Crackdown: A Chronology

December 1990 In the Kremlin, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev is either courting hardliners or is increasingly at their mercy. While many observers say the situation in the Baltics has not yet reached a danger point, Lithuanian leader Vytautas Landsbergis sounds the alarm bells, warning that Moscow is preparing to "crush Lithuania."

December 30, 1990 Lithuania's parliament declares that food prices won't be raised. There are fears any price rises would give pro-Soviets a convenient pretext for trying to overthrow of the government.

January 7, 1991 Lithuanian Premier Kazimiera Prunskiene pushes through the price rises anyway; food prices are slated to rise by 300 percent.

January 8, 1991 Thousands of pro-Soviet demonstrators, mostly Russians and Poles, protest against the price rises. They surround the parliament in Vilnius and try to force their way into the building. Later in the day, parliament votes to halt the price hikes; Prime Minister Prunskiene resigns in protest. Fresh Soviet troops also begin rolling across Baltic borders from Pskov, Russia—allegedly to deal with Baltic youth who have been evading the Soviet draft.

January 10, 1991 Lithuanian economist Albertas Simenas is appointed Prime Minister—a position he is to hold for a mere 57 hours. Soviet President Gorbachev telegrams Lithuania's Parliament urging legislators "to revoke anti-constitutional acts"—namely, Lithuania's declaration of independence, made ten months before. Gorbachev also suggests that presidential rule from Moscow could also be imposed if the Lithuanians do not abrogate pro-independence laws. The Lithuanians refuse. The U.S. and Iraq are on the verge of war and Baltic leaders warn that the attempted overthrow of their governments could coincide with the start of conflict in the Persian Gulf. Says one legislator: "The Kremlin always does its dirty work during times of international crises."

January 11, 1991 Soviet forces take over Defense Department buildings around the country. Vytautas Landsbergis appeals to Lithuanians to "defend our homeland with our endurance, our peacefulness, our unity, and our moral strength."

January 11, 12:00 noon Soviet troops occupy Vilnius' Press Building, firing live rounds into the air, injuring four people.

January 11, 1:00 p.m. Landsbergis, who camps out in his office during the crisis, attempts to phone Gorbachev. According to one report, Landsbergis is told that the Soviet leader is "out to lunch."

January 12, 4:00 a.m. Holed up in parliament—where many security men only have hunting rifles—Landsbergis repeatedly tries and fails to reach Gorbachev by phone.

January 12 during the day. With tensions rising by the hour, Landsbergis puts out an urgent message to his countrymen: "Come to Vilnius and defend your independence." Thousands surround the parliament and the TV tower, a key communications facility.

January 12, 11:00 p.m. The pro-Soviet National Salvation Committee proclaims that it has taken power.

January 13, 12:00 midnight Soviet personnel carriers begin moving through Vilnius. Prime Minister Simenas is nowhere to be found. He apparently flees the city in fear for his life and that of his family. Gediminas Vagnorius named the new Prime Minister.

January 13, 2:00 a.m. The TV tower is attacked. Soldiers shoot at unarmed demonstrators and tanks crush several people to death. Some Lithuanians pound their fists on the sides of the tanks in effort to get them to stop. In the end, 13 Lithuanians are killed and hundreds wounded. One Soviet officer is killed by a stray bullet. As the attack begins, loudspeakers blaring throughout the city announce that the Salvation Committee has taken over.

January 13, later in the day. Believing an attack on parliament is imminent, barricades are erected around the building. In the coming days, the government is not overthrown, but Soviet forces continue to occupy many Vilnius buildings. They occupy the TV tower for the next eight months, until Lithuania secures independence following a failed Kremlin coup in August.

In Moscow, following the killings in Vilnius, pro-democracy demonstrators rally in support of Lithuania. One banner reads: "Today Lithuania, Tomorrow Latvia and Estonia, The Day After Russia."

