Events of August 1996
Anne D. Baylon
with Deb Hammels
Poland
Aug. 30 Despite objections by the Catholic church, parliament votes to liberalize Poland’s abortion law by allowing women to end a pregnancy before the 12th week for personal or financial difficulties. The present law only allows abortions in case of rape, health threats, or if the fetus is injured.
EASTERN EUROPE
Russia
Aug. 6 The Russian Communist Party meets for the first time since its leader, Gennadi Zyuganov, was defeated in the presidential elections. The stated purpose of the meeting is to ”plan the Communist approach to the new Government” of Mr. Yeltsin, but its actual goal is to assign or avoid the blame for the Communist defeat at the polls.
Aug. 9 President Yeltsin is inaugurated as the first democratically elected President of an independent Russia. The inauguration is toned down, however, due to President Yeltsin’s failing health, Russia’s poor economic state, and the vicious fighting between Chechens and Russians in Grozny.
Aug. 10 Parliament reappoints Viktor Chernomyrdin as Prime Minister.
Aug. 15 Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin announces a new cabinet, although its only newcomer is Vladimir Potanin, the president of Oneximbank, one of Russia’s largest and most powerful banks.
Aug. 16 Gen. Lebed demands the ouster of Interior Minister Gen. Anatoly Kulikov, one of the two top Russian generals leading the Chechnya war, blaming him for the “bloodshed and military bungling in the separatist republic.”
Aug. 17 Gen. Kulikov offers to resign but President Yeltsin asks him to stay in the job.
Russia/Chechnya
Aug. 6 Chechen rebels storm Grozny, Chechnya’s capital, killing 23 Russian soldiers and wounding 91 others. While the rebels claim that the offensive was “intended to force Moscow back to the negotiating table,” a senior Russian official calls the rebels “international terrorists” who ruined the chances of any talks between Chechnya and Russia.
Aug. 7 In an audacious raid, Chechen rebels take control of Grozny, killing and wounding scores of Russian soldiers on the eve of President Yeltsin’s inauguration.
Aug. 9 Chechen rebels lure 7,000 Russian soldiers into Grozny’s center, surround them, and bombard them with grenades, mortars, and automatic weapons. The attack is timed to coincide with President Yeltsin’s inauguration.
Aug. 10 Supported by air strikes and helicopter fire, Russian troops attempt to regain control of strategic positions in Grozny. The Kremlin announces the appointment of Gen. Alexandr Lebed, President Yeltsin’s national security adviser and a noted critic of the war in Chechnya, as presidential envoy to Chechnya.
Aug. 11 Desperate Russian soldiers fight unsuccessfully to regain Grozny. Russian military officials report at least 200 casualties and 800 wounded since the Chechen offensive started on Aug. 9. President Yeltsin sends Gen. Lebed to the fighting zone for consultations and orders Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin to assess the “gross miscalculations” that led to the success of the Chechen offensive.
Aug. 12 Gen. Lebed meets Chechen military leader Aslan Maskhadov and both parties agree that the fighting must stop. Back in Moscow, Mr. Lebed criticizes Russian bureaucrats for the conditions in Chechnya in which Russian troops are “hungry, lice-infested, and underclothed.”
Aug. 13 Despite the announcement of a cease-fire, to begin on Aug. 14, the fighting continues. Chechen commanders say that they intend to remain in control of Grozny and the other cities they captured until the Russians withdraw from Chechnya.
Aug. 14 Minutes after the start of the truce, two Russian attack planes fire rockets at Chechen refugees who are attempting to flee Grozny during the cease-fire. President Yeltsin gives Gen. Lebed broad powers to stop the Chechen crisis and dissolves the State Commission on Settlement of the Crisis that was headed by Prime Minister Chernomyrdin.
Aug. 20 Gen. Lebed questions the source of a series of contradictory orders that would potentially intensify the war in Chechnya and claims that President Yeltsin (who has not been seen in public since July 3) did not issue them. In Chechnya, Gen. Konstantin Pulikovsky, the commander of Russian forces, says that the use of force is the only way to deal with the crisis.
