TURMOIL IN SOVIET REPUBLICS : KREMLIN HEARS RISING VOICES OF NATIONALISM

1. Parliament in Baltic republic of Lithuania voted late last year to end the Communist Party’s monopoly on political power. In December, the republic’s Communist Party voted to break with the national party. Lithuania’s Parliament also adopted a law allowing for referendum on independence. During historic visit to Lithuania last week, Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev urged Lithuanians to stay in the Soviet Union and said he is willing to accept the existence of political parties that would compete with the Communist Party.

2. Latvia and Estonia, along with Lithuania, have best-organized nationalist groups: Lithuanian Sajudis movement, Latvian Popular Front, Estonian Popular Front. All three movements have managed to establish their ethnic languages as official. Each republic also has separate organization of ethnic Russians, all three with same title: Inter-Movement.

3. Moldavia--Several thousand people clashed with police in city of Kishinev in November. Also during November, 6,000 people demanded the release of 20 people arrested on Revolution Day. Protesters attacked the Interior Ministry in Kishinev with rocks and firebombs. About 130 people were injured. Earlier in year, Moldavian Popular Front won battle to have Moldavian declared republic’s official language. Measure was opposed by mostly Russian-speaking group called Unity.

4. Ukraine--Last month, several thousand people demonstrated in Kiev for an end to censorship and creation of a multi-party system. Earlier in year, a new movement called Rukh demanded religious freedom.

5. Georgia--Earlier this week, nationalists demanded Communist Party leadership come from Moscow and talk to them about how their republic can break away. Activists partially occupied Communist Party and government buildings on Sunday. Last November, Georgia reaffirmed its right under the national constitution to secede from Soviet Union.

6. Nagorno-Karabakh--Soviet Union declared state of emergency and sent army, navy and KGB units into disputed region as fighting between heavily armed Armenians and Azerbaijanis flared into open warfare. More than 50 reported killed and more than 150 injured in fighting. The mostly Armenian population of this enclave, located within Muslim Azerbaijan, wants control transferred to predominantly Christian Armenia.

7. Uzbekistan--Meskhetian Turks have been targeted by ethnic Uzbeks in ethnic unrest, with scores killed early last year.

8. Kazakhstan--Republic’s Parliament voted unanimously in November to urge Moscow to stop nuclear explosions at the Semipalatinsk test range in the northwest section of the republic. In Kazakhstan, which has more than 100 ethnic groups, another point of contention has been the privileges given to migrant workers.

9. Northern Siberia--Many activists of small ethnic groups began speaking publicly last year of their fears that their cultures will become extinct and that their homeland’s environment is threatened.