Baltic leaders try to avert wrath

Press, 30 August 1989, Page 11

Baltic leaders try to avert wrath

NZPA-Reuter Moscow Communist Party leaders in the Baltic republics pledged their support to Moscow to avert Kremlin wrath over a rising tide of nationalist feelings and demands for an end to Soviet rule.

Statements issued by the party leadership in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania supported a Central Committee declaration issued at the week-end in Moscow denouncing a' wave of “extremism” and “separatism” in the Baltic. National tensions have also been heightened by protest strikes by Russian workers in the south-west-ern republic of Moldavia over a bill giving official status to the Moldavian language, due to go before the republic’s Parliament.

The Central Committees of the Lithuanian and Estonian parties held emergency meetings yesterday to discuss their reaction to the Kremlin statement. Latvian party leaders met ahead of a similar plenum due today. An Estonian journalist, Tarmu Tammerk, said that the republic’s party chief, Vaino Valjas, had on

television pledged the party’s support to Moscow and criticised antiSoviet manifestations. But he also blamed conservative forces for provoking tensions and said the party would not abandon its support for autonomy and the promotion of the Estonian language, culture and heritage. “He did not mention the Popular Front or (the Russian-language group) Interdvizheniye by name, but it was clear that he was referring to both of them,” Tammerk said. A similar statement was read on Lithuanian television.

The official news agency Tass said the Latvian Buro meeting supported Moscow’s declaration as having “great significance for the activities of party organisations and the life of the republic.” Earlier, a Lithuanian party

official, Algis Zhukas, said the Kremlin leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, had interrupted his annual holiday to telephone the republic’s party leader, Algirdas Brazauskas. He gave no details. But another official said Mr Gorbachev had also telephoned Mr Brazauskas on Friday, a day before the Kremlin statement, apparently to warn him against allowing developments in Lithuania to go too far.

The Soviet news media have criticised Lithuania in advance of a Parliamentary session next week, expected to adopt a new law on Lithuanian citizenship, which the Russian minority says discriminates against them. Popular Front activists in the Baltic republics say the Moscow declaration may have been issued to prepare the ground for a gradual clampdown on free expression.