Human Rights Information Agency "Express-Chronicle"

English Weekly News Digest

October 28 1996

MOSCOW (E-C) The Committee for Anti-War Action has demanded the resignation of Russian Interior Minister Anatoly Kulikov. On 19 October the Committee distributed a declaration in which they assessed the latest reshuffle in the ranks of the Russian leadership as "a political victory for the 'party of war.'" In the opinion of the authors of the appeal, the resignation of Security Council chairman Aleksandr Lebed threatens to disrupt the peace process in Chechnya. They argued that "the public polemic between high state functionaries in the forms in which it has been conducted in recent times, is truly impermissible. However, only one of its participants has been dismissed. The provocational, offensive and unpunished declaration of General Kulikov, in our opinion, is no less deserving of such measures."