Link/News/Photo/Lat Chat Reminder for Feb 20th Date: 2/19/00
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A belated Happy Valentine's Day to you all! In our case, with Silvija
on the road home a day later from Virginia because of bad weather, it was more
of a Valentine's week... hope yours lasted more than a day, too! :-) On to our
features, there's a lot to cover!
In the news, the Russians portrayed themselves as anti-fascist heroes
on both the Holocaust controversy and conviction of a former Soviet partisan,
pedophilia accusations flew in the Latvian legislature, utt. (that's Latvian
for "etc."). The full list of stories:
Six nations send delegates to Latvia to discuss
evidence against Konrads Kalejs; British indicate they did not have enough
evidence at the point Kalejs left for Australia
In a letter to Vaira Vike-Freiberga, Putin
characterizes Kononov conviction as "the first time in world practice a
person has been punished for the struggle against fascism."
Yeltsin spurns highest Latvian award in thanks
for role in freeing Baltics, adds that Kononov conviction "an insult to the
millions of victims of fascism"
Personally we find it disturbing that no one seems to be disputing the
Russian self-aggrandizement as anti-fascist heros--and calling anyone who says
otherwise "fascist" and "pro-Nazi." What of Stalin's butchery of tens of
millions of his own countrymen? As for man's inhumanity to man, the Russians
need look no further than their treatment of their own.
Also, a friend
clipped the AP article on the Little Star radio telescope (we featured the
story last week). We've added the pictures of the telescope and of Juris Zagars
to the archived mailer at our web site—check the updated Feb. 12th mailer news article.
For those of you on AOL, please join in Lat Chat, Sunday evenings,
9:00/9:30pm to 11:00/11:30 Eastern time. Follow this link on AOL:
Town Square - Latvian chat
Ar visu labu,
IN
ACCORDANCE WITH AOL'S MAIL POLICY and good manners, please let Silvija
(Silvija) know if you wish to be deleted from our mailing list. Past
mailers are archived at latvians.com. Your
comments and suggestions are always welcome.
Latvian Link
Nature Photographs from Latvija
Salvijs
Balinskis is a photographer living in Riga. He seems to specialize in nature
photography and has posted a number of his photos on his web site. Some very
nice pictures—I wish there were more. Check out the photo of the Gauja at
Sigulda in autumn. —Gunars
Copyright 2000 Reuters Ltd. MOSCOW, February 15
(Reuters)—Russia denounced the Baltic state of Estonia on Tuesday
for decorating soldiers it said had sided with Nazi Germany against the allies
in World War Two. A Foreign Ministry
statement said a decree by President Lennart Meri bestowing honours on
combatants "contributing to the restoration of the Estonian state" feted men
who had fought in the ranks of the German army.
"In other words, taking part in fighting in the
ranks of Hitler's army is considered by the current Estonian leadership as
laudable valour worthy of a decoration," the statement said.
"There can be no justification for such a
stand." Russia has also criticised the
Baltic state of Latvia for honouring troops who fought with the Nazi
forces. The Balts reject the criticism,
saying the troops were fighting for the independence of their own nations
against the Soviet Union, which annexed the three small states in 1941. They
also say soldiers were sometimes conscripted against their will.
The Foreign Ministry said the awards, and what
it said were regular commemorations of an Nazi SS division made up of
Estonians, amounted to "desecrating the memory of the victims of fascism."
"We hope that the pro-Nazi sympathies of
Estonia's leaders will be rejected by the international community and civilised
states, including members of the European Union for which Estonia is a
candidate for membership," the statement said.
Issues related to World War Two still raise
passions in the former Soviet Union, which lost some 27 million people in
bearing the brunt of Nazi Germany's expansion across Europe.
Pro-Nazi units were formed in all three former
Soviet Baltic states—Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania—and in Ukraine.
Russia's ire has also been provoked by the
prosecution of Red Army partisans in Latvia and Estonia and what it calls
discrimination by both states against large Russian-speaking minorities.
Copyright 2000 Reuters
Ltd. RIGA, February 16
(Reuters)—Officials from six nations on Wednesday opened a
conference to seek new evidence in Nazi-era war crime cases as host Latvia said
it was ready to prosecute any suspects and hoped facts would emerge.
