31/07 VOX POPULI: Volatile weather reminds us that our time on Earth is fleeting

Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a daily column that runs on Page 1 of the vernacular Asahi Shimbun.

2011/08/02

From the old times, the gleaming white shafts of rain showers on a summer afternoon have been likened to "silver bamboos" or "silver arrows." The end of the "tsuyu" rainy season brought a brutal heat wave, but later the nation experienced severe thunderstorms and torrential rains. Below are some comments made during July.

Three senior high schools in Fukushima Prefecture formed a joint baseball team because some members of their respective teams had transferred to other schools. The joint team played in a prefectural tournament and lost its first game 8-1, managing to score their single run in the last inning.

Coach Yoshihiro Hattori, 52, told the players: "There may be tough times ahead, but you are all going to do fine. You've proved it by scoring that one run."

Kabuki actor Nakamura Kichiemon, 67, is to become a "living national treasure." Age enriches one as an artist but slows one down physically--a paradox Nakamura doesn't want to accept passively.

"My dream is to play Benkei in Kanjincho throughout the 25-day regular performance season at the age of 80," he said. "Unless you always aim higher, you keep sliding."

His dream is also the dream of all kabuki fans.

The Sanuma Police Station in Tome, Miyagi Prefecture, has distributed handmade yellow flags for senior citizens living in temporary housing to hang on their front doors when they need help.

"The flags aren't yellow ribbons of happiness, but we want to give the elderly the assurance that they are not alone," said Naoki Miyake, the station's district section chief.

Sociologist Chizuko Ueno, who recently retired from the University of Tokyo, noted in her final special lecture: "I'm glad that our society has so many really old members today. Even people who were once powerful and successful have to depend on someone else to live out their final years. It's a society that forces the powerful to imagine themselves becoming frail some day."

My heart ached when I read a prayer written on a strip of paper by a second-year girl student of an elementary school in Fukushima on the Tanabata Star Festival Day on July 7. The prayer was: "Please don't let me get cancer in the future." Kids should be making happy wishes to the stars. I pray their carefree days will return soon.

--The Asahi Shimbun, July 31

* * *

Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that takes up a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. Written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, the column provides useful perspectives on and insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.

31/07 天声人語

2011年7月31日（日）付

　夕立の雨脚は白く光り、古来「銀の竹」や「銀の矢」に見立てられてきた。梅雨明けの炎暑から一転し、雷鳴に驚き、豪雨への警戒が続く７月の言葉から▼転校などで野球部員が減った福島県の３高校が「相双連合」チームを組んで県大会に出た。初戦で１―８と敗れたが最後に得点して一矢を報いた。服部芳裕監督（５２）は「この先、苦しいことが待っているかもしれない。でも、お前らはできる。最後の１点がそれを証明した」▼歌舞伎の中村吉右衛門さん（６７）が人間国宝に。歳（とし）を重ね、精神が充実すれば体は衰える。そんな矛盾に抗（あらが）い、「８０歳で本公演の２５日間、勧進帳の弁慶を務めるのが夢。常に上を向き、高みを目指さねば落ちていく」。その夢は歌舞伎ファンの夢でもある▼困ったときは玄関に掲げて、と宮城県登米市の佐沼警察署が仮設住宅のお年寄りに手作りの黄色い旗を配った。「幸せの黄色いハンカチではないが、心の支えになりたい」と三宅直希・地域課長が言う▼東大を退職した社会学者上野千鶴子さんが特別（最終）講義。「超高齢化社会が来てよかったと思っている。かつて強者であった人も、最後には誰かに支えてもらわないと自分の生を全うできない。強者も、自分が弱者になる可能性を想像しなければならない社会だから」▼「しょう来、がんになりませんように」。七夕の短冊に福島の小２女児が書いた願いに胸が痛む。金銀砂子（すなご）の星々には、明るい願いこそ似合う。安らぐ日々が早く戻りますよう。

31/07 Trung Quốc: Bạo loạn liên tiếp ở Tân Cương

Chủ Nhật, 31/07/2011 15:13

(NLĐO)- Vào lúc 16 giờ 30 phút chiều 31-7 (giờ địa phương), bạo loạn gây tiếp tục tái diễn ở thành phố Kashgar thuộc khi tự trị Tân Cương sau khi xảy ra một vụ nổ lớn.

