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Show Pae A10 THE DAILY HERALD, Provo, By SERGEI SHARGORODSKY Associated Press Writer After a new MOSCOW upsurge of violence in Chechnya, Russia and Chechen rebels have two war: choices to end their year-ol- d instead of compromise on self-rulindependence, or fight to the bitter, bloody end. Either option could mean still more months of bloodshed. The guerrillas have regrouped and appear for winter, and to be neither side appears willing to settle for anything but complete victory. Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin says there is no military I tah, Thursday, December 28, 1995 solution to the conflict that began Dec. II, 1994, when Russian troops marched into Chechnya to crush its Mews Analysis e well-equipp- drive for independence. Even as Russian troops were trying to pound the rebels into submission in some of the heaviest fighting in months. Chernomyrdin insisted Monday that his government wants to make peace. The Kremlin signed an agreement Dec. 8 with the government installed giving the over its control republic expanded internal affairs and the right to open representative offices abroad. But the rebels weren't involved in negotiating the agreement, and President Boris Yeltsin's government appears unwilling to resume negotiations that collapsed in October. Instead, Russia insisted on elecd tions Dec. 17 to legitimize its leader for the republic, Doku Zavgayev, ignoring rebel demands for Russian troops to withdraw before the vote. If talks w ith Russia resume, a key demand by the rebels is likely to be by its troops in Chechnya, hand-picke- new elections. The rebels so far won't accept either Zavgayev's government or under the control expanded self-rul- e of Moscow. That has led to some of the fiercest fighting in months. battle for Gudermes, A city, Chechnya's second-largekilled at least 600 Chechens, half of to civilians. According them of the d Chechen officials, city, which was spared in earlier fighting, is in ruins. Gudermes might be only the 10-d- ay st one-thir- beginning. ,.fl"Tfie situation in many areas again looks like a puff-pastr- y pie stuffed with gunpowder," the daily Komsomolkaya Pravda wrote Tuesday. The rebels appear to dominate the areas southeast of the Chechen capital of Grozny and are harassing Russian troops elsewhere. Russian authorities also seem to think the guerrillas can't sustain a prolonged war, and would sooner or later seek an honorable way out. such as accepting an amnesty. In order to undercut the authority of Dzhokar Dudayev, a former Soviet air force general who became president of Chechnya in 1991 and spearheaded its independence drive. the Russians installed their own' man; this spring. With its leader Zavgayev in place,. . Russia now claims to have a legiti-of instead mate negotiating partner Dudayev, making any talks vvithtfie, ! . ; rebels unnecessary. Russia could go after the rebels' with its full military might, but that . ;. wouldn't be easy. in the; rebels the talks During summer and fall, Moscow made mistake by letting the rebels; leave their hideouts in the southern, and spread through! mountains Now they're in a position:. Chechnya. . to fiuht. II ."II H Crime-hi- t leaders bite back By CALVIN WOODWARD Associated Press Writer " UJi.liiiJH.UIi. " "'" " """fS W'WPWW Sometimes WASHINGTON feel do really your pain. politicians The slain Senate aide, the beaten lawmaker, the purse snatchings. the governor with relatives who have been frightened, harassed, bludgeoned and shot are just a few examples of violence striking officials close to home. When that happens, and when it is too much to shrug off, the experience can set loose forces beyond the capabilities of ordinary victims. It has turned concerns into crusades. It has changed long-hel- d positions, no easy accomplishment with many politicians. Or, with mighty effort, anger and grief have been set aside so as not to interfere with the rational mind. "I probably would have killed him," former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo says of the man who twice harassed his daughter and burned her with a cigarette before getting away. "But that's a sin and I know it's a sin." Cuomo routinely vetoed reinstatement of the death penalty until his 1994 defeat. His successor, George Pataki, has brought it back. Cuomo's late father-in-lanever recovered from a severe beating, his wife's cousin in Italy was shot dead and his wife and son faced a thief who broke in through their window. To have used those episodes to e policies would guide have been wrong, Cuomo said. "You would be making law by the impulse of the moment." But sometimes the impulse is too strong, the emotions too raw or the incident too instructive. Four years ago, Tom Barnes, an aide to Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby, was shot in the head near his apartment, a dozen blocks from the Capitol. He died five 1 anti-crim- days later. "I don't understand I ' n a world where a young man can leave his home at 7:30 at night for a cup of coffee and never make it to a nearby grocery store," Shelby said then. He used the wrenching experience to push to restore the death penalty in the District of Columbia. His effort led to a referendum that failed. The most senior officials face iittle danger from street thugs. They enjoy security details, limousines and decent neighborhoods, and don't often find themselves in the wrong place at the jj ,'"a lo I CEQ3C3iID .1 wrong time. Recently it was Deputy Education Secretary Madeleine Kunin. a former Vermont governor, hav ing her purse snatched near a Washington commuter station on her way to work. Barbara In October. Sen. Mikulski was mugged in Baltimore. The wives of Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry and former Colorado Sen. Tim Wirth w ere robbed at gunpoint while leaving a Washington theater. Political biographies describe When the Mikulski as street-wise. attacker shoved the Maryland Democrat, 53, she shoved back, then fell, dislocating a finger. He got away. Occasionally, crime comes at politicians in an immobilizing way, piercing their convictions, freezing them like a deer caught by headlights. That's how Democratic Rep. Chet Edwards looked four years ago after a man sprayed gunfire in a Killeen, Texas, cafeteria, killing 23 people. Killeen and Waco, site of the Branch Davidian compound, are in his district. The cafeteria shooting happened on the ev e of a vote to ban assault-typ- e weapons. Edwards, an opponent of gun control and a believer in research pointing to its ineffectiveness, voted for (he ban. "Statistics." he said, "don't mean much to me now." UfSSI fe IHW ia ffl ITj ifi L k i isle |
