THE SPECIAL ENVOY OF DUMA NEWSPAPER REPORTS FROM VILNIUS

Duma Newspaper, January 13, 1991, Vilnius. The special envoy for Duma newspaper, Maxim Behar, reports from Vilnius, Lithuania.

VILNIUS, January 13 - At first glance, everything in Vilnius seems calm. At least for now, the streets seem full of people, which is unusual for the cold weather and thick snow. Parliament is not accepting any accreditations for journalists, so I cannot report the location from which I am transmitting. The Parliament building is now surrounded by tens of thousands of Lithuanians, but there is no telling what they will do when the curfew comes in. They will probably disperse.

The transport is working normally, although now, as I hand over, a column of tanks is walking along the street opposite. People are gathering in large groups and reading the latest issue of the Republikanewspaper stuck behind the windows, where a 15-year-old girl was photographed being crushed by a tank last night. "It was a nightmare," said one woman, "We didn't sleep all night because the radio tower is up high and you can see it from everywhere. They took it over and Lithuanian radio hasn't broadcast since."

Negotiations are currently underway in the parliament building between representatives of the Lithuanian Supreme Council and the delegation of the Federation Council, which arrived from Moscow. It is already known that 13 were killed and 140 were injured. All telephone connections are working properly.

Here they say that the longest night for Lithuania is about to begin. Finally, only one diversion - I arrived too late for two reasons - first is the heavy snow, in places a meter and a half, and the second is shocking: at the border I was told that no one has the right to import rubles into the Soviet Union and they took them away from me.