OTHER RUSSIA INTENDS TO ORGANIZE THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY AND PROMISES NEW DISSENTER MARCHES
Other Russia leaders Garry Kasparov, Eduard Limonov, and Lev Ponomarev plan the National Assembly and condemn Grigori Yavlinsky for collaboration with the Kremlin.
Other Russia leaders convened a press conference yesterday. Garry Kasparov of the United Civil Front announced all over again that a proto-parliament was a must since the regime had lost legitimacy and the legislative branch of the government had been unable to recover from the crisis. Other Russia invited into the proto-parliament all parties and non-governmental organizations promoting their objectives by non-violent means permitted by the acting legislation. “The powers-that-be lacking legitimacy, we alone are left to offer legitimacy to the country,” Kasparov said.
Asked what prominent political parties were expected in the future National Assembly, Kasparov mentioned the Union of Right Forces and Yabloko. “Yabloko, not Grigori Yavlinsky,” he added. (According to Kasparov, Yavlinsky played out as an opposition leader.) Kasparov also invited small political parties regardless of their ideologies into the National Assembly. Conferences of liberal-democratic and left-wing forces were planned in Moscow on April 5 and St.Petersburg on April 6, Kasparov said.
When Eduard Limonov was given the mike, he spoke of Dissenter Marches. According to Limonov, these protests ceased to be the opposition’s principal weapon. Dissenter Marches will continue but only as a means of making the authorities nervous and preventing them from thinking that everything is fine and dandy. Other Russia leaders intend to make the authorities nervous between May 4 and 7.
As for the National Assembly, Limonov assumed that it would be attended by 500-600 delegates. Afraid of nasty surprises from the authorities, National Assembly organizers keep the site of the forum a secret.
Some journalists wanted to know how the list of democrats who met with US State Secretary Condolleezza Rice had been formed and how Yavlinsky and Vladimir Ryzhkov had made the list. Kasparov announced that Yavlinsky for one discussed with Rice the matters usually discussed by senior state officials (“… that’s what he is probably about to become”) and not leaders of parties of the opposition.
Kasparov assumed that Ryzhkov had made the list compiled by the Kremlin on Rice’s own insistence. As far as Kasparov was concerned, Rice wanted a talk with both the powers-that-be and genuine opposition.
Lyudmila Alekseyeva of the Moscow Helsinki Group said her Russian Civil Net intended to miss the National Assembly. Alekseyeva suspects that the political forces organizing the forum promote their own political rights first and foremost and not Russian citizens’ rights.