Aug. 21 Without authorization from Moscow, Russian military leaders in Chechnya launch an assault with planes and artillery on Grozny. Promising to defuse the crisis, Gen. Lebed arrives in Grozny; after meeting with Chechen leader Aslan Maskhadov, he announces a new cease-fire.
Aug. 22 Gen. Lebed and his Chechen counterpart sign a detailed peace agreement calling for an immediate cease-fire and the withdrawal of Russian troops from Grozny. Ultimately, the plan is intended to bring about the surrender of Chechen weapons and the Russian troops’ complete withdrawal from the region.
Aug. 23 Russian newspapers describe the truce agreement as a victory for the Chechen rebels. Mr. Yeltsin congratulates Gen. Lebed by telephone, calling the cease-fire a “first step” but warning that it cannot lead to Chechen independence.
Aug. 25 Accusing “unnamed enemies in Moscow” of wanting to “torpedo the peace process,” Gen. Lebed cancels an important meeting with Aslan Maskhadov and flies back to Moscow to discuss with the Kremlin details of Chechnya’s autonomy. (Among Gen. Lebed’s opponents in Moscow are nationalists who denounce the peace plan as a sellout and those who fear that his ability to successfully end the conflict in Chechnya would make him President Yeltsin’s likely successor.)
Aug. 26 While the truce continues in Chechnya for a fourth day, Gen. Lebed meets with Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin to enlist his support for the compromise he hammered out with Aslan Maskhadov.
Aug. 27 Russian and Chechen military commanders sign an agreement to withdraw both Russian and Chechen rebel troops from Grozny by Sept. 1 and form joint units to patrol the city after the pullout.
Aug. 28 Although the military agreement is being implemented peacefully and troops are withdrawing from around Grozny, Gen. Lebed is still waiting in Moscow to get President Yeltsin’s approval before returning to Chechnya and sealing the peace.
Aug. 29 The withdrawal continues: 4,000 Russian troops and 2,000 rebels have now left Grozny, with an additional 4,200 troops pulling out of Chechnya’s mountainous regions.
Aug. 30 Gen. Lebed and top Chechen commander Aslan Maskhadov meet in Dagestan to sign the peace agreement and postpone for five years a decision on Chechnya’s status. Gen. Lebed declares the war ended. Yet, despite Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin’s claims that President Yeltsin has endorsed the peace agreement, Mr. Yeltsin has not personally approved it.
THE FORMER YUGOSLAVIA
Bosnia
Aug. 1 In Mostar, the showcase city of the Bosnian-Croat Federation that was created in 1994 under the aegis of the Clinton Administration as the basis for a multi-ethnic Bosnia, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State John Kornblum meets with Croats who are refusing to honor results giving Muslims a slim majority in June municipal elections. The Croats, who insist on maintaining political and economic power, want Mostar to be the “ethnically pure capital” of their self-declared mini-state of Herzeg-Bosna, which, under the Dayton Accord, cannot coexist with the Bosnian-Croat Federation.
Aug. 2 Under pressure from Washington, Croatian President Franjo Tudjman accepts the results of the local elections in Mostar and agrees to exert his influence on Bosnian Croats to convince them to accept the elections.
Aug. 4 Mediated by the European Union, Bosnian Croats and Muslims discuss a compromise solution for the election results. The European Union, which has been administering Mostar for two years and has spent over $200 million repairing its war damages, is hoping to preserve the peace effort in Bosnia and the September national elections.
Aug. 12 After initially refusing to cooperate, Bosnian Serbs reluctantly comply with the Dayton Peace Accord (which permits the inspection of all military posts) by allowing NATO troops to inspect what is believed to be the former headquarters of Bosnian Serb military leader Ratko Mladic.
Aug. 13 NATO troops inspect Gen. Mladic’s bunker but do not find anything that would violate the Dayton accord.
Aug. 14 U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher announces that Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic and Croatian President Franjo Tudjman have agreed to create a federation to “jointly govern Muslims and Croats in half of Bosnia” (Bosnia’s other half being a Bosnian Serb republic). The Muslim-Croat Federation is to be formally established on August 31.
