The Michigan Daily - Tuesday, November 21, 1995 - 7
Ex-Communist's
victory the result
0Iseizing chances
Peace talks continue
despite difficulties
Los Angeles Times
WARSAW, Poland - At a meeting
with journalists not long ago,
Aleksander Kwasniewski was asked by
an'Anierican what role President Lech
Walesa should play in Poland if Walesa
lof Sunday's election.
Relaxed and =smiling, legs crossed
casually beneath the table, Kwasniewski
answered confidently in English.
"The role of ex-presidents in the
United States is very impressive;Iwould
like&tV study such examples," he said.
"Ex-presidents can be very useful, and
sometimes an ex-
presitient is much
more useful than
when he was presi-
denty.,"
The reply got a
laugh, but when a
loca television
jourtalist asked
Kwasniewski to re-
peat it in Polish, he
refused. Walesa
-'Nw I will have to translate you for
Polish viewers," the reporter protested.
"Yes, but they will see that I can
speak English," Kwasniewski re-
sponded.
Kwasniewski,.41, the former Com-
munist whom Poles elected over Walesa
on :1unday to be their next president,
never misses a chance to shine, no mat-
terh:W small it may seem. His election
-victty-justsixyearsafterthe Polish
United Workers' Party, or PZPR,
Poland's Communist Party, ceased to
News Analysis_
exist - is the culmination of two de-
cades of exploiting every opportunity
- good, bad and indifferent.
From his college days in the 1970s as
a new member of the PZPR to his role
in the 1989 round-table talks that
brought democracy to Poland,
Kwasniewski has displayed a remark-
able political savvy that has allowed
him to survive- and ultimately master
- opposing forces of history.
"He is a brilliant man, the most in-
telligent politician among the young
generation in Poland," said
Mieczyslaw Rakowski, prime minis-
ter in the last Communist government
who served as Kwasniewski's politi-
cal mentor under communism. "There
are opportunities in politics in every
step you take, and Kwasniewski is a
politician who takes into account all
possibilities."
Down and out in 1989, having lost
his first democratic election to an un-
known organ player, Kwasniewski ral-
liedhis newly created party of reformed
ex-Communists and quickly worked a
political miracle.
Within two years the Democratic
Left Alliance, a coalition of leftist par-
ties dominated by his Social Democ-
racy of the Republic of Poland, had
become the second-largest entity in
Parliament. At first ostracized by Soli-
darity-bred parties, Kwasniewski later
was courted by fractious Solidarity
Los Angeles Times
DAYTON, Ohio - ignoring their
own deadline, U.S. mediators kept the
leaders of Bosnia's warring factions
talking yesterday despite indications
that the 20-day-old Balkan peace con-
ference is heading for failure.
A senior Bosnian government offi-
cial said there was more than a 99-
percent likelihood that the negotiations
will end without an agreement to end
Europe's bloodiest war in a half-cen-
tury.
The official said that the talks came
tantalizingly close to agreement but then
unraveled because of excessive territo-
rial demands by the Bosnian Serbs.
A Serb representative agreed that the
talks were near collapse. He blamed the
Croats.
By early evening, the Serb delegation
was loading baggage on its aircraft, ap-
parently in preparation for leaving Wright-
Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton.
U.S. State Department spokesman
Nicholas Burns insisted that the talks
were continuing and that success was
still a possibility, although far from
guaranteed.
Burns dismissedthe activities around
the Serb aircraft as diplomatic theater.
"It looked like the jet was being fu-
eled, but President (Slobodan) Milosevic
was there negotiating," Burns said.
Nevertheless, Bums said that if the
Dayton talks fail, the United States, the
European Union and Russia will look
for ways to restart the peace process.
"There will be options to continue
the talks elsewhere," he said.
As has been the case throughout the 20-
day conference, the sticking point yester-
day was division ofthe territory of Bosnia-
Herzegovina between the Muslim-Croat
federation and the Bosnian Serbs. The
sides agreed in September to give 51
percent of the territory to the federation
and 49 percent to the Serbs but there was
no decision at that time on how to split the
territory within those guidelines.
