The Weekly Crier (2000/09)

News Highlights from September 4-September 11, 2000

During a swing through the Baltic region, China’s parliamentary speaker dramatically cut short his visit to Lithuania after taking offense at a Vilnius conference devoted to communist atrocities.
Li Peng arrived on September 5 in Lithuania, where he was slated to stay for two days. But he ended up limiting his visit to the Vilnius airport and flying on to neighboring Belarus after just two hours.
The second meeting of the International Congress on the Evaluation of Communism, co-sponsored by the ruling Conservatives, got under way the day before Li arrived and continued throughout the week; it included a mock trial of atrocities committed by the Soviet Union, China and other communist states in the 20th century.
One of the conference’s main backers was Parliament Speaker Vytautas Landsbergis, a Conservative leader who has spoken out against China’s occupation of Tibet and called for world communist leaders who killed or jailed opponents to be tried.
Ironically it was Landsbergis who invited Li to visit Lithuania when the Lithuanian leader was in China last year. Landsbergis met Li briefly at the airport before the Chinese delegation left the country.
Opposition parties blasted the Conservatives for what was widely seen as a diplomatic fiasco, saying the clumsy scheduling of the conference and Li’s visit could cost Lithuania millions in potential Chinese investment.
Li, China’s No. 2 leader, flew on to Latvia and Estonia later in the week and spent several days in both countries. China has reportedly eyed Latvian and Estonian ports for shipping its exports to the European Union.
Latvia’s and Estonia’s well-developed ports are linked to China some 4,000 kilometers away by a rail network crossing through Russia. By rerouting some of its European trade through Russia and Baltic ports, China has said it could save on transit costs.
China currently accounts for less than 1 percent of Latvia’s and Estonia’s total trade, but experts say that figure could soar if the two countries can successfully woo Chinese business.

Far-left Russian community leaders in Latvia have called on local Russians to launch a campaign of low-level civil disobedience to protest new language rules they say are discriminatory.
Russians have been asked not to comply with requirements that they file applications to state offices only in Latvian. Russian-speaking officials were also urged not to follow new rules that mandate Latvian be used in all state-funded public events.
The rules, approved by the government last month to supplement a national language law, are aimed at bolstering the status native Latvian, which suffered under five decades of Soviet Russian rule.
The new regulations require that state-employed doctors, lawyers and top civil servants speak Latvian fluently. State workers in less critical jobs, such as bus drivers, must meet lower levels of Latvian proficiency.
The rules, which came into force on Sept. 1, don’t apply to the private sector, except where public health or safety are at stake. Information about fire exits at private businesses, for instance, must be in Latvian.
Those affected are mostly ethnic Russians who immigrated here during Soviet rule, when both Latvian and Russian were commonly used by government offices. Most Russians can’t speak Latvian or speak it poorly, so they would have to seek help in applying for permits or requesting information from government offices.
The calls for civil disobedience have also come from For Equal Rights, a far-left, mostly Russian party with 16 seats in the 100-seat Saeima legislature.
The government urged residents not to heed the protest appeal, saying it could unnecessarily split society.
Moderate Russian leaders also criticized the civil-disobedience plans, saying they were an overreaction to a basically fair and much-moderated law.
Europe’s human rights watchdog, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, said the week before that the new rules largely complied with international norms.

