>From RIA Novosti

Moskovsky Komsomolets

June 26, 1997

MORE LEBEDS: REBEL ROKHLIN WANTS A STORM

By Mikhail ROSTOVSKY

Alexander Lebed will have to make place at the altar of disgraced generals. Lev Rokhlin, the victor of Grozny and chairman of the Duma defence committee, will probably join the army of fired generals.

The bosses of the Duma faction of Our Home Is Russia met in Moscow to put on the agenda of their political council session, scheduled for June 30, the question of firing their No. 3 man, Lev Rokhlin, from the faction and his Duma post. The general will hardly be worried, or even surprised by this turn of events.

In his letter, Rokhlin accused President Yeltsin of the collapse of the army, the war in Chechnya and absolute neglect for the needs of the men in uniform. Many of the president's team are agents of foreign secret services, the general from the pro- government movement infers. Anatoly Chubais is out to plunder the army. The conclusion is that officer meetings should be held in each unit to advance binding demands on their Supreme Commander.

According to this newspaper, this letter, in which Rokhlin calls for actions comparable to a revolt, was the result of not an emotional outbreak, but of a genuine conspiracy, hatched by the top leaders of the Defence Ministry and the Communist Party.

A few weeks ago General Rokhlin celebrated his birthday in a luxury Moscow restaurant. He was hailed as "the only man doing anything for the army" by the brass top from Arbat Square, Duma Vice-Speaker Sergei Baburin and Viktor Ilyukhin, chairman of the Duma security committee.

According to our information, the latter man engineered the explosion of the latest political bomb, whose effect will be felt beyond the Sadovoye Ring. As far as we know, Lev Rokhlin has a large data bank on the army and can reach the commanders of even the smallest units.

This means that his anti-Yeltsin letter calling for officer meetings is being read by hundreds of army commanders. Moreover, "it is possible that such meetings are already being held," said a parliamentary functionary who has close relations with Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin.

So, the brass tops who remained in Arbat Square even after Rokhlin's friend, Igor Rodionov, was fired and the communist leaders in the Duma have formed a union and delivered a crushing blow at Yuri Baturin, the Kremlin's top military expert, the new Defence Minister Igor Sergeyev and even the President himself.

Rokhlin chose the best possible time for exploding his bomb. The Duma has retired for summer holidays, which means that the OHR can oust Rokhlin from their faction but can attempt to fire him from his post of the Duma defence committee chairman only in September.

The chaos in Rokhlin's "home" faction is compounded by the fact that the general did not warn his colleagues of the planned action. More than that, none of the OHR leaders could talk to the general over telephone since Monday, because the general was away on a planned foreign trip. In addition, the top leaders of Our Home Is Russia, namely Viktor Chernomyrdin and Vladimir Babichev, head of the government staff, are abroad, too.

Indeed, the situation of the leaders of the power party is dramatic. They can choose between swallowing the general's demarche (impossible!) and firing him, but both will demonstrate their complete impotence. In the latter case, the general will simply join the "enemies," meaning opposition, probably Nikolai Ryzhkov's Power by the People. And this will add weight to Lev Rokhlin as a powerful leader on the national scale.

The only thing the authorities have done is send a coded message to the army, enticing it to trust Boris Yeltsin and not to rise to provocations.

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Johnson's Russia List

26 June 1997

djohnson@cdi.org