Restore Order Swiftly, Izvestia Tells Gorbachev

Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev was warned Tuesday by the government newspaper Izvestia that he must act swiftly to restore order in the Soviet Union’s strife-torn southern republics of Azerbaijan and Armenia if his reform policies are to survive.

In stark, almost unprecedented terms that underscored the major challenge facing Gorbachev, Izvestia said his conservative opponents could use a failure in Azerbaijan and Armenia to reverse much of the liberalization that has occurred in the last five years.

“Society today has come close to the point where the question arises: Is there to be perestroika or not?” Izvestia’s parliamentary observer, Vyacheslav Shchepotkin, wrote. “Millions of people have cast their lot with perestroika , irrevocably placing their hopes on it. That is why we tell the head of state--act now!”

The explosive situation in the two southern Soviet republics is widely seen as the most serious crisis Gorbachev has faced in his five years as the country’s leader, and the Izvestia commentary makes clear that his policies, and even his leadership, may well be at stake.

Meanwhile, sporadic fighting continued Tuesday in the Azerbaijani capital of Baku. Azerbaijani militias--armed with weapons stolen from police and military depots--threatened a “real guerrilla war” against the Soviet army units and internal security forces sent to restore order if they are not withdrawn within two days.

“Azerbaijan is on the edge of the abyss where lie chaos and anarchy,” the Azerbaijan branch of the KGB, the Soviet security and intelligence organization, said in an appeal for calm broadcast on Radio Baku. The radio described the situation as “very, very tense.”

The Soviet Interior Ministry reported that two soldiers and a woman bystander were killed when gunmen ambushed a military convoy carrying demobilized soldiers and the families of officers out of Baku.

Skirmishes continued Tuesday around the city’s Salyansky barracks, where mutineers from the local garrison and a military school have seized a building.

Despite its powers under the state of emergency proclaimed in Baku last Friday, the army has made little progress in reasserting the central government’s authority in the republic beyond taking up positions around key installations. In its reports Tuesday, the Soviet press suggested that Moscow waited too long before deploying troops there.

The death toll stands at 91, including 18 soldiers and members of their families, since the government sent the army in early Saturday, according to the Interior Ministry. In the week before that, 72 people were killed--most of them Armenians who died in pogroms in the city’s Armenian quarter.

More casualties have been reported in Armenia and in outlying areas of Azerbaijan, but comprehensive figures have not been provided for these places.

Soldiers already are “more and more often being chosen as targets” by the local militias, Maj. Gen. Yevgeny Nechayev, a ranking officer in the internal security forces, told the official news agency Tass on Tuesday.

In Baku’s port, meanwhile, captains of 50 Soviet oil tankers, drilling rigs and other ships reportedly threatened to blow up their vessels if the Soviet army is not pulled out of the city.

The city itself was paralyzed by a general strike called by the Azerbaijani Popular Front, the principal nationalist group in Baku, and all shops were closed, all factories shut and no newspapers published.

But workers turned up for political meetings at many large enterprises, according to activists, and the agenda of those rallies included debates on the country’s political future and the disbandment of local Communist Party groups.

The Azerbaijani Parliament warned Monday that unless the Soviet troops are withdrawn, it will begin the process of secession from the Soviet Union.

This brought a call for political dialogue and compromise from Nechayev, who said that the Azerbaijan Popular Front appears to have broad support, while “individual terrorists” are to blame for the continuing clashes.

“My opinion is that we have to launch a dialogue with these organizations,” Nechayev said. “We have to find compromises. We have to pursue our common aims.”

The commentary in Izvestia stressed a return to “the dictatorship of the law” while resolving the current crisis. Public disillusionment with Gorbachev and with perestroika could result from inept handling of the crisis, Izvestia said, expressing the concerns of those progressives who support Gorbachev’s program of political, economic and social reforms.

“It must be admitted that a certain part of the population is beginning to blame democratization for contempt toward the law, the increasing crime rate and the economic and inter-ethnic strife,” it said.

“And, while mounting this criticism, efforts are being made to direct it against the head of state, the initiator of perestroika. This is dangerous. The mood of the masses skillfully guided in a certain direction could be used tomorrow by some individuals for whom the main idea is to return the country to its pre- perestroika days.”

While Izvestia did not identify those who might move against Gorbachev politically, the Soviet leader is certain to face tough questions at an upcoming meeting of the Communist Party’s policy-making Central Committee.

The 250-member committee will discuss ethnic issues and a new party platform that Gorbachev had planned as a means to broaden and accelerate the reform process.

The Azerbaijani Communist Party’s Central Committee is scheduled to meet today to discuss the crisis there.

Activists from the Azerbaijani Popular Front have set a deadline of today for the withdrawal of the Soviet army from the city. But Soviet news reports Tuesday suggested the troops will be there for weeks and probably months.

The Azerbaijani attacks on Armenians continue and have spread to Russian families in Baku as well, according to reports in the Soviet press. Noting the growing hostility toward Russians following the army’s move into the city, the trade union newspaper Trud commented, “Even bread is denied to ethnic Russians in Baku shops now.”

Two ships evacuating the families of army officers were stopped by small boats manned by the Azerbaijani militia, who wanted to ensure that bodies of those killed in the fighting were not aboard. None were found.

Meanwhile, troops began to unblock roads in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh, according to Tass. Although populated by Armenians, the region is part of Azerbaijan and has been the focus of tension between the two Soviet republics for more than two years.