Sveiki, all!

We're using yet another mail program to sent out this week's mail, so let us know if you have any formatting problems! A belated "Apals ka pupols" ("round like a pussy-willow") to all out there in observance of Palm Sunday last week (Pupol Svetdiena), and best wishes to all for a Happy Easter!

In the news this week:

• In an interesting turn, the MOSCOW TIMES suggests Putin not worry about the Baltics joining NATO
• The Riga School of Business to get donations from a symposium including a lecture by Bill Clinton
• Juris Sinka dies while on a trip to Tibet
• Nikolajs Tess charged with deporting Latvians to Siberia (two reports)
• Denmark backs NATO membership for Baltics
• Lithuania and Russia agree to disagree over NATO membership, after a fashion (TASS reports seem to imply some sort of "thaw" versus relations with Estonia and Latvia--from what we've heard, the Baltic governments are looking on it as an obvious move by Russia to try and drive a wedge between the Baltic states)
• U.S. Senators urge Bush to fight for NATO enlargement, including Baltics
• Czech President Vaclav Havel urges NATO expansion

This week's links are to a couple of Latvian web/information portals.

This week's picture is from Alberta Iela, this March.

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: Town Square - Latvian chat. And thanks to you participating on the Latvian message board as well: LATVIA (both on AOL only).

Ar visu labu,

We recently came across yet more Latvian information and portal sites. Those are:

http://www.openlatvia.lv (not all sections available in all languages, yet); and

http://www.118.lv (in Latvian only)

AP WorldSources Online
Monday, April 09, 2001 11:36:00 AM
Copyright 2001 The Associated Press/ MOSCOW TIMES

