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Kohl’s Polish border stance draws critics
WEST BERLIN - Chancellor
Helmut Kohl of West Germany is
embroiled in controversy over his
refusal to categorically accept the
Polish-German border set at the end
of World War II.
It has become a political issue;
recognition of the boundary could
cost Kohl votes in the December West
Kohl
German eleciion. But his failure lo
renounce any future attempt to regain
former territories lost in the war could
delay German reunification.
Kohl has come under attack from
Poland, from the World War II Allies
and from the opposition in West
Germany and even in his own Cabi
net for failing to give an unequivocal
promise on the border.
There have been demonstrations
in Poland in support of Polish de
mands to take part in talks on reunifi
cation.
But the chancellor faces consider
able political risk if he declares the
current border inviolable.
Kohl’s Christian Democratic Un
ion is running only a couple of per
centage points ahead of the opposi
tion Social Democrats in public opin
ion polls.
The CDU traditionally has enjoyed
the backing of conservative West
Germans, including millions of ex
iles from territories now governed by
Poland and the Soviet Union.
More than 12 million ethnic Ger
mans were driven from Silesia and
East Prussia after the Third Reich was
vanquished. The lands cast of the
Oder and Neisse rivers that were
German before the war arc now Pol
ish territory, comprising about one
third of modem day Poland.
If Kohl agrees to give up the lands,
he could alienate those voters who
provide his party’s narrow lead over
the Social Democrats.
However, Kohl’s equivocating has
cost the CDU support in East Ger
many, where the Social Democrats
arc expected to win a majority in
March 18 elections.
West German political parties have
been active in the East German cam
paign in an attempt to increase their
voter base in anticipation of unifica
tion.
Kohl has to be worried that the
addition of a solidly Social Demo
cratic East German electorate could
tip the political balance and deprive
him of his dream of being the first
chancellor of a reunited Germany.
Recognition of the current Ger
man-Polish boundary is likely to be
one of the prices of unification de
manded by the World War II Allies,
who will have a say in the shape of a
united Germany.
Under pressure from Washington,
where President Bush urged clarity
on the border issue, Kohl last week
expressed understanding for Poland’s
concern.
His government also offered to
respect the border between Poland
and a unified Germany if Poland drops
any claims to war reparations and
promises to protect the rights of its
German minority.
But he has stopped short of saying
Germany would never seek recovery
of those lands, saying only a united
Germany could officially recognize
its borders in a peace treaty.
“In many speeches I have said
that no one wants to connect the unity
of the Germans with moving the bor
ders. I don’t know what more I can
say,” Kohl told East German televi
sion on Wednesday.
He urged a declaration be made by
both German parliaments to respect
the postwar boundaries, but exile
groups claim Kohl still supported them.
“The chancellor has not qualita
tively changed his position on this
issue,” said Horst-Egon Rchncrt,
spokesman for thc2-million-mcmbcr
Association of Exiles in Bonn. “We
have absolutely no problem with this
statement.”
The conservatives’ view that noth
ing has been given up has left moder
ates and liberals concerned that Kohl
still secs the border question as open.
Foreign Minister Hans-Dictrich
Gcnschcr, whose Free Democrats are
aligned with Kohl in the Bonn gov
ernment, has promised that “unifica
tion will not be accompanied by any
territorial demands.”
Congress seeks increased foreign aid
to ‘win the Cold War’ for democracy
WASHINGTON - Congress wants
to pump up President Bush’s foreign
aid budget by as much as $2 billion
and shift priorities to reward new
democracies like Nicaragua and
Czechoslovakia.
“We are facing a radically differ
ent world, but the foreign aid request
presented by the administration is
changed almost not at all,” said Rep.
David Obey, D-Wis.,chairman of the
House Appropriations foreign aid
subcommittee.
“We have a president who’s
unwilling to invest in things he rhetori
cally says arc important, ’ ’ added Rep.
Matthew McHugh, D-N.Y.
The House Foreign Affairs Com
mittee last week formally asked House
budget writers to provide an addi
tional S2 billion for overseas accounts
in the year that begins Oct. 1, bring
ing spending authority to S22.8 bil
lion.
