Saturday, 18 December 1999

December 18, 1999

Special
Latvian Link
News
Picture Album

News, Picture and AOL Lat Chat Reminder for Sunday, Dec. 19 Date: 12/18/99

File: D:\_WWWLA~1.COM\AUG93\PICTS\0254-3~1.JPG (53771 bytes)
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As we wind down getting ready for the big holiday, hopefully you will have time to read through this week's articles, check out the new exciting Baltic link from Zulis, and for those of you on AOL, join us for Latvian chat Sunday night from approximately 9pm EST until around 10:30 or 11. You can join the chat by using the following link: Town Square - Latvian chat If you're like us ( hopefully you aren't! ) you're nowhere near finished with holiday shopping and preparations, but a nice break to join the AOL Latvian chat may be just what you need as a tension reliever! Hope to see you there!

Ar visu labu,

Special

Latvia's ambassador to the U.S., Ojars Kalnins, retired this week. The following article appeared in the Washington Times commemorating his service.

Washington Times, December 17, 1999
Embassy Row

Return to Riga

Latvian Ambassador Ojars Kalnins bought a one-way ticket to Latvia and then realized that, symbolically, he is making the return leg of a journey begun 50 years ago when his parents fled the communist takeover of the Baltics.
Mr. Kalnins, who was born in a West German refugee camp and reared in the United States since he was 2, leaves Washington Dec. 28, after serving seven years as ambassador. He is returning with his wife, Irma, born in the United States of Latvian immigrant parents, and daughter, Ingrida. Friday is his last full day at the Latvian Embassy. “I recently realized [the tickets] aren’t one-way tickets at all,” he said in a letter to Embassy Row. “Nearly 50 years ago our parents fled the Soviet occupation of Latvia and sought refuge in the United States, hoping that one day Latvia would be liberated and they would return.
“Unfortunately our parents never lived to see that day. Irma and I are returning in their place, completing a round trip that began a half century ago. For me, this is a very happy ending.”
Mr. Kalnins will be taking the position as director of new institute to promote Latvian culture worldwide.
“It is indeed bittersweet to say goodbye to seven years of being ambassador, 15 years of work in Washington and 48 years of life in the United States,” he wrote. “This is a great country, and I will always be grateful to the American people for the support they have given my people.
“They kept the faith during the dark days of the Cold War and stood by us when we struggled to restore our independence.”
During his posting to Washington, Russian troops have withdrawn from Latvia and “Western investment has come in,” he said.
“Our democracy has taken root, our economy has stabilized, and we have joined the World Trade Organization, been invited to begin [membership] talks with the European Union and given encouragement in our bid to join NATO,” he said.
Mr. Kalnins, a fan of bagpipes and tartan, expressed his regret that he was never able to attend a Scottish-American festival, such as the many held annually in the Washington area.
“Looks like I will have to visit the Highlands, themselves,” he said. “Given my new place of residence, Scotland will be a lot closer.”

Latvian Link

BALTIC HISTORICAL MAPS

This site has maps of the Baltics at various times in history. This allows you to track the comings and goings of the Swedes, Russians, Germans etc. over the centuries. A great site to have up and running when reading about Latvian History. -Gunars Z.

	Baltic Lands
	http://www.lib.utexas.edu/Libs/PCL/Map_collection/historical/baltics.html

News

Another busy week in the news:

• Estonia was upset over Latvian tarrifs on pork products
• The U.S. welcomed Latvia's new language law
• A Dzhugashvili returns to Russian politics (Stalin's grandson resurrects his grandfather's good name)
• Latvia's dependence on Russian trade is dropping (a similar report was also published this week regarding Lithuania)
• Byelorussia plans to control airspace over Riga

TALLINN, Dec 13 (Reuters)—Estonia on Monday warned Latvia it would turn to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) if Riga refused to dismantle a tariff regime on pork products.
Latvia's parliament last week effectively extended a pork import tariff by two years by approving a fixed customs charge on the product. It approved a 1.05 lats ($1.8) per kilogramme customs charge on imported fresh and frozen pork to which a customs tariff of 35 percent will be added. The charge will be in effect for two years.
"If Latvia does not give up its tariff regime on Estonian pork products within two weeks, Estonia intends to protest to the WTO," the office of Estonian Prime Minister Mart Laar said in a statement.
Both Latvia and Estonia are WTO members.
In talks with his Latvian counterpart Andris Skele on Saturday, Laar said Estonia would also seek compensation for losses and delay making key economic decisions that would impact Latvia, the statement added.
The new tariff regime replaces a 70 percent tariff introduced earlier in the year.
($1 - 0.58 Latvian lats)
Copyright 1999, Reuters Ltd.

