European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - September 27, 1989, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 10 the stars and stripes wednesday septembers 1989 Colour ring Flora Lewis communist bloc showing widening fissures fissures in the communist bloc arc widening with stunning Speed. Who would have thought the new lineup would be soviet polish hungarian reformers against East German czechoslovak romanian orthodoxies with Bulgaria mum the division of Europe for two generations was or Ganini around the division of Germany. So the future of Germany is inevitably Central now that there Are prospects for the East s squirming out of partition. In private some senior soviet Security analysts Are beginning to talk about the finnish Model. Finland Alion no longer implies Moscow s dominance with a degree of Domestic autonomy but real Independence limited by understandings that there must be no Secu Riu threat to the soviet Union. These people acknowledge that relations with Fin land arc More comfortable and reliable than with any other state on soviet Borders. Finnish authorities have been saying that for years. It is a new idea in Moscow just starting to gain an audience. But the major obstacle is How to think of Germany in such a context. There is a Good Deal More trepidation in West Ger Many at the idea of sudden reunification than critical and fearful outsiders suppose. If there is a danger it comes not from West German ambitions but the aspirations of repressed East Ger mans the sudden exodus of Young East germans across Hungary made that evident. The East German regime clearly feels ils fragility despite posturing pretence that it has the Best solution for All social and economic problems and that Only sinister foreign manipulation is luring its people away. After years of Effort to establish materially and politically rewarding ties with West Germany now it is cancelling arrangements for twinned cities and is keep ing out West German socialists who used to be favored discussion partners. But it has to be seen that whatever their logical and strategic preferences it won t be emotionally possible for West germans to refuse absorption if the East German system Breaks Down. Many had hoped for a gradual austrian Solu  open Borders and Good relations among separate German speaking states. It s not out of the question but would require a very different kind of regime in East Berlin Well before pressures became irresistible. Some in Western Europe already Sec that and arc reconciling themselves to the idea of a reunited Ger Many within a More lightly integrated european Community with a common policy of its own toward East Ern Europe. Former French president Valery Giscard d slain has called for a joint Franco German Ost politic per haps even with joint embassies Dominique Moisi a Well known French commentator supports that and ship deserting sinking Rais. Sumption that ending partition Means reverting to the pc world War ii Structure of Europe. That in t necessarily so. The changes in the West have been  is no More iroc Denlis no National frictions that could conceivably Lead to War. And there Isa new surge for indissoluble Community lies such As a common currency and a Central Bank held Back mainly by Britain s Margaret Thatcher who seems unable to see ahead. But the East has solved none of its National prob lems. As a result. Eastern countries arc pounding on the Community s door one by one weak rival petitioners who have nowhere else to go. They won t be admitted soon but they arc getting desperate. In the Middle of the 19th Century there was the hungarian Patriot and statesman Lajos Kos such. Defeated in the j8-18 Nalio list revolt proposed transforming the Empire into a danubian confederation which could then provide autonomy even sovereignty for the various minorities without destroying their useful cooperative links. Vienna was too arro Gant so the Empire collapsed in world War i and was chopped into assorted hostile pieces. The Kossuth plan might Well have averted world War i. And ensuing tragedies. It s Worth another look now. There s surprising nostalgia for the tics and the openness of Austro Llu Gary in Central Europe these Days. Some kind of renewal would provide a different focus than Germany for regional cooperation and a More balanced less dependent Way of associating wit the Community. When the Iron curtain goes up the european says after All Why not incorporate another 17 million another idea for organizing the Eastern pan of Europe. A the Iron curtain goes up the european Cir mans the me of one big slate in the Federal re nowadays some again Call it Central Europe referring conc a lain a  a Lac one defined when it rang Public essentially to the old Austro hungarian Empire and i0", wish uld try to Lemk by and its removal to .err.,. 11. I i _ us .1 i. .  it i i.  Kossuth s ins ration was a Coop  difficulty everybody is having with these newly topical questions is that they accept the unspoken As Leon Daniel others say Middle Europe which includes Germany a big difference. Kossuth s inspiration a Good. Now Vowk times child without a country symbolizes refugee plight elation Over Lac opening of the hungarian Border to East germans flee ing to the West contrasts starkly with the desperate plight of the rest of the world wide refugee population. The International Rescue committee a voluntary Agency assisting refugees throughout the world estimates there arc 14 million of them. The vast majority of these victims of War persecution and famine arc women and children. Increasingly refugees face new barriers in attempts to return to their Homes or find new ones. The United states and other Western nations arc enforcing stricter controls on the numbers of refugees permitted to re Settle within their Borders. Despite the withdrawal of the soviet Union continued fighting in Afghani Stan has barred the return of most of the 5 million afghan refugees created by the War. More than half of Afghanistan s population has been displaced by a decade of fighting and lives outside ils Borders mainly in Pakistan and Iran. Some 270,000 cambodians. 25.000 vietnamese and 80,000 la Lions languish in refugee Camps in Thailand. About one in four have been there forbore than eight years. Newcomers arrive daily after walking across the cambodian Border an area laced with land mines. Many still escape by sea from Vietnam a voyage in which uncounted thousands of boat people have died from starvation drowning or murder by pirates. Forced by War and famine to flee their Homes nearly 700,000 ethiopian refugees live in neighbouring Sudan. More than i million destitute exhausted and terrorized refugees from Mozambique have fled their War torn country since 1986. More than 600,000 mozambicans have sought Refuge in Malawi where newcomers suffering malnutrition arrive daily nicaraguans fleeing political struggle and fighting have spilled Over into Costa Rica and other countries. In Al Salvador More than 500,000 have become Refu gees in their own country1 because of unrelenting guerrilla warfare. The inc last year helped resettle 10,930 people from 22 countries in the United states. Almost half of those were from Viet Nam Cambodia and Laos. An additional 3,810 came from the soviet Union Poland Romania Hungary. Czechoslovakia Bulgaria and Albania. The others had fled african asian Middle Eastern and latin american countries. These included 570 cuban political prisoners admitted to the United slates. Some of them had spent 25 years in jail often in solitary confinement and sometimes tortured for their opposition to the communist government of Fidel Castro. Most of the refugees in Thailand arc children who have known no other Home but the dreary Camps along the cambo Dian Border. One of them is Van by a of year old cambodian the first child in his family to survive infancy. His two older siblings died of starvation. Van survived polio although it went untreated for two years. Before he received a prosthetic device and Learned How to walk with crutches the boy had to be carried. Now Van at tends a special school run by the inc for handicapped children. His Fate will be resolved Only when there is a political settlement that will allow his family to return to Cambodia or when another country approves re settlement for them. The Handicap that Van so far has been unable to surmount is that he was born without a country. Unile Prui International