Yeltsin Authorizes Force Against Restive Chechens as War Looms
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MOSCOW — Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin authorized the use of force against the breakaway republic of Chechnya on Friday, instructing his government to use “all means at the state’s disposal” to restore order.
Russian soldiers are massed along the border of the tiny Caucasus Mountain republic, and Russian warplanes have been flying over Grozny, the capital.
Yeltsin’s presidential decree accused unspecified militias in Chechnya of “causing bloodshed, taking lives and violating the rights of Russian Federation citizens.”
He called for the use of “all means at the state’s disposal” to subdue these “illegal armed groups.” In Grozny, people braced for war.
Moscow has long portrayed the government of Chechen President Dzhokar M. Dudayev as a criminal regime and the forces loyal to him as gangsters and terrorists. It wants Dudayev out and refuses to recognize Chechen independence, which Dudayev declared in 1991.
Although Yeltsin’s decree did not say what “means” his government would use, the threat of force was clear.
The decree was a reversal of Yeltsin’s earlier statements that using force in Chechnya was out of the question.
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