| Police, Kremlin security officers and plainclothes
officers forcefully broke up a peaceful Krasnoyarsk Governor Alexander
Lebed -- the gruff general who came in third in the 1996 presidential
elections and signed the peace accord that ended the 1994-96 war
in Chechnya -- died Sunday morning after a helicopter crash in
the south of his vast Siberian region.
As of Sunday evening, eight more people, including four journalists
and Lebed's deputy Nadezhda Kolba, were reported dead. Eleven
were badly injured. According to preliminary reports from the
crash site, the Mi-8 helicopter with 20 passengers and crew members
got tangled in power lines due to fog and poor visibility, Maxim
Gurevich, spokesman for the regional administration, said by telephone
from Krasnoyarsk.
Lebed, who turned 52 earlier this month, was traveling with
a delegation of regional officials and journalists to the opening
ceremony of a new downhill ski slope in the region's Yermakovskoye
district, built as part of a Krasnoyarsk program to promote tourism.
RTR television showed footage of the crumpled helicopter and
a dozen emergency workers sifting through the sun-drenched, snow-covered
crash site. The accident took place at 6:15 a.m. Moscow time some
110 kilometers southeast of Yermakovskoye, the town from which
the helicopter had taken off about 1 1/2 hours earlier.
Gurevich said 19 of the crash victims were delivered to the
local hospital. Six were already dead when they reached the hospital,
and two others died later. Lebed was flown to Abakan, the capital
of the neighboring republic of Khakassia, where his brother Alexei
is governor. It was not immediately clear whether Lebed died at
the hospital or en route.
President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov
joined Patriarch Alexy II and a slew of lawmakers in expressing
shock and sending their condolences. Putin sent telegrams to Lebed's
family and the regional administration, saying, "Alexander
Ivanovich will forever remain in our memory as an outstanding,
strong and courageous man -- a true soldier, who devoted his life
to serving his homeland." The president also ordered the
formation of a special government commission to investigate the
cause of the crash.
Emergency Situations Minister Sergei Shoigu, who is heading
the commission, reiterated in televised remarks the preliminary
version attributing the crash to bad weather conditions and a
resulting run-in with power lines. Shoigu was to fly to the crash
site Sunday evening.
Lebed's brother Alexei called the accident an "absurd chance
occurrence" and said on Ekho Moskvy radio that he did not
want to "artificially heighten tensions" with speculations
of foul play.
However, the late governor's forthright manner and tough-guy
tactics had earned him many enemies in the region and beyond,
prompting a number of politicians and experts to speak of possible
sabotage.
Former Kursk Governor Alexander Rutskoi, also a retired general,
called for a thorough investigation, while State Duma Deputy Alexei
Arbatov said that if the crash had not been caused by poor visibility
or technical malfunction, suspicions of "malicious intent"
inevitably came to mind.
"Lebed had long been at the epicenter of a battle between
various groups and interests in Krasnoyarsk, among them economic,
administrative, criminal and political," Arbatov told ORT
television. "And if the cause of the accident was something
other [than the current version], one can suspect malicious intent
was behind it."
In remarks reported by NTVRU.com, Arbatov also said that Lebed's
death could very well destabilize the Krasnoyarsk region, which
was hit with grave financial hardships this year and has been
in the grip of political turmoil throughout the governor's term,
which began in 1998.
The acting governor for the time being will be Lebed's first
deputy, Nikolai Ashlapov, who spoke Sunday at a joint press conference
with Krasnoyarsk legislative assembly Speaker Alexander Uss. According
to Gurevich, the two officials said that "all the region's
services, its economy and all its vital facilities are in working
order, and ther e is no panic or paralysis."
It was not clear Sunday where Lebed would be buried. Alexei
Lebed said he had spoken by telephone with Putin and voiced the
family's wish that the governor be buried at the Novodevichye
cemetery in Moscow. Interfax cited sources close to Alexander
Lebed as saying that he could be buried in his native city of
Novocherkassk in the southern Rostov region.
Gurevich said the site of the burial was the prerogative of
Lebed's family and the regional administration was not participating
in making the arrangements.
The general's body was to be delivered late Sunday to the city
of Krasnoyarsk, where a memorial ceremony and wake was scheduled
for Tuesday. Monday and Tuesday have been declared days of mourning
in Krasnoyarsk and Khakassia.
See also:
Russia probes Lebed death
crash. CNN Europe. Appril 29, 2002
the original
at
www.themoscowtimes.com
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