Sveiki! A Happy Easter to all!

We're back from vacation... rested, refreshed, and ready to take up the gauntlet of Russian propaganda. Not that we planned that way. However, Russia is back at it, from complaining about human rights violations to deflect attention from Chechnya to pleading they were nothing but victims of fascism and any portrayal of the Soviet Union as an occupying force besmirches their anti-fascist sacrifices. No wonder then that Russia has pretty much stated it will never take responsibility for Stalin signing a contract with Hitler to divide up Europe. The world still waits for Russia to confess to its sins. Read our editorial here.

On the positive side of this, Latvian president Vaira Vike-Freiberga appears determined to bring this all to a head. When Putin and the Russian Foreign Ministry invited the Baltic leaders to celebrated the Soviet's "victory over fascism," somehow, we suspect they may have been mistaken about who was being invited into whose lair.

In the news:

This edition's link is to Latvians in Indianapolis.

This edition's picture is from Peters' trip last October, of Konventa Seta in Old Riga.

As always, AOL'ers, 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 in their AOL browser: Town Square - Latvian chat. And thanks to you participating on the Latvian message board as well: LATVIA (both on AOL only).

Ar visu labu,

Silvija and Peters
 

  Opinion/Editorial

Once again, the Russian foreign ministry has its pillory out and is searching for any reason to restrain and flog the Latvians. As recently reported by TASS:

MOSCOW, March 16 (Itar-Tass) - The Russian Foreign Ministry has resolutely condemned the Latvian authorities for allowing the former SS men to march in Riga on the occasion of a regular “anniversary” of the foundation of the Latvian SS Legion.

Commenting on the traditional march, which the legion members held in Riga on Wednesday, the Russian Foreign Ministry qualified the action as immoral and inadmissible.

"It is particularly cynical that such actions are being held with the consent of the Latvian authorities, which are trying, on the eve of the 60th anniversary of the VE-Day, to find support in the European capitals for Riga’s policy of revising the World War II outcomes and the sentence of the Nuernberg trial, which classified the SS as a criminal organization," the Russian Foreign Ministry emphasized.

"Only distorted logic can explain a situation when the legion members march freely in the centre of the Latvian capital while the police are using force against anti-fascists. All this is happening in contemporary Latvia, which, according to the European Union, fully complies with the ‘Copenhagen criteria’ of democracy," the Russian Foreign Ministry stressed.

Once again, Russia condemn Latvians as SS Nazis. (Conversely, neo-Nazis use the same logic to push their equally preposterous position that Hitler had wide-spread support, look at all the Latvians in the SS.) Neither of these positions could be further from the truth. Nuremburg does not apply to the Eastern European SS units; they had nothing to do with the dreaded German SS. As reported on Radio Free Europe's web site, with respect to the implication the Baltic SS units were criminal in one of its articles:

The End Note of 23 July 2004 titled "Estonian War Veterans Stir Up Russian Propaganda Campaign By Proxy" implied that the Estonian Legion (also termed Estonian Waffen-SS) was a criminal organization. In 1949-50, a United Nations commission investigated the Estonian and Latvian "SS" and found these military units to be neither criminal nor Nazi collaborators. On 12 September 1950, Harry N. Rosenfield, the United Nations Refugee Relief Association commissioner, wrote to Julijs Feldmanis, Latvia's charge d'affaires in Washington, saying that "the Waffen-SS units of the Baltic States [the Baltic Legions] are to be seen as units that stood apart and were different from the German SS in terms of goals, ideologies, operations and constitution, and the Commission does not, therefore, consider them to be a movement that is hostile to the government of the United States under Section 13 of the Displaced Persons Act, as amended." "RFE/RL Newsline" regrets any misunderstandings caused by the article.

Russia ignores any resolution by any international body that does not fit its anti-Baltic agenda. Witness last July, when Russia and the ex-CIS states condemned the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE)--a 55 nation group--regarding their acceptance of Estonia's and Latvia's treatment of their Russian minorities (previously, for example, ruling Latvia's language law complied with European norms)--while finding Russia's presidential election earlier that year falling short of democratic norms, among other abuses of democratic and journalistic rights in the Russian-led bloc.

A recent news article quoted a Russian Latvian woman as complaining that the Soviets were once "welcomed as liberators," now the Latvians "scorn them." The notion that the Soviets liberated anything and were thanked for it is a fiction perpetrated by Soviet propaganda, a fiction as false as Latvia's Freedom Monument being built by a Latvian people thankful to their Soviet "liberators"--a fiction so pervasive and unrelenting that British tourist information published 10 years after Latvian independence still stated that lie as fact. There was no "liberation." Prior to the Nazi occupation, the Latvians spent a year enjoying the fruits of Soviet "liberation": the "year of horrors" (Baigais Gads), during which tens of thousands of Latvians were killed or deported, including the entire Latvian government. Latvians gladly took guns to fight against the Soviets from wherever they could get them, even the Nazis. (Recall, there was no great love for the Germans, whose Baltic elite had dominated Latvian life for eight centuries.) As for scorn, I know no Latvian, including myself, that does not welcome anyone willing to work for the good of Latvia and to be a full participant. However, there is a thread in the Russian Latvian community, unchanged in fifteen years of independence, whose attitude is best summed up in another recent quote from the news, a Russian Latvian woman saying, "I have no need to learn Latvian. Everyone here speaks Russian."

As long as Russia continues to bathe its genocidal Stalinist past--one which makes Hitler pale by comparison--in a false mantle of anti-fascist purity and glory, it has no right to join the world community as an equal partner. When an entire government continues to actively engage in and perpetrate criminal irresponsibility, what message does that send to its citizens about the morality one should pursue in one's own life?

Finally, Russia's protestations about the "treatment" (Pravda has used the term "ethnic cleansing") of Russian Latvians are nothing but empty words. Two years ago, we responded to a Christian Science Monitor article about the marginalization of the Russian Latvian population. What we said then remains true now. We thought it fitting to republish it, as it appeared in David Johnson's Russia List, responding to the appearance of thatCSM article in an earlier edition. (The Russia List is a service of the Center for Defense Information, www.cdi.org):

From: Peters J. Vecrumba (PetersJV@aol.com)
Date: Sat, 30 Nov 2002
Subject: Re: 6573-Weir/Latvia

Hello!

Regarding #8, Fred Weir's CSM article on Latvia giving its Russians the cold shoulder, I wanted to share my response to the CSM editor, which I also Emailed via their web site to Mr. Weir.
---------------

Regarding Christian Science Monitor's November 26th issue's article by Fred Weir, "Latvia gives Russians cold shoulder"

While interviewing multiple parties and appearing to strive for objectivity, Mr. Weir's article ultimately paints a shallow picture of the Latvian-Russian landscape in Latvia.

Latvia's heritage is one of multiculturalism and tolerance. Until W.W.II, most Latvians spoke two or more languages: Latvian, German, Russian, even Polish--Poles came to Latvia as seasonal farm workers. There was a vibrant merchant community in which the Jewish community was well-entrenched. Anti-Semitism was a foreign concept: my mother (now nearing 91) tells of the dry goods merchant making his weekly rounds through the farmland giving away candies to the children, including her--she was one of his "favorites"; grown up in Riga, she tells of being pulled into a store for a hat she was "perfect for"--stories told not with stereotyping or prejudice, but with fondness for a more innocent time.

The twin evils of Nazism and Stalinism shattered that world. As occupying forces vied for the Baltics, Latvians chose whichever side appeared to give them a better chance of staying alive; it was not uncommon to fight for both sides against both sides, or to be arrested by both sides as a collaborator for the other. Anti-Semitism took root as the Red Army used the Jewish population as scab labor to replace Latvians arrested and deported (as at my mother's post office). Yet she was saved when one of those workers told my mother not to go home the day the rest of her family was taken away to Siberia. They, too, were only trying to survive. However, in war there is death; death breeds vengeance; to avenge, one must blame; to blame, one must depersonalize and vilify. (What is never mentioned about W.W.II in Latvia is that the Red Army was the first occupying power; after a year of brutal occupation, the invading Nazis were the liberators--and, for some, it was an opportunity to exact revenge in the most tragic way against the perceived collaborators of the Russians.)

But I digress ... fifty years later, Latvia independent once again. Most of my mother's family had survived Siberia and returned to Latvia, 15-20 years after their deportation. My aunt had 7,000 rubles saved in her bank account, enough to retire comfortably. Independence and currency revaluation reduced those life savings to... 200 rubles per Lat, 60 cents per Lat... $58.33. Instant subsistence level living off the same pension as everyone else (55 Lats/month, or about $90, as the article mentions). But hardly a plan to oppress the Russians. Latvia pays the same pension to its Soviet-imposed non-citizens as to everyone else. (Incidentally, Russia announced an increase in its pension from 450 to 600 rubles a month--from about $14.50 to $19 even.)

And, when independence came, where did all the assets of all the collective farms and factories go? Fields revert to forest--farming equipment sold, money pocketed. Impoverished Russian workers live next to empty factories, mere husks, insides stripped bare, again, by their own Russian communist ruling class, sold, money pocketed. Less than a year after independence, a Russian woman calls into a radio talk show mad as hell that her apartment building isn't granting her a parking space for her second Mercedes--in fact, she had already gone to the Russian embassy to file a formal complaint that she was being oppressed. Russian thieves? Yes. Latvian oppressors? No.

And actually learning Latvian? We heard it on the radio ourselves, a Russian woman saying she would "never learn that language not fit for a pig." Even more telling, walking down the street in Riga, talking Latvian, and hearing, from passerby Russians: "NEXT time we'll send them ALL to Siberia!" Learning the Latvian language means acknowledging the loss of preferred status. Loss of artificial privilege? Yes. Oppression? No.

Finally, for all the complaints, when the Red Army "pulled out" of Latvia, what really happened? Thousands upon thousands retired from the military and stayed--and claimed their state-provided apartments. (Anyone who "legally" gained a residence during Soviet occupation got to claim it--hardly oppressive.) As for the Soviet military, Latvia was their favorite retirement community for decades; estimates range over 40,000 total. And why did they stay? Because in a Russia which so vehemently "defends" its now expatriates abroad, returning Russian Latvians are derided and called Latvians! There is no mother Russia to return to; no warm hearth, only cold rebuke. And even worse for returning Russian military: no barracks, no housing, no money to pay salaries. Meanwhile, Latvia lets them keep their apartments and pays pensions to retirees. Latvia treats the embodiment of its oppression, ex-Soviet military, better than Russia treats its own.

It's not necessarily one's ethnicity that determines one's Latvian-ness: I have met Russians who make wonderful Latvians; in the same vein, among my own relatives are those who "married Russian," whose children speak no Latvian, and who have through callous inattentiveness even disowned their own parents: Latvians who make miserable Latvians. In a territory the size of West Virginia, overrun by Germans, Russians, Swedes, Poles, even French--every regional power of the last eight centuries--there is no such thing as a "pure" Latvian. It is the love of Latvia and Latvian culture that makes one Latvian, and it is the inherent and unique richness of the Latvian culture that has helped it survive--along with its sibling Lithuanian, the oldest surviving Indo-European culture, the oldest surviving Indo-European language. (And the survival of language IS the survival of culture. It's hypocritical to flog the Latvians for preserving their language when American media routinely run alarmist "exposes" of Miami and how no one behind the counter at the local 7-11 speaks English.)

In the future, those who work to build a better Latvia for all will be the Latvians; those who don't, whether through disdain, or yearning for--or resentment of--past privilege, or simple apathy, will be marginalized. It's about attitude, not ethnicity.

We would add that we never received any acknowledgement from either the Christian Science Monitor or from the author, Fred Weir. The original article can be found on the CSM site at: http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/1126/p08s01-woeu.html. You'll note the first link for further reading on the CSM site is a Pravda article claiming the Baltics are engaged in "ethnic cleansing." If you find such a juxstaposition of article and links as slanted as we do, we encourage you to write to the CSM.

 
 

  Latvian Link

 
The Latvians in Indianapolis have their own page... if you haven't visited in a while, there's an interesting range of information. We also undersand Indianapolis will be a future host of Dziesmu Svetki. You can access their site at:

http://www.indylatvians.com

It's available in both English and Latvian.
 
 

