A Bold Initiative in Lithuanian Defense

Among the under-reported but significant news stories of the past few months
is an astonishing development in Lithuania.  According to a press release
from the Lithuanian Information Centre in New York, the Government declared
on February 28, that nonviolent direct action by civilians was to be the
country's primary line of defense in the event of "active occupation" by
forces of the Soviet Union.

Not since the France-Belgian occupation of Germany's Ruhr region in 1923 has
a government taken this stance, but the current policy is vastly more
sophisticated at the outset than was the Weimar Republic's.  Coming after the
recent heady experiences of "people-power" in East Central Europe and
elsewhere, the Supreme Council of the Republic of Lithuania has spelled out
the rudiments of a full-scale civilian-based defense operation.

Founded on the recognition that Lithuanians have no realistic military
option, but that their collective behaviour is not irrelevant to the success
or failure of Soviet domination, the policy specifies what to do, and when,
to defend society from further encroachments.  In the event that the elected
Supreme Council is "forcibly constrained from acting as the highest governing
body of the state", organized resistance is to begin, led by a "provisional
defense leadership".

All actions, laws, orders and decisions of the occupying force are to be
considered illegal and confronted with disobedience and noncooperation.  All
government institutions and officials are legally required to withhold
collaboration.  Citizens are reminded by the declaration that they have a
right to defend themselves and their property, but are enjoined to rely on
nonviolent methods as "the primary means of struggle for independence".

Ironically, the end of the cold war and the "new world order" ensure that the
Lithuanians, unlike the Kuwaitis, will not have a coalition of united nations
to back them if it comes to a bigger fight with the Soviet Union.  They will
be lucky to get a few symbolic sanctions wielded on their behalf.  Under the
circumstances, their option for a self-reliant civilian-based defense is both
practical and shrewd.

The question remains, of course, whether it can succeed.  The outcome will
depend on many factors, but prominent among them will be how an embattled
Gorbachev (or his successor) counts the likely costs of a protracted struggle
with a disciplined and nonviolent population, using methods that are not so
easily repressed if one cares about one's image abroad.  That calculation
will in turn depend on how credible the Lithuanian policy in fact is.

Anyone who has been watching the Baltics carefully for the past two years
will not underestimate the seriousness of this initiative.  It is nothing
more or less than "people power" with the force, resources, and planning
capabilities of a committed government behind it.
Christopher Kruegler

From Nonviolent Sanctions, (vol. II, no. 4, Spring 1991) published quarterly
by the Albert Eistein Institution, 1430 Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge, MA
02138, USA.