The Yankees gave the command: Fire!
Экспресс газета Express Gazeta
OCTOBER 3, 2003, 00:00
The fate of Russian parliament was decided in Washington
The plan for the storming of the Supreme Soviet was prepared by the entourage of Boris Yeltsin at the dictation of the CIA and President Clinton's inner circle. Jonah ANDRONOV, a former defender of the “White House” [From
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_House_(Moscow): The House of the Government of the Russian Federation … known in Russia in the 1990s as the Russian White House.” Since the article is from 2003, the name “White House” would have been understood by a reader at the time.], deputy to the Supreme Soviet and chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, told EG. He is the same person who negotiated with representatives of the American Embassy the night before the massacre, trying to prevent the massacre against Parliament.
On September 22, the second day after Yeltsin's decree dissolving the Supreme Soviet, Jonah Andronov was in his office in the parliament building.
That was when he received an unexpected visitor. He came accompanied by two employees of the U.S. Embassy in Moscow and introduced himself as Mark Zlotnik.
- The American put a business card under my nose - says Jonah Ionovich. -
The card said he was a member of the United States National Intelligence Council. The visitor was asking questions point-blank: how many guards were there at the White House, what Khasbulatov's fighters were armed with, how long they would be able to repel the assault. I was shocked by such impudence and, naturally, answered none of the questions. However, I don't think anyone knew the exact figures the American spy was interested in in those days.
“Prostitute, prostitute, prostitute...”
On the afternoon of October 3, several thousand parliamentary supporters marched from Kaluga Square along the Garden Ring Avenue to the "White House." They managed to crush the police barricades and break the blockade of the parliament building.
- People were cheering," Andronov recalls. - It was just then that Rutskoi appeared on the second-floor balcony. He almost threw a fit of hysteria, screaming for an occupation of the mayor's office and “Ostankino”. What was he thinking? Scoundrel, bastard! He set everyone up and failed in the idea himself. His trick was unexpected, because such a plan of action was not discussed with Khasbulatov or with the deputies. And who did he take as his assistant? Makashov! After the bloodshed in the TV center, it became clear that the denouement [Resolution of the plot, outcome] was only hours away.
At that moment there should have been more than a thousand people in the parliament building: after all, the list of people who gathered at the 11th extraordinary Congress of People's Deputies was 1100. But in fact, there were just over 700 people from the regions.
- It's a legend that deputies of the Supreme Council held the defense in the besieged building, - says Andronov. - Most of them quickly defected to Yeltsin's side. They were hired to the tune of 'Prostitute, prostitute, prostitute...' at intervals they were loudly shouting motions to defect to the President's side. The defectors were offered money, apartments, and positions. As a result, at the time of the storming there were only about a hundred deputies in the White House. The rest were volunteers, people from the street. As well as the staff of the Supreme Soviet: stenographers, cleaners, barmaid. In all, more than 900 people.
I did not want Russians to kill Russians by shedding the blood of innocent people, and so I suggested that Khasbulatov and Rutskoi try to persuade the U.S. ambassador to facilitate a truce between the parliament and the Kremlin.
- Is it true that you recognized one of the Alpha fighters as a disguised American embassy worker?
- No, that's a lie. The Americans did not shoot themselves," thinks Andronov. - But the tragic outcome was planned with their participation and Clinton's blessing.
Around 11pm on October 3, for the first time since the start of the standoff, there were no tight police cordons around the White House. Andronov, in his words, made his way to the U.S. embassy without obstacles. Andronov asked to see the ambassador's adviser, Luis Sel, whom he had contacted by telephone a few days earlier for humanitarian aid. Luis Sel then introduced himself as the second person at the embassy.
- The second person in the embassy is usually a member of the intelligence services," Andronov said. - I had no doubt that Sel was one of them: in my presence he telephoned Washington and made decisions without consulting the ambassador.
