News Highlights from July 3-July 10, 2000
The Baltic states ranked in the top third of the United Nations Development Program’s annual index of the most- and least-developed countries in the world. Estonia ranked the highest on the list, in 46th place. Lithuania was 52nd and Latvia, 63rd. Canada, Norway and the United States topped the list of 174 nations, and Burkina Faso, Niger and Sierra Leone rounded out the bottom.
The UNDP’s Human Development Index takes economic and social indicators, including GDP growth and average wages, into account; it also considers factors such as the quality of medical care and life expectancy.
Some Baltic analysts have criticized the index, saying it sometimes relies on outdated or misleading statistics.
To follow is a complete list of countries and their UNDP rank:
1. Canada
2. Norway
3. United States
4. Australia
5. Iceland
6. Sweden
7. Belgium
8. Netherlands
9. Japan
10. Britain
11. Finland
12. France
13. Switzerland
14. Germany
15. Denmark
16. Austria
17. Luxembourg
18. Ireland
19. Italy
20. New Zealand
21. Spain
22. Cyprus
23. Israel
24. Singapore
25. Greece
26. Hong Kong
27. Malta
28. Portugal
29. Slovenia
30. Barbados
31. South Korea
32. Brunei
33. Bahamas
34. Czech Republic
35. Argentina
36. Kuwait
37. Antigua and Barbuda
38. Chile
39. Uruguay
40. Slovakia
41. Bahrain
42. Qatar
43. Hungary
44. Poland
45. United Arab Emirates
46. ESTONIA
47. St. Kitts and Nevis
48. Costa Rica
49. Croatia
50. Trinidad and Tobago
51. Dominica
52. LITHUANIA
53. Seychelles
54. Grenada
55. Mexico
56. Cuba
57. Belarus
58. Belize
59. Panama
60. Bulgaria
61. Malaysia
62. Russia
63. LATVIA
64. Romania
65. Venezuela
66. Fiji
67. Suriname
68. Colombia
69. Macedonia
70. Georgia
71. Mauritius
72. Libya
73. Kazakstan
74. Brazil
75. Saudi Arabia
76. Thailand
77. Philippines
78. Ukraine
79. St. Vincent and the Grenadines
80. Peru
81. Paraguay
82. Lebanon
83. Jamaica
84. Sri Lanka
85. Turkey
86. Oman
87. Dominican Republic
88. St. Lucia
89. Maldives
90. Azerbaijan
91. Ecuador
92. Jordan
93. Armenia
94. Albania
95. Western Samoa
96. Guyana
97. Iran
98. Kyrgyzstan
99. China
100. Turkmenistan
101. Tunisia
102. Moldova
103. South Africa
104. El Salvador
105. Cape Verde
106. Uzbekistan
107. Algeria
108. Vietnam
109. Indonesia
110. Tajikistan
111. Syria
112. Swaziland
113. Honduras
114. Bolivia
115. Namibia
116. Nicaragua
117. Mongolia
118. Vanuatu
119. Egypt
120. Guatemala
121. Solomon Islands
122. Botswana
123. Gabon
124. Morocco
125. Myanmar
126. Iraq
127. Lesotho
128. India
129. Ghana
130. Zimbabwe
131. Equatorial Guinea
132. Sao Tome and Principe
133. Papua New Guinea
134. Cameroon
135. Pakistan
136. Cambodia
137. Comoros
138. Kenya
139. Republic of Congo
140. Laos
141. Madagascar
142. Bhutan
143. Sudan
144. Nepal
145. Togo
146. Bangladesh
147. Mauritania
148. Yemen
149. Djibouti
150. Haiti
151. Nigeria
152. Congo
153. Zambia
154. Ivory Coast
155. Senegal
156. Tanzania
157. Benin
158. Uganda
159. Eritrea
160. Angola
161. Gambia
162. Guinea
163. Malawi
164. Rwanda
165. Mali
166. Central African Republic
167. Chad
168. Mozambique
169. Guinea-Bissau
170. Burundi
171. Ethiopia
172. Burkina Faso
173. Niger
174. Sierra Leone
Two more former secret police in the Baltic states have been found guilty of Stalinist-era crimes against humanity and sentenced to prison.
An 86-year-old former officer in Stalin’s secret police, Yevgeny Savenko, was found guilty by a Latvian court on July 7 and sentenced to two years in prison for participating in the arrest and deportation of scores of Latvians after the country was occupied by Soviet forces in 1940.
Prosecutors say Savenko signed orders for the arrest of some 50 people, including policemen, Latvian officers and even several high-school students. Many were eventually executed or died in prison.
In Estonia, Karl-Leonhard Paulov, 76, was convicted on June 29 and given an eight year prison sentence for murdering three Estonians hiding in the forest from Soviet authorities in the 1940s. Last year, he was convicted on similar charges. But a court later ordered that his case be heard again.
Tens of thousands of people took refuge in Baltic forests in the years after the Soviet takeover in 1940. Many sought to avoid deportation to Siberia, while others took up arms to actively resist the Soviet occupation.
As a young agent, Paulov was ordered into the forest to gain the confidence of forest refugees, then to capture or kill them. Prosecutors said he ended up shooting two of the men mentioned in the indictment in the back. Paulov told the court he’d acted in self-defense.
After they regained independence, all three Baltic states pledged to indict and convict those responsible for Stalinist-era atrocities. Half a dozen men have been convicted in the Baltic states for Stalinist-era crimes, and half a dozen other cases are expected to go to court in the coming weeks and months.
While Baltic officials say their primary aim is to shed light on the dark Stalinist era, Russian officials say the three countries are seeking revenge on elderly, ailing men—many of whom, like Savenko, hold Russian passports.
Baltic officials have roundly dismissed the criticism, saying Russia’s anger stems from it’s own failure to honestly confront, or to even acknowledge atrocities committed by Stalinist forces in the Baltic states and elsewhere.
(See related article, Off to Court, on this site.)
The on-again, off-again trial of trial of alleged Nazi war criminal Aleksandras Lileikis is off again—this time apparently for good. The high-profile trial restarted last month with the 93-year-old following the proceedings by a special TV system from his apartment bed. But judges on July 1 said Lileikis was too ill even to be tried in absentia, and halted to the proceedings.
Lileikis, who could also be seen by participants in the packed courtroom on a large screen, lay unshaven in bed with a compress on his head when his trail restarted briefly on June 23. Answering questions from the judge about his marital status, he began gasping for air. Minutes later, the court adjourned the proceedings to allow Lileikis’ doctors to take his pulse and perform a cardiogram. After a short break, his doctors said Lileikis had a severe headache and was unable to continue.