Chính quyền địa phương xác nhận cảnh sát đã bắn chết 4 kẻ tình nghi gây ra vụ nổ và bắt 4 người khác. Đồng thời, cảnh sát Tân Cương cũng đang ráo riết truy lùng 4 đối tượng đã lợi dụng sự hỗn loạn chạy trốn.

 

Theo tin ban đầu, vụ nổ chiều 31-7 làm 3 người thiệt mạng, trong đó có 1 cảnh sát, ngoài ra có 10 người khác bị thương.

 

Cảnh sát chống bạo động Tân Cương đã bắn chết 4 kẻ tỉnh nghi. Ảnh: AFP
 

Vụ việc trên xảy ra ngay sau khi cuộc bạo loạn đêm 30 rạng sáng 31-7 làm ít nhất 7 người thiệt mạng, 28 người bị thương cũng ở Kashgar.

 

Giới chức địa phương cho hay, lúc 23 giờ 45 phút đêm 30-7 (giờ địa phương), có 2 đối tượng bất ngờ đâm chết một tài xế để cướp xe tải, rồi lái xe này đâm vào những người trên đường. Sau đó, 2 kẻ này dùng dao chém một số khách bộ hành.

 

 

Cảnh sát chống bạo động ở khu tự trị Tân Cương- Trung Quốc (Ảnh Internet)

  
Ít nhất 6 nạn nhân đã thiệt mạng, một “sát thủ” đã chết tại chỗ và tên còn lại đã bị bắt. Ngoài ra, vụ bạo loạn còn làm khoảng 28 người bị thương.
 

Trước khi xảy ra vụ việc đã có 2 tiếng nổ lớn cùng thời điểm, lúc 22 giờ 30 phút. Vụ nổ đầu tiên phát ra từ chiếc xe tải nhỏ, trong khi vụ nổ thứ 2 tại một khu phố ẩm thực, nơi 2 tên côn đồ tấn công đâm chết tài xế xe tải.

  
Trước đó, ngày 18-7, cũng tại khu tự trị Tân Cương, lực lượng cảnh sát Trung Quốc đã nổ súng vào 14 đối tượng bạo loạn tấn công vào một đồn cảnh sát giết chết 4 người ở thành phố Hòa Điền.

Đăng Minh (Theo China Daily, Tân Hoa Xã)

30/07 天声人語

2011年7月30日（土）付

　美と醜、そして明と暗。同じ仲間なのに、蝶（ちょう）と蛾（が）の印象には天地の差がある。蛾を気の毒がるのも思い上がりだろう。蝶のように捕獲されず、疎まれるだけの身は幸せかもしれない。地味な昆虫にも一つ、華々しい過去がある▼５０年前のきょう、映画「モスラ」が公開された。核実験で死んだ南海の孤島。平穏を奪われた原住民の恨みを、島の守護神モスラが晴らす。蛾の姿をした「良い怪獣」が初めてなら、少数民族を絡めた物語も異色だった▼東宝の依頼で原作を練ったのは、中村真一郎、福永武彦、堀田善衛の文学者３人。「栄冠は君に輝く」の古関裕而（ゆうじ）が音楽を担当した。主人公の新聞記者をフランキー堺が演じたほか、香川京子、上原謙、志村喬と俳優も豪華版だ▼モスラを呼べる双子の小妖精（ザ・ピーナッツ）は島からさらわれ、東京で見せ物になる。白人興行師は口上で、現代の神秘と幻想を訴えた。「今は原子力の時代になりました。でも……」▼怪獣映画の祖「ゴジラ」は、核の恐怖がモチーフだった。米の水爆実験で日本漁船が被曝（ひばく）した年である。以来、モスラが銀幕を舞うまでの７年間に、原子力の平和利用が喧伝（けんでん）された。作中、妖精のテレパシーを遮る覆いも「原子炉に使う合成物質」だ▼広島と長崎、第五福竜丸の経験ゆえに、平和利用は甘く響いた。新聞は「原子の火」をはやし、反核運動も安全神話に切り込まない。かくて半世紀が過ぎた。福島への原発誘致が決まったのは、まさにモスラの年である。