That budget category includes
everything from bilateral military and
economic aid to dozens of friendly
countries, to payments to the United
Nations and other international or
ganizations, to operations of the Stale
Department and the Voice of Amer
ica.
The administration has proposed
S300 million for Eastern Europe in
fiscal 1991, but it has offered few
dctailsand it remains unclear whether
the money represents an increase from
current levels or whether it simply
continues a three-year program of
aid to Poland and Hungary begun last
year.
The Foreign Affairs Committee
estimates the Bush budget would
actually fall S29I million short of
maintaining current foreign aid pro
grams. So they propose additional
money to go for economic aid to
encourage the growing of alternative
crops in narcotics-producing coun
tries; additional money for aid to
Eastern Europe, including Peace Corps
development assistance; and increased
assistance to Africa, the Eastern Car
ibbean and Central American democ
racies such as Nicaragua.
Committee Chairman Dante Fas
cell, D-Fla., wrote that the additional
money is “the essential minimum
required to ‘win th£ peace’ for dc
mocracy and free markets around the
world.”
Others arc calling for creating of a
new fund for emerging democracies,
outside the normal foreign aid budget,
that could meet needs of newly eli
gible recipients who measure up to
certain tests for political, economic
and human rights reform.
Because of budget restraints and
Bush’s no-new-taxes stance, there is
no new money to spend on aid or
anything else. Any increase in aid
must come from cuts in another part
of the budget, and most aid propo
nents arc eyeing Pentagon spending.
Secretary of State James Baker III,
in testimony on Capitol Hill last week,
indicated he sees little likelihood of a
substantial increase in the aid budget
and suggested instead cutting aid across
the board to current recipients to free
up some new cash.
But despite the unpopularity of aid
among U.S. voters, members of
Congress arc betting that the cmcr
?;cncc of democratic governments in
ormcrly totalitarian states will be a
politically safe basis on which to send
more money overseas.
Pentagon targets new foes
after demise of Cold War
WASHINGTON - The Penta
gon is wasting no time offering
answers to one of the most compel
ling questions raised by the demise
of the Cold War: Who is the enemy
now?
It’s drug runners, terrorists, Third
World despots and even oil spills,
the Pentagon b*ass say.
At the same time, they haven't
dismissed entirely the threat of
Soviet attack on the West, even as
Moscow begins pulling its troops
out of Eastern Europe.
The world has entered an “era
of violent peace," says Adm. Car
lisle Trost, the Navy’s lop officer.
It is a lime of reduced odds that the
superpowers will lob nuclear mis
siles at each others’ cities, but of
more frequent and more lethal
conflict among rival Third World
nations, he told Congress recently.
The message from the Pentagon
ic itul nnl nnlv ic lhr> million/ n/wvW
for its traditional mission, but that
military might be tailored to battle
exotic new threats, ones not previ
ously considered big risks to the
future of Western democracy.
It’s unclear how this notion will
sell on Capitol Hill. Lawmakers
arc looking for ways to carve a
‘ ‘peace dividend’ ’ out of next year’s
defense budget
Some private analysis say the
Pentagon legitimately is concerned
by a proliferation of modem arms,
including chemical weapons, in the
Third World. But they say military
leaders also may be overstating the
immediacy of these dangers.
A civil war in a Third World
country, for example, may pose
less danger to U.S. security now
than a few years ago, when Moscow
may have been more likely to exploit
such openings for the ad vancemcnt<
of communism, said Alexis Cain,
an analyst at the Defense Budget
Project, a non-partisan research
group in Washington.
Even so, instability in the Third
World is emerging as one of the
U.S. military’s main arguments
against stripping it of manpower
mid modernized weaponry.
“The Pentagon is more desper
ate for missions now’ ’ that the world
order has shifted, Cain said.
The military leaders, however,
insist it’s too soon to relax on any
front.
“Perhaps we arc at the end of
the Cold War. However, this does
not mean the end of .. . military
rivalry among nations,” Trost said.
