, and has been completely ignored in debates on the state of Poland's education system, journalist Piotr Zaremba wrote in Rzeczpospolita on 12 September. Thanks to the media, the question is now out in the open, Zaremba wrote, but the truth is that it has been present for years. He charged that the trend to loosen classroom discipline in reaction to the practices of the communist school system, seen as oppressive, has gone too far. The first step was when schools stopped marking pupils’ behavior every semester. Then they were stripped of the ability to take disciplinary measures such as raising one's voice or sending out unruly pupils from the classroom, and they were told to use “authority and persuasion" instead. Things have now reached the point where a teacher can't leave the classroom even when physically attacked, because this would be regarded as unacceptable, he wrote.

The most ironic comment on the state of student-teacher relations came from cartoonist Marek Raczkowski in the weekly Przekroj. A pupil in an English lesson confronts his teacher with, “F*** you, man.” The teacher replies, "Very good. You get an A.”

Some charge that the sluggish pace of education reform contributes to the problem by preserving the jobs of many teachers who are simply not fit to solve problems similar to those that occurred in Torun. Education Minister Krystyna Lybacka is perhaps the most heavily criticized minister in Prime Minister Leszek Miller's cabinet.

One goal of the educational reforms introduced by the previous government was to decrease the number of vocational schools offering unmarketable skills. Another innovation, an examination for all students at the end of grammar school, has been delayed and is now scheduled to be implemented in 2004.

Bad behavior by pupils is not restricted to Poland. A poll of teachers by the Slovak daily SME in 2001 found that two-thirds said they had been the victim of aggressive verbal behavior by children, and 5 percent reported having been physically attacked. One in five said they were considering a career change because of the rise in school violence.

--by Wojciech Kosc

Our Poland country file at http://poland.tol.cz is your source for Polish news, features, statistics, maps, and annual reports


Ukrainian Government Complicit in Gender Discrimination, Report Says

KIEV, Ukraine--The Ukrainian government is both turning a blind eye to discrimination and actively promoting it, according to the New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW). In a new report, HRW argues that the position of women in the Ukrainian workplace has worsened significantly, shutting many of them out of the labor market.

HRW is now urging the Western governments to include an anti-discrimination element to aid programs to promote women's rights and human-trafficking.

HRW’s research into the position of women on the labor market supports early findings that there has been a “feminization of poverty” in the first decade of post-Soviet transition, with women suffering most from the sharp decline in the economy. It was only in 2000 that the Ukrainian economy began to grow again.

The decade turned the Ukrainian labor market upside down. In the 1970s and 1980s, the Ukrainian workplace was more female than male, and 90 percent of women either studied or worked. Figures from 2000 indicate that just 52 percent of women are employed, compared with 61 percent of men.

This is not an official figure. Government statistics indicate that unemployment is evenly spread across the genders. Local employment offices, however, report that the overwhelming majority of those registering as unemployed are women. In the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, 73 percent of those without jobs are women, while the figure in the capital, Kiev, is even higher, at 75.8 percent.

The HRW report, which was published in late August, points to discriminatory advertising as a particular culprit. Gender is frequently specified in announcements of vacancies, as, too, are youth and beauty. The government, the report said, does nothing to stop this. Moreover, government agencies frequently state that a job is for men only or just for women.

Overall, more advertisers look specifically for men, and women tend to “be consigned to the lowest-paying, lowest-prestige jobs" in the service sector, such as waitressing.

Even if they succeed in getting an interview, women face a grilling on their family background and child-rearing plans.

If they pass those hurdles, Ukrainian women often hit a low “glass ceiling,” though some have shattered the ceiling to reach top posts in the public and private sector.

"The job market in Ukraine reflects some highly archaic stereotypes about women's capabilities," said LaShawn Jefferson, executive director of Human Rights Watch's Women's Rights Division.

A PERSONNEL SELECTOR’S TALE

The report barely caused a ripple in Ukraine. Several news briefs appeared in the media, but that was all the attention the issue received in the public arena.

But the findings are verified by human-relations managers. Maria Gudkova, who is in charge of human relations director in an advertising agency, agrees that some areas of the market are the exclusive preserve of women, hers included.

Paradoxically, this saves her from feeling discriminated against. "I was not discriminated against in any job,” she said, “because my job is considered as 100 percent female."

Gudkova freely admitted that gender is a decisive factor in some of her selections. "We usually hire women for the positions of sales managers, I mean people involved in direct sales since they are more successful,” she said. She also admitted to reverse discrimination. “Even if we have two candidates--a highly qualified male sales manager and a woman with average experience--we usually hire the woman," she said.

Gudkova knew from family experience the difficulties that a woman could encounter if she strayed into a traditionally male profession. Her mother, an engineer, “had troubles at her job” with her male managers and “was not able to win promotion simply because of her gender."

POLITICS AND WOMEN

The report accuses the Ukrainian government of “routinely denying” that discrimination is a problem and for failing to enforce laws designed to protect women. It also lambastes the laws themselves, which, the report says, rule that some jobs are male-only for safety reasons. Other attempts to protect women are, HRW said, based on “non-objective criteria that conflict with the principle of gender equality.”

It argues that the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy is doing nothing to redress the gender imbalance in the workplace. The ministry has not, it said, come up with any proposed solutions, and does not try to regulate the labor market.

On its official Web site, the Ukrainian government states that protection of women's rights and gender balance are included in the government's Action Plan. In a recent interview, however, the Minister of Labor and Social Policy, Mykhailo Papiev, said that discrimination is not rated as a major issue in the plan.

Judging by the lack of women in Ukrainian politics, it may be some time before discrimination is pushed up the political agenda. President Leonid Kuchma once said that Yulia Tymoshenko, Ukraine’s most prominent female politician and one of the key players on the political scene, could not be elected as president of Ukraine because "she is a woman."

Still, some experts believe that there has been an improvement in recent years. In an interview for Korrespondent.net, Professor Vira Aheeva said that in the early 1990s, women were the first to be sacked, regardless of their experience and professional skills. The emergence of a number of successful businesswomen is a sign that things are improving, she said.

Yulia Tymoshenko is Ukraine’s most prominent example of success in business and politics. But her election campaign in 2002 indicates that she, too, feels the need to play to “archaic” images that Human Rights Watch decried.

In the run-up to the March 2002 parliamentary elections, she authorized a biography, Nevyipolennyi Zakazy (Unfulfilled Orders). The book featured pictures of her doing the housework. American readers might have been forgiven for thinking that she was Mrs. Clinton or Mrs. Bush, who have also posed in the kitchen in election campaigns.

--by Yuriy Shafarenko

For more articles on Ukraine, please visit our Ukraine country file, at http://ukraine.tol.cz.