YEAR IN REVIEW 1997: WORLD-AFFAIRS: SPECIAL REPORT

SPECIAL REPORT: The U.S. Presidential Election by George Russell Election campaigns, like wars, are won through a combination of strategy, logistics, and the application of power. In 1996 Bill Clinton showed that while his style of governance may have been open to question, his political generalship was on a par with the military skills of the best. Through a brilliant bombardment with television imagery, and the most all-encompassing political poll-taking in U.S. history, the incumbent president smashed through the stratagems of his Republican opponent, Bob Dole, to win a victory that, for most of the year, was almost never in doubt. In the end, however, it was a resounding victory without coattails. Indeed, for much of the election year, the president campaigned without mentioning the name of the Democratic Party, while for their part the victorious Republicans who retained control of the House of Representatives and the Senate did so, at the end, with hardly an invocation of the beleaguered Dole. There was a reason for the symmetry of silences; both Clinton and the Republicans were campaigning more for rehabilitation in the eyes of the electorate than for a revolution of ideas or philosophies. In the end they proved to be running successfully against themselves, in two distinct branches of government. This fact did not make the campaign cheap, however. Indeed, the elections of 1996 were the costliest in the history of the republic. By the end of the campaign, the Democrats were believed to have spent some $250 million and the Republicans $400 million--more than twice as much as in 1992. Immensely costly television campaigning and a saturation poll strategy caused the Democrats and the Clinton White House to construct a fund-raising machine of enormous ingenuity and rapacity--one whose dubious methods raised questions and investigations that would cast shadows deep into the second Clinton administration. As the year came to a close, Attorney General Janet Reno rejected the notion of an investigation of the Democratic campaign-funding machine by an independent counsel, but congressional hearings were sure to keep the pot boiling. A considerable amount of the Republican money, by contrast, had been spent in warring among themselves. One of the five major Republican primary candidates, the wealthy publisher Steve Forbes, alone spent an estimated $25 million, largely in "attack" television advertising against eventual standard-bearer Dole. Despite such intense opposition, Dole had virtually locked up his party's nomination by late March, long before the end of the exhausting string of Republican primaries ended in June. But Dole--73 years old in July, laconic, self-mocking, an inept orator more comfortable in Senate cloakrooms than on the hustings--proved unable to unite or inspire a party riven among conservative hard-liners and moderates, Christian fundamentalist activists and secular pragmatists, antiabortion campaigners and pro-choice supporters. His inability to inspire a coherent opposition drove away financial contributors and eventually revived the not-very-dormant presidential ambitions of the country's richest political maverick, billionaire populist Ross Perot, who had won almost 19% of the vote in 1992. Sensing Dole's weakness, Perot once again threw his hat into the ring as the Reform Party candidate, further dividing Dole's potential supporters. President Clinton, by contrast, was an enthusiastic, flesh-pressing lover of crowds and personal contact who was by most accounts more in his element as a campaigner than as a chief executive, and his energy not so subtly conveyed the generational gap between himself and his main opponent. Dole's most eloquent appeal was at the Republican national convention in San Diego, Calif., when the wounded World War II veteran, whose right arm was permanently disabled, deliberately evoked the values of an earlier, simpler age by asking that voters consider him "a bridge to tranquillity." The ebullient Clinton, on the other hand, asked to be considered a "bridge to the 21st century." The president's path to victory was a vindication of the strategy of "triangulation" propounded and, for much of the time, orchestrated by his chief political strategist, Dick Morris, who fell from influence in a sex scandal on the same day that Clinton delivered his acceptance speech at the Democratic national convention in Chicago. The strategy was based on the belief that after an erratic and disappointing first term, best symbolized by the failure of his ambitious and disastrous attempt to reform health care, Clinton had to present himself to American voters as standing both above and between the warring Democrats and Republicans. The president made his first move in that direction in 1995 when, over the objections of many Democrats, he endorsed the notion of a balanced federal budget over seven years--a notion that had appeared in the successful 1994 Republican "Contract with America." Nearly a year and a half before election day, he followed that change with a series of television ads that took tough positions on anticrime measures and penalties. Meanwhile, his pollsters took soundings across the country to discover the uncertainties that most concerned the American public--issues of crime, educational decline, environmental degradation, and medical care for the elderly, to name just a few. They also polled to discover, long in advance of the actual fact, that Americans would likely blame congressional Republicans, led by the controversial speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, for any governmental paralysis that resulted from a budget deadlock in Washington, D.C. When the deadlock did occur, the Republicans, and Gingrich in particular, were marked as the proponents of radical risk and uncertainty. They were seen as making assaults on valued safety nets like Medicare that were considered vital entitlements by the middle-aged and elderly, despite the fact that the Republicans, as they frequently protested, were intent on merely slowing the rate of expansion of such programs, at least in the short term. Under the circumstances the unfortunate strategy pursued by Dole during his primary campaign was tuned to buttress the Clinton plan. In the run-up to the early caucuses and primaries in Iowa and New Hampshire, Dole, a moderate deal maker by nature, abandoned his middle-of-the-road principles to fend off the challenge from a more conservative rival, Sen. Phil Gramm of Texas. Dole abandoned his longtime support for affirmative action, took tough stances on denying benefits to illegal immigrants, and backtracked in his support for one of Congress's rare restrictions on firearms, a selective ban on automatic weapons. Even as he did so, however, the consummate Washington insider was being outflanked on the economic right by dark horse Forbes and by another conservative populist, political commentator Patrick Buchanan. Forbes harked back in policies and rhetoric to the supply-side economics of the Ronald Reagan administration. His salient campaign plank was a flat 17% income tax to replace the thicket of graduations and exemptions that had grown up since the last tax simplification, in 1986. An amateurish but disciplined campaigner who could draw on his private wealth without the restrictions that governed donated funds, Forbes clearly struck a chord among Americans still resentful of the powers and prerogatives of Beltway Washington. He also had the support of such popular Reagan-era figures as Jack Kemp, who had been George Bush's secretary of housing and urban development. Buchanan represented another, more fundamentalist trend: the nativist, anticapitalist populism of the South and Midwest that had spawned radical movements in the 1930s. With Buchanan, a staunch Roman Catholic, this was allied with a hard-line antiabortion stance. Buchanan inveighed against immigration of all kinds, the loss of U.S. manufacturing jobs to Mexico and elsewhere, and the general climate of excessive social tolerance. A few of his economic themes were echoed, more pallidly, by another major primary candidate, Lamar Alexander, formerly the secretary of education in the Bush administration. All three candidates emphasized the fact to unhappy Republican voters that the party front-runner, still a sitting senator and the majority leader, was a "despised creature" of Washington. Defeating his disparate rivals cost Dole time, energy, and, above all, money. By early March, when Dole had not yet managed to clinch the nomination, Perot had begun talking about entering the presidential race. Over the ensuing weeks, as he managed to tighten his grip on the nomination, Dole was still unable to articulate a campaign theme that went much beyond portraying Clinton as a classic "tax-and-spend" liberal--a position that Clinton had by this time long and fairly convincingly abandoned. At the same time, using the most powerful advantage of executive incumbency, the president had managed to push through such measures as a minimum-wage hike and portable health insurance that solidified his traditional blue-collar constituency, despite his generally conservative fiscal stance. Nor was Dole able to capitalize on the greatest uncertainty about Clinton: the continuing doubts about his character, as expressed in his evasive stance on avoiding the draft as a student, his elasticity on issues of principle, and the many questions that had arisen about the family's financial dealings during his gubernatorial tenure in Arkansas, collectively known as the Whitewater scandal. As polls affirmed Dole's sorry electoral state (Clinton at times enjoyed leads of 20 percentage points), he took a dramatic step to change his image as a Washington insider. In mid-May Dole announced that he would resign his Senate seat and leadership role, and he shed his conservative suit-and-tie image for shirtsleeved campaigning. The positive effect was short-lived, however. Then, in a desperate bit of apostasy, Dole suddenly announced a complete reversal of course in his not-well-articulated economic policies. The apostle of fiscal moderation embraced