8A
Thursday, April 25, 1996
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Death of separatist leader may hinder war in Chechnya
The Associated Press
MOSCOW — The death of separatist leader Dzhokhar Dudayev shuffles the deck in Chechnya. Only reckless gamblers would bet on who'll be dealt the winning hand.
Knight-Ridder Tribune
At stake are President Boris Yeltsin's re-election and a war that has claimed 30,000 lives.
The rebels say Dudayev was killed in a Russian airstrike during the weekend and buried in a secret location late Tuesday. They vowed revenge and continuation of the war.
Yeltsin says the June presidential vote hinges on the war he ignited by sending troops into Chechyna to end its three years of self-declared independence. Dudayev's death comes when polls say Yeltsin is even with his challenger Gennady Zvuganov.
"With or without Dudaye, we will wind up everything in Chechnya peacefully," Yeltsin insisted during a campaign stop in Russia.
The question is whether Dudayev's death will make it easier for Russia to reach peace with the separatists or to defeat them on the battlefield.
"No one can predict how things will go in Chechnya," Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze, a former Soviet foreign minister, said yesterday.
Among a host of post-Dudayev scenarios:
A new Chechen leader willing to talk peace emerges. The war ends. Yeltsin wins.
■ The rebels disintegrate amid internal power struggles. The Russian army wins. Yeltsin wins.
In death, Dudayev becomes a potent symbol of independence. The resistance to Kremlin rule stiffens, the war drags on. Yeltsin loses.
Revenge-minded field commanders carry the war deep into Russia, staging terrorist acts during the June election. Yeltsin loses.
The Kremlin makes a serious stab at negotiations but can't find anyone in the Chechen camp to make a peace pact stick. Yeltsin loses.
The new separatist leader is Zemlikhan Yandarbiye, who was Dudayev's civilian vice president before Chechyna's separatist gov-
ermment was replaced in Moscow-imposed elections four months ago.
"The tragic death of Chechnya's first president hasn't broken the Chechen people," Yandarbijev told the ITAR-Tass news agency yesterday. "They are ready to continue the fight for independence."
Although some Russian officials say the Kremlin might work with Yandarbivey, others regard him as more hard-line than Dudavey.
Several analysts said Yandarbiyev would serve as a transitional leader for the separatists and predicted that one of the rebel field commanders would eventually serve as Dudayev's successor.
Fires near Chernobyl increase radiation and scare Ukrainians
The Associated Press
KIEV, Ukraine — Radiation levels around the Chernobyl nuclear plant rose as much as tenfold after fires swept through nearby villages, but officials yesterday played down the potential health hazards.
Yesterday, forest fires caused by unseasonably hot, dry weather engulfed areas of neighboring Belarus also contaminated by the 1988 blast.
After monitoring radiation levels in the exclusion zone, officials reported a 10 percent increase in the radiation from cesium.
"But it's impossible to talk of an increase in the average dose to people, because the radiation background would have had to increase 1,000 times to reach what we call dangerous limits," said Yuri Ivanov, head of the radiation monitoring center for the
Environmentalists expressed skepticism at the measurements, and criticized the Ukrainian government for not ordering tests in populated areas outside the 18-mile exclusion zone around the plant.
The fires on Tuesday, six miles northwest of the plant, revived Ukrainians' fears about contamination from Chernobyl, where a reactor exploded and caught fire in the world's worst commercial nuclear disaster 10 years ago tomorrow.
Environmentalists said the government should also have tested radiation levels outside the zone.
exclusion zone.
"You have to be very careful with their figures," said Yevhen Kobetsky, a nuclear physicist who works with the Ukrainian environmental group Union to Save Chemoby.
He was particularly concerned about the radiation doses received by the firefighters and the picnicking families.
One person is suspected of dropping a cigarette that started the fires, which spread quickly
among abandoned homes in one of the most heavily contaminated areas.
Some experts said the health danger from the fire was minimal, because the leftover radioactive cesium was mostly in the soil, and would be unlikely to be wafted up by smoke from burning trees and buildings. But others insist that increase in radiation is a threat.
"Any fire that size is certain to affect radiation levels," said Oleh Bykov, a representative for Ukraine's civilian defense service.
In 1986, authorities did not initially report the Chernobyl accident, which caused at least 32 deaths and exposed 5 million people to radiation.
"I don't believe the official information that everything is fine here," said Ala Kulishova, 32, a salesperson in Kiev, 70 miles to the south. "Of course that's what they'll say. But I feel this danger everywhere."
The West has long pushed for Ukraine to close Chernobyl, but the energy-starved former Soviet republic says it needs the electricity and jobs the plant provides. Two of the plant's four reactors still are operating.
The Group of Seven industrialized nations has pledged $3.1 billion to help shut the plant, but has not agreed on a timetable for dispensing the funds.
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