Pēteris Briedis quoted His Excellency Viktor Kalyuzhny, who proffered, along with his by now repetitive repertoire of utter claptrap: Cukurfabrikas noteikti neslēdza. Vecais Viktors is embracing the cause célèbre of the Lettish Far Right… how, er, ironic—not.

/P

So that is what a sweet chance to sign a fine treaty sounds like ... hmm ...

http://www.sueddeutsche.de/ausland/artikel/237/101136/

Part of it also in Latvian

http://www.apollo.lv/portal/news/1843/articles/92909

“Ernsthafte Risiken

Das führt zu ernsthaften Risiken und Problemen. In unserer Einschätzung möglicher Folgen eines Nato-Beitritts Georgiens ziehen wir Parallelen zu den wenig ermutigenden Erfahrungen früherer Erweiterungswellen. Estland und Lettland können als Präzedenzfälle dienen.

Vor dem Beitritt dieser Länder versicherten uns unsere Nato-Partner, dass die Mitgliedschaft “die Demokratisierung dieser Länder beschleunigt” und die Normalisierung ihrer Beziehungen zu Russland fördert, indem sie ihnen die Angst vor dem mächtigen Nachbarn nimmt. Alles ist genau umgekehrt gekommen. Selbst die “Demokratisierung” in diesen baltischen Staaten hat einen verdrehten Charakter angenommen.

Durch Parolen und Taten wird dort das Ansehen der Soldaten der Roten Armee geschmäht, welche die Welt vor der “braunen Pest” gerettet haben. In absurder Weise werden faschistische und nationalistische Ideen propagiert, wird die russischsprachige und insbesondere die ethnisch-russische Bevölkerung diskriminiert. Die politische “Blindheit” der Allianz in dieser Frage ruft bei uns, gelinde gesagt, Unverständnis hervor.

Um es klar zu machen: Russland schätzt die bereits gemeinsam geleistete Arbeit sehr. Wir hoffen ehrlich, dass alle Probleme in nächster Zeit gelöst werden können. Möglich ist das aber nur durch einen Gesprächsprozess - und wenn den Ansichten und Sicherheitsinteressen aller Beteiligten Rechnung getragen wird.”

I finally added another section about this to my blog. I had promised to diligently report upon the process, but have been busy with the national action plan to integrate the Gypsies.

Vysu lobu,
/P

Take this, Vanjka….....

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1103AP_Estonia_Soviet_Monument.html

Thursday, February 15, 2007 · Last updated 2:16 a.m. PT

Estonian lawmakers vote to Soviet memorial

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

TALLINN, Estonia—Estonian lawmakers on Thursday approved a bill calling for the removal of a Soviet war memorial, ignoring Moscow’s warning of “irreversible consequences” for relations between the two countries.

The vote was close, 46-44. Eleven of Parliament’s 101 members abstained.

The Bronze Soldier, a World War II memorial in downtown Tallinn, has become a rallying point for Estonia’s ethnic Russians, who make up about one-third of the Baltic country’s 1.3 million residents.

Plans to remove the six-foot statue have infuriated officials in Russia, who accuse the Baltic states of discriminating against Russian-speakers.

Before the vote, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Vladimir Titov warned that the Law on Forbidden Structures would cause “irreversible consequences” for Estonian-Russian relations.

The law prohibits public display of monuments that glorify the five-decade Soviet occupation of Estonia.

Soviet forces took over the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in 1940. They were driven out by Nazi forces a year later, but reoccupied the Baltics in 1944 and incorporated them into the Soviet Union.

The Bronze Soldier was erected in 1947 as a tribute to Red Army soldiers who were killed fighting Nazi Germany, but many Estonians see it as a bitter reminder of the hardships they endured under Soviet occupation.

The three countries regained independence in 1991 amid the collapse of communism in eastern Europe, and joined NATO and the European Union in 2004.

Blink…..............

From Monsters and Critics.com

Europe News
Estonian president rejects disputed “monuments” law (2nd Roundup)
By DPA
Feb 15, 2007, 15:27 GMT

Tallinn - Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves rejected on Thursday a controversial law permitting the removal of Nazi and Soviet monuments only hours after parliament approved it.

‘I have decided not to promulgate the ‘Law on the Removal of an Unlawful Structure,’ passed today… I do so because a number of sections of the law are unconstitutional, first and foremost the principle of separation of powers,’ Ilves said in a statement.

The bill’s original text was aimed at banning structures which glorified the states which occupied Estonia during World War II - Nazi Germany and the USSR. It did not single out specific monuments.

