GallerySaturday, 29 January 2000
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(Belated) Link, News, and Lat Chat for January 23rd Date:
1/29/00
We were away for a long weekend and then ran into some difficulties
with our distribution list... So there will be two mailers
today—this one has the link and news already prepared for last week. Then
we'll get back to normal—whatever that is!—with a fresh mailer for
this week. :-)
Before going on to our features, we're including a
message from one of our AOL friends. The message is about the Latvian message
boards on AOL. Unfortunately, they can't be accessed by those of you using
other ISP's; however, those of you on AOL, please read the note below and try
the boards sometime! It's a great tool for sharing ideas and information about
Latvia!
I just wanted to take this opportunity to let those of you who are not familiar with them know about the Latvian Message Boards. I am Gans, the Message Board Moderator and they are located at KEYWORD> Latvija (or you can just use this hyperlink LATVIA to reach them).
The message boards are a great way to exchange ideas, information and make new friends. I realize that they can seem a bit intimidating at first, but once you get used to them they can prove to be invaluable tools for whatever your needs are.
We Latvians are few in number and the more opportunities we have to share our experiences and exchange ideas the better off will we all be. If you get the chance, or if you have the need, please give them a try. If you have any questions or comments I can be reached at LDRS INTL Gans.
Gans
(Anyone not on AOL wanting to write to Gans, don't forget to add at the
end of the address)
This week's link was sent in by an
elementary school in Latvia.
In the news, WWII
crimes are still in the spotlight. As well, comments regarding EU enlargement
and Russian plans for avoiding Baltic transit taxes on crude oil shipment.
For those of you on AOL, remember, every Sunday 9:00/9:30pm to
11:00/11:30pm Eastern time is Lat Chat night, click on the AOL link...
Town Square—Latvian chat
Ar visu labu,
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This week's link is one sent to us from a grammar
school in Latvia...
Labdien!
Vestienas pamatskola luudz Juusu atbalstu projekta "Mees 2000. gadaa"
realizaacijaa. Ir iecereets izveidot fotoatteelu galeriju par dazzaadaam teemaam. Kaa pirmaa teema tiek piedaavaata: "Ziema 2000". Tajaa tiks ievietoti fotoatteeli par atbilstosho teemu. Mees labraat ievietotu arii Juusu atsuutiitos foto! Plashaaku informaaciju par projektu varat atrast Vestienas WWW lapaa.
http://www.madona.lv/pilsetaspagasti/vestiena/index.htm
mailto:vestsk@madona.lv
Luudzam sho e-mailu paarsuutiit taalaak arii citiem!
Ar cienju—Juris Ploters
Our translation follows...
Good day!
Vestiena's elementary school seeks your support for putting together the project, "We, in the Year 2000". We hope to construct a photo galery about various themes. Our first theme to be presented is: "Winter 2000." It will include photographs relative to that theme. We would very much like to include your photograph as well, which we received. [It must have been forwarded to them.] You can find further information about the project at Vestiena's WWW home page
http://www.madona.lv/pilsetaspagasti/vestiena/index.htm
mailto:vestsk@madona.lv
Please forward this E-mail on to others as well!
Respectfully—Juris [George] Ploters
It works best with Microsoft Internet Explorer... we had
some problems from Netscape. Looking back at our first visits after
independence, it's amazing how fast the Internet has taken hold!
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- Assassination suspect is detained in Latvia
- French ex-EU chairman disagrees with EU expansion, or at least how it is being done
- Russians are building a crude oil pipeline to the Gulf of Finland (putting Baltic's "transit economy" at risk of disappearing where crude oil is concerned)
- Latvian president Vaira Vike-Freiberga asks for international cooperation and assistance in the Kaljes case (if there is proof, bring it forward)
- A Soviet partisan is convicted in Latvia (for WWII crimes); controversy continues
Copyright 2000 Reuters Ltd.
RIGA, Latvia (Reuters)—Latvian
police said Monday they had detained a former Russian policeman as a suspect in
the assassination of Russian reform politician Galina Starovoitova.
A police spokesman told Reuters an unnamed
Russian man was being held in connection with the murder of Starovoitova, who
was gunned down outside her home in St. Petersburg in November 1998.
The spokesman said he could not give any further
details.
Latvian State Radio, quoting a
different police source, named the suspect as Konstantin Nikurin, a former
Russian paramilitary policeman.
Starovoitova,
aged 52 at the time of her murder, was an outspoken supporter of reforms in
Russia and a close ally of former President Boris Yeltsin in the early days of
Soviet reforms.
REUTERS
Copyright 2000 Reuters
Ltd.
PARIS, Jan 18
(Reuters)—Former European Commission President Jacques Delors on
Tuesday slammed European Union plans to add more members from eastern Europe
which could eventually almost double EU membership from the current 15
nations.
In an interview with French daily Le
Monde, Delors said Europe's economic integration project was under threat of
dilution after EU leaders agreed in Helsinki last month to double the number of
countries in membership talks to 12.
"Our
historic duty is to reunify Europe and so to open the door to those countries
that are as European as we are, but we know from previous enlargements that in
doing this we risk diluting the project," Delors said.
"I do not think ... that this Europe of 27
(members), and tomorrow of 30 or 32 when peace returns to the Balkans, can have
as wide ambitions as those fixed by the Maastricht treaty."