If there were those in the West who hadn’t heard about Lithuania before, they almost certainly had by the end of the day, January 13, 1991. That was the day Soviet troops cracked down in Vilnius and the resulting bloodshed made headlines around the world. The action was apparently a bid to stop Lithuania’s independence drive in its tracks. By the time the firing stopped and the smoke cleared, more than a dozen people lay dead, and hundreds more were injured.
       The crackdown, and particularly the killings at the TV tower, not only brought fame and sympathy to Lithuania from around the world, it was also a defining moment for Lithuanians themselves: the bloodshed meant they had crossed a point of no return. If there was ever any notion of reconciling with Moscow, that was now unthinkable.
       To mark the anniversary of the TV tower massacre, CITY PAPER in 1997 talked to those who saw the events of that day unfold, including then-Lithuanian President Vytautas Landsbergis. Among others, CITY PAPER also talked to TIME magazine’s Jay Carney and the Christian Science Monitor’s Justin Burke, who were both in Vilnius when the shooting started.

For those watching from abroad, Vytautas Landsbergis was the central player in the drama unfolding in Vilnius. The colorful, quick-tempered music professor became Lithuania’s president (or chairman of the Lithuanian Supreme Council) in 1990 and, from that time on, his name was almost synonymous with the Lithuanian independence movement. His blunt talk about breaking free of the Soviet Union, about Lithuania’s moral right to be able to do so, startled observers in the West almost as much as it infuriated the Kremlin. Word out of Moscow was that hardliners were looking for an opportunity to bring the independence-minded Baltics to heel and, with an outspoken anti-communist like Landsbergis as leader, Lithuania looked like their target of choice. By early January, 1991, there were already sporadic occupations of buildings by Soviet forces, and there was a growing troop presence in the capital itself. CITY PAPER recently talked with Mr. Landsbergis about the tense, turbulent situation in mid-January, 1991.

CITY PAPER: What stands out most as you look back at the events leading to the killings at the TV tower?
On the eve of the killings, on January 12, there was a deceptive calmness in the air. There was confusion. We knew Lithuania was on the agenda in Moscow and that Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev was sending a special delegation to Vilnius. Because the situation was so tense, I spoke several times with the chairman of that delegation on the 12th, urging him to come directly to the Lithuanian capital. But he said he had to go to neighboring Belarus, and that he would spend the night there. I called him again and again to try to persuade him to come straight to Vilnius. But because they didn’t want to be in Vilnius that evening, I felt something was wrong. There was a similar situation in Tbilisi, Georgia in 1989, when unarmed people were massacred by Soviet troops at night. Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze stayed in Moscow on the eve of the massacre, and it was said that there was no need for him to go to Tbilisi. The situation in Vilnius was very similar. When the Soviet delegation didn’t agree to come to Vilnius, I was very worried.
       That evening, I decided to go home. I wanted to take a bath after being at Parliament for so many days. But when I got home, information came in that the gates were thrown open at Soviet barracks and the tanks were preparing to move. I got home at around midnight, but went back to parliament immediately.
       By then, it was clear tanks were moving. You could hear the roar of the tanks. But for a while, we didn’t know what their target was. Then, from inside Parliament, we could hear the shooting of machine guns and tanks, and we could see the gunfire in the night sky.

CITY PAPER: Did you feel your life was in danger?
You couldn’t feel safe anywhere. From Parliament, I called my wife and asked her to leave the house. But she didn’t. When we talked, my wife and I told each other good-bye, we thought, maybe for the last time—nobody could predict what was going to happen.

 

Apolonija Vepstiene, a 64-year-old retired teacher, was in the city of Panevéýys when things began heating up in Vilnius. Vepstiene, deported by the KGB in 1949, had been following events closely by radio and TV. When she heard Soviet forces were beginning to move around Vilnius, she jumped in her car, drove to the capital and headed to the TV tower. Recalled Vepstiene: "I felt in my heart that I just had to come."

