Saturday, 18 March 2000

"For Fatherland and Freedom"  Latvian Link
  News
  Picture Album

Latvian Link, News, and Picture for Sunday, March 19th Date: 3/18/00 6:35:13 PM Eastern Standard Time
From: Sturgalve
File: VECRIGRIGA-IRUKROGS-....JPG (60150 bytes)
DL Time (32000 bps): < 1 minute

Our apologies for the lack of a mailer last week... Silvija was still at her parents and Peters had to dash out of town at the last minute on a business trip. Speaking of trips, we know of many folks who are planning upcoming trips to Latvia. We often get questions about travel to and accommodations in Latvia, so thought we'd share with you the travel agency where we've gotten the absolute best rates for the past few years. They specialize in Baltic travel, and we haven't been able to beat their prices! It's Vytis Travel, located in New York. They're also extremely nice and provide great service. You can get a price quote through their website at: http://www.vytistours.com/index.html or call them at: (800) 77-VYTIS. (By the way, we're not getting anything in return for this mention, we're just happy customers.)

And so, on to this week's features!

Remember, mailer or not, Lat Chat spontaneously appears every Sunday on AOL starting around 9:00/9:30pm Eastern time, lasting until 11:00/11:30pm. AOL'ers can follow this link: Town Square — Latvian chat. In fact, last Sunday we had two Lithuanians (unfortunately, not at the same time, and none of us in the chat at the time understood much, if any, Lithuanian) join us for a while. One asked how he could get a chat going, and we explained it was an AOL member's chat, so anyone can start one, and suggested they post on the Lithuanian message boards to solicit interest. Considering the Lithuanian boards are a lot more active than our Latvian ones, they shouldn't have a problem. One of the regular Lat chatters suggested we change to a "Baltic chat" format in the spirit of the more, the merrier. If you know of any Lithuanians that want to get a chat going, please encourage them to go to the boards, and until there is a chat for our Lithuanian neighbors, let those with whom you're acquainted know they're always welcome in Lat chat!

Ar visu labu!

Silvija Peters


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


Originally, were were going to feature an excellent link about Riga: http://www.riga.lv (surprise!)... however, we just tried it out again and got connected instead to http://rus.delfi.lv, which is the Russian language version of...

An excellent Latvian web portal (in Latvian) can be found at: http://www.delfi.lv, including search engine, news (see the visa article in the news section), weather, features, and so on. You can even configure your own personal home page, a la Yahoo! and others.

Another interesting site we just ran across is at Duke University, which, under its Center for Slavic, Eurasian, and East European Studies has put together a site of all the countries of those regions, with all sorts of links to information on the web. The Latvia page can be found at: http://www.duke.edu/web/CSEEES/latvia.html

  News

     MOSCOW, March 6 (Itar-Tass) — Tests of the anti-missile early warning radar station at Baranovichi (Belarus) will be continued with a view to commissioning it at the end of 2000, Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Strategic Missile Forces (RSMF) Colonel-General Vladimir Yakovlev has stated here. Itar-Tass learned about the general's statement from officials of the RSMF press service on Monday.
      The "Volga" radar station in Baranovichi is designed not only to restore the single radar-scanned field on the western and northwestern missile-hazardous territories of Russia and the CIS, which was disrupted after the closing of the Skrunde radar station in Latvia, but also to make the national early warning system even more effective and dependable.
     The station's crew are now engaged in the phased testing of the "Volga" radar. They are working on problems of its operation, are testing different methods for assessing its technical parameters, are checking the behavior of crew members in different situations, etc.
     Experts note that, in spite of the closing of the Skrunde radar station in Latvia, the missile-hazardous territories of Russia have remained dependably screened. Reconnaissance and control of outer space is done by means of reserve facilities of the Russian space anti-missile defence system with the use of compensational means.
     The problem of reliably covering these directions is being resolved by retargeting the equipment of the RSMF space group and by means of modified combat algorithms and programmes.
     The "Volga" radar station in the Belarus Republic is a unique and basically new type of a solid-body radar station. It is able to spot launchings of ballistic missiles from any place in Europe.
     kli/© 2000
     
      Itar-Tass economic news digest of March 7 — 2
      MURMANSK — The entire amount of fuel for Russia's Arctic regions will be carried by Russian-made tankers in the current year, Vyacheslav Ruksha, the Director-General of the Murmansk shipping line, told reporters on Tuesday. He said this has become possible due to the fact that LUKoil Arctic-tanker, LUKoil's subsidiary, turned over to the shipping line all the seven new tankers built to its order. After the breakup of the USSR, the entire tanker fleet equipped for operation in Arctic conditions went to Latvia. In order to fulfil the programme for the supply of fuel to Arctic regions, the chief Russian operator in the Arctic, the Murmansk shipping line, had to rent such vessels from Latvia and Finland. The monopoly of the Baltic transport will now be ended. LUKoil Arctic-tanker, under the state programme of the restoration of the Russian merchant marine, built five tankers in Germany and two at St.Petersburg shipyards.
     