Delors, Commission President from 1985 to 1995
and famed for his tough pursuit of European integration, said while a broader
EU could improve understanding between the region's peoples, it was vital for
Brussels to decide whether it wanted to take a political or an economic
approach.
EU leaders agreed in December to
invite six new countries — Slovakia, Latvia, Lithuania, Bulgaria Romania
and Malta — to join membership talks from February next year, adding to an
existing six — Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Estonia, Slovenia and
Cyprus — who started talks in March 1998.
That means the EU could one day compromise 28
nations and 500 million citizens, the largest trading and investment bloc in
the world.
Delors said furthering political
integration in Europe would necessitate setting up a federation of nation
states defined by a detailed treaty containing stronger cooperation of economic
policies, integration, and a common defence and foreign policy.
"I condemn the routine which consists of thinking
that what succeeded in enlarging (the union) from six to nine and then to 12
could prove a good method for an expansion to 27 or 30," he said.
Copyright 2000
Reuters Ltd.
MOSCOW, Jan 19
(Reuters)—Russian crude oil pipeline monopoly Transneft plans to
start building a new Baltic Pipeline System, known by its Russian initials BTS,
in March, Transneft vice president Sergei Grigoryev said on Wednesday.
The BTS will link deposits in western Siberia and
the remote Timan Pechora region with a new port at Primorsk on the Gulf of
Finland, giving Russian oil direct access to the Baltic Sea for the first time
since the Soviet Union broke up in 1991.
"We
will begin construction in March, without waiting for a final decision on how
the pipeline's share capital will be structured," Grigoryev told Reuters. "We
already have $100 million for the BTS and we must put it to use."
Russia started levying a special tariff of $1.43
per tonne of crude on companies exporting through the Transneft system in May
last year to pay for the BTS, and this was the source of the monopoly's $100
million.
But the tariff was dropped this
year, although Grigoryev said Transneft has asked the government to review this
decision.
The BTS will allow Russia to avoid
exporting crude through the Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia,
which have charged transit and port handling fees since they became
independent.
RIGA, January 20 (Itar-Tass)—Latvian
President Vaira Vike-Freiberga has called on the United States, Canada,
Australia, Germany, the United Kingdom and Israel for cooperation with the
Latvian prosecutor's office in the Kalejs case.
Conrad Kalejs served during World War II in a
Nazi most bloody Areis sonderkommando that murdered tens of thousands of
civilians.
Kalejs is staying in Australia
whose citizenship he was granted in the 1950s.
He had tried to get permanent residence in the
U.S., Canada and Britain, but was deported from the three countries.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center demands Kalejs'
extradition to Latvia for trial.
However,
the Latvian prosecutor's office has no sufficient evidence to charge Kalejs
with mass murders.
It is going to ask such
evidence from Russia, where Kalejs' company burned villages. Latvia has sent
similar inquiries to other countries.
Vike-Freiberga said in a published statement on
Wednesday that crimes against humanity have no period of limitation.
"If there is proof of participation of a concrete
person in such crimes and if the guilty has not been punished, the duty of
Latvian law and order bodies is to hold him criminally responsible," she said.
lyu/Copyright 2000
Copyright 2000 The
Associated Press.
By STEVEN C. JOHNSON
Associated Press Writer
RIGA, Latvia (AP) — A Soviet
partisan during World War II was convicted of war crimes Friday and sentenced
to six years in prison after a trial that many Russians sharply criticized.
Prosecutors said Vasily Kononov, 77, ordered the
executions of nine innocent civilians in a Latvian village because he suspected
them of pro-Nazi sympathies. The killings took place in 1944, the last year of
a three-year Nazi occupation.
The court ruled
that Kononov had led 18 partisans in the attack and that a number of victims
were burned alive, the Baltic News Service reported.
Latvia has vowed to bring both Soviets and Nazis
who committed atrocities to trial. But while it has so far convicted three men
of committing crimes on the Soviet side, no Nazis have been charged or
convicted.
Kononov was the first person
charged with committing a war crime, because his actions breached rules of
wartime engagement, the court said. In the other cases, defendants were accused
of taking part in Stalinist deportations, including in the postwar years, and
were charged with crimes against humanity.
Kononov denied targeting civilians, saying they
got caught in the cross fire during a battle between pro-Soviet forces and
units backed by the Germans. In court, he said he regretted the lost of
civilian lives. His lawyers said they will appeal.
Soviet partisans were impromptu, ragtag forces
that were not in the regular Soviet army. In Latvia, they often were Soviet
sympathizers committed to driving out the Nazis.
Kononov's case has touched a nerve in Latvia's
large ethnic Russian community, with many saying he was a hero trying to
liberate Latvia.
"He was only fighting for
his country," said Pauls Cerkovskis, 81, a former partisan who was among a
dozen people who stood outside the courthouse with signs denouncing the
trial.
When the verdict was announced,
Kononov's supporters in the courtroom chanted, "Fascism isn't dead. Death to
fascists," the Baltic News Service said.
Russian officials in Moscow have criticized the
charges in the past. The Foreign Ministry had no comment on the verdict.
Many Latvians say Soviet and Nazi fighters were
equal evils. Latvia was independent before being occupied and annexed by the
Soviet Union in 1940. After the Nazi occupation, Soviet troops occupied Latvia,
remaining until it regained independence in 1991.
"Latvia has every right to try men like this.
They killed innocent people," said Karlis Zuka, 75. "I was here during the war,
I saw what went on."