Lileikis, a former resident of Norwood, Mass., is charged with genocide for allegedly handing over scores of Jews to be executed during the 1941-44 German occupation, when he headed the Nazi-backed Vilnius security police. Lileikis has denied the charges.
The trial, the first Nazi war crimes proceedings in the area of the former Soviet Union, first got underway in 1998, but was delayed dozens of times on health grounds. Judges on July 1 left open the possibility that the trial could resume if Lileikis’s health improves. But that’s highly unlikely give his age and most observers say the trial is now almost certainly over.
Lileikis showed up in court only once, in 1998. In a wheel chair and wearing a neck brace, he briefly declared his innocence, then began trembling and gasping. He was rushed away in an ambulance and never again appeared in court.
Lileikis, who lived in the United States for 40 years after World War II, returned to Lithuania in 1995 as a U.S. court was moving to revoke his citizenship.
Many Jewish groups said they were deeply disappointed that the Lileikis trial never got underway and that no verdict would ever be handed down in his case. Critics said Lithuanians were reluctant to push forward with a trial because of the uncomfortable questions it could raise about the Nazi-occupation period.
Motorcycle fans this week mourned the death of five-time Formula One world champion Joey Dunlop, killed in the Estonian capital on July 2 during a 125 cc race.
Dunlop lost control of his bike on the Tallinn track as he tried to make a sharp turn in heavy rains and skidded into a tree. Authorities said he was killed instantly.
The 48-year-old Northern Ireland native was buried Friday near Belfast; some 50,000 people turned out for the service in what commentators said was the largest funeral in the history of Northern Ireland.
News Highlights from June 26-July 3, 2000
Mayor and former Hansapank CEO Jüri Mõis believes Tallinn should be run like a corporation, saying that this is one of his goals while he is in office, he told the latest edition of CITY PAPER in an interview.
Asked if he was incorporating his experience as a business executive into his running of Tallinn and whether he would like to see the Estonian capital run as “Tallinn Inc.,” he said, “Yes, I would like to do that.”
Mõis, who took office late last year, told CITY PAPER that he admired city governments in the Far East, which he said had embraced the corporate model.
“We would like to keep more of an eye on the Asian approach, which is that you should run your city like a normal company,” he said. “They built their skyscrapers and their public officials often have educations from places like Harvard Business School. This is why they have been a success.”
The mayor also told CITY PAPER that he was not concerned that the increasing number of tall modern buildings being built in Tallinn could undermine the city’s Medieval character, saying he expected “more and more” skyscrapers to be constructed.
“I don’t see any problems with the skyscrapers,” he said. “I understand how much more efficient these buildings are–Tallinn has a good mix of modern and old.”
Mõis told CITY PAPER that among his priorities as mayor was to computerize the city’s data bases, to make the civil service more efficient and to make the Tallinn more attractive to foreign investors.
“We are still not attractive enough in puling in foreign investment,” he said. “We have many interested investors, but we have a limited capacity for handling procedures to bring them in and to help them set up.”
Carloina Hurricanes hockey player Arturs Irbe plans to open a stud farm on land he recently purchased in his native Latvia.
The star goalie bought an 85-hectare seaside estate near the Baltic Sea coast town of Salacgriva, located 75 kilometers north of the Latvian capital.
Irbe named the estate “Ligzda,” which means “the nest” in Latvian.
In his nine-year NHL career, the 33-year-old has also goaltended for the San Jose Sharks, Dallas Stars and Vancouver Canucks. Earlier, he also playedon the Soviet National Team and for Dynamo Riga.
Irbe has said he intends to return to Latvia when his playing career ends.
Lithuania’s troubled initial public offering of a 25 percent stake in Lithuanian Telecom has gone from bad to worse, with the company’s share price continuing to fall.
Lithuania had high hopes that the IPO, the largest in the nation’s history, would be a rousing success, with the government initially expecting to snare some 300 million dollars from the sale.
But wariness about tech stocks worldwide and a weak economy at home forced the government to lower the initial share price from 4 litas (dlr 1) to 3.15 litas (dlrs 0.78), so it netted just 160 million dollars from the sale. That price has fallen more than 10 percent since the initial offering three weeks ago.
Analysts said disappointed shareholders were now dumping their holdings in Lithuanian Telecom, which was causing a loss of confidence across the board on the fledgling Lithuanian National Stock Exchange.
Others said the poorly performing IPO would make it harder for the government to generate investor interest when it tries to sell off other giant state-owned companies, like Lithuanian Energy and Lithuanian Gas.
Lithuanian Telecom says it won’t be adversely affected. The country’s monopoly telephone company is already majority foreign owned and is considered financially sound and well run.
A 60 percent stake in Lithuanian Telecom was sold two years ago for some 500 million dollars to Sweden’s Telia and Finland’s Sonera.
Many Lithuanian officials have been left scratching their heads about why the IPO went so wrong. Lithuanian Telecom has only fixed-line services, which many analysts say made it less attractive to investors looking at the booming mobile phone market.
Lithuania’s economy also hasn’t fully recovered from the impact of Russia’s economic crisis in 1998. Growth fell 4 percent in 1999, though it’s expected to expand by 1 percent in 2000.
Critics say the government should have delayed the offering until the economy improved and confidence in tech stocks was restored.
News Highlights from June 19-June 26, 2000
Lithuania’s parliament on June 19 criticized Moscow for opposing NATO enlargement to the Baltic states, saying in a strongly worded resolution that Russia was effectively making territorial claims on the region.
The resolution, adopted by a 63-0 vote in the 140-seat Seimas, said Russia was assuming the right to bloc nations from joining alliances of their choice and that “this looks very much like territorial claims on the democratic world.”
“Lithuania is disappointed in this old fashioned thinking that dominates in Russia today,” it read.
The statement was drafted by Parliament Speaker Vytautas Landsbergis, of the ruling Conservatives. The opposition refused to vote, saying the resolution was a populist move to draw electoral support prior to October national elections.
All three Baltic states have made joining the 19-member Western alliance a top priority.
But Russia has fiercely opposed any enlargement of NATO that would include the Baltics, saying it would be a security threat to Russia and would badly undermine European stability.
Russian President Vladimir Putin reiterated his country’s stance the week before week.
NATO says the door to the Baltic states is open, but that they aren’t yet ready militarily to join. Alliance officials have also insisted that Russia would not have a right to veto Baltic entry.
Prosecutors said on June 19 that they are hopeful about indicting 86-year-old Konrads Kalejs for Nazi war crimes, but cautioned that, contrary to some reports, they hadn’t yet made a final decision.
Local reports said several days earlier that prosecutors were close to indicting the Australian-Latvian, saying he could be charged as soon as July. But prosecutors were less definite, saying the investigation was ongoing.
