BELGRADE, 2 August 2000 FROM THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF YUGOSLAVIA SERBIAN PREMIER SAYS GOVERNMENT RESOLUTE TO BOOST ECONOMIC GROWTH YUGOSLAV ELECTORAL COMMISSION ADOPTS REGULATIONS FOR COMING POLLS YUGOSLAVIA FOR STRICTER CONTROL OF TRADE IN FLORA, FAUNA YUGOSLAV MINISTRY OFFERS AGREEMENT ON ELECTION CAMPAIGN SWEDISH HUMANITARIANS VISIT YUGOSLAV GOVERNMENT VUCIC: SERBIA - BASTION OF FREEDOM SERBIA'S VOJVODINA PARLIAMENT OFFICIAL RECEIVES SWEDISH DELEGATION KOSOVO-METOHIJA - KFOR KFOR RAIDS HOME OF WITNESS AGAINST ETHNIC ALBANIAN MURDER SUSPECT U.S. SOLDIER SENTENCED TO LIFE IMPRISONMENT FOR KOSOVO MURDER YUGOSLAVIA - DIASPORA - CONVENTION YUGOSLAV DIASPORA TO HOLD SECOND CONVENTION ON AUGUST 3-5 YUGOSLAVIA - RUSSIA YUGOSLAVIA, RUSSIA CONSULT ON MULTILATERAL COOPERATION YUGOSLAVIA - UKRAINE UKRAINIAN MP VISITS YUGOSLAV PARLIAMENT * * * FROM THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF YUGOSLAVIA SERBIAN PREMIER SAYS GOVERNMENT RESOLUTE TO BOOST ECONOMIC GROWTH KANJIZA, August 1 (Tanjug) - Serbia's premier said on Tuesday the Government was committed to boosting economic growth and development in order that this Yugoslav Republic should as soon as possible recover the lost domestic product and repair the huge damage done by last year's NATO aggression. Visiting the industrial town of Kanjiza in Serbia's northern Vojvodina province, Premier Mirko Marjanovic inaugurated a new modern plant at the Potisje brickyard. Marjanovic said Serbia was looking ahead to a period of brisk development, with a two-digit domestic product growth rate. According to him, the primary strategic project in the year 2000 is to build 10,000 homes at low cost and with all modern amenities as the first stage of a project for building 100,000 homes over the next ten years. The intensive housing development should boost the construction industry, which had doubled its performance this year, and should stimulate the industry of building materials and other ancillary industries, he said. He added that the first half of the year had seen the attainment of the key goals of brisk economic growth and maintenance of macro-economic and price stability. In the period, industrial production had risen by 21.2 percent over the same period in 1999, in line with the projected economic policy for the year 2000 of increasing industrial production by 15 percent and the domestic product by 14 percent, he said. The Government was, meanwhile, continuing its policy of firm budget restrictions, i.e., of financing public spending solely from real sources, which was the chief factor of price stability, Marjanovic said. "Sanctions and other forms of outside pressure have not stopped us implementing reforms, building modern market institutions and adopting major systemic laws: on companies, on concessions, on ownership transformation, on value added tax, and others," he said. He added the programme was a continuation of a policy that meant protecting the country's freedom, independence and integrity, settling the problem of Kosovo-Metohija politically, ending the missions of KFor and UNMIK and returning that Serbian province under the full jurisdiction of Serbia and Yugoslavia. Also, he said, this policy meant a Yugoslavia as a state of equal people, nations and republics, economic and cultural development, constant growth of production and living standards, free education and medical services, social security, affirmation of the policy of national unity, development of democratic institutions, freedom of the media, national and religious equality, openness to economic, political and cultural cooperation with all countries on an equal footing with respect for the fundamental principles of international relations and international law. Upcoming general elections, according to Marjanovic, will give full support to the policy of heroic defence of the country against aggressors, to reconstruction and the building of development projects, and will marginalise those who would like to come to power as exponents of the aggressors, betraying their country, sabotaging reconstruction and justifying the crimes of the aggressors. YUGOSLAV ELECTORAL COMMISSION ADOPTS REGULATIONS FOR COMING POLLS BELGRADE, August 2 (Tanjug) - The Yugoslav Central Electoral Commission met on Wednesday and adopted rules and regulations for activities leading up to federal presidential and parliamentary elections scheduled for September 24, a Parliament statement said. At its second session, held at the Federal Parliament and chaired by Commission Chairman Borivoje Vukicevic, the body defined uniform rules and standards for the coming elections. The rules are fully in line with the laws that regulate presidential elections and elections to the Chambers of Citizens (lower house) and Republics of the Yugoslav Parliament. The Commission further adopted rules and regulations for the attendance of the presidential and parliamentary elections by foreign observers. It also