But on Tuesday, during the bill’s second reading, MPs adopted an amendment which specifically outlawed Estonia’s most prominent Soviet war memorial - a statue in Tallinn known as the Bronze Soldier - and gave the government 30 days in which to remove it.

Legal experts criticized the amendment, saying that it breached the constitutional principle of the separation of the legislature and executive. Despite the criticisms, however, MPs passed the law in a final reading on Thursday by 46 votes to 44.

Estonia is due to hold parliamentary elections on March 4, and the monuments law has been widely seen as a pre-election manoeuvre.

MPs voted on the issue ‘merely to draw attention to themselves, not by a wish to find an effective solution,’ and did so ‘in full knowledge of the fact that the President cannot, by his oath of office, promulgate the law,’ Ilves said.

‘I consider such behaviour irresponsible… Domestic political expediency can in no way justify playing with the constitution,’ he added.

Estonia was occupied by the Soviets in 1940-41 and 1944-91, suffering massive social and economic losses. For many Estonians, the Soviet regime was as evil as the Nazis, and should not be commemorated.

But many in Estonia’s Russian minority believe that the Red Army were heroes who saved the country from fascism. They resent the attack on the monument, and a second law passed on Thursday which names September 22 ‘resistance day.’

During the Soviet era, the day - the date in 1944 on which the Red Army entered Tallinn - was known as ‘liberation day.’ Russians still gather at the Bronze Soldier on that date, and say that any attempt to criticize it is tantamount to praising Nazism.

‘The Bronze Soldier is part of our people’s memory. The government is trying to take away our memory and put Nazi ideology into our minds,’ said Estonian-Russian activist Yury Zhuravjov, a leading defender of the memorial.

The dispute has threatened to split Estonian society along ethnic lines, with experts warning that it could lead to a radicalization of ethnic tension reaching far beyond the elections.

The two laws are aimed at ‘something the Russian-speaking population can identify with… Symbolic things can cause all kinds of mobilizations,’ said Eiki Berg, a specialist in ethnic and international relations at Tartu University.

The laws were also savagely criticized in Russia, where leading politicians have said that any attempt to move monuments to Soviet soldiers would be ‘blasphemy’ and prove that the Baltic state is hosting a ‘rebirth of Nazism.’

On Wednesday, Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Vladimir Titov warned of ‘irreversible consequences’ if the Tallinn monument were moved, the Interfax news agency reported.

But while rejecting the monuments law, Ilves also rejected Russian comments, saying that the ‘clarification’ of Estonia’s history was a job ‘for Estonia itself.’

‘Military graves cannot be treated as ordinary politics… I condemn all attempts to glorify or justify the activities of the Soviet Union that occupied Estonia under the pretext of commemorating victims of the war,’ he said.

The law will now be returned to parliament for further debate - a process which is unlikely to be completed before the elections.

‘The last sessions of the current parliament will be held next week. It would take more time than that for the Riigikogu (Estonia’s parliament) to approve the law again,’ said Aivar Jarne, head of the Riigikogu’s press department.

The next Riigikogu will have to consider the law, he added.

© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur

© Copyright 2006,2007 by monstersandcritics.com.
This notice cannot be removed without permission.

And so…looks as if that hideous, sanctimonious display at Uzvaras Parks will remain hallowed, a blight forever.

PS I enjoy reading your blog, Peters C; always learn something new.  Good luck with the Gypsies.

Irena

Paldies, Irēna. Glad you like the blog—it seems that I get a large share of my traffic from this forum (from the, um, silent majority, I guess), and I do wish more people would comment over there!

I was translating the National Action Plan for Latvia’s Roma (for the Secretariat of the Special Assignments Minister for Social Integration, AKA the Integration Ministry). Made me glad that I resisted the temptation to translate for Brussels—sifting through reams of legislation (decrees, directives, recommendations, judgments, findings, etc.) in such a structure, the inane complexity of which can be illustrated by the fact that the Council of Europe and the European Council have nothing to do with each other, would have made me hang myself within a few months!

The Programme, though, is a worthy one, and I happen to know it is because we have numerous Roma (the p.c. term for Gypsies, who supposedly also consider “čigāni” to be “slightly derogatory”) across the street—they’ve been taking advantage of things like free computer courses and small business loans, and they’re thrilled. They are active in one of the NGOs. The sad fact is that despite their abilities (including knowing Latvian better than any other minority except the Livs, who are practically extinct), ca. 98% of Latvia’s Gypsies are unemployed. A huge proportion of our illiterates are Gypsies, most Gypsies have little formal education, and about half of the population in Latvia would not like to live near Gypsies (which percentage drops significantly, and tellingly, among those who actually do live near Gypsies).

