Military patrols watch for looters

Press, 19 December 1988, Page 10

Military patrols watch for looters

The Communist Party’s first secretary in Spitak, Norig Kritkorianizh, said about 15,000 of his city’s 25,000 people were killed in the quake. The Army newspaper, “Krasnaya Zvezda,” said military patrols wearing bullet-proof vests were guarding the streets of Leninakan at night to stave off marauding looters.

Soviet leaders and the press have said the rescue operation was slow, lacked direction and failed to use equipment efficiently. Television news showed the Soviet Prime Minister, Nikolai Ryzhkov, angrily accusing the Foreign Ministry of letting down foreign aid workers. The newspaper, “Selskaya Zhizn” (Rural Life), said the village of Dzhadzhu received no help for

six days — and then only after Mr Ryzhkov had met residents pleading for bread and coffins.

“Trud” reported that 40 criminal cases had been 'opened against looters and said criminal “guests” . had converged on the areas from other parts of the country. “Krasnaya Zvezda” said one man had been arrested after offering to divide loot with a soldier if he helped him break in to the savings bank he was guarding. Some crane operators, it said, were trying to extort money from residents whose relatives were missing under rubble. The paper said that in one devastated village local “nouveaux riches” had intercepted stoves the Army was distributing and were selling them at a tidy profit.

Tass and the Communist Party newspaper, “Pravda;” issued new warnings about activists in Armenia and Azerbaijan pressing rival claims to the territory of NagornoKarabakh. Tass said groups in Yerevan were wearing black shirts to mourn “prisoners” in the territory, populated mainly by Armenians but administered by Azerbaijan. Similar groups had sprung up in Azerbaijan, it said. “Pravda” reprinted an article from the Armenian Communist Party daily, “Kommunist,” describing two days of clashes in Armenian villages. last month with an unspecified death toll.

At least 60 people have died in 10 months of unrest in both republics and tens of thousands have fled their homes