  News


Rav Kook's Latvia Days Jerusalem Post Jan. 6, 2005
Copyright 2005 Jerusalem Post
By Yehudah Mirsky
Like most of us, I guess, Latvia has figured little in my life, other than as the source of the many Letts who regularly populate New York Times crossword puzzles.
Lithuania was, of course, a different story. The high Jewish intellectual life centered in Vilnius (in Yiddish, forever, "Vilna") and its tributaries was so rich in so many directions, traditional and modern alike, that to this day thousands of Jews, Talmudists especially, identify themselves as "Lithuanian," even if they were born in America or Israel. Latvia always seemed like an afterthought.
Still, I was glad to travel there to give some talks about one native son who transcended its borders and much else besides. Abraham Isaac Kook, born in 1865 in a shtetl called Griva on the banks of the Daugava River, lived in and around Latvia until 1904 when he moved to Jaffa, eventually becoming the first Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Mandatory Palestine, until his death in 1935.
Best known as the first and greatest major rabbinic figure to endorse Zionism, he was an extraordinary amalgam of scholastic jurist, ecstatic mystic, lyric poet, modernist theologian, communal leader, and saint. His messianic vision still fuels Israel's settlers, while his universalism animates the religious left; ultra-Orthodox spokesmen still fear and denounce him with an oddly flattering regularity.
Rav Kook's outstanding significance to Israeli and Zionist history has served to obscure the fact that more than half of his life was lived elsewhere, largely in Latvia. The Israeli embassy in Riga and the Latvian Culture Ministry jointly convened a conference to mark the centennial of his departure for Palestine. In truth, not many students of Rav Kook scholars pay much attention to his early decades, but I do, and so I was asked to visit.
The morning before the conference I traveled with the Israeli ambassador, Gary Koren, to the town of Bauska (in Yiddish, "Boisk"), an hour's drive south of Riga, where Rav Kook had served as spiritual leader for the decade prior to his departure. A knowledgeable and sympathetic local historian showed us around.
In Rav Kook's time, a bit more than 40 percent of Bauska's population of 6,000 were Jews. Bauska, like Latvia generally, was then what we today would call multicultural, with Latvian, Russian, German and Yiddish all simultaneously serving as linguae francae, with much being written in Hebrew as well.
Bauska's Jewish community was home to both traditionalists and Enlighteners; its members were Talmudists, Hassidim, businessmen, tradesmen, doctors, teachers, journalists, and revolutionaries. Some owned factories, others were poverty-stricken. One was a deputy in the Russian parliament. Another became a great Semitic philologist.
It was in this polyglot atmosphere that Rav Kook honed what would become his genius for synthesis and reconciliation. His synagogue, made of white stone with an exquisitely carved wooden interior, preserved today only in photographs, stood on the main street, directly across from the marketplace and city hall. All that remains of it today is an empty, weed-filled lot. The only physical traces of Jewish life there outside the local museum are two plaques, two tombstones, and the faded lettering on a factory, "Michelson."
THE END of Bauska's Jews is a depressingly familiar tale. The Nazis arrived there at the end of June 1941. A little more than a month later, the town's 600 remaining Jews were taken to a police firing range in a birch forest eight kilometers out of town and shot by the locals, at Nazi behest. The boilerplate memorial slab over the otherwise unmarked mass grave there refers only to "Soviet citizens, victims of fascism." They had been Soviet citizens for all of one year, after Stalin crushed the Latvian Republic.
STAR FUND-RAISER GETS POST — Kentuckian Bailey takes oath as envoy to Latvia The Courier-Journal Jan. 14, 2005
Copyright 2005 The Courier-Journal
By Kay Stewart
Catherine Todd Bailey of Louisville, the new ambassador to Latvia, was given the oath of office yesterday by Secretary of State Colin Powell. In the middle was her husband, Irving. "I am just so honored by the opportunity to be able to serve my country," Cathy Bailey said.
In 1977, Catherine Todd Bailey ventured into Kentucky politics as a volunteer for a little-known Republican running for Jefferson County judge-executive.
Yesterday, she was sworn in as U.S. ambassador to Latvia.
In the intervening years, Bailey honed her skills to become a star fund-raiser for the state and national Republican Party, as well as a leader for local charitable causes. And the candidate she backed 28 years ago, Mitch McConnell, became one of the nation's most powerful U.S. senators — and a Cathy Bailey fan.
McConnell, who supported Bailey's appointment at a confirmation hearing before members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in September, said she has proven leadership skills and values that will serve the nation well.
But he's not taking credit for getting her the job. "She knows people in the Bush campaign, and the Bush administration," McConnell said in an interview, adding, "The call was made by the president and the secretary of state."
The Senate approved Bailey's appointment on Nov. 20, and Secretary of State Colin Powell swore her in yesterday in Washington.
QUICK TAKE
Latvia is in Eastern Europe on the Baltic Sea, between Lithuania and Estonia. It is slightly larger than West Virginia, with a population of 2.3million. Its capital is Riga.
Recent history: After a brief period of independence between the two world wars, Latvia was annexed by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in 1940. It re-established its independence in 1991 after the breakup of the Soviet Union. Latvia joined both NATO and the European Union in the spring of 2004. (Source: CIA Web site: www.cia.gov)
As ambassador, Cathy Bailey will oversee about 150 employees from a variety of U.S. agencies who are based at the embassy. Bailey, 53, said in an interview earlier that she's not sure when she will leave for her three-year tour of duty in Latvia, an Eastern European country that declared its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. And as for specific goals there, she said she'll take her direction from the White House.
Bailey, whose official residence will be in the capital city of Riga, said she's unfazed by Latvia's cold, dark winters and is eager to help build stronger ties to that country.
During the interview at her Glenview home over the holidays, she said she was preparing remarks for her swearing-in ceremony, getting tutored once or twice a week to learn the Latvian language, and studying the country's history and culture.
She also was working to relinquish oversight of a local charity she founded, Operation Open Arms, which provides family environments for children whose parents are in prison.
Asked to explain her successful fund-raising techniques, Bailey responded with a laugh, "My children will tell you it's because I talk on the phone so much."
An unexpected call
Bailey, who volunteers little about her political activities, said in response to questions that she has been to President Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas, and "got to taste real Texas barbecue." She also attended Bush's first inaugural party and plans to attend his second.
Last spring, she said, she received an unexpected call from the White House asking if she was interested in an ambassadorship. At a visit to the White House to discuss the opportunity, she said Latvia was suggested, and she was thrilled with the idea.
She said she later attended an intense briefing from the State Department on Latvia and the role of ambassador. "I am just so honored by the opportunity to be able to serve my country," she said.
Bailey grew up in Burlington, Ind., where her father owned a seed company and volunteered for Republicans, and her mother taught school.
A graduate of Franklin College in Franklin, Ind., she moved to Louisville in the 1970s, teaching first grade for several years at Kentucky Country Day School.
She married Louisville businessman Irving W. Bailey II in 1995; he will accompany her to Latvia and transition from managing partner at Chrysalis Ventures, a venture capital firm, to a senior adviser to the firm.
Irving Bailey is the former chairman and chief executive officer of Providian Corp, which was sold to Aegon in 1997.
`Citizen ambassador'
Both Democratic and Republican presidents have a long history of appointing political contributors to ambassadorships.
Bailey referred to her position as a "citizen ambassador," and cited others, including Louisvillian Robert Worth Bingham, a former Courier-Journal publisher who was an ambassador to Great Britain from 1933 to 1937.
During his first term, Bush appointed 36 contributors or fund-raisers to ambassadorships, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, including two Kentuckians: W.L. Lyons Brown, former chairman and chief executive officer of Brown-Forman Corp., to Austria; and Bush family friend and Republican donor William Farish, a horse breeder and owner of Lane's End Farm near Lexington, who returned last year from Great Britain.
Top contributors
And as party contributors, Cathy and Irving Bailey are near the top of GOP lists.
Since 1999, they have contributed a total of more than $550,000 to Republican candidates at the federal level and to national party causes, according to the Center for Responsive Politics' database.
Cathy Bailey, a national Republican committeewoman before her ambassadorship and head of GOP fund-raising efforts in Kentucky last year, was among the GOP's elite group of fund-raisers, qualifying as both a "ranger" and "super ranger."
She said events she helped organize last year — including fund-raisers featuring the president and first lady Laura Bush — brought in about $3.5million, including $2.5million for the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign and $650,000 to $700,000 for the national party.
McConnell said, "When she takes on a project, she convinces people to succeed. As ambassador, she will be leading a team of people in a country to implement the president's policies."
Some Democrats are envious of her fund-raising prowess.
"I don't know Cathy very well, but she's obviously very effective, and I wish we had one like her on our side," said Jack Conway, who was state chairman for the Kerry-Edwards campaign. "Obviously her close relationship with Sen. McConnell makes it easy for her to tap Republican contributors. Democrats need to be thinking strategically about how we can raise the resources we need to be competitive in the state."
William Stone, a Louisville businessman and former Jefferson County Republican Party chairman, said of Bailey, "Everyone who is anyone in the Republican Party knows who she is."
Many of them attend the Baileys' annual Derby party, sort of a mini-Republican convention. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., and Mercer Reynolds III, of Cincinnati, who headed Bush's national re-election fund-raising effort and was appointed ambassador to Switzerland, have attended along with congressional Republican delegation members and Republican members of the Louisville Metro Council, Stone said.
Ed Glasscock, managing partner of the law firm Frost Brown Todd and a Republican contributor, described Bailey as "a national star in fund-raising circles. Her commitment of time and energy is unmatched, and she still has time to give to many charitable organizations."
Latvian finance minister optimistic EU will help after storm AFP 1/18/2005
Copyright 2005, Agence France Presse.
RIGA, Jan 18 (AFP) — Latvian Finance Minister Oskars Spurdzins is optimistic the European Union will give the Baltic country financial help after it was hit by the worst storm in 40 years, state radio reported Tuesday.
"I am optimistic about help from the European Solidarity Fund," Spurdzins told Latvian state radio early Tuesday after meeting with European Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs.
"Now we have to tally all the damage, and of course, we can't receive help for everything," Spurdzins said.
"We will probably have to ask for help together with other countries, which were also affected by the storm," he said.
Northern Europe, including the Baltic states, was lashed on January 9 by a storm packing winds of up to 144 kilometers per hour (86 miles per hour).
A country qualifies for help from the European Solidarity Fund if it has suffered a catastrophe that has a serious impact on people's lives, the environment and economy, and if damages resulting from the storm are equivalent to 0.6 percent of gross domestic product.
In Latvia's case, that would be equivalent to 38 million lats (54 million euros, 71 million dollars), using 2003 gross domestic product as the basis for calculation.
"Roughly calculated, damage could amount to about 30 to 50 million lats," Spurdzins said Monday afternoon before leaving for Brussels.
Latvia's electricity grid was heavily damaged, with at least 40 percent of the country blacked out in the immediate aftermath of the storm.
The Latvian government declared a national energy crisis on January 9, allowing it to mobilise all emergency services to repair damage to the power network.
The crisis was declared over on Thursday last week by the head of an emergency committee set up after the storm, and the government formally lifted it on Monday.
Latvian Constitutional Court to hear case against school language law AP WorldStream Wednesday, January 19, 2005 6:06:00 AM
Copyright 2005 The Associated Press
By TIMOTHY JACOBS
Associated Press Writer
RIGA, Latvia (AP) — A case challenging the constitutionality of a law that requires most public schools, including those catering to native Russian speakers, teach in Latvian, will be heard in April, the Constitutional Court said Wednesday.
The court turned down the case on a technicality when it was first filed last May by left-wing lawmakers Boris Cilevics and Vitalijs Orlovs of the National Harmony Party. But after 20 members of the country's 100-seat Saeima, or parliament, petitioned the court to hear the case it relented.
"We fully agree that the subject is extremely complicated and of course politically, any prognosis is possible," Cilevics told the AP.
He said he and his fellow plaintiffs would spend the three months leading up to the trial examining what effects the school reform has had.
"My general assessment at the moment was that the impact of the reform was negative, but we have to take a close look at it," said Cilevics. "But, as I stress to some colleagues, this is not a political debate. What we need is an accounting of the (reform's) effects that is as exhaustive as possible."
The education reform sparked a series of protests by Russian-speaking students and their parents, the largest of which drew nearly 30,000 people on May 1, the day the former Soviet republic joined the European Union.
Partly to counterbalance the imposed dominance of Russian in many areas during decades of rule by Moscow, the Baltic state declared Latvian the sole official language after it regained independence amid the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.
That decision, and other steps taken to entrench Latvian, has angered Latvia's Russian speakers -- mostly ethnic Russians -- who make up more than a third of Latvia's 2.3 million residents. The language rule for schools has been among the most hotly debated reforms.
Russians call the requirements discriminatory and an attack on their way of life, charges echoed by Moscow. Latvians counter that they are meant to help integrate minorities, adding that those who don't learn Latvian will find it hard to secure good jobs.
The Kremlin has accused Latvia of violating the rights of minorities, while Latvia, in turn, claims Russia is manipulating the issue in a bid to spoil Latvia's image abroad.
The EU has said Latvian language laws conform to European minority rights standards.
Lithuania seeks new crude suppliers as YUKOS falters Reuters World Report Wednesday, January 19, 2005 10:21:00 AM
Copyright 2005 Reuters Ltd.
By Darius James Ross
VILNIUS, Jan 19 (Reuters) — Lithuania said on Wednesday that it was seeking new oil suppliers for its Mazeikiu Nafta refinery
as Russian oil conglomerate YUKOS was falling behind in deliveries.
"We are holding discussions with three companies," Economy Minister Viktor Uspaskich told Reuters, declining to name the firms or their location. He added that YUKOS was not among them.
Uspaskich said YUKOS was falling behind schedule in supplying crude to to Lithuania's Baltic coast oil complex.
"I see that according to the supply schedule so far in the first quarter, YUKOS is behind, and supplies are not similar to the same period last year."
Once Russia's biggest oil exporter, YUKOS has been crippled by a $27 billion back tax charge, widely seen as an attempt by the Russian government to punish its founder, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, for his political activities.
Uspaskich said he had doubts about how long the Russian firm would remain a strategic partner because it was "losing its place in Russia and in the world."
Early this week, Uspaskich held preliminary talks with YUKOS officials about the Lithuanian government buying a controlling stake in Mazeikiu. But Prime Minister Algirdas Brazauskas said the deal would only go through if there were a stable supply schedule, also voicing his doubts about YUKOS' reliability.
Lithuania's government owns 40.66 percent of Mazeikiu, while YUKOS holds 53.7 percent. Both said recently they would like to increase their stake in the refiner by 10 percent.
YUKOS took over the refinery from cash-strapped U.S. group Williams in 2002, returning it to profit in 2003.
Mazeikiu reported sharply higher nine-month profits in October, boosted by additional volumes from Russia and higher refining margins. It refined 6.28 million tonnes of feedstock in the first nine months, 1.26 million tonnes more than January to September 2003.
Along with the Butinge oil terminal and a gas pipeline, it is Lithuania's main energy asset and its fate has always been a sensitive issue for the country.
Border treaty with Latvia could be signed in Moscow — Lavrov ITAR-TASS Jan 19 2005
Copyright 2005, ITAR-TASS
MOSCOW, January 19 (Itar-Tass) — A border agreement with Latvia could be signed in Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.
He told a news conference on Wednesday that Russia “has proposed signing with Latvia an agreement on the border in Moscow on May 10, on the day of the summit Russia-European Union”.
“Border accords with Latvia and Estonia are long since ready, and our colleagues from the EU more than once stated interest in signing.”
Russia proposes simultaneously passing bilateral declarations with Latvia and Estonia on the basis of relations.
“We have already signed a similar document with Lithuania,” Lavrov said.
Such document should determine all basic principles on which relations will be built, naturally including rights of ethnic minorities. We expect receiving a reaction of our colleagues from Latvia and Estonia to drafts of these documents,” Lavrov said.
“We want our relations with the Baltic countries to be good neighbourly and mutually beneficial, based on generally accepted norms and obligations that our countries have in an international plane. We are interested in the development of mutually beneficial cooperation and in settlement of all problems that we have, including the signing of a treaty on the border and agreeing on principles of our relations.”
Lavrov said he was “ready to visit the capita of Estonia in a nearest time for discussion of these questions”.
