Saturday, 27 May 2000

"For Fatherland and Freedom"  Latvian Link
  News
  Picture Album

Latvian Mailer & AOL Chat Reminder for Sunday, May 28th
Date: 5/27/00
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Our best wishes for a safe and happy holiday weekend for those of you celebrating Memorial Day! We're still moving... a bit overwhelmed... taking a break, hence the mailer!

This week's link is to a compendium of governmental links.

In the news:

This week's picture is of Vecriga (Old Riga) in July of 1995. The sky is overcast, but the flowers are still radiant!

Remember, mailer or not, Lat Chat spontaneously appears every Sunday on AOL starting around 9:00/9:30pm Eastern time, lasting until 11:00/11:30pm. AOL'ers can follow this link: Town Square - Latvian chat.

Silvija Peters


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  Latvian Link

The general link to this week's site is:

     http://www.gksoft.com/govt/

"A comprehensive database of governmental institutions on the World Wide Web: parliaments, ministries, offices, law courts, embassies, city councils, public broadcasting corporations, central banks, multi-governmental institutions etc. Includes also political parties. Online since June 1995. Contains more than 15,000 entries from more than 220 countries and territories as of April 2000. Frequently updated." The site is available in English and German.

There's quite the compendium on the Latvian page:

      http://www.gksoft.com/govt/en/lv.html

with more than two dozen links to various institutions.

  News

     EBRD Meeting Elects Lemierre, Ponders Russia's Future
     By Paul Hannon
     RIGA, Latvia (Dow Jones) — It was a tale of a Frenchman with a new job, and a Russian who had just lost his.
     As expected, on the final day of the annual meeting of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the bank's shareholders Monday approved French Treasury Director Jean Lemierre as the bank's new president.
     One of Lemierre's main tasks will be to oversee an increase in the bank's investments in Russia, which fell sharply in 1999 in the wake of the country's financial crisis.
     But the Russian delegation to the annual meeting had little concrete to say about economic policy under the new presidency of Vladimir Putin. It wasn't helped by the fact that the delegation was led by Andrei Shapovalyants, who lost his job as economics minister shortly before boarding the airplane for Riga.
     One EBRD official said Shapovalyants had been placed in a "humiliating" position, and it was hard to argue with that assessment. But the real issue was why Russia's new government, which claims it wants to attract more foreign investment to the country, sent as its representative a man who no longer has any official position.
      Caution On Russia's Future
     Shapovalyants managed to perform his official tasks, meeting with EBRD officials and delivering a speech to other shareholders, although there was some irony in his having to tell them that Russia "is becoming...more predictable."
     European Union officials were cautious about Russia's future under Putin, preferring to wait until the government's economic program is announced before making enthusiastic declarations of support.
     "It seems that he (Putin) is in favor of positive developments, but we are waiting to see what happens," said French Finance Minister Laurent Fabius. "If it is as it seems, the government will have the support of the international community."
     However, German Deputy Finance Minister Ciao Koch-Weser made it clear Russia shouldn't expect large amounts of foreign aid.
     "It (the government) has to rely far less on foreign support," he said.
     Russia's neighbors were even more cautious.
     "The election of a new president in Russia offers some hope that Russia's capacity to act as a stable partner will be enhanced," said Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga. "Doubts remain about Russia's ability to strengthen its frail economy...and improve relations with its neighbors."
     Regional Focus Debated
     With the economies of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union expected to grow more strongly this year than at any time since the fall of communism in the region, the mood of the annual meeting was upbeat.
     Progress within the region isn't uniform, however. Business people expressed concerns about the growth of Poland's current account deficit, while many countries in the Commonwealth of Independent States have what is at best a patchy record of implementing structural reforms.
     "We are seeing a widening of the gap between the leaders and the stragglers in the reform process," Koch-Weser said.
     There were also hints of lingering disagreement between some of the EBRD's leading shareholders about the speed at which the bank reduces the proportion of its lending to the more advanced countries of Central Europe, and toward countries in the CIS and Southeastern Europe.
      The U.S. government favors a rapid move to the East, while most E.U. members would prefer a more gradual shift.
     "The crucial task...is to identify and target those geographical and functional areas where the EBRD can have maximum transition impact, shifting resources from activities where the impact is more limited," said U.S. Treasury Under Secretary for International Affairs Timothy Geithner.
     Lemierre was reluctant to discuss specific issues affecting the bank.
     "I don't like arrogance; I like facts and decisions," he said. "It would be very arrogant for me today to say what should be the policy of the bank."
     The mood may have been generally upbeat, but attendance was down at 2,625, only 1,150 of whom were business people.
     Paul Hannon; Dow Jones Newswires; 44-7776-200 927; paul.hannon@dowjones.com
     © 2000 Dow Jones & Co., Inc.
     
