Sakharov Chides Gorbachev
Soviet dissident Andrei D. Sakharov sent a letter to Mikhail S. Gorbachev criticizing him for his handling of recent ethnic unrest in the Soviet Union, according to a human rights group here.
The Soviet authorities’ response to ethnic grievances proves that “glasnost appears to be crushed when it is most needed,” wrote the Nobel Prize-winning physicist. The letter was written in April but not publicized until now, according to the Amsterdam-based Bukovsky Foundation, which distributed excerpts of the letter translated into English. Sakharov’s letter referred to unrest in Azerbaijan’s Nagorno-Karabakh region, where ethnic Armenians clashed with Azerbaijanis in February.
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