a 15% tax cut, and just before the San Diego convention he announced that Kemp, the party's most articulate and energetic supply-sider, was his choice for vice president. The energetic 61-year-old Kemp, a former professional football quarterback, was also chosen to help counter the active and youthful image projected by Clinton and his vice president, Al Gore. Both the ideological and the image-making changes failed to impress voters, however. Kemp was deemed unimpressive in his single televised debate with the vice president, while Dole was judged even worse in his two debates with Clinton. The president's lead remained unassailable. In a final bid to rally an anti-Clinton majority, Dole appealed to independent Perot to withdraw from the race, but Perot called the plea "weird and inconsequential." In the final week of the campaign, the highly tuned Clinton machine sputtered only when revelations began to surface about the extent of the dubious fund-raising that had been undertaken, especially in Asian circles, to finance the juggernaut. Dole's standing began to rise--but too little, too late. In the end he lost by 8.4 percentage points--almost exactly the margin held by Perot. The message of the campaign was exactly what Clinton and his inner circle of poll-taking political professionals had perceived. The American people were conservative in their fiscal attitudes, concerned with reinforcing their social values and institutions, and impatient with ideological intransigence. In an improving economy, however, their long-standing collective optimism also came to the fore. The largest American demographic group, the so-called baby boomers, ultimately chose one of their own to lead them forward, rather than turning back to the past. George Russell, a senior editor at Time International, is the author of Eyewitness: A History of Photojournalism. SRI LANKA A republic and member of the Commonwealth, Sri Lanka occupies an island in the Indian Ocean off the southeast coast of peninsular India. Area: 65,610 sq km (25,332 sq mi). Pop. (1996 est.): 18,318,000. Legislative cap., Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte; administrative cap., Colombo. Monetary unit: Sri Lanka rupee, with (Oct. 11, 1996) a free rate of SL Rs 57.05 to U.S. $1 (SL Rs 89.87 = 1 sterling). President in 1996, Chandrika Kumaratunga; prime minister, Sirimavo Bandaranaike. Even though the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the guerrilla group that had been fighting the government since 1983 in its quest for an independent homeland for Sri Lanka's two million Tamils, suffered a severe military defeat with the loss of Jaffna Peninsula in December 1995, it still managed to inflict significant blows on government forces in 1996, as well as carry out terrorist acts against the Sinhalese civilian population. On January 31 the LTTE claimed responsibility for a massive bomb explosion in Colombo's financial district at the central bank building, where Sri Lanka's gold reserves are held. The explosion killed more than 200 people and wounded over 1,400 others. Similarly, in July two bombs ripped through separate cars of a commuter train, killing 64 people and wounding more than 450. Although the LTTE did not claim responsibility for the train explosions, the government accused it of the terrorist acts. In July the LTTE conducted a weeklong operation against the military base of Mullaitivu, about 240 km (175 m), northeast of Colombo. An estimated 4,000 guerrillas attacked from the south and from the sea and eventually captured the fortified garrison, taking away large quantities of heavy weapons. Except for a handful of soldiers, all 1,200 military personnel in the base were killed. The LTTE lost about 200 fighters. This was the government's bloodiest and worst defeat in the civil war. In late September government forces launched a major offensive against Kilinochchi, about 230 km (170 m) north of Colombo and the only major urban centre still under LTTE control. Approximately 15,000 army personnel, using conventional military tactics, attacked the LTTE's headquarters. The LTTE, unable to hold on to the town, was forced out into the jungle. The government lost about 250 men and the LTTE more than 1,000. This was a major military blow for the Tamil Tigers, because by losing their last urban centre, they were deprived of an important recruitment ground. Despite the LTTE's complete rejection of Pres. Chandrika Kumaratunga's 1995 peace plan, which would turn Sri Lanka into a loose federation of eight regions, Kumaratunga pledged to "restore complete peace" by the end of 1997. (CLAUDE RAKISITS) SUDAN, THE A republic of North Africa, The Sudan has a coastline on the Red Sea. Area: 2,503,890 sq km (966,757 sq mi). Pop. (1996 est.): 31,065,000. Executive cap., Khartoum; legislative cap., Omdurman. Monetary unit: Sudanese dinar, with (Oct. 11, 1996) a free rate of Sd 146.50 to U.S. $1 (Sd 230.78 = 1 sterling). President of the Revolutionary Command Council for National Salvation, president, and prime minister in 1996, Lieut. Gen. Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir. The first presidential and legislative elections in The Sudan since the 1989 coup took place March 6-17, 1996. Opposition attempts to boycott the elections were ignored by the government, which maintained that 5.5 million votes had been cast, amounting to 70% of the electorate. Pres. Omar al-Bashir polled over four million votes, while his nearest opponent among some 40 candidates gained only 990,000. Hassan at-Turabi, leader of the National Islamic Front, was unanimously elected president of the 400-member National Assembly on April 1. Although President Bashir was able to conclude an agreement in February securing the country's borders with Chad and the Central African Republic, fears that his government was supporting militant Islamic groups intent upon subverting the governments of other neighbouring countries aroused both anxiety and hostility. Egypt continued to demand the extradition of three Egyptian dissidents believed to have taken refuge in The Sudan after a failed assassination attempt against Pres. Hosni Mubarak in 1995. The Sudanese government denied that they were in the country. Uganda during the year accused The Sudan of arming and training members of a Ugandan Christian fundamentalist group that had carried out damaging raids into northern Uganda. The Sudanese government responded by alleging that Uganda was assisting Sudanese rebels in the south of the country and that both Uganda and the rebels were armed and encouraged by Israel. On April 10 a peace treaty was signed with two of the rebel groups in the south, but John Garang's faction of the Sudan People's Liberation Army, the government's long-term opponent, remained determined to carry on the struggle. The deterioration of the country's relations with the outside world was matched by the decline in the economy. The government itself admitted that the foreign debt stood at 12.4 billion, three times gross domestic product. (KENNETH INGHAM) SURINAME The republic of Suriname is in northern South America, on the Atlantic Ocean. Area: 163,820 sq km (63,251 sq mi), not including a 17,635-sq km area disputed with Guyana. Pop. (1996 est.): 436,000. Cap.: Paramaribo. Monetary unit: Suriname guilder, with (Oct. 11, 1996) a free rate of 410 guilders to U.S. $1 (645.87 guilders = 1 sterling). Presidents in 1996, Ronald Venetiaan until May 23 and, from September 5, Jules Wijdenbosch; chairman of the Council of Ministers from September 21, Pretaap Radhakishun. General elections for the National Assembly were held on May 23, 1996. The main opposition party in the elections was the National Democratic Party (NDP), led by former military dictator Dsi Bouterse. The outcome of the election was inconclusive. The New Front, a coalition of four parties that formed the government, won 45% of the vote and 24 seats in the Assembly, 6 fewer than in 1991 and 10 seats short of the two-thirds needed to appoint a president and to form a government. The NDP won 16 seats (a gain of 4 and 26% of the votes). Immediately after the election Pres. Ronald Venetiaan rejected an offer from Bouterse to form a coalition with the NDP, and he began coalition talks with some smaller parties. On August 1 the buildings of the National Assembly and the Office of Foreign Affairs burned down. In this disaster almost all national political and historical archives were lost. This was the fifth destructive fire of an important government building since 1990. On August 7 and 8 the new Assembly did not succeed in two elections to appoint a president. Venetiaan each time got only 23 of the 51 votes, and Jules Wijdenbosch, Bouterse's right-hand man, got 24. On September 5 Wijdenbosch was elected the new president of Suriname by a convention of representatives of all districts (such a convention becomes necessary when the Assembly, after two efforts, has not been able to elect a president). (KLAAS J. HOEKSEMA) SWAZILAND Swaziland is a landlocked monarchy of southern Africa and a member of the Commonwealth. Area: 17,364 sq km (6,704 sq mi). Pop. (1996 est.): 934,000. Administrative and judicial cap., Mbabane; royal caps., Lozitha and Ludzidzini; legislative cap., Lobamba. Monetary unit: lilangeni (plural: emalangeni), at par with the South African rand, with (Oct. 11, 1996) a free rate of 4.54 emalangeni to U.S. $1 (7.16 emalangeni = 1 sterling). King, Mswati III; prime ministers in 1996, Prince Jameson Mbilini Dlamini until May 8 and, from July 26, Sibusiso Barnabas Dlamini. The year 1996 proved one of mounting political tensions. The Swaziland Federation of Trade Unions called a week-long general strike on January 22 in support of 27 demands to end the absolute monarchy and establish multiparty politics. Violent clashes between the security forces and the protesters resulted in three deaths. On January 27 King Mswati III called for an end to the strike, and negotiations were promised. At the opening of the parliament on February 16, the king said that a new constitution would be drafted over the next few months and that every citizen would be given an opportunity to contribute to the process. On