DEC 13, 1999, M2 Communications—The United States welcomes the Latvian Parliament's passage of a new language law December 9. As noted by OSCE High Commissioner for National Minorities Max van der Stoel, the law essentially conforms to international standards and is supported by the OSCE. The United States believes this law will promote and preserve the Latvian language, while respecting the privacy of Latvia's private commercial activities and the private lives of all Latvia's residents. We call on the Latvian government to enact implementing regulations that are consistent with the parliament's legislation and Latvia's international obligations and commitments. The integration of all Latvia's residents into Latvian society is key to our common U.S.-Baltic Charter of Partnership goal of bringing Latvia fully into European and transatlantic institutions. The importance of advancing the social integration of non-Latvian speakers was underscored at the U.S.-Baltic Partnership Commission meeting last July. The United States looks forward to continuing to work with Latvia to advance this key goal, and applauds the important step now taken by the Parliament.
(C)1994-99 M2 COMMUNICATIONS LTD / Copyright 1999

Stalin Comeback - Dzhugashvili Return to Russian Politics—More than 43 years have passed since Nikita Khrushchev toppled the cult of personality, but suddenly Stalin's portrait is popping up everywhere.
On posters and billboards across the city, the mustachioed generalissimo gazes out at voters who will find his name among the parties on the ballot for State Duma elections Sunday.
The Stalinist Bloc for the U.S.S.R., led by Viktor Anpilov, Stanislav Terekhov and Stalin's grandson Yevgeny Dzhugashvili, is banking on the once-revered leader's reputation to carry them past the 5 percent barrier and into the lower house.
"It is our obligation not only to lift up Stalin's name as an icon but to revive the true essence of his epoch," Anpilov, perhaps the best-known of Russia's radical communists, said at a news conference Thursday.
It may not be such a bad campaign strategy. According to a September poll by the Public Opinion Foundation that put historical figures on a hypothetical ballot along with contemporary political figures, 7 percent of the country would choose Stalin for president.
Anpilov's bloc came within an inch of victory during the last Duma elections when it received 4.53 percent of the vote. And while Anpilov was open about his fondness for Stalin even then, the name of his bloc had yet to include the word "Stalinist," and he had not yet teamed up with Dzhugashvili, who bears a strong resemblance to his grandfather.
Dzhugashvili, 63, is valuable to the bloc mostly for his lineage and his last name, which was also Stalin's before he adopted his nom de guerre. Before teaming up with Anpilov, he headed an organization devoted to defending Stalin's name but was not active in politics. He was quiet for most of Thursday's news conference.
Anpilov, a former radio correspondent in Nicaragua, and Terekhov, who leads the Union of Officers, were both jailed in 1993 for their roles in that year's parliamentary uprising. After spending a few months in Lefortovo Prison, they were amnestied along with other coup leaders.
The group called the Thursday news conference in honor of Stalin's 120th birthday, which falls on Dec. 21 and which the bloc formally celebrated at a congress in Moscow on Saturday.
Anpilov, who fidgeted nervously with a business card as he spoke, lamented the lack of any government-sponsored initiative to mark the day.
"This is a person who did a lot for Moscow – that is, his epoch, not only him. This is the metro, the granite embankment, the widening of the streets, the very system of circular traffic – all this was thought up and carried out in the epoch of Josef Vissarionovich," Anpilov said.
The bloc supports resurrecting the Soviet Union, undoing the results of privatization and punishing those involved, and abolishing the presidency and other executive offices.
Dzhugashvili used his short speech to speak out against the government's decision two years ago to remove the nationality clause from internal passports.
"Russia is a country of native peoples. And this is important to us, to all the nations of Russia. Nationality should be written in one's passport. Russian, Chuvash, or Tatar. What is there to be ashamed of? It's simply the further destruction of our state!" he said.
Under Stalin, an ethnic Georgian, minorities were Russified, Volga Germans and Chechens were exiled to Kazakhstan, and Jews were targeted in the purges.
As far as history goes, Dzhugashvili said there is a lot of exaggeration where Stalin is concerned.
"Look at the truth, not the fantasies that have been purposely invented about these 'repressions,'" Dzhugashvili said. "There are people who really suffered, but there are others who are just confused. They need to be told the truth."
Anpilov concurred. "When I was in Vladivostok, I got a letter from one ex-con who was in a camp for 35 years, and I was stunned because this man wrote, 'Viktor Ivanovich, these repressions, I know the truth, it's all not true, it's all lies,'" he said.
The Stalinist Bloc has several prominent billboards in Moscow – an unheard-of luxury for a fringe party. It is unclear where the money for such advertising is coming from, but one possibility is that it is funded by people who want to take votes away from the main Communist Party.
It also looks like Anpilov & Co. have learned from past mistakes. According to a paper by Tatyana Shavshukova published by the Panorama research center, in 1995 Anpilov did not think his bloc had a good chance of getting into the Duma by party list. Thus, the bloc's activists focused most of their efforts on the single-mandate districts where they were running. In the end, only one single-mandate candidate made it into the Duma.
Shavshukova suggests that had Anpilov focused more energy on the general party-list campaign, he would have had a better shot at a Duma seat.
But Boris Kagarlitsky, a leftist analyst at the Institute of Comparative Politics, said that despite the apparent financial backing and Stalin's name, the bloc may have a hard time beating its 1995 performance. At that time, Anpilov ran alongside Viktor Tyulkin, a former Leningrad dock worker who has wide grass-roots support, but since then the two have split. Tyulkin is heading his own bloc, Communists and Workers of Russia for the Soviet Union.
And while Stalin remains popular in some circles, Kagarlitsky said true Stalinists would likely vote for Gennady Zyuganov's Communist Party, the successor to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
"The typical Stalinist is disciplined and will follow the Party. Even if the Party is wrong, he'll vote for the Party," he said.
Copyright 1999 THE MOSCOW TIMES all rights reserved as distributed by WorldSources, Inc.
Copyright 1999 The Associated Press.

