The Militant(logo) 
    Vol.60/No.33           September 23, 1996 
 
 
Yeltsin's Ailments Worry Investors  

BY MEGAN ARNEY

Russian president Boris Yeltsin announced September 5 he would undergo bypass heart surgery this month. The news increased fears of instability among foreign investors as calls mounted in Moscow that Yeltsin should transfer authority before the operation.

Hours after the announcement the U.S. dollar rose against the German mark. "Signs of political instability in Russia help the dollar and hurt the mark because Germany is Russia's biggest creditor and trading partner," reported the Bloomberg Business News.

On September 6, Russian prime minister Viktor Chernomyrdin urged Yeltsin to transfer presidential authority before surgery. Gennady Seleznov, the speaker of the lower house of parliament, the State Duma, said the Duma would appeal to the Constitutional Court if Yeltsin did not volunteer. Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov, who lost the presidential race to Yeltsin this summer, has also urged an orderly transition of power.

Another contender for the president's power is Alexander Lebed, a former general whom Yeltsin appointed national security adviser to clinch his re-election in the second round.

The Washington Post reported that on September 8 Yeltsin ordered the army and police forces to "coordinate" with Chernomyrdin "all questions that require a decision by the head of state." But Yeltsin will have to be informed about major events.

The crisis in Russia began to boil when Yeltsin had to withdraw from public view for a period during the election campaign because of poor health. Russia's flimsy stock market, which has fallen by almost one-third since the elections, declined by about 5 percent when Yeltsin made his announcement. "Bankers said the added uncertainty was likely to delay Russia's long-awaited foreign investment boom," said an article in the September 6 Financial Times of London.

Defeat in Chechnya
The crisis of those attempting to re-impose the capitalist market system in Russia is graphically reflected in another arena. In Chechnya, after 21 months of a fierce fight for independence, Chechen rebels have set back and demoralized Moscow's army.

Russian troops began to leave Chechnya on September 8 after Lebed negotiated a cease-fire, which has put a stop to the fighting for now, and struck a draft agreement with the rebels that could end the war.

The accord says that within five years Chechnya will hold a referendum on the republic's future and it envisions a provisional government and the eventual withdrawal of Russian forces. This followed desertions of Russian soldiers and increasing discontent with the war inside Russia. As many as 40,000 people, some 90 percent civilian, have died in the fighting.

The Kremlin still claims that Chechen independence is still out of the question. But the rebels, heartened by their recent successes, see it differently.

"They can say whatever they want," one Chechen commander told the New York Times, shooting his weapon into the air as a dozen of his men danced in glee. "We won and will drive them from our land."

Less than a week after the signing of the peace agreement with Lebed, the rebels have begun to assert themselves as a de facto government in Grozny. Under the accord, Russian soldiers and officials remain here as formal partners in administering the region, working from a command post in a bombed-out sports stadium. Chechen officials now approve citizens' requests by stamping them with the emblem of Republic of Ichkeria. Food, gasoline and traffic jams are seen in Grozny. Russian soldiers are still present, but only on joint police patrols with the rebels. And the Russian patrols no longer search vehicles for weapons and wave the busloads of celebrating Chechens in and out of Grozny.

"On paper it says one thing," said Akhmed Dakayev, a Chechen journalist, referring to the peace agreement. "Practically it is mostly the rebels who run the city. The Russian soldiers still do not really know the city."  
 
 
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