Independence Declared by Latvian Parliament

Latvia, dealing another blow to President Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s hopes for a new Soviet confederation, passed a declaration of independence Friday that now puts all three Baltic republics legally on record as wanting to get out of the Soviet Union.

The republic’s Parliament, meeting in the capital, Riga, approved a proclamation restoring independence after an undetermined transitional phase.

“This is our last possibility to survive, and we are going to take advantage of it. That is why we demand independence,” Alberts Bels, a writer, told his fellow deputies.

With the Latvian legislature’s action--boycotted by representatives of the republic’s large Russian community and other ethnic minorities--all three Baltic republics, which were forcibly incorporated by the Kremlin in 1940 as spoils of a nonaggression pact with Nazi Germany, now have set separation from Moscow as their goal, though at different speeds.

Moscow has taken harsh measures, including economic sanctions, to try to force the neighboring republic of Lithuania to back off the unilateral independence declaration it adopted March 11.

But the Latvians plotted a course that they believe will spare them such treatment. First, they mandated a transitional period that deputies said could last as long as four years to allow time for negotiations. Also, they did not repudiate the Soviet constitution or laws as a whole.

Their path was similar to that taken by lawmakers in the third Baltic republic, Estonia, who in March shied away from declaring immediate independence, announcing instead the start of a transitional period that is supposed to eventually lead to full self-determination.

There was no immediate reaction from Moscow to Latvia’s action. Soviet Foreign Ministry spokesman Vadim P. Perfiliev said last month that Latvian leaders were told in a meeting with Gorbachev that “the adoption of unilateral measures contradicting Soviet constitutional order would lead to the immediate termination of negotiations.”

But the Latvians, in a clear attempt to avoid a head-on collision with the Kremlin, ruled that parts of the Soviet constitution are still in effect that do not conflict with the restored clauses of their homeland’s pre-Soviet constitution.

“For 50 years we have waited for the renewal of our state,” Janis Kinna, a leader of the pro-independence Latvian People’s Front, told the republic’s Supreme Soviet, or Parliament, in Riga. By a vote of 138 to 0, with one abstention, it voted to restore four articles of the 1922 constitution of then-independent Latvia, the first of which declares: “Latvia is an independent democratic republic.”

The lawmakers also stripped the designation of “Soviet Socialist Republic” from their homeland, deeming that it should now be known as “the Latvian Republic” or simply Latvia.

When the results of the voting were announced by loudspeaker in Riga, several hundred people assembled in front of the Parliament building began to cheer. Inside and outside, people joined in to sing “God Bless Latvia,” the republic’s anthem.

Despite the lawmakers’ precautions, a backlash seemed certain from many in this republic, where ethnic Latvians account for only 54% of the population. Leaders of the Russian minority, a full one-third of Latvia’s 2.7 million people, vowed a protest strike and said they would ask Gorbachev to impose direct rule from Moscow.

Some voiced fears that Soviet officialdom would deal as harshly with them as it has with Lithuania.

“If we pass this declaration, Moscow will do the same thing to Latvia,” Leonids Alksnis warned his fellow 196 deputies before the vote.

Non-Latvian lawmakers also complained they were shown only a draft text of the declaration on the day they were supposed to vote on it. But other deputies said Latvians had already waited 50 years for restoration of the independence their homeland had enjoyed between the two world wars, and the chamber voted, 139 to 56, to consider the issue without delay.

A two-thirds majority of 132 votes was needed for the declaration, and pro-independence forces cleared that hurdle with six votes to spare. Fifty-seven lawmakers boycotted the balloting, with the pro-Soviet “Equality” group calling the declaration unconstitutional and counter to the wishes of many of Latvia’s residents.

Alfreds Rubiks, leader of the republic’s pro-Moscow Communist Party, warned of giant street protests and crippling strikes if the declaration were passed. He then walked out of the Supreme Soviet chamber.

A protest strike over the independence declaration was tentatively scheduled for May 15. Igor V. Lopatin, leader of the ethnic Russian-dominated Inter-front movement, said more than 100 factories have formally pledged to take part, and that more were expected to join.

“We have also decided to form a Committee for the Defense of Soviet Power in Latvia,” Lopatin said in a telephone interview. He said the committee would send delegates to Moscow to ask Gorbachev and the national legislature to impose presidential rule in the republic.

As the vote on independence neared, scores of protesters from the republic’s ethnic minorities gathered on Riga’s Cathedral Square, carrying signs demanding that Latvia not follow the example of Lithuania, its Baltic neighbor to the south.

The president of Lithuania, Vytautas Landsbergis, had attended the opening of the Latvian Parliament Thursday and recommended that it move as fast as his homeland to restore independence. The reelected president of Latvia, Anatoly Gorbunov, reaffirmed his commitment to independence, but noted that, unlike Landsbergis, he expects no help from abroad.

“It would be naive to expect care packages of help from the West,” Gorbunov said. “The world is not going to risk what has been achieved in arms control and what has been achieved with Mikhail Gorbachev for the sake of 5 million Balts.”

To force the Lithuanians to seek independence through the procedure laid down by a recently approved Soviet law, which mandates both a referendum and a five-year transition period, Gorbachev has cut supplies of oil and natural gas to the republic.

In Moscow, Alexander N. Yakovlev, a member of the ruling Soviet Politburo, repeated the central government’s position that the leaders of Lithuania must suspend their independence proclamation before the Kremlin will agree to negotiations.

“You freeze your widely proclaimed declaration, and let’s talk,” Yakovlev told a news conference. He insisted that Moscow is offering Lithuania “an easy way out” of the impasse, but Landsbergis has said repeatedly that no retreat is possible on the declaration.

BACKGROUND

The Soviet republic of Latvia declared itself “an independent democratic republic”--a move that is supported by most ethnic Latvians. About 54% of the 2.7-million population is Latvian. The rest of the republic’s people are from other ethnic groups, mostly Russians, and many of them oppose independence. Slightly larger in area than the state of West Virginia, Latvia saw an upsurge in nationalism following Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s perestroika reforms. Last October, the Latvian Popular Front drew up a program for an independent, multi-party state. Friday’s decision by Parliament, which is controlled by pro-independence forces, is the first stage of a process intended to take the republic out of the Soviet Union. But in a conciliatory gesture to Moscow, Parliament voted to set aside key practical issues for future bilateral talks and called for a transition period.