Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.twt.news From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: Yeltsin to get tough on reforms Date: Wed, 18 Nov 92 16:10:35 EST Message-ID: \SE A;WORLD \HD Yeltsin to get tough on reforms \BY Gerald Nadler \CR THE WASHINGTON TIMES \DT MOSCOW MOSCOW - Boris Yeltsin warned Russian lawmakers yesterday that he would take unspecified tough measures to protect reforms, and Moscow police prevented a meeting of a hard-line National Salvation Front after a reported bomb threat. Although President Yeltsin banned the Salvation Front of die-hard communists and anti-Semitic national patriots last month, the leadership of that body has continued to rail against Mr. Yeltsin, demanding that he be ousted at the Congress of People's Deputies opening in two weeks. But reporters who arrived at the Russian Writers' Union for a meeting of the Salvation Front's leadership last night found the building sealed off by police and sniffer dogs prowling about the premises. The meeting that was to have brought together the cream of the so-called Red-Brown movement, an alliance of former Communist Party members and neo-nationalists, was canceled because of the bomb threat, an official said. It was unclear who might have planted a bomb, if there indeed was one. One source speculated that the threat could have been devised by the Front's own leaders to gain the sympathy of supporters, while at the same time avoiding a challenge to Mr. Yeltsin's ban. Mr. Yeltsin mocked the Salvation Front on Saturday as a collection of "scandalous groups with few ideas and no social foundation [support] behind them who want to sow panic and just make political gains." Mr. Yeltsin has threatened to treat the parliament as he has the Salvation Front, by dispersing them if they carry through with plans to strip him of his power to issue decrees at the Congress of People's Deputies opening Dec. 1. Yesterday, he retracted his implied threats to dissolve the parliament and its parent body, the Congress, but reserved the right to take any measures to save market reforms. "Talk that presidential rule will be . . . introduced and the Congress of People's Deputies will not be allowed to convene is groundless," Mr. Yeltsin told the nationalities chamber of the Supreme Soviet. Mr. Yeltsin said he would not violate the constitution, which prevents him from dismissing the Congress, but he warned: "If the Congress would . . . try to curb the reforms or reject them, then the president must protect the will of the people. First and foremost, I am sworn to the people." The deputies showed alarm at his statement, Russian and Central television said, and the hall was cleared of reporters. The Congress, which meets every six months, will gather as Mr. Yeltsin's reforms have reached the crucial stage of privatizing Russia's vast industrial enterprises. The privatization push, a vague plan using vouchers and cash for stock shares to be bought by both outsiders and the workers and administrators at the plants, will most likely leave the present enterprise directors in charge. But they will no longer have massive state subsidies, which will make the old Communist Party nomenklatura directors sink or swim in market conditions. Most notably, a bankruptcy law was recently passed in parliament. After three failed attempts to get parliament to postpone the Congress of People's Deputies, the body with the power to amend the constitution, Mr. Yeltsin resigned himself to this strange legislative monster and began preparing a counterattack. He has met with the Civic Union, representing the directors of the Communist-era enterprises, and has praised their economic plan, which involves continued subsidization of some branches of the economy. Yesterday, he met with administrative chiefs of Russia's regions and said he was now forming them into a permanent council of governors. At the same time, he has beefed up a vague body, the Security Council, adding his former legal adviser Sergei Shakhrai, 36, to a body that already includes Vice President Alexander Rutskoi and the council's chief, Yuri Skokov. This article is copyright 1992 The Washington Times. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM