Crackdown in Lithuania : Soviet Troops Raid Press, Defense Sites

Soviet troops stormed strategic buildings in Lithuania and seized the international telephone exchange today after President Mikhail S. Gorbachev warned the separatist republic to bow to Moscow’s authority.

“What they (the military) are doing here is an undeclared war against the Republic of Lithuania,” Lithuanian President Vytautas Landsbergis said.

Paratroopers smashed their way into the headquarters of the Baltic republic’s defense department and the main press center in the capital of Vilnius, forcing staff members out onto the streets at gunpoint.

Landsbergis announced that in a separate operation, Soviet forces had occupied the international telephone exchange.

“In a few minutes we could be without links with foreign countries,” he told Parliament.

Defense officials in the republic said seven people were wounded in the assault on the defense department and the press center. They included a student said to have been hit in the jaw by a burst of random gunfire.

Parliament formally vowed to stick to the path of restoring its prewar independence as proclaimed last March.

Appealing for international support, it also rejected a call by Gorbachev to restore the Soviet constitution or face the prospect of direct rule from Moscow.

The army made no move to occupy the Parliament building, and its action fell well short of a drive to topple Lithuania’s separatist leadership, which was elected by a huge majority in multiparty elections in February, 1990.

But the military action suggested that Gorbachev’s patience is nearing an end and strengthened the argument that the reformist Soviet leader might be veering toward once-rejected hard-line policies to deal with his mounting problems.

Troops also moved into buildings in the towns of Kaunas and Siauliai, provoking emotional scenes on the streets of Vilnius.

Outside the occupied press center, young Lithuanians surrounded a Soviet tank and screamed: “Why are you here? What are you doing?” at a soldier on board.

Tanks at the center later withdrew, but Soviet soldiers in full combat gear could be seen inside the building and in the defense headquarters.

About 2,000 Lithuanians gathered late into the night under floodlights in front of Parliament, waving the republic’s flag and singing patriotic songs.

Sections of the building were closed off and barricaded with furniture. Lithuanian security forces, some armed, patrolled darkened corridors on upper floors.

Lithuania’s small pro-Moscow Communist Party, which wants to keep the republic in the Soviet fold, announced at a news conference it was forming a “National Salvation Committee” ready to “take power into its own hands.”

The official Tass news agency said the army operation sought to restore property to the Communist Party seized by the separatist movement after the declaration of independence 10 months ago.

In a further sign Gorbachev might be yielding to pressure to move back to Communist orthodoxy, the independent news agency Interfax said its services had been cut off by orders of the new chief of the Soviet broadcasting committee.