     RIGA, March 8 (Itar-Tass) — Women's Day, which was celebrated in the former Soviet Union on March 8, is no longer a national holiday in Latvia, but over 70 percent of its citizens polled by sociologists want its former status to be restored.
     Sociologists say that the number of those who follows this Soviet tradition has increased from 59.5 percent last year to 71.4 this year.
     Most Latvians and non-Latvians, men and women want March 8 to be a holiday. Their sentiments were vividly illustrated by the brisk sale of flowers and presents on Wednesday and bunches of tulips in the passers-by's hands.
      However, the national parliament is against making March an official holiday. Lawmakers believe this day is a thing from the "Soviet past".
     They also dislike the ideas which were advocated by Klara Zetkin, a German communist leader and a feminist in the 1920's- 1930's. She was a founder and theoretician of the Socialist woman's movement and proposed to introduce women's day.
      The left-wing opposition in the Latvian parliament has made several attempts to restore March 8 as an official holiday, but to no avail.
     However, the absence of the official status of this day did not spoil people's mood. There were many smiling women in the streets as they received congratulations and presents from men.
     zak/© 2000
     
     RIGA, March 9 (Itar-Tass) — [Excerpt] The court of the Latvian city of Liepaja indefinitely put off hearings on Russian citizen Yevgeny Savenko, a former investigator of Soviet-era NKVD secret police.
     Savenko, 86, fell in the prison and suffered injuries requiring medical care. The court at its Wednesday meeting released him from custody on his own recognisance. Savenko has hearing problems and Parkinson disease, and follows the court proceedings with difficulty.
     
     RIGA, March 15 (Itar-Tass) — Veterans of the Latvian Volunteers Legion, a unit of the German Waffen SS, will hold commemorative functions in Latvia on Thursday. This legion was formed on March 16, 1944. It fought against the Red Army on the banks of the Velikaya River. However, these functions will not be attended by top Latvian officials.
     President Vaira Vike-Freiberga backed the parliament's decision to cross out March 16 from the list of Latvia's commemorative dates. In her opinion, men killed in action should be commemorated on November 11, that is on the so-called Lachplesis Day. Her view is shared by Prime Minister Andris Skele. Parliament Speaker Janis Straume will be in Germany on March 16.
     The other members of Straume's "Fatherland and Freedom" party, including its parliament members, have declared their intention to take part in the march to Liberty Monument. Parliament member Peteris Tabuns, spokesman for that party, said that many people would come to Lestene cemetery, where many "legionaries" are buried. "We shall mark this day deservedly, with great force," he stated.
      Parliament member Oleg Denisov from the left-wing opposition bloc said that March 16 was "a black day for all Latvian anti-fascists". He believes that the Thursday march means an attempt to distort the results of the Second World War, to glorify Nazi henchmen. "And this is happening at the time when fighters against Nazism have been stripped of all privileges and some of them are even prosecuted," Denisov stressed.
     The organisers of the functions, which are to be held in Riga, Jurmala, Liepaja, Dobele and other cities with the permission of the Latvian authorities, include the Society of National Warriors, the members of which include about 2,000 "legionaries". After a solemn service at the main cathedral of Riga, the marchers will proceed to Liberty Monument and will lay flowers at its foot.
     Today, about seven thousand "legionaries" are living in Latvia out of the initial 150,000.
      kli/ezh © 2000
     
     Marked "Urgent" in the news service article listing...
     MOSCOW, March 15 (Itar-Tass) — Acting President Vladimir Putin "expects U.S. lawmakers to stigmatise the actions of the leaders of states, where veteran anti-fascists are being prosecuted with connivance at [of?] former Nazis".
     This is stressed in Putin's letter to U.S. lawmakers, which Russia's ambassador to Washington delivered to the American side on Wednesday.
     The letter does not indicate the states, which Putin has in view, but his recent appeal to the president of Latvia to mitigate the sentence passed on anti-fascist Vasily Kononov allows to presume that he meant certain Baltic states, among others.
      kli/ezh © 2000
     
