March 28, 1988

LEAD: From the chaos of mass protest, strikes and ethnic violence that have rocked two southern Soviet republics, a sharp new debate has begun to emerge about what ''democracy'' means in Mikhail S. Gorbachev's Soviet Union.

LEAD: There is indeed an unsensational, nonviolent story to be told about the troubled Irish of Belfast. It is about a fragile integrated school started by Protestant and Roman Catholic parents sick of what the sectarian divide has done to the minds of children.

LEAD: ''What would I ask them?'' Maggie Rodriguez repeated. ''About the drug problem, the crack problem, that's the biggest problem around here.'' ''Holdups, robberies,'' Carmen Velez said. ''Now that we have the new houses here it's going to get worse,'' Mrs. Rodriguez predicted. ''The more new houses we have, the more customers, the more people are going to try crack.

LEAD: The Koppers Company said yesterday that it had begun discussions with at least one other company over its sale, although it declined to name possible suitors.

LEAD: THE ECONOMY Interest rates seem unlikely to move much from recent levels, although the credit markets may be stimulated in the short term by the drop in stock prices. There is little evidence that either the economy or inflation will shoot up, analysts say. They predict that yields on the Treasury's 30-year bond are likely to remain within a range of 8.50 percent to 8.75 percent for a few weeks.