CITY PAPER: When you arrived at the TV tower during the day of the 12th, what was the mood like?
People were quite happy really. They were singing, and there were bonfires blazing. A lot of people had brought hot drinks and food, and there were very many young people—even small school children. There were whole families there, too. At the same time, the atmosphere was also serious. I, for one, was ready to die.

CITY PAPER: When did the atmosphere begin to change?
About midnight. We heard on the radio that tanks were moving. But none of us knew where they were moving to. I looked around and saw young people on guard duty carrying sticks. I thought, "If the tanks come, what will we be able to do with sticks?"

CITY PAPER: How did you feel when the shooting started?
That night, I understood how soldiers must feel in battle. Also, when I saw the tanks, I had the urge to run up in front of them and stop them. I so badly wanted to keep them from killing any more people.

 

American-Lithuanian Rita Dapkus, 36, was the main spokesperson for Parliament during the country’s drive for independence. She and others in the Parliament information office had been working for weeks contacting journalists and foreign offices around the world to rally support for the Lithuanian cause. CITY PAPER talked to Dapkus earlier this year.

CITY PAPER: What stands out most in your mind about January 13 and the days before?
I remember tensions had been high for a long time leading up to that day. As early as September, 1990, everyone was just waiting for something to happen. I was so busy that I went home only once a week and otherwise slept in the parliament building.
       When the tanks actually started shooting, I remember that the Parliament security people kept screaming at us to grab our gas masks, to turn off the lights and sit on the floor. Then they’d walk out of the office, and we’d get off the floor, turn on the lights and get back on the phones and computers. It was a game of cat and mouse with our own security people. When all the communications were finally cut, I was on a ham radio to the Baltic Desk at the State Department in Washington for 12 hours straight.
       The strategy inside parliament was that if the building was stormed, I and two other communications people were supposed to be the last ones to remain alive. So there were barricades all around us, including a Soviet-made pool table turned over in the middle of the hall. When I look back on it, the atmosphere was pretty funny.

 

Darius Cekanauskas was 17 at the time of the crackdown. As tanks started shooting at the TV tower, he was at a party in a nearby neighborhood. He ran to the tower with his friends to see what was happening.

CITY PAPER: What was the scene like as you approached the TV tower?
We got near the tower 10 minutes after the shooting started, around 1:00 am. The tanks hadn’t yet closed in, but we could see them bearing down on the tower. As we got closer to the tower, we saw cars that had been crushed by tanks. And the force from the blast of the tank cannons was so powerful that it knocked us down twice. When we got to the tower, there were lots of Lithuanians surrounding it. We were the last ones there, so we were on the outside of the circle. That meant we were the first in line, so to speak, and I wouldn’t say it was a real big pleasure to be standing there. We could only hear that tanks were coming towards us, though we couldn’t see them yet. But we only had to wait for about a minute—then we saw them: soldiers, armored trucks and the first tanks. The tanks were firing their cannons. It was so loud that glass windows in the tower were shattering and falling down on us like rain.
       At first, they were shooting rubber bullets, to scare us. So, we stood there, waiting I’d say for about a minute. Then we saw the special forces, the notorious Alpha troops. When we saw them coming, I can’t say I felt very patriotic, but I really didn’t feel scared either.
       Soldiers started wading through the people towards the tower. I think they were very surprised that people just stayed there, that they didn’t flee. Then, all of a sudden, everybody started pushing to one side. My friend said: "Be careful! Watch the tank!" I turned and saw the tank directly in front of me. You know the picture of people pushing the tank with legs trapped underneath it—I was standing right beside that very tank. My friend started pulling me and we tried to get around the tank. But when we did, I got hit tremendously hard on my head by a gun or baton. It would have knocked me down, but my friend held me up. Then we got out of there. As we were leaving, we could hear bullets whizzing through the air; these were definitely real bullets. I was in the hospital for a month, and even briefly went into a coma.

 

Just before midnight on January 12, TIME correspondent Jay Carney had just been dropped off at his hotel. But when his driver heard on the radio that tanks were moving on the TV tower, he drove back to the hotel, picked Carney up, and they headed for the tower.

