Word: ponomaryov
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Faced with a mushrooming crisis, Yeltsin last week called for a new effort to stem crime. Turning to the well-tested tactic of seeking a scapegoat, he fired Moscow police chief Vladimir Pankratov and city chief prosecutor Gennadi Ponomaryov for failing to "provide proper organization" to deal with "grave crimes." He chaired a meeting of the Security Council, which issued a stern warning: the continued activities of organized crime were "discrediting state powers" and "threatening the security of Russia...
...purge touched off an unseemly political tug-of-war between the Kremlin and Moscow's city hall. Sergei Gerasimov, the prosecutor appointed to take Ponomaryov's place, quickly resigned. In Parliament Yeltsin's opponents pushed through a lopsided vote of no confidence in Interior Minister Victor Yerin, who is in effect the national chief of police. Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, once a strong Yeltsin ally, fumed that only "criminals and bandits" would be in favor of firing senior police officials. Then he threatened to resign...
...Ponomaryov, the fired prosecutor, says those who use the killing to demonstrate that crime is out of hand are aiming for a political payoff. "Some dishonest leaders use it to their advantage," he says, "claiming the reforms are going nowhere because of crime." He argues that compared with the rest of the world, "the situation in Russia has not reached levels that warrant extraordinary measures...
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