Word: junta
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Tension nonetheless built toward a climax Tuesday night. It was obvious that the junta could no longer prevail unless it began using deadly force, starting with an armed assault on Yeltsin's White House. All afternoon and evening, loudspeakers blared warnings that tanks were rolling toward the building and 60 planes filled with paratroopers were preparing for an airborne assault. Thousands of people worked through the night building barricades to deter an attack, supplemented by human chains of unarmed protesters. At the foot of the main staircase, an organizer with a megaphone called, "All courageous men who are willing...
Otherwise, nothing happened. During the daylight hours Tuesday, Ruslan Khasbulatov, first deputy chairman of the supreme soviet of the Russian Federation and a close Yeltsin adviser, was on the phone to KGB chief Kryuchkov and Defense Minister Yazov. He asked them point-blank if the junta planned to storm the White House. "Yazov did not deny it," he reported. Late Tuesday night and again Wednesday morning, Gennadi Burbulis, another Yeltsin aide, spoke twice more with Kryuchkov. Finally Kryuchkov promised, "You can sleep soundly." There would be no shoot...
...coup rapidly widened them. The air force stood aside altogether, refusing orders to participate. As for the army, the 10 tank crews that defected to Boris Yeltsin symbolized the greater number of soldiers who refused to countenance the violent overthrow of the government. Even troopers nominally supporting the junta were reluctant to fight...
Citizens poured into the streets, determined, methodical and -- the biggest change in a Russian experience suffused with a genius for official terror -- astonishingly unafraid. They defied the junta's curfew, built barricades around the Russian Parliament Building, where Boris Yeltsin had organized his resistance. They had absorbed something about people power from Prague, Berlin, even Vilnius. A crowd of Muscovites brought a column of armored personnel carriers (APCs) to a halt, stuffing rosebuds and wildflowers into gun barrels. A line of women stood ready to face down troops with a single banner: SOLDIERS: DON'T SHOOT MOTHERS AND SISTERS. Clearly...
...Bush had left one light on for the people, he had left another light on for their new masters. Because previous Soviet crackdowns had rarely failed, he was reluctant to bet against, much less condemn, the junta. Bush also needed to maintain civil relations in order to do business with a new regime later on. Moreover, American officials couldn't be sure that Gorbachev really wasn't sick...