The Guardian from London, Greater London, England • 9

EUROPEAN NEWS 1 9 The Guardian Thursday December 21 1995 Polish president refuses to leave office quietly Walesa claims PM spied for Moscow Yeltsin to 'steer same course' boycott Saturday's swearing' David Hearst in Moscow Ian Traynorin Bonn Walesa, has given the military prosecutor's office documents allegedly incriminating the prime minister. He dissented from the cabinet verdict, along with the defence and foreign ministers. A Russian foreign intelligence spokeswoman has denied that Mr Oleksy co-operated with the Kremlin. Mr Kwasniewski, the suave post-communist who was a minister under the old regime that Mr Walesa's Solidarity movement toppled in 1989, is due to be sworn in on Saturday. It is unclear whether the allegations are Mr Walesa's latest stunt to retain power or whether there is any substance to them.

Adam Michnik, another key revolutionary and ex-Walesa adviser who no longer backs him, wrote in Gazeta Wyborcza, the paper he now edits: "Nobody knows anything concrete. Three days before the president-elect's swearing-in, public opinion is entitled to expect the stability of the state not to be harmed." Ever since losing the election, Mr Walesa has sought to mobilise the fragmented rightwing opposition against reformed communists in the Democratic Left Party, which controls the parliament, the government and, as of this weekend, the presidency. Mr Walesa has said he will POLAND'S old and new rulers were thrust into a bitter power struggle last night when President Lech Walesa tarred the ex-communist prime minister with allegations of spying for the Kremlin. Mr Walesa's assertion that national security is in jeopardy comes two days before he is due to surrender power to another former communist, Aleksandr Kwasniewski, victor of last month's presidential poll. Mr Walesa, who shows no sign of going quietly into retirement and has launched a loud anti-communist campaign, effectively accused the prime minister, Jozef Oleksy, of contacts with Soviet and post-Soviet intelligence.

The prime minister went on national television to rebut the charges, accusing the Walesa entourage of a smear campaign. Mr Oleksy said the presidential camp told him a week ago everything would be hushed up if he resigned. He refused. An emergency cabinet session attended by Mr Walesa last night dismissed the allegations of a "grave threat to state But the interior minister, an ally of Mr Weak Juppe enters 'social summit' with little to offer The French prime minister needs to pull off a political conjuring trick to save his skin, writes Paul Webster in Paris Question time Poland's prime minister, Jozef Oleksy, addresses a news conference after meeting the parliamentary speaker, Jozef Zych, to discuss President Walesa's allegations of a national security threat photographandrzej rybczinski Serbs greet British troops with BORIS YELTSIN yesterday attempted to minimise the biggest electoral blow to his presidency, by painting the victorious Communists as a minority in a new Duma dominated by "pro-reform" deputies. Mr Yeltsin said Russia would steer the same political course as before: "The path of Marxist ideology is criminal for Russia and Russians.

We will not let it happen." Speaking in Barvikha sanatorium, where he is recovering from his second heart attack, he said: "The majority of the new Duma consists of those parties which follow, and will follow, the policy of democratisation and observance of human rights and personal freedoms which Russia has started and which it will not give up." The "majority" of deputies Mr Yeltsin was referring to include the centrist deputies of Yabloko, who remain bitter critics of the president, and the centre-right deputies of the former acting prime minister, Yegor Gaidar. Mr Gaidar split with Mr Yeltsin over the invasion of Chechenia. Far from giving concessions to the popular mood, Mr Yeltsin's words indicate he has decided to confront it by painting the Communist leader. Gennady Zyuganov, as the enemy of Russia's democracy. This would be the only way of achieving Mr Yeltsin's objective of emerging as the sole candidate of the liberal and rightwing parties in next June's presidential election.

The Communists say they won in 70 of Russia's 89 regions and came second in another 13. To portray them as a minority risks provoking anger from voters. The Communists continued yesterday to capture more seats, looking set to obtain a third of the places in the 450-seat Duma. But analysts said they could control 40 per cent of seats if they allied themselves with other left groups. brandy "This is a very significant day," he told a Croat officer.

"We are not Unprofor any more. We are IFOR. I don't want to upset a delicate balance, but I have been talking to my boss, and he says if it is necessary we will just drive on." This was not the way UN troops used to behave. The Croat officer looked vacant for a few moments and waved the convoy through. At a press conference in the base at Gornji Vakuf the Defence Secretary, Michael Por-tillo, said British troops remained ready to use force.