February 27 the king said legislation banning political parties would be reconsidered. The king on May 8 dismissed Prime Minister Mbilini Dlamini, who had held the office since 1993; not until late July did he appoint a successor, Sibusiso Barnabas Dlamini. (GUY ARNOLD) This article updates Swaziland, history of. SWEDEN A constitutional monarchy of northern Europe, Sweden occupies the eastern side of the Scandinavian Peninsula, with coastlines on the North and Baltic seas and the Gulf of Bothnia. Area: 449,964 sq km (173,732 sq mi). Pop. (1996 est.): 8,858,000. Cap.: Stockholm. Monetary unit: Swedish krona, with (Oct. 11, 1996) a free rate of 6.60 kronor to U.S. $1 (10.39 kronor = 1 sterling). King, Carl XVI Gustaf; prime ministers in 1996, Ingvar Carlsson and, from March 21, Gran Persson. An era in Swedish politics came to a close when Ingvar Carlsson, the Social Democratic prime minister, retired in March after a decade as party leader. Carlsson, who replaced the assassinated Olof Palme in 1986, handed the baton to Gran Persson, Sweden's finance minister. The appointment of Persson as only the fifth Social Democratic leader in 71 years was preceded by the fall from grace of Mona Sahlin, the youthful deputy prime minister. Widely expected to become the country's first female prime minister, she was forced to resign amid revelations that she used her government credit card for private purposes, although she was later cleared of any criminal offense. Persson began where he left off as finance minister--by continuing to spearhead government efforts to alleviate Sweden's chronic budget deficit. When the Social Democrats came to power in 1994, the annual shortfall was about 13% of gross domestic product (GDP). But a prescription of welfare cuts and tax increases pruned it back to a projected 2.6% of GDP in 1997, which put Sweden in a position to qualify for the European economic and monetary union. Completing the overhaul of the state's finances was a key achievement for the Social Democrats. But the cost was high; unemployment rose, hovering persistently around 13%--a distressing spectacle for many in a country weaned on a long tradition of near-full employment. Describing joblessness as its foremost challenge, the government pledged early in the year to reduce the "headline" rate (which excluded people employed on government-sponsored projects and training programs) from about 8% to 4% by the year 2000. Measures to achieve this included the initiation in September of reforms to inject flexibility into Sweden's tightly regulated labour market. This, however, caused consternation in the country's most powerful trade union confederation, the Landsorganisation. The association, which had 2.2 million members and had been a close ally of the Social Democratic Labour Party for almost a century, condemned the proposals as an attack on worker security. It accused the government of lurching to the right and briefly threatened to withhold its 20 million kronor annual contribution to party funds. The Social Democrats, heading a minority government, cemented an unofficial alliance with the agrarian-based Centre Party. Its leader, Olof Johansson, had been a prominent member of the previous right-wing coalition but declared his support for the Social Democrats in order, he said, for Sweden to have a stable parliamentary government. Abroad the growing focus of Swedish foreign policy on the Baltic region continued in 1996. The government in May acted as host of the first international meeting of leaders of the nine countries that border the Baltic Sea. The event led to the creation of a Baltic council under Swedish stewardship, with a mandate to coordinate action against such problems as pollution and organized crime, as well as promoting cross-border business collaboration. There was, however, embarrassment in Stockholm in September over the arrest and expulsion of two Swedes, including a high-ranking diplomat, from Russia in connection with alleged spying. Russian undercover agents caught on film one suspect, an employee of a Swedish defense company, receiving copies of secret documents from a contact in St. Petersburg. In August Queen Silvia (see BIOGRAPHIES) welcomed delegates from more than 100 countries to Stockholm for the first World Congress Against Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children. (GREG McIVOR) SWITZERLAND A landlocked federal state in west central Europe, Switzerland consists of a confederation of 26 cantons (6 of which are demicantons). Area: 41,285 sq km (15,940 sq mi). Pop. (1996 est.): 7,087,000. Administrative cap., Bern; judicial cap., Lausanne. Monetary unit: Swiss franc, with (Oct. 11, 1996) a free rate of Sw F 1.26 to U.S. $1 (Sw F 1.98 = 1 sterling). President in 1996, Jean-Pascal Delamuraz. With apprehension regarding the economic outlook increasing throughout 1996, those Swiss still intent on upholding traditional neutrality by remaining outside the European Union (EU) were reminded that a country's affluence might not in itself protect it against the economic repercussions of developments