30/07 Mỹ yêu cầu Triều Tiên cam kết giải trừ hạt nhân

30/07/2011 | 10:25:00

Từ khóa : Triều Tiên, Hạt nhân, Đàm phán sáu bên, Viện trợ

CỠ CHỮ A A A

Thứ trưởng Ngoại giao Triều Tiên Kim Kye-Gwan (trái) và ông Stephen Bosworth. (Nguồn: AFP/TTXVN)

Ngày 29/7, Mỹ đã kết thúc cuộc đàm phán hạt nhân với Cộng hòa dân chủ nhân dân Triều Tiên với thông điệp rằng quan hệ giữa hai bên sẽ tốt hơn nếu Bình Nhưỡng chứng tỏ cam kết chắc chắn về việc từ bỏ chương trình hạt nhân của mình.

Phát biểu sau cuộc hội đàm hai ngày tại New York với Thứ trưởng Ngoại giao Triều Tiên Kim Kye-Gwan, Đặc phái viên Mỹ về Triều Tiên, ông Stephen Bosworth cho biết: "Chúng tôi nhắc lại rằng con đường đang rộng mở cho Bình Nhưỡng hướng tới việc nối lại các cuộc đàm phán, cải thiện quan hệ với Washington và sự ổn định khu vực quy mô lớn hơn nếu Triều Tiên thể hiện qua các hành động cho thấy rằng nước này ủng hộ việc nối lại tiến trình đàm phán sáu bên như một đối tác tận tâm và có tính xây dựng."

Trong khi đó, trả lời các phóng viên, Thứ trưởng Kim Kye-Gwan cho biết "các cuộc đàm phán diễn ra mang tính xây dựng và thiết thực" và ông sẽ tiếp tục giữ liên lạc với ông Bosworth cũng như các nhà ngoại giao Mỹ. Hai bên không cho biết về lập trường đàm phán cũng như thời điểm diễn ra cuộc gặp tiếp theo.

Các cuộc đàm phán giữa ông Bosworth và phái đoàn Triều Tiên do Thứ trưởng Ngoại giao Kim Kye-Gwan dẫn đầu là những cuộc tiếp xúc cấp cao đầu tiên giữa hai nước kể từ khi ông Bosworth tới Bình Nhưỡng hồi tháng 12/2009.

Vào năm 2005, Triều Tiên đã đồng ý trên nguyên tắc với Mỹ, Trung Quốc, Hàn Quốc, Nhật Bản và Nga về việc từ bỏ chương trình hạt nhân để đổi lại viện trợ kinh tế và quan hệ tốt hơn.Tuy nhiên, đến tháng 12/2008, Triều Tiên đã rút khỏi cuộc đàm phán về vấn đề giải trừ hạt nhân với năm nước nói trên.

Cho đến nay, Washington vẫn duy trì quan điểm rằng Bình Nhưỡng phải có hành động từ bỏ vũ khí hạt nhân trước khi hai bên chấm dứt sáu thập kỷ căng thẳng.

Liên quan vấn đề này, Ngoại trưởng Mỹ Hillary Clinton nói rằng cuộc hội đàm vừa diễn ra là động thái thăm dò nhằm xác định liệu Bình Nhưỡng có sẵn sàng thực hiện thỏa thuận năm 2005 và có "những bước đi cụ thể và không thể đảo ngược hướng tới phi hạt nhân hóa" bán đảo Triều Tiên hay không./.

(TTXVN/Vietnam+)

30/07 Phát sóng phim về Amy Winehouse tại Việt Nam

30/07/2011 13:36

(TNO) Bộ phim tài liệu đặc biệt do kênh truyền hình MTV thực hiện để tưởng nhớ cuộc sống và âm nhạc của nữ ca sĩ Amy Winehouse, với tên gọi MTV Special: A tribute to Amy Winehouse, sẽ được phát sóng tại kênh MTV Việt Nam, cùng phụ đề tiếng Việt, vào lúc 21 giờ ngày 2.8 tới.

