Word: lithuanian
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...Lithuanians had been hoping for foreign intervention in their secession standoff with Moscow, but what they got last week was not what they had in mind. Winding up a summit in Paris, French President Francois Mitterrand and West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl urged Vilnius to resolve its crisis with Moscow "through the classic channels of dialogue." To get talks going, they suggested in a letter to Lithuanian President Vytautas Landsbergis, "it would be helpful if the effects of the decisions taken by your Parliament were suspended...
...could hardly fail to read it as support for President Mikhail Gorbachev's demands that the Baltic republic consent to an orderly secession by Moscow's rules. Landsbergis had already been stung by George Bush's decision not to impose economic sanctions on the Soviet Union -- a decision the Lithuanian leader likened to the appeasement of Hitler at the 1938 Munich conference. The comparison was farfetched, since Bush was counseling Lithuania to take a less confrontational course toward independence, not to surrender to a predatory totalitarian...
...could not help feeling a twinge of pity as Lithuanian Prime Minister Kazimiera Prunskiene and her entourage trudged through Oslo looking for help last week. The Norwegians offered their guests sympathy and goodwill, but oil and gas were another matter. Statoil, Norway's state-owned oil company, said sure, it would sell to Lithuania -- but for U.S. dollars, of which Lithuania has very...
...long as Moscow does not resort to a military assault, the West could continue to appeal for peace but otherwise let Gorbachev resolve the Lithuanian crisis in his own way. Washington is clearly tempted by this option. After consulting with visiting French President Francois Mitterrand in Florida the day after Moscow cut off oil to Lithuania, President Bush emerged saying that his staff still had not confirmed the "exact extent of any Soviet crackdown" and that he could not say when the U.S. "might do something" to retaliate...
...West's passive approach could also persuade the Lithuanians to back down, which is probably essential to a peaceful outcome. To an extent, the Western powers share Moscow's pique at the way Vilnius raced single-mindedly toward independence. Says Ilya Prizel, professor of Soviet studies at Johns Hopkins University: "They dove into the swimming pool without seeing if it held any water." That fancy dive was especially unfortunate given the fact that Gorbachev has made clear that the republic has the right to leave the U.S.S.R. as long as it follows the terms of a new secession law passed...