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

DATE: WEDNESDAY, September 22, 1993                   TAG: 9309220117
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Boston Globe
DATELINE: MOSCOW                                LENGTH: Medium

RUSSIA AGAIN IN CRISIS

In a bold move to defeat opponents of his economic reforms once and for all, President Boris Yeltsin on Tuesday night suspended the Russian parliament and declared that elections for a new legislative body would take place Dec. 11.

In response, parliament met in an emergency session, declared that Yeltsin had committed "a most crude violation of the constitution" and, just after midnight, voted to impeach him.

Then, the speaker of the parliament, Ruslan Khasbulatov, swore in Vice President Alexander Rutskoi - who broke from Yeltsin months ago - as the new acting president of Russia, and said elections for a new president would take place in December.

Yeltsin had pledged last month that in September he would wage "the decisive battle" against his adversaries - holdovers from the Communist era who were blocking Yeltsin's economic reforms.

This appears to be that battle.

The nearly year-old power struggle between Yeltsin and his foes has reached a fever pitch. There are now not merely two branches of power contesting each other's legitimacy to rule, but also two men - Yeltsin and Rutskoi - claiming to be the official head of state.

Early this morning, the Constitutional Court ruled, 9-4, that Yeltsin's suspension of the parliament was unlawful. However, the court also ruled that only the parliament's parent body, the 1,000-member Congress of People's Deputies, could decide to impeach a president.

Khasbulatov said he would try to convene Congress today to take up the issue. Congress has tried to impeach Yeltsin several times in the past year, but has failed to muster the necessary two-thirds majority.

This morning, (Moscow time), Rutskoi issued a decree ordering "all bodies of executive power . . . to follow only my orders or the orders" of Khasbulatov.

Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin said Tuesday night that he would obey Yeltsin's orders, not Rutskoi's. Vice Prime Minister Vladimir Shumeiko pointedly told Radio Echo Moscow that Yeltsin's decision was supported by the three "power ministers" - the ministers of defense, security and the interior.

In Washington, President Clinton said he telephoned Yeltsin with support. "There is no question that President Yeltsin acted in response to a constitutional crisis that had reached a critical impasse," Clinton said.

By midnight, nearly 4,000 Russians, many waving the red flag of the Communist Party, had rallied outside the parliament's headquarters, known as the White House, and were constructing barriers to protect it from possible assault by Yeltsin's militia forces.

Just over two years ago, during the attempted coup by top Kremlin officials of the Soviet Union, young democrats rallied around the same White House to protect Yeltsin from Communist militia.

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by CNB