Lithuanians Must Surrender Arms, Gorbachev Orders : Soviet Union: The KGB is instructed to enforce tougher visa controls and border checks. The Baltic state’s leaders are dismayed, but they remain defiant.

MOSCOW —  Faced with Lithuania’s continuing defiance, Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev ordered its citizens Wednesday to surrender all weapons and imposed tough visa controls and border checks by the KGB to bring the rebel Baltic land back into the Soviet fold.

Gorbachev’s actions, announced on the nightly television news show “Vremya,” were greeted with dismay by Lithuanian President Vytautas Landsbergis, who the day before said measures taken by the Kremlin to block Lithuanian secession indicated that there was still hope for negotiations.

“If that is not aggression, then what is?” Landsbergis exclaimed after he learned of Gorbachev’s new directives while addressing an evening news conference in Vilnius, Lithuania’s capital. “We are all in jail.”

Landsbergis told Lithuanian Radio that Gorbachev’s order has no legal force.

“The ghost of Stalinism is roaming the Kremlin, casting its long shadow westward,” he said. “Once again, the Soviet Union is unable to release its prey and let it re-establish legality.”

In Washington, White House Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater said, “We view these press reports with concern.” On Tuesday, the Bush Administration had warned the Soviet government about feeding an atmosphere of tension and intimidation in Lithuania.

On Capitol Hill, the Senate on Wednesday rejected an amendment that would have urged President Bush to recognize the new Lithuanian government.

In the House, 120 representatives signed a letter urging the President to take that step.

The letter, sponsored by Reps. John Miller (R-Wash.) and Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), said that “the least the United States can do” is to respond affirmatively to Lithuania’s request Saturday for diplomatic recognition.

Gorbachev’s latest decisions, though seemingly largely symbolic and without much effect on most Lithuanians’ daily lives, are certain to aggravate tensions between Moscow and the West Virginia-sized republic on the Baltic coast, which rejected 50 years of Soviet rule by declaring independence March 11.

That bold move, the first splintering in the unity of the 15 Soviet republics, was rejected by Gorbachev and the Soviet Parliament as illegal and thus invalid.

Lithuania’s prime minister, Kazimiera Prunskiene, said her government will not try to fight Gorbachev’s directives--and, in at least some cases, is powerless to do so.

Prunskiene, who became prime minister Saturday, acknowledged that KGB officers in the republic are not taking orders from her fledgling administration, and she said the Lithuanian leadership will not oppose actions of the state security police or the Soviet army directed by Moscow.

But she added in an interview, “We won’t discourage any sort of active resistance on the part of the citizenry,” apparently leaving open the possibility of civil disobedience or organized resistance among Lithuania’s 3.7 million people.

Gorbachev’s decree, distributed by the official Tass news agency, orders Lithuanians to hand over their weapons to Soviet authorities “for temporary storage” and bans the sale of hunting weapons.

It empowers the Interior Ministry to confiscate all arms not turned over to police within seven days.

The grounds for Moscow’s worries about violence are unclear. Lithuanian leaders denied Wednesday night that there was any unrest in the republic. They have never endorsed violence as a way to win independence, and a volunteer force being formed to man customs posts is not supposed to carry firearms.

However, the Soviet military daily Red Star claimed Wednesday that 15,000 firearms have disappeared in Lithuania and that “this tells us a lot.”

Also, it said, authorities are beefing up police forces now that they are no longer under Moscow’s jurisdiction, implying that the police are being transformed into a kind of pro-independence Lithuanian army.

Such statements are likely to alarm Soviet citizens who recall this winter’s monthlong ethnic warfare in which Armenians and Azerbaijanis, seemingly equipped with everything from machine guns and artillery to armored cars and helicopters, battled in the Caucasus. Lithuanians would reject any such comparisons.

Gorbachev ordered the Soviet Foreign and Interior ministries to tighten the issuance of visas and the granting of permission to foreigners to enter Lithuania.

Emigres from the United States and Canada have played key roles in the drive by the grass-roots nationalist group Sajudis to restore the independence that the Baltic land enjoyed between the world wars, before the Kremlin annexed it and neighboring Latvia and Estonia in 1940.

Under Gorbachev’s instructions, foreigners in Lithuania found in violation of regulations may be expelled from the Soviet Union.

Border troops of the KGB were ordered to strengthen their guard on the national border in Lithuania and to stop unspecified “unlawful acts.” That phrasing appeared to refer to Lithuania’s plan to create a network of border checkpoints to prevent the flight of scarce consumer goods.