"The wish is to use persuasion and reason, but they have been equipped and configured in such a way that peace will be implemented one way or another," he said. Leader comment, page 12; Farewell, Bosnia, page 1 3 the past decade. Police said the victims of attacks on the KwaZulu-Natal south coast, four of them children who were burned to death, were members of families which supported President Nelson Mandela's African National Congress. Reuter. Unita plane crash A Zairean plane which crashed in Angola un Monday killing Ml people was chartered by Angola's former rebel group Unita.

its senior military official said yesterday. It was the worst air disaster of the year. Reuter. Reactor reopens The French government authorised the restart yesterday of Lyon's Superphenix, the world's largest fast-breeder nuclear reactor shut down since October. AP.

Teenage mafia Police in Bari, Italy, have arrested four teenagers, two of them aged just M. for running a junior version of a Mafia clan. All four were suspected of the attempted murder of another minor. Reuter. The Light Dragoons set off in.

His supporters tried to have the elections annulled after Mr Walesa lost. And last week, in talks aimed at forg ing a rightwing alliance, Mr Walesa first hinted at the alle gations against Mr Oleksy. "This is top secret. It is dy namite. I have a lot of proof that our post-communist oli garchy has international con- nections," Mr Walesa was reported as saying.

On Sunday he gave an emotional speech in the Baltic port of Gdynia to commemorate anti-communist protesters gunned down by the regime in 1970. "The blood on the streets of Gdynia was not the result of a chance coincidence. It was planned by party appara tchiks fighting for influence at the summit of power. For the six years of independent Poland we have been demand ing that those guilty of that criminal provocation be found and punished, he said. Today evil goes unpun ished.

Lies are rewarded, Poland is humiliated. We will never reconcile ourselves to that. We will fight it until we have total victory. Mr Oleksy dubbed called Mr Walesa's moves a dirty provocation, while Mr Kwas niewski has accused his defeated rival of "sulking over the principles of ruled out a month ago, Mr Juppe has shaken his other "social partner the national employers council. Jean Gan- dois, its chairman, fears a hidden agenda appease ment on salary restraint in the hope of stimulating a con sumer-led recovery.

Unwel come government interference could result in an increase in the minimum wage and a cut in the 39-hour week to buy off protests. "I am only attending this meeting to make sure that government policy does not drift, Mr Gandois said. With more enemies friendsTMr Juppe has" to pull off a political conjuring trick to confound the prediction by an aide of President Jacques Chirac that the prime minister "may survive the winter but not the He is more unpopular than any government leader for nearly 40 years and more than two-thirds of the electorate consider union protests to be justified. Mr Juppe, the Gaullist RPR party chairman, is also under attack by the most powerful people inside his movement: the former prime minister, Edouard Balladur, and the anti-Maastricht campaigners Charles Pasqua and Philippe Seguin. Nor is there much warmth from the junior coalition partner, the Union for French Democracy (UDF), which blames Mr Juppe for the loss of seven national assembly seats to the left in recent byelections.

"This country is not being governed by a strong single policy," said the UDF leader and former French president, Valery Giscard d-Estaing. "The president must intervene to tell us which course he is taking." The cabinet approved a bill yesterday to amend France's constitution to give parliament, instead of trade unions and employers, ultimate control over welfare spending. blocked and its stopgap prime minister, Lamberto Dini, committed to resign once it is passed. Alter almost a year of non party administration intended to allow for refonns, there is still no agreement on a future political system. Paolo Berlusconi and Mr Previti vigorously denied any part in a plot.

The prosecutors in Brescia want their ex-colleague tried on the following charges: Extortion of a 100 million lire (40,000) loan in 1990 from a businessman subsequently convicted of fraud. Extortion of the same businessman to get him to place work with his wife's law firm and pay off the gambling debts of a friend, the Milanese police chief, Eleuterio Rea. Abuse of office in relation to the appointment of Mr Rea. Extortion in connection with the computerisation of the Milan law courts. It is alleged that he put pressure on the then civil service minister.

Remo Gaspari, whom he had already put under investigation. He is said to have demanded he be put in charge of the project and then irregularly awarded a contract connected with it. distributed glasses to anyone in a British army uniform. "These are the first foreigners we have seen here. Unpro-for never came here, nor did the Red Cross," he said.

"I think these troops will be realistic and objective. I've always had a good opinion of British soldiers," he said. Old Nato air strikes were shrugged off. It was as if they had bombed a different country. "There were no air strikes in my area," said Lieutenant Vitomir Brnjic, a Serb officer at the former frontline checkpoint at Brenica, five miles south of Krupa.