But Luis Sel replied to the deputy that he could only inform Yeltsin's entourage about Andronov's request. Two hours later, Sel reported that Acting Foreign Minister Vitaly Churkin would speak with Andronov. Twenty minutes later, Andronov heard that negotiations were out of the question. The President demanded that they lay down their arms and leave the building of the Supreme Soviet. It was 2 a.m. on October 4.
A secret operation of the CIA and the U.S. Congress
- Later I learnt that my attempts were useless because everything had been decided, and the plan of storming the Supreme Soviet had been discussed with the participation of Americans," Andronov says. - Then I got some documentary evidence. My friends in the US, where I worked as an international relations journalist for 10 years, sent me a photocopy of the transcript of the October 6 speech given by Strobe Talbott, US Ambassador-at-Large and Assistant Secretary of State, in a private meeting of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the US Congress.
This document shows that two weeks before the putsch, Yeltsin sent Foreign Minister Kozyrev to Washington with the instruction to inform the U.S. government about the dispersal of the Russian parliament. And all day on October 3 and the next morning on October 4 Talbot negotiated from Washington with Yeltsin's associates. They talked about firing tanks and machine guns into the White House and killing its defenders.
And Stephen Cohen, an American expert on Russia, said three months after the shooting of the Supreme Soviet, that in September '93 the U.S. government knew in advance what would happen in Moscow. He said literally the following: "Yeltsin was pursuing an extremist policy, and America was supporting him and perhaps even pushing him to do so." On the fifth day of the putsch, Kozyrev flew again to the U.S. for approval of the White House blockade. He was received by President Clinton and Secretary of State Christopher. And the New York Times shamelessly reported: "The American embassy in Moscow served as a liaison with the Russian government, and Ambassador Thomas Pickering was personally in contact with Yeltsin's subordinate forces.
Corpses were hidden in the suburbs of Moscow
According to official data, 150 people were killed in the October events. Andronov maintains that he saw piles of corpses at the White House with his own eyes.
- Jonah says: "Investigators were only allowed into the building on the fifth day. - This explains why they have not seen the hundreds of dead. But there are people who have tried to establish the truth. One of them is human rights activist Yevgeny Yurchenko, a Moscow mathematics teacher. Yurchenko and his assistants toured all the morgues, crematoriums, and cemeteries in Moscow and the Moscow region in the fall of '93. He maintains that staff members at the Arkhangelsk crematorium confirmed that trucks loaded with corpses in plastic bags had been arriving three nights in a row after the execution of Parliament. They estimated the number of the dead to be around 400. Another hundred were burned in the crematorium at Khovansky cemetery.
On March 29, 2000 Andronov attended a meeting of the Medical History Department of the Sechenov Moscow Medical Academy. On March 29, 2000 Andronov attended a meeting of the Sechenov Moscow Medical Academy's Department of Medical History. Professor Korostelev presided over the meeting. Report about activity of state medical services during September-October 1993 events in Moscow was heard. The report was delivered by Dr. Alexander Dalnov, an employee of the Academy's Rescue Center.
- Since October 5th 1993 Dalnov and his colleagues visited hospitals and morgues of the Ministries of Defense, Internal Affairs and State Security, - Andronov recollects. - As they were able to ascertain, the corpses of victims of the bloody events of the fall were not included in the official reports. He assured them that the official bulletins of the Moscow Health Department only listed the number of victims according to information from the city morgues. It was only a third of the true number of deaths. The authorities concealed the fact that quite a few of the victims were being taken to hospitals and cemeteries in Vidnoye and Mytishchi.
Olga Khodayeva
Specialist Commentary
Anatoly LAKTIONOV, Professor at the Institute of Psychology of the Russian Academy of Sciences:
- It is impossible to say what happened in the mass consciousness in those days: there was no sociological study.
Television coverage of the White House shootings had the same effect on people as a public execution does. Therefore, the majority preferred to turn off the TV and isolate themselves from what was happening.
But unconsciously, many Russians in those days lost respect for their homeland.
www.aa.com.tr
By Merve Aydoğan | 10.03.2022