appointed chairmen, secretaries and members of local electoral commissions and their deputies in the constituencies in the Yugoslav republics of Serbia and Montenegro, the statement said. YUGOSLAVIA FOR STRICTER CONTROL OF TRADE IN FLORA, FAUNA BELGRADE, August 2 (Tanjug) - The Yugoslav Government has prepared for the Federal Parliament a draft law ratifying the Convention on international trade in endangered species of fauna and flora, which is aimed at establishing international cooperation on organizing and taking measures to preserve certain species of the living world. The Convention was signed in Washington on March 3, 1973, and amended and supplemented in Bonn on June 22, 1979. Its objective is to provide guarantees that international trade in wild species of flora and fauna will not result in their extinction. In the recent years, Yugoslavia has stepped up protection of endangered species and more than 250 plant species and over 420 animal species have been placed under protection. It has been proposed that the list of endangered species be expanded to include several hundred more species of flora and fauna. YUGOSLAV MINISTRY OFFERS AGREEMENT ON ELECTION CAMPAIGN BELGRADE, August 1 (Tanjug) - The Yugoslav Information Ministry on Tuesday invited state media and parties contesting forthcoming general elections to come to a consultation about election campaign terms on Wednesday. The Ministry said that, under the relevant regulations, the radio and television stations whose founders are the Yugoslav Federation or either of its republics (Serbia, Montenegro), representatives of the founders and parties taking part in elections should together decide about the number and duration of radio and television appearances of the contestants during the election campaign. The purpose of such an agreement is to give equal access to the media to all parties and all candidates, and to give a balanced media presentation and an equal treatment of the contestants in the election campaign. The agreement, to be reached on Wednesday, will be open to all political parties contesting the elections. Yugoslav presidential and parliamentary elections have been called for Sept. 24. SWEDISH HUMANITARIANS VISIT YUGOSLAV GOVERNMENT BELGRADE, August 2 (Tanjug) - Yugoslavia's Assistant Minister for Refugee and Humanitarian Affairs Milorad Kozlovacki received on Wednesday a delegation of a working group for aiding Yugoslavia from the Swedish town of Trelleborg, headed by Mayor Egil Al. A Government statement quotes Kozlovacki as briefing the delegation on the grave humanitarian situation caused by years of sanctions and last year's NATO aggression on Yugoslavia. He stressed that Yugoslavia has accommodated more than a million refugees and displaced people, with inadequate international help and understanding. He appealed to the Swedish people to join in drives for providing humanitarian assistance for the worst affected categories of the population in Yugoslavia. Special attention was devoted to the current situation in the Yugoslav republic of Serbia's U.N.-administered province of Kosovo- Metohija. Kozlovacki stressed that, since the U.N. force's deployment just over a year ago, ethnic Albanian separatists have carried out 4,898 terrorist operations, killing 1,027 people, wounding 955 others and abducting 945. The U.N. missions KFor and UNMIK have brought neither peace nor a multiethnic Kosovo-Metohija, but have rather been reduced to silent observers of the expulsion of 360,000 Serbs and other non-Albanians, he explained. Egil Al, for his part, said that Trelleborg, which has a sizeable Yugoslav expatriate community, closely follows developments in Yugoslavia. He explained that the purpose of the current visit was to see the true situation at first hand and bring it to the attention of the Swedish people. He went on to stressed especially their efforts for lifting the unnecessary anti-Yugoslav sanctions, which have been in place for years, and for promoting international cooperation on the principles of solidarity and understanding, the statement said. VUCIC: SERBIA - BASTION OF FREEDOM VRANJE, August 2 (Tanjug) - Serbian Information Minister and ranking official of the Serbian Radical Party (SRS) Aleksandar Vucic said in Vranje late on Tuesday that Serbia is a bastion of freedom and the only unsubdued country in Europe even though part of its territory is occupied, referring to Kosovo and Metohija province which is currently under de facto administration of the United Nations. Speaking in a broadcast by the local TV station in this southern Serbian town, Vucic spoke about the upcoming local and federal elections and the current political situation in Yugoslavia. He said he believed citizens would decide well and that patriotic, nationally-oriented political forces would triumph. Vucic strongly criticized political parties of pro-western orientation. Fifth-column activities by opposition parties in Serbia demonstrate the senselessness of