>Greenland PM Allies With Marxists
>
>Monday, February 22, 1999; 4:20 p.m. EST
>
>COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) -- Greenland's home-rule
>government shifted leftward Monday when the social-democrat
>premier formed a new governing alliance with a Marxist party.
>
>The move came five days after elections on the world's largest
>island, a Danish territory that has had substantial autonomy for
>the last 20 years.
>
>Under the new coalition, Jonathan Motzfeldt of the Siumut party
>remains as prime minister. But Siumut's old coalition partner, the
>liberal Atassut, was replaced by the Inuit Ataqatigiit party.
>
>Although Inuit Ataqatigiit is strongly independence-minded,
>Siumut has refused to discuss full separation from Denmark and
>the policy is not expected to change in the new coalition.
>
>However, the new government plans to form a committee
>examining Greenland's relationship to Denmark and to ensure
>what Inuit Ataqatigiit leader Josef Motzfeldt called ``Greenland's
>equal and free position in the union with Denmark.''
>
>Josef Motzfeldt will be minister for economy, tax and trade in the
>new government.
>
>Greenland's 55,000 people rely heavily on subsidies from the
>Danish government amounting to about 60 percent of the island's
>revenue.
>
>Other points on the new government's agenda include
>improvement of housing and hospitals. Greenland has an acute
>shortage of doctors and nurses.
>
>Since 1979, the Danish government has controlled Greenland's
>defense, foreign policy and law-enforcement, while the home-rule
>government handles most other matters.