Anarchy: a journal of desire armed. #39, Winter '94. THE SAD TRUTH -includes "Yeltsin's coup" by Mikhail Tsovma, "Bloody Monday" by Laure Akai. @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ Yeltsin's coup:=20 Obviously a provocation by the government By Mikhail Tsovma Two days after the storming of the parliament in Moscow gunshots are still heard around Moscow and this ``obvious fact'' of the existence of Communist fighters and ``snipers'' pushes people to embrace the martial law, the curfew and police and military troops loyal to president Yeltsin as the saviors of peace and calmness of Muscovites. This situation, of course, is exactly what Yeltsin was looking for when he started his coup d'etat on September 21st and there are clear signs that he=FEor at least somebody from his team=FE was the person who worked hard to reach this result. The media reports that Communist fighters and ``snipers'' somehow leaked through the lines of police and troops surrounding the White House on the day the parliament was stormed and caused many deaths among the government troops and civilians. Gunfire is heard in various districts of Moscow, but it is quite likely that, like in Moscow's northern suburb of Otradnoye (in the evening of October 5), policemen are just firing machine guns into the air. What is it if not an outright provocation designed to make people believe they need more law and order. Even the Moscow-based English-language periodical, Moscow Tribune, which seems to undoubtedly believe in the stories about Communist snipers, published several pieces revealing how the forces of law and order were too reluctant when dealing with the rioters on Sunday, October 3, during the clashes on Oktyabrskaya and Smolenskaya Square. ``We've got other goals. We have other orders,'' a police officer is reported to have said when asked why the police, at least 120 strong, had acted slowly and done so little to stop 40 rioters when the clashes were just beginning. (John Helmer, ``Moscow Crisis: The First Spark,'' Moscow Tribune, Oct.5.) Sometime later, when the riot was gathering its strength, Muscovites witnessed demonstrators forcing police to retreat, attacking them with their own equipment and fighting their way over the Moscow river and across the Ring Road to parliament. (Reuters, Oct.3) The police troops that were blocking the bridge across the Moscow River were rather poorly equipped (helmets, shields and rubber batons only) and stood in the line only one-man deep. It's worth mentioning that during less dramatic oppositional demonstra- tions in Moscow, police forces were much more heavily present and were acting much less fearfully, managing to stop the demonstrators where and when needed. An hour and a half after the beginning of this demonstration (time that is usually more than enough for the police to predict the movement of the demonstrators and block the streets where needed) police troops once again were defeated on Smolenskaya Square not far from the White House. These victories inspired the opposition to storm the TV center later in the evening, which somehow appeared to be unprotected. Soon after the beginning of this attack Yeltsin declared a state of emergency in Moscow, the government declared that it has been forced to use force ``to end the actions of political adventurists an is doing everything possible to avert mass bloodshed.'' (Reuters, Oct.3) At 7:56 P.M. Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov blamed ``bandits'' for the deaths of two policemen and two interior minis- try soldiers and the media reported that troops loyal to president were brought to Moscow. WHO WERE THE SNIPERS? One of the keystones of the media campaign on October 4 were ``the snipers,'' that is armed putschists who spread all over the city and whose numbers it was impossible to guess. One of the doctors who was evacuating the injured from the parliament was interviewed by Russian TV and said that there were a consider- able number of people shot near the White House in the morning and during the day right in their hearts, necks and heads. This was presented by the media as the evidence of the crimes of the putschists. In fact it is, but it appears more grounded to say that these were the people killed by the KGB and special police troops loyal to the government. Though there were quite a lot of arms in the White House, there were hardly any ``snipers'', that is people specially trained in shooting, among its defenders. It is more probable that those who were shot were shot by the snipers of KGB. (During the August 1991 coup there was much worry about whether these special KGB troops would take the side of Yeltsin or not.) Since none of these special troops declared their loyalty to the parliament, it's hardly likely that the ``snipers'' who killed people in dozens around the parliament were Communists. Witnesses that were among the spectators of the storming of the White House on Oct. 4, report that there were government snipers who were shooting ``in all directions'' (Moscow Tribune, Oct. 5) and particularly at civilians. The October 6 issue of Izvestiya, Russia's biggest newspaper, featured a story ``Troops Near The White House Shot Everything That Moves,'' describing how the soldiers started shooting at the windows and roofs of buildings around the parliament if they saw anybody moving there. This went on for about two days and none of the specially trained anti-terrorist detachments of KGB were involved in the fight against the mythical snipers. During the ``sniper incident'' on Novy Arbat (the only one described in the media as far as I know) soldiers from APCs shot in various directions, including the house on the embankment of the Moscow River near the parliament where dozens of people and TV crews gathered to see the fight. After the people on Novy Arbat tried to escape into one of the courtyards they were met by gunshots from the neighboring streets and the windows of the houses that composed the courtyard=FEthe area was totally in control of the police troops and there were no ``Communist fighters'' there. It is also interesting to learn how it happened that considerable numbers of armed people leaked from the White House and spread around the city. The parliament was blocked from all sides and since its defenders didn't have tanks it was almost impossible for them to get out...until they were let out by the government. The story about ``unprofessional actions of the police and the military'' is an old one and it is usually used by the authorities to justify more repression and the use of more troops. This is what happened during the clash between communists and the police on the 1st of May this year. This is what happened on October 3 when the authorities let the opposition ``defeat'' special police troops on the streets of Moscow. This is probably how they provoked more violence during the storming of the White House. Currently the media reports dozens of cases of journalists being arrested by the forces of law and order, severely beaten up, held in Lefortovo KGB prison (together with the leaders of parliament and dozens of civilians, including chil- dren), their films exposed. (Izvestiya, October 6) I doubt that any of the policemen or military will be punished for these actions=FEthey feel that this is their time and that they can do whatever they want without being punished or anything like that. This is what they were doing for years, but what's going on now is just outrageous.=20 And it's not just the police and the military since every other high-ranking ``democrat'' is trying to take revenge on his opponents. Yeltsin had his fun destroying the parliament, Moscow's mayor Luzhkov gladly witnessed (and sanc- tioned, I'm sure) arrests and beatings of Moscow City Soviet deputies that had bothered him a lot concerning the legal grounds of his multiple political and business activities. Heads of local administrations are disbanding troublesome Soviets in their regions. In the situation where there are virtually no political organizations that really represent the interests of different social groups, the Soviets were almost the only opposition to the governmental course, but with their disbanding, oppositional organizations and papers closed, and martial law and censorship introduced, the road for Yeltsin's triumphant elections is clean. Long live the real freedom of choice, the choice between the Big Brother and yourself! POSTSCRIPT Vecherniya Moskva, the Moscow evening paper, on October 6 reported that none of the president's decrees implemented censorship and that the censorship that existed was dictated by the needs of the moment, and that they won't work anymore. Nezavisimaya Gazeta, one of the pro-democratic, pro-Yeltsin papers appeared on that day with about half a page of blank space plus some published information lacking beginning sentences. The editor-in-chief of the hysterically pro-governmental Moskovsky Komsomolets said on TV that blank spaces in some of the papers is the fault of the editors. He also went as far as to declare that there will be no blank spaces in his paper because they publish the truth and nothing else but the truth, and the truth can't be censored! This article is being distributed by the Labour Information Centre KAS-KOR, Moscow. @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ Bloody Monday:=20 Yeltsin's excuse for repression By Laure Akai Many people, including the mainstream English press in Moscow, wonder why the Omon (special police) didn't take more precautions at the Ostankino television center, and why they did such a bad job at simple crowd control. It was known for four days that the opposition was planning to take Ostankino and when they finally arrived, they rallied for over an hour before the storming began. Troops arrived at the scene much later. Others, including many pro-Yeltsinites, asked how Yegor Gaidar could go on TV and urge people to fight back. The answers are not clear. Of course people were somewhat afraid of the well-armed White House defendants. But there is more and more speculation that part of the events were provoked by pro-Yeltsin troops to rally public resentment against the opposition. Myself and several reliable people I know were witnesses to some rather odd events that we think was part of a provocation. For