Yeltsin's Chechnya Policy: Wait and See, or Hide and Seek?

As Russian forces intensified their bombardment of the Chechen capital Friday, President Boris Yeltsin remained hidden from the public eye, a day after promising to address the nation with his plan for a political solution to the crisis in the breakaway North Caucasus republic.


And with persistent reports of high-level clashes in the military over the use of force to crush Chechnya's three-year bid for independence, some analysts and politicians were convinced that Yeltsin had no clear idea of how best to proceed.


"He's sitting it out," Sergei Yushenkov, chairman of the State Duma's Defense Committee and a strong critic of the military operation in Chechnya, said in an interview Friday. "He's waiting, he's looking and he's comparing ideas. He is just waiting it out."


The Duma itself, meanwhile, appealed to Yeltsin, the government and the two opposing sides in Chechnya to stop fighting and restart negotiations. A motion calling for a "moratorium on military actions" was passed 228 votes to 38, with three abstentions.


But while the appeal increased the pressure on Yeltsin to find a speedy solution to the crisis, it carried no binding force. A motion of no confidence in the president, proposed by Yuly Rybakov of the Russia's Choice faction, was brushed aside by Duma Deputy Chairman Mikhail Mityukov on procedural grounds.


Yeltsin, who has made no public appearance since ordering the troops into Chechnya on Dec. 11, sent a letter to the State Duma on Thursday, pledging to make a speech to the Russian people "in the coming days" on the conflict, which he said would be dealt with "mainly by political methods."


In the same letter, Yeltsin rejected a proposal from the Duma to hold a joint session Saturday with the upper house, the Federation Council, to discuss the crisis. He said that while he was sure that the proposal was a sincere bid to help end the conflict, it was against the constitution.


According to Article 100 of the constitution, joint sessions of the two houses can only be called to hear an address from the president, the Constitutional Court or a foreign head of state. By blocking the proposal, Yeltsin avoided having to appear personally before his parliament.


Yeltsin's retreat from the public stage, first to the Kremlin hospital, where he underwent minor surgery on his nose, and subsequently behind the no less impenetrable walls of the Kremlin itself, has prompted considerable critical comment from the Russian press, many of whose commentators have accused him of trying to avoid responsibility.


Foreign analysts were also at a loss to find any other plausible explanation for Yeltsin's performance, which has so far consisted of a series of statements issued by his press office, containing stick-and-carrot appeals to the Chechens to lay down their arms.


"It's the silence of the great. It's not the silence of the lambs; it's quite the opposite," said Professor John Erickson, Russian military analyst at Edinburgh University.


The use of force in Chechnya has brought a storm of protest from reformers in the Duma, with some of Yeltsin's strongest erstwhile supporters, such as Yegor Gaidar, leader of the Russia's Choice faction, calling for his impeachment.


Gaidar has voiced concern that the developments in Chechnya could herald an era of dictatorship for Russia as a whole.


So far, public manifestations of dissatisfaction with Russia's actions have been limited to a few token demonstrators outside the Duma building. But a poll published in Friday's Izvestia, carried out among 1,600 people in Moscow showed a high level of discontent with the handling of the crisis.


While 30 percent of those asked said they blamed the crisis on Chechen President Dzhokhar Dudayev, 25 percent said Yeltsin was to blame, while only 7 percent blamed the military.