elsewhere. Reports of financial scandals and a flood of allegations that Swiss banks were still holding sizable deposits from Jews who later died in Nazi extermination camps added to the prevailing unease, as did mismanagement of the pension fund for the 120,000 federal government employees, previously regarded as a rock-solid financial bastion. While many of those who had voted in a 1992 national referendum against the government's proposal to join the European Economic Area as a step toward EU membership were clearly having second thoughts, a further setback to the government's aspirations in that direction was the decisive rejection (67% against) of its new labour law in a December referendum. This legislation was intended to ensure increased "flexibility," whereby full equivalent time off for employees in compensation for working nights and Sundays (six a year) would no longer be mandatory; critics pointed out that the law did not necessarily apply to employers. Meanwhile, bilateral negotiations with the European Commission in Brussels inched toward a compromise on reciprocal employment opportunities for EU and Swiss nationals, Switzerland being given seven years in which to comply with the mandatory full freedom of movement. In autumn the government succeeded in edging away from neutral isolationism by securing parliamentary approval (98 votes to 16) for association with NATO's Partnership for Peace. The year ended with the number of unemployed totaling 192,171 (a rate of 5.3%), with indications that the rise would continue through much of 1997. Thousands of foreign workers had gone back to their own countries. As was true everywhere in Western Europe, restructuring, computerization, and company mergers continued apace; news of layoffs seemed to come almost daily, and banks sometimes announced those and higher profits in practically the same breath. As well as those of some private-sector companies, employees of Switzerland's federal, cantonal, and state enterprises, including the railways, were advised of wage reductions ranging up to 5%. The immediate reaction was large demonstrations coupled with strike threats. Air and ground personnel of Swissair, the national carrier, accepted both staff and salary reductions to bring the enterprise out of the red. Angry farmers protested outside the parliament building in Bern at what they considered inadequate government aid to offset the steep slump in beef prices after both Germany and Italy banned the importation of Swiss beef because of "mad cow" disease. Riot police used tear gas, rubber bullets, and a water cannon with a mixture of water and chemicals on the protesters, and several of them were hospitalized with severe second- and third-degree chemical burns. Eyebrows were raised at plans for an 800-strong military police volunteer battalion that could assist civil police in maintaining public order. (ALAN McGREGOR) SYRIA A republic of southwestern Asia, Syria is situated on the Mediterranean Sea. Area: 185,180 sq km (71,498 sq mi). Pop. (1996 est.): 14,798,000. Cap.: Damascus. Monetary unit: Syrian pound, with (Oct. 11, 1996) a par value (official rate) of LS 11.22 to U.S. $1 (LS 17.67 = 1 sterling) and a "primary trade" rate of LS 41.95 to U.S. $1 (LS 66.08 = 1 sterling). President in 1996, Gen. Hafez al-Assad; prime minister, Mahmoud Zuabi. As 1996 began, Syria resumed peace talks with Israel. Two rounds of discussions between the Syrian and Israeli representatives took place in January, raising hopes that a breakthrough might be achieved on the issues of greatest concern to both sides: the final disposition of Syrian territory seized by Israel in June 1967 and the allocation of regional water resources. Syria hinted that the talks constituted a "golden chance" for peace but insisted that all land under Syrian control as of June 4, 1967, be returned before a peace agreement could be proposed. Israeli officials countered that several demilitarized zones along the shores of Lake Tiberias lay outside Syria's borders on that date, and the permanent status of those areas was open to negotiation. Talks collapsed when both parties refused to compromise. Attacks on Israeli troops in southern Lebanon, followed by rocket strikes against the town of Qiryat Shemona within Israel, persuaded Israel to launch a large-scale military incursion into Lebanon in early April. As Israeli forces pounded Lebanese targets, Israel demanded that Syria publicly denounce terrorism as a means to pursue political objectives. The Syrian government refused to do so, and its uncompromising posture eventually persuaded France and the United States to give Syria a pivotal role in the international committee charged with monitoring the cease-fire that ended the fighting. Buoyed by his success in handling the crisis, Pres. Hafez al-Assad traveled to Cairo to confer with his Egyptian counterpart. Assad told reporters there that Syria had "a feeling that things are not going ahead in a positive direction. That is why we need to remain vigilant so that we do not drop our guard and get taken for fools." To protect their forces