    MOSCOW TIMES -- In response to the expulsion of Russian diplomats and the recent meeting between U.S.
    State Department officials and the Chechen "foreign minister," President Vladimir Putin wisely resisted the temptation to echo the chattering classes in both Washington and Moscow, which declared a return of the Cold War. Putin rightly rejected this false analogy, perhaps because he understands that the ideological divide and the perceived symmetry of power between the two superpowers-two factors central to Cold War dynamics-are now gone.
    Putin may also understand that the Bush team cannot possibly have a "Cold War" policy toward Russia, simply because the Bush team does not yet have any policy toward Russia. To be sure, the Bush team did little to dampen the confrontational casting in the media of the diplomatic expulsions or the meeting with the Chechen envoy. Similar events, after all, took place during the Clinton administration, but with much less attention: Which administration do you think drafted the list of diplomats to be expelled? Nonetheless, the spinning of these two events should not be construed as policy statements. Such statements, we are told, will come later.
    But why is Putin waiting for them to be announced? He and his government were wise to resist a symbolic war of words with the Bush administration, but wrong to sit idly by waiting for Washington to set the new agenda in U.S.-Russian relations, especially since the policy review that is being conducted is unlikely to generate many new positive agenda items. Instead, as was the theme of U.S.-Russian relations throughout Bill Clinton's second term, the new Bush agenda will consist primarily of policies to which the United States will want Russia to acquiesce. For instance, the new Bush agenda will look for Russia to agree to national missile defense, to go along with NATO expansion and to discontinue Russian arms sales to Iran. In the 1990s, Russian leaders believed that they were to be compensated for their cooperation. They sometimes were, but usually were not. With the Bush team, however, bribes for good behavior are unlikely. Even more fanciful is the idea (floated by some Russian politicians and analysts) of linkages between issues-i.e. "we will not expand NATO if you allow us to do missile defense." Such deals are not going to happen.
    Instead of waiting, Putin should be initiating. Indirectly, Putin has been aggressively seeking to change the dynamics of Russia's relations with the West by pursuing an active international travel schedule that has featured the presentation of many innovative policy ideas. To date, however, the targets of most of the initiatives have been the Europeans, the Chinese or the Koreans. Now, it is time for Putin to set out a new agenda for U.S.-Russian relations, which (1) removes difficult issues before they become more inflammatory, (2) realistically avoids looking for trades or deals on issues that cannot be linked and (3) clears the way for a more positive, if also modest agenda.
    Here are a few suggestions.
    First, Putin could announce-tomorrow-a more concrete plan for reducing Russian strategic nuclear weapons than the one he announced last year. Russia could begin the START-III process unilaterally. Candidate George W. Bush pledged to do exactly that during the presidential campaign. If Putin moved first, the international credit for jump-starting the process would be his. By announcing concrete numbers-which are likely to be below those that the Americans will propose-Putin could put real pressure on Washington to embrace drastic cuts. Second, Putin could declare Russia's readiness to annul the 1972 ABM Treaty on the condition that a new round of negotiations leading to a new treaty limiting missile defenses begins immediately. At the same time, he could announce Russia's readiness to cooperate with the United States in developing boost-phase missile defense systems. Putin has hinted at this idea already in his meetings with Europeans leaders.
    But Russia must recognize that a European missile defense system without American participation is a fantasy. Third, Putin should state clearly that Russia recognizes the right of all countries to defend their borders as they see fit. This includes not only Romania and Estonia, but also Latvia. Russia will fight another losing battle if it tries to stop NATO expansion.
    Instead, Putin should try to alter the dynamics of this policy debate by demonstrating that Russia is too strong and self-confident to worry about the ascension of the tiny Baltic states to the NATO alliance. If Russian foreign policy-makers were really bold, they also would apply for NATO membership as a way of putting the West on the defensive. Of course, Russia would not be ready to qualify for years if not decades. Yet, pursuing membership and taking more seriously the Permanent Joint Council between Russia and NATO already in place would expose whether the real mission of NATO is collective security or the West's hedge against a possible Russian threat. Moreover, while ignoring the NATO expansion debate, Putin could simultaneously aggressively engage in the European Union's expansion debate-a set of issues of much greater consequence for Russia's future development as a European country.
    Finally, Russian foreign policy would be well served by ending the Kremlin's irrational and overzealous repression of democratic institutions at home. Putin seems to think that the present assault against NTV has no bearing on the country's foreign policy. If so, he is wrong. If Putin called off the dogs and Russia began to resemble a quasi-democracy, then Russian foes in Washington and other Western capitals would be robbed of their best argument for developing a hostile containment strategy toward Russia. This change in policy would do more to improve Russia's image abroad than any multimillion-dollar public relations campaign in the West.
    In the wake of these policy initiatives, Putin would set the stage for a more productive relationship that would compel the new Bush team to be more responsive to Russian interests. A first Bush-Putin summit that included the codification of unilateral nuclear-arms reductions and the setting of parameters of a new missile defense regime (moving beyond merely amending the existing ABM Treaty) would most certainly move the bilateral relationship in a direction that is both more positive and more substantive for Russia than the current course. A more cooperative trajectory eventually might produce more far-reaching achievements, such as Russian debt restructuring, increased cooperation in space and even (someday) joint missile defense projects. Are these ideas "out of the box?" Most certainly. Far-fetched? Maybe. But does merely thinking inside the box really advance Russia's foreign-policy interests? It might make Russian politicians feel better to get boisterous about NATO expansion or outraged by missile defense, but does this really advance the welfare of Russian citizens? Putin is too pragmatic not to know the right answer to this rhetorical question. He may even be visionary enough to realize that he has the opportunity to radically change Russia's place in the world. Why wait for the Bush team to get their act together? The ball is in Russia's court already.

