
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, October 6, 1993                   TAG: 9310060227
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: The Washington Post
DATELINE: MOSCOW                                LENGTH: Medium

YELTSIN MAKES MOST OF VICTORY: OUSTS FOES

President Boris Yeltsin, having crushed his hard-line foes in a military operation Monday, tightened his grip on the levers of power Tuesday, firing officials who had opposed him and extending censorship and press closings.

Yeltsin sacked Russia's top prosecutor and two regional governors. The elected Moscow City Council was dissolved by Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, a Yeltsin ally, after consultations with the president. Aides said Yeltsin was considering dissolving other anti-reform local councils across Russia, and Yeltsin's chief of staff was pressing the Constitutional Court's chairman, who has frequently sided with Yeltsin's foes, to resign.

The president also canceled a scheduled meeting of the Federation Council, an assembly of Russia's regional leaders that he had set up last spring as a counterbalance to parliament.

Aides said they would now re-evaluate its role. With parliament gone and many opposition parties banned, the regions appear to be the only remaining force that could challenge Yeltsin's authority. But in the wake of his smashing of parliament, regional opponents so far appear to be switching to Yeltsin's side or keeping a very low profile.

Yeltsin told Luzhkov that he is determined not to repeat his mistake of 1991, when many Soviet-era laws, institutions and organizations were allowed to survive despite the defeat of a hard-line Communist coup. The result, many liberals have said, was a two-year stalemate that has stymied Yeltsin's economic and political reforms.

With Moscow under strict military curfew and newspapers under official censorship for the first time since Soviet days, the mood in Moscow was harsh and unforgiving after the bloodiest two days in the city's modern history. The evening news led with an interview suggesting that Alexander Rutskoi, the vice president now in jail as a leader of the rebellion, should consider shooting himself.

Alexander Kulikov, commander of Moscow's state of emergency, said his troops were searching for hidden criminal groups and "diehard fanatics."

"This time, if they show even the slightest armed resistance, they will be mercilessly shot down," he said.

Casualty figures from the weekend revolt remained incomplete and contradictory Tuesday, but top officials said at least 150 people were killed and more than 600 wounded in the two days of fighting. Most deaths occurred during a ferocious eight-hour firefight at the television center and during the shelling of the parliament.

Soldiers continued to search for armed men who had escaped capture Monday, and officials said some snipers remained in high-rise buildings around Moscow.

More than 1,400 people were detained and held in jails or in an open stadium after the rebellion ended. Yeltsin's chief rivals - Rutskoi and Ruslan Khasbulatov, speaker of the dissolved parliament - remained inside the infamous Lefortovo prison.

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by CNB