Then there is their basic vulnerability—Russians have Russia, Jews have Israel, etc. (Livs have Estonia!). Gypsies have nowhere (a few years ago, some presented a rather postmodern proposal—to join the EU as a nation without a territory).

Not that Gypsies are angelic, of course—it’s a very long and historical two-way street full of self-fulfilling stereotypes… I mean, if you won’t hire Gypsies because they steal, they’ll steal (or, as in Rīga, get involved in the drug trade—they don’t run it {look to “Caucasians,” especially Chechens, for “Mr. Big”}, but not a few are “employed” in it). Getting them to go to school is notoriously difficult. The Programme will train Gypsy teaching assistants for preschools, popularize education, encourage employers’ associations to network with Gypsy NGOs, try to dispel stereotypes among Latvians, and get the Gypsies representation when they are discriminated against.

Last but not least, it will also assist them culturally and in “preserving their identity”—the latter is an interesting thing, because the bigotry directed towards them has obviously assisted them in that regard; without a land and with no aid until recently, their identity still flourishes. I’ve not yet met a Rom who doesn’t speak Romani, despite their centuries of wandering through foreign lands.

And then there’s their clairvoyance…

Vysu lobu,
/P

Much has been said about it being time to move on, the world except Russia acknowledges Soviet occupation and the continuity of the Latvian Republic…

It’s not about numbers of countries, it’s about numbers of people. And in that numbers game, Latvia is doing less well. Whether out in the Internet or printed in their local newspaper, anyone can read Pravda unfiltered in Duluth, Minnesota or Perth, Australia or New Delhi, India. And what do they read there? Latvian “glorification” of the “Nazi SS” who were “convicted” in Nuremberg. Latvian “human rights” violations against Russians.

So, what is the attitude out there? Let me tell you what I’ve found: Latvia: home in WWII to people who for the most part were happy to collaborate with the Nazis and were eager for the opportunity to pick up rifles to shoot Jews, today a mono-ethnocratic super-nationalistic neo-fascist SS-glorifying state. These are not the words of Pravda, or of the Russian foreign ministry, or of Zhirinovsky—nor are they even the words of Russophones or Russophiles. These are the words of people only with an interest in WWII or current geopolitics, people with no axe to grind: people whose opinion has been formed, and informed, only by the news.

Latvia is losing the public relations battle. Giving in to the Russian position only accelerates that decline. The only defense is a strong offense. Those who say Latvia has nothing left to prove regarding history are tragically mistaken.

Ar cieņu,
Pēters

Much has been said about it being time to move on, the world except Russia acknowledges Soviet occupation and the continuity of the Latvian Republic…

I did not see anyone on this thread advocating any such thing?

It’s not about numbers of countries, it’s about numbers of people. And in that numbers game, Latvia is doing less well. Whether out in the Internet or printed in their local newspaper, anyone can read Pravda unfiltered in Duluth, Minnesota or Perth, Australia or New Delhi, India. And what do they read there? Latvian “glorification” of the “Nazi SS” who were “convicted” in Nuremberg. Latvian “human rights” violations against Russians.

Yes, and the only effective way to counteract that kind of propoganda is to address it directly. The least effective way to do so would be to do it by deflection.

So, what is the attitude out there? Let me tell you what I’ve found: Latvia: home in WWII to people who for the most part were happy to collaborate with the Nazis and were eager for the opportunity to pick up rifles to shoot Jews, today a mono-ethnocratic super-nationalistic neo-fascist SS-glorifying state. These are not the words of Pravda, or of the Russian foreign ministry, or of Zhirinovsky—nor are they even the words of Russophones or Russophiles. These are the words of people only with an interest in WWII or current geopolitics, people with no axe to grind: people whose opinion has been formed, and informed, only by the news.

Few dispute that that misconception exists. The question is how do you counteract that misconception and build one which is more reflective of the truth.

Latvia is losing the public relations battle. Giving in to the Russian position only accelerates that decline. The only defense is a strong offense. Those who say Latvia has nothing left to prove regarding history are tragically mistaken.

