Lithuania

THE SOVIET ARMY'S brutal attack on unarmed demonstrators in Lithuania raises troubling questions about the future of East-West relations in the post-Cold War era and about who is in control in the Kremlin.No matter what the reasons for the crackdown, the political reality is that this attack is going to put a serious chill on relations with the West. It also calls into question whether Gorbachev is really in charge and whether the crackdown that has begun will end in a triumph of hard-liners who not only want to roll back the independence movements inside the Soviet Union, but also staunch the diminution of Soviet power around the world.

In response to Ellen Cassedy's "We are here" (April 18), I offer a second opinion. Can there be hope for a country that claimed the highest percentage of Jewish deaths in all of Europe? More than 95 percent ofLithuania'sJews were annihilated - most of them murdered by Lithuanian collaborators who began the frenzied executions of their Jewish neighbors even before the Germans had marched into Lithuania. Yes, there can be hope - if lessons are learned from their past and if the truth is faced by this nation which is now an EU/NATO democracy.

WASHINGTON -- A year after Lithuania launched a drive for independence that spread throughout the Soviet Union, the Baltic republic is still facing threats of economic and military reprisals from the Kremlin, President Bush was told yesterday.Vytautas Landsbergis, president of the Lithuanian Parliament, said he asked Mr. Bush for "political protection" in the form of some sort of rebuttal to Soviet assertions that they retain sovereignty over Lithuania and its Baltic neighbors, Estonia and Latvia.

The song composed in the Jewish ghetto of Vilna, Lithuania's capital, is defiant. " Mir zaynen do !" it thunders. "We are here!" For all its bold determination, this song, known as the Partisan Hymn, always used to strike me as unspeakably sad. So few of those who sang that song back then survived. "We are not here" would seem more fitting. Several years ago, when I went to Lithuania, the land of my Jewish forebears, I was seeking a connection to the past. But to my surprise, I also found hope for the future.

MOSCOW -- President Mikhail S. Gorbachev declared Lithuania's plan to hold a referendum on independence "legally invalid" yesterday and ordered the republic to participate instead in a March poll on the preservation of the Soviet Union.Mr. Gorbachev accused Lithuanian leaders of trying to use Saturday's referendum "to organize support for their separatist aspirations."He said the non-binding plebiscite could only be interpreted as an attempt to block the March 17 unionwide referendum set by the Soviet parliament.

BARCELONA, Spain -- It took an American with a knowledge of both countries to place last night's United States vs. Lithuania game in perspective."If they're the Dream Team," Lithuania assistant men's basketball coach Donn Nelson said, "we're the miracle team."Nelson, the son of Golden State Warriors coach Don Nelson, was speaking of a team that had just lost, 127-76. The miracle, of course, is that it's competing in the Olympics at all.After 50 years under Soviet rule, Lithuania declared its independence on March 11, 1990, and became integrated into the Olympic movement on Sept.

VILNIUS, U.S.S.R. (AP) -- Soviet troops yesterday seized two more buildings in Lithuania, and pro-independence activists stood guard outside parliament and the television station as tension with the Kremlin deepened.The troops Friday seized four other buildings, including the national guard headquarters and the republic's main printing plant. Seven people were reported injured.Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, who ordered paratroopers to enforce the draft in Lithuania and six other rebellious republics, has warned of direct Kremlin rule over the Baltic republic unless it backs off its independence declaration of last March.

MOSCOW -- At least 100,000 demonstrators rallied in the snow outside the Kremlin yesterday to protest army killings in Lithuania and to demand the resignation of President Mikhail S. Gorbachev and the hard-line aides with whom they say he is retreating from reform.The rally ended several hours before Soviet Internal Affairs Ministry riot troops assaulted headquarters of the Latvian Internal Affairs Ministry in Riga, producing a large-scale shootout.The turnout at the Moscow demonstration, estimated by police at more than 100,000, rivaled the rallies of last February for the title of the biggest non-Communist political gathering in this capital since the 1917 revolution.

The United States has opened makeshift embassies in Tallinn, Estonia, and Vilnius, Lithuania, and is offering limited consular services for visiting Americans.In Estonia, Americans in need of emergency services can contact the U.S. Embassy, at the Hotel Palace, by calling 444-761. In Lithuania, Americans can reach the U.S. Embassy, at the Hotel Draugyste, by calling 662-711.Lithuanian visas are $25 and can be obtained before leaving the United States or at the border. Estonia, meanwhile, has begun requiring entry visas for U.S. citizens 18 and older.