"Latvia has a strong political will to call to
justice all war criminals," Justice Minister Valdis Birkavs said at the start
of the two-day conference grouping officials from Canada, the United States,
Britain, Australia, Germany and Israel. "We
take upon ourselves the responsibility to have crimes perpetrated on the
Latvian soil investigated and the accused called to justice," he added. "We
call upon (foreign partners) to provide all the necessary assistance to make it
possible." The gathering was meant to be a
general talking session for all Nazi war crimes.
But for Latvia it was also a chance to deflect
foreign critics who accuse it of being soft on Nazis for having not prosecuted
an 86-year-old native Latvian suspected by Nazi hunters of involvement in the
World War Two slaughter of Jews. The
conference could be an important forum for producing new evidence against
Konrad Kalejs, according to the Australian ambassador to Latvia, Stephen
Brady. "If there is new evidence, this is
the opportunity for people to put it on the table," Brady told Reuters.
Kalejs left Britain last month to avoid a
deportation order and returned to Australia, where he has held citizenship
since 1957. Nazi hunters want Latvia to seek Kalejs's extradition.
But Latvian officials say they lack evidence to
link Kalejs to atrocities committed by the Arajs Commando, a Nazi
collaborationist hit squad responsible for 30,000 deaths. War crime sleuths say
Kalejs was a member of this unit. Kalejs
denies all allegations against him. Although
Kalejs was deported from the United States in 1994 and Canada in 1997 for lying
on immigration documents, no legal action has been taken against him.
Britain said on Wednesday it had sent two
Scotland Yard police detectives to the Riga conference.
British police said there was insufficient
evidence to charge the Australian national before he left the country.
Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga said a
day before the meeting she hoped the gathering might have a cathartic effect.
"I would like to express a hope that this
historic meeting ... would help us to find new ways of overcoming the effects
of these tragic events," she said in a statement.
Some analysts say Latvians are reluctant to
pursue this dark chapter of their history, seeing their nation as a victim of
the Soviets and the Germans, who both invaded in World War Two.
MOSCOW, February 16
(Itar-Tass)—The Russian Foreign Ministry on Wednesday expressed
surprise at Latvia's decision not to invite Russia to an international
conference on the investigation of Latvian Nazi activities during World War II.
"Fascists committed the largest number of
crimes in Russia. The Russian people paid for its victory over the 'brown
plague' with millions of lives of its sons and daughters," the ministry said in
a statement. "This is not just
forgetfulness. Despite the official inquiry made by the Prosecutor General's
Office about the possibility of attending the conference, Latvia did not
respond," the statement said. "All this is
happening against the background of the trial launched by Latvian authorities
against war veterans who fought on the side of the anti-Hitler coalition," the
ministry said. "The investigation of war
crimes should be conducted with the participation of all sides which have been
affected by Nazi crimes," it said. zak/Copyright 2000
RIGA, February 18
(Itar-Tass)—Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga called last
Thursday, February 17, "a black day" for the republic, since top statesmen were
blasted in the republican parliament in connection with a pedophilia case.
According to the president, "the image of the country was heavily smeared."
Speaking over national television on
Thursday evening, the head of state noted that a man, accused of a crime,
usually leaves his post. "While clouds of suspicions are looming over their
heads, it is difficult for them to fulfill their functions," she emphasised.
Statesmen in question are Prime Minister
Andris Skele, Justice Minister Valdis Birkavs and head of the state revenues
service Andreas Sonciks. Their names were called by chairman of the
parliamentary commission on investigation of the pedophilia case Janis Adamson.
According to the commission chairman, their
names are mentioned in testimonies of witnesses and in the commission's
materials. The president met Adamson. The
latter, as the president said, assured her that he had evidence but refused to
hand it over to the Prosecutor-General's Office, stating that he mistrusted the
prosecutor's office. However, Adamson
agreed to give materials to a judge who was instructed to examine the
activities of Prosecutor-General Janis Skrastins. This examination started at
the initiative of the self-same commission which was dissatisfied with progress
of the investigation of the pedophilia case.
The president will meet, in the near future,
representatives from political parties at the legislature to discuss the
stability of the government and the ruling coalition. Vike-Freiberga does not
want to say now whether the government is capable of working after the scandal
erupted, reported her press secretary Aira Rozenberga.
The Prosecutor-General's Office instituted a
criminal case on smearing honour and dignity. The justice minister went on a
hunger strike. The head of the state revenues service is preparing a court
suit. The premier called accusations "a political provocation", saying that
Adamson is a scoundrel. All the three refuted Adamson's accusations.
The pedophilia case started five months ago when
managers of the fashion agency Logos had been arrested. The agency was engaged
in pornography business, manufacturing video clips for sale and procuring
juveniles. Then, other people, using services of minors, were arrested. The
legislature set up a special commission in September which has not completed
its work yet. bur/ast Copyright
2000
Copyright 2000 Reuters
Ltd. MOSCOW, February 18
(Reuters)—Russian acting President Vladimir Putin urged Latvia on
Friday to free an elderly Communist partisan sentenced to jail for war crimes
during World War Two. In a letter to Latvian
President Vaira Vike-Freiberga released by the Kremlin, Putin said the case of Vasily Kononov marked "the first time in
world practice a person has been punished for the struggle against
fascism." Vasily Kononov,
76, was sentenced by Riga district court to six years in prison on January 21
for his role in the killing of nine people in 1944 when he was commander of a
World War Two Communist guerrilla group in Latvia.
Putin said the sentence violated international
law and the decisions of the Nuremburg Tribunal, the international court that
punished Nazi war criminals shortly after World War Two.
He said Kononov also deserved to be released on
humanitarian grounds due to his age and ill health, and offered to receive him
and his family in Russia if he is set free.
In Riga, Latvian officials said they could not respond to Putin's request
because an appeal was still pending in court.
Pro-Communist partisans, who fought behind
German lines during World War Two, are among the most highly revered national
heroes in Russia, where tens of millions of people died battling German fascism
during the war. But Latvia and fellow Baltic
states Estonia and Lithuania are still struggling to come to terms with their
50-year-long Soviet occupation, when thousands of people were killed or
deported in Moscow-backed waves of repression.
The Soviet Union occupied the three Baltic
republics after making a pact with the Nazis in 1939, and many residents
regarded pro-Moscow Communist partisans as enemies.
Since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991
Russia has accused Latvia of denying citizenship and full rights to ethnic
Russian residents. Russia has also had border disputes with its Baltic
neighbours.
RIGA, February 18
(Itar-Tass)—There are no comments from Latvia yet on the statement
of Acting Russian President Vladimir Putin who stressed that "recently, the
apparatus of repressions in Latvia has increasingly often focused on
participants in the Resistance Movement who fought against fascism." Putin also
said he signed on Friday a letter addressed to the Latvian president in which
he asked her to exercise influence on the fate of World War II veteran Vassily
Kononov sentenced to imprisonment in Latvia. The letter says that "Russia is
prepared to grant Russian citizenship to Vasily Kononov and the possibility to
come over to live in Russia". The press
services of the Latvian president and Foreign Ministry said they would prefer
to wait to receive a letter from Vladimir Putin before stating the official
opinion of Riga. The daughter of the
sentenced war veteran, Irina, expressed gratitude to Vladimir Putin. "I am glad
that Mr.Putin, who has a lot of concerns at present, takes care of the destiny
of compatriots abroad," she told Tass. Asked whether her father would accept
Russian citizenship and come over to live in Russia, she said he would.
She said her father, a former partisan, accepted
staunchly the sentence for a six year term in prison. "He is hardened by war
and work in police. I have never heard him complaining," she said. The former
partisan's daughter has constantly been visiting him in the prison where he is
held for 18 months now and bringing him the medicines he needs for the
treatment of eye diseases, adenoma and nervous exhaustion.
She said the acting Russian president's concern
for his destiny would "strengthen and encourage him". saf/Copyright 2000
Copyright 2000 Reuters Ltd. RIGA, February 18
(Reuters)—Latvia's President said on Friday a paedophile scandal
that has rocked the country's political scene will not threaten the
government's stability, but allegations of official involvement should be
investigated. Latvians were stunned on
Thursday by allegations made in parliament by an opposition member that the
country's premier and justice minister could be linked to a paedophile scandal
that has occupied lawmakers for months.