      © 2000 Reuters Ltd.
     By Burton Frierson

     RIGA, March 15 (Reuters) — Valentins Silamikelis took an enormous risk to avoid being drafted into the German army that was occupying his native Latvia during World War Two — until the hated Red army came to town.
     "My teacher gave me an address of a doctor who gave me a false report that I had tuberculosis, and with this I escaped for more than one year," said Silamikelis, who is now 76.
     "But when the Russians came here... I did not try to escape mobilisation anymore."
     Silamikelis and several hundred of his fellow Latvian Waffen SS veterans will walk through the centre of Riga on Thursday in an annual procession that has upset Jewish groups and been blasted as glorifying defenders of the Third Reich.
     The Latvian Legion's march has also tarnished the image of Latvia, whose leaders have been eager to advertise democratic and economic achievements to aid the country's bids to join Western organisations such as the European Union (EU) and NATO.
     It has also been criticised by neighbouring Russia, which lost millions during World War Two and has accused Latvia of trying to rehabilitate Nazism by trying a former Soviet security official for genocide and crimes against humanity.
     "It has of course damaged the image of Latvia in the past. That is without question," said one EU diplomat.
     "It's part of this nation's history...but it can't be part of modern Latvia and the Latvia of the future," he said.
     WAFFEN VETERANS SAY MISUNDERSTOOD
     For their part, the veterans say they have been misrepresented as ageing Nazis nostalgic for the days of Hitler.
     They say they were drafted illegally by the Nazis and fought only to avoid another invasion — by the Soviets, who killed and deported thousands to labour camps in Siberia during a 1940-41 occupation that Latvians refer to as the Year of Horror.
     Latvia regained independence from Moscow in 1991 after five decades of Soviet and German occupation.
     After World War Two the allies recognised that the Nazi conscription of Latvians was illegal, saying their service should not block immigration for the thousands in refugee camps.
     The veterans also say that after centuries of rule by German barons, few Latvians felt any fondness for them during World War Two. They also point out that thousands of military-age men who managed to avoid the Germans were forced into the Soviet army.
     "We were fighting in hated uniforms," said Silamikelis.
     "None of us were fighting under the right flag, but all of our enemies were the right ones," he added.
     WAFFEN GATHERING STILL UNSETTLING
      Latvian officials have tried to distance themselves from the Latvian Legion event by ending the celebration of March 16 as a national day of remembrance for Latvian soldiers.
     But Jewish groups still find the idea of former Waffen SS soldiers holding a public event unsettling.
     "It's clear the people who are marching just don't get it. They don't understand that people who were willing to fight alongside the Waffen SS are hardly heroes," said Effraim Zuroff, head of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre's Jerusalem office.
      Ninety five percent of Latvia's 70,000 pre-war Jewish population was murdered during the German occupation, sometimes with local collaboration.
     After international allegations of foot-dragging, Latvian prosecutors have stepped up efforts to investigate Latvian-born Konrad Kalejs, whom Nazi hunters accuse of aiding Germany's World War Two slaughter of Jews.
     But Silamikelis said the Latvian Waffen SS soldiers should not be confused with the black-uniformed SS of concentration camps or with the Latvian Arajs hit squad that helped kill Jews.
     "We called them rats in the rear," said Silamikelis referring to the Arajs squads. "About Kalejs, if he is guilty of what they say he is, he should shoot himself."
     
     MOSCOW, March 16 (Itar-Tass) — Marches in Latvian cities by former members of the Latvian volunteer SS legion — is "disregard for all norms of decency and the results of the Second World War as well as downright caddishness," claimed here on Thursday Dmitry Rogozin, chairman of the State Duma International Relations Committee.
     Speaking with reporters, he said that "such actions confirm again the need for tough and consistent actions by Russia to protect both its national dignity as well as democracy and human rights".
     Rogosin reported that two bills will be submitted for a plenary meeting of the State Duma on March 29: the first — on economic sanctions against Latvia, the second — on rendering aid to Russian-speaking population in Latvia.
     "The Latvian side is given the last chance," committee chairman stressed, expressing, however, hope that "reasonable political forces in Latvia, including entrepreneurs and business quarters, which understand that Latvia will never be a member of the European family of nations without Russia and without respect for human rights, will achieve a ban on outrages of legislative and organisational nature."
     "If this does not happen, specific sanctions will come into force. They will also affect the interests of our compatriots," Rogozin concluded.
     bur/gor © 2000
     
