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Around the World

Social Democratslose in German vote

BERLIN - German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's Social Democrats suffered their sixth straight setback in state elections yesterday since taking power a year ago, but they proclaimed themselves relieved that the Berlin vote was not as humiliating as earlier referendums on the government's modest reforms.

Since Schroeder defeated conservative Helmut Kohl with a vow to unite Germans in "a new middle," his attempts to drag a tax - strangled and over -regulated economy into the age of global competition have been thwarted by political infighting and a nationwide case of cold feet.

The Social Democrats and the environmentalist Greens with whom they share power at the federal level lost badly to Kohl's Christian Democratic Union - and in some cases even to the former Communists of eastern Germany - in Hesse, Bremen, Thuringia, Brandenburg and Saxony earlier this year. Party loyalists' fears of an even more brutal drubbing in Berlin, one of Germany's 16 states, soared after vitriolic attacks on Schroeder's character by his former finance minister, Oskar Lafontaine, and rumors that Defense Minister Rudolf Scharping had ambitions to replace him.

The Social Democrats' 22.4 percent share of the Berlin vote was their worst showing in this traditional party bastion since modern Germany was founded amid the ruins of Nazism in 1949. But in the wake of pre-election forecasts that the Christian Democrats could win an outright majority and drop the Social Democrats from Berlin's "grand coalition," Schroeder's political strategists were breathing audible sighs of relief.

"The party is coming up from the bottom," said a confident Franz Muenterfering, who ran Schroeder's successful campaign for chancellor last year and was recently appointed business manager of the Social Democratic Party.

Juergen Trittin, federal environment minister from the Greens party, agreed that the Berlin results were "not pretty ... but we can be pleased to have trimmed the size of our losses of recent months."

The Greens lost nearly 4 percentage points from the 1995 Berlin elections, drawing only 10 percent and trailing the reformed Communists, known as the Party of Democratic Socialism, or PDS. Mayor Eberhard Diepgen cast his Christian Democrats' 40.5 percent of the vote as an endorsement of the partnership that has governed Berlin for the past eight years, and dismissed his earlier predictions of winning an outright majority as mere expressions of "one's right to dream."

The bigger winners, in comparison with the last Berlin vote, were the reformed Communists, who captured nearly 18 percent of the citywide vote and an impressive 40 percent in the eastern districts.

Polls had even hinted that the Social Democrats - long the dominant force here when the late Willy Brandt was Berlin's mayor - might finish third behind the ex-Communists.

The Social Democrats and the Greens took power in October 1998 after a campaign promising to create a new center that could accommodate both traditional union-backed leftists and more business-oriented conservative voters. But every attempt at loosening the restraints on employers and entrepreneurs has resulted in a public backlash and accusations that the new forces in power were betraying the people.

Only three months ago, Schroeder and his Cabinet were being praised at home and abroad for masterful handling of the Kosovo crisis. Despite staunchly pacifist sentiments in this country that was the instigation for two world wars, Schroeder, Scharping and Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer managed to guide German troops into armed conflict for the first time in more than half a century with honor.

But internal bickering among Social Democrats that culminated with the resignation of Lafontaine in March has flared anew with the release this month of a vitriolic memoir by the former finance minister, along with damaging claims by respected German media that Scharping has openly disputed whether the chancellor can handle his job.

Scharping, who was the party's unsuccessful 1994 challenger to Kohl, vehemently denied in an interview published on the eve of the elections that he harbors ambitions to replace Schroeder.

Schroeder has run afoul of his party's left wing by backing Finance Minister Hans Eichel's imposition of $17 billion in government budget cuts, which mandate trimming Germany's now lavish unemployment, welfare and retirement benefits. While the proposals have won over even some of the more pragmatic Greens in the political hierarchy, they have outraged labor unions and traditional socialists such as Lafontaine.

Peacemakers accusedin E. Timor shooting

DILI, East Timor - International peacekeepers clashed with a contingent of armed men yesterday, exchanging fire in a town that straddles the border between East Timor and Indonesian-controlled West Timor.

A senior Australian army officer said two militia members may have been wounded. But an Indonesian security official accused peacekeepers of killing an Indonesian policeman in the exchange and wounding two others.

If Indonesian police were involved, it would be the first direct clash between international troops and Indonesian forces since the deployment of foreign peacekeepers to East Timor on Sept. 20.

The clash, apparently triggered by confusion over the location of the border, was the third firefight in the past four days, and some fear Indonesian-trained militants have launched a guerrilla campaign to partition East Timor.

The Indonesians said the shootings took place in West Timor, but the Australians said it happened in East Timor.

Officers from both sides said it started when an Australian patrol approached the village of Motaain, which straddles the border between the two halves of the Southeast Asian island.

''The patrol returned fire, possibly hitting two militia members,'' said Col. Mark Kelly, chief of staff of the peacekeeping force.

But an Indonesian police officer in Motaain said policemen belonging to a mobile brigade unit had fired warning shots to let the Australians know they wrongly had crossed over to the western side of the island.

The officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Australians shot back, killing a police officer and wounding two others.

Witnesses told The Associated Press they saw the dead man's body in a hospital in the nearby town of Atambua.

Reporters who accompanied the Australian convoy said the peacekeepers and Indonesian officers later compared maps. The Indonesians' map, based on a chart dating back to Dutch colonial times, showed Motaain in West Timor. A newer Indonesian-drawn map used by the Australians placed the town in East Timor.

A film shot during the talks showed an Australian translator saying the local Indonesian army commander, Lt. Col. Sidjid Yuwyno, confirmed that the patrol was 100 yards inside East Timor, and that the Australians had not fired first.

The border issue is extremely sensitive. Indonesian military recently warned peacekeepers not to enter West Timor after peacekeeping chiefs said their troops might do so if in pursuit of militia gangs.

One militiaman was killed Saturday when a group of about 15 paramilitaries attacked a New Zealand patrol at the village of Alto Lebas, about 65 miles southwest of Dili, Kelly said.

The incidents happened as the multinational force extended its control in border regions that traditionally have been militia strongholds.

Units in the west - consisting of Australian, New Zealand and British Gurkha contingents - will triple their size to 3,000 men, said their commander, Brig. Gen. Mark Evans.

''We are going to ensure that innocent people in that region are not intimidated and that they can live in peace and security,'' Evans said.

The Indonesian army and its militia allies launched a wave of killing, looting and torching after most of East Timor's 850,000 people voted for independence in an Aug. 30 referendum.

Bishop Carlos Belo, East Timor's spiritual leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, dismissed a proposal by Maj. Gen. Peter Cosgrove - the commander of the multinational force - that militia leaders be incorporated into a future government if they lay down their weapons.

''If they didn't kill, steal, or commit other crimes, they can participate in government,'' Belo said Sunday. ''But for those who took part, justice must be done first.''

U.S. troops arrived in East Timor on Friday, though most of the 1,800 sailors and marines will remain on board their assault ship, just off the coast of Dili. The U.S. mission is focused on providing helicopter transport to the Australian-led peacekeepers.

10-11-99