The Press : Yeltsin Under Fire by World’s Cartoonists

With Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin wrestling with one of the nastiest domestic crises of his rule--the battle to suppress Chechen independence--cartoonists have put him directly in their own version of gun sights, depicting Yeltsin as a leader who seems unable to command.

They portray him with a thorn in his foot, at best, and a bullet through his head, at worst. But the message of trenchant cartoonists from Asia, to Europe, to Moscow itself, is clear: Yeltsin took on a hornets’ nest when he sent troops and planes against the Muslim region. He is depicted as pushing a reluctant army to take up arms against a small foe, or summoning up the ghost of Josef Stalin, who created Greater Russia during his brutal reign.