CRISIS IN THE KREMLIN : Independence Is Proclaimed by Latvians

The Baltic republic of Latvia followed neighboring Estonia on Wednesday in declaring itself independent in the wake of the abortive coup in Moscow.

Latvian Radio said President Anatolijs Gorbunovs signed a decree at the Parliament in Riga.

“The political situation is such that we had to do it now,” Aldis Bezins, the Latvian representative in Estonia, said, adding that he hopes that other countries will now recognize Latvia.

In Lithuania, the third Baltic republic, security guards and Soviet troops exchanged gunfire late Wednesday at a checkpoint near the Parliament building in Vilnius, a spokeswoman said. Two people were reported wounded. Daiva Jaikaibe of the Parliament’s press office said the confrontation occurred when Soviet Interior Ministry troops in a jeep tried to force their way onto the Parliament grounds.

She said one Soviet soldier and one security guard were wounded and noted that the Lithuanian leadership is treating the attack as an isolated incident.

The altercation occurred well after it had become clear that the coup against Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev was collapsing. Other Soviet forces were reported to be withdrawing from Vilnius and other Baltic cities.

Lithuania proclaimed independence in March, 1990, and like the other two republics was engaged in transition talks with Moscow.

The Baltic republics have been in the forefront of the secessionist movement in the Soviet Union and have refused to sign the new Union Treaty redefining the relationship between Moscow and the republics.

Early Wednesday, Soviet troops seized Estonia’s main radio and television tower and switched off transmitters.

Scuffles broke out in the afternoon when about 100 extra paratroops pushed through a line of Estonians who had linked arms in front of the tower complex, to allow an armored column inside.

But the Estonian news agency ETA said the troops began to leave the tower in the early evening and Estonian television went back on the air after a 15-hour break.

Before the collapse of the coup, more than 400,000 Estonian workers staged a two-hour general strike called by a committee of trades unions and factory collectives.

“We are protecting our principles and supporting the democratic movement in the Soviet Union. . . . The strike is in support of the democratic authorities and against the coup,” said Siim Kallas, head of the Assn. of Estonian Trades Unions.

Many enterprises and most public transportation in Tallinn had stopped, he said.

In the northeastern city of Narva, the mainly Russian workers in a big textile plant did not strike but held a two-hour meeting, Kallas said.