If indicted, extradited from Australia and tried, Kalejs would be the first person to face a Latvian court on Nazi war crimes charges since Latvia regained independence in 1991.
Jewish groups say Kalejs was an officer in the Arajs Kommando, a Nazi-sponsored death squad responsible for the murder of some 30,000 people during World War II. Kalejs denies the accusations.
Kalejs emigrated to Australia after the war and became an Australian citizen.
Latvia and Australia have agreed on the terms of an extradition treaty, which is expected to be signed soon. Prosecutors said they would make an extradition request to Australia when and if they charge Kalejs.
To back up any indictment, prosecutors said they’re looking at evidence that indicates Kalejs was commander of a guard unit at the Nazi-run Salaspils concentration camp near Riga.
Many detainees at Salaspils—which included many Jews, Russian prisoners of war and Latvians opposed to Nazi rule—died of malnutrition or were executed by their captors.
Prosecutors say the evidence could be sufficient grounds for charging Kalejs.
Lithuanian officials said on June 21 they’ve succeeded in wooing international donors to fund the partial shutdown of the Soviet-built Ignalina nuclear power plant, regarded by many as a major environmental threat.
A total of some 200 million dollars has now been pledged by the European Union and separately by many EU-member states—roughly the amount Lithuania says it needs to close the first of Ignalina’s two reactors.
Lithuania has promised to close the one reactor within five years, but hasn’t yet committed to closing the second. Funds raised so far would go towards decommissioning the first reactor by the 2005 deadline.
Several nations stepped forward during a two-day conference in Vilnius on the plant’s closure. The gathering, which ended Wednesday, included officials and atomic energy experts from over 30 countries.
Lithuanian Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius welcomed the help, saying his nation couldn’t afford closing the reactor by itselt. He added it was Moscow that decided to build Ignalina when Lithuania was still under Soviet rule.
“Lithuania did not create this problem. To leave us on our own with this problem would be politically and morally irresponsible,” he told conference delegates in a speech.
Ignalina’s two reactors are the same type as those at Chernobyl, Ukraine—the site of the world’s worst nuclear accident in 1986—though they have had safety upgrades since 1991.
The EU has urged Lithuania to make a commitment to shut down the entire plant, saying a failure to do so could complicate Lithuania’s bid to join the trading bloc.
But the two-decade-old facility currently generates some 80 percent of Lithuania’s electricity and more cheaply than other forms of power generation, allowing the country to keep its energy costs to consumers relatively low.
Many Lithuanians say that closing Ignalina completely and developing alternative energy sources would cost billions of dollars, raise electricity costs to consumers and undermine the national economy.
The trial in absentia of alleged Nazi war criminal Aleksandras Lileikis restarted on June 23, with the 93-year-old following the courtroom proceedings by a special TV system from his apartment bed.
Lileikis, who could also be seen by participants in the packed courtroom on a large screen, lay unshaven in bed with a compress on his head. Answering questions from the judge about his marital status, he began gasping for air.
His niece rushed to his side, crying and handing pills to her uncle. She continually interrupted the session, stepping into view of the camera and asking Lileikis how he felt.
Minutes later, the court adjourned the proceedings to allow Lileikis’ doctors to take his pulse and perform a cardiogram. After a short break, his doctors said Lileikis had a severe headache and was unable to continue.
The judge postponed the trial, which had lasted for only half an hour, until the next week.
Lileikis, a former resident of Norwood, Mass., is charged with genocide for allegedly handing over scores of Jews to be executed during the 1941-44 German occupation, when he headed the Nazi-backed Vilnius security police. Lileikis has denied the charges.
The trial, the first Nazi war crimes proceedings in the former Soviet Union, first got underway in 1998, but was repeatedly delayed on health grounds.
It was halted last year and many observers thought it would never restart.
But parliament adopted a new law early this year allowing trials in absentia for war crimes. Judges said the trial could proceed after a medical panel ruled Lileikis was mentally fit enough to follow the proceedings.
Lileikis showed up in court only once, in 1998. In a wheel chair and wearing a neck brace, he briefly declared his innocence, then began trembling and gasping. He was rushed away in an ambulance and never again appeared in court.
Lileikis, who lived in the United States for 40 years after World War II, returned to Lithuania in 1995 as a U.S. court was moving to revoke his citizenship.
News Highlights from June 12-June 19, 2000
Latvian prosecutors are about to formally charge 86-year-old Australian-Latvian Konrads Kalejs with war crimes after months of high-profile, emotionally charged investigation, local media reported on June 17.
The Latvian-born Kalejs has been accused of involvement in Nazi atrocities during Germany’s 1941-44 occupation of Latvia. Kalejs is accused of serving as an officer in the notorious Arajs Kommando, a Nazi-sponsored death unit accused of murdering nearly 30,000 Jews. He has denied the charges.
According to the reports, Latvian authorities said they would simultaneously request that Australia extradite Kalejs. If a trial went ahead after his extradition, it would be the first Nazi war crimes trial since Latvia regained independence in 1991.
Kalejs was deported from the United States and Canada in the 1990s for lying about his wartime record: he fled in January this year from Great Britain to Australia, where he has had citizenship since 1957.
Jewish groups had urged Latvia to be more aggressive in seeking an indictment of Kalejs, who they say is one of the most significant ex-Nazis still alive. But until now, Latvian prosecutors have said they didn’t have enough evidence or witnesses to indict Kalejs and ensure his conviction.
Prosecutors from outside Latvia, including from the United States and Australia, also provided authorities with documents that helped lead to the decision to indict him.
Lithuania gave final approval on June 12 to a controversial new law that that demands Moscow compensate the country for five decades of Soviet occupation. Passage of the law provoked a sharp, angry response from politicians in Russia.
The bill, which has broad public support, was introduced last month by Parliament Speaker Vytautas Landsbergis, a staunch anti-communist and the president during Lithuania’s independence drive from Moscow in the early 90s.
The law obliges the Lithuanian government to seek money from Russia for repressions and for environmental damage caused during 1940-91 Soviet rule. It says a commission should be set up to decide on an exact sum to request.
No figures are mentioned in the bill, though Lithuanian officials have earlier calculated that Soviet rule cost their country over 100 billion dollars.
Russia has scoffed at the proposed law and said it could harm Lithuanian-Russian relations.
Yegor Stoyev, chairman of the Russian Federation Council, argued the day after the law was adopted that Lithuania should be thankful for all the infrastructure projects funded and built during Soviet rule.
“It is a shame and a sin to raise such issues after all that has been done for the Baltic region (by the Soviet Union),” he said.
He also mocked Lithuanian lawmakers for only considering a request for damages going back to the Soviet period.
“They should have calculated as far back as Peter I,” he said.
The Red Army occupied the then-independent Baltic states in 1940. The Soviets retook Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia after a 1941-44 Nazi occupation. They only regained independence after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.
The Russian government has long argued that it is not responsible for the actions of the Soviet Union. The Kremlin has not even acknowledged that the 1940s takeover of the Baltics was illegal, arguing that they joined the USSR voluntarily.
The Baltic states said on June 16 that they would continue their drive to join NATO despite warnings from Russian President Vladimir Putin that admitting them into the alliance could be highly destabilizing.
“Russian comments won’t make any difference to us. Our goal to join NATO won’t change,” Estonian Prime Minister Mart Laar said in a telephone interview on June 16, a day after Putin repeated Russia’s opposition during a keynote speech in Germany.
During a regularly scheduled meeting in Estonia Friday, the three Baltic premiers, including Latvia’s Andris Berzins and Lithuania’s Andrius Kubilius, also signed a joint communiqué where, among other things, they also reasserted their desire to join NATO.
Since they regained independence, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have made NATO membership a top priority.
Moscow has been particularly outspoken about criticism any enlargement of NATO that would include the Baltic states, which sit on Russia’s northwester border. The Kremlin says Baltic NATO membership would be seen as a threat to Russia.
Estonia’s prime minister said he didn’t believe Moscow sincerely saw NATO as a military threat, but simply wanted to dissuade the alliance from expanding because it feared losing influence in areas once ruled by the Soviet Union.
“This is the reason for such statements from Russia. I don’t think they really sees NATO as a threat,” he said.
Speaking in Germany on January 16, the Russian president reiterated his country’s opposition to an expanded NATO, saying that expanding to the Baltic states could end up destabilizing not only European but also world security.
“Russia will defend its interests firmly, including those related to NATO expansion,” said Putin. “Our position remains the same: this process does not contribute to the strengthening of security in Europe.”
In a written statement responding to Putin’s comments, Estonian President Lennart Meri defended the right of the Baltics to join NATO.
“All countries have an inherent right to choose their own security arrangement, including the joining of alliances,” his statement said.
NATO says the door to the Baltic states is open, but that they aren’t yet ready militarily to join. The Baltics say they’ll be ready to be invited into the alliance by 2002, though NATO hasn’t said when they might be asked to join.
(For a debate on the NATO expansion issue, see NATO Yes, NATO No on this site.)
Communists who carried out repressions and killings should be tried as Nazis were after World War II, prominent delegates said on June 14 at the conclusion of a major three-day conference on communist crimes.
“Nazi criminals have been convicted and their handymen have been punished. But this has not been done with respect to communist criminals,” said an end-of-conference resolution that urged international action to prosecute communists.
The International Congress on the Evaluation of Communism was organized by anti-communist parties, historians and activists—mostly from ex-Soviet bloc. Top leaders of Lithuania’s ruling Conservatives were among the main organizers.
Vytautas Landsbergis, Lithuania’s president during its independence drive from Moscow ten years ago, said “international justice would hobble lamely into the 21st century” if communists weren’t held accountable for their crimes.
Former Polish President Lech Walesa, who led the anti-communist Solidarity labor movement in the 1980s, also attended. He told delegates that communists caused “the loss of hundreds of millions of lives and a sea of blood.”
During the gathering, a mock tribunal was also set up and witnesses testified about mass killings and deportations carried out by communist governments in the Soviet Union, China, Cambodia and other countries.
Conference resolutions weren’t specific about how an actual tribunal to try communists might work, but several delegates, including Vytautas Landsbergis, said it should be modeled after the post-war Nuremberg trials of Nazis.
At a similar conference in Tallinn on June 16-17, Estonian leaders echoed calls made in Vilnius.
“It’s shameful that unlike Nazism, communism remains untried, both morally and judicially,” said Estonian Prime Minister Mart Laar. “Without sentencing communism, it is hard for many countries to move towards a new, humane face.”
Tunne Kelam, a deputy speaker in the Estonian parliament, decried that communism was still a socially acceptable ideology in many parts of the world. He said that meant it still posed a danger.
“There is no guarantee against the repetition of communist crimes because there has been no purification, no repentance,” he said.
News Highlights from June 5-June 12, 2000
U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott urged Russia on June 7 to stop what he said were extreme statements directed at the three Baltic nations and to seek better relations with them.
Russia has sharply criticized Baltic prosecutions of elderly
Stalinist agents for crimes against humanity and has singled out Latvia and Estonia for allegedly discriminating against their large
Russian-speaking minorities.
Talbott told a news conference in Tallinn that rhetoric by Russian government spokesmen had gone so far as to speak about a “rise of neo-fascism” in Latvia and Estonia.
“Such charges, to put it mildly, are not supported by the facts,” he said. “We’re trying to bring about a better future for everyone in the region. That means enhancing common aspirations, not engaging in divisive and unwarranted accusations.”
Talbott was speaking during a one-day meeting in Tallinn of the U.S.-Baltic Partnership Commission, a body that brings high-level U.S. and Baltic officials together annually to discuss key security and economic issues.
A communiqué signed by Talbott and his Baltic counterparts at the conclusion of the talks said that Washington continued to support Baltic bids to join the NATO alliance—another issue that has prompted Russian criticism.
“The United States reaffirms its commitment that NATO’s door remains open…and that it’s determined to work with the Baltic states to create the conditions under which (they) can walk through that door,” the statement said.
The Baltics have aspired to join NATO ever since they regained independence. But the Kremlin vehemently opposes Baltic membership, saying it would be perceived as a threat to Russian security.
Lithuanian Deputy Foreign Minister Vygaudas Usackas, representing his country at the Tallinn meeting, urged Moscow to see Baltic NATO membership as promoting everyone’s security in the region—including Russia’s.
“Our steps should not be seen as a zero-sum gain, but as a win-win situation,” he said.
Estonian Foreign Minister Toomas Ilves added that Washington did not accept Russian declarations about “a red line,” beyond which NATO should never expand. Moscow said the Baltics are behind that line.
“The United States doesn’t recognize that there is a red line, and we’re very thankful for that,” he said.
German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder arrived in Tallinn on June 5, the first leg of a three-day tour of the Baltic states, where he faced tough questions about Germany’s commitment to European Union expansion.
Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia have all made EU membership a top foreign policy priority, saying it would boost their economies and enhance security vis-a-vis what they say is still an unpredictable neighbor, Russia.
After meeting with all three Baltic prime ministers, Schroeder told journalists that the EU was a main topic of discussion, and that Germany strongly supported Baltic effort to join the powerful bloc.
Baltic officials have long perceived Germany as being less enthusiastic about expansion than other EU states and wonder if they can count on German support when the EU makes key decisions about accepting new members.
