REUTERS FEATURES: MOSCOW OCTOBER 1993 COUP ATTEMPT

Record ID: 917043

  • Title: REUTERS FEATURES: MOSCOW OCTOBER 1993 COUP ATTEMPT
  • Date: 1st October 1993
  • Summary: (REUTERS) FORMER SOVIET PRESIDENT MIKHAIL GORBACHEV CRITICISING YELTSIN, AND TALKING ABOUT THE FIGHTING. (RUSSIAN) (REUTERS) (NIGHTSHOTS) ARMOURED PERSONEL CARRIER (APC) WITH RED COMMUNIST FLAGS TRAVELLING ALONG STREET APC SURROUNDED BY COMMUNIST SUPPORTERS COMMUNIST SUPPORTERS BUILDING UP BARRICADES GENERAL VIEW OF SQUARE COLUMN OF COMMUNIST SUPPORTERS WITH FLAGS COMMUNIST SUPPORTERS BUILDING MORE BARRICADES TRUCK DRAGGING PIECE OF CONCRETE COMMUNIST SUPPORTERS WAITING COMMUNIST SUPPORTERS NEXT TO FIRES ARMY TRUCKS WITH COMMUNIST SUPPORTERS MOVING UP COMMUNIST SUPPORTERS CLIMBING INTO BACK OF TRUCK UNIDENTIFIED MAN ADDRESSING COMMUNIST SUPPORTERS FROM BALCONY APC WITH RED COMMUNIST FLAG MOVING OUT. CROWDS OF COMMUNIST SUPPORTERS
  • Embargoed: 6th July 2005 16:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: MOSCOW, RUSSIA
  • Country: Russia
  • Topics: Conflict,Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA2IUJT063BUQ6BA9XVZ92ZGQKR
  • Aspect Ratio: 4:3
  • Story Text: After 12 days of standoff Russian army tanks and paratroops smashed a communist-led revolt in Moscow on Monday (October 4).
    Russian reformist President Boris Yeltsin enforced his rule, responding with tough tactics to suppress hardline foes at home and reassure friends abroad that he controls the giant, nuclear-armed country.
    Yeltsin deployed tanks and elite troops after Sunday's armed uprising by communists and nationalists, urged by their leaders to storm strategic points, including the Kremlin.Hardliners said they were defending the legislature against a "coup" by Yeltsin, who abolished parliament on September 21 and called elections to a new assembly for December to clear a way for his reforms.
    In the most dangerous political gamble of his career, Yeltsin ordered the dissolution of the conservative parliament on September 21, and called new elections to break the deadlock strangling Russian reforms.In response to Yeltsin's televised announcement Deputies met in the Russian Parliament in the early hours of September 22, voted to strip the President of his powers and named Vice-President Alexander Rutskoi acting president.
    Several thousand hardline conservatives and nationalists gathered outside parliament during the night and some began building barricades amid rumours of movement of troops supporting Yeltsin.
    As the standoff continued military units supporting the hardliners strengthened barricades outside the White House, and riot police and elite OMON riot troops loyal to Yeltsin ringed the parliament building.Electricity supplies to the building were cut and deputies were forced to work by candlelight, with virtually no heating and little running water.After a week inside the building Parliament Chairman Ruslan Khasbulatov appeared worse for wear.
    Wearing a bullet-proof vest Khasbulatov jokingly told deputies government troops had entered the building.Witnesses said he appeared to be showing the effects of a week under siege.
    A 24-hour deadline for the blockaded parliament to surrender their weapons passed without incident on September 29, but police and demonstrators exchanged blows near the building when the authorities tried to clear protestors gathering outside the wire perimeter.Rutskoi, wearing a track suit and carrying a machinegun over his shoulder, told reporters on the morning of September 30 that he would fight attempts to take the building by force and accused Yeltsin of setting up political concentration camps for his enemies.
    Yeltsin visited police surrounding the White House on Saturday (October 2) and said he hoped for an agreement under which its defenders would surrender their weapons.Asked whether he would be able to work again with Rutskoi, Yeltsin avoided a direct answer.
    On the following day, Sunday October 3, hardline supporters launched an armed uprising, violently seizing the Mayor's office and attacking the Ostankino television building.The day's violence began when several thousand protesters gathered in front of the Foreign Ministry building in October Square and started to throw stones and shout when a line of Interior Ministry troops tried to push them away from the square.The demonstrators then forced their way from October Square to the White House, breaking through police cordons and breaching the government blockage of the building.Some demonstrators seized metal riot shields and helmets from police, attacking them with their own equipment.
    Standing on the balcony of the White House, Rutskoi, who had called for no bloodshed earlier in the day, urged tanks to storm the Kremlin and told the demonstrators to attack the Mayor's office and the Ostankino television station.
    Pitched battles raged for hours outside the television centre.
    Hardliners attacked the centre with rocket-propelled grenades and used a truck to smash a way into the building.Flames errupted from the centre as government armoured personnel carriers (APC's) poured machine gun fire into the building.
    Inside the centre special forces troops fought from room-to-room against anti-Yeltsin soldiers.Commonwealth Television, which broadcasts to most of the former Soviet Union, went off air for more than an hour and a half, and Moscow regional television and an educational channel also ceased transmission as did several radio stations.
    Inside the White House, Khasbulatov announced to applauding deputies that over 200 interior ministry troops had defected providing hardline supporters with at least three APCs.The defecting troops were seen helping to build barricades as fighting raged around the television centre.