Too late for Latvia’s veterinary checkpoints? The Baltic Times January 20 2005
Copyright 2005 The Baltic Times
By TBT staff
RIGA — One of the biggest stories in Baltic customs last year was Latvia’s failure to establish EU-certified veterinary custom checkpoints at its two biggest ports and two eastern terminals. For a country on the union’s eastern border, this was a major oversight. But finally, after months of preparation and waiting, veterinary inspection stations in Riga and Ventspils ports and Rezekne and Daugavpils railway stations opened on Jan. 17 to subdued fanfare, since experts unanimously agree that the seven-month delay would inevitably lead to a loss of valuable transit business for the country.
Opening the checkpoints first needed European Commission approval, since they are designated to handle imports of non-EU animal-based food products. Approval came in mid-November, according to Latvia’s Food and Veterinary Service, but launching operations at the four stations was delayed since publication of the EC’s decision in Official Journal of the European Union had to come first.
However, Ilze Meistere, the veterinary service’s spokeswoman, said the border checkpoints decided to begin working anyway.
“Latvia’s competent institution made a decision to use its rights and allow the recognized border control points to start working before the decision was published – since the border points have been approved but publication of the decision has been delayed for bureaucratic reasons,” she said.
Meistere added that the commission and other EU member states have been informed of the decision.
The question now is whether import/export companies will bother returning to the four locations, particularly the ports in Riga and Ventspils. Latvian Logistics and Customs Broker Association President Aivars Taurins has said that food cargo handled at the locations before May 1 would probably not return even after the upgrading of the facilities.
“It is five times harder to get cargo back than to find new clients,” he said.
Riga Mayor Gundars Bojars concurred, saying last year that it was unlikely that this segment of the transit business would return to Riga Port, where he is chairman of the board. He said last summer that the financial losses would be significant, since food cargo was the most expensive and had the highest margins for the stevedores and forwarders.
The mayor added that the port’s loss was one U.S. dollar per ton of food cargo, but the aggregate loss to Latvia’s economy would be even greater.
Food handling accounted for some 4 percent of turnover at the port in 2003, according to reports.
Originally EC recognition was granted to veterinary inspection points in Terehova, Paternieki and Grebneva.
Estonian president: Russia prepared to annul notorious Molotov-Ribbentrop pact AP WorldStream Thursday, January 20, 2005 1:05:00 PM
Copyright 2005 The Associated Press
By MIKE ECKEL
Associated Press Writer
MOSCOW (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin is prepared to renounce a notorious 1939 pact between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union that divided up much of eastern Europe between the two powers, Estonia's president said Thursday.
Speaking on Estonian national broadcaster Eesti Raadio after meeting at the Kremlin with Putin, President Arnold Ruutel said the Russian president had told him he would renounce the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop pact.
"He said that Russia as the legal successor of the Soviet Union supports annulling the pact and considers this the right thing to do," Ruutel said. "I believe it's very important for us and the Russian society to note that Russia has done this."
A statement released by the Kremlin said the two leaders discussed the May celebrations in Moscow to mark the 60th anniversary of the Nazi defeat in World War II, but made no mention of the pact. Kremlin spokespeople refused to comment.
The 1939 nonaggression pact named for Nazi Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop and Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov was signed in secret and carved much of Eastern Europe up between the two countries, including the Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, which were placed under the Soviet sphere of control.
Soviet forces occupied the Baltic states in June 1940 but were driven out by the Germans a year later. The Red Army retook the Baltics in 1944 and the three countries were reincorporated back into the Soviet Union.
Russia has invited Estonian and other Baltic leaders to Moscow on May 9 for the World War II anniversary celebrations, but only one leader, Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga, has agreed to participate. They became independent in the Soviet breakup of 1991.
Last week, in announcing she would travel to Moscow, Vike-Freiberga called on Russia to denounce the pact, saying that in 1945 only half of Europe could rejoice in the defeat of the Nazis and the end of occupation.
"I will be extending a hand of friendship to Russia," Vike-Freiberga said last week. "Latvia invites Russia to display the same degree of conciliation to Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, and to condemn the crimes of the Second World War, regardless of who committed them."
According to Russia's Foreign Ministry, Vike-Freiberga's statement placed equal blame for World War II on the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, a position it called "absurd."
"We consider this statement as another attempt to distort the history of the Second World War," Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Yakovenko said in a statement.
"It is difficult to take such demarche as a testimony of readiness 'to extend a hand of friendship' to Russia," he said.
Russia has tense relations with the Baltic nations. The three, new members of the European Union, often accuse Russia of bullying and of failing to adequately acknowledge the Soviet occupation. They have asserted their ethnic and linguistic identities, upsetting their significant ethnic Russian minorities and prompting accusations of unfair treatment from Moscow.
Russia only recently ratified a border treaty with Lithuania and has yet to do so with Latvia and Estonia. Both have stated their willingness to recognize existing borders with Russia, but Russia has refused to sign any treaty, tying such an agreement to the plight of Russians in the two Baltic countries.
— — —
Associated Press writer Timothy Jacobs contributed to this story from Riga, Latvia.
Kremlin: Notorious WWII pact that carved up Europe subject only to "historical evaluation" AP WorldStream Saturday, January 22, 2005 6:24:00 AM
Copyright 2005 The Associated Press
By MARA D. BELLABY
Associated Press Writer
MOSCOW (AP) — The notorious 1939 pact between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union that divided up much of eastern Europe is open only to historical re-evaluation, a Kremlin spokesman said Saturday, suggesting that Moscow isn't prepared to support a legally binding renouncement of the agreement.
"At present, only the historical evaluation of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact is possible," Dmitry Peskov, deputy press secretary to President Vladimir Putin, told The Associated Press. "There is no possibility of its juridical evaluation due to current realities."
He did not elaborate, but the statement appears to dampen expectations, created this week by Estonian President Arnold Ruutel, that the Kremlin was ready to disown the pact during the May celebrations in Moscow to mark the 60th anniversary of the Nazi defeat in World War II.
Speaking Thursday after a Kremlin meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Ruutel told Estonian national broadcaster Eesti Raadio that Putin had told him that Russia, as the legal successor of the Soviet Union, supported annulling the pact "and considers this the right thing to do."
The Kremlin's statement after the meeting, however, didn't mention the pact, and Kremlin spokespeople initially refused to comment.
The 1939 nonaggression pact named for Nazi Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop and Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov was signed in secret and carved much of Eastern Europe up between the two countries, including the Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, which were placed under the Soviet sphere of control.
Soviet forces occupied the Baltic states in June 1940 but were driven out by the Germans a year later. The Red Army retook the Baltics in 1944 and the three countries were reincorporated back into the Soviet Union. They became independent in the Soviet breakup of 1991, and all three joined the European Union last year.
Peskov said that "from the Russian point of view, the best step in the development of Russian-Estonian relations would be the signing of a political declaration on the fundamentals of relations and a border delineation treaty" during the 60th anniversary celebrations.
Russia has tense relations with the Baltic nations and has ratified a border agreement only with Lithuania. The Baltic nations often accuse Russia of bullying and of failing to adequately acknowledge the Soviet occupation. They have asserted their ethnic and linguistic identities, upsetting their significant ethnic Russian minorities and prompting accusations of unfair treatment from Moscow.
Russia has invited the three leaders to Moscow on May 9 for the World War II anniversary celebrations, but only one, Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga, has agreed to participate and she has called on Russia to denounce the pact.
Iranian ambassador to Latvia appointed Tehran Times, January 23 2005
Copyright 2005, Tehran Times
TEHRAN (IRNA) — Iran's Ambassador to Sweden Hassan Qashqavi was appointed on Saturday as Iran's accredited ambassador to Latvia.
Qashqavi's appointment was proposed by Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi and approved by President Mohammad Khatami, said the Press and Information Department of the Foreign Ministry.
The diplomat earlier served as Iran's ambassador to the Republic of Kazakhstan.
Qashqavi also an MP in the fourth and sixth parliaments.
The Republic of Latvia (formerly the Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic) is situated in northeastern Europe.
William Safire: Win some, lose some [excerpt] Dallas Morning News Monday, January 24, 2005
Copyright 2005 The Dallas Morning News
By William Safire
Winner: Baltic freedom. My most provocative dateline in the '80s put the story ahead of the lede: "Riga, Soviet — occupied Latvia." Because the U.S. never recognized the Hitler-Stalin pact, in 1991 we encouraged the Baltic "captive nations" to become the wedge that began the breakup of the Soviet Union. Al Gore and Strobe Talbott later backed up that breakaway by proposing NATO expansion, despite Moscow's protests – the good deed of Clinton foreign policy.
Latvia promises to fight money laundering AP WorldStream Wednesday, January 26, 2005 11:45:00 AM
Copyright 2005 The Associated Press
By TIMOTHY JACOBS
Associated Press Writer
RIGA, Latvia (AP) — Latvian banks could face tough U.S. sanctions if lawmakers, bankers and prosecutors don't crack down on widespread money laundering in the Baltic country, Prime Minister Aigars Kalvitis said Wednesday.
Law enforcement agencies from several foreign countries are investigating alleged money laundering in Latvian banks, and the United States has threatened sanctions if the country does not tighten banking laws and prosecute offenders, Kalvitis said.
Sanctions could lead to a substantial loss of business for the banks, he said.
The U.S. Embassy in Riga said in a statement that American concerns about money laundering were "well documented," but did not detail what sanctions might be imposed.
"Our dialogue with Latvia has intensified and now includes regular contact between Latvian and U.S. law enforcement and financial regulatory authorities to address a problem of growing mutual interest," the statement said.
Kalvitis, who took office in November, sharply criticized Latvia's Prosecutor General's Office for not prosecuting any money laundering cases or sanctioning any banks even though it is suspected that several billions of U.S. dollars (euros) has passed through Latvian banks.
But the Prosecutor General's Office said authorities have already successfully prosecuted one money-laundering case and that nine are currently in court, three are awaiting trial and eight are being investigated.
Kalvitis said the problem was so widespread that Latvia, a country of about 2.3 million people, ranks fourth in the world in the number of U.S. dollar transactions going through its banks.
On Tuesday, Kalvitis established a special task force, headed by himself, to coordinate an anti-money laundering campaign, a move lauded by the U.S. Embassy.
Several factors, including legal loopholes, a largely cash-based economy and a large percentage of bank accounts belonging to non-residents contribute to Latvia's money laundering problems.
U.S. or Latvian authorities didn't specify the type or money laundering occurring in Latvia, though organized crime groups involved in drug trafficking are known to operate in the country.
Putin attends Auschwitz ceremonies AP WorldStream Thursday, January 27, 2005 10:27:00 AM
Copyright 2005 The Associated Press
By JUDITH INGRAM
Associated Press Writer
BRZEZINKA, Poland (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin acknowledged Thursday that anti-Semitism and xenophobia had surfaced in Russia, tackling an issue that the Kremlin had long failed to confront directly.
He also signaled that Moscow would not revise its view that the Soviet Union was solely a victim of World War II -- refusing to accept arguments that it, too, held some responsibility for the conflict, due to the signing of a secret Soviet-Nazi pact that divided up Eastern Europe.
Addressing a conference devoted to the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp near Krakow, Poland, Putin said that many in the world should be ashamed of new manifestations of anti-Semitism six decades after the defeat of fascism.
"Even in our country, in Russia — which did more than any to combat fascism, for the victory over fascism, which did most to save the Jewish people -- even in our country we sometimes unfortunately see manifestations of this problem and I, too, am ashamed of that," Putin said, to long applause.
Russian Jews had expressed hope that Putin would use the occasion to address the issue of anti-Semitism. Earlier this month, a group of nationalist Russian lawmakers called for an investigation aimed at outlawing all Jewish organizations and punishing officials who support them, accusing Jews of fomenting ethnic hatred and saying they provoke anti-Semitism.
The Foreign Ministry and the prosecutor general have condemned the letter but the Kremlin has yet to react. Isaak Sloutzker, a 77-year-old Russian Jew who traveled to Poland from Veliky Novgorod to attend the commemorations, said: "I'd like to hear a condemnation of xenophobia by the Russian president."
Putin joined other world leaders and other dignitaries later Thursday at the commemoration of the liberation of the death camp in Brzezinka, which was known during the war as Birkenau -- part of the Auschwitz complex where some 1.5 million people, most of them Jews from across Europe, perished.
The camp was liberated by Soviet troops, and Putin paid tribute to the approximately 600,000 Soviet soldiers who died fighting Nazi troops in Poland.
Putin used his speech to respond to calls by leaders in the Baltic states for Moscow to renounce the secret addendum to the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact, known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which Nazi and Soviet leaders concluded in 1939 to divide up much of Eastern Europe including Poland in case war broke out.
Shortly after German troops entered Poland in September 1939, Soviet troops occupied the country's east. Soviet forces then occupied the Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia in June 1940 but were driven out by the Germans a year later. The Red Army retook the Baltics in 1944, and reincorporated them into the Soviet Union. The Baltic states gained independence only after the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union.
If Russia were to renounce the secret pact, it would tacitly be acknowledging some responsibility for World War II -- a stance seen as sacrilege in a country that lost some 27 million people during the conflict. Questions about the Soviet motivations for war are still regarded as diminishing the patriotic Soviet war effort, still referred to as the Great Fatherland War.
"Standing on this tormented soil, we should firmly and unequivocally say that any attempts to rewrite history and put victims and their killers, liberators and occupiers on an equal footing are immoral and unacceptable for those people who consider themselves Europeans," Putin said, referring to the Baltic states' recent entry into the European Union.
Russia, and the Soviet Union, had a long history of state-sponsored anti-Semitism, including the restriction of most Jews' residence to the so-called Pale of Settlement on the Russian Empire's western margin, brutal pogroms at the turn of the 19th to 20th century, and Soviet-era discrimination against Jews.
The state no longer perpetuates anti-Semitism following the Soviet collapse but many Jews and rights advocates accuse Russian leaders of being silent in the face of xenophobia -- expressed in the occasional desecration of Jewish cemeteries and more frequent skinhead attacks against dark-skinned foreigners.
Latvian bank association head slams prime minister AP WorldStream Monday, January 31, 2005 9:55:00 AM
Copyright 2005 The Associated Press
By TIMOTHY JACOBS
Associated Press Writer
RIGA, Latvia (AP) — The head of the Association of Latvian Commercial Banks accused Prime Minister Aigars Kalvitis of exaggerating the scope of the money laundering problem in Latvia.
Teodors Tverijons said in an interview published Monday that money laundering was not as widespread in the Latvian banking system as the prime minister claimed last week. He criticized Kalvitis for publicizing the problem, saying it would only hurt the Latvian banking industry.
"First the problem should be investigated, then the culprits called to responsibility, and only then the problem should be publicized," Tverijons was quoted as saying in Latvia's Russian-language daily Chas. "There is no need to shame Latvia."
Kalvitis said last week the U.S. government had threatened sanctions that could lead to a substantial loss of business for Latvian banks if nothing is done to tighten banking laws and prosecute offenders.
The U.S. Embassy in Riga said in a statement that American concerns about money laundering were "well documented," but did not detail what sanctions might be imposed.
Tverijons said Kalvitis' assertion that Latvia ranked fourth in the world in U.S. dollar transfers was wrong. In fact, said Tverijons, the number is much lower, as Latvia ranked only fifth out of the 10 new European Union member states in U.S. dollar transactions.
Kalvitis formed a special task force, headed by himself, last week to coordinate an anti-money laundering campaign, a decision lauded by the U.S. Embassy.
Several factors, including legal loopholes, a largely cash-based economy and a large percentage of bank accounts belonging to nonresidents contribute to Latvia's money laundering problems.
U.S. and Latvian authorities did not specify the type or money laundering occurring in Latvia, though organized crime groups involved in drug trafficking are known to operate in the small Baltic nation.