Parliament set up a commission in October to examine the details of a year-long
probe conducted by the prosecutor's office into a suspected paedophile ring
that officials have said could involve as many as 600 people, including high
officials. The commission is headed by
opposition MP Janis Adamsons, who surprised parliament on Thursday with the
first details of names he said could be implicated in the affair, including
Prime Minister Andris Skele and Justice Minister Valdis Birkavs.
"One deputy's statements in parliament cannot be
considered the basis for a crisis, neither in the government nor in the
country," President Vaira Vike-Freiberga told a news conference after meeting
with leaders of parliament's factions.
However, she said she would ask the parliamentary commission to work carefully
on finishing a final statement so that the evidence it has can be given to law
enforcement institutions. "It would be very
important to determine whether what we are talking about are suggestions of
indirect connections with illegal activity or whether we're talking about
definite accusations against specific people," Vike-Freiberga said.
Skele shrugged off the allegations on Thursday
as partisan politics taken too far by Adamsons, an old political enemy.
"The (prosecutor general's) office and the
ministry of the interior have made clear statements that there is no
information or evidence that members of the Latvian government have been
involved in this matter," Skele told a news conference while on a visit to
Estonia on Friday. Birkavs said on Thursday
he would go on a hunger strike until his name was cleared.
Copyright 2000 Reuters Ltd.
By Peter Graff MOSCOW (Reuters)—Boris
Yeltsin spurned Latvia's highest medal Friday after the Baltic state jailed an
elderly former Soviet guerrilla for World War II killings, prompting Latvia's
leader to question the former Russian president's manners.
Yeltsin said Latvia had "insulted the memory of
millions of victims of fascism" by sentencing the former Communist guerrilla
for war crimes while offering comparatively liberal treatment to former
Nazis. Yeltsin's successor, Acting President
Vladimir Putin, earlier urged Latvia to free 77-year-old Vasily Kononov, saying
his case marked "the first time in world practice a person has been punished
for the struggle against fascism." Kononov
was sentenced on Jan. 21 by Riga district court to six years in prison for his
role in the killing of nine people in 1944 when he led Communist partisans in
Latvia. In a letter to Latvian President
Vaira Vike-Freiberga questioned Yeltsin's manners, Putin said the sentence
violated international law and decisions of the Nuremburg Tribunal, the
international court that punished Nazi war criminals after World War II.
He said Kononov also deserved to be released on
humanitarian grounds due to his age and ill health, and offered to receive him
and his family in Russia if he were set free.
But Vike-Frieberga told Reuters that Latvia had
joined an international convention on the prosecution of war crimes that stated
that there is no statue of limitations on such crimes.
"We have subscribed to this international treaty
and we respect it," she added.
Vike-Freiberga told journalists in Riga: "We extended a hand of friendship and
the highest honor we can to the former Russian president. If this hand of
friendship is not taken it is not in our ability to influence anything."
"This is just an indication of his manners," she
added. YELTSIN DOESN'T WANT LATVIA
AWARD Latvia this week had
offered its highest award to Yeltsin, citing his role in helping the Baltic
nation win its freedom from the Soviet Union in 1991.
The Kremlin quoted Yeltsin as refusing the
honor, saying: "We had hoped that the neighboring state would become a
civilized democratic society where human rights would be respected.
Unfortunately we see another policy today."
"Residents of Latvia are divided into first and second classes. Rights of
minorities are being abused and open discrimination is carried out against our
countrymen," Yeltsin added, according to the Kremlin. "The sentence of
77-year-old veteran V.M. Kononov, especially in the light of the liberal
treatment of former Nazis, has become an insult to the millions of victims of
fascism." Russia and Latvia have quarreled
in the past over Riga's treatment of ethnic Russians and border disputes. But
cases of war crimes allegations touch an especially sensitive nerve in the two
countries. Pro-Communist partisans who
fought behind German lines during World War II are among the most highly
revered national heroes in Russia, where tens of millions died battling German
fascism during the war. But Latvia and
fellow Baltic states Estonia and Lithuania are still struggling to come to
terms with their 50-year-long Soviet occupation, when thousands of people were
killed or deported waves of repression backed by Moscow.
