Thousands of Lithuanians in Rally for Independence

Tens of thousands of people took part in an independence rally Tuesday evening in a hillside park in central Vilnius, chanting and applauding as speakers demanded that the Kremlin grant freedom to Lithuania and its two neighboring Baltic republics.

“Do we want independence or not?” a local Communist Party official shouted into a microphone, speaking in Lithuanian.

“We want!” thousands shouted back. “We want!”

The rally, which drew an estimated 35,000 people, was held a day before demonstrations planned in Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia to mark the 50th anniversary of a pact between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany that led to the annexation of the Baltic states.

Speakers representing Sajudis, the independence movement, as well as the Communist Party denounced the 1939 pact and called on Moscow to restore independence to the Baltic republics.

The pact, which bears the names of its signers, Foreign Ministers Vyacheslav M. Molotov and Joachim von Ribbentrop, was signed Aug. 23, 1939, a week before Nazi Germany invaded Poland and ignited World War II. It contained a secret section that said the Soviet Union would not interfere with the invasion of Poland and that Germany would stand clear while the Red Army occupied independent Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.

“I was 8 years old when the Red Army occupied our land,” a man at the rally, Vitautis Kliches, 58, told a reporter. “I was a child, but I still remember the hostility my parents felt. The Soviet Union never needed good neighbors. It only needed more territory.”

A 35-year-old designer, Aurelia Merkana, said she and her friends often discuss what the future would be like if Lithuania were independent.

“We are living on hope,” she said.

A commission of the Soviet Congress of People’s Deputies is investigating the pact in Moscow and has said already that it should be declared null and void.

But the commission chairman, Alexander N. Yakovlev, who is a member of the Politburo, said that the parliaments of the Baltic states had voted to become part of the Soviet Union and that therefore, the pact did not affect the annexation.

Nonetheless, Juras Pozela, a Lithuanian Communist Party official who headed an investigating commission in Lithuania, told a news conference:

“We found that the vote to join the Soviet Union was itself illegal. This decision was clearly made without popular support. In fact, Soviet forces brought pressure to bear on the Lithuanian Parliament and the Communist Party. They dictated the decision to join the Soviet Union. Thus, the decision itself was illegal and should be declared null and void.”

What Lithuanians might do with the independence they seek is hotly debated here, on the streets and in meeting halls.

The local Communist Party believes it should maintain some relationship with the Soviet Communist Party but should write a new treaty concerning relations with Moscow.

Sajudis seeks total freedom from Moscow, something Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev has opposed.

“Gorbachev has tremendous authority here,” the local party’s ideological leader, Justas Paleckis, said. “That’s undeniable. But we no longer perceive his word as gospel. We must find our own way, and conduct our own policies as we see fit.”

It is a dramatic change in policy that many men and women in this city seem to be seeking. One indication of the hope for change is found on a glass-covered bulletin board on a street in the old, cobblestoned section of the city. Displayed on it are old photographs showing officials of the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany signing the contested 1939 pact.

The bulletin board is a meeting place for political activists who preach the cause of independence to a largely committed audience.

Lithuanians make up 60% of the city and 80% of the republic as a whole. Non-Lithuanians, probably not wishing to be caught in an argument, generally walk quickly past the board.

“A Lithuania without independence is a Lithuania without a future,” a speaker told passers-by Tuesday. “Moscow cannot hold us on a short leash any longer.”

Dozens of tables were set up around the city Tuesday, festooned with the yellow, green and red Lithuanian flag, which was outlawed until recently.

Activists at the tables collected signatures on petitions demanding that the Soviet Union “liquidate the consequences of the Soviet-German pact and withdraw its occupation army. . . .”

Independence activists say they have collected 1.3 million signatures among the republic’s 2.5 million eligible voters.

The United States has long supported the Baltic position that the states were attacked and forced to become part of the Soviet Union. The United States has never recognized the Soviet claim to the three republics.

A group of activists proudly displayed a letter from Sen. Donald W. Riegle Jr. (D-Mich.), which said that “we Americans are looking to the Baltic States with hope, admiration and expectation.”

“Your remarkable campaign to re-establish democracy, justice and self-determination in your homeland has won the admiration of people throughout the world,” it went on. “God bless Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.”

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