Overview of the week's top stories
since 15 March 2003

On Thursday, Prime Minister Anton Rop expressed the government’s regret that war has begun in Iraq. At a press conference, he stressed that Slovenia is not and will not be sending troops to Iraq, but that the government will be assisting with humanitarian aid to civilians.

The ministries of the economy, foreign affairs, finance and defense are preparing a humanitarian aid package, which will be distributed to Iraqi civilians through the International Red Cross and UNICEF.

Rop said that the government had decided that it would only consider the United States request to transport weapons across Slovene territory after a second United Nations Security Council resolution. Such a resolution was abandoned earlier in the week, and so Rop told the press that the conditions for granting such permission have not been met. The government will not be deciding on this request at all.

The government has also called upon the international community to quickly reestablish unity to resolve the crisis, and to "actively endeavor towards a speedy resolution of the crisis within the competent international organizations, with the UN Security Council at the forefront."

In the same press release, the government stressed the importance of the Middle East peace process in Israel and the Occupied Territories, which it believes would help strengthen regional security.

President Janez Drnovšek stressed that Slovenia is not part of the so-called "Coalition of the Willing" at a separate press conference. He added that he is concerned that lists of countries are being made, which divide countries into two camps.

Drnovšek also told reporters that he does not believe the Iraq crisis will impact on this Sunday’s referenda on Slovene entry into Nato and the EU. According to him, the crisis is of a short-term nature, and has little bearing on the country’s membership in either international organization, which is of a long-term nature.

Prime Minister Rop said the same at his press conference, and stressed that Nato is not involved in the war on Iraq. He pointed out that there are Nato members who are actively opposed to the war, such as France and Germany.

United States ambassador to Slovenia Johnny Young expressed his gratitude for Slovenia’s support so far in an interview with Radio Slovenija. "Your government has chosen. It has a very clear stance, which is essentially hope in a peaceful solution. We also had that stance, but it simply, at least for now, has not happened," he said.

A group of peace activists gathered Thursday in front of the American embassy in Ljubljana to light candles in solidarity with Iraqi civilians. Around midnight, seven activists who had remained after the protest were forcibly removed by police.

The small group had intended to spend the night inside a space surrounded by barricades which police had designated for protestors. For reasons which are unclear, police forcibly removed the remaining protestors from the space, but did not take them into custody. The police made no public statement about the incident.

A second group, calling itself the Anti-War Coalition – Global Anti-Racism, Anti-Fascism and Anti-War Network, gathered in front of the Moderna Galerija to demonstrate against the war on Thursday and Friday.

On Friday, the group issued an open letter inquiring as to whether the government is secretly supporting United States policy towards Iraq. Although Slovenia was not listed among the 15-member "Coalition of the Willing," head of the US Congressional Committee on International Relations Henry Hyde mentioned Slovenia in a list of those countries which are on the American side earlier this week.

The group wonders if the government is in fact supporting the war, but is hesitant to say so given this Sunday’s referenda. Open support for the war in Iraq could affect public support for entry into Nato. However, officials including Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel, President Janez Drnovšek and Anton Rop have all publicly stated that Hyde’s comment was an error.

On Sunday, 23 March, Slovenes will take to the polls to vote in simultaneous referenda on the country’s entry into the European Union, and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. National Election Commission head Anton Gašper Frantar told Dnevnik this week that everything is in order, and that the more than 1.6 million who are eligible to vote will do so at 3388 polling sites across the country.

Voters who have permanent residency in another country have previously been unable to vote in referenda, but will be able to vote this time. Special polling centers have been established at 35 Slovene diplomatic sites around the world.

In Klagenfurt (Celovec) on Monday, ethnic Slovene students took to the streets in defense of the local Slovene-language radio station, Radio Dva. Nearly 200 students from in and around the capital of Austria’s Carinthia participated in the demonstration organized by the Carinthian Student Union. A similar protest was held on Tuesday in Vienna.

Radio Dva editor in chief Marica Stern Kušej thanked those assembled in Klagenfurt for their solidarity. She also announced that a hunger strike set to begin that day had been postponed for a week thanks to hopeful signs coming out of Vienna in recent days. More than 10,000 have signed a petition in support of the station, and the issue has been brought to the attention of European institutions.

On Monday, the Koroška Regional Development Agency held a working meeting on current and past events associated with the establishment of a regional level of government in Slovenia. The meeting was held at the Slovene Chamber of Commerce in Dravograd.

The Agency’s director, Karmen Sonjak, and businessman Davorin Rogina presented a chronology of the drive to create a formal Koroška region, and an overview of the present state of play. Leaders in Koroška have been among the most active in pushing for the creation of a regional government.

Both presenters agreed that much must take place before a formal region can be created. For starters, Article 143 of the constitution must be amended before anything else can be done.

Given Slovenia’s small size, regionalism has never seemed a pressing issue. However, in order to receive funds for regional development from the EU, the government was forced to formulate a regional structure in late 2002. Though several plans were proposed, the government settled on entering the EU with the entire country as a single region.

The scheme will likely be reformulated after 2006, but it is expected that just three regions will be created – western, central (Ljubljana) and eastern Slovenia. Participants at the Koroška meeting expect that as many as 12 regions will ultimately be created – among them Koroška – but not before 2006.

• On 15 March, a woman was admitted to Ljubljana’s Clinic for Infectious Diseases after showing symptoms resembling Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), a rare form of pneumonia which made news around the world this week. More than 300 cases have been reported by the World Health Organization (WHO) since 1 February, of which nine have been fatal. Most cases have shown up in Hong Kong and Vietnam. Although the WHO maintains that there is no need for travel restrictions at this time, the Ministry of Health has advised that non-urgent travel to all Hong Kong, China, Vietnam, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines and Canada be postponed.

• On Wednesday, 24ur.com reported a record number of visitors to its website. More than 38,000 unique visits were made to the site last week, an average of 5500 daily. In February, an average of 3257 unique visits were made to the site, which is a 69 percent increase. Administrators attribute the rise to the site’s coverage of the crisis in Iraq.

• On Wednesday, the main library in Trieste (Trst) hosted a presentation of Sanje publishing house’s latest offering, a new collection of humorous stories by Vladimir Bartol entitled Magialupi in drugi. The event was organized by the Slovene Consul General in Trieste and the Trst-Gorica-Videm Slavicists Society as part of the observation of the centenary of Bartol’s birth. Bartol’s best-known work is the novel Alamut, which deals with events in twelfth-century Persia.