from further Israeli offensives, Syrian commanders redeployed some 12,000 of their 35,000 troops in Lebanon to reinforced positions inside Syria. Even though the U.S. ambassador to Lebanon stated that the redeployment was "not alarming," the move prompted a barrage of Israeli warnings that it posed a threat to the Israeli-occupied Golan region. Syria's relations with Turkey steadily deteriorated in 1996. Damascus announced in January that it would allow only 10% of the waters of the Orontes River to cross into the Turkish province of Hatay. Turkish authorities then announced that they would interrupt the flow of the Euphrates River so that repairs could be made to the Ataturk Dam. Syria and Iraq tried to work out a joint response to Turkey in regard to water issues, but the two nations could do little but submit their grievances to a summit of the Arab League. Syria also warned foreign engineering and construction companies that they faced lawsuits and boycotts if they continued to work on projects inside Turkey. On a more positive note, Syria's economic prospects continued to improve. The nation began the year burdened by nonmilitary external debts totaling about $6 billion. The World Bank refused to consider requests for loans until $400 million of outstanding interest had been repaid, and $240 million from the European Investment Bank remained frozen pending the settlement of arrears to European governments. In the spring, however, the European Union authorized the disbursement of $2.5 million to fund social programs, and the European Commission subsequently provided $22 million to upgrade municipal administration. (FRED H. LAWSON) TAIWAN Taiwan, which consists of the island of Taiwan and surrounding islands off the coast of China, is the seat of the Republic of China (Nationalist China). Area: 36,179 sq km (13,969 sq mi), including the island of Taiwan and its 86 outlying islands, 22 in the Taiwan group and 64 in the Pescadores group. Pop. (1996 est.): 21,463,000. (Area and population figures include the Quemoy and Matsu groups, which are administered as an occupied part of Fujian province.) Cap.: Taipei. Monetary unit: New Taiwan dollar, with (Oct. 11, 1996) a free rate of NT$27.48 to U.S. $1 (NT$43.29 = 1 sterling). President in 1996, Lee Teng-hui; president of the Executive Yuan (premier), Lien Chan. Taiwan completed its remarkable 10-year march toward democracy in 1996 with its first-ever direct presidential election. It was the first time in the history of China that ordinary citizens had had an opportunity to select their leader in a democratic election. Incumbent Pres. Lee Teng-hui, the Kuomintang (KMT, or Nationalist Party) candidate, easily won a second term in March by capturing 54% of the vote. He defeated Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) candidate Peng Ming-min, who garnered about 21% of the vote, and independent candidates Lin Yang-kang and Chen Li-an. An interview with President Lee is on pp. 7-9. Lee's triumph was unwittingly aided by China's campaign of psychological warfare. Beijing threatened to use military force against Taiwan and test-fired live missiles into Taiwan's northern and southern coastal waters to drive home its point that under no circumstances would it allow the Republic of China on Taiwan, which it considered a renegade province, to declare formal independence. By standing firm against those threats, Lee enhanced his image. In the wake of its disappointing showing in the election, the DPP split apart as Peng Ming-min left the fold to establish a Taiwan Independence Party. After the election a public opinion poll showed that 40% of the respondents favoured independence for Taiwan, while 33% favoured eventual reunification with mainland China. Following the election Lee announced that newly elected Vice Pres. Lien Chan would remain premier. John Chang became the new foreign minister and Wu Jing minister of education. Minister of Justice Ma Ying-jeou, whose anticorruption campaigns had embarrassed many KMT officials, was replaced. Lee still faced tough sledding in the Legislative Yuan, where the KMT retained a razor-thin majority. Both the DPP and the New Party vigorously criticized Lee and the KMT over domestic and foreign policy issues. The brutal murder of Liu Pang-you, a provincial official, and seven others in November brought unwelcome attention on alleged ties between Taiwanese gangsters and President Lee's KMT. Lee was moderately conciliatory toward China in his inauguration speech but reiterated his determination to expand Taiwan's international presence via vigorous diplomatic activity. Lien Chan traveled to the Dominican Republic as well as to Ukraine, where he met privately with Pres. Leonid Kuchma. For a fourth straight year, Beijing prevented the UN from considering Taiwan's application to rejoin the organization. Meanwhile, business executives in Taiwan, with investments in mainland China estimated at $25 billion, conducted a dialogue with Chinese leaders. In August Lee called on Taiwan enterprises to limit their investments in the mainland to no more than 20-30% of