Passenger trains collide in Latvian capital, two dead AP WorldStream Wednesday, February 02, 2005 7:00:00 AM
Copyright 2005 The Associated Press
By TIMOTHY JACOBS
Associated Press Writer
RIGA, Latvia (AP) — Two passenger trains collided near the central train station in the Latvian capital on Wednesday, killing two people and injuring another 16 passengers.
Latvian Interior Minister Eriks Jekabsons said that two passengers were killed when a train arriving from Ogre, 34 kilometers (21 miles) southeast of Riga, collided with a passenger train from Moscow that had already unloaded its passengers and was traveling to the rail depot.
Solveiga Smiltene, a spokeswoman for the State Fire and Rescue Service, said she could not confirm the deaths but said there were still three people, including the conductor, trapped in the twisted wreckage, two of whom were thought to be dead.
Smiltene said there were 16 people injured and that the trapped conductor was badly injured but conscious. Rescuers were able to reach him to give him a pain killer, but were unable to extricate him, she said.
About 50 rescuers were at the scene trying to remove the trapped conductor and two passengers. The other three cars that derailed were also being examined for passengers, Smiltene said. One of the derailed cars landed atop the Moscow train.
Transport Minister Ainars Slesers said the accident was likely caused after an engineer on the train from Ogre failed to heed a signal telling him to stop.
Estonian PM stresses importance of border treaty with Russia AP WorldStream Wednesday, February 02, 2005 11:00:00 AM
Copyright 2005 The Associated Press
TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — Estonian Prime Minister Juhan Parts stressed Wednesday the importance of his country having a mutually accepted border treaty with Russia and said the Baltic country is ready to sign an agreement with its eastern neighbor.
"It (the border treaty) is a public agreement, which defines the territory of Estonia's sovereignty," Parts said in a speech to commemorate the 85th anniversary of the Tartu Peace Treaty. "And with that agreement, Russia is to recognize this."
The Tartu treaty, named after the southeastern Estonian university town where it was signed between Estonia and Soviet Russia on Feb. 2, 1920, recognized the Baltic nation's independence and defined its borders with its eastern neighbor.
After the Soviet occupation of Estonia in 1940, the treaty ceased to exist. The borders were hastily redefined amid the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, but a formal treaty was never signed.
In the past few months, Russia has signaled that it is willing a sign a border treaty with Estonia and neighboring Latvia, both of whom the European Union and NATO last year.
Latvian commission says conductor's oversight caused crash AP WorldStream Thursday, February 03, 2005 7:45:00 AM
Copyright 2005 The Associated Press
By TIMOTHY JACOBS
Associated Press Writer
RIGA, Latvia (AP) — A Latvian commission investigating the collision of two passenger trains that killed four people and injured 24 in the capital said Thursday it was caused by a conductor's failure to obey a signal for him to stop.
A local train arriving from Ogre, 34 kilometers (21 miles), southeast of Riga, collided Wednesday with a train from Moscow that had already let off its passengers. The train from Ogre derailed and one of its cars ended up atop the Moscow train.
Biruta Sakse, a spokeswoman for the state-owned railway company Latvijas Dzelzcels, said the commission set up to investigate the accident concluded it was the fault of the conductor aboard the train from Ogre after examining the evidence and consulting experts.
Police said Thursday that four people — two men and two women — died in the crash and 19 were hospitalized. Most were treated and released Wednesday.
A 20-year-old conductor's assistant, a man and woman, both 24, and a 56-year-old woman died in the crash.
Rescuers were able to extricate the train conductor who investigators believe was responsible for the accident from the twisted wreckage after a 10-hour struggle. He was hospitalized in critical but stable condition after having surgery.
It was the second fatal transportation accident in Latvia in recent weeks. In December, a bus traveling from Moscow to Riga crashed into a tree, killing nine and injuring 17 others.
President Vike-Freiberga's Book The History of Latvia: 20th Century Is "Too Biased" NOVOSTI 2005-02-03 19:31
Copyright 2005 Novosti
MOSCOW, February 3 (RIA Novosti) — Recently presented to the general public by Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga, The History of Latvia: 20th Century book has been clearly written to order, deputy head of the Duma committee for relations with compatriots Vladimir Churov told RIA Novosti in the interview on Thursday.
"The opinions in the book carry a clear political bias," he stressed. The attending inscription reads that the book has been published "with the support of the Commission for Democracy at the U.S. Embassy in Latvia, the Foreign Ministry and Embassy of Latvia in Russia".
"The two underlying themes of 'The History' of Latvia are unacceptable," the parliamentarian said. "First, it is the obsessive and ungrounded desire to put on a par the Hitler occupants and Soviet soldiers, who have liberated the most of Europe from the 'brown plague," Mr. Churov said.
Second, the authors broadly practice keeping mum about "the atrocities committed by the Latvian SS men in territories beyond Latvia — the Pskov region, near Leningrad and in Belarus," the parliamentarian said.
As insistent is the desire to diminish the contribution made by, above all the Germans, as well as Russians and Jews, in the economic and cultural development of the lands, which in the 20th century formed the Latvian state.
"We are not yet ready to write a common comprehensive history," he continued. "It should begin with the joint preparation of biographies of historical figures telling on the common history of Latvia and Russia - General Balodis, President Ulmanis, poet Rainis, architect Eisenstein and others. 'The History', written by one side and to the order of the governmental authorities, merely cannot be objective," Mr.Churov said.
The publication merits reciprocation, he said. "As far as I know, Russian historians are now working on the same period of history and events," Mr.Churov said.
Last night the presentation of the book was held in Moscow.
Commenting on the presentation, the Russian Foreign Ministry recommended its authors to visit, except the museum of "occupation" in Latvia, other Riga museums, say of music and literature, the State Art Museum, Museum of Navigation, Russian Drama Theater.
"They can tell the authors much more about Russian culture and the Russians' contribution to the development of lands, which are now Latvia", the Russian Foreign Ministry stressed.
Russia Foreign Ministry: Latvia's President Insulted People Who Defended the World from Nazism NOVOSTI 2005-02-04 10:47
Copyright 2005, Novosti
MOSCOW, February 4 (RIA Novosti) — The Russian Foreign Ministry regrets the insulting remarks of the Latvian president about the people who defended the world from Nazism. This is said in the commentary by the information and press department of the Russian Foreign Ministry on the recent statements by Latvian president Vaira Vike-Freiberga concerning the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the victory in the Great Patriotic War against German Nazism, received by RIA Novosti. This date is to be marked in Russia on May 9, 2005.
"On May 9 Russian people will lay Caspian roach onto a newspaper, drink vodka and sing chastooshkas, as well as recall how they had heroically conquered the Baltic area," - this is how Mrs.Vike-Freiberga sees the scenario of the forthcoming festive events and activities.
"This public utterance by the head of the Latvian state causes deep regret," Russian Foreign Ministry stated.
In the Russian diplomats' opinion, "it is hard to comment on the slighting, insulting attitude towards the people who defended the world from Nazism."
"It is a pity that the statements by the president of Latvia containing the estimates of the WWII increasingly acquire an 'everyday-life character.' This has been becoming a norm of late," the Russian Foreign Ministry's officials emphasized.
Russian Historians: "One Ought Not To Equal Stalin Regime to Nazi Germany" Novosti 2005-02-04
Copyright 2005, Novosti
MOSCOW, February 4 (RIA Novosti) — Russian historians have called upon Latvia to look for compromise rather than pile up charges against Moscow.
"It is time to look for common approaches to historical events, to pass from accusations to unifying opinion, to seek compromise," said Alexander Chubaryan, the director of the World History Institute, when appearing Friday at a Moscow conference dedicated to the crisis-stricken period before the Second World War.
The views divided chiefly on the point of the Baltic republics' admission to the USSR in 1939-1940.
Latvian historian Inesis Feldmanis believes the USSR, like Germany, was an aggressor.
As to Russian experts, they find it groundless to talk about equal responsibility by Germany and the USSR for the escalation of the pre-war crisis and, the more so, for the outbreak of WWII.
"Events connected with the signing of the Soviet-German treaty of August 23, 1939 (Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact) ought to be analyzed not only from political, ideological and legal angles but with regard to historical realities of the time," said Chubaryan.
"Stalin's moves to annex the Baltic republics were forced by the mounting threat from Germany which routed France in 1940," said Alexander Orlov of the defense ministry's institute of military history. "We had to prevent by all means the establishment a German bridgehead in the vicinity of the Soviet borders. This is an advanced outpost strategy," explained Alexander Orlov.
Russian historians reminded their Latvian colleagues of a global conflict Hitler and his Nazi entourage conceived and of the aims they pursued. The ultimate purpose was not to win a victory over the USSR but to exterminate people," said Mikhail Magkov of the World History Institute.
He pointed to the necessity of showing a scientific rather than political approach when studying new documents pertaining to the theme. "Past events should be traced by historians, not exploited by politicians," he concluded.
FEATURE-Baltics bristle at WWII victory celebrations Reuters World Report Saturday, February 05, 2005 9:03:00 PM
Copyright 2005 Reuters Ltd.
By Patrick McLoughlin
RIGA, Feb 6 (Reuters) — Latvia's president leans forward in her chair in Riga castle, her 14th century official home, to emphasise a point in a history lesson that has sparked fresh tensions in the Baltics and a diplomatic row with Moscow.
President Vaira Vike-Freiberga has joined other world leaders in accepting an invitation from Russian President Vladmir Putin to attend celebrations in Moscow on May 9 commemorating the 60th anniversary of Nazi Germany's defeat.
But she also issued a communique saying the fall of the Nazis did not result in the liberation of Latvia.
"Instead the three Baltic countries of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania were subject to another brutal occupation by another foreign, totalitarian empire, that of the Soviet Union," it said.
She told Reuters in an interview that her statement was a necessary and timely history lesson for Russia and the world.
"There was to me a need to come out with a reminder of ... our dissatisfaction with the interpretation that Russia was spreading about this event right now," she said.
Her agreement to come to Moscow was meant to improve ties with Latvia's former ruler even as Riga turns increasingly westwards. Instead her letter, which was also sent to Putin, has revealed Latvia's simmering distrust of Russia.
Moscow responded angrily to Vike-Freiberga's declaration.
"It gives the impression Ms Vike-Freiberga is deliberately provoking Moscow into withdrawing the invitation and ... as the president herself hints, into denying her a visa," Viktor Kalyuzhny, Russia's ambassador to Latvia, told Reuters.
ESCALATING ROW
The escalating row shows what powerful emotions World War Two and its aftermath stirs in the Baltic states which, despite their rapid economic growth since independence in 1991 and their membership since last year of NATO and the European Union, are still haunted by decades of post-war Soviet rule.
In Riga's old town the national radio building bears the scars of shellfire, there is an occupation museum witnessing the enforced rule by the Germans and Russians and outside the capital there are memorials at concentration camp sites and Jewish killing fields.
Older people have especially long memories and grievances in countries which won for themselves short-lived independence in the 1920s and 1930s, only to see that wrested away when they were annexed by the Russians in 1940.
Some Riga citizens initially greeted the German army, which subsequently invaded, not with bullets but with flowers.
"The Soviets killed thousands. The first mass graves were created by the communists in their first year in Riga," said Latvian member of parliament Paulis Klavins, a 77-year-old who fought for the Germans.
"Our people didn't know who Hitler was. If the Devil had come in tanks we would have greeted him as a liberator."
But when the war was finished and the Russians returned they deported more than 42,000 Latvian men, women and children to Siberia where many died. The exact number is not known.
For outsiders it is difficult to see how anybody could openly support the German army and local men who fought in it.
But in Estonia a statue of a soldier in German uniform, commemorating those who fought against the Soviet army, was taken down only last August under pressure from Jewish groups.
Symbols remain targets for pursuing grudges. In Riga, the defacing of a Russian war memorial drew protests from Moscow.
In accepting Putin's invitation, Latvia's president — a retired academic born in Riga and in the post-war chaos grew up in German refugee camps -- extended "a hand of friendship."
But her move broke ranks with the presidents of Estonia and Lithuania who have been agonising about whether to go. They had a pact to reply jointly and there were angry words.
"Participation at Russia's victory parade where hymns to Stalin will be sung ... would be confirmation that Russia's arrogant and un-European stance is a correct one and that we are submitting to it," said Lithuania's former head of state Vytautas Landsbergis. He says the Latvian leader was "misled."
Younger Baltic people say that as the war and rule by other regimes recedes into the history books, the fractious relations with Russia, which still has close economic links and sends oil exports through the region, must improve.
Complicating that process — in Latvia especially — is that of society retains close ties to Moscow. In Riga, native Russian speakers comprise half the population. Many older ones do not even speak Latvian and do not have Latvian citizenship.
"Vladmir Putin is a good man and our strong leader," said Helena, a Russian-speaking Rigan businesswoman in her late 30s. "Why do I need to speak Latvian? Everyone here speaks Russian."
Eastern EU deputies demand communist symbols ban Reuters World Report Thursday, February 03, 2005 9:03:00 AM
Copyright 2005 Reuters Ltd.
BRUSSELS, Feb 3 (Reuters) — European Parliament members from eastern Europe called for a ban on communist symbols such as the hammer and sickle on Thursday if the European Union decides to outlaw Nazi symbols, such as the swastika.
Lawmakers from the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Lithuania and Slovakia said any ban should also cover communist symbols, because of killings and torture suffered by people in the former Soviet Union or countries under Moscow's domination.
"If there is to be a pan-EU ban of the swastika ... we would like to see symbols of the communist regime banned as well," Hungarian deputy Jozef Szajer told a news conference.
The deputies wrote to EU Justice, Freedom and Security Commissioner Franco Frattini to press their demand.
EU justice and interior ministers are to discuss a possible ban on Nazi symbols in the light of a recent scandal over Britain's Prince Harry wearing a swastika at a costume party, as part of proposed rules to ban racism and xenophobia across the 25-nation bloc.
Frattini's spokesman said the commissioner did not think it would be appropriate to include Soviet-era symbols in that ban. Some are still used by legal communist parties in the West.
"In the context of discussions on fighting racism and xenophobia, including anti-Semitism, this may not be the most appropriate context for discussing a ban of Soviet symbols," Friso Roscam Abbing told the daily news briefing.
(Additional reporting by Marie-Louise Moller)
Baltic Jews, politicians, and school children mark Auschwitz liberation AP WorldStream Thursday, January 27, 2005 8:21:00 AM
Copyright 2005 The Associated Press
By TIMOTHY JACOBS
Associated Press Writer
RIGA, Latvia (AP) — Baltic leaders attended ceremonies in Poland on Thursday to mark the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp while Jewish groups, government officials and students commemorated "Holocaust Day" in Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia.
Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga, Estonian President Arnold Ruutel, and Lithuanian Prime Minister Algirdas Brazauskas joined other world leaders at the ceremonies in Poland as their countrymen gathered to mark the region's own Holocaust history that claimed the lives of more than 90 percent of the prewar Baltic Jewish population.
Many Latvian Jews and government officials, including Foreign Minister Artis Pabriks, attended ceremonies Thursday in the capital, Riga, and at a holocaust memorial in the nearby town of Salispils, 20 kilometers (12 miles) southeast of the capital, the site of another Nazi-run concentration camp.
Discussions were held about the Holocaust in the Estonian capital, Tallinn, on Thursday and later a candlelight vigil was planned at a monument in Klooga, 32 kilometers (20 miles) southwest of Tallinn, the site of an Estonian concentration camp where nearly all the Jewish prisoners were killed over a two-day period in 1944.
Schools throughout the Baltics showed films or held forums as part of Holocaust Remembrance Day.
The Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp complex — where more than 1.5 million people perished -- was liberated by advancing Soviet troops on Jan. 27, 1945. Since 1996, Germans have set the day aside as Holocaust Remembrance Day to focus on the crimes committed in their name.
This marks the third year the date has also been recognized as Holocaust Remembrance Day in the Baltics.
The Holocaust claimed the lives of nearly 300,000 Jews in Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia.
FACTBOX-Many nations far from meeting Kyoto goals Reuters North America Tuesday, February 08, 2005 6:17:00 AM
Copyright 2005 Reuters Ltd.
OSLO, Feb 8 (Reuters) — The U.N.'s Kyoto protocol on curbing global warming will enter into force on Feb. 16 with many nations far from meeting targets for 2012 set under the plan.
Under Kyoto, developed countries are meant to cut emissions of carbon dioxide, largely from burning fossil fuels in power plants, factories and cars, by an average 5.2 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12.
The United States, the world's top polluter, and Australia have pulled out. Following is a list of countries which originally agreed to Kyoto targets, starting with those furthest above the 1990 baseline.
Emissions of greenhouse gases:

