Word: fronts
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...secret protocol that called for the Soviet takeover of the Baltics. But Baltic deputies serving on a commission to study the pact complain that Moscow representatives want to stop short of drawing the necessary conclusions about the legal standing of their republics in the union. Says Estonian Popular Front leader Rein Veidemann: "We must solve the Baltic question and recognize the fact that we were first occupied and then annexed." But what would belated recognition of that historical reality actually accomplish? "Nothing," says Latvian Ideology Secretary Kezbers flatly. "The marriage between the Soviet Union and the Baltic states...
...Moscow to put more Estonians in the republic's interior-ministry forces and border guards. There have been calls to restore the tradition of local military units like the Sixteenth Lithuanian Rifle Division, and more radical proposals to create a zone of peace in the Baltics. Says Latvian Popular Front leader Dainis Ivans: "We should decide ourselves how many military bases we need on our territory and move step by step toward making Latvia a military-free zone...
...popular saying in this northern Baltic state puts it: Think nine times and speak on the tenth. Estonia's major contribution to the Baltic reform movement has primarily been new ideas, whether blueprints for popular-front movements or drafts of laws regulating economic "cost accounting" at the local level. But when Estonians do speak, they get a hearing. Last November the Estonian supreme soviet passed amendments to the local constitution, investing ultimate legal authority with the republic rather than with Moscow. That act of defiance brought on a finger-wagging lecture from Gorbachev. But the tiny Baltic state held...
Valjas has astutely chosen compromise rather than confrontation with the powerful Estonian Popular Front. He has even turned over the key state- planning portfolio to economist Edgar Savisaar, a member of the movement's executive council. During elections last March, the Popular Front did not run its own candidates against party regulars. Valjas garnered 90% of the votes in his district, but a poll for a Finnish newspaper taken just after the balloting showed that if true multiparty elections had been held, the Communists would have placed a distant second to the Estonian Popular Front...
...their descendants in order to convene an Estonian National Congress to discuss the fate of the nation. Organizers deny that they are creating a rival parliamentary body, but the fact that some 100,000 people have responded has caused concern within the ranks of the party and the Popular Front, and deepened the mistrust of the Russian minority...