their overall foreign investment and reserve 20% of such capital for Taiwan. In 1996 more than one-sixth of Taiwan's exports went to China, and more than 30,000 Taiwan companies invested there. Taiwan's economy slumped in 1996 as exports of electronics flattened. A gross domestic product growth rate of below 6% was projected, and unemployment rose to a 10-year high of 3.2% in August. In an effort to stimulate the economy, Taiwan's central bank raised limits on foreign investment in companies listed on the Taipei stock market. Taiwan tested an advanced air-to-air missile for its locally produced jet fighters and ordered $420 million worth of U.S. Stinger missiles, guided missile launchers, and military vehicles. (STEVEN I. LEVINE) TAJIKISTAN A landlocked republic of Central Asia, Tajikistan borders Kyrgyzstan on the north, Uzbekistan on the north and west, Afghanistan on the south, and China on the east. Area: 143,100 sq km (55,300 sq mi). Pop. (1996 est.): 5,945,000. Cap.: Dushanbe. Monetary unit: Tajik ruble, with (Oct. 11, 1996) a free rate of 298 Tajik rubles to U.S. $1 (469.44 Tajik rubles = 1 sterling). President in 1996, Imomali Rakhmonov; prime ministers, Jamshed Karimov and, from February 8, Yahyo Azimov. Fighting between the forces of Tajikistan's neocommunist government and armed Islamic opposition groups intensified in 1996. The opposition had had limited success in attacking government forces within Tajikistan and had concentrated on cross-border assaults from bases in northern Afghanistan. Another round of UN-sponsored peace talks held in Ashgabat, the capital of Turkmenistan, between the government and the opposition ended inconclusively in February. Only after the talks were over did the opposition agree to an extension of a cease-fire that was having some effect on the border. It did not prevent the intensification of fighting in the important Tavildara region in the southern part of the country, however, and the opposition was able to capture the area in the summer. Talks were resumed in July and resulted in a new cease-fire agreement, which the two sides promptly accused each other of having violated. Although government forces claimed to have retaken Tavildara by late August, fighting continued into the autumn. Yet another cease-fire was signed in Moscow on December 23, with Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin looking on. The government of Pres. Imomali Rakhmonov faced its first major internal challenge when two regional commanders mutinied in January. Both men, who were part of Rakhmonov's southern clique, demanded the resignation of the government and the removal from Tajikistan of Russian troops that had been a mainstay of Rakhmonov's regime in the fighting against the Islamic opposition and its Afghan allies. Rakhmonov compromised, dismissing several government officials and giving one of the rebellious commanders an important military post. The presidents of Russia and Turkey, both major aid donors, praised Rakhmonov's skill in ending the mutiny, but the Tajik president's position was visibly weakened. Later in the year he faced demands from the northern region of the country that the predominance of southerners in administrative posts be ended. In July three former prime ministers formed an opposition group calling for the creation of a government in which all parties and regions of the country would be represented. In February Prime Minister Yahyo Azimov, appointed at the beginning of the month, declared that privatization was his first priority in trying to reverse the effects of four years of war on Tajikistan's economy. (BESS BROWN) This article updates Tajikistan. TANZANIA Tanzania, a member of the Commonwealth, consists of Tanganyika (mainland Tanzania), on the east coast of Africa, and Zanzibar and Pemba islands, just off the coast in the Indian Ocean. Area: 945,090 sq km (364,901 sq mi). Pop. (1996 est.): 29,058,000. Cap.: government in process of being transferred from Dar es Salaam; legislature meets in Dodoma, the new capital. Monetary unit: Tanzania shilling, with (Oct. 11, 1996) a free rate of 578 shillings to U.S. $1 (910.52 shillings = 1 sterling). President in 1996, Benjamin William Mkapa; prime minister, Frederick Tulway Sumaye. Pres. Benjamin Mkapa began his term of office by appealing to opposition parties in 1996 not to oppose the government on every issue but to put the interests of their country before those of their party. He himself, he said, would deal fairly with members of all parties. His appeal fell on deaf ears in Zanzibar and Pemba. There the opposition persisted in boycotting the National Assembly, claiming that the government had come to power by employing fraudulent tactics in the recent elections. In his attempts to introduce a free-market economy, Mkapa encountered the same problems that had plagued his predecessor. A preference for nationalization and state control of the economy died hard, not least among the bureaucrats who were staffing the government agencies. The delays caused by the slow working of the bureaucracy continued to encourage busines