home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
TIME: Almanac 1990
/
1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso
/
time
/
091889
/
09188900.035
< prev
next >
Wrap
Text File
|
1990-09-17
|
2KB
|
30 lines
WORLD, Page 48SOVIET UNIONNightmare of The GeneralsA band of Azerbaijanis lashes out at Moscow's men
It could have been a scene from a revolution: three of the
Soviet Union's most powerful generals and their armed escort, clad
in brown battle dress, held hostage by a ring of demonstrators. At
the center of the tumult was Colonel General Yuri Shatalin,
commander of the Soviet Interior Ministry's security forces,
flanked by Major General Vladislav Safonov, head of the 4,500
troops trying to keep peace in the disputed mountain enclave of
Nagorno-Karabakh, and a third senior general. A hundred angry
Azerbaijani protesters, many of them refugees from Armenian areas,
had stormed into a conference room in the town of Shusha where the
officers were meeting local officials and refused to let them
leave. The generals decided that pointing their weapons would only
inflame the mob and chose to talk it out. The officers were held
for five hours and were released only after they agreed to transfer
two Azerbaijanis accused of sniping at Armenians to a prison in
Shusha.
The episode, which took place two weeks ago, has yet to be
mentioned in the Soviet press. The New York Times reported last
Friday that it had confirmed the details by telephone with
officials in the district. More than 100 people have died in
Nagorno-Karabakh since ethnic strife erupted there in early 1988.
And there is no end in sight: the Defense Ministry daily Krasnaya
Zvezda reported last week that the Armenian and Azerbaijani
communities were "on the brink of civil war" and troops stationed
in the region can no longer control the violent strikes and
demonstrations that occur almost daily.