Soviet Union: Please Pay on Your Way Out

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From the start, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev has warned Lithuanians that there would be a price to pay for the secession of the republic. Last week he put a tag on it: $35 billion.

Moscow contends that if Lithuania quits the Soviet Union, to which it was forcibly annexed in 1940, it must compensate the central government for $28 billion in capital investment over the years and $7 billion for goods the republic has not delivered to the rest of the country. Gorbachev also warned that Lithuania might have to turn over the important port of Klaipeda. Leaders of the pro-independence Sajudis movement, which won a huge mandate in February elections for the Lithuanian parliament, were undeterred. They replied that they were preparing their own bill for 50 years of subjugation by Moscow.