
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, March 23, 1990                   TAG: 9003232711
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

AVOID SHOWDOWN IN LITHUANIA

ONCE AGAIN the world waits, nervously. An assertive people want to take their destiny into their own hands; an irritated Kremlin rattles its saber. Will the age of glasnost revert to the era of brutal repression?

It is difficult to see how Mikhail Gorbachev could turn his back on all his painful gains in democratic reforms - changes essential to turning the Soviet economy back from the precipice. He has already said that force will not be used to settle the dispute over Lithuania's claims to independence.

Yet he rejects "negotiations," saying there can only be "discussions." He set a deadline for withdrawal of the independence declaration. And Soviet troops and aircraft have made movements that Lithuania - and many observers - see as distinctly threatening. Rightly, the White House called Moscow's actions efforts to intimidate.

These actions are also signs that Gorbachev feels himself pushed into a corner. Nationalism and/or ethnic animosities are bubbling up in the other two Baltic states and in Azerbaijan, Armenia, Moldavia and Soviet Georgia. Gorbachev has used troops to put down violence and civil disorder in Azerbaijan; he had little recourse, and in that case, force was employed with restraint.

It wasn't enough, however, to end the unrest. The Soviet Union seems to be crumbling at its edges, and Gorbachev can ill afford to let Lithuania or any other republic set an example by breaking away. Yet if he sends in tanks he is asking for civil war, and maybe not just in Lithuania.

That Baltic nation has an irrefutable moral as well as legal case for independence. Along with Estonia and Latvia, it was dragooned into the U.S.S.R. in 1940 after Hitler and Stalin secretly agreed on spheres of influence in Europe. In the spirit of glasnost, Soviet officials now acknowledge both the existence of that long-denied accord and its illegality. The Soviet constitution also specifically grants the option of secession to member republics. Yet Gorbachev, fearful of the consequences, patly spurns the notion of independence.

This seems to be one of those times when a showdown is best avoided. The hope is that both Gorbachev and President Landsbergis of Lithuania recognize that. There is too much posturing now and not enough give and take.

Whether it be for negotiation or discussion, let the two sides get to the table and begin talking. What they need - what the interests of peace and relative stability require - is an agreement on some kind of artful language that fuzzes over the issues, offers the prospect of continued gradual change and avoids a confrontation that everyone will regret.

by CNB