     Russia, Ukraine, and the Breakup of the Soviet Union
     STANFORD, Calif., May 22, 2000 (BUSINESS WIRE) — Renowned Eastern Europe scholar Roman Szporluk sheds new light on the history of the Soviet Union after 1945 in the Hoover Institution Press volume, "Russia, Ukraine, and the Breakup of the Soviet Union."
     Many analysts have interpreted the 1991 demise of the Soviet Union as a consequence of the collapse of Moscow's central government. Szporluk presents evidence to support the idea that the Soviet Union was destroyed by the actions of its opponents, most importantly those who took up the causes of an independent Ukraine and an independent Russia.
     According to Szporluk, Josef Stalin's 1939-1945 annexation of Ukrainian ethnic territories previously belonging to Poland, Czechoslovakia and Romania, and their inclusion in the Ukrainian Soviet Republic, transformed the Ukrainian problem in the Soviet Union into a major issue and had a profound impact on Ukrainian-Russian relations for decades. He argues that Russia's and Ukraine's simultaneous emergence as independent states in 1991 was made possible, in the long run, by what Stalin had done.
     Szporluk also argues that the wartime annexation by Moscow of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania had a lasting impact on relations within the U.S.S.R. because the Baltic republics were perceived as being the most modern, and at the same time the most pro-Western, of all Soviet republics. Their quest for independence helped turn others away from communism and contributed to the Soviet breakup in 1991.
     Beginning in the early 1970s, Szporluk was among a minority of Western analysts who viewed Russian nationalism as a serious threat to the Soviet regime. His thesis that the "Russian problem" hampered Soviet nationality from 1917 until 1991 is a common thread throughout the entire volume.
     "Russia, Ukraine, and the Breakup of the Soviet Union," is an indispensable source for those who want to understand the challenges in state- and nation-building that the post-Soviet successors are facing.
     Roman Szporluk is a professor of history at Harvard University and director of the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute. His previous books include "The Political Thought of Thomas G. Masaryk" and "Communism and Nationalism: Karl Marx versus Friedrich List." Before coming to Harvard, Szporluk taught East European history at the University of Michigan.

CONTACT:     Public Affairs, Hoover Institution
Sharon Storm,650/723-0603
stormhoover.stanford.edu
or
Harvard
Roman Szporluk, 617/495-4053
szporlukfas.harvard.edu
URL:  http://www.businesswire.com
© 2000 Business Wire

     Red Partisan Kononov gives up Latvian citizenship
     © 2000 Reuters Ltd.
     RIGA, May 25 (Reuters) — World War Two Soviet partisan Vasili Kononov, sentenced in Latvia for war crimes, has asked for his Latvian citizenship to be annulled and will take the Russian passport granted to him by President Vladimir Putin.
     "The department has this week received a request by Kononov for his Latvian citizenship to be annulled," Janis Kahanovics, deputy head of the Latvian naturalisation department, told Reuters on Thursday.
     The department has six weeks to accept or reject the application, he added.
     Moscow and Riga have been arguing since 1999 over the case of Kononov, a 77-year-old former Communist partisan sentenced to six years jail last year for his role in killing nine civilians in 1944.
     Russia regards him as a persecuted hero of the Soviet Union's struggle against Nazi German invaders and Putin granted him Russian citizenship in mid-April.
     Latvia, which saw the Nazi occupation replaced by that of the Soviet Union, has said all war crimes must be punished irrespective of the ideology which motivated them.
     Latvia's Supreme Court has released Kononov for the duration of his appeal, and has asked international experts to review the case.
     If the court upholds the conviction, Kononov is expected to seek extradition to Russia to serve out his sentence there, though most experts admit he would probably not be imprisoned there.
     
     Icelandic PM calls for continuing NATO expansion
     RIGA, May 25 (Itar-Tass) — Visiting Icelandic Prime Minister David Oddsson called for using a historic possibility of continuing NATO expansion to the East.
     Addressing Latvian parliamentarians on Thursday, Oddsson said that one cannot ignore the countries's drive for joining NATO.
     The expansion of the North Atlantic Alliance will facilitate stability on the continent and in the whole world, the Icelandic prime minister said.
     He also welcomed the Baltic countries's strive for becoming EU members.
     Oddsson will take part in opening new joint ventures created by Icelandic entrepreneurs. He will also visit a Latvian- Icelandic joint venture, which has begun its operation in the country.
      yur/© 2000 ITAR-TASS

     Russia makes me nervous- Latvia's Vike-Freiberga
     © 2000 Reuters Ltd.
     BERLIN, May 27 (Reuters) — Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga said on Saturday that instability in Russia made her nervous and meant that she could never rule out the prospect of another Russian occupation.
     Asked in an interview with German news magazine Der Spiegel if she could see the Russian army occupying her small Baltic country again, Vike-Freiberga said it was not beyond the realms of the imagination.
     "Russia is extremely unpredictable. The country is not very stable. Its democratic basis is questionable. There is not as much economic security as one might wish. We are not saying Russia will do this or do that. But the simple fact of its unpredictability makes me afraid," she said.
     The Latvian president angered the Russians earlier this month when she accused Moscow in an interview of harking back to the Cold War because of statements Russia made about Latvia's bid to join NATO.
     Vike-Freiberga said in the interview that relations between Latvia, which celebrated 10 years of independence this month, and Russia under President Vladimir Putin had not improved as much as she had hoped.
     "We have just had another attack on our embassy in Moscow. That is not a sign of peaceful behaviour. We hope that the Russian government will condemn this attack and start an investigation," she said.
     Vandals, apparently reacting to allegations of mistreatment of Russian nationals in Latvia, have several times daubed the Moscow embassy with paint and broken windows.
     About one-third of Latvia's 2.5 million peole are ethnic Russians, most of whom came there during its 50 years as a reluctant Soviet republic.
     "Russia has to come to terms with the fact that we are no longer a Soviet republic. Latvia is a sovereign state," Vike-Freiberga said.
     She said Latvia was keen to join both NATO and the European Union.
     "We want both. If you ask me if I'd rather cut off my right arm or my left arm, I'd say I want to keep both of them."
     She said she was optimistic that Latvia's bid for NATO membership would be successful.
     "I have just spoken to U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and and she welcomed our joining NATO enthusiastically, provided we make our contribution and invest in our defence forces," Vike-Freiberga said.

  Picture Album

This week's picture is a view from July, 1995 of Vecriga, with summer flower plantings in full bloom.

Vecriga Square
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