IMF just about to sunk more money into Russia...That is not stupid
but a calculated waist of money in the face of the biggest disaster
that is brewing but unfortunately unlikely to be avoided..
Russian communist says US ''drunk sheriff'' in Iraq
09:16 a.m. Feb 22, 1998 Eastern
MOSCOW, Feb 22 (Reuters) - The leader of Russia's Communist party told
protesters in Moscow on Sunday that the United States was behaving like
''a drunken sheriff acting as judge, jury and executioner'' in
threatening to bomb Iraq.
Gennady Zyuganov, leading a march against Kremlin military cutbacks on
the eve of the 80th anniversary of the creation of the Red Army, warned
that Russia itself could fall victim to the sort of pressure being put
on Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
''A scenario is being played out which will be applied to Russia next,''
Zyuganov told a crowd, estimated by police at 30,000, outside the
headquarters of the Soviet-era KGB secret police on Lubyanka Square.
He did not elaborate but his words reflected a sentiment among his
mostly elderly supporters, nostalgic for Soviet might, that President
Boris Yeltsin's market reforms have left Russia exposed to a potentially
hostile and all-powerful United States.
''Tomorrow is the day of the Soviet army which won just about
everything,'' one old woman at the rally said. ''But now Yeltsin's doing
nothing. The West rules the roost around here.''
On Monday, Russia marks Defenders of the Fatherland Day, celebrating the
army and Russian manhood in general.
''People are fighting for the Soviet Union, for the power of the
Soviets, that is why there so many people here,'' said one old man, who
said he was a marine veteran.
Lev Rokhlin, a former general and parliamentarian who broke with the
pro-government party last year over army reform, told the crowd: '' We
should do our utmost at the end of April, in May to go out on the
streets of Russia and make the regime resign.''
Zyuganov's party is the biggest in parliament but he himself failed to
beat Yeltsin at a presidential election in 1996.
On Friday, parliament threw out the government's latest attempt to pass
a much-delayed 1998 budget. But Zyuganov has preferred to push for a
voice for the communists in government rather than try to force Yeltsin,
who wields vast constitutional powers, into stepping down or sacking the
cabinet wholesale.
Addressing Sunday's rally, Zyuganov ventured a criticism of the ethnic
make-up of the government, reflecting the populist, Russian nationalist
tone of today's Communist party compared to the international marxism of
its Soviet predecessor.
''A Russian face is a rarity these days in the leadership, in the
government and the presidential team,'' Zyuganov said.
There are senior officials from various of Russia's ethnic minorities.
But in a country with a history of anti-Semitism the remark seemed
clearly aimed at those, including First Deputy Prime Minister Boris
Nemtsov, who are of Jewish descent.
Yeltsin, 67, has said he sees the 38-year-old liberal as a potential
successor when his term ends in the year 2000. ^REUTERS@ |
