MOSCOW, June 12, (AFP) - Some 200 miners demonstrated outside
the government buildings in Moscow for the second day running Friday
calling for payment of months of unpaid wages.
Russian television showed them striking the ground with their
helmets and chanting: "Boris, we want to eat too!" and "Yeltsin,
resign!"
They also also called for the dissolution of the Duma, the lower
chamber of the Russian parliament, and for the nationalisation of
the coal industry.
A meeting between representatives of the miners and Boris
Nemtsov, deputy prime minister for energy, and Economy Minister
Yakov Urinson, was eventually cancelled.
Urinson told the ITAR-TASS news agency: "The government is ready
to discuss economic improvements to the coal industry, but refuses
to talk about political demands."
At the end of May, Russian miners who have not been paid for
several months started a massive protest campaign, blocking the main
railways in Siberia and the Russian Caucasus for nearly two weeks.
The problem of unpaid wages due to miners and to civil servants
has reached massive proportions. The figure for the coal industry
comes to 3.7 billion rubles (about 600 million dollars).
In Ukraine meanwhile, Prime Minister Valeri Pustovoytenko called
Friday for striking miners to return to work, saying the government
had reached an agreement with their unions over payment of
back-pay.
More than a thousand miners from the eastern region of
Dnepropetrovsk arrived in Kiev Thursday after a 500-kilometre
(300-mile) protest march, to protest in front of the presidential
and parliamentary buildings.
The march was organised by the independent miners' union who are
also seeking improved safety conditions. A spokesman said Friday
miners were owed 187 million hryvnas (95 million dollars). |