>> Amy Winehouse còn nhiều bản nhạc chưa từng công bố
>> Âm nhạc của Amy Winehouse trở lại mạnh mẽ
>> Hồi chuông cảnh báo cho những ngôi sao trẻ?
>> Sao thế giới xót thương Amy Winehouse
>> Ca sĩ Amy Winehouse đột tử ở tuổi 27

MTV Special: A tribute to Amy Winehouse tập hợp những hình ảnh, thông tin… chưa từng được công bố, trong các hoạt động âm nhạc và cuộc sống đời thường của Amy Winehouse, từ khi bắt đầu trở thành một hiện tượng của làng âm nhạc quốc tế vào giai đoạn năm 2003 - 2006, thời kỳ đỉnh cao năm 2008, và cho đến cả những sự kiện cuối cùng của Amy trước khi cô đột ngột ra đi ở tuổi 27 vào hôm 23.7 qua.

Nữ ca sĩ Amy Winehouse

Mặc dù âm nhạc của Amy Winehouse đã chinh phục được trái tim của hàng triệu khán giả hâm mộ trên toàn thế giới, hình ảnh đời sống cá nhân đầy bê bối của cô xuất hiện thường xuyên trên các phương tiện truyền thông. Tuy nhiên, ít ai biết và hiểu được cá tính, suy nghĩ và những góc khuất của cô ca sĩ - nhạc sĩ tài năng này.

Vì vậy, MTV đã quyết định công bố các tài liệu “độc nhất vô nhị” về Amy Winehouse thuộc kho lưu trữ độc quyền của mình như một cách để cùng khán giả quốc tế chia sẻ và tưởng nhớ sự ra đi của cô ca sĩ người Anh này.

Bên cạnh chương trình phát sóng đặc biệt vào lúc 21 giờ ngày 2.8, bộ phim sẽ được phát lại vào lúc: 7 giờ 30 ngày 3.8; 21 giờ ngày 4.8; và 7 giờ 30 ngày 5.8.

Vào lúc 21 giờ 30 ngày 8.8, MTV Việt Nam cũng sẽ phát sóng phục vụ khán giả trong nước chương trình âm nhạc hoành tráng MTV World Stage 2011, vừa diễn ra vào hôm 24.7 tại Malaysia, với sự góp mặt của các ban nhạc nổi tiếng thế giới: BEAST (Hàn Quốc), 30 seconds to Mars (Mỹ), Neon Trees (Mỹ), Pop Shuvit (Malaysia)...    Khán giả của chương trình MTV World Stage 2011 cổ vũ cho phần trình diễn của nhóm nhạc quốc tế 30 seconds to Mars

Hiền Nhi
(Ảnh: MTV Việt Nam cung cấp)

29/07 Syrian revolt still spontaneous and leaderless

View Photo Gallery —  Tens of thousands of people are taking part in the uprising against Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

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By Liz Sly, Published: July 29

BEIRUT — That ordinary Syrians have braved bullets and tanks to take to the streets for 18 consecutive weeks seeking the ouster of President Bashar al-Assad is an indicator of their movement’s resilience. Courage is one quality the protesters do not lack.

Just about every other ingredient that usually goes into building a revolution — organization, strategy or leadership — is still missing, however.

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The nationwide uprising that erupted spontaneously on the streets of Syrian cities remains a largely ad hoc affair, inspired by the revolts in Egypt and Tunisia, driven by anger and frustration with decades of dictatorship, but lacking a clear direction or structure beyond the unanimous demand that Assad should go.

“This is the purest people’s revolution there ever was,” said a Damascus-based activist who is affiliated with two of the groups engaged in encouraging protests. Leaders are nonexistent, he said, and they wouldn’t be welcomed. “Anyone who puts his head above sea level is taken down,” he said.

As the weeks turn to months with no sign that either side is prepared to give way, the question of how the protesters will translate their momentum into concrete steps to replace the regime — and who will do it — is gaining urgency. The United States and other world powers are increasinglydistancing themselves from Assad, while a growing number of think tanks and experts are becoming convinced that his regime will not survive.

At the same time, scattered incidents of sectarian violence in some protest flash points, such as the city of Homs, have focused concerns on the risk that the unrest in Syria could degenerate into chaos and civil war should the regime fall suddenly without a transition plan in place.

