LATVIAN PRESIDENT, PARLIAMENT CONDEMN WAR IN CHECHNYA.

Latvian president Guntis Ulmanis last week expressed admiration for "Chechen fortitude in the face of a superpower and determination to defend national independence," and expressed the wish that the Russian government would live up to the promise to settle the conflict politically. Latvia’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Rihards Mucins said that the war in Chechnya cannot be considered a Russian internal affair since it involves the killing of tens of thousands of civilians. Mucins was responding to Russian Foreign Ministry chief spokesman Grigory Karasin’s earlier statement, which expressed indignation over Latvia’s "attempt to resurrect the myth and the bogy of Russian imperial aspirations."

The statements followed an appeal by 55 out of the Latvian parliament’s 100 members that urged