Aug. 16 According to NATO officers, agents of the Bosnian Muslim government are terrorizing and beating members of the opposition in a campaign of intimidation prior to the Sept. 14 local and parliamentary elections.
Aug. 22 New reports indicate that the Serbs are manipulating voter registration for the elections by assigning Bosnian Serb refugees to register in communities where Muslims made up the majority prior to being killed or expelled during the war.
Aug. 27 Robert Frowick, the representative of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe who is overseeing the September elections in Bosnia, announces that, due to widespread irregularities (especially by Bosnian Serbs), municipal elections will be postponed, although national elections will go ahead on Sept. 14 as planned. The announcement raises concern among NATO commanders that the delay will affect the withdrawal of 53,000 peacekeeping forces scheduled for the end of December, but Mr. Frowick says that the municipal elections are likely to take place before the planned withdrawal.
NY Times, Aug. 28 “Fierce opposition” from the Bosnian government hinders efforts to create an independent television network that would provide “propaganda-free” information to Bosnians before the elections (instead of the tightly controlled broadcasts by each region’s ethnic group). According to some diplomats, Bosnian leaders may still be Communist authoritarians who object to “the idea of a free media.”
NY Times, Aug. 29 Since elections are the only means Bosnian citizens have to legally change things, the postponement of municipal elections is a setback for many Bosnian towns that are still run by people who took control during the war. This is the case for Capljina, a Croatian-dominated town whose current leaders came to power without being voted into office. According to a Capljina store owner, “voting here means trying to get criminals out of city hall.”
Aug. 29 Bosnian Serbs attack Muslim refugees attempting to return to their former homes in Mahala, a Serb-controlled village located in the demilitarized separation zone between Serbian and Muslim-Croat sectors. The Serbs are arrested by U.S. peacekeeping troops, disarmed, and quickly released.
NY Times, Aug. 31 Herzeg-Bosna, the self-proclaimed republic of about 400,000 Bosnian Croat nationalists whose “capital” is Mostar, stands in the way of the Dayton Peace Agreement. The agreement requires that Herzeg-Bosna be absorbed by the Muslim-Croat Federation but, so far, Herzeg-Bosna has resisted international pressure to reconcile with the Bosnian government. The republic’s leaders contend that Croats are a small minority in Bosnia and could lose their rights if forced to be part of a central government dominated by Muslims.
Serbia/Croatia
Aug. 7 In surprise talks at Vouliagmeni, Greece, President Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia and President Franjo Tudjman of Croatia agree to establish diplomatic relations between their two countries. The agreement, to be officialized this month, will try to resolve key points in the Dayton Agreement such as a dispute over territory at the southern end of Croatia’s Adriatic coast that borders Montenegro.
Aug. 8 The U.N. Security Council warns Serbia and Croatia that their failure to surrender “suspects indicted by the war crimes tribunal at The Hague”, i.e., to arrest Radovan Karadzic and Gen. Ratko Mladic, may result in new economic sanctions.
Aug. 23 Based on the agreement struck by Serbian President Milosevic and Croatian President Franjo Tudjman in Greece, Croatia and Yugoslavia (Serbia plus Montenegro) sign an accord to reestablish full diplomatic relations, trade, and transportation links that will end five years of hostilities between the two nations.
WESTERN EUROPE / EASTERN EUROPE
International Monetary Fund/Russia
Aug. 21 As Russia’s program of economic reform achieves its July goals, the IMF grants Russia $330 million of the $10 billion three-year loan that was approved in February.
Aug. 30 In order to help President Yeltsin deliver on his electoral promises, the IMF decides to relax the conditions of its $10 billion loan to Russia by increasing the limit for Russia’s budget deficit from 4% to 5.25% of its gross domestic product.
Turkey/Iran
Aug. 12 In a growing trend of cooperation between Turkey and Iran, Turkish Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan signs a $23 billion, 23 -year agreement with Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani to purchase natural gas from Iran.
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