      © 2000 The Associated Press.
     By STEVEN C. JOHNSON, Associated Press Writer

     RIGA, Latvia (AP) — About 300 veterans of the Latvian Waffen SS walked slowly through Riga on Thursday to honor their fallen comrades in a ceremony bitterly criticized by Russian and Jewish groups.
     The former soldiers, most in their 70s and 80s, said they weren't making a political statement but remembering 50,000 comrades who died in battle.
     Many Latvians say the Latvian Waffen SS, also known as the Latvian Legion, was a conscripted, front-line army and wasn't the same thing as Germany's SS — Adolf Hitler's elite force that carried out the Holocaust and other atrocities.
     "We are not Nazis. But thousands of our comrades lost their lives fighting," said 76-year-old Visvaldis Lacis, a key organizer. "Why can't we remember them?"
      The veterans, some in wheelchairs, others carrying canes, gathered at a church to sing and pray before filing across cobble-stoned streets and laying wreaths at an independence monument. Many strained to walk the short procession route. One collapsed from an apparent heart attack and was rushed to a hospital, the Baltic News Service reported.
     Russia said the march showed contempt for millions of Soviet war dead.
     "What else must happen in Latvia to make the international public realize that the ghosts of the past, who sowed death and suffering for the people of Europe, march in the towns of that country?" the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
     Members of Latvia's 11,000-member Jewish community also said the march was an affront to the memory of 80,000 Latvian Jews killed during the 1941-44 Nazi occupation.
     "These men were Hitler's aides and they were fighting for the Germans, not for a free Latvia." said Alexander Bergman, a 74-year-old Holocaust survivor. "Besides, everyone knew what the Nazis were doing here. It was no secret."
     Many Latvians accept veteran claims that they were patriots fighting for Latvian independence against Soviet invasion. Some Latvian onlookers clapped as the marchers passed and shouted, "Long live free Latvia!"
     Others, especially members of the million-strong Russian-speaking minority, jeered or sang Soviet war songs. One elderly women shook her cane at the passing veterans.
     "This is unforgivable," said Nina Noshina, a 78-year-old ethnic Russian. "Why does Latvia celebrate fascists when they are condemned everywhere else?"
     The government distanced itself from the event, and lawmakers earlier this year withdrew recognition of March 16 as an official day of remembrance to mark a key 1944 battle against the Soviets.
     Lawmaker Inese Birzniece said the controversy stems from a misunderstanding of Latvia's history during World War II.
     The Soviets occupied Latvia at the start of the war in 1940, Germany ruled from 1941-44, and the Soviets retook it in 1944. Latvia regained its independence in 1991 following the collapse of the Soviet Union.
     With Latvia sandwiched between the Nazi and Soviet armies, 250,000 Latvians ended up fighting on one side of the conflict or the other, usually after being conscripted. Some 150,000 Latvian combatants died.
     "These are not Nazis marching through Riga with swastika armbands. These are old men remembering their dead. No swastikas, no brown shirts, no Nazi flags. It's not even a march, it's a shuffle," Birzniece said. "The criticism has been unfair."
      —
     On the Net: Latvian Embassy in Washington: http://www.latvia-usa.org/
     
     MOSCOW, March 17 (Itar-Tass) — The Russian Foreign Ministry has commented on pronouncements of Latvian Foreign Minister Indulis Berzins made on results of his recent trip to the United States. The comments are given in a press release received by Itar-Tass on Friday. They run as follows:
     "On results of his recent trip to the United States, Latvian Foreign Minister Indulis Berzins made a number of statements which have to be commented on.
     "Firstly, Mr. Berzins tried to place things in a way as if Washington took with understanding the thesis of the Latvian authorities about the need for 'equal disposition' to the actions of those who fought on different sides of the front in the second world war.
     "It seems the countries, which paid for victory over Fascism with hundreds of thousands of lives of their nationals and which signed resolutions of the Nuremberg Tribunal, can hardly put on a level fascists and their accessories with those who fought against them. Such attitude would be an insult to the memory of Soviet, American, British, French and other soldiers, pilots, guerrillas who fought against Fascism.
     "But that is not the point. It is a matter of a clumsy attempt to justify developments in Latvia, where discrimination of Russian-speaking people spreads from the language, education and human rights into another sphere: nationalism enters the phase of frank apologia of Nazism. There is an evident striving to put the historical responsibility for the past on the Russian- speaking minority and to make it a hostage of the past events. All that looks especially blasphemous on the eve of the 55th anniversary of victory over Fascism. Such moves cannot be described other than a challenge to key fundamentals of the post-war world order. Against that background, the intention of Riga to become 'a donor of European security' sounds doubtful.
     "Secondly, as for pronouncements of I. Berzins in favor of the soonest admission of Latvia to NATO, we, naturally, do not plan to yield our principled stand in that question. We still think that the plans of further enlargement of the Alliance are fraught with major destabilization of the situation in the Baltic region.
     "The Russian side has repeatedly stressed that formation of a zone of stability and security in the Baltic region same as in other places of the world should not be done on a basis of blocs."
     yer/fil © 2000
     
     RIGA, March 17 (BNS) — [Translated] The U.S. has changed the mechanism for obtaining visas [for Latvian nationals]. From March 27th onward, the fee will be 27 lats.
     This sum will need to be deposited into the "Latvija Unibanka" Embassy account, number: 02046469495.
     The deposit needs to be done before handing in the visa application at the Consul's office. Along with the application, it will be necessary to hand in bank documents confirming payment has been made.

  Picture Album

The old flamboyant architecture of Vecriga faces off against the "Irish Bar" (Iru Krogs) across the street.

Vecriga scene
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