"I believe they are neutral." Armoured cars from the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers had taken over Lt Brnjic's checkpoint, in the River Vrbas gorge, renaming it Black Dog, after a regimental pet. He did not mind at all. It seemed like a burden had been lifted. At Ham yesterday Nato began its first day at work enforcing the Bosnian peace treaty, and found that, for all the posturing of the Bosnian Serb leadership, its troops were welcome. When Mira Vucic saw the Warrior and Scimitar armoured vehicles flying Union Jacks turn a corner into Krupa na Vrbasu village, she could barely contain herself.

On tiptoe she waved from her balcony, then ran down to embrace the British officers. She then started a snowball fight with Captain Ian Orr. "We've been waiting since the beginning of the war," she said. "Now I know everything is going to be all right, and I hope my children will be able to play and grow up free." Srdjan Vidovic, a 27-year old glazier, ran into his house and emerged with a bottle of loza homemade brandy, and Julian Borgerln Krupana Vrbasu FOR 150 British troops it was a leap into the unknown. Treading where no foreign soldiers had set foot throughout the Bosnian war, a squadron of The Light Dragoons yesterday made the first Nato foray across Bosnian front lines into the Serb heartland of western Bosnia.

They came ready to use force in 30 armoured cars each bearing an orange patch on top for the benefit of Nato aircraft backed up with artillery flown into position by helicopter. But the show of strength proved unnecessary. The local Serb population welcomed them with outstretched arms and open bottles ot brandy, demanding to know what had kept them for the past three years. ALAIN JUPPE, whose future as prime minister is on a knife edge, goes with some trepidation into a "social summit" today with French trade unions and employers, both of whom view him with anything from suspicion to hostility. i After a public sector strike which has cost industry about 2.5 billion in lost business, "Mr' Juppe's entourage admits he has little to offer in the short term.

Government statisticians have forecast gloom for the French economy in 1996 even without the threat of renewed industrial unrest after Christmas. If the Insee (government statistics institute) forecast proves true, then by spring France will be in deep trouble, with growth and consumer spending stagnant and unemployment set to rise to 12.5 per cent well over 3 million. And that is not counting about 100,000 redundancies expected as a result of strike-provoked bankruptcies in small businesses, shops, restaurants, tourism and the construction industry. "The social summit should contradict public feeling that the prime minister is not a man of dialogue, but in the present economic conditions no one has yet solved the puzzle of how he can please unions and employers while satisfying European Union demands for budget austerity to meet single currency criteria," an aide of Mr Juppe said. "Of course, if Mr Juppe succeeds, there will be no more talk of a replacement." In reality the prime minister faces confident opponents at the talks, convinced he will go early in the new year.

Trade unions have never been so buoyant since mem World news in brief budget agreement collapse from theu- bases in central Bosnia at dawn yesterday, to be in position at 11 o'clock, when the United Nations commander in Bosnia, Lieu-tenant-General Rupert Smith, handed over authority to Nato at Sarajevo airport. At that moment, the Fusiliers drove off to "secure and dominate" Black Dog crossing. A few miles to the south Sea King and Lynx helicopters ferried howitzers to advance positions. Soon afterwards, The Light Dragoons rumbled across Black Dog and pushed seven miles into Serb territory, the limit of the howitzers' range. Bosnian Croat forces caused the biggest problem of the day, holding up a convoy of I FOR and press vehicles.

Capt Orr strode to the checkpoint and spelt out the new rules of the game. Papandreou on life support The condition of the Greek prime minister. Andreas Papandreou, has worsened and he is now constantly on a respirator, the latest hospital health report said yesterday. Mr Papandreou, aged 76, has been in intensive care in Athens with pneumonia since November 20. Reuter.

Haider attacked The Austrian Freedom Party loader. Jbrg Haider, was attacked by Chancellor Franz Vranitzky yesterday for saying during a television interview that he did not know the post-war Nuremberg war crimes tribunal had branded the Waffcn SS a criminal organisation, adding: "It doesn't interest me in the least." Reuter. Africa killings Gunmen have killed nine more people in South Africa's volatile Zulu heartland, adding to a grim toll of more than 13,000 victims of political bloodshed in the province in bership went into decline during the 1980s, a period dominated by the left Marc Blon-del of Force Ouvriere and Louis Viannet of the Communist-led CGT were behind six recent demonstrations which assembled some of the biggest crowds since, the' second world war. Teachers and students marched beside postmen, energy workers, and other public-sector staff. Even with fewer than one in eight workers most of them in the public sector paying union dues, demonstrators also paralysed public transport for more than three weeks and then suspended the strike on their own terms.

