Word: interior
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...controls the notorious Black Berets? That question has intrigued Moscow correspondent James Carney for months as the Soviet government has frequently denied responsibility for the brutality of the paramilitary unit's actions against the Lithuanian independence movement. Last month the Soviet Interior Ministry granted Carney permission to interview Major Boleslav Makutinovich, who commands the Black Beret unit in Vilnius. But when Carney arrived earlier this month at the group's heavily fortified base, he found himself at the business end of an automatic rifle wielded by a sentry who told him to come back the next...
Protected by a sandbag bunker, Anatoli Seryak peers down the barrel of his rifle, scanning passing cars in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius for drive-by snipers. He is one of two men on forward sentry duty for OMON, a paramilitary unit of the Soviet Interior Ministry. Nearby, an armored personnel carrier stands guard in front of the unit's fortified headquarters. Two more sentries pace the roof. "If they try anything, there won't be a problem," says Seryak, 33, his trademark black beret tilted high on his forehead. "We're always ready to fight...
...berets." Ever since Soviet army paratroopers stormed the television tower in Vilnius in January, killing 15 unarmed civilian demonstrators, OMON has been waging a campaign of intimidation against the democratically elected leadership of the republic. The same is true in neighboring Latvia, where Black Berets raided the republic's interior ministry in Riga, leaving five people dead. In their zeal to enforce the Soviet constitution and the presidential decrees of Mikhail Gorbachev, OMON forces have subsequently carried out a series of surprise attacks, seizing buildings, ransacking customs posts and, on several occasions, shooting at people who got in their...
...riot control. Today there are 35 OMON units in the U.S.S.R., representing a total force of about 10,000 men, all of them answering to local authorities. The exceptions are the units in Lithuania and Latvia, which are supposedly commanded directly by Moscow as well as by the Soviet Interior Ministry forces stationed in the Baltics...
...executions near the village of Medininkai did not bear the stamp of a Black Beret operation; in previous assaults on customs posts, OMON units had been accused of roughing up people but never of killing anyone. Makutinovich, as well as Soviet Interior Minister Boris Pugo, quickly condemned the massacre and denied responsibility. After a preliminary investigation, a reform group within the Soviet army suggested that the KGB had done the actual killing, - albeit with the complicity of OMON commanders. The KGB denied involvement...