Victims of Crackdown in Lithuania Mourned

Hundreds of thousands of Lithuanians paid sorrowful tribute today to 10 of their compatriots slain in a weekend Soviet military assault. In Latvia, the government reported shootings involving Soviet troops.

Fourteen people died and 230 were injured when Soviet troops stormed the main Lithuanian broadcasting center Sunday.

Priests and grieving relatives walked alongside the hearses carrying the flag-draped coffins of 10 of the 14 victims today. Men doffed their fur hats despite the winter chill, and many people held candles.

The Roman Catholic cathedral where the requiem was held was jammed with about 2,000 people. Another 50,000 people gathered on the square outside the cathedral, and tens of thousands more lined the sidewalks from the Palace of Sports arena, where the victims had lain in state since Monday, and to the Kariukapines Cemetery, where they were to be buried.

“They are real heroes,” said Vincus Gursky, a 59-year-old schoolteacher who held a candle outside the cathedral. “What else would you call someone who bravely sticks his chest out in front of a tank?”

The crackdown in Lithuania, which drew widespread condemnations from the West, raised fears of similar Soviet military action in the other breakaway Baltic republics of Latvia and Estonia.

A Latvian parliamentary spokesman, Alexanders Mirlins, today reported several shooting incidents involving Soviet forces.

He said the driver of a vehicle was “severely wounded or killed” by so-called black berets, who are controlled by the Soviet Interior Ministry. A doctor confirmed the victim died.

In another incident, troops stopped a van, forced the occupants onto the pavement and set fire to the vehicle, said Sakari Nupponen, a Finnish journalist who was driving by at the time.