AP WorldStream
Thursday, April 05, 2001 9:41:00 AM
Copyright 2001 The Associated Press

    STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) -- A jazz band will treat former U.S. President Bill Clinton to his favorite music after he gives a speech in Sweden next month, a newspaper reported Thursday.
    The business daily Dagens Industri, which is sponsoring the May 15 visit, devoted its front page to announcing the news with a banner headline, "Meet Clinton in Stockholm."
    Publisher Hasse Olsson, who will chair a seminar with Clinton, business leaders and politicians, said Clinton would also give a lecture about "business and politics." The lecture will be followed by dinner at the Grand Hotel on Stockholm's waterfront where guests will listen to a jazz band in honor of Clinton's favorite music.
    Tickets will cost 9,000 kronor (dlrs 880) for the lecture and 16,000 kronor (dlrs 1,565) for both the lecture and dinner, according to the newspaper.
    Olsson said the program was still being planned and would not reveal details about the number of tickets for sale or where Clinton was heading after his visit to the Swedish capital.
    Clinton will answer questions, but they have to be submitted in advance to a special e-mail address that was printed in the newspaper. Media coverage will be not be allowed, as was the case with Clinton's visit to Europe last month, Olsson said, citing terms imposed by the former president.
    Any proceeds left over from the lecture will be donated to the Riga School of Business in Latvia, Olsson said. It will be Clinton's first trip to this Scandinavian nation of some 9 million people.

AP WorldStream
Wednesday, April 04, 2001 1:47:00 PM
Copyright 2001 The Associated Press

    RIGA, Latvia (AP) -- Juris Sinka, an avid anti-communist member of Latvia's parliament, has died while on a visit to Tibet. He was 73.
    Sinka, of the right-wing Fatherland and Freedom party and an outspoken advocate of Tibetan independence, died in the evening on Tuesday while visiting the Himalayan territory, according to an announcement by the Saeima parliament.
    The cause of death was not released and more details were not available, officials said Wednesday.
    Sinka was one of four Latvian parliamentarians touring China at the invitation of the Chinese legislature. China has ruled Tibet with an iron fist to control separatist sentiment since occupying the region in 1950.
    China's embassy in Riga, the Latvian capital, wasn't immediately available for comment.
    A photo of Sinka, with flowers and a table draped in black ribbons nearby, was hanging in the main hallway of Latvia's parliament on Wednesday. President Vaira Vike-Freiberga also praised Sinka.
    "We have lost a man who devoted all his efforts to the idea of a free Latvia and the maintenance of its good name, throughout his years in exile and in the years when independence was restored," she said in a statement.
    Sinka was born in Latvia during its first period of independence, which lasted from 1920-40. He fled to the West as a teen-ager when Soviet forces occupied the Baltic Sea coast nation at the end of World War II and later settled in Britain.
    He studied politics, philosophy and economics at Oxford University and worked for the British Broadcasting Corp. in England from 1953-87.
    Sinka returned to his homeland after it regained independence following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. He was elected to parliament in 1993.
    He is survived by his wife, Maija, and two children, Indra and Aivars, from a previous marriage.

Reuters World Report
Wednesday, April 04, 2001 9:34:00 AM
Copyright 2001 Reuters Ltd.

    RIGA, April 4 (Reuters) -- Latvian prosecutors said on Wednesday an 80-year-old former Soviet Defence Ministry official had been charged with genocide and crimes against humanity for his alleged role in mass deportations on March 25, 1949.
    Nikolajs Tess, a Russian citizen, was being kept under police surveillance before his trial, for which no date had yet been set, prosecutor's office spokeswoman Dzintra Subrovska told Reuters.
    Tess is the 10th Soviet-era official charged by Latvia with genocide and crimes against humanity since the Baltic state regained independence in 1991, ending 50 years of Soviet occupation.
    Subrovska said that, according to the charge sheet, "Tess compiled and signed an order to deport 42 families, 138 people, to forced settlement in remote parts of the Soviet Union. There were 14 children among the deported."
    The Soviets deported thousands of Latvians, Estonians and Lithuanians as part of their Russification policy for the Baltic states that they occupied in 1940 under secret protocols in the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact with Nazi Germany.
    On a single night -- March 25, 1949 -- tens of thousands from across the region were sent to the camps.
    Russia has criticised Latvia for trying former Soviet security officials and partisans.

