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From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Rich Winkel)
To: undisclosed-recipients:;
Subject: RUSSIA: Horror in Moscow Makes Worst Fears True
Date: Tue, 14 Sep 1999 18:56:14 -0500 (CDT)
/** ips.english: 443.0 **/
** Topic: POLITICS-RUSSIA: Horror in Moscow Makes Worst Fears True **
** Written 9:08 PM Sep 13, 1999 by newsdesk in cdp:ips.english **
Copyright 1999 InterPress Service, all rights reserved.
Worldwide distribution via the APC networks.
*** 13-Sep-99 ***
Title: POLITICS-RUSSIA: Horror in Moscow Makes Worst Fears True
By Sergei Blagov
MOSCOW, Sep 13 (IPS) - The horror pictures of destroyed apartment
buildings in Moscow made gloom mongers' most pessimistic scenarios
suddenly look increasingly realistic Monday, in the wake of an
indiscriminate terrorist campaign.
Now the horrors can be found not only on Russia's southern fringe,
where bandits and militants from neighbouring breakaway Chechnya are a
constant threat, but also in the Russian capital.
Together with the images of a destroyed residential block in southern
Moscow - where 140 people lived and at least 50 were killed by a
powerful explosion -, Russian television announced the city's morgues'
phone numbers.
Nikolai Kovalyov, chief of Moscow's police department said the attack
was carried out by the same group that had destroyed another apartment
building on 9 september, killing 94 people.
Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin urgently returned from the
Asia-Pacific Economic summit in New Zealand. He announced a tough
response, but rejected the imposition of the state of emergency.
The second deadly blast in five days fuelled rumours that president
Boris Yeltsin was going to decree the state of emergency, which would
automatically suspend parliamentary elections due in December.
Yeltsin introduced tough security measures, but promised that ''all
actions will be in accordance with the Constitution,'' apparently
clearing up doubts about the issue.
The President chaired Monday an emergency meeting with Interior
minister Vladimir Rushailo, Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov and the head of
the Federal Security Service (FSB), Nikolai Patrushev.
Yeltsin ordered Luzhkov - one of his main political foes - to have all
of Moscow's estimated 30,000 apartment blocks checked by police to
prevent further bombings. The Mayor had already linked both blasts to
Chechen terrorists, and promised tough action against their supporters
in Moscow.
Yeltsin also ordered to tighten security measures at nuclear power
stations, oil depots and other sensitive sites across Russia. ''We have
to join efforts when facing a common enemy,'' Yeltsin said in televised
remarks, apparently sending a conciliatory message to his political
opponents.
However, the message apparently fell on deaf ears. For instance, the
leaders of the Federation Council and the State Duma - upper and lower
chambers of Russian parliament - made it clear Monday that even in the
aftermath of the bombings in Moscow they would not back a decree on
emergency rule.
Members of the Russian parliament argue that a law on the state of
emergency is yet to be approved, and under the circumstances the
emergency rule by decree could throw Russia into lawlessness.
The state of emergency requires a strong national leader, and none is
available at the moment, argued Guennady Zyuganov, chairman of Russian
Communist party.
Russian former prime minister and presidential hopeful Yevgeny Primakov
has also opposed emergency rule in Russia, because it could be used not
to combat terrorism but ''to achieve political goals.''
''We have been pressed into a terrorist war, and we have turned out to
be unprepared to this war,'' he said.
Only Vladimir Ryzhkov, leader of a pro-Kremlin ''Our Home Russia''
faction in Parliament has said he would probably support emergency
rule. A ''de-facto state of emergency has been introduced in combat
zones of Dagestan,'' he argued.
Russian officials speculated that the latest bombing was in fact the
militant's retaliation for the seizure of rebel strongholds in Dagestan
by the Russian army.
On 12 September Russian troops dislodged the rebels from the villages
of Karamakhi and Chabanmakhi, the main stronghold of Islamic
fundamentalism in Dagestan, where local leaders announced in September
1998 that they would no longer recognize Russian authorities and
pledged to live by the Islamic Sharia law.
The two villages had come under intense bombing and shelling over the
past three weeks. In a bid to support Karamakhi and Chabanmakhi
enclave, hundreds of Chechen rebels crossed last week over into Novo
Lak, another Dagestani district, vowing to set up an independent
Islamic state.
A rebel leader, a Jordanian militant known as Khattab, reportedly
threatened Moscow to unleash a terrorist campaign in all Russian
cities.
Furthermore, the blasts seem to have revived the Kremlin's
international support, which had been shattered in recent weeks by
money- laundering and corruption allegations.
The US secretary of Defense William Cohen - speaking in Moscow
condemned the bombing as an act of terrorism against innocent civilians
and promised to cooperate with Russia to combat terrorism.
However, Russian media speculated that it was the Kremlin itself who
could be interested in a considerable destabilization in Russia - so as
to distract the world's attention from the graft allegations.
But even Yeltsin's strongest critics have dismissed such views.
Embattled former prosecutor general Yuri Skuratov - who was pro active
in revealing corruption in Yeltsin's inner circle and lost his job as a
result - described the allegations as ''absurd.''
Nonetheless, analysts agreed here that the ailing President could
hardly provide the strong leadership needed to fight terrorism.
When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Yeltsin promised Russians that
they would be part of the world's elite. Instead, nine years later they
find themselves embattled by endless economic crisis, rampant graft -
and now threatened by terrorists' bombs. (END/IPS/eu ip/sb/ak/99)
Origin: Rome/POLITICS-RUSSIA/
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