Mobs Storm Baltic Capitols : Pro-Soviet Protesters Demonstrate

Anti-independence demonstrators in Estonia raised the Soviet hammer-and-sickle flag over Parliament today and thousands of Soviet soldiers tried to break into Latvia’s legislature as tension rose sharply in the secessionist Baltic republics.

Lithuanian President Vytautas Landsbergis, in a radio interview broadcast as U.S. Secretary of State James A. Baker III flew to Moscow, appealed to the Americans to raise the issue of Baltic independence with Soviet leaders.

The drama came a day after Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev declared moves by Latvia and Estonia to break from Moscow null and void. He gave no hint whether he will retaliate with sanctions as he has with Lithuania.

A pro-Moscow crowd in the Estonian capital of Tallinn advanced on the 14th-Century Toompea Palace and tore down the blue, white and black banner raised and made the official flag last week when lawmakers voted for independence, witnesses said.

Estonian Prime Minister Edgar Savisaar delivered a live radio address urging pro-independence forces to converge on the palace. The pro-independence forces restored the banner, the witnesses said.

A large independence demonstration continued into the night, said Alan Mortenson, an employee of the Estonian news agency ETA. Lemby Tugane of the Estonian Popular Front gave a similar account by telephone from Tallinn.

For the second consecutive day in the Latvian capital of Riga, a pro-independence crowd blocked unarmed Soviet soldiers from entering the Parliament, witnesses said.

Video footage from the Cable News Network showed green-uniformed men wielding clubs against civilians, but it was unclear whether the men were Soviet soldiers or Latvian security troops.

Witnesses said there were thousands of whistling and shouting Soviet soldiers who tried to break into Parliament.

“The whole street is full of people. No doubt there are thousands of people, and only thanks to special militia units the situation has normalized,” said Aris Jansons, chief aide to Latvia’s president.

Jansons said thousands of soldiers and military cadets aged 18 to 22 gathered outside the building of the Latvian Supreme Soviet, or Parliament, and 100 yards away on another square.

They apparently were not acting under any orders but felt the need to protest on their own. Most of the soldiers are Russians and other non-Latvians who feel threatened by the independence drive.

Latvian television showed the Riga protest and Supreme Soviet proceedings in a live broadcast.

Banners carried by the protesters declared, “Long Live the U.S.S.R.” and “Latvia Should be a U.S.S.R. Republic,” according to Jansons, who was speaking from the Parliament building.

A small group of Latvians supporting independence staged a counterdemonstration in the same area, he said.

Elita Gosjavicius, a Latvian Supreme Soviet spokeswoman earlier said about 50 soldiers, joined by military cadets, tried to enter the Parliament building but left half an hour after ethnic Latvians sang folk songs and blocked their way. A larger group of soldiers returned later, Jansons explained.