he Battalion
ORLD & NATION
13
onday, March 19,1990
ree elections held in Latvia, Estonia
tin ess apj MOSCOW (AP) — Latvians and
Mated biM stonians vole< * their first free
. n ^B ec ti°ns in 50 years Sunday to
• republic parliaments that ac-
k limited,
-1
is
S.
Tally
ur
>ra
1370
d\ists hope will press for indepen
dence from the Soviet Union.
Crucial runoff elections in local
|nd republic races were also held in
ussia, Byelorussia and the Ukraine,
die Soviet Union’s Slavic heartland
nat makes up some 80 percent of its
Rrritory and two-thirds of its pop-
■lation.
| From Moscow to Vorkuta in
lorthern Russia, reformists con-
onted party and government offi-
als. A former political prisoner
§iced a KGB officer in a runoff in
loscow. No election results were ex-
ected before Monday.
In the two Baltic republics, an-
icxed by the Soviet Union in 1940,
ackers of independence hoped
jjk heir candidates would emerge victo-
1 nous, following the example of
[earby Lithuania.
Lithuania’s parliament was taken
ver by independence supporters in
lections in February and early
larch. It promptly declared the re-
ublic independent on March 11.
1?
3n
nt
Gorbachev
urges Lithuania
to return to fold
MOSCOW (AP) — Soviet mili
tary jets repeatedly flew over the
capital of Lithuania during mili
tary maneuvers Sunday, one day
before a Moscow deadline de
manding that the Baltic republic
renounce its declaration of inde
pendence.
At the same time, however, So
viet President Mikhail S. Gorba
chev struck a conciliatory tone,
saying he still planned to talk with
the Lithuanians about returning
to the Soviet fold. And he said
there had been no ultimatums.
“We will carry on the dia
logue,” Gorbachev told reporters
Sunday after voting in runoff
elections, which were held in Rus
sia and other parts of the Soviet
Union’s Slavic heartland.
Also Sunday, &0,000 to
100,000 Lithuanians demon
strated against independence at a
rally in Vilnius, the Lithuanian
capital. Soviet television said the
demonstration included calls for
civil disobedience and for the cre
ation of workers’ squads to secure
order and defend socialist prop
erty against the secessionist gov
ernment.
The size of the protest, shown
on television, damaged the Lithu
anian government’s claim that the
population fully supports seces
sion. Gorbachev has said he is
concerned for the rights of non
native residents and fears that
splitting the Soviet Union would
prompt hundreds of thousands
to migrate.
“I
I think people want to participate, because they
believe that things would change for the best, that these
are the first democratic elections. For the first time, we
have alternative candidates (for the republic and local
councils).”
—Ivan Petrov,
electoral committee chairman
The Soviet Congress declared the
move illegal and Soviet President
Mikhail S. Gorbachev gave the re
public three days to respond.
The deadline expires Monday,
but Gorbachev repeated his offer to
hold talks with the Lithuanians.
In Moscow, officials reported a 57
percent turnout after the polls
closed.
“I think people want to partici
pate, because they believe that things
would change for the best, that these
are the first democratic elections.
For the first time, we have alterna
tive candidates” for the republic and
local councils, Ivan Petrov, chairman
of the electoral committee at a poll
ing station in Moscow’s Kievsky dis
trict, said.
Latvia legalized alternative politi
cal parties several months ago, fol
lowing the lead of Lithuania. Estonia
has not removed the Communist
Party’s constitutional guarantee on
power, but a variety of political par
ties put forward candidates without
interference.
The Soviet Parliament legalized
multiple political parties for the en
tire country last Tuesday, but that
was too late for strong, republic
wide movements to form in the
heartland of Russia, Byelorussia and
the Ukraine.
In Latvia, average voter turnout
was 75 percent, the republic’s Electo
ral Commission said. The pro-inde
pendence Latvian People’s Front
nominated 185 candidates out of the
total 390 competing for the 201 par
liament seats.
Election officials said 69 percent
of the contenders there are Commu
nists, including some People’s Front
members, the official Soviet news
agency Tass said.
People Front’s spokeswoman
Anda Anspoka says the front hopes
to gain a two-thirds parliamentary
majority “to fight for indepen
dence.”
