A Gloomy Celebration
The
German press Wednesday celebrated the 10 th anniversary of the fall
of the Berlin Wall. Die
Welt led on Mikhail Gorbachev calling it "a happy day for all mankind."
The headline in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung spoke of "emotion and measured
joy," but the Daily Telegraph of London denied the existence of any joy at all. The paper said
that Germans marked the event "in an almost gloomy mood, with many Berliners
angry at the dominant role played by politicians in the commemoration of what
was a popular uprising." The celebrations at the Brandenburg Gate, it added,
"could not obscure the fact that few, if any, Berliners tried to recapture the
careless rapture of the event."
One
person who certainly didn't demonstrate careless rapture was Margaret Thatcher,
who wasn't at the celebration with Gorbachev, former President George Bush, and
former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl. The British press debated whether she had
snubbed them or had been snubbed by them. The Times of London quoted
her spokesman as saying that she hadn't been "officially approached." German
organizers of the event told the paper that Thatcher had repeatedly been
invited to attend, but she had declined. The paper recalled her well-known
antipathy to Kohl and her quiet attempts, with the late President François
Mitterrand of France, to stop German reunification by encouraging Moscow to
block it.
In an
editorial, Le
Monde of Paris said Thatcher had tried to convince Mitterrand to join
her in open opposition to a united Germany, but "the French president was too
well-advised to directly oppose a movement which had surprised him, which he
mistrusted, and which he may well have feared, but which he also knew to be
inevitable." Le Monde said the German celebrations were conducted "with
a certain modesty, as if to allay the fears that a united Germany, not always
wrongly, has traditionally provoked in its neighbors." But the editorial went
on to laud the new Germany as "a democracy which has nothing to envy in its
neighbors and even, in many areas, is an example to them." Curiously, given
Thatcher's resistance to a united Europe, Le Monde said she had
mistakenly feared "that the first victim of the fall of the Berlin Wall would
be European integration." If that had been so, she would probably have welcomed
it.
In an
article published simultaneously in the Independent of London,
La Repubblica
of Rome, and El
País of Madrid, British historian Timothy Garton Ash described his
impressions of chairing a debate in Berlin among Bush, Kohl, and Gorbachev. He
said he asked Bush about his famously understated response to the first news of
the breach in the wall--"I'm very pleased." Bush replied that what had been
uppermost in his mind was to ensure that Gorbachev's position in the Soviet
Union was not threatened by American triumphalism. "I didn't want to poke my
finger in his eye," Bush explained.
The
Financial Times
carried an editorial condemning Russia's bombardment of civilians in
Chechnya. It called on NATO and the European Union to speak out more strongly
against the war. "The conflict is a grave embarrassment for the US and its Nato
allies," the paper said. "Russia claims it is simply behaving like Nato over
Kosovo. But with every passing day, it appears to be behaving more like
Milosevic's Serbian forces, attacking an entire ethnic group, rather than
defending humanitarian ideals."
In a
report Tuesday from the Chechen-Ingush border, the Toronto Globe and Mail said
Russian attacks against Chechen civilians are happening so frequently and with
such a similar pattern of destruction that aid workers and observers are having
difficulty keeping track of them. As an example, it cited the confusion of a
human rights investigator when asked about a Russian tank attack that killed or
injured 22 children as they played soccer. "He had just finished interviewing
witnesses who saw an attack on soccer-playing children, and he wondered if it
was the same one," the paper said. "In fact, there were two separate assaults
on children playing soccer."
The Moscow Times Wednesday
reported the first crack in Russian political solidarity in favor of the
Chechen war. It said the small liberal opposition party Yabolko has called for
immediate peace negotiations, despite the overwhelming support for the war from
the Russian media and public opinion. Russian newspapers have been speculating
for days on the future of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, whose popularity has
risen dramatically because of the war. The papers claim that the West is
pressing for his removal from office. According to the Moscow Times
Wednesday, the paper Komsomolskaya Pravda , citing unidentified Kremlin
sources, reported that Putin has already been told by President Boris Yeltsin
that he must either resign or end the war and fire the army chief of staff.
"The President and the Kremlin have made a decision to cease military
activities in Chechnya," the paper was quoted as saying.