    Yeltsin, who had been spending the day at his dacha outside Moscow, was forced to travel by helicopter to the Kremlin since part of his usual route by car was now in rebel hands.
    Later on Sunday night Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, throwing his weight behind Yeltsin, said the government was in full control of the situation.In a brief television address he announced army troops were being brought into Moscow "to terminate the bandits' attacks".First Deputy Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar also rallied support for Yeltsin.Addressing a pro-Yeltsin crowd outside the Kremlin, Gaidar said that the military was fully supporting Yeltsin and that they needed to know the people of Russia were behind them.In an unscheduled television appearance, Gaidar called on presidential supporters to gather at the Kremlin and at the city's old town hall, the normal town hall being occupied by troops loyal to the parliamentary deputies.
    Former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev was critical of Yeltsin's handling of the situation.He said the Russian president must pull all armed forces out of Moscow and rescind his decree imposing emergency rule.He made no criticism of parliamentary forces and his remarks were seen as placing the blame for the fighting and bloodshed with Yeltsin.
    As supporters of the parliamentary rebels were beginning to consolidate their positions around the White House Yeltsin was a virtual prisoner in the Kremlin, without being able to appear on television to rally his supporters.Yeltsin finally obtained agreement to deploy the army from Defence Minister Pavel Grachev after 11 hours of desperate phone calls and a personal meeting with the general during which Yeltsin undertook to take full responsibility for the outcome.Columns of armoured vehicles began pouring into the city centre taking up key positions outside the Defence Ministry and near the Kremlin.
    Russian government special forces troops finally re-captured the Ostankino television building after a night of fierce fighting during which 62 people were killed.Many of the wounded and dying were rushed to the Sklifosovskovo Institute, the city's premier centre for emergencies.
    Yeltsin supporters rallied around Red Square as the night wore on and were joined by government troops who were cheered on their arrival.The rally later moved on to the old town hall where it was met my pro-government special forces troops.At the Mayor's office on Tverskaya street pro-Yeltsin demonstrators held a vigil outside the office, determined to prevent it falling into the hands of hardline supporters.Others marched along Tverskaya street trying to rally support.
    In the early hours of Monday (October 4), the government issued a final warning to Khasbulatov, Rutskoi and their supporters to surrender.The ultimatum was apparently rejected and pro-Yeltsin troops began pounding the White House with tank and machine gun fire.As Yeltsin gave a live television address two hours after the start of the assault the fighting was still in progress.Yeltsin called on Muscovites to support the country's armed forces in putting down the rebellion."The armed mutiny is doomed.....Those who are waving red flags have once again covered Russia in blood" he said.
    Heavy T-72 tanks and APCs with heavy machine guns mounted in turrets were used in the assault on the White House.Shells smashed into the side of the tall riverside building and by midday smoke and flames poured from the shattered walls and windows of the upper floors.Gunfire echoed around the area as troops supported by armour pushed through burning barricades and approached the building.Two military transport helicopters circled overhead as the men fought their way inside.On streets nearby Muscovites stood alongside armoured cars watching the scenes in disbelief, seemingly oblivious of the danger.Even during the 1917 Bolshevik revolution and the turmoil of the subsequent civil war, Moscow had been spared such gunbattles.
    During the afternoon hundreds of hardliners began surrendering, some carrying white flags as they left the White House.Long lines of people, many with their hands behind their heads, filed out of the parliament building between two columns of soldiers.
    Khasbulatov, Rutskoi and other hardline leaders were driven off in buses to Moscow's Lefortovo prison after surrendering to Yeltsin's forces at the end of the dramatic 10-hour assault.
    Chernomyrdin, presiding over an emergency meeting of the Russian cabinet, said the government had done everything possible to avoid bloodshed until they had been forced to take military action.
    The oldest Russian newspaper, pro-communist 'Pravda', which had been suspended following Yeltsin's state of emergency declaration, did not obey the order.
    Staff decided to stay in the office and continue working on the next issue though they had no access to printing presses.
    During Monday night troops and police fought gun battles with snipers firing from positions in apartment blocks and offices, but these had died away well before 5 a.m.(0200 GMT) when the rigorously-enforced curfew imposed by Yeltsin ended.
    The White House continued to burn late into Monday night.
    Firefighters at the scene said they could not enter the building to extinguish the flames because it was feared some armed rebels were still in the building.
    Smoke still rose from the blackened building on Tuesday morning when firemen no longer fearing gunfire from any defenders began pouring water into the upper floors.The Moscow fire service said the 16th, 17th, 18th and 19th floors were completely burnt out, while others were very badly damaged.
    Tanks, armoured personnel carriers and heavily armed troops in bullet proof vests continued to surround the building and other key installations.
    With bodies still lying where they fell and the debris of battle lying in the street, Moscow citizens set out to look at the damage and compare notes on the events of the previous 48 hours.
    Some left icons and flowers beside the bodies.The death toll from the two days of fighting is reported to be over 170, with approximately 600 injured and over 800 detained.
    For forty-eight hours, Russia teetered on the verge of its second civil war this century as the armed insurrection sent a shock wave round the world.
    SHOTLIST: title : 1.COUP ATTEMPT (time CODE IN: 00.00.37) location: MOSCOW, RUSSIA date : OCTOBER 3, 4 & 5, 1993 sound : NATURAL/RUSSIAN duration: 45.
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