CITY PAPER: What was going on when you arrived?
When we got there, we saw tanks and armored vehicles around the base of the tower, but no one had been hurt and no shots had been fired. The tanks were lurching around and occasionally belching out a smoke screen, presumably to get all the protesters to back off. But the more it seemed the tanks weren’t actually doing anything, the more emboldened the protesters became. I saw one young guy climb on top of a tank and straddle the gun barrel. Then the gun turrets pointed at the hill leading up to the tower, where there were scores of people. I was practically touching one of these tanks when it fired at the people on the hill. But when the smoke cleared and I had recovered from the blast in my ears, I realized that they had only fired blanks. At that point, the whole assault seemed like a farce, an effort to scare the Lithuanians without spilling any blood. Or so it seemed. Then suddenly, there was the sound of gunfire, screaming and glass breaking, and I could see people running towards me from the other side of the hill. There was a great deal of commotion. There was a lot of shooting and mayhem. I started making my way towards the shooting myself when some Lithuanians passed me carrying someone who had been shot. They laid him down on the grass, but he was clearly already dead. That’s when I realized they weren’t just trying to scare people. I remember crouching on the side of the hill talking to a Lithuanian man in his 60s who was crying. I saw several bodies before I returned to the hotel to file what I could to my magazine, which was just about to close for that week’s edition.

 

Austis Grigaliunas, a 22-year-old student at the time, got kicked out of the art academy for spending too much time in Vilnius during those turbulent January days. He had been helping to guard Parliament, but headed to the TV tower when news broke that troops were attacking it.

CITY PAPER: How did you get to the TV tower and what did you see when you arrived?
It was about 3:00 in the morning. There were always buses going to different locations all over the city and people would yell out where you should go to protect buildings. When my bus arrived at the tower, everything was pretty much over, and people were in a state of shock. Some curiosity seekers were arriving, but the people who were there during the attack were leaving. They were completely quiet, and didn’t say a word. Still, Soviet forces kept shooting for an hour after I got there. They were firing the tank cannons, but not really at anything. They were just trying to scare people and make them deaf. For days after that, a lot of people couldn’t hear anything at all. A lot of people were saying that the soldiers must have been on drugs or something during the storming of the tower. The expressions on their faces did look very funny, very blank, so I think there might have been some truth to that.

 

Vytautas Landsbergis was holed up inside Parliament for days on end, before and after the attack on the TV tower. He tried in vain to reach Kremlin leaders to get them to halt the military action in progress.

CITY PAPER: How close did Soviet forces come to actually overthrowing the Lithuanian government?
I think they fully intended to do it. But they did it badly, and they did not expect such brave resistance from unarmed people. This resistance meant that much more time was spent on the occupation of the TV tower than they had anticipated. The other factor was the coverage of the terrible casualties by the Western press. This created a reaction in the West almost immediately.
       There were huge crowds around Parliament. One KGB officer, explaining why they did not take the Parliament, later explained in his sick way: "We didn’t take it because there was too much meat," he said. You understand the mentality of these people.

CITY PAPER: Do you think Gorbachev is to blame for the killings?
Well, he was the chief commander of the armed forces. I told Gorbachev’s secretary, who was speaking with me by phone, to tell the Soviet president that he was responsible for what was happening, that he was able to order that the massacre be stopped. "If he does not do it," I said, "then he is a murderer." I cannot believe he didn’t know what was happening beforehand. In any event, the next day the question was absolutely clear-if it was not ordered by a high official in Moscow, then those who killed people would have to be punished. Ambassadors from the U.S. and other countries also said directly: "Well, if Gorbachev did not know about this order, then he has to punish those who are guilty." But there was never any punishment.

 

Justin Burke, now with George Soros’ Open Society Institute in New York, was a correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor, which extensively covered instability throughout the USSR. He was in Vilnius when Soviet forces went into action.

