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

DATE: SUNDAY, June 10, 1990                   TAG: 9006100023
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: MOSCOW                                LENGTH: Medium

BORDER CLOSED AS TOLL IN SOVIET STRIFE TOPS 100

Authorities closed the border between the Central Asian republics of Kirghizia and Uzbekistan to prevent the spread of ethnic violence that has killed more than 100 people, it was reported Saturday.

The Soviet Defense Ministry has sent thousands of troops to the region, but the situation in Uzbekistan and Kirghizia remained volatile, Tass said in a dispatch from the Kirghizian capital of Frunze.

Clashes between ethnic Kirghiz and Uzbeks - both Sunni Moslems - began June 2. At issue is the allocation of plots of land for housing in the densely populated, poverty-stricken region.

The unrest was the latest in a series of ethnic troubles confronting Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, whose reforms have allowed many Soviet minorities to express pent-up grievances.

Kirghizia's leaders declared Monday an official day of mourning for those killed, the government daily Izvestia reported Saturday.

Tass said the death toll from the week of ethnic violence had risen to 102. It quoted the Kirghizian Interior Ministry as saying 436 people had been wounded since Monday.

On Saturday morning, about 15,000 young Uzbeks armed with stones, sticks, knives and other weapons massed on the border at Andijan in Uzbekistan, but a cordon of troops kept them from crossing into Kirghizia, said Viktor Verbkin, deputy editor of Kirghizia's official news agency.

The Interior Ministry troops stretched along the entire border, and the crowd eventually dispersed, he said in a telephone interview.

Viktor Gusev, Uzbekistan's deputy interior minister, said in a telephone interview that Andijan was quiet later in the day.

An Interior Ministry spokesman in Moscow, Dmitri Selznov, said Saturday that under the state of emergency imposed in Uzbekistan, barricades and troops had been used to close the border between the Andijan and Osh regions.

The president of Uzbekistan declared the state of emergency Friday in border districts, including Andijan, because of what Tass called "a sharp aggravation of the situation" as residents tried to stage "mass disorders."

A state of emergency also was in effect in Osh, where troops patrolled the streets, and in Frunze, Kirghizia's capital.

That state of emergency was declared Thursday after clashes broke out in Frunze, where cars were destroyed and thousands of people surrounded Communist Party and government buildings.

Tass said 225 residences, 31 state buildings and 62 cars had been torched since the violence broke out.

by CNB