Doubts arose in April when German business leaders called for a delay in expansion, arguing that no candidates would be ready for membership until at least 2005. Many candidates, including Estonia, insist they’ll be ready by 2003.
Estonian Foreign Minister Toomas Ilves was quoted as telling Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper Monday that obstacles could be overcome if EU’s statesman would say, “This is an historic task, let’s tackle it.”
“If Gerhard Schroeder wants to take on this role, his place in history will be greater than Robert Schumann’s,” he was quoted as saying, referring to the German who is considered a founder of the original European Economic Community.
NATO membership has also been a high priority for the Baltic states. But Russia adamantly opposes Baltic NATO membership and leaders here were eager to hear directly from Schroeder where he stands on the issue.
Nazi Germany occupied the Baltic states during World War II and they were then ruled by Moscow until regaining independence in 1991. That historic legacy, officials say, puts a special obligation on NATO-member Germany.
“Because of its role in dividing Europe, Germany should be in the forefront of bringing Europe back together,” said Toivo Klaar, the Estonian president’s foreign policy adviser. “That means Baltic NATO membership is something we expect Germany to be playing a prominent role in.”
Given Germany’s influence in Europe, Baltic officials say they know they have to convince it that Baltic NATO membership makes sense.
During his stay in the region, Schroeder met all the Baltic presidents and prime ministers. He also delivered a keynote speech to Estonia’s parliament on June 6, where he insisted that Germany had not lost its enthusiasm for expanding the EU.
He was also accompanied by a delegation of German businessmen. Germany is the fifth largest investor in Latvia and Lithuania and the seventh largest investor in Estonia. Germany is also a major export market for all three nations.
A court medical panel said on June 7 that alleged Nazi Aleksandras Lileikis is mentally fit enough to follow legal proceedings against him, clearing the way for his trial in absentia to go forward.
Lileikis, 92, has been indicted on genocide charges for allegedly handing over scores of Jews to be executed during the 1941-44 German occupation—when he headed the Nazi-backed Vilnius security police.
The panel of doctors told the court that Lileikis, a former U.S. citizen, was physically ailing, but that his mental capacities would allow him to follow proceedings and even testify via short-circuit TV.
Defense lawyer Algimantas Matuiza blasted the finding, claiming the tests on his client were improperly carried out. He said there were moments when Lileikis doesn’t know his own age.
The trial of Lileikis was halted last year when a court ruled he was too ill to participate in his defense. But it was restarted this past April according to a new law permitting war crimes trials to go ahead without the accused present.
After the trial resumed two months ago, judges appointed the medical panel to determine the state of Lileikis’ mental health. By law, defendants being tried in absentia must be able to understand the proceedings against them.
Now that doctors have given the court the green light, the
proceedings could begin before the end of the month.
Jewish groups have criticized the repeated delays of the trial, which first got underway in 1998. They say Lithuanians are trying to avoid confronting their past under Nazi rule, when over 200,000 Lithuanian Jews were massacred.
If convicted, Lileikis would not have to serve any sentences handed down until his health improves, according to the new law. Genocide carries a maximum penalty of life in prison.
Lileikis emigrated to the Boston area in 1955 and worked for a Lithuanian publishing house. He returned to Lithuania in 1996 as a U.S. court was moving to revoke his citizenship.
Lithuania’s parliament has given preliminary approval to a bill that would demand Moscow compensate the Baltic state for five decades of Soviet occupation—a law Russia says could undermine bilateral relations.
The 141-seat Seimas parliament voted 55-2 in favor of the
legislation on June 8; other deputies weren’t present or did not
vote. It faces another vote in the coming weeks and must also be signed by President Valdas Adamkus.
The bill, which has broad public support, was introduced last month by Parliament Speaker Vytautas Landsbergis, a staunch anti-communist and the president during Lithuania’s independence drive from Moscow in the early 90s.
The law would oblige the government to seek money from Russia for repressions and for environmental damage caused during 1940-91 Soviet rule. It says a commission should be set up to decide on an exact sum to request.
No figures are mentioned in the bill, though Lithuanian officials have earlier calculated that Soviet rule cost their country over 100 billion dollars.
Russia has scoffed at the proposed law and said it could harm Lithuanian-Russian relations of it is adopted.
The Red Army occupied the then-independent Baltic states in 1940. The Soviets retook Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia after a 1941-44 Nazi occupation. They only regained independence after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.
The Russian government has long argued that it is not responsible for the actions of the Soviet Union. The Kremlin also has not acknowledged that the 1940s takeover of the Baltics was illegal, arguing that they joined the USSR voluntarily.
The Baltic states on June 6 formally switched on the main station of a joint, pan-Baltic radar system. Baltic officials say the system will help their bids to join NATO.
The newly opened station, located in central Lithuania, was mostly funded by the United States, which provided some 10 million dollars. Norway trained the officers that run the facility.
The radar base is just one of dozens in an air-surveillance system that will cover all three Baltic states. Baltic official here say the 100-million-dollar network should be completed in four years.
One of the first planes tracked on the newly opened radar carried U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Stobe Talbott, arriving in Tallinn on June 6 for a meeting of U.S and Baltic officials.
The Baltic-wide radar system, dubbed BaltNet, will be used both by Baltic armies and commercial air traffic controllers, who have had to rely on aging, Soviet-built installations.
Despite Russian objections, NATO says the door to the Baltics is open—but that they are not yet ready militarily to join.
NATO cited the lack of an air defense network as one example of Baltic ill-preparedness.
The story of four Estonian men who hid a church bell during the Nazi occupation and then kept it buried for the fifty years of Soviet rule is slated to be made into a major motion picture, the Hollywood-based Crtical Mass Films said in a press release this past week.
The story of the bell was first published in its entirety by CITY PAPER magazine and The Baltics Worldwide two years ago and reportedly played a role in sparking the interest of the Hollywood producers.
“In the tradition of Its a Wonderful Life, the movie tells a heartwarming story of heroism, faith, and God’s Grace,” according to a press release by Critical Mass Films. “It is a great opportunity to share the beauty, spirit, and courageous story of an emerging Estonia.”
(Read the CITY PAPER version of the story, The Bell, here.)
News Highlights from May 28-June 5, 2000
Hopes have been raised in both Latvia and Estonia that their precarious demographic situations may have finally begun to improve now that officials in both countries have announced the first annual increases in the number of births for more than a decade.
In 1999, 19,400 babies were born in Latvia, 990 more than the previous year, officials said this past week. It was the first time Latvia had seen an annual increase in births since 1988; that year, about 42,000 babies were born.
Several weeks earlier, Estonian officials released similar figures. They said 12,545 babies were born in 1999 compared to 12,269 in 1998, or an increase of 276 children. The last time there was a year-on-year rise in births was also in 1988, when some 24,000 babies were born.