Latvia is most certainly losing the public relations battle, but I couldn’t disagree more about the strong offense. I think Stephen put so eloquently and succinctly on the Aizsargi thread what I’ve tried to do for years on this forum and in the old days on SCB. If we want to turn the tide it is crucial that we answer the core questions that face us, rather than try to turn away and avoid them pretending that they don’t exists. This is why I think it is crucial for those who really want to turn that tide to seek out and encourage the Ezergaili and Cedrini among us. The best way to “win” is to take away the biggest weapons in the oppositions arsenal.
Just an example. Phuket seemed to be a really popular spot for Russian tourists, so I decided to practice my Russian a bit. Plenty of time on a dive boat to chew the fat in between dives. Ran into these two Russians. One from Moscow. Evgeni. An ex-pilot who talked a lot about flying to Angola. Hmmm… guessing ex-military. Angola? Judging by his age guessing this flying took place in mid 80’s. Well, the implications are obvious. There was only one main reason for Russians to fly into Angola in the 80’s. The other. Andrei, maybe late 20’s. Juice salesman from St. Petersburg. Talked about Cido mostly. Stereotypes of the new and the old Russia if you will.
As these conversations usually go eventually you run out of small talk and either you move on or move the conversation to more weightier matters. Evgeni brings up the Bronze Soldier in Estonia. Curiously enough he starts out professing his love for the Latvians and Lithuanians, but he might just be pandering to the audience. He just doesn’t understand those Fascists in Estonia wanting to desecrate a monument to soldiers who gave their lives in the fight against fascism. Andrei nods in agrement. I respond that the fight against fascism isn’t really the issue. The Estonians see this monument as not one honoring those who died in the fight against fascism, but as honoring those who occupied Estonia. Andrei nods in agrement.
Went back and forth like this for a while with Andrei as our audience. Ultimately it boiled down to Russia opposed the fascists v. the war against the fascists ended in 1945, but Russia stayed in the Baltics until the 1990’s when there was nary a fascist to be found. If you want to look at it from a public relations point of view I think this is a battle we have a chance of winning.

Here are some that I think we have no chance of winning:

Arguging that the Nazis liberated us from the Russians.
Arguing that the Nazis were better to us than the Russians. (Define us first.)
Arguing that the Soviet horror was worse than the Nazi horror. (Those kind of arguments are always doomed to fail.)
Arguing that we were just following orders. (Self-explanatory.)
Arguing that we had no complicity in the Holocaust in Latvia. (You can certainly argue the degree, but you can’t ignore those who did participate and willingly.)
Arguing that the Jews were all communists anyway. (Falacious. The gulags were filled with Jews. Maybe more than any other ethnicity. Same as above, it doesn’t absolve those who participated in the Soviet horror, but you can’t categorically absolve all in one case and condemn all in the other. You can’t have both.)

Anyway, that’s just me.

Andrejs

The theory that most Western countries acknowledge the occupation is part of “the official line,” pretty much, Andrej—see, for instance, our President’s speech to the Saeima preceding the grand debate on the Border Agreement. I think the number of countries is important, because we are talking about legality, for the most part, and legality isn’t determined by popular opinion—on the other hand, the personal comments of statesmen and even resolutions passed by Congress don’t determine legality, either. I daresay continuity isn’t as clear as we’d like it to be even in the West; see Loeber’s writings on these issues, for example.

On public opinion—yes, Joe Sixpack in Upper Sandusky can read Pravda, Pēter… but he doesn’t. It’s not even a physical paper anymore—it’s merely a marginal website that even most Russians find ridiculous. The level of translation at Regnum makes it practically unreadable in English (the level of polittekhnologiya aside). RIA-Novosti is another matter—but, like Regnum, it’s a news agency and not an outlet, primarily. Few respectable outlets use their stuff.

Then there are the major English-language outlets in Russia—e.g., Kommersant, The Moscow Times, The St. Petersburg Times. These three are far less strident than Pravda, Regnum, or RIA-Novosti—in fact, all three have published not a few fairly balanced articles about the Baltics, and even a few positive ones.

The propaganda war is quite complex and has a few fronts, armored divisions, infantrymen, etc. That rare person in the West who regularly reads Pravda is probably pretty armored and not really worth fighting. Unfortunately, a large part of the (pseudo-)left is likely lost—the part that finds George Galloway gorgeous, for instance. There are an awful lot of people out there who lament the passing of the Soviet Union at least as much as Vladimir Vladimirovich does (they’re more likely to read The Guardian than Pravda, though!).

The fronts that matter—well, Wikipedia for one; Pēters is fighting the good fight there (I gave up due to time constraints and nausea, I’m afraid, at least for the moment), and those of you with a few arms handy, small or large, might consider helping him out. Click the following link to enter the whacky world of Baltics-related Wiki—

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Baltic_States_notice_board

Tangentially, I can’t help but point out something re the Wikis—there are 8182 articles in the Latvian Vikipēdija, 31 074 in Estonian, and 39 638 in Lithuanian. In the English-language Wiki, Latvia-related articles are by far the weakest—even the main article, “Latvia,” is a mess. I can’t help but wonder what this says about my beloved nation, and remember how some here said there was no way they’d work on it unless paid… and recall what Suzanna said about how cultured Latvians are; it’s a myth, I believe—we read fewer books and watch the boob tube far more than most any people in this part of the world, actually, according to studies…

To return to the subject, then there are the occasions when disinformation about Latvia strays into the serious press, e.g.—

http://lettonica.blogspot.com/2006/12/latvian-nazis.html

A person who regularly peruses the Internet (not to mention a library) re post-Soviet or Eastern European matters is in a wholly different theater of the propaganda war.