AP WorldStream
Tuesday, April 03, 2001 11:54:00 AM
Copyright 2001 The Associated Press

    RIGA, Latvia (AP) -- Amid fresh Kremlin criticism about prosecutions of former Soviet officials, Latvian prosecutors have indicted another Stalinist-era secret policeman for allegedly taking part in mass deportations in the 1940s.
    Nikolai Tess, 80, was charged with genocide on suspicion he helped deport 138 people to Siberia in 1949, five years after Soviet forces occupied Latvia at the end of World War II, prosecutors' spokeswoman Dzintra Subrovska said Tuesday.
    She said evidence against Tess included deportation papers signed by him. One victim was a five-month-old baby and another an 80-year-old woman; some of the deportees later died in the harsh conditions of exile, Subrovska said.
    Tess, who holds a Russian passport, was formally charged two weeks ago, but the indictment was only made public Tuesday. Subrovska said Tess hadn't been arrested but is under round-the-clock police surveillance.
    The case has led Russia to renew its criticism of the court proceedings against ex-agents, nine of whom have been indicted or convicted since the Baltic Sea coast nation regained independence following the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.
    A Russian Foreign Ministry statement issued late Monday referred to Tess by name and mentioned Mikhail Farbtukh, an 84-year-old convicted and jailed in Latvia last year for participating in Soviet deportations.
    The statement said Tess and Farbtukh were "helpless...disabled war veterans" who couldn't be held accountable for actions that weren't illegal at the time under Soviet law, according to the Baltic News Service.
    Latvians dismissed the criticism, saying the prosecutions were based on international law.
    "How can you justify the deportation of children and old people? What did a five-year-old baby do to deserve being deported?" Subrovska said when asked about Moscow's statement.
    Latvia's Baltic neighbors, Estonia and Lithuania, also have prosecuted former Soviet agents. The three countries say the criminal proceedings help secure long overdue justice and shed light on the dark Stalinist era.

Reuters World Report
Wednesday, April 04, 2001 6:32:00 AM
Copyright 2001 Reuters Ltd.

    TALLINN, April 4 (Reuters) -- Danish Defence Minister Jan Trojborg said on Wednesday Denmark would vote for Lithuanian, Estonian and Latvian membership of NATO at the military alliance's 2002 summit in Prague.
    "The answer is yes," Trojborg told a news conference in the Estonian capital Tallinn when asked if Denmark would vote for an invitation being extended to all three Baltic states to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation.
    NATO membership has been a key goal of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia since they regained independence in 1991 after decades of Soviet occupation. They were passed over in 1999 when Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic joined the alliance.
    A U.S. Department of Defense report in December said it could not predict when a consensus would be reached on admitting the Baltic States to NATO.
    Russian President Vladimir Putin reiterated last month opposition to NATO expansion to the Baltics, which would bring Moscow's Cold War enemy to its western border, when he met Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus.

COMTEX Newswire
Thursday, April 05, 2001 2:55:00 PM
Copyright 2001 ITAR-TASS

    VILNIUS, Apr 05, 2001 (Itar-Tass via COMTEX) -- Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus said on Thursday that his visit to Russia at the end of March laid a solid foundation for the expansion of good-neighbour relations and pragmatic cooperation.
    Adamkus said at a joint press conference with visiting Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev that the relations between Moscow and Vilnius will not be impeded by Lithuania's bid to join NATO. The Lithuanian president said that a joint statement signed by Russia and Lithuania says that each party "has the right to choose the way of ensuring its security."
    "As I understood from personal meetings with President Vladimir Putin he had no objections to such Lithuania's position," Adamkus said.

Reuters North America
Tuesday, April 10, 2001 9:52:00 AM
Copyright 2001 Reuters Ltd.