|         pct change  total 2002  tonnes per  pct of world
|       2002 vs 1990   emissions capita 2000    total 2000
|                     mln tonnes  mln tonnes
Spain          +40.5       399.7         7.0           1.2
Portugal       +40.5        82.0         5.9           0.2
Monaco         +31.7         0.1         N/A           0.0
Ireland        +28.9        68.9        11.1           0.2
Greece         +26.0       135.0         8.5           0.4
Australia      +22.2       526.0        18.0           1.4
New Zealand    +21.6        75.0         8.3           0.1
Canada         +20.1       731.2        14.2           1.8
United States  +13.1     6,934.6        19.8          23.1
Japan          +12.1     1,330.8         9.3           4.9
Austria         +8.8        84.6         7.6           0.3
Italy           +8.8       553.8         7.4           1.8
Finland         +6.8        82.0        10.3           0.2
Norway          +6.1        55.3        11.1           0.2
Belgium         +2.9       150.3        10.0           0.4
Netherlands     +1.1       213.8         8.7           0.6
Liechtenstein   +0.1        N/A          N/A           0.0
Denmark         -0.4        68.5         8.4           0.2
Slovenia        -1.1        20.4         7.3           0.1
Switzerland     -1.7        52.3         5.4           0.2
France          -1.9       553.4         6.2           1.5
European Union  -2.5     4,123.6         N/A           N/A
Sweden          -3.5        69.6         5.3           0.2
Iceland         -4.2         3.2         7.7           0.0
Croatia        -11.5        28.0         4.4           0.1
Britain        -14.5       634.9         9.6           2.3
Germany        -18.5     1,014.6         9.6           3.2
Luxembourg     -19.8        10.8        19.4           0.0
Czech Republic -24.9       142.9        11.6           0.5
Slovakia       -28.4        51.9         6.6           0.1
Hungary        -31.0        78.0         5.4           0.2
Poland         -32.2       382.8         7.8           1.2
Russia         -38.5     1,876.0         9.9           5.9
Belarus        -44.4        70.4         5.9           0.4
Ukraine        -47.4       483.5         6.9           1.4
Romania        -48.0       136.6         3.8           0.4
Estonia        -55.2        19.5        11.7           0.1
Bulgaria       -56.0        62.4         5.2           0.2
Latvia         -62.8        10.8         2.5           0.0
Lithuania      -65.7        17.2         3.4           0.0