MOSCOW -- It was a historic summit, but neither Mikhail S. Gorbachev nor George Bush was invited.Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin signed a treaty with Lithuania yesterday effectively recognizing its declared independence and agreeing to broad areas of economic cooperation. It was an important boost for beleaguered Lithuania, a further assertion of power for Mr. Yeltsin, and a most unwelcome complication for President Bush's host.Mr. Gorbachev has been negotiating a new Union Treaty with nine of the 15 republics, leaving unclear the fate of the six secessionist states, including Lithuania, which declared independence in March 1990.

At the corner of Conkling Street and Eastern Avenue in Highlandtown, a head looks over the neighborhood like a bodiless sentinel. The olive-toned, mustachioed bust takes in a colorful panorama: a pizzeria to the north and a pawnbroker to the west. Starting this weekend, when you hock that gold watch or grab a quick slice of pizza, Frank Zappa will be watching. Two years after Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, donated a $50,000 bust of the Baltimore-born rocker to Charm City, it will be installed Sunday at the Southeast Anchor Library in a daylong celebration.

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As visitors take to the cobblestone paths of this town, they are walking along the steps of history. When Vilnius was being built there was an entry fee of one stone per visitor. The collection was used to create the town's walls and roads. Today, entry to the town and many of its historic sites is free. This year Lithuania celebrates its millennium anniversary, and Vilnius styles itself as the European Capital of the World, with its vision to create a city that is open to new ideas and culture.

So the question is this: Can this Team USA beat Argentina? Or Puerto Rico? Or Lithuania? All spanked the United States in men's basketball at the 2004 Olympics in Athens (the U.S. did defeat Lithuania for the bronze medal). Four years later, the U.S. team has the NBA's two biggest names, the Los Angeles Lakers' Kobe Bryant and the Cleveland Cavaliers' LeBron James, but the supporting cast, though talented, raises questions. After Bryant and James, Team USA, announced yesterday, features Denver's Carmelo Anthony, Orlando's Dwight Howard and Dallas' Jason Kidd, a veteran of international competition.

"What's new in Baltimore?" Frank Zappa used to sing at the end of a long, characteristically off-the-wall rock jam he called Clowns on Velvet. What's new in Baltimore, the city in which the late rock star was born in 1940, is evidently a public sculpture of Zappa himself, and the strange tale behind the 15-foot statue that a public art panel accepted as a gift to the city last night is as incongruous as Zappa's genre-bending music career. Most Baltimoreans are aware of their hometown's claim on Edgar Allan Poe, H.L. Mencken and John Waters, but fewer know that Zappa, who made more than 50 records between the late 1950s and his death in 1993, was born in Baltimore, the son of immigrants from Sicily.

VILNIUS, LITHUANIA -- The turrets, the ancient city gates and the cobblestoned streets -- these are the fairy-tale images of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania, known collectively as the Baltic States. Since gaining independence in 1991, these northeastern European neighbors, occupied by the Germans during World War II and later forcibly annexed to the Soviet Union, have been bidding to become big-time travel destinations. The capitals -- Tallinn (Estonia), Riga (Latvia) and Vilnius (Lithuania)

Tom Pukstys was on the phone from his apartment in Gainesville, Fla. Pukstys was talking about his friend and guest, discus thrower Romas Ubartas, and translating questions and answers into Lithuanian so Ubartas could do a makeshift interview."

WASHINGTON--Charges that Lithuania has begun to exonerate people convicted by Soviet courts of collaborating in Nazi war crimes put a sudden strain yesterday into new U.S. relations with the Baltic republic.American Jewish leaders expressed shock and anger.Lithuania agreed to review two of the cases raised by the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, which said the accused had been exonerated despite testimony that they took part in the killing of Jews in occupied Lithuania, the Associated Press reported.

ATHENS -- For a basketball team that could no longer dress itself properly, bronze doesn't look too bad. In an appropriately bizarre ending, the U.S. men's basketball team won the bronze medal last night, but it did so after a delay of about 35 minutes. The reason: The United States and Lithuania both showed up in white uniforms. According to the International Basketball Federation (FIBA), neither team erred. Officials accidentally told both to wear white. But after a summer of four losses (including against Italy in an exhibition game)