Since they regained independence, birth rates in Latvia and Estonia have plummeted—following a pattern in many former Soviet bloc nations. The fall in births has coincided with sharp rises in living costs, with many families deciding they couldn’t afford children. Most prices are at Western levels here, while most families make less than 600 dollars a month.
Despite the encouraging news regarding newborns, deaths continue to far outnumber births in both Latvia and Estonia—so their populations continue to decline. In Latvia in 1999, there were 32,800 deaths, much higher than the number of births, so he population fell by 15,200. While there were over 12,000 births in Estonia in 1999, there were about 18,000 deaths.
Since 1991, the Latvian population has dropped overall from 2.67 million to 2.42 million. During the same period, Estonia’s population has slipped from 1,570,000 to 1,440,000. Some of the decreases were caused by ethnic Russians and military personnel moving back to their Russian homeland after the Baltics regained independence.
Demographics has been a political issue in both Latvia and Estonia. Some leaders have expressed fears about the viability of their countries, economically and culturally, if the population keeps falling. Many say an aging population, with fewer people of working age, will also strain the social welfare system.
Analysts said some of the recent increases in the number of births may be due to rising living standards of some young families in Latvia and Estonia, which have seen tough economic reforms implemented in the 1990s pay off. But they added it was too early to tell if the downward population trends can be reversed.
The United States officially closed its foreign aid mission in Lithuania on May 31 and cut off most aid, saying Lithuania has progressed beyond the point of needing financial help.
Since 1992, Washington has funneled nearly 90 million dollars to Lithuania, mostly to fund free-market and democracy building projects. But the agency charged with implementing U.S. foreign assistance programs, the United States Agency for International Development, said Lithuania’s economy and democratic structures were now strong enough to stand on their own.
While the vast majority of aid money has been cut off, some special projects would continue to get funding, including money to help upgrade safety at Lithuania’s Soviet-built Ignalina nuclear power plant.
Lithuanian officials welcomed the move to cut the bulk of direct U.S. aid, saying it highlighted how far Lithuania had come over the past decade.
Economically, Lithuania has lagged somewhat behind the other two Baltic states. Estonia and Latvia graduated from U.S. aid programs in the late 1990s, also on grounds of their economic progress and sound democracies.
But Lithuania’s post-Soviet recovery has also been impressive. Its economy and state institutions were in tatters when it emerged from 50 years of Soviet communist rule. In 1992, annual inflation soared to more than 1,000 percent and the economy was shrinking by more than 20 percent a year.
But thanks to early reforms, including the slashing of most state subsidies, the privatization of the majority of state firms and the introduction of a new currency, Lithuanian GDP rose to 7 percent and inflation dropped to single digits by 1997.
The 1998 economic crisis in Russia, one of Lithuania’s main export markets, caused 1999 GDP growth to fall to minus 4 percent. But analysts say Lithuania has rebounded relatively well and should see growth of more than 1 percent and inflation of 2.2 percent in 2000.
Finance ministers from the Nordic and Baltic Sea nations met in Tallinn on June 2 to discuss financial reforms, with some Baltic officials saying countries in the region shouldn’t be too hasty about harmonizing tax polices.
Germany has generally advocated faster-paced coordination of tax polices within the 15-member European Union—an organization to which most participants of the Tallinn meeting belong or are striving to join.
But Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania sounded a note of caution about any mandated tax changes. Estonia, in particular, has closely cherished its simplified flat tax system and has lower excise taxes than most EU nations.
Estonian Finance Minister Siim Kallas said harmonization should not lead to more complicated tax structures or higher taxes.
“The problem is that while harmonizing direct taxes, the rule of thumb is that the stabilization of tax rates will occur at the highest levels,” he told his fellow ministers in a speech Friday. “This is no good for any of us.”
But Germany’s representative, State Secretary Cajo Koch-Weser, said EU tax reform seemed to be lagging and better coordination among countries was crucial.
“How we proceed on this will add a lot of credibility to the EU’s general economic importance,” he said at a news conference at the end of the two-day gathering. “We should rather have a sense of urgency than of taking time.”
The Finance Ministers from Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Germany have held annual meetings each year since 1996 to discuss economic and financial reforms in the region.
Many of the discussions were behind closed doors. A final communiqué said talks also touched on how to clamp down on tax evasion and on how some countries were using tax policy to favor domestic industries.
News Highlights from May 21-May 29, 2000
Lithuania says relations with neighboring Belarus could be harmed after an ex-Soviet general accused of killing Lithuanian demonstrators in 1991 became Belarus’s deputy defense minister.
Vladimir Uschopchik, appointed during the week to the post, has already been indicted by Lithuanian prosecutors for organizing the attack on independence protestors at a Vilnius TV tower on Jan. 13, 1991.
Soviet troops and tanks that day waded into a crowd in the early morning hours killing 14 people and injuring hundreds of others. Several victims, including a teenage girl, were crushed under tank treads and others were shot.
The event further emboldened the Lithuanians at the time in their demands for independence from Moscow, which the Baltic state secured eight months later. The massacre is marked each year in nationwide ceremonies.
Since regaining independence, Lithuania has sought to arrest and prosecute those involved in the 1991 crackdown.
While several former Lithuanian Communist Party officials have been convicted for backing the crackdown, no soldiers have been. Many are living in Russia and Belarus, both of which have refused to extradite suspects to Lithuania.
Lithuania has also sought the extradition of the 54-year-old Uschopchik, when he lived in Russia and more recently when he took up residence in Belarus. Both countries refused to hand him over.
(For a detailed account of the 1991 attack on the Vilnius TV tower, see Crackdown, on this site.)
Baltic officials say their energy sectors are gearing up for radical changes, which they said could include the emergence of a common electricity market and possible cross-border mergers of utilities.
They said the goal was to create more efficient energy utilities as the three Baltic states head towards membership in the European Union, where they would have to face stiff competition from Western power suppliers.
“We feel there is strong economic rationale for these steps we’re taking,” said Maria Alajoe, spokeswoman for Estonia’s Economics Ministry.
Baltic governments said this week they want to create a common market where electricity can be freely traded in this region of 8 million people. They said they were aiming to sign an agreement on a common energy market as soon as 2001.
Estonia and Latvia also stunned observers by announcing they were signing a protocol of intent that could lead to the merger of their giant energy utilities. The letter was signed by officials on May 26.
While there’s less unanimity about mergers, officials in all nations argue passionately in favor of a common, deregulated energy market, saying it would foster competition and create more economically sound utilities.
They said it would also demonstrate the Baltics are ready for EU membership—which has been a No. 1 foreign policy goal since they regained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. The EU has made the competitiveness of such companies a criteria for membership.