CITY PAPER: What impressions stand out most about the crackdown in Vilnius in and around January 13?
One that stands out was attending the first news conference held by the supposed National Salvation Committee, which announced it had assumed power. I took one look at the spokesman for these pro-Soviets, and I couldn’t help but think that the Neanderthals were trying to take over—and that they would never succeed. It was reassuring in its own way.

CITY PAPER: If there were heroes in the Vilnius resistance, who were they?
I’d certainly say that Vytautas Landsbergis was the right man at the right moment. He was driven by anti-Soviet sentiment—the kind of fervor that any liberation movement needs. He could not be tempted by compromise, and an uncompromising stance was the only way Lithuania was going to break out of the Soviet orbit under the conditions that existed in 1991. There can be no negotiating with totalitarians.

CITY PAPER: Is it fair to say that those events in Vilnius were a kind of turning point in the history of the USSR, that they illustrated more clearly than anything that the empire was doomed?
Perhaps it’s going a bit too far. After all, the Moscow coup attempts in 1991 and 1993 came very close to succeeding. Had they succeeded, there’s no telling what might have happened. What Vilnius did, however, was demonstrating Gorbachev’s feebleness as a Czar. This, in turn, encouraged other Soviet republics, as well as Russian autonomous republics, to advance their sovereignty agendas. Ultimately, Vilnius may have been the spark that lit the fuse that imploded the whole Soviet Union. The Vilnius crackdown, in any case, certainly unmasked Gorbachev as the indecisive communist that he is, and will always be.
       What is most despicable about Gorbachev’s role is that he sanctioned the report some months later that claimed that Lithuanians started the incident by firing from the TV tower. That the West still persists in seeing Gorbachev as a democrat is amazing. Vilnius showed that Gorbachev’s real agenda was always making the Communist Party a more efficient totalitarian ruling mechanism.
       As for responsibility for the killings, it’s hard to pin down. It could be due to a cavalcade of indecision and misinformation: soldiers carrying out orders from confused commanders, then firing in panic when confronted by a crowd so determined to defend their aspirations for independence.

 

Jay Carney, of TIME magazine:

CITY PAPER: Had you ever experienced anything like the attack on the Vilnius TV tower before?
No. I had never witnessed a popular, non-violent protest responded to with tanks and guns. I remember feeling very partisan that night, very outraged at what was happening. And the scales fell from my eyes regarding Mikhail Gorbachev. I thought then and believe now that what happened in the Baltics in January 1991 was a sign of what was to come in Moscow later that year. It was proof that Gorbachev did not have the will or the power to see the process of true democratization through to its logical conclusion, which had to be the freedom of self-determination for the Baltics and other republics.

 

Two organizers of the coup attempt, hardline Communists Mykolas Burokevicius and Juozas Jermalavicius, were arrested and are awaiting judgment by Lithuanian courts. The current Russian government has distanced itself from the events. Questions about apologies from Moscow which were faxed by CITY PAPER to the Russian ambassador in Vilnius, Konstantin Mozel, came back with a note scribbled on it: "These questions are not for me." CITY PAPER talked briefly to the embassy’s press attaché, Boris Kirilov, who suggested there "will never be an apology from Russia."

CITY PAPER: So you don’t think this question is relevant?
In general, we don’t think it’s necessary to discuss these questions, as it is not clear what was happening in Vilnius then. We don’t think that Russia is responsible. The Soviet Union and Russia are two very different things.

 

Vytautas Landsbergis:

CITY PAPER: What were some of the consequences of that January crackdown?
Well, to start with, we received greater support from the West after all these events. But generally, I would say that the crackdown that night is a memory that is very deep in the souls of the Lithuanian people. Everyone remembers that night; they remember that whole period, but especially that night. It is a part of our lives, and it will remain so for many generations to come.


—from CITY PAPER-The Baltic States, No. 32 January/February, 1998; compiled by Jonathan Leff and Michael Tarm.