Word: baltic
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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VILNIUS, U.S.S.R.--The Kremlin promised today not to attack the Lithuanian parliament but wary Baltic residents said they feared a further crackdown while the world watches the Persian Gulf...
...Paris, the European Community threatened to cut off all Soviet aid, including emergency food supplies, if Moscow continues repressing the Baltic republics...
Elsewhere, the outlook was far from hopeful. General Mikhail Moiseyev, Chief of the Soviet General Staff, pledged last week that "not a single additional soldier" would be sent to the breakaway Baltic states, but that did not stop tensions from mounting in the region. Interior Ministry special forces seized Latvia's largest printing plant and brought publication of major newspapers in the republic to a virtual halt. Moscow officials said the raid in Riga was to recover Communist Party property, which was allegedly seized illegally by the republican government. In neighboring Lithuania, Interior Ministry troops took control of party headquarters...
...Lithuanian port of Klaipeda, a hotbed of tension between ethnic Russians and Lithuanians, sent soldiers toting submachine guns to patrol city streets and gave them authority to check documents and arrest civilians. This escalation gave weight to rumors that Moscow planned a military crackdown on the rebellious Baltic republics and prompted a protest from the Lithuanian government to Gorbachev that the actions of the Soviet army brutally violate the human rights of ((Lithuanian)) citizens...
Gorbachev, frustrated over the refusal of many republics to accept his draft of a new treaty of union, asserted that he would submit it to a popular referendum within each republic; the Baltic republics promptly declared that they would not let such a referendum be held on their turf. Most ominous, Gorbachev announced that he might introduce a "state of emergency or presidential rule" in areas where the "situation becomes especially tense and there is a serious threat to the state and to people's well-being." That might have been the trigger for Shevardnadze's resignation...