(Sources: U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, based in Bonn, for data on 1990-2002 in first two columns; carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, excludes emissions/removals from land-use change and forestry. Data for 2000 per capita carbon dioxide emissions and percentages of world total from U.N. Development Programme's 2004 Human Development Report)
INTERVIEW-Inflation could delay Latvia joining euro, says PM Reuters World Report Tuesday, February 08, 2005 8:27:00 AM
Copyright 2005 Reuters Ltd.
By Patrick McLoughlin
RIGA, Feb 8 (Reuters) — Latvia could miss its target of joining the euro in 2008 if inflation were not successfully forced down from current levels of around 7 percent, Prime Minister Aigars Kalvitis said on Tuesday.
He said the government was confident inflation would be successfuly tackled. But it had limited tools in its fight and price rises might not come down fast enough.
"If it happens then maybe it (joining the euro) will be delayed," Kalvitis told Reuters in an interview.
"But it is also difficult to use any instruments to decrease inflation," he said. "We have a very low budget deficit ... this year we are planning 1.5 to 1.6 percent (of gross domestic product) and I expect it to be lower than we are planning."
His comments appear slightly at odds with the central bank which says Latvia is fully on track with its euro timetable. The bank is forecasting inflation at 4.5 to 5 percent for 2005.
Latvia, one of 10 countries that joined the European Union last May, plans to join the euro in 2008 and is eyeing the entry criteria it must satisfy before it will be allowed into a club that currently has a dozen mbmers.
Fellow Baltic countries Lithuania and Estonia entered the ERM-2, the ante-room before adopting the euro, last year and hope to join the euro zone in 2007.
To qualify, Latvia must among other things meet inflation criteria. This requires its average inflation rate in the 12 months leading up to assessment not to exceed the average of the three lowest-inflation rates among EU member states by more than 1.5 percentage points.
INFLATION SPIKES
But Latvian inflation averaged 6.2 percent in 2004 and in December inflation rose 0.3 percent from November, giving an annual headline inflation rate of 7.3 percent.
Prime Minister Kalvitis said that Latvia's inflation did not stem from government expenditure "mistakes," but from other sources such as one-off inflationary pressures from joining the European Union last year as well as energy price rises.
He said inflation was a "serious problem" for the Baltic state and the government was watching the problem closely.
Asked if inflation were not brought under control quickly enough it could derail the euro timetable he said: "Yes. That's possible."
His comments follow those of the head of monetary policy for Latvia's central bank, Helmuts Ancans, who last week told Reuters that inflation would come down quickly and that inflation could be in the range of 3 percent in 2006 and 2007.
"We are reasonably optimistic...that our current strategy is feasible and 2008 could be the year we introduce the euro," Ancans said.
But his Lithuanian counterpart warned last month that the fellow Baltic state, which is one of Europe's fastest-growing economies, could face a two year delay to its own goal of joining the euro in early 2007 due to inflationary pressures.
Lithuania's inflation is about half of Latvia's.
Prime Minister Kalvitis said on Tuesday that sticking to the 2008 timetable was important but not critical for Latvia.
"No, it's not critical. It's important because our neighbours Estonia and Lithuania are on track ... but at the same time other countries like Hungary and Poland are far from ready to join the euro."
He said he would not discuss whether he thought the central bank should increase interest rates from current levels.
"We have no plans to get inflation much lower in the first months of this year. Our plan is to get closer to the Maastricht criteria by the end of this year."
Bank of America faces landmark online fraud case FINEXTRA, Feb 7 2005
Copyright 2005 FINEXTRA
Miami — A Miami businessman is suing Bank of America over $90,000 he says was stolen from his online banking account by Latvian cybercriminals.
The 42-year old businessman says the cash was transferred from his account to Parex Bank in Latvia without his approval. About $20,000 of the money was withdrawn before the account was frozen. A subsequent Secret Service investigation detected the presence of the 'coreflood' keylogging Trojan on the businessman's computer.
Bank of America maintains that it cannot be held responsible for the loss since its systems were not hacked into and that all appropriate measures were taken to complete the transfer.
In a complaint filed with the Miami Circuit Court on Thursday, the businessman alleges that Bank of America was negligent and failed to protect him from a known online banking risk.
The action could become a test case for determining bank liability in phishing frauds. Lawyers representing the victim have told the Miami Sun-Suntinel that the complaint could evolve into a class action suit to include other online banking customers who have had smaller sums rifled from their accounts.
Latvia about to see more protests in defense of Russian schools. ITAR-TASS February 7 2005
Copyright 2005 ITAR-TASS
RIGA, February 7 (Itar-Tass) — Latvia is about to witness a new tide of protests in defense of Russian schools, a member of Riga’s City Council from the Human Rights in United Latvia faction, Gennady Kotov, said on Monday.
The first rally is scheduled for February 10, the day when city legislators will meet in session to consider the proposal of the left-wing opposition for easing the controversial law On Education.
Under Latvia’s education reform that began on September 1, 2004, at least 60 percent of subjects in high schools must be taught in Latvian.
The reform’s opponents argue it is undemocratic and harmful to the quality of education in Russian schools.
On February 10, around 500 Russian-speaking teenagers will take to the streets to protest against the law restricting the use of the Russian language in schools.
Russian speakers make up almost a third of Latvia’s population, but less than half of them have been given Latvian citizenship.
Baltics' War Of Words Heats Up St. Petersburg Times Feb 7 2005
Copyright 2005 St. Petersburg Times
By Vladimir Kovalev
STAFF WRITER
St. Petersburg Times — A confrontation between the Baltic States and Eastern European countries, and Russia on how the significance of the end of the World War II should be interpreted intensified last week with harsh statements made by Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga.
"On May 9, Russian people will place a Caspian roach on a newspaper, drink vodka, sing folk songs, and recall how they had heroically conquered the Baltic area," RIA-Novosti cited her saying Friday.
The Russian Foreign Ministry made a quick and stinging response.
"This public expression by the head of the Latvian state is deeply regretful," it said in a statement issued Thursday. "It is hard to comment on a disdainful, insulting approach to people that defended the world from fascism. It's a shame that the announcements of the president of Latvia in relation to World War II are more and more assuming the character of a domestic squabble. This has become a norm in recent times."
Another step outside the limits that Russian political elite accepts is a book "The History of Latvia in 20th Century," recently written by Antonijs Zunda, the Latvian president's history adviser. The book puts the role played by the Soviet Union in an extremely bad light, according to Pravda.ru information web site.
Among other things the book describes a Nazi extermination camp in the Riga suburb of Salaspils as "a police prison and educational labor facility." Pravda.ru referred to the camp where more than 100,000 people are believed to have been executed as the "Latvian Auschwitz."
Moscow denies Baltic claims that the Soviet Union invaded the Baltic States, then sovereign states, in 1940. After Nazi Germany occupied them in 1941 to 1945, many Balts fought against the Soviet Union because it had persecuted many citizens during its administration. Moscow portrays its ejection of the Nazis as a liberation, while the Baltic States say they were not free until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990.
Speaking at a Moscow news conference last Wednesday, Zunda said: "In May 1945, Latvia did not restore its sovereignty and was drawn into another totalitarian regime," Interfax reported.
He noted, however, "Our president knows and recognizes the Russian people's special role in the destruction of fascism." the Kremlin-controlled news agency RIA-Novosti quoted an anonymous expert saying Latvia "is wasting its time" by confronting Russia.
"[This might be] a trite move aimed at exacerbating the situation to the maximum to achieve the results most acceptable to it," he was quoted saying.
Asked if Vike-Freiberga's statements could lead to the cancellation of the invitation for the Latvian president to participate in 60th anniversary Victory Day celebrations in Moscow on May 9, the expert said this is not possible.
"It would be inappropriate," he said.
The heads of state of all three Baltic States have been invited to the celebrations, but Vike-Freiberga is the only president to accept the invitation to date. The three states became members of the European Union last May.
The expert said Russia had in December provided Latvia and Estonia with draft political declarations on relations with each other. However, they had made no response.
Without such declarations being signed, there is little chance of relations between Russia and the Baltic States being normalized, he said.
Valery Kalabugin, a political analyst based in Estonia, however, saw Russia as provoking continual confrontation the Baltic States. This is because the Kremlin has not forsaken the idea of one day regaining control over Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, he said.
"The Russian authorities are following a pattern of offering something sweet and then following it up by doing something unpleasant," Kalabugin said Friday in a telephone interview from Tallinn. "The Victory Day celebrations, are in themselves quite good, but Moscow's invitations [to the Baltic states] were followed by an offer to sign a declaration, which is clearly provocative."
The Baltic States expect Russia, as the legal successor of the Soviet Union, to acknowledge and apologize for the damage the Soviets did between 1940 and 1941 and 1945 and 1990 when they occupied the Baltic States; they expect Russia to do what Germany has done over crimes committed by Hitler's regime, Kalabugin said.
However, all that the draft declarations prepared by the Russian Foreign Ministry offer is to forget the past, dashing the hopes of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia to get an apology. The draft declaration reads: "Expressing deep sympathy to the victims of social disorders and wars, Russia and [a space is left for the name of a Baltic State signing the document] believe it is most important that scientists of the both countries have conducted wide examinations of the past events of a common character, which demand an objective evaluation, pointing out by this that historic events should not be an obstacle to realizing the principles of ... democracy, or hinder the development of relations between the two countries."
Estonian President Arnold Ruutel seemed to share some sympathy for this type of approach at a ceremony marking the 85th anniversary of the Tartu border treaty between Estonia and the Soviet Union in 1920.
He had earlier said Estonia is ready to sign a border deal agreed with Russia in 1999, that would leave in Russia some districts annexed by the Soviet Union in 1940 and added to the Pskov and Leningrad regions.
"[The draft border agreement of 1999] reflects the reality that was formed during 50 years of occupation of Estonia," Interfax quoted him saying. "The Tartu treaty fixed the eastern border of Estonia for decades until the secret deal between Stalin who ruled the Soviet Union and fascist Germany, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, that determined the fate of many independent nations and borders."
"We have to be aware of these facts, but at the same time [we should] look into future," he said.
Meanwhile, setting off another potential source of confrontation, European Parliament deputies from Eastern Europe demanded that a ban on Communist symbols, including the hammer and sickle, be introduced if the European Union outlaws Nazi symbols such as the swastika, Reuters reported Friday.
Czech, Estonian, Hungarian, Lithuanian and Slovakian members of the parliament said such an approach to Communist symbols would be fully justified because of killings and torture suffered by people in the former Soviet Union or in countries under Moscow's domination. The lawmakers sent their request to Franco Frettini, the EU justice, freedom and security commissioner.
It would not be appropriate to include Soviet-era symbols in the ban because some are still used by legal Communist parties in the West, Reuters cited Frettini's press service as saying Friday.
Lithuanians celebrate 15th anniversary of declaration of independence AP WorldStream Friday, March 11, 2005 9:54:00 AM
Copyright 2005 The Associated Press
By LIUDAS DAPKUS
Associated Press Writer
VILNIUS, Lithuania (AP) — Norwegian NATO fighter jets roared over the Lithuanian capital Friday as people across the Baltic country celebrated the 15th anniversary of Lithuania's declaration of independence from the Soviet Union.
People thronged the streets and squares of Vilnius, the capital, as lawmakers issued solemn speeches in parliament.
"That day was significant not only to Lithuania. It was felt up to the Ural mountains and farther. But we had to withstand the first angry reaction," said European Parliamentarian Vytautas Landsbergis, who helped lead his country's push for independence.
On March 11, 1990, Lithuania's Supreme Council drafted what amounted to the country's declaration of independence from the Soviet Union.
The decision angered Moscow, which responded with strict economic sanctions on Lithuania that brought industry and transportation in the country of 3.5 million people to a standstill.
But to most Lithuanians, it marked the beginning of the end of the five-decade Soviet occupation of their country.
"The document marked a turn of history. It brought an end to an era of oppression, misery, humiliation and started a new independent state," said Ceslovas Jursenas, vice chairman of the parliament.
A bloody crackdown by Soviet troops against independence activists who had formed a human barrier to protect Vilnius' television tower in January 1991, leaving 13 dead and almost 1,000 injured, helped galvanize the independence movement in Lithuania and the neighboring Baltic states of Latvia and Estonia.
The three countries were formally granted their independence from the Soviet Union later that year.
Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia first became independent countries in 1918 but were involuntarily incorporated into the Soviet Union in 1940.
Last year, the three countries joined both NATO and the European Union, institutions that many here see as guarantors of Baltic security and independence.
To many Lithuanians, March 11 is one of the most important dates on the calendar.
"I am very proud of my country and historic past of Lithuania," said Laurynas Simkus, 14, who was carrying the red, green and yellow Lithuanian flag in Vilnius' Independence Square. "I was born in the free state and am thankful to my parents who fought for Lithuania to be independent."
But others view it differently, saying independence brought with it problems.
"We fought the occupants to see a better Lithuania, but look what many people have now. Many of us live even worse than we did 15 years ago," said Jonas Gailius, who said he was unemployed.
Russia to focus on "discrimination" in Baltics AP WorldStream Monday, March 14, 2005 8:38:00 AM
Copyright 2005 The Associated Press
MOSCOW (AP) — Russia said Monday it would fight what it called double standards at this year's U.N. Human Rights Commission meeting, throwing a spotlight on allegedly unfair treatment of Russian-speakers in Latvia and Estonia.
"Russian representatives intend to actively use the commission tribune to draw the attention of the international community to the negative humanitarian situation in Latvia and Estonia, in particular, to the policy of open discrimination against the non-titular population by the given states," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement marking the opening of the commission's annual session on Monday.
Moscow routinely accuses Latvia and Estonia of discriminating against their large Russian minorities while the Baltics accuse Russia, their former, Soviet-era master, of bullying.
Deputy Foreign Minister Yuri Fedotov said on NTV television that Moscow would use the U.N. conference to protest a situation in which "a total of a half-million Russian-speaking residents are deprived of citizenship, experience serious problems with school education, are discriminated against and losing jobs in Latvia and Estonia."
Soviet forces occupied the Baltic states in June 1940 but were driven out by the Germans a year later. The Red Army retook the Baltics in 1944, and the three countries were reincorporated into the Soviet Union, where they remained until its collapse in 1991.
Over the weekend, Fedotov warned the United States and the European Union against seeking a U.N. vote condemning Moscow for its human rights record in Chechnya. The Foreign Ministry backed that up Monday by saying it would push for a "balanced and tough" resolution on human rights and terrorism.
Moscow has cast the war in Chechnya as part of global efforts to combat terrorism, and has angrily rejected Western calls for peace talks with rebels. It also has dismissed rights groups' reports about massive abuses against civilians in Chechnya.
2004 was deadliest year in a decade for world's journamlists AP WorldStream Monday, March 14, 2005 9:39:00 AM
Copyright 2005 The Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — Fifty-six journalists around the world were killed in 2004 because of their jobs, the deadliest 12 months for reporters in a decade, the Committee to Protect Journalists reported Monday.
Of the 56, the committee said, 36 were targeted for murder, continuing a long-term trend in annual surveys of the safety of journalists.
"The majority of them are murdered," said Ann Cooper, executive director of the committee, in an interview with AP Radio. "Local journalists such as eight killed in the Philippines. They were hunted down and killed."
The profession became more hazardous in other ways as well, as government intrusions on a free press increased in Russia and all the other former Soviet republics except the three Baltic states, and 122 journalists -- 42 of them in China -- were imprisoned for their reporting. A reporter was jailed for job-related reasons in the United States for the first time in three years.
For China, Cooper said. "That's a record. It's been the world's leading jailer of journalists for several years."
In releasing the report, "Attacks on the Press in 2004," the advocacy group said:
"Nowhere are new, harsh realities more evident than in Russia, where a purge of independent voices on national television and an alarming suppression of news coverage during the Beslan (school) hostage crisis marked a year in which President Vladimir Putin increasingly exerted Soviet-style control over the media."
Only in Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, tiny Baltic states subsumed into the Soviet Union in 1940, have traditions of strong press freedom been established, the report said.
In the other 12 former Soviet republics, it said, controls on the press are more stringent than at any time since the closing years of Soviet communism. The rise of a pro-Western government in Ukraine following street demonstrators gives hope for change there, however, the report said.
The 56 dead journalists were the most since 66 died in 1994. Many of those were victims of fighting in Algeria's civil war in which a military-backed government prevailed over Muslim extremists.
In early December the committee reported 54 deaths in 2004 but spokeswoman Wacuka Mungai said the group confirmed two more deaths by the end of the year.
She also said a Brussels-based group, the International Federation of Journalists, which reported 129 media professionals killed in 2004 uses a different way of counting, including accidents and persons who may have been involved in political work.
Iraq remained by far the most dangerous country for journalists, and 2004 featured a dramatic shift of the risk of death in combat to native Iraqi journalists. Most of the 23 reporters killed were Iraqis, and the committee said nine of the 23 were murdered.
"The toll made the war in Iraq one of the deadliest conflicts for journalists in recent history," the report said.
Most of the reporters jailed were locked up on vague "anti-state" charges, such as sedition, subversion and working against the interests of the state.
Besides China, Cuba with 23, Eritrea with 17 and Myanmar with 11 accounted for more than three-quarters of the 122 imprisoned.
Latvian president deemed most charming but can't drive away with prize AP WorldStream Tuesday, March 15, 2005 7:21:00 AM
