European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - October 31, 1990, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev at left discusses economic reforms with workers in the ural mountains Industrial Center of Sverdlovsk at right shoppers in Moscow queue to buy rationed potatoes. Perestroika continued from Page 13 have stayed even or declined. Yakovlev the Gorbachev aide said he fears Many people Quot live on another level Quot from the political reforms that have so excited some activists. The democratic system was supposed to fire the imagination and Confidence of Ordinary citizens but so far they Are proving warier and More conservative than the originators of perestroika expected. Quot Quot people Are tired Quot Yakovlev said. Quot i m afraid if there were elections today Many people just would t show  does the soviet Union stand a Good Chance of becoming a modern society or will it stumble yet perhaps into economic disaster or a new form of dictatorship to Sergei Stankevich the 36-year-old vice mayor of Moscow and an ardent reformer the biggest danger lies with violent impatient people on the left who cannot wait for Reform even though few of them May understand what democracy and the Market Economy really mean. Other soviets think old line communist conservatives Are More of a threat not because they will actively oppose perestroika but because they will so drag their feet on Reform As to exhaust the country a patience. Many worry that danger from either extreme could Lead to anything from anarchy to a civilian coup d eat to a military takeover. To Many observers including some Western diplomats the most Likely outcome is far less sensational a slow painful Road to a Market Economy pocked with problems but As inevitable As the Laws of Supply and demand. Everyone agrees time is of the essence. With every delay rumours spread resolve weakens and fear of anarchy mounts. Anarchists have a Long history in Russia and fear of chaos and the collapse of authority Are widespread. In a Light rain As Sunset nears 60,000 people March just outside red Square. They hold banners demanding the dismissal of Gorbachev s prime minister Nikolai Ryzhkova for economic incompetence. A woman whose sign reads Quot Down with soviet Power Quot says Reform must be speedy. Quot something must be done Quot she cries. Quot Ryzhkova can to Cope. In the United states if the government Ever faced anything like this it would have to commit . Behind her another group marches in ominous silence under the Black Flag of anarchists. Crime booming in Eastern Europe by George Jahn associated press the liberation of Eastern Europe has stripped police of their most potent weapon a the fear they instilled. Crime is booming. People Seldom tested police authority in the old Days. They knew every officer was empowered by the communist authorities to intimidate beat or arrest anyone. Crime existed but the streets were generally Safe for All except dissidents. When communist parties fell from Power the prestige and authority of police fell with them. Without the advantage of fear the forces of Law and order seem unequal to High tech criminals emboldened by the new climate of Freedom and the High profits of dishonesty. Quot when i started walking a beat a couple of years ago All i i. T0 d0 was look hard at any suspicious character Quot said Joska a hungarian police officer in Budapest in his late �20s Quot when i m off duty and walking around Here now i have he extra Sharp to make sure nobody picks my  i i a whose beat is fashionable Vaci Street would not give his full name. A hungarian police recorded a 38.8 percent increase in me during the first six months of 1990 compared with the same period last year. In Budapest 48,279 criminal cases Lre under investigation up 79.5 percent from the previous a year. Police in the predominantly Rural slovak Republic of Czechoslovakia reported a relatively modest 17 percent increase in crime but the growth rate was 52 percent among the urbanized czechs with muggings up 250 percent in the first half of the year. In Prague crime went up 138 percent. One reason Bulgaria began rationing some goods was that Black marketeers were hijacking 70 percent of the shipments bound for stores the newspaper Duma reported in september. Poland reported a 69 percent increase in crime during the first half of 1990 and a 12 percent higher murder rate a to 236 killings in a nation of 37 million. In Romania with a population of 23 million people 886 murders had been committed by the end of August nearly double the number in the first eight months of 1989. A both Street and White Collar crime have increased in the soviet Union where democratic change has been slowest. Embezzlement cases Are twice As numerous As last year said Vyacheslav i. Re Ryshkov of the Interior ministry and investigators found corruption in half the 160,000 state firms checked Between january and August. Sometimes Lack of respect leads to the humiliation of police. About 20 pickpockets routed polish officers at Warsaw a huge main Railroad station in August. They sprayed some with a paralysing Gas and attacked others with planks ripped from benches. One patrolman was hospitalized and police managed to arrest Only one person. Among recent victims of bulgarians Brazen pickpockets was a visiting High greek police official relieved of his Wallet in a Sofia department store. In Prague citizens conditioned by the image of police As the enemy ganged up on several pursuing officers when a pickpocket yelled Quot the police Are after  the suspect escaped. A people must realize that in a democracy the police Force functions As a protective Force and not an abuser of its Powers Quot Vladimir Niki a Prague criminologist told reporters. Quot it must not be treated As an  technology is another problem. Criminals often have better equipment than the police. Old soviet made Lada squad cars and Walkie talkies from the Early 1960s Are no match for Mercedes bows and the latest electronics. Kro Kodil the soviet satirical weekly devoted a cover Page to the unequal contest. It depicted policemen