Officially, the United States is adopting a hands-off position, saying it is up to the Syrian people to determine their future. But behind closed doors, “a lot of people are obsessed with this issue,” said Andrew Tabler of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “As the regime degrades, the necessity of the opposition coming together grows.”

Efforts by exiled opponents of Assad to form a united front have faltered, in part because of an acute awareness that the Syrian street is driving the uprising. No one, least of all the Syrians, said a Western diplomat in Damascus, wants to see a repeat of the Iraq experience, in which exiled leaders with no street credibility are foisted upon those living inside the country.

Yet such is the severity of the crackdown that the real protagonists of this youthful revolt cannot gather to strategize, debate the way forward or select representatives. An attempt to link a conference of exiles in Istanbul with an assembly of domestic opponents in Damascus this month was abandoned because security forces surrounded the site and killed demonstrators the day before, making it too dangerous for participants to attend.

Youth activists inside Syria say that in any case they are too focused on organizing the protests while evading arrest to find time to address the future. Operating as tightly knit groups with names such as Trust Circle, the Syrian Creative Revolution and the Revolution of Syrian Youth, they communicate in code, know one another by fake names and exist largely on the Internet.

Countless such groups exist around the country, and while they say they do not compete with one another, neither do they coordinate. And even these groups acknowledge that they play only a minor role in fomenting protests, which are sustained for the most part at the local community level by the grievances of ordinary citizens, or by the convictions of people such as the young professional in Damascus who has participated every Friday since March in the demonstrations held in the central neighborhood of Midan.

Nobody tells him that there will be a demonstration, nobody encourages him to go. He just shows up with a group of friends, assuming there will be a demonstration because there always is.

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“I'm really not political. I'm just a guy going to the streets every Friday,” he said in an interview conducted over Skype, when asked which of the various protest groups he supports. He hasn’t heard of any of them. “I only want to end the injustice and see a free democracy,” said the man, who requested that his name not be used because he fears for his safety should he be identified.

There is a small community of established, mostly elderly dissidents who have long opposed the regime, who served time in prisonand who could yet emerge as potential leaders of a new Syria. They are keeping a low profile, mindful that this is not their revolution.

The two activists with the most name recognition inside the country are women: Razan Zeitouneh, a human rights lawyer who has often spoken out from hiding in Damascus on behalf of the Local Coordination Committees, the best known of the various groups opposing the regime, and Suhair Atassi, a veteran activist who leads the Syrian Revolution Coordination Union.

Even these groups are regarded with skepticism by many protesters, said Damascus- based activist Abu Adnan, who works with two groups. “They are fake groups, they exist only in the media,” he said. “People are suspicious of those who want to take personal advantage from the revolution.”

Indeed, most activists reject outright the notion that anyone should take charge of a revolt dedicated to the overthrow of the only form of leadership most Syrians have ever known.

“The people who are on the streets don’t want a leader,” said Dhia Aldeen Dugmosh, 25, a protest organizer who was detained twice and escaped to Beirut. “Not only the Syrian people, but all the Arab people, are fed up with having a leader. It would create dissent and fragmentation.”

Some say they realize they need to plan, including Rami Nakhle, a Beirut-based founder of the LCC, which has emerged as the most high-profile and influential opposition group primarily because it has effectively reached out to Arabic and Western media.

He has created what he calls a virtual parliament comprising representatives from Syria’s provinces, who meet online to debate how a transition might be managed. He is also reaching out to some of the exiled dissidents, including the academic Burhan Ghalioun, who is admired in part because he has asserted no political ambitions, to try to forge a united front.

But anointing leaders would be counterproductive for a revolt that has demonstrated a high degree of cohesiveness without formal guidance, he said.

“It’s a very important question for the international community but not for the Syrian people,” Nakhle said. “The international community wants to know who will take over, will they be Islamists and so on. We say, democracy will take care of that.”

Meltdown

For the first time, Boris Yeltsin's right-hand man tells the inside story of the coup that killed glasnost -- and changed the world.

BY GENNADY BURBULIS WITH MICHELE A. BERDY | JULY/AUGUST 2011

"That scum!" Boris Yeltsin fumed. "It's a coup. We can't let them get away with it."