example, some time around 6 or 7PM, before the tanks all started to converge on the White House, I and two friends were standing outside the Mayor's building across the street from the White House. We were completely surrounded on all sides by Yeltsin's troops. (Only after some while, as the tanks began to roll did they try to disperse us.) Every once and a while gunfire was breaking out, sometimes in the direction of the White House, sometimes in our direction. We witnessed a woman near us take out a pistol from her pocket and begin shooting in the air. It seemed entirely strange to us and we weren't sure who she was or what she was shooting at. There was so much going on that surely few people noticed this. Then she slowly walked to the blown out 1st floor windows of the Mayor's building. We watched very intently because we thought she might be a communist or a nation- alist of sorts (although she was too well dressed) and we thought she might try to shoot one of the soldiers. She instead started to talk to one of them and entered the building from the side. At this time the tanks started rolling so we went up Novy Arbat St. to the Garden Ring Road to try to find a telephone. Before we got to the Garden Ring Road, soldiers were trying to get us to run and create some hysteria amongst the few people who were there. On the Garden Ring Road there were a few hundred spectators. While one of us went to find a phone, I and a friend watched. Suddenly guns started firing down the road. We ran through an archway into a courtyard. We couldn't go further because there was gunfire into the courtyard where the corner house ended, and where there was an alley between that corner house and the next building on Novy Arbat St. This fire from the alley way could have only come from the troops that we had passed and who were trying to creating a panic less than 5 minutes earlier. They were the only people there. Dozens of people tried to run into the courtyard, only to find that there was lots of gunfire there, so they were trapped in a small space where the corner building curved around from Garden Ring onto Novy Arbat St. The gunfire was apparently approaching. We noticed that there were people shooting from out of windows into the courtyard. I was wondering wheat the hell they were shooting at. We finally made a run for it through the courtyard, dodging bullets. I looked behind and saw something fall from the sky into the courtyard behind me. We ran further and turned back onto the Garden Ring Road. There we witnessed general panic. There were lots of guns being fired at the top floors of buildings and also into the crowd. I was fairly upset and wondering why Yeltsin's troops were firing into the crowd. One person said that they are trying to disperse people. I thought this is a stupid way to do it, but I accepted that explanation for a while. Then it occurred to me that the only people who could be firing into the courtyard at ground level were Yeltsin's troops. The local English language paper reported the incident. The TV reported sniper fire in several areas of the city and claimed that this was done by opposition rebels on the loose. They are using this fear to justify things like martial law. But after hearing more and more people report unusual incidents, and incidents similar to mine, I'm beginning to wonder. Sure there were armed rebels on the loose. Many White House supporters went home on the night of the 3rd and were not able to return. When the White House was besieged by Yeltsin's troops, there were apparently several attempts made by groups of people to get into the territory of the White House. (In the morning this was virtually impossible, unless you were a journalist.) I had assumed that the people firing from the windows into the courtyards were the opposition. I was aggravated by the fact that they were firing into the courtyard. I wondered how they got into the buildings, if any of them actually resided in that swank neighborhood or if they broke into apartments. At this point however I think that it was not the opposition which was doing the firing into that courtyard. They were not running around the streets firing at innocent people, and as far as I know, there were many instances of them trying to get people out of the line of fire. They generally operated by selecting their targets and going directly for them. Why would they fire into the courtyard and not in the other direction, into Yeltsin's troops? And what happened to these people up there in the building? They weren't killed or arrested; the media would have shown them and labeled them murderers. That particular house was not even fired upon or stormed. Yeltsin's troops, which were stationed right outside this house on Novy Arbat St. decided not to fire up at the windows from which gunfire was coming, but rather into the courtyard into which people, including bystanders, were fleeing. Another weird incident: two different journalists reported seeing 10 militia men shooting into the air in the Otradnoye section, just north of Moscow. Why were they there and why were they firing into the air? They suggested that perhaps they were trying to create a panic. There are already dozens of reports of such irregularities. Of course little has made it into the mainstream media, except in the English language press, which isn't sold on the streets, which almost no Russians read, and which hasn't been subjected to censorship. In the Moscow Tribune on Oct. 5 there was a very vivid description of the beginning of the action on Sunday Oct. 3. (Neither English language paper appears on Monday.) Apparently the violence was started by about 10 people who ran into the street from out of a crowd of 40 demonstrators. 