on bicycles armed with slingshots pursuing gangsters firing sub machine guns from a Mercedes. It. Col. Janos Bod Racka head of the criminal investigations unit in Budapest said police could not expect financial help while East european governments Are trying to modernize their economies. Quot if i gave you one of our radios you could t talk to someone 10 meters away Quot he said. Quot if one cop tries to warn another that the suspect is about to leave the Damn thing is so loud it scares the suspect away. A i have 20 cars for 100 detectives and most of them cannot do Over 120 Kilometres 70 Miles an hour. Western criminals can walk in Here and get away with  Low pay exacerbates the grievances of bad image and outdated equipment. Junior police officers in Warsaw Are paid the equivalent of about $115 a month the pay in Hungary is $150 and the rates elsewhere Are no better. With inflation rapidly outstripping wages corruption is growing. Bright Young people avoid the profession. In Warsaw where the police Force has 9,500 off cers and needs 4.000 More Only about 150 of this summer s 2,000 applicants met the requirements. Bod Racka said the Budapest Force of approximately 4.000 needs at least 500 More officers and even that would leave the City of 2 million understaffed by Western standards. Quot our strength is nearing an end but the criminals Are growing More and More Active a he said. Quot citizens have to realize that the quiet Days Are  homeless in Hungary by Celestine Bohlen new York times As evening Falls in Budapest dozens of people including families with children and grandparents make themselves at Home on blankets and cardboard along the corridors of the Keleti train station hanging out Damp towels opening tins of canned food getting ready for the night ahead. They Are Budapest a hardcore homeless whose numbers have surged As Hungary evolves into a capitalist society. The government estimates that there Are 20,000 hungarians mostly single men with nowhere to live a figure that some estimate has risen by More than 6,000 in the last few months. These numbers do not include the thousands from Romania some ethnic. Hungarians from Transylvania and other ethnic romanians who have come to Hungary in the last Yea with their families fleeing a worsening economic situation at Home. After workers threatened to strike because of an increasingly dangerous atmosphere the hungarian Railroad company said it would Clear the homeless out of the Keleti terminal in Budapest and other stations. But Hungary already burdened with rising inflation and unemployment has few resources to House the homeless or Cushion other shocks created by the transition to a Market Economy. In the years of communist dictatorship sleeping in Parks and other Public places As Well As begging were crimes of parasitism tha imprisonment live at the Addi registered. In rebellious peo families from families were relatives. But in Recer people have to it stations Park Eastern europ a backfires Lokner Chairl crisis Resolute sudden worse Quot since the quickly and of so recently the As firemen Quot a graduate who teaching Choc Quot the Previzi like these unde has left us Unpi  with a staff i $500,000, Loki system of Shel handle this Wir Are Only 1,500j free meals in of the homeless million can be the shelter Shadow of a by Plant is cons ii bleakest. One be provided a never enough two bathroom Ere punishable by i citizens were required to s at which they were such conditions were less Likely to leave cd they Felt alienated and 3 Likely to expel hostile ears More and More in up residence in Railroad id bus stops in both my soviet Union Imo Cracy is How Zoltan p of the newly appointed i task Force describes the in of social problems inges Are coming so committee has been set up Only Way we can operate is Lokner a sociology Itil a month ago was regime swept problems the carpet Quot he said. Quot this spared to get something six and a budget of about r is supposed to set up a is and soup kitchens to r s needy. At present there helter Beds and 300 daily id pest where at least half in the country of 10.5 Iund. A i Banya Street in the 3r factory and a coca cola red one of Budapest steal a Day is supposed to he red Cross but there is i go around residents say. I with four showers each Are available for a population that in Peak periods has soared to 400 people with the overflow sleeping in corridors and even outside the shelter s Back door. Now in the last Balmy Days of autumn when the Railroad stations and Park benches can still be used As refuges Only about 60 people Are staying in the shelter. At nights when the staff goes Home one Doorman watches the Gate while inside the residents set their own rules a men and women live together alcohol is freely consumed and Young men most of them graduates of state orphanages openly sniff glue out of plastic bags. Imre Meszaros has been living in the shelter Ever since he moved out of his apartment a year ago after his family broke up. He lost his Job and since then has had trouble getting started again because he has no address in his passport. Quot you apply for a Job and when they see you Are homeless they done to consider you a he said. Quot they done to even consider you to be  Hungary a homeless Are on the streets for Many reasons a number of them older than the transition last year to democracy and capitalism. Some people Are victims of Budapest a chronic housing shortage. Some Are alcoholics drifters or criminals who have surfaced from an underworld that also predates the free Market. Homelessness has been visible in Hungary for several years a symptom both of the failure of the old order and its growing tolerance for Public signs of disorder. But now the problem has taken on new dimensions magnified by the abrupt changes that Are shaking this society and its neighbors. Democratic reforms have taken the lid off the Issue of homelessness dismissed for decades in East european capitals As exclusively a product of capitalistic societies. Page 14 a a a the stars and stripes wednesday oct er31,1990 the stars and stripes a a a Page 15