Thousands of protester s march,
demand Gorbachev’s resignation
MOSCOW - Hundreds of thou
sands of reformers marched Sunday
to the edge of the Kremlin to demand
that their onetime hero, Soviet Presi
dent Mikhail Gorbachev, resign
for his role in the crackdown on Lithu
ania.
The crowd streamed into Manezh
Square, near the Kremlin gardens and
in sight of its mighty towers, under
red, yellow and green Lithuanian flags.
Participants also carried red, white
and blue Russian flags, as well as
banners denouncing Gorbachev.
Police estimated the crowd at up to
300,000.
In Leningrad, about 40,000 pro
testers marched to the square in front
of the palace where the Russian czar
once lived. Their banners read, “Lithu
ania, We Are With You,” “Gorbachev
Kills” and “Gorbachev Resign.”
At the Moscow rally, Yuri Afana
siev, a historian and leader of the
Democratic Russia reform movement,
told protesters that rallies were held
in more than a dozen other major
cities to protest the Jan. 13 military
assault on the Lithuanian broadcast
center that left 14 dead and hundreds
wounded.
Afanasiev told them the two-hour
rally was called to rebuff the reac
tionary course he said Gorbachev now
is charting, and the crowd shouted,
“Resign! Resign!”
Russian Federation President Boris
Yeltsin, Gorbachev’s most potent
political rival, held him directly re
sponsible for the killings in Lithuania
and for the dismal state he said the
country now is in.
“The danger of dictatorship... has
become a reality,” said a Yeltsin state
ment, read by a supporter.
“The president has started on the
course of whipping up ethnic pas
sions, supporting self-proclaimed
committees of salvation, striving for
power, on the path of justifying the
use of weapons against a peaceful
population.”
When the army moved on the
separatist Lithuanians, it said it was
answering a plea from a previously
unknown pro-Moscow group called
the National Salvation Committee.
The rally’s only quiet moment came
when Afanasiev asked a moment of
silence for Lithuania’s dead. The
protest was held exactly a year after a
Soviet crackdown on ethnic militants
in southern Azerbaijan republic left
more than 130 people dead.
Many major reformers like For
eign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze
have left Gorbachev’s inner circle,
charging he is heading toward a dic
tatorship.
The crackdown on Lithuania ap
pears to have re-energized reformers,
who have appeared discouraged by
Gorbachev’s move to the right.
Former Liberian vice president
claims presidential leadership
FREETOWN, Sierra Leone - The
vice president of Liberia under slain
leader Samuel Doe declared himself
president Sunday, further complicat
ing efforts to settle that nation’s civil
war.
Harry Moniba was the third person
claiming to be Liberia’s leader, though
his close association with the discred
ited Doe will make him unpopular
with many Liberians.
He made the declaration at a news
conference in Sierra Leone, this West
African nation neighboring Liberia,
where he fled the war in September
saying he feared for his life. Moniba
said he believed his leadership could
help resolve an apparent impasse in a
peace process to build on a fragile
truce.
He said a West African-backed
interim government led by veteran
politician Amos Sawyer was uncon
stitutional, and he called for Sawyer
to resign.
Sawyer was chosen by exiled Li
berian politicians, businessmen and
church leaders at a conference spon
sored by the Economic Community
of West African States. He has been
installed in Monrovia, the Liberian
capital, under the protection of a five
nation West African army sent to
force an end to the war.
The main rebel leader, Charles
Taylor, is also opposed to Sawyer’s
leadership. Taylor has set up a rival
administration in the northern Libe
rian town of Gbarnga. He calls him
self president cf Liberia, citing the
fact that his men have overrun most
of the country outside of Monrovia.
Taylor started the war with an
invasion from Ivory Coast in Decem
ber 1989, saying he wanted to oust a
corrupt and brutally oppressive re
gime.
Doe was slain in Monrovia on Sept
9 by rebels of a breakaway faction led
by Prince Johnson.
Yugoslavian police on alert
ZAGREB, Yugoslavia - Special
police units fanned out across the
Croatian capital Sunday to prevent a
possible move by the Yugoslav army
against the independence-minded
republic. Slovenia also readied its
forces.
“If we arc attacked by the army,
we will shoot back, of course,” de
clared a special police officer stand
ing guard at a government building in
Zagreb.
The two northern republics of
Croatia and Slovenia have non-Com
muriist governments that seek greater
autonomy from the Yugoslav federa
lion. They are worried that the central
government will crack down while
the world is preoccupied with war in
the Persian Gulf,
Yugoslavia’s collective federal
presidency last week ordered all ‘‘il
legal paramilitary groups” in the
country disarmed and disbanded by
Saturday. On that day, it extended the
deadline until Tuesday.
It has instructed the Communist
dominated military to enforce the order
thereafter.
Croatian authorities fear the order,
which was vaguely worded, refers to
their paramilitary police units.
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