    WARSAW, Poland (Reuters) -- A bipartisan group of U.S. senators has appealed to President Bush to make good on his campaign pledge to widen NATO's membership, a Polish newspaper reported Tuesday.
    The senators wrote a letter urging Bush to ensure that the 19-nation Atlantic Alliance opens a second wave of enlargement at a NATO summit in Prague next year, following on from the accession of Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary in 1999.
    But they did not say who should be in the next wave. Russia is fiercely opposed to NATO inviting the three former Soviet Baltic republics -- Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia -- to join.
    "The extension of the NATO alliance to new democracies of Europe is fundamental to the strategic and moral objectives of the United States," the senators wrote in their appeal, published by the Gazeta Wyborcza daily.
    Top names among the 17 lawmakers included Republicans Jesse Helms, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and John McCain, who lost the race last year for the party's presidential nomination to Bush.
    From the Democratic camp, the letter was signed by Joseph Lieberman, running mate to Al Gore in the presidential vote, and Hillary Rodham Clinton, wife of former President Bill Clinton.
    The senators reminded Bush of his campaign pledge to stand at the head of efforts to push for NATO enlargement.
    "We agree that the United States must work to make sure that NATO invites qualified European democracies to begin accession negotiations at the 2002 summit in Prague," the letter added.
    Diplomats say NATO enlargement could be a divisive issue for the alliance next year, with most West European governments keen to avoid triggering a crisis with Moscow over the Baltics.
    The central European countries of Slovenia and Slovakia rank as strong candidates to join the alliance next.
    Poland is a strong advocate of NATO embracing the Baltic republics. Foreign Minister Wladyslaw Bartoszewski put Warsaw's case to U.S. leaders in Washington last week before a visit by Bush to Poland in June.
    While the Polish Foreign Ministry had no special reaction to the senators' plea, the left-wing opposition -- likely to win a general election later this year -- gave it a warm welcome.
    "Although President Bush has declared his support for expanding the alliance, he has not made clear which countries should join and exactly when," said Longin Pastusiak, foreign policy expert of the opposition Democratic Left Alliance (SLD).
    "This letter is a sign of impatience and pressure on the president to declare himself. Poland has always supported NATO's enlargement. It is not in our interest to be a frontier state."

AP WorldStream
Friday, April 13, 2001 10:09:00 AM
Copyright 2001 The Associated Press
By ONDREJ HEJMA
Associated Press Writer

    PRAGUE, Czech Republic (AP) -- President Vaclav Havel on Friday urged NATO to continue its eastward expansion at the alliance's 2002 summit, expected to take place in Prague.
    NATO officials at the organization's Brussels headquarters have indicated that Prague would likely be picked to host the meeting, at which new members are expected to be admitted.
    The Czech Republic, together with Poland and Hungary, became NATO's new members in 1999 -- 10 years after the end of communist rule in Eastern Europe.
    "It will be the first time it (the summit) takes place behind the former Iron Curtain," Havel told selected journalists, adding that it was an indication that NATO's eastward expansion would continue.
    He said several East European countries were being considered for membership, but singled out the Baltic countries as a priority.
    Former Soviet republics Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia have long expressed interest in becoming NATO members -- much to the dislike of Moscow's leaders.
    "The new world order is being born and... Russia should not perceive the Baltic countries as its satellites," Havel said.
    "It would be good to invite the Baltic countries (into NATO) already at this summit," he added. "The later it happens the more difficult it is going to be."
    He said the upcoming summit would be a historic opportunity to define NATO's new borders, calling the alliance a "regional community seeking cooperation with other parts of the world."
    Havel, however, suggested he was against including Russia into NATO.
    Even discounting Russia's current economic and political problems, its huge size would make it difficult to incorporate into NATO, Havel said.
    "We shouldn't treat Russia as a sick country...and Russia should not be bothered by the fact that it is not in the alliance," he added.
    Havel also said the summit should consider membership for Slovakia, the former easternmost part of the Czechoslovak federation that broke up peacefully in 1993.
    "It's difficult to imagine a (NATO) summit in Prague that would not invite Slovakia," he said.
 

Attached is a picture of the newly restored Alberta iela No. 13, from our trip in March.