A-Infos (en) Bonn Accused of Hindering German Army Probe

[Tom Burghardt <tburghardt@igc.apc.org>]

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     BONN ACCUSED OF HINDERING GERMAN ARMY PROBE
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     03:10 p.m Feb 12, 1998 Eastern
 
     BONN, Feb 12 (Reuters) - Germany's opposition Greens party
on Thursday accused Chancellor Helmut Kohl's government of trying
to hinder a parliamentary committee investigating extreme
right-wing tendencies in the country's army.
   
     Angelika Beer, defence policy leader for the Greens, said
Defence Minister Volker Ruehe was trying to limit the inquiry to
a discussion on reports rather than determine whether neo-Nazi
activities were widespread in the army.
   
     Ruehe had been scheduled to be questioned by the
parliamentary committee on Wednesday, but the meeting was
adjourned after 13 hours at midnight before he had an opportunity
to speak.
   
     The hearing had to be interrupted because of a clause in the
employment contracts of the committee stenographers preventing
them from working past midnight.
   
     ``We had the impression last night that Ruehe is stage-
managing this the way he wants it to proceed,'' Beer told
Suedwestfunk radio.
   
     ``He dumps a giant pile of investigation reports on the
table and the coalition members in the committee are now trying
to limit the inquiry to these reports. We're being cast as extras
in this.''
   
     Ruehe's testimony was postponed to March 4. German Foreign
Minister Klaus Kinkel is due to go before the hearing the day
after.
   
     Despite government objections, members of parliament
launched the probe after it emerged in December that the army's
elite staff training college in Hamburg had asked a convicted
neo-Nazi bomber, Manfred Roeder, to give a lecture in 1995.
   
     The inquiry committee is also probing a series of incidents
linking soldiers and right-wing extremism which have badly
damaged the modern German army's image over the past few months.
   
     The incidents have ranged from soldiers selling outlawed
Nazi propaganda in their barracks to giving each other the
illegal stiff-armed Hitler greeting and shouting the Nazi salute
``Sieg Heil!'' to each other.
   
     Beer said in another interview with Saar radio that she
would insist Ruehe be questioned for a full day by the committee.
She said the inquiry will not be limited to Roeder.
   
     ``There have been attacks on foreigners by soldiers, there
have been secret weapons depots, and there have been incidents
with swastikas painted on walls,'' she said.
   
     The main representative of Kohl's Christian Democrats (CDU)
on the committee, Paul Breuer, said on Thursday he believed
Roeder's lecture invitation in 1995 had simply been the result of
a ``chain of regrettable circumstances.''
 
     Copyright 1998 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
 
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