Confusion swirled around the talks
more than eight hours after expiration
of a 10 a.m. deadline, which Secretary
of State Warren Christopher imposed
Sunday.
By setting the deadline, Christopher
touched off a marathon day of negotia-
tions that lasted for 22 1/2 hours, end-
ing at 5:30 a.m. yesterday when ex-
hausted bargainers knocked off for a
couple of hours for a nap and a shower.
~~ell
a/
CRJNIk
AP PHOTO
Poland's newly elected President Aleksander Kwasnieski prepares for his first
televised speech yesterday. He defeated incumbent President Lech Walesa on
Sunday, 52 to 46 percent.
governments that could not muster
enough votes of their own to pass im-
portant legislation.
In 1993, his party finished first in
parliamentary elections and took the
reins of government with the help of a
junior partner. On Sunday, Kwas-
niewski completed the sweep, collect-
ing the votes of nearly 10 million Poles
to defeat Walesa, the father of the anti-
Communist revolution in Poland.
"It is his greatpersonal success," said
Janusz Lewandowski, a college col-
league of Kwasniewski.
Amir says he assas sinated Rabin for Israel
AP PHOTO
Albanian protesters rally outside the
Balkan peace conference. Albania was
excluded from taking part in the talks.
The talks resumed about 8 a.m.
Burns insisted Sunday that the dead-
line was a firm one and that the U.S.
sponsors would make a public :an-
nouncement at 10 a.m. yesterday 're-
gardless of the situation at the time&,f
agreement was reached, he said, the
treaty would be initialed. If not, del-
egates would explain the reasons for
their failure.
A senior U.S. official admitted yes-
terday things were never that cut-an-
dried. The official said the deadline was
a negotiating ploy, designed to force
the factions into making painful deci-
sions.
The official said the deadline "con-
centrated the minds and the energies 1f
the delegations. If there hadn't beery a
deadline, they wouldn't have gone uiil
5:30 a.m., I can tell you that."
But by nightfall yesterday, Burnss id
the mediators had decided to keep the
talks going as long as there was a chance
for success.
"Each of these three countries seeais
to want peace,"'Burns said. "As lonWAs
there is a chance to make peace, we l11
be there with them."
Los Angeles Times
. JFRUSALEM - Yigal Amir, the
unrepentant killer of Prime Minister
Yitzhak Rabin, appeared in court for a
second time yesterday, asserting that he
had-pulled the fatal trigger on behalf of
the' ehtire nation of Israel.
A'riving under heavy guard, Amir
waved to his parents, who had not seen
him since the Nov. 4 assassination at a
Tel Aviv peace rally, and gestured to
his-crying mother as if to ask why she
wa iiitears. Looking smug and at times
disdainful, the 25-year-old law student
told le court that he would serve as his
owr, nttnrnev he1nz 1 no one n n l
represent him better than he could.
At the same time, the country watched
in amazement for a
second day as the
political right wing
went on the offen-
sive against the se-F
curity establishment a
that apparently had
infiltrated the ex-
tremists' ranks be-
fore the.assassina-
tion, but failed to
prevent it. Amir
Opposition leaders accused the La-
bor government of having used its se-
cret service in a campaign to smear the
right.
In court, confessed killer Amir was
asked by reporters how he had felt dur-
ing his re-enactment of the crime last
week when he passed by the mass of
memorial candles left by mourners be-
neath Rabin's picture in the square now
named for the slain prime minister.
"It reminded me of all those attacks
(by Arab terrorists) ... These were the
victims of peace. The country is full of
such memorials, and I said to myself,
'Finally, justice has been done,"' Amir
said.
He repeated his earlier claim that he
had acted alone in the assassination but
added the new twist: "Perhaps physi-
cally I acted alone, but it was not only
my finger that pulled the trigger but the
entire nation which for 2,000 years
dreamed about this country and spilled
its blood for it."
Amir had said previously that he
killed Rabin because the prime minister
was going to turn over Jewish land to
the Palestinians under the 1993 peace
accord between Rabin and Palestinian
leader Yasser Arafat.
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