propaganda activities which urge "the options of those who killed our children" in comparison with activists who "never left the country and want to preserve the common state of Serbia and Montenegro." Vucic underscored that Kosovo and Metohija province "is not lost, but only temporarily occupied." Serbia is the only unsubdued state in Europe and a nucleus of freedom, he reiterated. Commenting on the upcoming elections for Yugoslav president, Vucic said opposition parties were pro-U.S. oriented and that all those who support the policy of Montenegrin President Milo Djukanovic advocate turning Montenegro, and even Yugoslavia, into an ethnic Albanian and Muslim country. It is all the same to the west which opposition figure they will appoint "since they are all the same and all servants," Vucic said. SERBIA'S VOJVODINA PARLIAMENT OFFICIAL RECEIVES SWEDISH DELEGATION NOVI SAD, August 1 (Tanjug) - Deputy Parliament Speaker in the Yugoslav Republic of Serbia's Vojvodina province Josip Cikos received on Tuesday a delegation of the Swedish town of Trelleborg. The purpose of the delegation's several-day visit is to investigate the situation in the country in the wake of last year's savage NATO air strikes, and on the strength of the findings to send humanitarian aid. The delegation showed special interest in the devastation of petrochemical facilities and the oil refineries in Novi Sad and Pancevo, because of the possibility of a long-term threat to the country's ecosystem. The guests showed understanding for the Yugoslav situation created as the result of years of sanctions and the NATO aggression, and expressed a willingness to help both with relief aid deliveries and by spreading the truth which they have seen at first hand. KOSOVO-METOHIJA - KFOR KFOR RAIDS HOME OF WITNESS AGAINST ETHNIC ALBANIAN MURDER SUSPECT GNJILANE, August 1 (Tanjug) - International force Kfor and ethnic Albanian police troops in U.N.-run Kosovo-Metohija have raided the house of a Serb witness against an ethnic Albanian murder suspect, amateur radio operators reported on Tuesday. The ethnic Albanian, Afrim Zeqiri, is accused of murdering three people, including a four-year-old child, and wounding two Serbs in the multiethnic village of Cernica near Gnjilane, in the east of the Yugoslav Republic of Serbia's Kosovo-Metohija province. Kfor and ethnic Albanian police troops searched the house of the Serb, chief witness and one of two survivors of Zeqiri's attack. The Serb, Zoran Stolic, sustained seven wounds at Zeqiri's hands and was hospitalised. After being discharged from hospital, he had gone to Smederevo, central Serbia, for further medical treatment and to recuperate with relatives. A day after his departure, Kfor and ethnic Albanian police troops broke down the door to his home and turned the place upside down, smashing everything in sight. Stolic returned home on Monday to find the place ransacked and his savings of 6,500 German marks gone, according to amateur radio operators. U.S. SOLDIER SENTENCED TO LIFE IMPRISONMENT FOR KOSOVO MURDER WUERZBURG, August 1 (Tanjug) - A U.S. soldier of the international force KFOR in Serbia's southern Kosovo and Metohija province, Staff Sergeant Frank Ronghi, 36, was sentenced on Tuesday to life in prison without possibility of parole for raping and killing an 11-year-old ethnic Albanian girl. Ronghi had confessed earlier to raping and then killing the girl Merita Shabiu in her house near Vitina, eastern Kosovo and Metohija, on January 13. The U.S. Army court in this German town also stripped Ronghi of his rank and income. The prosecution quoted witnesses as saying the defendant had bragged he was planning to "grab a little girl and rape her, but he would have to kill her to get away with it and blame the Serbs." On January 13, the girl was alone at home with a 14-year-old sister and a 9-year-old brother, when Ronghi came and asked her to accompany him to the basement, where he raped her and then killed her. Ronghi returned to the house some time later, took away the body, and buried it in snow in a nearby hilly area. The U.S. Army said last month that Ronghi would most probably serve his sentence in the Fort Leavenworth military prison in Kansas. YUGOSLAVIA - DIASPORA - CONVENTION YUGOSLAV DIASPORA TO HOLD SECOND CONVENTION ON AUGUST 3-5 BELGRADE, August 1 (Tanjug) - Expatriate Yugoslavs will hold their 2nd convention in Belgrade on August. 