CHECHNYA ROUNDUP.

Tensions mounted in Grozny after two separate incidents in which Russian soldiers, shooting without provocation, killed a Chechen teenager and seriously wounded four other civilians. Elsewhere in Chechnya over the weekend, at least 4 Russian soldiers were killed in attacks by Chechens, the Russian combined command announced. The command nevertheless made public a schedule for the parallel, but partial, disarmament of Chechen forces (including the handover of heavy weapons), and the partial withdrawal of Russian units through October 8. As Chechen disarmament supposedly began, the first Russian units began their withdrawal.

At his September 8 press conference, Boris Yeltsin said that the Duma elections must be held in Chechnya, just as anywhere else in Russia. Yeltsin said that he would also like to see local elections in Chechnya at the beginning of next year, when they will be held elsewhere in the Russian Federation.

Most significantly, Yeltsin announced that his representatives would be willing to negotiate a political deal with his former arch-rival, former Russian Supreme Soviet chairman Ruslan Khasbulatov, and also the former communist chairman of the Chechen-Ingush Soviet Socialist Republic, Doku Zavgayev, whose regime was overthrown by Dzhokhar Dudayev. This offer confirms Moscow’s disappointment with the unpopularity of the anti-Dudaev Chechens on whom it had banked. (8)

Delaying Payments is Not The Way to Fight Inflation.