A friend of mine in Transylvania noted that when she subtracted Russian sources on Latvia, she found… well, much of what Pēters described, despite the subtraction—this is more problematic, because it matters more than what Džo Sīkspēks thinks of them Lettish brownshirts. Personally, I detest conspiracy theories, and there are a few obvious reasons why this is so—most people, including investigating academics who aren’t lettophobic, don’t know Latvian, for one; I’ve reread Stanley Page’s book on the formation of the Baltic States a few times, and though he offers a caveat on the hubris required to write a book about countries one does not speak any of the national languages of, it’s still a rather shoddy book, and partly for that reason.

[cont’d]

[cont’d—what is this 6000-character maximum? my logorrheic rights are being flagrantly violated!]

Some other reasons for the imbalance ought to be rather obvious. A few of them, off the top of my head: Letts are insanely focused upon how unique they are; very few ever bother to compare the burning historical and political issues here to like conflagrations nearby. Vot, a victim complex—hardly unusual. Letts are russophobic, for the most part; fear and hatred are almost unavoidable when the relevant topics are touched upon… this may be understandable, but it’s neither bright nor closely related to reality. Many Letts are anti-Semitic—if I had a santīms for every time I heard the “‘the Jews were Bolsheviks, and anyway we suffered more’ ‘defense’,” I’d be a rich man, especially if someone gave me another santīms every time somebody saw no difference at all between exterminating people based upon their bloodlines and snuffing some of them based upon their socio-economic situation.

Dribins anent “Baigais gads”:

Protams, salīdzinot ar Latvijas brīvvalsts gadiem, 1940./1941. gada padomju okupācijas laiks bija baigs. Pēc Kārļa Kangera datiem, čeka Latvijas teritorijā nošāva 945 cilvēkus, represēja 27 586 personas. Citos publicējumos norādīts vēl lielāks cietušo skaits. Līdz pat 1355 nošautiem, vairāk nekā 35 tūkstošiem represēto.

Bet vācu nacistiskās okupācijas gadi taču bija vēl asiņaināki. Nošāva vairāk nekā 70 tūkstošus Latvijas ebreju, 18 tūkstošus latviešu, 2 tūkstošus čigānu, 7 tūkstošus ieslodzīja koncentrācijas nometnēs, spaidu darbos uz Vāciju aizdzina vairāk nekā 35 tūkstošus. Tikai 1941./1942. gadā vien nošauti vairāk nekā 85 tūkstoši Latvijas pilsoņu jeb vairāk nekā 4% no pilsoņu skaita. Latvijas teritorijā nošāva arī vairāk nekā 14 tūkstošus deportētos Viduseiropas ebrejus.

http://vip.latnet.lv/lpra/16okt_dribins.htm

Latvia is right-wing—in marked contrast to our history, we don’t even have a left these days.

About “moving on”—yes, we will move on, whether we like it or not. It had to happen, and it’s happening. The real problem is with how we move on, and where we’re moving to—but the occupation is rapidly becoming ancient history, and that is as it should be. Our historians can finally write about these nightmares sine ira et studio, hopefully, and the rest of us can get a life, looking up now and then to wonder why there’s a black tassel hanging from the flag so very often and hopefully having an answer (just now for those who died in the fire at Alsunga). As Ezergaiļa kungs suggests, we should write our own history, and I heartily agree—but we live in a different world now, and Germany’s recent proposal to write and teach a single European history is more relevant to the average Latvian pupil than squabbling about an interpretation of the occupation or the latest squibs in “patriotiskā audzināšana.” 

Vysu lobu,
/P

Aleks at All About Latvia has translated a fascinating account of a journey to Pytalovo—

http://www.allaboutlatvia.com/article/572/notes-of-a-spy

Vysu lobu,
/P

Ansis Bogustovs, the best-known Latvian journalist in Brussels, interviews Vytautas Landsbergis and Tunne Kelam regarding the Border Agreement here—

http://www.apollo.lv/portal/news/articles/96049

Landsbergis feels that Latvia is demeaning itself by capitulating to Russian pressure, whilst Kelam is concerned about the effect this will have on Estonia’s impasse.

/P