3-5, under the auspices of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. The Diaspora 2000 convention will be attended by more than 250 delegates from some 40 countries on all continents, according to the organisers, the Foreign Ministry, at a news conference on Tuesday. "All preparations for the convention have been completed and we are looking forward to a very important patriotic gathering of our expatriates", Assistant Foreign Minister Slavko Vejinovic said. Vejinovic presented the programme of the convention, which is to be opened on Thursday by Foreign Minister Zivadin Jovanovic. On the first day, the delegates should be addressed by Prime Minister Momir Bulatovic and Minister of International Scientific and Cultural Cooperation Cedomir Mirkovic. President of the Academy of Arts and Sciences of the Yugoslav Republic of Serbia Dejan Medakovic and President of the Serbian Matica Srpska Homeland Society Bozidar Kovacek are also expected to speak on the first day of the three-day convention. The delegates should hear also from Minister for Cooperation with International Financial Institutions Borka Vucic, who chairs the Diaspora Council Commission on business cooperation, and from Reconstruction Directorate chief Milutin Mrkonjic. "Our expatriates, too, are expected to give their views on the year that has elapsed since the first convention, to survey what has been achieved and to consult on what is yet to be done," Vejinovic said. Participants in the Assembly should visit several places in Serbia to see objects which have been renewed following last year's NATO aggression. As planned, the Assembly should adopt certain documents and elect the Diaspora Assembly Council before closing work on Saturday. YUGOSLAVIA - RUSSIA YUGOSLAVIA, RUSSIA CONSULT ON MULTILATERAL COOPERATION MOSCOW, August 1 (Tanjug) - Yugoslavia and Russia held consultations in Moscow on Tuesday on matters of multilateral cooperation. Yugoslavia was represented by the Foreign Ministry's Director for International Organisations Bratislav Djordjevic, and Russia, by Director of the Foreign Ministry's Department for International Organisations Yury Fedotov. The two sides had a broad exchange of views on the most important matters of multilateral cooperation, specifically as concerns the upcoming Millennium summit and the 55th session of the U.N. General Assembly. Special attention was devoted to the situation in the Yugoslav Republic of Serbia's U.N.-administered province of Kosovo-Metohija and the need for a full and consistent implementation of the U.N. Security Council's Resolution No. 1244. It was stressed that the resolution is being systematically violated, while the international force KFor and the U.N. civilian mission UNMIK, especially its chief Bernard Kouchner, are not discharging the mandate entrusted to them by the United Nations. This, it was noted, has precipitated a dramatic situation in Kosovo-Metohija. The Russian side reiterated its principled support for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Yugoslavia and of its Republic of Serbia. It condemned last year's NATO aggression on Yugoslavia, all attempts at using force under the guise of a "humanitarian intervention", and the policy of unlawful sanctions against Yugoslavia as being a form of massive violation of human rights. The two sides stressed the importance of the United Nations as an irreplaceable universal forum and of the U.N. Security Council's central role in safeguarding international peace and security. They agreed to continue and intensify bilateral cooperation in the United Nations and other international forums in matters of mutual interest. YUGOSLAVIA - UKRAINE UKRAINIAN MP VISITS YUGOSLAV PARLIAMENT BELGRADE, August 1 (Tanjug) - A senior Yugoslav Parliament official received on Tuesday a visiting Ukrainian parliamentarian who heads his country's parliamentary working group on cooperation with the Yugoslav Parliament. Ljubisa Ristic, who chairs the Foreign Policy Committee of the Yugoslav Parliament's Chamber of Citizens (lower house), briefed the guest from Ukraine, Sergei Kiashko, on recent amendments to the Yugoslav constitution. Ristic said that procedures for electing MPs to the Chamber of Republics (upper house) and for electing president of state had been changed. He explained that the 350,000 Serbs and other non-Albanians who have fled Kosovo-Metohija would be able to vote in forthcoming elections, as would the Serbs remaining in that U.N.-administered province of the Yugoslav republic of Serbia. The same applies to all other Yugoslav citizens in Kosovo-Metohija, according to Ristic. "Forces of occupation in Kosovo-Metohija have carried out a sham census in an effort to set the stage for unlawful elections without Serbs," said Ristic, adding that such elections would be an attempt to legalize Kosovo-Metohija's secession. He went on to say that foreign observers would be invited to the elections, but they would not be from the countries that had launched last year's aggression on Yugoslavia. "We maintain no contacts with the parliaments of these countries, as they will not have most of our MPs in their countries," Ristic explained. __________________________________ KOMINFORM P.O. Box 66 00841 Helsinki - Finland +358-40-7177941, fax +358-9-7591081 e-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.kominf.pp.fi ___________________________________ [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe/unsubscribe messages mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] ___________________________________
