Latvia Party Chief Put His Money on Wrong Horse : Baltics: On the day of the coup, Alfreds Rubiks issued a list of pro-independence politicians he wanted arrested. Four days later, he found himself in a cell.

For a lesson in the functioning of post-Soviet kismet, consider the case of Alfreds Rubiks, the hard-line Communist Party leader of what was until recently a Baltic republic of the Soviet Union.

On Aug. 19, the day hard-liners tried to oust Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev in Moscow, Rubiks issued a list of pro-independence Latvian politicians he thought the junta should arrest. Four days later, when the coup collapsed, he gained the distinction of being the first--and so far the only--pro-Soviet leader in the Baltics to be arrested himself.

“It’s a paradox of history,” said Dainis Ivans, vice chairman of the Latvian Parliament, with unconcealed pleasure. “He said I should be the first person imprisoned. Now, he’s under our justice.”

Gorbachev, shortly after returning to Moscow on Aug. 22, observed that three world leaders had failed to congratulate him: Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi and Alfreds Rubiks.

Since that day, when he was arrested 30 minutes after the Latvian Parliament stripped him of his immunity from prosecution, Rubiks, 56, has languished in a Riga prison cell, charged with treason against the newly independent nation of Latvia. The crime carries a possible jail term of 10 to 15 years, according to Latvian prosecutors.

That gives some idea of how high feelings run against the former party boss. Over the last two years, when corresponding Communist leaders in Lithuania and Estonia were hastening to disassociate themselves from the Soviet Communist Party and struggling to accommodate pro-independence movements, Rubiks only grew more stridently pro-Soviet.

“I think it is safe to say that he is the most hated man in the country,” said Valdis Berzins, foreign editor of the independent weekly Atmoda (Awakening).

Rubiks’ case has become a political issue, with the last remaining cadre of his political faction, 23 former Communist members of Parliament who now call themselves the Equal Rights Party, agitating for his release from prison until the trial can be held. They also proposed that Rubiks, whose health they say has deteriorated in prison because of a hunger strike, be examined by an independent group of observers. They were voted down in Parliament, 130 to 23.

The bloc’s leader, Sergejs Dimanis, suggests that Rubiks is being punished for protecting the rights of Latvia’s more than 1 million Russians, a minority there whose prospects for citizenship and even continued residence in the country are very much threatened by Latvia’s nationalistic new government.

Latvian authorities insist that Rubiks is being prosecuted not for those beliefs or even his pro-Soviet stance but for his actions. “He was certainly an active supporter of the coup and an active participant in activities aimed at overthrowing the current government,” said Rita Aksenoka, the government prosecutor in his case.

Prosecutors have interrogated more than 600 witnesses, including Rubiks himself, and Aksenoka says she will complete her investigation by early next year. Then, she will take her case against Rubiks to a three-judge panel of the Latvian Supreme Court.

Aksenoka says Rubiks will be accused of personally directing troops of the Soviet military and of OMON, the “Black Berets,” a detachment of Soviet Interior Ministry police who instigated an assault on pro-independence Latvian institutions in January in which four Latvians were killed.

Latvian sources say police found three telephone lines in Rubiks’ office after his arrest: one to the Latvian KGB, another to Soviet Baltic military headquarters and the third to the OMON staff in Riga. Through these contacts, Rubiks is also said to have directed “Black Beret” activities during the three days of the coup, when the unit menaced the Latvian Parliament.

Collaborating with the Soviets bears a special meaning in the Baltics, where the Soviets are considered to have been an occupying army for the 51 years that ended Sept. 6 with Moscow’s recognition of their sovereignty.

Many other former Communists in the Baltics, such as Lithuania’s Algirdas Brazauskas, managed to go into hiding after the coup. Also, their records are more ambiguous than Rubiks’. Brazauskas, for example, split his party off from the main Soviet Communist Party in 1989. Further, unlike Rubiks, many of those being sought by authorities in the two other countries are not Lithuanians or Estonians but ethnic Russians, who formed much of the party apparat.

The sudden metamorphosis of Latvia from a Soviet republic to an independent state poses some unusual questions of jurisdiction in Rubiks’ case.

“I don’t think he was properly arrested,” said his Russian-born wife, Tamara. As a member not only of the Latvian Parliament but also of the Soviet Parliament in Moscow, she said, her husband is protected by legislative immunity from prosecution.

Dimanis, head of the Equal Rights Party, argues that since Latvia still does not have a citizenship law, it cannot contend that Rubiks betrayed a country of which he was a citizen.

Rubiks’ supporters and family also complain that he has been allowed virtually no outside contact. Since authorities let a Latvian television crew interview him in his cell about two weeks ago to quell speculation that his health was deteriorating, the authorities have not permitted visits by the media.

Tamara Rubiks says she has not seen her husband since the day before the coup; the prosecutor’s office said recently that it would not entertain a request for a family visit for at least two more weeks. Aksenoka indicated that Rubiks would remain in prison at least until his trial begins.

Latvian officials insist that none of their captive’s rights have been violated. He is being interrogated often but will eventually be granted legal counsel, they say. He is being kept away from other prisoners, according to Aksenoka, lest someone try to impose some rough justice.

The man who is now the Baltics’ most famous accused traitor was for many years a popular political figure in Riga. As the capital’s mayor, the short, bullet-headed Rubiks was an activist, pressing for restoration of the medieval Old City and upgrading urban services.

Most people here date the reversal of his popularity to his bull-headed backing in 1987 of a Riga subway; the project raised Latvians’ hackles over its potential for flooding the city with Russian migrant workers.

After the plan’s rejection, Rubiks became more menacing and intransigent in his public speeches. When he was promoted to first secretary of the Latvian Communist Party in 1990, he took to overtly threatening pro-independence activists and capitalists. Until the coup, this stance clearly suited the Soviets well. As the regional military headquarters, Riga was a major brain center for the regime’s control of the Baltics.

But on Aug. 19, Rubiks hitched his wagon to the wrong star. On the morning of the Moscow coup, he was the first regional Communist leader in the Soviet empire to publicly announce support for the hard-line junta.