MOSCOW: Parliamentary leaders have introduced a draft law that would allow republics to break away from the Soviet Union after a simple referendum, the Moscow Radio publication Interfax said Tuesday.
“The decision to secede will be made by a referendum decided on by the Supreme Soviet (parliament) of a republic or one third of the residents,’ over 18, Interfax said.
Support for secession has gathered powerful momentum in once independent Baltic republics. Other regions on the fringes of the Soviet Union are struggling for greater political and economic autonomy from Moscow.
Interfax said a vote on secession would be considered valid if at least three quarters of the adult population took part.
Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev promised a bill on secession during his trip last month to Lithuania, where the local Communist Party has formally cut its ties to Moscow. The Lithuania mass movement Sajudis and many local communist have rejected the Kremlin plan, arguing that Soviet annexation of the Baltic republics in 1940 was illegal and Moscow did not have the right to set terms for independence.
Article extracted from this publication >> March 9, 1990
