>From RIA Novosti

Nezavisimaya Gazeta

June 25, 1997

LEGISLATOR ADDRESSES PRESIDENT, MILITARY

Lev Rokhlin Accused Yeltsin of Having Destroyed the Army, Called on the Military to Rally

By Ilya MAKSAKOV

Duma defense committee chairman Lev Rokhlin has made an address to the Supreme Commander and the Russian military, the text of which was leaked to this newspaper yesterday.

The reason behind Rokhlin's address is the intention of the Russian authorities to radically reduce the numerical strength of the military in the next two years. The Cabinet has been instructed to allocate no more than 3.5% of the GDP for the needs of the country's defenses from the 1998 budgetary expenditures.

In Rokhlin's opinion, this intention is inconsistent with the financial crisis which been raging in the military since 1995 and the concern over the current plight of the armed forces, voiced by President Yeltsin in his 1997 message to the Federal Assembly.

If the army is reduced, say, to 850,000, allocations for the production of arms and military development would then make up a half of the 1997 budgetary expenditures for the purpose.

Rokhlin asks the Supreme Commander whether he had the right to make the unilateral decision "what with [his] experience in the military sphere and having done nothing for the nation's military security in the past six years."

The Duma defense committee chairman discerns realistic threats to Russia's security, emanating from without. He believes that the west is openly ignoring Russia's interests while shaping Europe's military-political structure. Rokhlin writes that many of those who have been and are in power have made possible huge capital drains from Russia, being "agents of western secret services," and have been tasked to alienate the CIS states from Russia, undermine its nuclear potential and break it up into minor fiefdoms.

Also, Rokhlin believes that the military reform in Russia is managed by the International Monetary Fund which has driven the defense allocations way down.

Rokhlin could agree to the numerical reductions of the military if there were an economically substantiated concept of military development. "There is a hush-hush effort to build a concept of military development by Baturin and the new leadership in the defense ministry." The secrecy is designed to cover up the fact of the army's disintegration, Rokhlin holds.

Social defenselessness of the military is prominent in the address. Rokhlin writes that the massive discharges of the military who are disunited and poorly prepared for life in the new conditions, doom them to chaos and deception.

Addressing the President, the legislator highlights violations of the Constitution's provisions of state protection for mothers, children and families, and of social welfare in old age.

Families of the military find themselves in unbearable material circumstances, officers, i.e. the heads of families, commit suicides, and old-age pensions are not paid. Rokhlin accuses the President of shirking his powers for the military development under the law on defense, ignoring the law on the status of the military and violating the law on the veterans. He charges the President with personal responsibility for the war in Chechnya. The address contains an ardent appeal to the Supreme Commander to take urgent steps to improve the situation in the military.

Addressing the military, Rokhlin notes that the worst threat for Russia is inherent in the possibility of social destruction of the officer corps, death of the defense industry, disruption of defense research and the dismantling of the strategic nuclear force.

Rokhlin tells the military that no single officer can be discharged until the country's leadership settles all payments to him, until each and every one of them is guaranteed social protection, and until the country's leaders make the right decisions on a military reform, and substantiate the timeframe and the feasibility thereof economically.

Rokhlin calls on the military to rally their ranks, hold officer assemblies in every unit in order to draw lawful demands to be presented to the Russian leadership. "When the army is destroyed, Russia would be destroyed too," the legislator concludes.

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Andrei KORBUT

Lev Rokhlin's address has generated a lively reaction in the military. Officers and NCOs are increasingly angry about the radical measures that the country's leadership has devised to reform the armed forces. The situation is not made any easier by the massive pay arrears.

The army is not free of un-Constitutional measures. The level of discontent is proportional to the lateness of payments. Units closer to Moscow have received pay for April and May. Units farther off, in the provinces, are getting pay for this past March. Radical reactions in the ranks are being suppressed.

Thus, about 30 military in the famed regiment of the military aviation, stationed at Krichevitsy, the Novgorod Region, went on a hunger strike on the eve of former defense minister Igor Rodionov's dismissal. The regiment has been getting no pay since this past February. No benefits have been paid since late last year. The insurgence was extinguished when the regiment received funds which were rushed to it.

The Far East has seen a similar situation recently. Wives of the military tried to block runways in the AF garrison at Khurba. Following a turbulent rally at Shaikovka, a strategic AF base, women sent cables to the President, the defense minister, first deputy premier Boris Nemtsov and Lev Rokhlin. At Saltsy, aviators were pacified only by partial payments of their wages for last February.

In the conditions of expected massive dismissals, officers feel doomed and are starting to unite in some garrisons. There are calls for an all-army officer assembly in Moscow which would make claims to the reformers.

The process seems to be running away, because the defense ministry's main educational department is undergoing another stage of reforms, and the former political education officers, whose reputation has never been too high, can hardly make the chaotic process manageable (as they did in January 1992.

The trend is clear: tensions are mounting in the ranks with every passing day. It was reported yesterday that army units have begun collecting money to send delegations to Moscow to prepare and attend an unofficial all-army officer assembly which Lev Rokhlin is calling for.

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Johnson's Russia List

25 June 1997

djohnson@cdi.org