When Igor Belyayev, a Moscow city council deputy who is visiting Chicago, thinks of home this week, he thinks of Tiananmen Square.
With demonstrators preparing to defy a ban Thursday and march in Moscow, Belyayev fears there will be the type of bloodshed that was seen in Beijing in June 1989.
”I`m afraid of tomorrow, that there might be clashes, like the Chinese had in the Tiananmen Square,” he said Wednesday, ”because as far as I know the Moscow citizens are determined to hold the demonstration.”
Still, because he is so far away and because of the unpredictability of the political situation, Belyayev thinks anything can happen, or as he put it ”everything might happen.”
”I don`t know the situation in Moscow now, ” said Belyayev, the equivalent of an alderman in the democratically elected Moscow Soviet. ”I`m just scared about it.”
Fueling those fears is his belief that President Mikhail Gorbachev could use civil unrest as an excuse to seize additional power.
”I think Gorbachev will do whatever to hold the power,” said Belyayev, who calls himself an independent liberal democrat and supports Boris Yeltsin, Gorbachev`s chief critic.
”And if there are clashes tomorrow in the streets, maybe even victims, this will give him the right to impose presidential rule over Moscow-what he desires very much, I think.”
Thursday`s demonstration in the capital had been planned as a rally to show support for Yeltsin, president of the Russian republic, who faces possible ouster during a special session of Russia`s legislature.
On Wednesday, fears of violence rose as armored personnel carriers were spotted at a military base not far from the Kremlin. When told of the armored vehicles during an interview at Chicago`s City Hall, Belyayev said, ”This is something that distresses me.”
Yelstin`s ouster is not certain in the legislature, Belyayev said. ”The ratio of those who are in favor of him and those who oppose Yelstin is something like a tie.”
Belyayev, who was elected to the city council last year, is visiting Chicago at the invitation of Ald. Edward Burke (14th) to learn more about Western-style city government. He arrived Monday and will stay through April 3, according to Burke`s office.
With the situation in Moscow seemingly so volatile, he wonders what he will return to.
”He may dissolve the Moscow city council,” Belyayev said, referring to Gorbachev.
He laughed, but said he was not entirely joking.
”It may happen,” he said.
