CHECHNYA WAR TRIGGERS GROWING PROTESTS.

In two separate but convergent statements, the hospitalized human rights campaigner Yelena Bonner and a group of prominent pro-democratic figures who voted for Yeltsin — including pollster Yuri Levada, writer Benedikt Sarnov, lawyer Genri Reznik — accused Yeltsin of deceiving the voters with his pre-election promise to stop the war. They demanded that he fulfill the promise by withdrawing the troops and calling to account those responsible for crimes against civilians.

In Poland, a large group of Catholic personalities, Solidarity leaders, prominent parliamentarians, and former prime ministers and ministers from non-leftist parties appealed to world opinion and western governments to "stop the Russian government from continuing the crime of genocide in Chechnya." The signatories expressed "indignation over the policy to exterminate the Chechen nation" particularly after Russia’s presidential election. The leading Polish newspaper Rzecz Pospolita last week printed an interview with Chechen resistance leader Zelimkhan Yandarbiev. (Russian and Western agencies, July 30 and 31)

Belarus Popular Front Top Leaders Request U.S. Asylum.