Copyright 2005 The Associated Press
RIGA, Latvia (AP) — President Vaira Vike-Freiberga may be the most charming woman in Latvia, but as long as she holds the country's top job, she can't accept a free car, a local dealer of Italian Fiats learned Tuesday.
Vike-Freiberga was deemed Latvia's most charming woman in a Valentine's Day poll conducted by local car dealer Auto Italia. The winner was to receive a new Panda from Fiat.
But as an elected official, Vike-Freiberga cannot accept any gift worth more than 50 lats (71 euro; US$96). The Fiat Panda retails for 7,000 lats (9,960 euro; US$13,384).
A spokeswoman for Auto Italia, Jana Cirule, said the company was waiting to hear back from the State Chancellory about whether there might be a legal way to give Vike-Freiberga the car. If not, Cirule said, the car could be auctioned off with the proceeds going to charity.
Aiva Rosenberga, a spokeswoman for Vike-Freiberga, said the president was grateful for being chosen.
ANALYSIS-EU's old and new members split on Russia Reuters World Report Tuesday, March 15, 2005 10:52:00 AM
Copyright 2005 Reuters Ltd.
By Sebastian Alison
BRUSSELS, March 15 (Reuters) — Less than a year after the European Union expanded to 25 countries, it has yet to work out a coherent policy towards giant neighbour Russia, with wide splits between old and new members, diplomats and analysts say.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is happy to take advantage of the divisions, courting his traditional partners within the bloc while riding roughshod over the sensitivities of the Baltic states, which were once part of the Soviet Union, and the biggest newcomer Poland.
Putin's strategy will be on show when he dines in Paris on Friday with French President Jacques Chirac, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero -- all seen as friendly towards the Kremlin leader.
Many former communist new members in eastern Europe, as well as Nordic EU states, want a much tougher line towards Moscow's record on democracy, human rights, the rule of law and relations with neighbours such as Ukraine or Georgia.
Michael Emerson, senior research fellow at the Centre for European Policy Studies in Brussels, said splits were inevitable in an expanded EU of 25 members.
"(Putin) may think it diplomatically adroit to go to the dinner at the Elysee Palace and at the same time make pretty offensive comments towards the Baltics, but I don't think it's sustainable as a policy," the former EU envoy to Moscow said.
Putin's sympathisers are not confined to the so-called "old Europe," which opposed the U.S.-led war in Iraq. British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi also claim a special relationship with the Kremlin chief.
By courting big West European leaders over their heads, Putin risks further alienating new EU members, fearful of what they see as Russia's reluctance to give up imperial ambitions.
"The Chirac/Schroeder/Berlusconi camp is ... putting a blind eye to the telescope on Russian internal affairs," Emerson said.
"APPEASEMENT"
Germany is a huge buyer of Russian natural gas, and Italian, French and British companies are big investors in Russia, leading to fears among some new members that the big boys are happy to ignore Putin's failings to protect economic interests.
Israeli minister Natan Sharansky, who as Anatoly Sharansky was a Soviet dissident imprisoned until 1986, said the European Union should be more strict with Russia.
"Of course the position that 'as long as we have our gas we should not care' -- if that is the position -- is extremely dangerous. That's exactly what the appeasement of dictators meant in the past," he told Reuters in an interview.
"In the last two or three years we have a lot of alarming signs of restrictions introduced on democracy, whether in freedom of the press or in political competition. The free world has to make these questions part of their policy relations with Russia," he added.
Moscow's relations with the Baltic states and Poland are at a low ebb ahead of the 60th anniversary of the end of World War Two, which they see as the beginning of a 45-year Soviet rule.
"Since enlargement you have these sensitivities round the table," an EU diplomat said. "It's clear you don't see relations in the same way if you're in Paris or Rome or London as you do if you're in the Baltics. It's a fact of life and geography."
BALTIC BOYCOTT
The leaders of Estonia and Lithuania are boycotting a May 9 Moscow party to celebrate the Red Army's victory over Nazi Germany. Latvia and Poland will attend with misgivings.
The next day, Moscow hosts an EU-Russia summit at which the two sides hope to reach agreement on basing their relations on four "common spaces" of mutual interest.
But a dispute over the external security "space" means agreement may be hard to reach.
At stake is Russia's reluctance to see Brussels play a role in former Soviet states such as Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia that are EU neighbours since enlargement but which Moscow sees as part of its "near abroad."
An official of the EU's executive Commission said the bloc has discussed "the necessity to speak to Russia with one voice."
But there is no sign of such a single voice at present and it may be hard to reach in the future as well if Putin's attempts to exploit internal EU splits continue, analysts say.
Heavy police presence as some Latvians remember those who fought against Soviets AP WorldStream Wednesday, March 16, 2005 4:56:00 AM
Copyright 2005 The Associated Press
RIGA, Latvia (AP) — More than 50 police — some mounted on horses, others accompanied by dogs -- stood watch as hundreds laid flowers at the Freedom Statue Wednesday and honored thousands of Latvians who served in a feared Waffen SS unit during World War II.
Organized by Visu Latvijail!, a group whose name means "Everything for Latvia" and calls itself a patriotic group, more than 100 people carried flowers to the statue, escorted by people bearing Latvia's maroon and white standard.
Latvian leaders have argued that men in the SS unit, also known as the Latvian Legion, were drafted or joined believing the Germans were the lesser of two evils as Soviet troops invaded.
The Soviets occupied then-independent Latvia in 1940, Germany took over from 1941-44 before the Soviets pushed back into the Baltic state. About 250,000 Latvians ended up fighting alongside either the Germans or the Soviets -- and some 150,000 Latvians died in the fighting.
Nearly 80,000 Jews in Latvia, 90 percent of the prewar Jewish population, were killed during the Nazi occupation. Thousands of Russian prisoners of war also died in Nazi prisoner of war camps.
Latvia regained its independence as the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.
United States set to assume role in patrolling Baltic airspace AP WorldStream Wednesday, March 16, 2005 6:23:00 AM
Copyright 2005 The Associated Press
VILNIUS, Lithuania (AP) — The United States will dispatch four planes to this Baltic state later this year, part of NATO's regular air patrols over the region, defense officials said Wednesday.
The U.S. contingent is set to arrive in late September at Zokniai air base, to replace German forces.
The Lithuanian Defense Ministry said that four American fighter planes will begin patrolling the airspace of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia from October to December.
A contingent of 100 NATO troops are based in Siauliai, a city of 170,000 people about 200 kilometers (125 miles) north of Vilnius.
The Baltic states regained their independence amid the 1991 Soviet collapse and last year joined the European Union and North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The United States is also a member of NATO.
Since the Baltic states joined the NATO, Danish, Belgian and British jets have all rotated through the region to patrol the air space of the Baltic states.
Currently, Norway is patrolling the air space, but will be replaced the Netherlands in March and then Germany. Poland is set to take over the duties at the beginning of 2006.
REPORT-Latvian SS men mark fight against Soviet Red Army Reuters World Report Wednesday, March 16, 2005 9:32:00 AM
Copyright 2005 Reuters Ltd.
By Jorgen Johansson
RIGA, March 16 (Reuters) — Latvian Nazi Waffen-SS veterans, who fought the Soviet Red army alongside German soldiers, paraded in Riga on Wednesday and called on their president to pull out of World War Two commemorations in Moscow.
The marchers, some of them wearing uniforms, insist they were patriots when they fought alongside Hitler's SS special security force to stop a Soviet invasion.
They said President Vaira Vike-Freiberga should not attend May 9 celebrations of the Red Army victory against Nazi Germany.
Many Baltic people are happy to celebrate the Nazi defeat, but feel the end of the war led to decades of Soviet occupation.
"I don't think it's a good idea the president goes ... because it was the beginning of our occupation," said veteran Antons, 79, who did want to give his full name.
"If I could, I would tell her to cancel," said Janis, 83.
More than 100,000 Latvians were drafted or volunteered to join German forces during the 1943-1944 Nazi occupation.
Moscow has repeatedly branded the annual veterans' march a shameful celebration of fascism.
Brawls and scuffles erupted on Wednesday between some of the 500 veterans and their supporters and anti-fascist protesters shouting "Latvia -- Europe's shame" and "Fascists."
Mounted police and officers with muzzled dogs separated them and said more than 20 people were arrested.
Latvia's president, worried about her country's image, earlier urged people not to go to the march.
FUTURE IN THE WEST?
Vike-Freiberga's travel plans have strained relations with fellow Baltic states Estonia and Lithuania whose leaders have boycotted the Moscow event.
There was also an angry response from Russia for referring to Soviet post-war occupation of the Baltics.
Latvia's head of state sees her trip as a move to improve often fractious relations with Russia, but she wants Moscow to acknowledge the suffering caused by the Soviet occupation of the Baltic states.
Latvia — like Lithuania and Estonia — joined the European Union last year and is among the fastest-growing economies in Europe. Most young Latvians see their future with the West.
But the president's decision also broke a pact between Baltic leaders to respond jointly to Moscow's invitation.
It was not too late to cancel her trip, said Lithuania's former President Vytautas Landsbergis.
"It's a chance for the Latvian president to say she has changed her mind which would result in a unified and strong position for the three Baltic states," he told Reuters.
Some Latvians fear the personal rift between Baltic leaders will make it easier for Moscow to reassert its influence.
"Is there a rift? Yes. There will still be contact between governments, but on the presidential level it will be hard to build up relationships," said Latvian lawmaker Paulis Klavins.
(Additional reporting by Darius James Ross in Lithuania)
Ethnic Latvian, Russian demonstrators quarrel as Waffen SS commemorate fallen AP WorldStream Wednesday, March 16, 2005 12:38:00 PM
Copyright 2005 The Associated Press
By TIMOTHY JACOBS Associated Press Writer
RIGA, Latvia (AP) — Hundreds of Latvian and Russian-speaking demonstrators squared off in a war of words and patriotic songs Wednesday as Latvian veterans of a German Waffen SS unit that fought against the Red Army marked the memory of their fallen comrades.
Nearly 100 aging Waffen SS veterans and their wives, flanked by a heavy police presence that included horse-mounted police and canine units, made their annual procession through the streets of Riga's old city to lay flowers at the Freedom Monument on Wednesday, a rite that is criticized in the country and abroad annually.
Many of the veterans are in their eighties and their numbers have steadily decreased each year, but the resentment lingers.
Tamara, a 65-year-old Riga woman who would not give her last name, said she was wearing a yellow star of David on her coat because she said the Legionnaires and their supporters were fascists, a charge commonly made by Moscow.
"They killed Jewish people as well as many others. Virtually every family lost one or two people in the war, primarily to the fascists," she said.
Soviet forces occupied the Baltic states in June 1940 but were driven out by the Germans a year later. The Red Army retook the Baltics in 1944, and reincorporated them into the Soviet Union.
About 250,000 Latvians ended up fighting alongside either the Germans or the Soviets -- and some 150,000 Latvians died in the fighting.
Nearly 80,000 Jews in Latvia, 90 percent of the prewar Jewish population, were killed during the Nazi occupation. Thousands of Russian prisoners of war also died in Nazi prisoner of war camps.
Most Latvian Jews were killed in 1941-42, two years before the formation of Latvia's Waffen SS -- which some Latvians claim shows the unit could not have played a role in the Holocaust. But an unknown number of Latvian Waffen SS soldiers may have been involved in the murder of Jews as auxiliary police -- years before they entered the front-line unit.
In Moscow, the Russian Foreign Ministry condemned the procession as "immoral and unacceptable," and was displeased that it happened less than two months before the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II.
"Perverse logic is the only possible explanation for the situation where the (Waffen SS veterans) march in the center of the Latvian capital while police use force against antifascists," the ministry said.
A second procession led by Latvian nationalist group, Klubs 415, drew the ire of a Russian group, Rodina, or "Homeland."
The second procession of about 200 people was met by nearly 100 angry Rodina supporters, many of whom were sporting yellow stars of David on their coats or black and white-striped prison uniforms. Several hundred onlookers were also there.
Police expected the confrontation and had more than 100 officers on duty, including some with dogs or on horseback. Twenty people were detained.
The two groups shouted nationalist sentiments and sang patriotic songs at each other over a thick wall of police officers.
Nearly one-third of the country's 2.3 million residents are native Russian-speakers, many left over from the five decade-long Soviet occupation that lasted until 1991.
Relations between Latvia and Russia have been chilly since Latvia regained its independence, largely because Russia has claimed that ethnic Russians in Latvia are mistreated. About half of Latvia's native Russian speakers are considered "non-citizens" and cannot vote or seek public office.
Despite their differences, threats of violent clashes between ethnic Latvians and Russians since 1991 have never come to pass and they coexist peacefully, frequenting the same shops and restaurants and living in the same neighborhoods and apartment buildings.
Aigars Dabolins, 40, an ethnic Latvian who took part in the Klubs 415 procession, said he did so to honor his grandfather, who fought in the Waffen SS unit and was later sent to the Gulag by the Soviet government.
"I'm a patriot," he said. "Russians are not all the same, just as Latvians aren't. These are just Bolsheviks looking for a confrontation."
Russia: Treatment of Russian speakers in Baltics a "blatant violation" of human rights AP WorldStream Thursday, March 17, 2005 6:56:00 AM
Copyright 2005 The Associated Press
By SAM CAGE
Associated Press Writer
GENEVA (AP) — Half of all Russian speakers in the Baltic states of Estonia and Latvia are denied citizenship in "blatant violation" of international human rights standards, a senior Russian official said Thursday.
Speaking at the 53-nation U.N. Commission on Human Rights, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Yuri Fedotov went on the offensive against Russia's small neighbors during a session in which human rights groups demanded criticism of Moscow's actions in Chechnya.
Fedotov told delegates that his government was "concerned about the absolutely inadequate humanitarian situation prevailing in Latvia and Estonia."
Moscow routinely accuses Latvia and Estonia of discriminating against their large Russian minorities while the Baltics accuse Russia, their former Soviet-era master, of bullying.
"The right to nationality is a fundamental human right," Fedotov said. "Here we are facing a blatant violation of a universal international standard. We stress that this concerns not foreigners but people who were residents of Latvia for their whole life or its major part."
Soviet forces occupied the Baltic states in June 1940 but were driven out by the Germans a year later. The Red Army retook the Baltics in 1944, and the three countries were reincorporated into the Soviet Union, where they remained until its collapse in 1991.
There are 480,000 stateless Russian speakers in Latvia and 162,000 in Estonia, Fedotov estimated.
"Massive statelessness among other factors continues to create a deficit of democracy," Fedotov said. "We call upon the Latvian authorities to implement as soon as possible the recommendations of international experts on the necessity of granting Latvian non-citizens the right to vote at municipal elections."
Moscow has cast the war in Chechnya as part of global efforts to combat terrorism, and has angrily rejected Western calls for peace talks with rebels. It also has dismissed rights groups' reports about massive abuses against civilians in Chechnya.
"Russia stands for an uncompromising and firm fight against any form and manifestation of terrorism," Fedotov said. "Misuse of human rights rhetoric for justifying terrorists does not only contradict legal, but also moral and ethic norms."
Fedotov has already warned the United States and the European Union against seeking a U.N. vote condemning Moscow for its human rights record in Chechnya. The 25-nation EU has sponsored Chechnya resolutions in past years, but French Deputy Foreign Minister Renaud Muselier has said that there currently are no plans to do so again.
"We are convinced that it is, of course, necessary to observe the law and take into consideration human rights standards while countering terrorism," Fedotov added.
Latvian parliament to consider banning future Waffen SS veterans marches AP WorldStream Thursday, March 17, 2005 10:37:00 AM
Copyright 2005 The Associated Press
By TIMOTHY JACOBS
Associated Press Writer
RIGA, Latvia (AP) — The Latvian parliament's legal affairs committee said on Thursday it would recommend banning future marches by Waffen SS veterans, a day after the annual march sparked angry demonstrations.
Indulis Emsis, chairman of the legal affairs committee in the Saeima, or parliament, said the committee would recommend that future March 16 processions by Latvia's Waffen SS veterans, a German unit that fought against the Red Army during World War II, be forbidden.
"In our opinion, processions of this type should not be allowed," he said, adding that such events "give extremist organizations opportunities to gain media publicity."
It could take weeks or months for the Saeima to vote on whether to ban future marches, but politicians, concerned the marches mar Latvia's image abroad, have been trying to distance the government from them for years.
Earlier this week, Latvia's president, Vaira Vike-Freiberga, called on Latvians to honor their war dead on Nov. 11, the country's Veteran's Day, not on March 16.
Nearly 100 aging Waffen SS veterans and their wives, flanked by a heavy police presence that included horse-mounted police and canine units, made their annual procession through the streets of Riga's old city to lay flowers at the Freedom Monument on Wednesday, a rite that is criticized in the country and abroad.
It prompted demonstrations by Latvian and Russian-speaking nationalist groups.
The procession also drew a sharp rebuke from Moscow, which condemned it as "immoral and unacceptable," and was displeased that it happened less than two months before the 60th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany.
Soviet forces occupied the Baltic states in June 1940 but were driven out by the Germans a year later. The Red Army retook the Baltics in 1944, and reincorporated them into the Soviet Union.
About 250,000 Latvians ended up fighting alongside either the Germans or the Soviets -- and some 150,000 Latvians died in the fighting.
Nearly 80,000 Jews in Latvia, 90 percent of the prewar Jewish population, were killed during the Nazi occupation. Thousands of Russian prisoners of war also died in Nazi prisoner of war camps.
Most Latvian Jews were killed in 1941-42, two years before the formation of Latvia's Waffen SS -- which many Latvians claim shows the unit could not have played a role in the Holocaust. But an unknown number of Latvian Waffen SS soldiers may have been involved in the murder of Jews as auxiliary police -- years before they entered the front-line unit.
George Kennan, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, dies at 101 AP WorldStream Thursday, March 17, 2005 10:50:00 PM
Copyright 2005 The Associated Press
PRINCETON, New Jersey (AP) — Diplomat and Pulitzer Prize-winning historian George F. Kennan, who gave the name "containment" to postwar foreign policy in a famous but anonymous article, died Thursday night at his Princeton home, his son-in-law said.
Kennan was 101.
"He was a giant. Many people have called him the most important foreign service officer of the past half-century," said son-in-law Kevin Delany of Washington, D.C. "He was a very thoughtful man with an elegant writing style."
