Lithuanian Deserters Get Amnesty Offer

The Kremlin proclaimed a conditional amnesty Thursday for Lithuanian deserters, a new conciliatory offer in the clash over independence. But Lithuania’s leader voiced distrust of the gesture and made a personal appeal for U.S. diplomatic recognition.

“The freedom of Lithuania is in great danger,” the breakaway Baltic republic’s president, Vytautas Landsbergis, told Congress in a letter. “We wait with strong hearts and no weapons in our hands for your help in this difficult struggle against militarism and aggression, in this struggle for peace and justice.”

Landsbergis, who presided over the Parliament’s unilateral declaration of independence March 11, appealed to Congress members to press the Bush Administration for official recognition, saying this would prevent Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev from committing a “gross mistake.”

Not a single foreign country has recognized Lithuania’s independence, which Gorbachev and the Soviet leadership reject as illegal, and President Bush has come under attack from restive U.S. lawmakers for his reticence. Landsbergis’ letter, read aloud by its author in Parliament, was clearly intended to turn up the heat.

However, the United States has also never recognized the Kremlin’s right to govern in this land, since Lithuania and its two Baltic neighbors, Estonia and Latvia, were forcibly annexed by the Soviets in 1940 and stripped of their independence.

In Washington, White House Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater was asked Thursday why Bush had not indulged his penchant for personal diplomacy and called Gorbachev about Lithuania. He replied that the dispute is a “complex and sensitive matter.”

“The corollary is that we would not want to take moves that disrupted that diplomatic effort,” Fitzwater said, “and the President simply feels this is not time to make a direct contact to Chairman Gorbachev for those reasons.”

In Prague, Czechoslovak President Vaclav Havel offered in a message to Gorbachev and Landsbergis to help mediate the situation.

“I am convinced that the only possible solution in this difficult situation is an open and just political dialogue between representatives of the Soviet Union and Lithuania. Czechoslovakia . . . is ready to facilitate this dialogue through its services and neutral grounds.”

The Kremlin’s conciliatory offer toward deserters comes two days after the most brutal incident of the secession conflict, when Soviet paratroopers raided hospitals in Lithuania’s two largest cities, Vilnius and Kaunas, and seized 23 conscripts who had deserted from the armed forces, reportedly beating some of them.

The Kremlin’s use of military muscle outraged Landsbergis and Prime Minister Kazimiera Prunskiene, who demanded that Gorbachev act to return their “kidnaped” citizens. The Soviets said the conscripts were simply being forced to return to military service, which is compulsory for most Soviet young men.

According to Landsbergis, more than 800 Lithuanians have deserted from the armed forces in recent weeks because of the independence proclamation or the brutal treatment meted out to Baltic draftees. Many Lithuanians believe they should not serve in the army of a “foreign” country.

In an obvious attempt to reduce frictions over the deserters, the Soviet Defense Ministry announced Thursday that it would not prosecute missing Lithuanians who give themselves up and agree to resume their service, which runs for two years in the army and three in the navy.

“Unrepenting deserters, however, will be tracked down, apprehended and punished in line with the law,” the official Soviet news agency Tass quoted a ministry spokesman as saying. Penalties for refusing to serve in the armed forces range from three to seven years in prison.

The Defense Ministry did not say when the amnesty would expire, and Landsbergis reacted warily.

“I don’t have much trust in this promise of amnesty,” he told a news conference. “There have been many times when high military officials lied to us, and we have some idea of the terrors that happen to these young men when they return to their units.”

Lt. Gen. Frants Markovsky of the Soviet General Staff told Tass that 51 deserters have already been sent back to their detachments. Whether or not that number includes the 23 rousted Tuesday from the two hospitals, the statement means that hundreds of Lithuanian conscripts are still at large.

Despite Landsbergis’ suspicions, there were further signs Thursday that the Lithuanians’ position was softening. Deputy Prime Minister Romualdas Ozolas announced that the Council of Ministers, or Cabinet, had appealed to citizens to turn their firearms over to police for safekeeping, as Gorbachev had demanded March 21.

The deadline for voluntary compliance with Gorbachev’s order expired Wednesday, with officials then having the task of seizing weapons. Lithuanian leaders initially said that Gorbachev had no right to tell people in an independent nation what to do, but changed their minds to discourage house-by-house searches by soldiers and possible incidents.

“We can’t let people face the force of the Soviet army alone,” Ozolas said in an interview. “They would then feel as though they can’t be safe and nobody will protect them.”

Soviet television said Thursday night that 5,000 rifles, pistols, shotguns and other firearms are being kept in a warehouse, along with about 1 million rounds of ammunition. Ozolas said the Council of Ministers’ resolution, approved late Wednesday and read on television, asked Lithuanians to bring their guns to local police precincts, where they will be put in temporary storage.

On Wednesday, the Lithuanian government put off as too confrontational its controversial plans to establish its own border controls, customs service and frontier guards, steps that would have effectively separated the republic from the rest of the Soviet Union.

Landsbergis also indicated a new flexibility on holding a referendum on the question of secession, as demanded by the central government, which contends that ethnic Russians and Poles--roughly 20% of the republic’s 3.7-million population--as well as many Lithuanians want to remain in the Soviet Union.

Landsbergis reiterated Thursday that he was ready to talk about a referendum, suggesting that the question to put to Lithuanians was: “Do you wish to become part of a foreign country?”

However, the republic’s Communist Party chief, Algirdas Brazauskas, who spoke at the same news conference, said the question should be whether voters favor secession or not, as though Lithuania were still legally a part of the Soviet Union. He said such a vote would give the leadership powerful legitimacy in Moscow’s eyes.

“I have no doubts about the possible results of a referendum, but I’m saying a referendum would be an additional ace in our negotiations,” declared the Communist leader, who advocated a slower course toward independence than Landsbergis but joined the new government as a deputy prime minister to support the cause.

Despite its recent backing away from confrontation, Lithuania has had no luck in persuading Soviet authorities to open formal talks on independence, Landsbergis said.

“We are seeking contacts with Moscow, but it’s very hard to establish contacts with a brick wall,” he said.

As the dispute over Lithuania persisted, a new headache for Gorbachev loomed in the neighboring Soviet republic of Estonia, where the legislature, now dominated by a pro-independence faction, convened Thursday in a session expected to vote on suspending the Soviet constitution.

According to Estonian Communist Party officials, the 105-seat chamber will likely declare only Estonia’s laws valid on the republic’s territory, but not issue a proclamation of independence as Lithuanian lawmakers did.

“It is not a matter of proclaiming an independent Estonian republic; it is aimed at showing that we are apart from the Soviet Union,” Henry Soove, a senior party official, told the Reuters news agency in the Estonian capital of Tallinn.

The Estonians will also debate a declaration of support for Lithuania. Estonian leaders have been aghast at Moscow’s military pressure on their neighbor.

Schrader, a free-lance journalist, reported from Vilnius, and Times staff writer Dahlburg from Moscow.