WORLD : Gorbachev Rejects Freedom Moves by Latvia and Estonia
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MOSCOW — Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev today rejected independence moves by Latvia and Estonia, declaring the measures illegal.
In presidential decrees read on the nightly news program “Vremya,” Gorbachev said Latvia’s May 4 declaration of independence and Estonia’s March 30 declaration that it was an occupied country violated Soviet law and the constitution.
He did not indicate what he would do to counter the independence measures.
The Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia were forcibly annexed by the Soviet Union in 1940.
Lithuania declared its independence March 11, and the Kremlin responded by imposing an economic blockade on the republic.
Latvia and Estonia passed more cautious measures, allowing for an unspecified transition period to independence, but Gorbachev’s response showed their moves were equally unacceptable.
The presidential decrees, in legal language and read by an announcer, listed the points of the law and the constitution that the Estonian and Latvian measures violated.
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