120 Omonovtsy (special police) stood without reacting. They weren't even wearing helmets. When a reporter from the Tribune asked why they were doing nothing, he was told ``We've got other goals. We have other orders.'' Only after 45 minutes, when the crowd had grown substantially in size, did they act, and only then half-heartedly. It is obvious to anybody who has seen these troops in action that they deliberately let the crowd gather and storm the Mayor's building and the White House. Just a few days earlier, when they arrived at the White House, they had an almost airtight seal on the place, and did a much better job of kicking ass and preventing a much larger and better armed crowd from going anywhere near the White House. As a matter of fact, in this case they ran away from the demonstrators. At Ostankino, tanks that were headed to the area turned back just before the storming. Why? It has even conservatives and moderates like the Moscow Tribune asking, ``Could this have been a trap to encourage the violent elements on parliament's side to provide the justification the government needed to respond with the force it had sworn not to initiate?'' [John Helmer, ``Moscow Crisis:The First Spark,'' Moscow Tribune, Oct. 5, 1993]. You bet this was a trap. What better way to justify the violence and the censorship, political repression and so on that followed? Also, by allowing these people to storm buildings, they had a concrete target to bombard. Of course lots of innocent bystanders also got hurt in the events. This too was part of the provocation. How did I and my friends get right to the seen of the action during crossfire? The soldiers pointed out the route for us. How come pedestrians were allowed to come so near to fighting? Was it that the soldiers couldn't control the crowd? They usually do a pretty good job completely blocking traffic when they want to. How come on Oct. 5, troops were shooting at ``snipers'' on Novy Arbat street, but put up absolutely no obstacle to pedestrian traffic? As far as the last question is concerned, the answer is simple: for all the bullets that Yeltsin's troops were firing up at rooftops, no bullets were being fired back down. One man who witnessed this yesterday asked, ``How can it be that they've been firing two days already and haven't caught the snipers? It doesn't seem like anyone's there. And how could they let people walk the streets like that?'' Izvestia reports that it is the city police and the regular army who are the only ones being used to shoot at the snipers. They are not specially trained at this. There are however many, many special troops that are. Where are they? Izvestia got past the censors with an article entitled ``Troops Near the White House Shot At Everything That Moved.'' This is in fact what they did, but also what they shouldn't have done. Now people are trying to justify this, saying that undoubtedly there were armed insurgents in the crowd, and that the people there were looking for trouble. But this was not the case. Now they keep making up stories about ``snipers on the loose'' and how communists were firing indiscriminantly into crowds of innocent people. They cannot hide the fact that they shot into the crowd so they have to make up justifications for their actions and they blame the whole situation on the inhuman insurgents who put the civilian population in jeopardy. In fact it was Yeltsin and Grachev who put the crowd in danger, whose forces shot onlookers. More and more witnesses are coming forward to say that many of these ``snipers'' were in fact KGB or some similar Yeltsinite force. For example, the snipers at the Mezdunarodnaya Hotel were let in past security. Would the security guards at this swank hotel which houses many shops and is adjacent to the Trade Center, housing many multi-national offices, have let opposition ``snipers'' through? If the hotel was stormed, how come there isn't a single report of it in the media? How come the media then describes the ``snipers'' at the hotels as part of the insurgents? More than likely, the snipers who were on the heavily guarded Hotel Mir across from the White House were also from the government. Also, residents of the buildings from which snipers were shooting have also come forward to say that these were government snipers, but none of this has been reported in the media. Yeltsin has a lot of blood on his hands, especially the blood of the people killed in anyone of the ``sniper incidents'' that were manufactured to create public outrage and fear and to provide him with reasons to justify his actions and political repression.