Lithuania, Latvia Say Soviet Troops Raid Border Posts in ‘Economic War’

Lithuania and Latvia accused Soviet soldiers of attacking border posts Thursday, beating customs guards and torching the stations in an “economic war” against the two independence-minded Baltic republics.

The two Baltic governments said Soviet paratroops based in Latvia crossed into Lithuania at dawn and attacked at least four posts set up along the republics’ common border to control exports.

Latvian President Anatolijs Gorbunovs sent Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev a message demanding “an end to terror and provocations by U.S.S.R. Interior (Ministry) troops against the Baltic republics,” the independent Baltic News Service reported.

Lithuanian Parliament spokesman Audrius Azubalis said: “(Soviet authorities) are destroying, first and foremost, the economic-control system meant to prevent the illegal export of goods from the republic and to combat black-market practices. It means that an economic war is being waged against Lithuania in addition to a political war.”

Tass, the official Soviet news agency, carried several dispatches that quoted Lithuanian and Latvian officials describing the alleged attacks. There was no immediate comment from Soviet officials. The semi-independent Russian Information Agency said some of the assaults were filmed by video cameras at the border posts.

The alleged attacks were the most recent conflicts between the Kremlin and the three northern Baltic republics, each of which passed independence declarations last year claiming to restore the sovereignty they lost to Soviet occupation in 1940.