It was the morning of Aug. 19, 1991, and the Russian president was standing at the door of his dacha in Arkhangelskoe, a compound of small country houses outside Moscow where the top Russian government officials lived. I had raced over from my own house nearby, after a friend called from Moscow, frantic and nearly hysterical, insisting that I turn on the radio. There had been a coup; Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev had been removed from power.

Five minutes later I was at Yeltsin's dacha, an unassuming two-story yellow brick building, where a small group of his closest associates soon gathered. In addition to me (at the time, his secretary of state), there was Ivan Silayev, the head of the Russian cabinet; Ruslan Khasbulatov, the acting chairman of the Supreme Soviet; Mikhail Poltoranin, the minister of press and mass information; Sergei Shakhrai, the state councilor; and Viktor Yaroshenko, the minister of foreign economic relations. Anatoly Sobchak, the mayor of Leningrad, and Yuri Luzhkov, the deputy mayor of Moscow, arrived not long after. Everyone crowded into Yeltsin's small living room.

---

Three Days in Foros 
In August 1991, Soviet hardlines held Mikhail Gorbachev captive in a last-ditch effort to save the Soviet empire. His foreign policy advisor tells the story.

For months we had half-expected something like this. By the summer of 1991, the Soviet Union was falling apart at the seams. The economy was imploding, the deficit was ballooning, hard currency and gold reserves had been decimated, and Gorbachev's stopgap reforms had only exacerbated the crisis. The notion of a "Soviet people," unified under the banner of socialism, was collapsing along with it. Legislatures in the republics, which had already demanded greater freedoms within the USSR, began calling for independence. By the spring of 1991, five republics -- Armenia, Estonia, Georgia, Latvia, and Lithuania -- had declared it officially. In Russia, democratic forces wanted an end to Soviet totalitarian rule. Our aim was not to allow the chaotic dissolution of the USSR, but to transform it into a confederation that would afford each republic considerable self-determination under its aegis.

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We had been moving in this direction for several years. Yeltsin and the other democratic candidates had been elected to the Russian parliament in 1990 with the goal of securing more legally protected rights and freedoms, as well as a market economy, and Yeltsin had been elected president of Russia in June 1991 with almost 60 percent of the vote. But while we were secure in our popular mandate, we were utterly powerless to deal with the greatest threat to Russia: economic collapse. More than 93 percent of the economy, by our estimation, was controlled by the Soviet government. Yeltsin and those of us in his circle of closest associates soon came to believe that unless we were to content ourselves with being nothing more than a ceremonial body, we had to change the legal and economic bases of the union itself.

Gorbachev and a small group of Soviet reformers had accepted this, too. We began to work together on a new union treaty that would transform the Soviet Union into a confederation of sovereign states with a limited central government. Yeltsin planned to sign the controversial pact on Aug. 20.

As we milled about Yeltsin's living room on the morning of Aug. 19, it was instantly clear to us that the coup was an eleventh-hour attempt to prevent the treaty from being signed the next day. But that was the only thing that was clear. Americans watching the events unfold live on CNN knew more about what was going on in Russia than we Russians did; the news anchors in Moscow simply read a formal statement issued by the coup plotters' hastily appointed "Emergency Committee." Information arrived at the dacha in bits and pieces, by phone from friends and colleagues in Moscow and around Russia. One friend called to say that all the news programs had been canceled, another to tell us that tanks and armored cars were approaching the city. We had no idea whether Gorbachev -- whose relationship with Yeltsin had been marked by suspicion -- was being held against his will or was in some way complicit with the plotters.

The simple fact of our continued freedom was inexplicable. Successful coups don't happen in stages; a more practiced group of plotters would have had all of us under lock and key the moment tanks and troops entered the capital city. We realized how vulnerable we were. The only lever we had was the office of the presidency and our legitimacy as the elected government of Russia. We quickly decided to draft a public appeal. Khasbulatov, Poltoranin, and I wrote on scraps of paper as the others called out phrases. Someone brought in an old typewriter, and Yeltsin's 31-year-old daughter Tatyana pecked out the address with one finger. Yeltsin's wife Naina and other daughter Lena hovered about as well, alternately worried for him and furious at the situation.