Identified only as "X," Kennan laid out the general lines of the containment policy in the journal "Foreign Affairs" in 1947, when he was chief of the State Department's policy planning staff. The article also predicted the collapse of Soviet Communism decades later.
"It is clear that the main element of any United States policy toward the Soviet Union must be that of a long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies," Kennan wrote.
When the Communist Party was finally driven from power in the Soviet Union after the failed hardline coup in August 1991, Kennan called it "a turning point of the most momentous historical significance."
In his 1947 article, Kennan disagreed with the emphasis on military containment embodied in the "Truman doctrine." That policy, announced three months before publication of Kennan's article, committed U.S. aid in support of "free people who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressure."
Kennan thought a Soviet Union exhausted by war posed no military threat to the United States or its allies, but was a strong ideological and political rival. In later years, he came to believe that the arms race, waged on the U.S. side in the name of containment, had become the greatest threat to both the United States and the Soviet Union.
Despite the "X" article and his work in formulating the Marshall Plan, Kennan lost influence rapidly after Dean Acheson was appointed secretary of state in 1949. After a difference of opinion on Germany -- Kennan favored reunification, his superiors did not -- he took a leave of absence in 1950 to work at the Institute of Advanced Studies in Princeton.
He was appointed ambassador to Moscow in May 1952 but was declared "persona non grata" within a year. He resigned from the foreign service in 1953 because of differences with the new secretary, John Foster Dulles.
During his years out of the foreign service, Kennan won the Pulitzer Prize for history and a National Book Award for "Russia Leaves the War," published in 1956.
He again won the Pulitzer Prize in 1967 for "Memoirs, 1925-1950." A second volume, taking his reminiscences up to 1963, appeared in 1972. Among his other books was "Sketches from a Life," published in 1989.
Kennan returned to the foreign service in the Kennedy administration, serving as ambassador to Yugoslavia from 1961-63. In 1967, he was assigned to meet Svetlana Alliluyeva, the daughter of Josef Stalin, in Switzerland and helped persuade her to come to the United States.
In the 1960s, Kennan opposed American involvement in Vietnam, arguing that the United States had no vital interest at stake. In Kennan's view, Washington had only five areas of vital interest: the Soviet Union, Britain, Germany, Japan and the United States itself.
George Frost Kennan was born Feb. 16, 1904, in Milwaukee. An uncle, George Kennan, was an expert on Czarist Russia who wrote "Siberia and the Exile System" in 1891.
A year after graduating from Princeton University in 1925, Kennan entered the foreign service. Early postings included Switzerland, Germany, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
In 1929, Kennan was assigned to a program in Russian language, history and politics in Berlin. When the United States resumed diplomatic ties with the Soviet Union in 1933, Kennan accompanied Ambassador William C. Bullit to Moscow.
Kennan was assigned to Berlin at the outbreak of World War II in 1939, and was interned for six months after the United States entered the war in 1941.
During late 1943 and 1944 he was counselor of the American delegation to the European Advisory Commission, which worked to prepare Allied policy in Europe.
Kennan returned to Moscow and remained there from May 1944 to April 1946. At the end of that term, he wrote a long analysis of the prospects for postwar Russia, the so-called "Long Telegram" which became the basis for the "X" article.
In 1947, Kennan was appointed director of the policy planning staff of the Department of State and directed much of the groundwork for the Marshall Plan, which helped rebuild Europe with a large infusion of aid.
Reflecting on the "X" article in 1987, Kennan wrote in "Foreign Affairs" that he now regarded the Soviet Union as a military threat but as no ideological or political threat to the United States -- the reverse of the situation he perceived in 1947.
"It is entirely clear to me that Soviet leaders do not want a war with us and are not planning to initiate one," he wrote.
In a New York Times article published in February 2004 as Kennan turned 100, former ambassador Richard Gardner said: "All of us who aspired to careers in the Foreign Service still look to Kennan as a role model. Just look at the Long Telegram. How many ambassadors today could write such a document?"
Kennan's honors included the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1989, Albert Einstein Peace Prize in 1981, the German Book Trade Peace Prize in 1982, and the Gold Medal in History from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters in 1984.
Kennan is survived by his wife, Annelise, whom he married in 1931. They had three daughters and a son.
Latvian president to visit Sweden later this month AP WorldStream Friday, March 18, 2005 9:40:00 AM
Copyright 2005 The Associated Press
RIGA, Latvia (AP) — Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga will make a two-day state visit to Sweden later this month, the president's press service said Friday.
Vike-Freiberga will arrive in Sweden on March 31 and will meet with Swedish King Carl XVI Gustaf and several other top Swedish officials on the trip to discuss Baltic Sea and European Union cooperation. Latvia was one of 10 countries that joined the EU last year.
She will be accompanied by other Latvian officials, including the ministers of economics, finance, and culture, as well as by 40 business people.
Vike-Freiberga will attend the opening of a Latvian tourism bureau in the Swedish capital, Stockholm. She also plans to give a speech at Uppsala University and to help unveil a memorial plaque at a house in Uppsala where a famous Latvian writer, Zenta Maurina, once lived. Maurina died in 1978.
EU trio bring Russia in from the cold Reuters World Report Friday, March 18, 2005 5:01:00 PM
Copyright 2005 Reuters Ltd.
By Richard Balmforth
PARIS, March 18 (Reuters)France, Germany and Spain sowed the seeds of a new partnership with Russia at talks on Friday intended to save Moscow from isolation, and said they were united in a commitment to stop Iran developing nuclear weapons.
The talks with President Vladimir Putin produced a joint call for Syria to withdraw its forces from Lebanon and focused on areas on which they agreed, glossing over potential points of discord such as Chechnya and the state of democracy in Russia.
Putin, French President Jacques Chirac, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero exuded harmony at a news conference -- even on the question of ex-Soviet Ukraine where a West-leaning president came to power early this year against Putin's wishes.
"We are working very closely on the Iran question," Schroeder said, dismissing any suggestion of differences even though Russia has been supplying Tehran with nuclear technology, saying it is intended for civilian purposes.
"We are trying to convince the Iranians they must not produce or possess nuclear arms. We are working closely together," he said.
Putin himself pointed out that Russia, while pressing ahead with the Bushehr nuclear station project in Iran, had signed an agreement with Tehran for the return of spent fuel.
But he said Iran would have to show its "complete rejection" of any attempt to acquire nuclear weapons. "We will attentively follow the level at which Iran cooperates on the monitoring of its nuclear technology," he said.
That may not be enough for the United States, which accuses Tehran of trying to develop a nuclear arsenal and was angered by an agreement last month under which Russia will provide Iran with nuclear fuel. Iran denies it is developing nuclear arms.
The four also issued a joint appeal for Syria to withdraw its forces from Lebanon to open the way for "free and transparent elections" there.
CLOSE FRIENDS
The meeting came at a crucial time for Putin who is now a year into his second and last presidential term and who, after a political setback in Ukraine late last year, referred to his concerns that Western forces were out to isolate Russia.
Schroeder and Chirac are Putin's closest friends in the European Union and it was clear from the start that he would not be chided over his record on democracy at the Elysee Palace get-together.
There was no mention of Chechnya where Putin has been pursuing hard-line policies to break the separatist rebellion. Human rights bodies criticise Moscow for alleged violations by Russian forces in the Muslim province in the North Caucasus.
The warm reception he was given contrasted with that of some of new EU members from former communist republics in eastern Europe. The Baltic states and Poland want a tougher line taken with Moscow over its record on democracy, human rights and the rule of law.
On Ukraine, Putin struck a moderate tone on the eve of his visit there on Saturday -- his first since street protests over a rigged election in favour of a Moscow-backed candidate brought to power the pro-western Viktor Yushchenko.
He underlined historical links between Russia and its smaller Slavic neighbour. But he said Moscow backed no political force in Ukraine -- a signal to Yushchenko ahead of Saturday's meeting that Moscow would not try to undermine his leadership by stoking discontent among the huge Russian-speaking population.
Echoing words by Schroeder, Putin said it served no one to promote instability in Ukraine.
Earlier on Friday, Chirac put the accent on transparency and trust with France's old Cold War foe by whisking Putin off by helicopter to a top secret air base at Taverny outside Paris.
Putin is keen to see as many world leaders as possible at May 9 celebrations in Moscow to mark the Red Army's defeat of Nazi Germany 60 years ago.
Preparations for the event have become mired in diplomatic wrangling after Moscow was cold-shouldered by Lithuania and Estonia. A third Baltic state, Latvia, is attending but with misgivings.
Bulgarian president on two-day state visit to Latvia AP WorldStream Monday, March 21, 2005 6:13:00 AM
Copyright 2005 The Associated Press
RIGA, Latvia (AP) — Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov arrived in Riga on Monday for two days of talks with some of the country's top leaders.
Parvanov, who is making his first state visit to Latvia, a Baltic country of 2.3 million people that joined the European Union and NATO last year, will meet with Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga and Prime Minister Aigars Kalvitis later Monday.
They're scheduled to discuss cooperation in education, science and the arts.
The Latvian government has previously said it supported Bulgarian membership in the EU.
Accompanying Parvanov on the trip were Bulgarian Education and Science Minister Igor Damianov and the lawmaker Penka Peneva, who heads the Bulgarian-Latvian cooperation group in Bulgaria's national assembly.
Parvanov will take a walking tour of Riga's Old Town on Tuesday and visit the city's Occupation Museum, which houses artifacts documenting 50 years of Soviet rule.
Eastern trio seeks EU help over Russia gas pipeline Reuters World Report Tuesday, March 22, 2005 3:13:00 PM
Copyright 2005 Reuters Ltd.
By Marcin Grajewski
BRUSSELS, March 22 (Reuters) — Latvia, Lithuania and Poland asked for European Union help on Tuesday in persuading Russia to build a large natural gas pipeline through their territories rather than under the Baltic Sea.
The prime ministers of the three new member states wrote to European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso, seeking support in the so-called Amber Project -- a pipeline that would connect Russia and Germany via the three east European countries.
Russian gas monopoly Gazprom plans to launch its North European pipeline to Germany in 2010, worth some $5.7 billion, and tentatively plans to lay it under the Baltic Sea.
"We call on the Commission to attach utmost attention to ensuring that the route of a new pipeline from the East to the West should be chosen taking into account not only commercial, but also security of supply and diversification criteria," Poland's Marek Belka, Lithuania's Algirdas Brazauskas and Airgars Kalvitis of Latvia wrote.
"The Amber Project would cover the needs of four new member states, reduce the gas transit risks, which are considerable ... and will contribute most effectively to the integration of the EU internal gas market," said the letter, obtained by Reuters.
The three leaders met Barroso to discuss the issue during an EU summit in Brussels.
Diplomats from the three countries privately complain that Russia prefers the more expensive undersea pipeline route for political reasons.
Relations between Moscow and the former Soviet republics and satellites have been deteriorating ever since those countries joined the NATO military alliance.
The countries now count on Brussels' support in relations with Russia, which prefers to discuss economic issues with EU heavyweights such as Germany and France.
"The idea is to convince EU member states to be more active in a dialogue with Russia on issues such as energy," Pawel Swieboda, the Polish Foreign Ministry's European department head, told Reuters.
He said for Poland, the Amber Project pipeline would replace the second track of the Yamal pipeline that Russia had promised in the early 1990s to build through Poland, but never built.
Moldova rejects Russian criticism over WWII veteran pensions for those fighting against Soviets AP WorldStream Tuesday, March 22, 2005 11:48:00 AM
Copyright 2005 The Associated Press
By CORNELIU RUSNAC
Associated Press Writer
CHISINAU, Moldova (AP) — Moldova's Communist president, Vladimir Voronin, rejected Russian criticism of a proposal to pay a bonus to all its World War II veterans, irrespective of whether they fought for the Romanian or the Soviet Army, the president's office said Tuesday.
Russia's Foreign Ministry described the measure on Saturday as "an insult to the memory of millions of people who paid a huge price for the liberation of the republics of the former Soviet Union, including Moldova, from fascist enslavement."
But Voronin said his request to the government last week to pay a 1,000 lei (US$80, 60 euro) bonus to veterans to mark the 60th anniversary of victory over the Nazis, was in line with a 1993 law which grants equal benefits to all Moldovan veterans.
"The Romanian army fought from 1944 in the war against fascism, and Romania's King Michael was decorated by the Soviet leadership with the 'Victory Order,' which was offered also to Josip Broz Tito and Dwight Eisenhower," Voronin said in a statement.
Moldova was part of Romania until 1940, when it was annexed by the Soviet Union under a pact between Hitler and Stalin. Fighting alongside Germany, Romania then attacked the Soviet Union in 1941 and Moldova was reincorporated into Romania until 1945, when it became a Soviet Republic.
In 1944, Romania's authoritarian government of Marshal Ion Antonescu was overthrown by a coup led by King Michael, and the country fought the rest of the war alongside the Soviet Union and the Allies against Germany.
Convicted war criminals would not be eligible for the bonus, Voronin added.
Russia is hosting major ceremonies in Moscow on May 9 marking the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II. Leaders from the Baltic states of Estonia and Lithuania have refused invitations to attend but Romania's president Traian Basescu plans to travel to Moscow.
Relations between Moldova and Russia have deteriorated recently over the status of Moldova's breakaway region of Trans-Dniester, which is largely Russian-speaking, as well as Moldova's aspirations to move closer to the European Union and neighbor Romania.
Moldova gained independence in 1991 with the breakup of the Soviet Union.
U.S. president to visit Latvia in May AP WorldStream Thursday, March 24, 2005 10:42:00 AM
Copyright 2005 The Associated Press
By TIMOTHY JACOBS
Associated Press Writer
RIGA, Latvia (AP) — U.S. President George W. Bush will visit Latvia in May before heading to Russia to take part in ceremonies marking the 60th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany, a Latvian presidential spokesman said Thursday.
Bush will arrive in Riga on May 6 for talks with Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga and will take part in a summit the following day that will include the two other Baltic leaders, Estonian President Arnold Ruutel and Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus.
The Latvian president called Bush's decision to visit the Baltics before the May 9 celebrations in Moscow highly symbolic, said her spokesman, Andrejs Pildegovic.
The visit comes a week after Latvia celebrates the 15th anniversary of its declaration of independence from the Soviet Union. Baltic independence was formally recognized more than a year later, in September, 1991.
Bush's visit also comes one year after the three Baltic countries joined the European Union and NATO, organizations that leaders in all three countries view as the guarantors of Baltic safety and independence.
Of the three Baltic presidents, only Vike-Freiberga accepted Moscow's invitation to attend the May 9 ceremonies, saying she wanted to improve relations with Moscow, which are still strained because of the five-decade long Soviet occupation of the Baltics.
Both Adamkus and Ruutel opted not to go to Russia, saying Russia still refuses to acknowledge its role as the driving force behind the occupation.
After visiting Latvia, Bush will travel to the Netherlands, Russia, and Georgia before returning to the U.S.
Estonian PM formally resigns AP WorldStream Thursday, March 24, 2005 5:12:00 AM
Copyright 2005 The Associated Press
By JARI TANNER
Associated Press Writer
TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — Prime Minister Juhan Parts handed in his and his government's resignation to the president Thursday, as political parties prepared for talks to form Estonia's fourth government in six years.
Parts announced his surprise resignation Monday after lawmakers passed a no-confidence vote against his justice minister.
Government spokesman Erki Peegel said Parts met President Arnold Ruutel before noon (1000GMT) and handed in the resignation of his Cabinet, which has been in power since April 2003.
Estonia has had three governments since 1999.
Earlier Thursday, the country's 101-seat assembly, the Riigikogu, voted for Ene Ergma to continue as parliament speaker. Ergma's election may play a role in the political maneuvering to form a new Cabinet as she represents the Res Publica party, which is headed by Parts and is a leading member in the resigning center-right coalition.
The major parties are set to start formal government formation talks following Parts' resignation. No major progress is expected until after the Easter holidays, and talks are expected to be difficult with parties disagreeing on main issues, such as taxation and improving Estonia's health care system.
Ukraine leader to stay away from Moscow war events Reuters World Report Saturday, March 26, 2005 9:36:00 AM
Copyright 2005 Reuters Ltd.
KIEV, March 26 (Reuters) — Ukraine's president said on Saturday he would not attend Moscow events to mark the 60th anniversary of victory over the Nazis, a move that may add to Russian irritation over a boycott by some east European leaders.
President Viktor Yushchenko said he could not fly to the Russian capital when similar ceremonies marking the defeat of Nazi Germany were scheduled to take place in Kiev.
"As we cannot postpone commemorations which will take place in Ukraine on May 9, including a parade and other events, I would feel most uncomfortable if war veterans are gathering here and I am on a reviewing stand elsewhere," he told reporters.
"I think the Russian president, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, and our other colleagues can easily understand that."
The May 9 commemorations have already opened up a split among east European nations, reflecting Cold War legacies.
The presidents of Baltic nations Estonia and Lithuania have said they will stay away on grounds that the end of the war marked the start of five decades of Soviet occupation.
The president of Latvia, the third Baltic state, is attending as is Poland's president, Aleksander Kwasniewski, despite the misgivings of the Polish media and some politicians.
Ukrainian officials have said Yushchenko will attend a summit in Moscow on May 8 of the Commonwealth of Independent Nations, which will bring together leaders of 12 ex-Soviet states.
World War Two commemorations honouring more than 20 million Soviet war dead are a major event in Russia, one of the few events able to unite people of all political persuasions.
Ukraine lost up to 8 million people in what is known in ex-Soviet states as the Great Patriotic War.
But commemorations there invariably cause splits, as thousands, mainly in western Ukraine, joined the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) which fought both German and Soviet troops. Others donned Nazi uniforms in a unit known as the SS Galicina.
Post-Soviet Ukraine leaders have tried unsuccessfully to persuade Soviet war veterans and UPA fighters to attend war commemorations together.
 
 

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