War Costs Yeltsin Gaidar's Backing

Yegor Gaidar, the most prominent liberal legislator in the country and hitherto one of President Boris Yeltsin's most loyal supporters, announced Wednesday that his Russia's Choice faction had withdrawn its support from the president because of his policy on Chechnya.


As Russian planes continued bombing the Chechen capital Grozny on Wednesday despite Yeltsin's pledge to the contrary, Gaidar sharply criticized the president's Tuesday address to the nation, saying it destroyed chances of a peaceful settlement of the crisis.


"President Yeltsin has missed his chance to clear the way for serious negotiations and the search for a peaceful solution," said Gaidar, leader of Russia's Choice, the biggest faction in the State Duma. "The way these negotiations were offered and the negotiators who were appointed show that talks are not being taken seriously as a way to resolve the crisis."


In his speech, Yeltsin appointed Nationalities Minister Nikolai Yegorov, counterintelligence chief Sergei Stepashin and General Anatoly Kvashnin -- all three of whom have taken a tough line throughout the conflict -- to talk to "illegal armed groups", as he termed the Chechen authorities, solely in order to persuade them to disarm.


The only part of Yeltsin's speech that Gaidar welcomed was the president's order to stop bombing Grozny.


"But, unfortunately, reality has not borne out the president's words," the reformist leader said.


Yeltsin's human rights commissioner Sergei Kovalyov, who is now in Grozny, and the Chechen authorities reported Wednesday that the city had been bombed several times since Yeltsin's speech. Russian television reported Wednesday evening that the house where Kovalyov was staying had been hit. Kovalyov was not there at the time, it said.


Gaidar, who served as prime minister in Yeltsin's first government of economic reforms and whose faction has been the only source of political support for Yeltsin in the opposition-dominated Duma, said he could not even reach the president on the phone.


"I used to call the president's office and tell the secretary I wanted a word with the president," Gaidar said. "He always returned the call within one, two or three hours, maximum four. I called him when troops were sent to Chechnya, and he has not returned the call yet."


In the 17 days Gaidar has waited for Yeltsin's call, he wrote the president a confidential memo on Chechnya. "I hope he read it, but in any case he ignored it," the ex-prime minister remarked bitterly.


Gaidar openly said Wednesday that Russia's Choice no longer supported the president.


"We support his policy on maintaining friendship with India and trying to establish peace in Bosnia," Gaidar said. "But with the war in Chechnya overshadowing everything else, we have to say that we cannot support the president's policy."


Russia's Choice formerly backed Yeltsin's candidacy in the presidential election scheduled for 1996. But at this year's last Duma session, a member of the faction called for impeaching Yeltsin over Chechnya. Two other prominent members, Gleb Yakunin and Lev Ponomaryov, quit the faction this week, protesting against what they saw as Gaidar's soft stand on Yeltsin.


Human rights commissioner Koval-yov, also a member of Russia's Choice, drew sharp criticism from Yeltsin during a Security Council meeting this week for regularly reporting from Grozny on human rights abuses by Russian troops in Chechnya.


However, the faction leader, holding on to remnants of his old faith, said Yeltsin should not be impeached.


"A lot of people are rubbing their hands now, saying that now Yeltsin has made some fatal mistakes and he's dead," Gaidar said. "He has made fatal mistakes indeed, but we don't want to oust him and bring to power someone who will happily commit bloody crimes instead."


But Gaidar warned the president that apart from being disastrous politically, the Chechen operation could seriously hurt economic reforms.


"Another three or four weeks and you can forget about next year's budget," Gaidar said, citing confidential information from the four cabinet ministers who are Russia's Choice members.


Presidential Council member Otto Latsis wrote in Thursday's edition of the daily Izvestia that the Chechen operation had already cost Russia 1 percent of its gross domestic product. Latsis, a well-known economist, also said it would only take an additional two or three weeks of operations to bury the government's budget plans.


Despite criticism from prominent liberals, there was no softening Wednesday in Yeltsin's stand on Chechnya.


Security Council secretary Oleg Lobov, named by Gaidar as one of the leaders of the "war party" in Yeltsin's entourage, told a press conference that Yeltsin's speech presented a clear plan of action.