Mr Juppe had to scrap a railway restructuring plan, sack the railway chairman, drop a review of pensions and retreat from privatisation. Although he was able to hang on to proposed welfare cuts, the timetable and eventual savings depend on today's talks. Because he bought off strikers with concessions he had Alain Juppe: more enemies than friends The two Brescia prosecutors said last night they had asked for the arraignment of the ex-premier's brother, Paolo, and the organiser of Mr Berlusconi's party, Cesare Previti. The TV magnate-turned-rightwing-leader is due to go on trial next month charged with the very offences Mr Di Pietro was investigating. An indictment of the former prosecutor would convince many of his compatriots that there can be no such thing as a principled Italian public servant.

Mr Di Pietro's aggressive questioning of political leaders in the only big corruption case to have reached court turned him into a national hero and helped speed the end of a corrupt political order. The value of shares on the Milan bourse fell 1.43 per cent on the news of the charges. Though Mr Di Pietro intermittently denied political ambition, he did little else to stop himself being courted as a possible future premier. He had also floated the idea of a movement committed to upholding honesty in public life. Last night's announcement came at a delicate moment, with Italy's 1996 budget still of Friday, just before Christmas, 8 million children won't get their benefits In effect, Mr Clinton is hoping to use the Republican majority in Congress to help enact his original campaign pledges ofl992.

That agenda is close to the current Republican programme, and it is their outrage that Mr Clinton has stolen their clothes that is driving the Republican hardliners to fight compromise. Di Pietro may face trial ready for tourists Hopes for US 8 OPES of a budget deal in the United States to end a renewed government shut down which has so far lasted four days collapsed yesterday when Republican leaders were prevented from joining a new round of talks by their own hardliners, writes Martin Walker in Washington. "The tau is wagging the dog," the US president, Bill Clinton, told journalists. "I showed up today ready to do my part, but I don't know who Dead poets optional DEAD European males have suffered a fresh set back: Georgetown University, Washington, plans to allow students to graduate in English without studying Chaucer, Milton or Shakespeare, writes lan Katz. English students are cur rently required to study at least two of the authors but the university says it wants to update its course, making the literary greats optional.

Some students have com plained, saying that the change reflects a decline in standards, but the English department backed the adoption of a more flexible syllabus by four to one. "Shakespeare is in no dan ger of disappearing from the curriculum," said Professor Bruce Smith, director of graduate studies. "Students have more integrity and seriousness about their own education than people give them credit for having." I'm supposed to make an agreement with." The Republicans put the best face on their internal arguments, trying to blame the White House for prevarication. But the opinion polls show that the public blames them, rather than the president, for the stalemate. Mr Clinton yesterday twisted the knife, saying the Republicans' internal revolt against their own congressional leadership meant that "as Spanish Steps ROME yesterday reopened one of its most famous tourist attractions, the white marble Spanish Steps, closed since May for renovation.

The 18th century baroque steps, which offer some of the best views of the city, were cleaned of pollution, weeds and graffiti in a 380.000 facelift. The city hopes to keep the steps pristine by enforcing Pot 1R MS "I will might daddy these spokesman famous, bans on eating and drinking there. Vendors will also be banned. Built between 1723 and 1726, the steps are a masterpiece of architecture, linking the Piazza di Spagna with the church of Trinita dei Monti. In recent years they were occupied by trinket sellers and became a popular meeting place for young tourists.

Reuter. John Hooper in Rome THE idol of Italy's anti-corruption drive was last night facing the prospect of trial on charges of extortion and abuse of office. Prosecutors in the northern town of Brescia said they had asked a judge to put their for; mer colleague, Antonio Di Pietro, into the dock for using his position to obtain lucrative favours. They said a seven-month investigation had found prima facie evidence that the prosecutor, whose pursuit of the mighty broke the mould of Italian politics, had extorted a loan, secured an appointment for himself and a contract for his wife, got a friend promoted and forced businessmen to pay off his friend's gambling debts. But they also concluded that Mr Di Pietro's alleged misdemeanours were used by close associates of the former prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, to force him out of the anti-graft crusade.

Mr Di Pietro shocked the nation last December by resigning as a prosecutor days before he was to question the billionaire politician in a bribery inquiry. not appear on any platform," he says, "where I be introduced as 'Labour's spin doctor'." The of all doctors wishes it now to be known that days, as the MP for Hartlepool, front bench on the Civil Service, friend and fixer to the he should be interviewed only as a politician..