We stopped our work only when Yeltsin was on the phone with someone, and then we'd all listen to his side of the conversation. One of his first calls was to Gen. Pavel Grachev, the commander of airborne troops in the Soviet Army, whom Yeltsin had met a few weeks earlier on a ceremonial visit to review his soldiers. The two men had instantly formed a rapport. On the phone, Yeltsin told the general our position. "Can I count on your support?" he asked. "Comrade President," Grachev replied, "it will be hard for me, but I'll try to do whatever I can."

Yeltsin also called Kazakh leader Nursultan Nazarbayev and Ukrainian party chief Leonid Kravchuk, heads of the largest and most influential republics. The conversations were brief: "Did you hear?" "We heard." Nazarbayev said that he had to think about it. Kravchuk said he supported us, but had to convene the Presidium, Ukraine's highest legislature, before acting.

We finished our appeal by 9 a.m. In our statement, we called the actions of the Emergency Committee "a right-wing, reactionary, anti-constitutional coup d'état." We demanded that Gorbachev be allowed to appear in Moscow at a special session of the congress. We called on local Russian authorities to follow the laws and decrees of the Russian president, and we asked the military to refrain from participating in the coup and for citizens to take part in a general strike. We wrote that we were certain the world would condemn this unlawful action. The text finished, we began faxing it to the outside world.

With the appeal sent, we left the compound for the White House, the seat of the republican government and parliament in Moscow; the dacha was simply too vulnerable and difficult to defend. We headed into the city in separate cars and by different routes. I rode with Yeltsin and a security detail of two men. The road into the city was clear; on the way we even joked about whether to give Yeltsin a gun, but in the end he refused, saying, "That's what the security detail is for." When we arrived at the White House there were still not any police or tanks, but there were already a few clusters of supporters, foreign diplomats, and journalists who had heard about our appeal.

The White House was now ground zero of the resistance to the putschists. In short order we dispatched Andrei Kozyrev, the newly appointed Russian foreign minister, to various Western capitals with a personal letter from Yeltsin. Outside, people came from train stations and airports, from distant towns and cities, and joined Muscovites by the walls of the White House, where they began building barricades. At first they were rudimentary things, piled up out of whatever materials were at hand. But by evening our supporters were constructing more formidable emplacements out of trolley buses, cars, and construction materials, blocking off all approaches to the building.

On the afternoon of the first day, we were in Yeltsin's office discussing our plans when an aide rushed in and told us that some of the soldiers had gotten out of their tanks in front of the building to talk to people. Yeltsin jumped up and said, "I'm going out there."

I objected. "You can't do it," I told him. "It's an enormous risk. We have no idea what the putschists might be doing. It's too dangerous."

Yeltsin didn't listen to me. He told someone to grab him a copy of the appeal and headed out of the office. We all ran after him. Outside, to the horror of his security guards, he clambered onto a tank in front of the White House to read the appeal. Not sure what else to do, we all jumped up after him. The crowd had grown to about 30,000 people by then, and they filled the square with cheering. Out in the throng, camera shutters snapped. We had not yet won the war, but as the picture of Yeltsin on the tank swept across the world's front pages, we had at least won the battle of symbols.

Just before midnight, half a dozen Army tanks formally joined our side, maneuvering into place to defend the White House. Inside, we worked through the night, monitoring for troop movements in the city and maintaining contact with our allies and supporters throughout the country. Yeltsin, always fastidious, stayed in his suit and tie. Journalists, aides, and a few deputies took catnaps on couches. It was a long and uncertain night.

The initial statements from key Western leaders whose support we had sought were tepid and diplomatic; they all seemed to think the coup was a fait accompli. But support built over the second day thanks to Kozyrev, diplomats in Moscow, and Yeltsin himself, who tirelessly worked the phones. The Americans even offered to provide an escape route for Yeltsin and the government through the U.S. Embassy, located across the street from the White House. We were a little startled by the plan, which had never occurred to us. We thanked them, but declined the offer.