Baltic officials add that creating a common Baltic market would also be a first step towards entering a common Nordic energy market, which some officials say could happen within 10-15 years.
Once the Baltic energy market is deregulated, consumers—at first just large companies that use high volumes of electricity—could choose a supplier from anywhere in region.
In arguing for a possible merger of Estonia’s Eesti Energia and Latvia’s Latvenergo, Estonians and Latvians have also emphasized improved efficiency and competitiveness.
They said a merger would mean savings through shared investments and would, in the long run, help stabilize energy prices.
But some analysts remain skeptical, saying any merger would forestall much needed privatization and breakups of the giant utilities; critics say the result could be less, not more competition and that energy prices would rise sharply.
When it comes to mergers, Lithuania has also been less than enthusiastic.
Lithuania’s energy giant, Lietuvos Energija, complained that it was not informed about merger talks between its Latvian and Estonian counterparts.
But while suggesting the Estonians and Latvians should have had the courtesy of informing Lithuania about what they were up to, Lietuvos Energija said it wasn’t worried about competition from any Estonian-Latvian conglomerate.
Estonian police announced on May 26 that they have arrested three suspects in connection with last week’s bombing of a popular department store that slightly injured four people.
Security police spokesman Hannes Kont said two men and a woman were detained earlier this week for setting off the explosions—which he said appeared to be an attempt at extort many from the Finnish-owned Stockmann department store.
Two of the suspects, all in their twenties and residents of Estonia, have been charged and the third should also be charged within several days, he said. If convicted of the bombing, they face a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.
Two bombs, which exploded in the food section of the Stockmann store last Friday, had little explosive power, but were technically advanced and were apparently set off by a call from a mobile phone, Kont said.
The first bomb went off at 4:45 a.m. after a man phoned security officials threatening to set off a bomb unless he received 2 million kroons, about 120,000 dollars.
Private security guards were the only people in the store then and nobody was injured, but a second bomb exploded about six hours later, after the store had opened—slightly injuring three adults and a small child.
After the second blast, police evacuated the five-story building and closed it for the day. Explosive experts searched for other bombs, but found none.
Hannes Kont wouldn’t reveal details of the investigation, but he said officials were surprised themselves at how quickly the crime
appeared to be solved.
“This is a good result, considering the bomb threat was from an anonymous call and that this was all we had to go on,” he said.
Stockmann is the leading department store in Finland. The store in the Estonian capital, which opened in 1993, is its second-largest after the flagship store in Helsinki.
Since last week’s bombing, security at the store has been stepped up. Private security guards now check customer’s bags as they enter.
News Highlights from May 15-May 22, 2000
Ex-Soviet bloc nations, including the Baltic states, have recovered faster than expected from recent economic turmoil. But countries like Russia that have left key reforms undone remain vulnerable, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) said in its annual transition report released on May 20.
“Last year, the mood about the region was not very good,” EBRD economist Ricardo Lago told journalists. “This year I am glad to have a note of optimism. It’s surprising how quickly and strongly the region has rebounded.”
Growth in many countries across the region fell sharply following financial collapse in Russia in August, 1998, and amid instability in markets in the Far East and lukewarm economic performance in Western Europe.
But positive growth is expected in all 29 former Soviet-bloc nations this year, according to the report—released during the EBRD’s annual conference that was held over the weekend in Riga.
Combined, growth for the entire region should reach 3.6 percent in 2000, up from 2.4 percent in 1999 and minus 1.1 percent in 1998; Estonian growth should rise from minus 1.4 percent in 1999 to 4 percent in 2000; over the same period, Latvia growth was expected to go up from .1 percent to 3 percent, and Lithuania’s from minus 4 percent to 1 percent, the report said.
The EBRD said a semblance of economic stability in Russia, an improvement in Western European economies and the reopening of trade routes in southeastern Europe following the Kosovo conflict were factors contributing to the recovery.
But the report warned the region still faced risks, especially in Russia and most former Soviet republics; Eastern Europe, including the Baltic states, were on much firmer economic footing, the EBRD said.
Russian gross domestic product growth would reach 4 percent in 2000, up from 3.2 percent last year and minus 4.6 percent in 1998; Turkmenistan would register 16 percent growth for this year, the highest growth rate of nations surveyed.
But in Russia, Turkmenistan and many other resource-rich former Soviet republics, growth was spurred in large part by steep rises in commodity prices, especially of oil—masking a lack of fundamental reforms.
The EBRD said that long-term growth in these countries could only be sustained by deepening reforms, improving tax collection, making economic policy more predictable and in general strengthening the investment climate.
Lago, the EBRD economist, told a news conference he was hopeful new Russian President Vladimir Putin would begin pushing through long-overdue reforms.
“We see the potential for prosperous development in the future,” he said. “We believe Russia is fundamentally wealthy not only in natural resources, but also in human capital.”
The report contrasted tentative to nonexistent reforms in Russia with the economies of most eastern European countries and the Baltic states, whose recoveries, it said, have been underpinned by sound fiscal policies.
The Baltic states, which were particularly hard hit by the Russian crisis because of close trade links with their eastern neighbor, also clawed their way back to positive growth on the basis of solid market policies, the report said.
Other eastern European countries, like Hungary and Poland, weren’t as exposed to Russia and, by slightly adapting economic policy, were able to come through the last two years relatively unscathed, the EBRD said.
The report said the prospect of European Union membership, which eastern European nations and the Baltic states are vying for, had also imposed a healthy discipline on policy makers.
“In central and eastern Europe, the eyes are on the prize,” Lago said.
If you were in Riga to attend a big conference during the past week you would have wanted to carefully read the signs on the various halls and auditoriums around the city. That’s because the title of at least two major conferences held simultaneously started with an “e”—but one was the annual conference of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the other was the international Erotica Festival.
Some 3,000 European bankers and government officials gathered in the Latvian capital for the EBRD conference to assess and discuss the intricacies of economies in the 29 countries of the former Soviet bloc. Latvians widely saw the high-level gathering as the most important and prestigious held in the country since the Soviet collapse.
But the long list of less-than-riveting seminars, on such topics as Developing Laws to Facilitate Enterprise Restructuring, apparently drove at least some of the EBRD conference attendees to the other gathering a kilometer or so away, according to various news reports.
The Erotica Festival featured various strip dancers displaying their art and displayed various sexual aides and gadgets in booths around the Riga conference center. Observed the AFP news agency: “Transparency takes on a completely different meaning at the lingerie show at the Erotica Festival.”
Finnish President Tarja Halonen on May 17 assured the Baltic states the European Union wasn’t losing its enthusiasm for expansion as some fear, though she warned the process was complicated and challenging.