Thousands of Popular Front sup
porters rallied in the Latvian capital
of Riga Sunday, urging voters to
support their movement. At least
five other parties, including the
Green or environmental party, com
peted in the Latvian elections, Tass
said.
Estonian journalist Michael Taro
predicted the People’s Front would
win about 35 of the 105 seats in Esto
nia, with 15 or 20 more going to
other pro-independence groups.
Bush administration conflicts
raise defense budget questions
WASHINGTON (AP) — Disagreement inside the
Bush administration over the possibility that drastic
changes in the Soviet Union will be reversed is raising
new questions about the size of the U.S. defense budget.
While CIA Director William Webster testified earlier
this month the political changes in the Soviet Bloc are
irreversible. Defense Secretary Dick Cheney has main
tained that Moscow could reassume its former con
frontational pose.
Treasury Secretary Nicholas S. Brady said Sunday
that the administration is still sticking with Cheney’s
proposed $3.2 billion cut in inflation-adjusted defense
spending for fiscal 1991 beginning next Oct. 1.
“Three billion dollars is it; that’s what Secretary Che
ney says; that’s what it is,” Brady said on CBS-TV’s
“Face the Nation” program. “That’s our position at this
point in time.”
Webster’s testimony, however, is one indication of
disagreement within the administration, particularly
between Cheney and White House Budget Director
Richard Darman, over whether bigger defense cuts
might be acceptable.
A senior White House official who refused to allow
his name to be used was quoted by the New York Times
on Sunday as saying the “irreversibility” of changes in
the Soviet Union makes deeper military spending cuts
possible.
The newspaper quoted senior administration offi
cials as saying they were willing to acquiesce to total cuts
of $10 billion to $11 billion but adding that Cheney was
still fighting “the emerging consensus.”
A cut of $10 billion to $11 billion would produce a
fiscal 1991 defense budget of $296 billion to $297 bil
lion, roughly the same as this year, compared to the
$303 billion Pentagon spending plan that Bush sub
mitted to Congress in January.
Brady called the Times story inaccurate, saying, “I’ve
sat in all of these discussions, and there has been no talk
about a $10 billion cut.”
Heavy rainfall triggers two-day flood
ELBA, Ala. (AP) — Two days of
flooding across south Alabama left
at least 3,500 people homeless and
killed eight others by Sunday, and
one town remained a muddy pond a
day after its levee failed.
“I cannot begin to imagine every
thing that’s been lost or damaged,”
said U.S. Rep. Bill Dickinson after
taking a helicopter tour of Elba,
where 1,500 people were evacuated
after the Pea River levee ruptured
Saturday. Sixteen inches of rain had
fallen in the area in the two days be
fore the earthen barrier gave way.
About 45 miles downstream in
Geneva, emergency workers shored
up another levee and continued
evacuating residents, who started
leaving their homes Friday night.
Margaret Mixon, emergency
management director for Geneva
County, where about 450 people
had fled, said officials believed the
Geneva levee would hold. But she
added: “I guess Elba was pretty con
fident, too.”
Rivers throughout southern Ala
bama swelled to as much as 21 feet
above flood levels Sunday as the wa
ter from the nearly non-stop rains
drained toward the Gulf of Mexico.
State troopers said six people
drowned Friday night in Covington
County w'hen a car fell into a rain-
swollen creek where a bridge had
washed out, and two more people
died the same way Saturday night in
neighboring Escambia County.
About 200 people were forced to
leave their homes in Escambia.
In the Montgomery area, about
80 miles northwest of Elba, some
500 people had to be evacuated as
the muddy Alabama River rose to 19
feet above flood stage, with an even
higher crest expected Monday.
The Choctawhatchee River was 21
feet above flood stage in the south
east Alabama town of Newton, about
30 miles east of Elba, and sheriffs
deputies said some 500 people had
been evacuated since Friday in New
ton and surrounding Dale County.
Evacuations in Covington, Houston
and Dallas counties brought the total
number of evacutations to about
3,500.
Most people were staying with
friends or in motels and very few
were in shelters, said Lawrence Bow
den of the Alabama Emergency
Management Agency.
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