European Community Threatens to Cut Aid to Soviets for Baltic Attack

Foreign ministers of the 12 European Community nations threatened Monday to withhold $520 million in promised technical assistance to the Soviet Union if Soviet troops continue to attack civilians in the rebellious Baltic provinces.

Foreign Minister Jacques Poos of Luxembourg, which holds the rotating EC presidency, said Sunday’s storming of the chief radio and television station in Lithuania, killing 14 people and injuring scores of others, brought back “unhappy memories” of Soviet repression of uprisings in Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968.

But the EC said it intended to go ahead with $1 billion in food aid to the Soviet Union because that aid is meant to benefit the Soviet people, not the regime of Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev.

Meanwhile, officials in Germany, which has promised $10 billion worth of aid on top of the EC contribution, said they would not cut back. The German aid is in exchange for the withdrawal of 380,000 Soviet troops from what used to be East Germany by the end of 1994.

“We will stand by those agreements because we want the Soviet Union to stand by them,” said Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher.

But German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, deploring the bloodshed in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius, said in Bonn: “We are deeply concerned about the future of the restructuring, the reforms and the new thinking in the Soviet Union.”

In Brussels, the NATO allies said in a statement that they “strongly condemn the use of violence by the Soviet armed forces and actions to undermine democratically elected authorities of Lithuania, as well as actions of intimidation against the other Baltic republics.”

The United States has its own $1-billion program of food credits to the Soviet Union. Most of that program is irreversible because, according to White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater, the Soviets have already tapped $800 million of the credits.

The heads of government of the 12 EC nations, at their most recent meeting in Rome last month, approved $1 billion in food aid and $520 million in technical assistance as a way of encouraging Gorbachev’s reforms. The technical aid would support improvements in the Soviet transportation network and other aspects of its infrastructure.

The EC foreign ministers, who met in emergency session in Brussels on Monday--their third such session in 10 days--considered the Persian Gulf crisis as well as the violence in Lithuania.

Those foreign ministers who spoke publicly before and after the closed meeting uniformly expressed a sense of sadness that Gorbachev’s government had resorted to the sort of violence for which its predecessors were notorious.

“We as 12 have been helping President Gorbachev the reformer,” said British Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd. “It is in our interest that he succeed as a reformer.”

Danish Foreign Minister Uffe Ellemann-Jensen took a harder line. “I think we shouldn’t have any economic cooperation with the Soviet Union as long as she uses force against the Baltic countries,” he said.

Luxembourg’s Poos, who chaired the meeting, said none of the foreign ministers suggested breaking off diplomatic contacts with the Soviet Union or even halting the program of food aid. But the EC would drop the technical assistance program, Poos said, “if the Soviet Union continues to use force against unarmed citizens in the Baltic republics.”

Jacques Delors, president of the EC Commission, the executive branch of the EC, said a delegation of EC bureaucrats went to the Soviet Union on Sunday to consult on the $520-million program of technical assistance. But the program, he said, could be stopped at any time.

PROPOSED AID TO THE SOVIETS European Community: Twelve-member community agreed in December on a $1-billion package of food and medical aid to stave off political crisis. Australia: Offered up to $400 million worth of credits to buy Australian wool, wheat and other commodities. Austria: Promised to send 100,000 food parcels and medical supplies. Britain: Set up $10-million fund to provide technical assistance in agriculture and food distribution over two years. Canada: Offered financial aid to buy food. France: Offered financial aid to buy food. Germany: Agreed to ship provisions including 214,500 tons of meat, milk and medicine that had been part of the Berlin stockpile against Soviet invasion. Additionally approved shipment of 35,000 tons of army reserve supplies. Israel: The Jewish Agency, a quasi-governmental group involved in resettlement of refugees and other immigrants, sent 25 tons of fruit, vegetables and powdered milk. Japan: Promised $7.4 million in emergency food and medical supplies and $100 million in loans from Export-Import Bank of Japan. City of Kawasaki sent $92,000 worth of medical supplies. Norway: Approved $1.7 million for food aid primarily for the Arctic border region. Individuals and church groups have also provided supplies. Spain: Offered financial aid to buy food. Sweden: Sent meat, powdered milk and medicines provided by a private group. Switzerland: Promised 40-ton emergency airlift and 1,000 tons of cheese, plus 320 tons of food from Swiss army stocks. United States: Agreed to grant temporary trade privileges, including credits for U.S. farm products. Private aid groups have sent more than 100,000 pounds of medical supplies and food packages. Source: Associated Press