Uzbekistan, Kirghizia Join Soviet Defections : Central Asia: Tadzhikistan’s president is forced out for dragging his feet on resisting the abortive coup.

The Soviet Union’s political turbulence spread into the heart of Muslim Central Asia on Saturday as the republics of Uzbekistan and Kirghizia declared independence and the president of neighboring Tadzhikistan was swept from office.

The two Central Asian defections from the crumbling Soviet empire brought to 10 the number of republics that have formally sought to break away in an accelerated exodus brought on by the attempted coup two weeks ago by reactionary elements of the Kremlin.

The putsch so weakened the central government that the country’s 15 republics are now struggling to work out a new relationship with each other and the central government.

Uzbekistan’s independence move carried a hint of the growing tension between the outlying republics and the sprawling Russian Federation, which has emerged as a claimant to many of the Kremlin’s central powers.

In urging Uzbekistan’s independence, President Islam Karimov declared, “The leadership of Uzbekistan will never agree to a secondary role” in any new configuration.

In Moscow, the Supreme Soviet, wrapping up a session that many deputies predicted will be its last as a powerful, centralized, national law-giving body, established a special commission to investigate the putsch despite warnings from conservatives against a witch-hunt.

In other developments:

* The “black beret” police commandos, reviled by Lithuanians and Latvians as the enforcers of the Kremlin’s hold on their independence-minded republics, began to withdraw from the two Baltic states. Over the last year, the troops have forcibly occupied key buildings and were involved in a January assault on the Latvian Interior Ministry in which five people were killed.

* Following the national ban on Communist Party activities, the Ukraine’s Parliament reportedly banned the party on its territory, charging it with involvement in the attempted coup. This should calm some Ukrainians’ fears that the republic, which has declared its independence, would become a Communist haven.

* The Armenian Parliament voted to fully nationalize all property of the republic’s Communist Party.

* Sacked Foreign Minister Alexander A. Bessmertnykh, defending himself against charges that he had been a passive accomplice to the coup, compared the accusations against him to those bandied about during Stalinist purges.

* Continuing the shake-up of the military following the coup, President Mikhail S. Gorbachev named new chiefs of the country’s ground forces, anti-aircraft defenses and the air force and made them all deputy defense ministers.

More Independents

Uzbekistan and Kirghizia, both normally quiet, conservative republics, voted on independence at emergency legislative sessions prompted by the turmoil that has swept the country since the coup attempt.

Because both are poor republics dependent on Russia for subsidies and resources, it is unlikely that they are seeking a true divorce from the Kremlin as the Baltic republics have done; instead, they appear to have joined those jockeying for position as new relations among the republics and between them and the Kremlin are worked out.

Both Karimov of Uzbekistan and Azkar Akayev, president of Kirghizia, said that they are still interested in signing an overarching treaty with the other 13 republics, but only if it provides for a loose confederation of independent states rather than the tighter federation Gorbachev had been pushing.

Akayev said the treaty Gorbachev has proposed must be “re-examined to the roots and moved in the direction of increasing the rights and interests of the republics,” the Tass news agency reported from the republic’s capital, Bishkek, formerly called Frunze.

Karimov criticized the powerful role that the Russian Federation is assuming among the republics. “This cannot have any good consequences,” he said, according to the Interfax news agency.

Karimov even indicated that the independence move was a direct consequence of Russia’s new role. “We cannot make ourselves dependent on the events in Russia and become the hostages of unpredictability,” Karimov was quoted as telling the Uzbek Parliament.

Abdusrashid Sharif, spokesman for the Birlik opposition movement in the Uzbek capital of Tashkent, said that, although independence should gladden activists’ hearts, it has them worried.

“We don’t know if independence will bring us what it usually brings to people,” Sharif said. “It looks like instead of the yoke of the center we’ll have even worse things--the yoke of the local khans, perhaps an attack on democracy, open dictatorship.”

A Resignation

Central Asia, among the poorest sections of the Soviet Union, with a rapidly rising birthrate and largely one-crop economy based on cotton production, is considered fertile soil for a large-scale resurgence of Islamic fundamentalism that could upset the balance of power in the region. Until now, however, it has generally remained an obedient adjunct to Moscow.

In Tadzhikistan, where the government is known as one of the most repressive of the Soviet Union’s 15 republics, President Kakhar Makhkamov resigned under pressure from the republic’s Supreme Soviet, the victim of an atypical rebellion.

Lawmakers accused him of adopting a “wait-and-see position” during the coup and dismissed his assertions that he had carried out virtually none of the putsch’s orders.

They said that Makhkamov’s slow responses “weakened Tadzhikistan’s position on the political arena,” the Tass news agency reported. The lawmakers also attacked him for “indecisiveness” and “weak control over the fulfillment of his own decrees.”

The political maneuvering among the republics took on special urgency this weekend in advance of a meeting of the national Congress of People’s Deputies, which is scheduled to open Monday and is expected to last at least a week.

As discredited as the central government may be in the wake of the coup, the Congress remains technically the highest power in the land, and it could serve as a forum for working out the future shape of the Soviet Union.

According to the preliminary agenda, deputies will also hear a report from Gorbachev on the state of the country, elect a new vice president to replace putsch leader Gennady I. Yanayev, vote on granting independence to the Baltic republics and address several other questions.

Breaking Away

Independence movements across the Soviet Union:

UZBEKISTAN

* LAND: 172,741 square miles. * CAPITAL: Tashkent * POPULATION: 20 million, mostly Sunni Muslim Uzbeks. * ECONOMY: Agriculture, oil and mining. * HISTORY: Formed as a Soviet republic in October, 1924, it at first included the territory of Tadzhikistan, which became a separate republic in 1929. KIRGHIZIA

* LAND: 76,460 square miles. Mountainous. * CAPITAL: Frunze * POPULATION: 4 million, mostly Sunni Muslim Kirghiz and Russians. * ECONOMY: Livestock production, dairy farming and some industry. * HISTORY: Formed as an autonomous region in 1926, it was admitted to the Soviet Union as a constituent republic in December, 1936.

Latest Developments

* INDEPENDENCE. The Central Asian republics of Uzbekistan and Kirghizia declared independence. They are the ninth and 10th republics to do so. In Tashkent, Uzbek President Islam Karimov, right, warned a resurgent Russia not to bully the smaller republics.

* THE REPUBLICS. Tadzhikistan’s president, Kakhar Makhkamov, resigned after the republic’s legislature passed a vote of no confidence in him for not vigorously opposing the coup. The hated Soviet “black beret” troops, blamed for death and destruction in the secessionist Baltics, began to withdraw from Lithuania and Latvia. The Ukraine reportedly banned Communist Party activity on its territory, and Armenia voted to nationalize all party property.

* WORLD REACTIONS. The United States and other Western nations are considering a plan to require the Soviet Union and its breakaway republics to cut their nuclear forces as a condition of economic assistance. President Bush hinted that he soon would recognize the independence of the Baltic republics.

* THE LEGISLATURE. The Supreme Soviet, closing a special session, formed a legislative committee to investigate the causes of the abortive hard-line coup.

* THE PRESS. The former Communist Party newspaper Pravda returned to the newsstands under the management of its staff rather than the Communist Party. Russian Federation President Boris N. Yeltsin had suspended it, citing complicity in the coup.