The Soviet Union occupied the three Baltic
republics after making a pact with the Nazis in 1939, and many residents
regarded pro-Moscow Communist partisans as enemies. REUTERS
Copyright 2000 The Associated Press.
By MICHAEL TARM, Associated Press Writer SILLAMAE, Estonia (AP)—When
they withdrew from this seaside Estonian town that for five decades supplied
the Soviet Union with enriched uranium to make nuclear bombs, the Soviet
military left behind something to remember them by: 12 million tons of
greenish-brown radioactive waste. The sludge
is in a pond-sized deposit that lies behind a mud-and-rock containment wall
just yards from the Baltic Sea. Chemical wastes and nitrates seep around and
through the wall into the sea, which during storms can slap up against the dam,
pulling parts of it off. "It makes us think
that we shouldn't wait too long to deal with the situation here," Anti Siinmaa,
one of the engineers responsible for ensuring environmental safety at Sillamae,
said Thursday. "Romania goes to show you
can't always know what can happen, or when. Let's hope nothing like that
happens in Sillamae," he said. In Romania, a
Jan. 30 cyanide spill from a containment dam at a gold mine killed tons of fish
and contaminated rivers in neighboring Hungary and Yugoslavia. That focused
public attention on the lethal residue left behind by the Soviet Union in its
former republics after it collapsed a decade ago.
The European Union included Sillamae, 110 miles
east of the capital Tallinn, on a list of about 800 hazardous waste deposits in
the former communist bloc. It determined there was a real danger its
containment walls could collapse and its toxins splash into the Baltic Sea,
poisoning one of Europe's major waterways.
For years, Sillamae has been the largest single source of nitrate pollution in
the Baltic, according to the U.S.-based Los Alamos National Laboratory, which
recently studied the site. "The Sillamae
deposit is already doing damage to the Baltic on a very large scale," said
Valdur Lahtvee of the Estonian Green Movement.
While no health dangers have been documented,
some of Sillamae's 20,000 residents claim the incidence of cancer, including in
children, is higher than average. The waste
deposit covers about 99 acres and is about 20 feet high, rising to within a
yard of the top of the containment wall, which is perhaps 50 feet thick at the
base, narrowing to 10 feet at the top.
After it won independence in 1991, Estonia appealed for international help,
saying it didn't have the expertise to deal with Sillamae alone and could not
afford the clean-up costs. Last October,
Estonia signed a $20 million plan to fortify the site with concrete walls,
construct a breakwater to prevent waves from pounding it, and seal the entire
dump with a waterproof cover. The EU provided $5 million of the funding.
Estonia will contribute $3 million; and Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark
will pay most of the rest. "This waste is a
byproduct of the Cold War, and that makes it an international problem," Dennis
Hjeresen, an American researcher at the Los Alamos laboratory, said during a
recent NATO-sponsored conference on Sillamae. "This is part of the clean-up of
the battlefield after the war is over."
Siinmaa said the first step will be to secure the base of the dam with a new
concrete wall. That could take til the end of next year to complete. Covering
the site could take another five years.
Estonia says Sillamae is only one of a host of environmental problems inherited
from the Soviet military, which once had more than 1,500 bases here that
sprawled across more than two percent of Estonia's territory. The government
has estimated it could cost five billion dollars to clean them all
up.
Sports
WASHINGTON, February 18
(XINHUA)—Following are the leading results from the Winter
Goodwill Games in Lake Placid, New York, on Friday:
Alpine Ski Men's Downhill 1.
Ed Podivinsky, Canada, 1 min 49.21 secs 2. Chris Puckett, United States,
1:49.56 3. Fritz Strobl, Austria, 1:50.02
Luge Finals Men 1. Armin
Zoeggeler, Italy, 1:48.984 (54.230-54.754) 2. Jaroslav Slavik, Slovakia,
1:50.527 (55.250-55.277) 3. Gerhard Gleirscher, Austria, 1:50.865
(55.278-55.587)
This week's picture is from the side streets of Vecriga
(Old Riga), off the beaten path, still suffering from decades of neglect,
picturesque even in its sad state of decay.
Gallery
