Word: baltics
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...decades the Soviet people accepted the situation in silence. But glasnost has made them less afraid to speak out. Citizens worried about the environment are demonstrating by the thousands and contributing to political unrest in the Baltic States. Elsewhere, budding environmental groups have even sponsored candidates for city elections...
...power plants. In April 10,000 people demonstrated against the conditions in Nizhni Tagil. Protesters in Priozyorsk were successful in closing a major paper plant that had been dumping waste into Lake Ladoga, the source of drinking water for 6 million people. Many of the political demonstrations in the Baltic States are linked to the environment. Said Marshall Goldman, associate director of the Russian Research Center at Harvard University: "In almost every republic in which there is a movement for independence or the assertion of political rights, it has been led by an environmental movement...
This ethnic clash has become Gorbachev's most explosive domestic issue because other restive Soviet republics, from Estonia on the Baltic to Georgia in the Caucasus, are watching how he deals with the fiercely nationalistic Armenians. The Armenians are likely to have taken note of the emotion in his voice at Kennedy Airport when he spoke of the urgency of helping victims of the earthquake. This tragedy thus gives Gorbachev an opportunity to present himself as a caring leader who seeks to heal rather than divide...
...Gorbachev apparently had second thoughts about carrying the campaign against the Estonians any further. In his 70-minute opening address, he dropped a prepared passage that would have heaped more criticism on the Baltic republic. Instead, he acknowledged that some provisions of the draft laws had been "formulated imprecisely" and proposed the establishment of a commission to "scrutinize point after point" the separation of powers between the federal government and the republics...
...change of signal came too late to prevent most of the session's 37 speakers from sniping at the Baltic state. While Estonian President Arnold Ruutel watched impassively from the dais, his republic was accused of "creating a hotbed of tensions." In his own presentation, Ruutel repeated demands that Estonians be allowed to decide what form of parliament they wanted. There should be no place in the new laws, said Ruutel, for "formalistic texts that do not take into account the specific differences and demands" of each region...