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TIME: Almanac 1990
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1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso
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time
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090489
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09048900.031
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1990-09-22
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WORLD, Page 20A Chain of Freedom
Vabadus! Vabadus! Vabadus! With interlocking hands held high,
Estonians joined together in lines four and six deep in Tallinn to
chant a single word: "Freedom!" The invocation was echoed last week
all along a human chain, formed by an estimated 2 million people,
that stretched from the Estonian capital of Tallinn across Latvia
and into neighboring Lithuania to end at Gediminas Tower in
Vilnius, some 400 miles from the starting point.
The protesters linked hands to mark the 50th anniversary of
the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact of 1939, which included secret
protocols that cleared the way for the annexation of the Baltics
by the U.S.S.R. during World War II. In a sharply worded
declaration, a coalition of popular-front leaders denounced the
Soviet occupation and demanded the right to "restore independent
statehood." The day before, a special commission of the Lithuanian
parliament had declared that the U.S.S.R.'s annexation of the
republic in 1940 was invalid, flatly contradicting Moscow's denial
that the protocols had any bearing on absorption of the Baltics.
The increasingly defiant tone of the nationalists has provoked
the ire of hard-liners in the Soviet leadership. In a harsh blast
read over national television, the Communist Party Central
Committee denounced the protests as an attempt "to incite the
peoples of the Baltic republics to secede from the Soviet Union."
The Central Committee criticized local party leaders for "playing
up to nationalist sentiments," and called for "resolute, urgent
measures to cleanse the Baltic republics of extremism and
destructive and harmful tendencies."
The statement did not urge any specific steps for bringing the
Baltic states into line, but its ominous tone came as a shock to
Soviet liberals. With Mikhail Gorbachev out of Moscow on vacation
last week, many wondered if the virulent anti-Baltic onslaught was
yet another maneuver by conservative forces to discredit the Soviet
leader's political reforms.