RIGA, Dec 17 (Reuters)—Latvia's 10-month trade deficit narrowed, year-on-year, with imports dropping quicker than exports as the country continues to re-orient trade westward following last year's Russian crisis.
The statistical office said in a statement that the January-October shortfall stood at 547.4 million lats ($934.7 million) compared with 652.9 million lats for the same period in 1998.
Imports for the period totalled 1.388 billion lats, some 10.9 percent lower, year-on-year, while exports came to 841.0 million lats, a fall of 7.1 percent.
Notably, the data showed Russia, once the largest trade partner with Latvia, ranked fifth as an export destination accounting for only 6.7 percent of the total, down from 13.0 percent for the same period last year.
Meanwhile imports from the EU were down slightly but still accounted for 55.2 percent of the total and exports grew to 62.8 percent from 55.4 percent.
Exports to the CIS came to 12.0 percent, down by nearly half, year-on-year, with imports easing to 14.4 percent from 15.5 percent.
Latvia's main export products were timber at 37.6 percent of the total, textiles at 15.8 percent and metal and metal products at 11.3 percent.
Its main imports were machine tools and machinery (22.1 percent), chemical products (12.1 percent) and minerals (10.4 percent) and vehicles (9.8 percent).
($ - 0.58 Latvian lats)
Copyright 1999 Reuters Ltd.

Itar-Tass military-political news digest of December 17
MINSK (Itar-Tass)—The Russian-Byelorussian military grouping is made up of the Byelorussian army and Russia's Moscow military district, Byelorussian President Alexander Lukashenko said. He said at a televised press conference on Thursday that the grouping, which is formed under an accord signed by the two states' supreme council in December, "in fact consists of Byelorussian armed forces and the Moscow military district." The Byelorussian part of the grouping will use its means for identification of targets at high altitudes to control the air space from Riga to Odessa.
Copyright 1999 Itar-Tass

Picture Album

This week's picture is of a warmer time of year in Latvia. It's of children playing along the path up Bastejkalns from Peters' trip in 1993.

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