“It’s not true that the EU has lost its enthusiasm,” Halonen told a news conference at the end of a two-day state visit to Estonia. “But we have become more realistic. Expansion isn’t just a question of enthusiasm and good will.”
Finland, which held the six-month EU presidency until the end of 1999, has strongly backed membership for the three Baltic states.
Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Slovenia and Cyprus began formal membership talks two years ago. Bulgaria, Romania, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia and Malta began entry negotiations on Feb. 15.
Some negotiators in the first group worry their entry could be delayed because the EU may not have the administrative capacity to handle talks with so many candidates at once. Others say the EU has lost interest in expansion.
While she dismissed such fears, President Halonen agreed more was demanded of applicants now than during earlier expansion periods, in ’70s and ’80s, when countries like Ireland, Spain and Portugal entered the EU.
“Every wave of new members must adopt, all at once, a bigger and bigger volume of new legislation, and accommodate themselves to more and more arrangements,” she said in a Tuesday speech.
She added that the current 15 member-states had good reason to want to ensure all candidate nations pass and implement the membership requirements, from imposing certain tariffs on non-EU countries to improving food safety.
“The (European) Union is like a chain that is only as strong as its weakest link,” she said. “No one wants to jeopardize what integration has achieved by pressing on too hastily with enlargement.”
Since independence after the 1991 Soviet collapse, the Baltic states have made EU membership a top priority. Estonia says it’s shooting for a 2003 entry date; Latvia and Lithuania say they’re setting 2005 or 2006 as their target.
By winning EU membership, the Baltic countries hope to tap into lucrative markets and enhance national security. Estonian President Meri has said the EU as a whole would also be more stable and secure by admitting nations like his.
“It’s not just Estonia which needs Europe, it’s also Europe that needs Estonia,” he said, flanking the Finnish president at Wednesday’s new conference.
News Highlights from May 8-May 15, 2000
Parliament Speaker Vytautas Landsbergis has drafted legislation calling on Moscow to compensate Lithuania for five decades of occupation by the Soviet Union, his office announced on May 8.
The draft law would oblige the government to seek money from Russia for repressions and for environmental damage caused during 1940-91 Soviet rule. It says a commission should be set up to decide on an exact sum to ask for.
Landsbergis, chairman of the ruling Conservatives and a former president, has broached the issue before. A national referendum passed in 1992 also called on Russia to make restitution payments.
Russia has scoffed in the past at the idea, saying it is not responsible for the actions of the Soviet Union. The Kremlin also hasn’t even acknowledged that the takeover of the Baltics in 1940 was illegal.
The Red Army occupied the then-independent Baltic states in 1940. The Soviets retook them after a 1941-44 Nazi occupation. The Baltics only regained independence after the 1991 Soviet collapse.
In the 1940s, Stalinist forces arrested and deported hundreds of thousands of Balts. The Soviets also established thousands of army bases; Lithuanians say environmental damage caused by the military runs into the billions of dollars.
The draft law says Lithuania’s government should also ask Russia to pay into a special fund that would assist Lithuanians who were exiled during Soviet rule to Siberia, but who now can’t afford the costs of returning to their homeland.
Some critics said the proposal by Landsbergis comes at an awkward time in Lithuanian-Russian relations—just a month before Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus is slated to leave on a rare state visit to Russia.
(Also, see the latest edition of CITY PAPER, No. 46 May/June, for an exclusive interview with Vytautas Landsbergis)
The Latvian and Estonian entries came in third and fourth on May 13 at the annual Eurovision song contest, considered by some to be one of the pop culture highlights of the year in Europe.
The event, which took place this year in Stockholm, was won by Denmark. The second place finisher was Russia.
While many regard Eurovision as the height of kitsch and a celebration of mediocre pop music, it is widely watched by Europeans. Over 100 million people tuned in this year to watch it on TV.
The Baltic states also follow the contest closely, considering it a rare opportunity to be in the limelight and to increase the name recognition of their countries.
This was the first year Latvia participated in the event. It’s entry, “My Star” by the band Brain Storm, drew attention by playing a song more reminiscent of progressive rock—bucking the Eurovision trend towards middle-of-the-road, maudlin love ballads.
Estonia’s Britney Spears lookalike, 18-year-old Ines, was one of the pre-contest favorites with “Once in a Lifetime,” a more typical Eurovision song but with above-average style.
Estonian TV fretted about the possibility of winning, saying it would have been hard-pressed to raise the money required to stage the contests the following year—which winning nations are required to do. Estonian TV’s annual budget is just 10 million dollars, roughly the amount of money needed to put on the event.
(You can hear the Latvian and Estonian entries at the Eurovision website, www.eurosong2000.com)
Estonian officials on May 15 announced the first annual increase in the number of births for more than a decade, raising hopes the country’s precarious demographic situation may have finally begun to improve.
“We’ve only seen fewer and fewer births over recent the years, so this rise in the birth rate, at last, is good news,” said Anne Herm of the Estonian Department of Statistics.
In 1999, 12,545 babies were born compared to 12,269 in 1998, or an increase of 276 children, she said. The last time there was a year-on-year rise in births was in 1988; that year, some 24,000 babies were born.
Since Estonia regained independence, the birth rate has dramatically plummeted—following a pattern in many former Soviet bloc nations in transition to market economies.
The fall in births has coincided with sharp rises in living costs, with many families deciding they couldn’t afford children. Most prices are at Western levels, while most families make less than 600 dollars a month.
In Estonia, as in other ex-communist states, there are also more deaths each year than births—leading to drastic population decreases. While there were over 12,000 births in Estonia in 1999, there were still far more deaths, about 18,000.
Estonia’s population dropped from 1,570,000 million in 1991 to 1,440,000 by this year, the statistics department said. Some of that decrease was caused by ethnic Russians moving back to Russia immediately after Estonian independence.
Demographics has been a major national issue. In elections last year, winning ruling parties said making it easier for families to have children, including by providing them with tax breaks, would be a top government priority.
Some leaders have expressed fear about the country’s viability, economically and culturally, if the population keeps falling. They said an aging population with fewer people of working age would also strain the social welfare system.
While the negative growth has slowed slightly, from minus .6 percent in 1998 to minus .4 percent in 1999, Herm, of the statistics office, said it was too early to tell if Estonia will see positive population growth in the near future.
“It’s probably too early to tell if the trend toward a falling population can be reversed,” she said. “We certainly hope the rise in the birth rate continues, but it will take time to see if that happens.”
She said some of the recent increases in the number of births may be due to rising living standards of some young families in Estonia, which has started to see tough economic reforms implemented in the early 1990s pay off.
Latvia has faced a similarly serious demographic situation.