Investigators of the Estonia ferry accident, which killed 852 people in 1994, said after studying new film footage of the wreck on September 5 that they saw nothing that might warrant opening a fresh investigation.
“I can say there are no new facts requiring a new investigation. None at all,” said Kari Lehtola, a Finnish member of the tri-nation commission that investigated the maritime disaster, Europe’s worst since World War II.
A 1997 report by the Estonian-Finnish-Swedish commission blamed faulty locks on the 50-ton bow door and a slow-to-react crew for the shipwreck, though conspiracy theories, including that a bomb exploded on board, have been rife.
The four other investigators who also screened a half-hour excerpt of the film, taken by a privately funded diving expedition last week, all agreed nothing new was revealed, according to Finnish investigator, Tuomo Karppinen.
The film was shot by a diving team led by 71-year-old American businessman Gregg Bemis Jr, whose most sensational claim after ending his mission was that he may have found a hole in the hull, possibly indicating a blast sank the ship.
The private screening of the film in Tallinn was the first time investigators from the now disbanded commission closely scrutinized longer segments of the film.
The investigators, who watched footage that Bemis said could be of a hole, scoffed at the claim. Lehtola and Karppinen said the alleged hole was most likely just a shadow projected by a bright camera light behind a sand deposit.
“Before Mr. Bemis went down, he said he’d show the world an
explosion hole. So what’s he showing us now? Footage of a sandbed and a shadow. That’s his hole!” said Karppinen, who added he was exasperated by the American’s claims.
Estonian state television paid 2,000 dollars for two-and-half hours of raw film footage, edited versions of which were aired on September 6.
In the program, an elongated black spot on the hull, just below a large sand deposit, was visible and there appeared to be some sort of rusted-away indent. But it wasn’t clearly a hole.
Bemis also said his divers filmed six bodies around the ferry, which appeared to contradict the commission’s report that no victims were seen outside the ship by its own film crews weeks after the ferry sank.
But Karppinen said the focus of the official investigation was never to find corpses, but to identify causes of the accident. He estimated 50 bodies could be outside of the ship, including people trapped on deck and sucked down when the ship sank.
“From the point of view of the accident investigation, there’s nothing significant in whether there are bodies outside the ship,” he said. “True, we didn’t find any, but we weren’t looking for them.”

Ruling Conservatives face the prospect of a crushing defeat in October 8 parliamentary elections, according to an opinion poll published on September 9 in the Lietuvos Zinios daily.
Just 5 percent of Lithuanians interviewed by the Baltijos Tyrimai agency said they would cast ballots for the Conservatives, widely blamed for rising unemployment and deep spending cuts.
The Social Democratic coalition garnered the most support, with 14 percent of respondents saying they’d vote for the left-wing bloc, led by former President Algirdas Brazauskas.
Close behind was the center-left New Union, headed by former prosecutor Arturas Paulauskas, with 13 percent; the centrist Center Union and the center-right Liberal Union both drew around 8 percent support.
Some 25 percent were undecided and 13 percent said they wouldn’t vote.
The New Union, Center Union and Liberal Union have already said they would join forces to form a government if they win a combined majority in the 141-seat Seimas legislature. They ruled out any cooperation with the Social Democrats.
Most analysts say this trilateral centrist alliance has by far the best chance of forming the next government.
The current government’s popularity plummeted as unemployment rose this year to a post-Soviet high of 11 percent. Conservative leaders, in power since 1996, have imposed austerity measures to rein in a yawning national budget deficit.
Lithuania slipped into recession following the 1998 financial crisis in neighboring Russia, one of the nation’s largest export markets. Analysts say the Baltic state should see positive growth of at least 1 percent this year.

Commentary—David Sepp, sepp_david@hotmail.com. Lithuanians have yet again demonstrated that they are either extraordinarily brave or extraordinarily scatter-brained. The Conservative-led government, I understand from your reports, invited China’s Parliamentary Speaker Li Peng to Lithuania for an official visit and then went through what one imagines was the agonizingly difficult effort to organize it and iron out all the necessary protocol.
Meanwhile, some of the same busy bodies running around preparing for Li’s stay (i.e Vytautas Landsbergis) were simultaneously organizing a major anti-communist gathering that includes, amazingly, a mock trial of communist crimes (i.e.Vytautas Landsbergis). And who were among the communist leaders in the dock at this high-minded mock trial? Li Peng himself, for his starring role in the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.
It all leaves one awestruck. On one hand, who doesn’t think the Chinese deserve to get kicked in the behind as hard and as frequently as possible for all the misery and death they’ve inflicted on their hapless subjects, like the Tibetans. On the other hand, if the Lithuanians were as hungry for Chinese trade and investment as they insisted they were, did they really not know this was a sure-fire way to kiss better business links with China goodbye? Surely they did know. Surely this was all merely an ingenious trap laid by the upstanding Lithuanians for these no-good human rights abusers, to let them and the rest of the world know that, in Lithuania by God!, principle comes before business. It couldn’t be that the Lithuanians didn’t know what they were in for, that they are so out of touch that the consequences never occurred them. Say it ain’t so.

