Sakharov Letter Criticizes Gorbachev on Armenian Unrest

AMSTERDAM — Soviet dissident Andrei D. Sakharov said in a letter released on Wednesday that Moscow’s handling of Armenian unrest had shown its policy of glasnost , or openness, was bankrupt when put to the test.

“One must ascertain that this is not the first time that during an acute situation, glasnost appears to be crushed precisely when it is most needed,” Sakharov said in a letter addressed to Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev.

Sakharov reportedly wrote the letter for the weekly Moscow News in April, but it was never published because he refused a request from Gorbachev to alter it.

More than 30 people died during riots in the Azerbaijani port of Sumgait in February after the ethnic Armenian majority in the Azerbaijani region of Nagorno-Karabakh demanded the region’s incorporation into Armenia.

In his letter, Sakharov said the desire of Armenians for the reunification had been sparked by hopes of new democratic possibilities.

“Instead of following a normal constitutional means of examining the application . . . lawful requests of the Armenian population were described as extremist,” he wrote.

Meanwhile, dissident sources in Moscow said that 15,000 people rallied in the Armenian capital of Yerevan after a man was convicted of murder in February’s rioting.