Word: baltic
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...debate in its wider dimensions was not so clear-cut. Other key issues gripping the West and Japan included Soviet compliance with arms reductions, the security of Eastern Europe's newborn democracies, and the plight of the Baltic republics. Overarching those quandaries was the question of who in the U.S.S.R. was now the worthier negotiating partner: a diminished Gorbachev or leaders of the newly muscular, more reform-driven republics -- especially the Russian president and hero of the hour, Boris Yeltsin...
With technical advice and encouragement from the West, the republics may yet harness their new spirit of nationalism and develop a true market system. In that event, Bush's judgment on the prospects for Baltic independence may turn out to have a broader application. Asked if the Kremlin had seen the light on the Baltics, the President replied, "Well, I think some of the people who saw the darkness are no longer around...
...slogan of demokratizatsiya, he created conditions around the country for popular local leaders, frequently outspoken nationalists, to defeat Moscow's minions. As a result of glasnost, the Kremlin faced up to some of the uglier truths of Soviet history, including the illegality of Stalin's annexation of the three Baltic republics...
...Tallinn, Riga and Vilnius, nationalists indignantly rejected the notion that they should play by the Kremlin's rigged rules. But in Moscow, Gorbachev's apparent willingness to accept even the idea of Baltic freedom further antagonized the hard-liners and set in motion the chain of events that led to last week's coup d'etat...
Gorbachev met frequently with Boris Pugo, who had become Interior Minister on Dec. 2, 1990. In these conversations Pugo was careful to steer clear of the fundamental issue of whether the Baltic republics were entitled to independence. Instead he stayed within the bounds of his responsibility for law and order. With the Baltics acting as though they were already sovereign states, he said, the situation was "spinning out of control"; if the Baltics succeeded in defying Moscow, other republics would be encouraged to do the same...