Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 21, 1993 TAG: 9303210108
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Cox News Service
DATELINE: MOSCOW LENGTH: Medium
YELTSIN DECLARES EMERGENCY FOES CALL MOVE ILLEGAL POWER GRAB
President Boris Yeltsin, in a direct challenge to the Russian Parliament, on Saturday declared emergency rule to force an April 25 referendum on whether he or the hard-line legislature should govern the country.In a televised evening address, Yeltsin said he was invoking "special rule" to save Russia from a restoration of communism and the threat of a return to the Cold War.
"Russia cannot survive a second October Revolution," he said, referring to the 1917 revolution which ushered in more than seven decades of communist rule.
The referendum, he said, is necessary to end a months-long power struggle between himself and the legislature, which recently stripped him of much of his governing authority.
The plebiscite would be a vote of confidence in the presidency and on a new constitution. If Yeltsin prevailed, the country's supreme legislature would be dissolved and new elections held. Also, the new constitution and a new electoral law would come into force immediately, Yeltsin said.
In Washington, President Clinton backed what he described as Yeltsin's effort to "break the political impasse in Russia."
In a statement read by spokesman George Stephanopoulos, Clinton described Yeltsin as "Russia's only democratically elected national leader" and said "he has our support, as do his reform government and all reforms throughout the Russian Federation."
Clinton and Yeltsin are to hold a summit April 3-4 in Vancouver.
Within minutes of Yeltsin's speech, his action was denounced as illegal by his vice president and the head of the nation's highest court.
Constitutional Court Chairman Valery Zorkin accused Yeltsin of an attempted "coup."
"Boris Nikolayevich [Yeltsin], I sincerely pity you, you have lost the chance to become the savior of Russia," Zorkin said. "You have put yourself outside the constitution."
Vice President Alexander Rutskoi said he had refused to cosign Yeltsin's order on his "special rule" on grounds that it violates the Russian constitution. In a letter to Yeltsin, he said the action "will lead to a split in state and society" and "major disputes will start in society, which will be followed by use of force and blood."
The leaders of the 1,033-member Parliament, known as the Congress of People's Deputies, called a special session today to debate Yeltsin's action.
Parliament speaker Ruslan Khasbulatov, Yeltsin's chief rival, was out of Moscow on a visit to Kazakhstan Saturday.
In his speech, Yeltsin stopped short of dissolving the Congress. Instead, he said he was "forced to assume responsibility for the fate of the country."
The 62-year-old leader implied that until the April 25 vote he was prepared to rule the country single-handedly. The Russian constitution, left over from the days of the former Soviet Union, does not appear to spell out the right of a president to do this.
Had Yeltsin simply ordered the Parliament dissolved, the lawmakers could have quickly mustered public backing for their argument that he had committed a clear-cut violation of the constitution and perhaps moved to suspend him from office.