Yeltsin cuts holiday short as protest endures
07:03 p.m Jul 29, 1998 Eastern
By Adam Tanner
MOSCOW (Reuters) - President Boris Yeltsin unexpectedly cut short a
lakeside holiday on Wednesday as miners continued blocking the
Trans-Siberian railroad and a former government advisor said Russia was
technically bankrupt.
Yeltsin, 67, left for northwest Russia on July 18, a day after the
parliament approved parts of an economic austerity plan that helped win
Moscow $22.6 billion in international credits. He was expected to stay
on holiday until mid August.
''Now we are moving from the mid-summer period towards the autumn
period,'' a relaxed and fit-looking Yeltsin told reporters before
boarding the presidential plane back to Moscow.
''That's why I need to get prepared and go into this period decisively
without any hesitations, to pursue a clear line. We have to get ready
for this period, to push and press and for that the president is
needed,'' he added.
Asked whom he had to push, Yeltsin burst out laughing and said:
''Everybody else.''
Meanwhile, in Siberia hundreds of Russian miners who have not been paid
in months kept up their pressure on the Russian government by blocking
the strategic Trans-Siberian rail link for the third consecutive day.
They ignored growing complaints from nuclear scientists, regional
officials and irate train passengers who called on them to halt their
blockade.
''People from the blocked passenger trains are getting off and some are
very aggressive -- they even try to beat up the miners. We have police
units there to prevent any fighting between them,'' said a spokesman for
the Chelyabinsk region governor.
In Moscow, Andrei Illarionov, a former economic adviser to the Yeltsin's
reform team, said the government was technically bankrupt and would have
to devalue the rouble.
''The government is not able to refinance and service its domestic debt
in a traditional manner. That is what has happened in the last two
months. From a technical standpoint, the Russian government is already
in the state of bankruptcy,'' he said.
Now the government's foremost domestic independent critic, Illarionov
said the central bank had squandered reserves and would have to devalue
its currency by 50 percent.
The dire warning comes a week after Russia received pledges of $22.6
billion in foreign aid which the International Monetary Fund has said
would give it breathing room for reforms.
Yeltsin has said he expects the autumn to be ''politically rather
difficult'' owing to tough austerity measures demanded by the IMF and
other creditors.
The Communist-dominated lower house of parliament, the State Duma, has
refused to approve some of the measures and other groups, including
influential oil industry chiefs, have criticised the government's plans
to raise taxes.
Communist deputies have also launched a complex impeachment process
against Yeltsin over his role in the breakup of the Soviet Union seven
years ago. The bid is unlikely to succeed but it will further exacerbate
political tensions.
Yeltsin, whose unexpected decisions are a hallmark of his presidency,
may also have been motivated by more prosaic concerns in returning to
Moscow. Poor weather and frequent rain had kept him indoors and put off
hopes to go fishing.
The Kremlin press service said Yeltsin would spend two days at his
Gorky-9 country residence just outside Moscow but declined to say where
he would go afterwards.
The Kremlin on Wednesday also released a significant Yeltsin decree
handing over control of the country's prison system to a civilian
administration by the end of next month.
Despite the IMF loans, Russia's jittery financial markets have suffered
in recent days amid fears about the government's ability to improve tax
collection and avert serious labour unrest over chronic wage delays. But
on Wednesday leading shares were up more than one percent.
Prime Minister Sergei Kiriyenko invited foreign investors to meet him on
Thursday to describe the government's anti-crisis programme. ''I think
they want investors' opinion on how to improve the situation,'' an
invited Western bank representative said.
Copyright 1998 Reuters Limited. |