“It may well mean increased in
stability ... and violence.”
a similar view was advanced
by Donald Rice, the Air Force
secretary: “The likelihood that the
U.S..military will be called upon at
some time and place to defend U.S.
interests in a lethal environment is
high - but now, more than ever,
the lime and place arc difficult to
predict.”
Thus the U.S. military must be
prepared to act as a force for stabil
ity in every comer of the globe, the
Pentagon chiefs say.
But many in Congress say it’s
not yet clear just what needs stabi
lizing, or if America is best suited
for such a role.
Sen. John Warner of Virginia,
the ranking Republican on the Senate
Armed Services Committee and a
strong supporter of the military,
told Army Secretary Michael Slone
at a hearing Feb. 27 that he’d better
find a more explicit mission than
"stability.”
“What do you put on a recruit
ing poster now - ‘Join the Army
and become a stability force’?”
Warner asked.
Soldier dies after attack in Panama
PANAMA CITY, Panama — An
American soldier died of injuries
suffered in a grenade attack on a
discotheque, and 13 U.S. servicemen
remained hospitalized, the U.S. mili
tary said Sunday.
A statement from the U.S. South
ern Command said Army Spec. An
thony B. Ward, 21, of Houston, died
at 5:15 p.m. Saturday of injuries to
the chest and abdomen. He died at the
U.S. military’s Gorgas Hospital in
Panama City.
Ward was among 16 American
servicemen and 12 Panamanians in
jured late Friday in the attack on the
disco My Place, which was known to
be frequented by Americans.
Witnesses said two men yelling
“Long live Noriega!” threw a gre
nade through a glass wall of the disco
at about 11:30 p m., then sped away
in a car. There was no immediate
claim of responsibility. It was the first
such attack on U.S. soldiers in Pan
ama since the Dee. 20 invasion that
ousted dictator Manuel Antonio Nori
ega.
Panamanian police said they had
questioned several witnesses to the
bombing but announced no arrests.
“We ask Panamanian citizens to
free their society of these types of
terrorists and criminals,” Maj. Gen.
Marc Cisneros, commander of the
U.S. Army South, said Saturday. ‘‘We
must work together to bring these
criminals to justice.”
The 13 hospitalized Americans were
reported Sunday in satisfactory con
dition. Hospital officials said 12
Panamanians had been injured and
that three were in intensive care, but
in stable condition. Earlier, the South
ern Command had said 11 Panamani
ans wcjc wounded. There was no
explanation for the differing figures.
r
Nicaraguan democracy to curb asylum
MIAMI - A successful switch to
democracy in Nicaragua may sharply
curtail U.S. granting of asylum to that
nation’s refugees, but there is little
chance political exiles will be forced
to return, immigration officials say.
In theory, people granted asylum
are subject to review each year, and
could have that status revoked, says
Duke Austin, spokesman for the
Immigration and Naturalization Serv
ice in Washington.
“But I know of no single case
since political asylum has been an
avenue in the United Stales when we
have involuntarily returned someone
because conditions in their homeland
improved,” Austin said last week.
“It’s in the law, but it’s never been
done.”
What is more likely is that new
applicants will get tougher scrutiny
of their applications.
An estimated 80,000-90,000 Nica
raguans arc in the United States le
gally, including both political and
non-political eases. Some advocates
believe twice that number live in the
United States if the count includes
illegal immigrants - many of whom
were pinning their hopes on political
asylum to eventually normalize their
status.
In fiscal 1989, the INS granted
about 6,000 requests from Nicara
guans for asylum, while it denied
more than 10,000. Between October
1989 and January of this year, about
500 were granted and 650 denied.
In the week since U.S.-backed
Violetta Chamorro beat the Sandinis
tas’ Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua’s
presidential election, Miami immi
gration officials noted a decrease in
the asylum requests.
Dozens of Nicaraguan exiles have
either dropped their petitions to stay,
or have stopped fighting deportation
orders.
Most of those voluntarily drop
ping asylum requests, like Marlene
Falcon, say they arc eager to return.
“We’re here not because we want
to be, but because of the repression,”
she said. “I couldn’t see any use to
continue battling a political asylum
claim that didn’t have any validity.”
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