Prunskiene, in comments earlier to the Interfax news service of Radio Moscow, said Lithuania is planning to ban the export of more than $83 worth of goods per visitor and that some products would not be authorized for export.

The Wednesday night decree showed Gorbachev wielding some of his new powers as Soviet president, a vastly more powerful post that the Congress of People’s Deputies elected him to just a week ago. But some Soviet lawmakers demanded that he go even farther in bringing Lithuania to heel.

In an appeal distributed by Tass, the “Soyuz,” or “Union” group of deputies urged the introduction of direct presidential rule in Lithuania, a prerogative that Gorbachev now has, subject to parliamentary approval, under his newly increased powers.

The lawmakers also said they would now assume the “duty of representing in the Supreme Soviet (legislature) the interests of Soviet citizens living in Lithuania and unwilling to leave the U.S.S.R.”

They specifically objected to a bill reportedly before the Lithuanian legislature that would make it a crime to oppose independence. Interfax said the measure would set three-year prison terms for anyone calling for the forcible violation of Lithuania’s sovereignty or integrity, or the overthrow of the lawful authorities.

If the measure is adopted, the Soviet lawmakers told Gorbachev in their appeal, it will “make short work of citizens of the U.S.S.R. who call for preserving the existing system and the state integrity of this country.”

Reporters following the work of the Supreme Council in Vilnius, however, said they had not heard of such a proposal.

Ethnic Russians make up about 9% of Lithuania’s population; Poles make up 7% and Byelorussians 2%. As recent rallies in Vilnius and other major cities have shown, tens of thousands of residents and members of a rump Communist Party faction loyal to Moscow also oppose secession.

In his directive, Gorbachev instructed the Soviet government and security forces to “ensure observance of the constitution and defend the rights and lawful interests” of all people of Lithuania, obviously including opponents of independence.

Landsbergis had sounded upbeat Tuesday, one day after Soviet Prime Minister Nikolai I. Ryzhkov ordered his ministries to reassert control over centrally owned and operated factories and vital facilities that the Lithuanians claim are now theirs. He said Ryzhkov’s plan proved there would be no economic blockade by the Soviets, as many Lithuanians had feared, and that negotiations were possible.

But at Wednesday night’s news conference, the former music professor appeared exhausted, cradling his head in his hands.

Prunskiene, who relaxed on a sofa following a session of Lithuania’s legislature, said the pressure tactics by Moscow will boomerang by discrediting the Soviets in the eyes of the world.

“Gorbachev is always saying he and I are such good friends, so I may write a letter to my dear friend saying: ‘Mikhail Sergeyevich, will you attack your dear Kazimiera Prunskiene with tanks?”’ she said.

Landsbergis, however, told the news conference he does not fear an assault by the Soviet army to reassert Moscow’s rule but “the madness of individual soldiers and officers.”

He mentioned the massacre in Tbilisi, the capital of the republic of Georgia, where last April soldiers attacked a crowd of peaceful pro-independence demonstrators with shovels and gas, killing 19 people.

At the Kremlin, the Supreme Soviet opened discussions on a law to allow Soviet republics to secede from the union. But the Lithuanians rejected the discussion as irrelevant.

“This law does not affect us. We have already left,” said Lithuanian deputy Vaidotas Antanaitis, who attended the session as an observer and irked some deputies by quoting V. I. Lenin as having favored the right to secession with no conditions.

The bill springs from Gorbachev’s vision of a “Soviet federation” in which the country’s 15 constituent republics, long subservient to Moscow, will gain more rights. For the first time, it is supposed to lay down a mechanism for a republic to exercise the right to secede mentioned by the 1977 Soviet constitution, but it sets many conditions.

The new law would require any Soviet republic desiring independence to hold a referendum, which Lithuania did not do, and obtain the approval of two-thirds of the electorate. The republic would then have to consult with Moscow on issues such as borders, the stationing of Soviet troops and economic ties.

Next, the Congress of People’s Deputies, the Supreme Soviet’s parent body, would need to rule that all issues had been resolved. Then there would be a five-year transition period.

The bill, opposed by champions of rapid independence in Latvia, Estonia, Georgia and other republics, was tentatively approved by the Council of the Union, one of the legislature’s two houses, after deputies argued that to delay passage might lead more republics to copy Lithuania’s proclamation of independence. The measure was then sent to the Council of Nationalities, the other chamber, for consideration.

Free-lance journalist Esther Schrader, in Vilnius, also contributed to this story.