On the second night I sat awake in my office. We had learned from various informants that the putschists were planning to storm the White House at 3 a.m., dropping down on the roof by helicopter while ground troops cut through the crowd -- now numbering nearly 100,000 -- in front of the building. Tanks and personnel carriers had already taken up defensive positions throughout the city. Three young men had been killed trying to stop a column of tanks not far from the White House. There were reports that more tanks were on their way. At the insistence of his security detail, Yeltsin had reluctantly taken cover in the building's basement.

When the hour of the expected attack arrived, I picked up the phone. First I tried calling Gennady Yanayev, Gorbachev's vice president and the civilian leader of the coup, in the Kremlin, without any luck. Next I called Vladimir Kryuchkov, the chairman of the KGB, who our intelligence suggested was in charge of the tanks. I didn't want to show any sign of vulnerability, so when he answered I began forcefully: "Don't you see that you don't have a chance?" I said, and demanded that he call the troops back.

Kryuchkov denied it all. Nothing was happening, he insisted; people were just scaring us. Then he grew enraged. "Just who is going to pay to repair the streets that were pulled up to build barricades?" he shouted. He launched into a long tirade about us democrats, accusing us of supporting extremists and getting the crowd outside the White House drunk. It was unbelievable: It was the middle of the night, with tanks advancing on the White House and three young men already dead, and here was the man in charge of it all, berating me for my ideology and upbraiding me for "bringing in a bunch of rabble-rousers" to the White House. I was taken aback. I told him that those who sent in the troops were responsible for the deaths of the men and demanded again that he halt their advance.

Kryuchkov calmed down a bit and said he'd look into it, while still insisting that our information was all wrong. But the reports continued to come in, and I called him back around 5 a.m., demanding an answer. He told me that he had checked and that no armored vehicles were moving toward the White House.

This time he was telling the truth. The tanks had been halted -- not, however, because the putschists had come to their senses, but because too many commanders in the military and KGB had refused to carry out their orders. Among them was Grachev, the general Yeltsin had called on Aug. 19; the intelligence he provided us on the conspirators' plans and his ultimate refusal to carry out orders were among the determining factors in the coup's ultimate failure and our survival. The president could, in fact, count on him.

By 8 a.m. tanks began to leave the city. Gorbachev returned to Moscow that evening, but he didn't come home -- he arrived in another country. The center of power was now in the White House with Yeltsin, not in the Kremlin. There was no longer any chance of a new union treaty. Within weeks, the union government and Communist Party collapsed and the republics scattered.

BY GENNADY BURBULIS WITH MICHELE A. BERDY | JULY/AUGUST 2011

The failure of the August coup was both ironic and tragic. In taking the extraordinary measures they believed were necessary to hold the union together, the putschists ensured its destruction. Without the coup, the union would likely have endured, albeit in a form that might have eventually resembled the European Union more than the old Soviet Union. But the three-day standoff in Moscow exploded that possibility.

A gradual transformation of the Soviet Union would have been manageable; the instant collapse caused by the coup was disastrous. The coup was the political Chernobyl of the Soviet totalitarian empire. Like the meltdown of a faulty nuclear reactor, the failed putsch blew the country apart, scattering the radioactive remnants of the Soviet system throughout the country. Within a month, the communist elites at every level had new jobs in state administrations and legislatures. They filled the ministries and threw themselves into business. The very people who had fought against the sweeping political and economic reforms we desperately needed were now running the organizations, businesses, and branches of government that were supposed to carry them out.

But it wasn't just people who were scattered by the explosion. The body of an empire may collapse and the soul of its ideology may be cast aside, but its spirit lives on. In today's Russia it persists in the revival of the belief in Stalin as a great leader, in the manipulated nostalgia for the false stability and power of the Soviet period, in xenophobia and intolerance, in the lack of respect for civil and human rights, in rampant corruption, in the imperial manner and mindset of some of our leaders and many of our citizens.

This is the poisonous legacy of those three days in August 20 years ago. It is worth revisiting the story now, not least because the putsch's radioactive fallout has colored Russia's memory of the putsch itself. The coup attempt deprived us of the opportunity to evolve gradually, to gain practical experience, to root out the vestiges of imperial thinking and behavior. It spoiled the promise of a democratic Russia before it had even begun.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Gennady Burbulis is visible in profile at far right of photo.
Photo by Oleg Klimov