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News Highlights from August 28-September 4, 2000

In a major diplomatic spat, Estonia moved to expel two Russian diplomats accused of spying, prompting Russia to retaliate by ousting two Estonian diplomats, officials in both countries said on August 31.
The two Russian diplomats were given 48 hours to leave Estonia, though Estonian officials declined to offer names or other details, including when the notice was given or when the expulsion was carried out.
Local media reports, citing unnamed intelligence officials, gave the names of the Russian diplomats as Vladimir Telegin and Juri Radtshenko, employees at Russia’s embassy in Tallinn.
The Postimees newspaper said that the two diplomats were attempting to gather classified information about Estonia’s border defenses.
Russia’s foreign ministry said in a statement that the Estonian ambassador in Moscow was called in and told that two Estonians were being expelled in response.
Moscow denied its diplomats were spies.
“This is a matter of deliberate provocation, which inflicts serious damage to Russian-Estonian relations,” the Russian statement said. “We regret that the positive tendency in bilateral relations that has been observed recently has been sacrificed to the ambitions of the Estonian intelligence service.”
All top Estonian officials refused to speak to journalists about the incident, saying only that the country never comments about intelligence matters.
But Trivimi Velliste, a deputy from the ruling coalition and a former foreign minister, said he didn’t believe the affair would dramatically affect bilateral relations.
“These kinds of things happen from time to time between countries,” he said. “Relations shouldn’t suffer if there’s no will to use these incidents to downgrade them. I don’t think there is.”
Relations between Russia, Estonia and Baltic neighbors Latvia and Lithuania have occasionally been tense since they regained independence, and spying allegations have increased.
In June, Russia accused a Lithuanian of trying to hack into secret Russian computer networks. In March, Moscow said a Russian citizen charged with spying for Britain was recruited with the help of Estonian intelligence agents.
Last year, Russia accused Estonian resident Pyotr Kalachyov of spying near a Russian army base near the Estonian border and expelled him.
Estonian intelligence chief Eerik Kross denied the allegations at the time. He said Estonia didn’t spy on Russia and could get all the information it needed to monitor developments in Russia from public sources, including the Internet.

Government and Olympic officials say they are offering cash bonus to athletes who bring home medals from this month’s Sydney Olympic Games.
Latvia will pay 165,000 dollars, 83,000 dollars and 50,000 dollars for gold, silver and bronze respectively, while Lithuania will pay 100,000 dollars, 50,000 dollars and 40,000 dollars.
Estonia’s prize money is being put up by its national Olympic committee, which said it will hand over 65,000 dollars for gold, 45,000 for silver and 30,000 for bronze.
Estonian government officials said they’d decide after the Games whether to supplement the prize money, especially if their Olympians performed better than expected and the national committee suddenly found itself strapped for cash.
Winning too many medals and having to give away too much prize money hasn’t recently been a problem faced by the three nations, which only rejoined the Olympics in 1992, a year after their occupation by the Soviet Union ended.
Between them, the three small countries won fewer than five medals in the last two Summer Olympics combined, including two bronze medals for Lithuania’s basketball team and a gold medal for Estonian cyclist Erika Salumae.
Baltic athletes won a relatively large number of medals when they participated in the Games as independent nations in the 1920s and ’30s, and then again when they were forced to don Soviet uniforms during five decades of rule by Moscow.
All three Baltics hope to win at least one medal each at this year’s Games.
Decathlete Erki Nool, fencer Kaido Kaaberma and judo star Indrek Pertelson are Estonia’s best hopes, while Lithuania’s looking for medals from discus thrower Virgilijus Alekna, rower Birute Sakickiene and cyclists Diana Ziliute and Edita Pucinskaite. Lithuania also hopes to do well in the basketball competition, though its chances to medal lessened when star center Arvydas Sabonis decided he wouldn’t play because of a foot injury.
Latvian cyclist Ainars Kiksis and weightlifter Viktors Serbatihs are thought to have outside chances of winning medals

Chinese Parliamentary Speaker Li Peng will cut short a visit to Lithuania because of a communist crimes conference taking place at the same time in the Baltic state, media reported on September 2.
Li was to spend two days in Lithuania starting September 4, but will now stay for just a few hours because of Chinese anger over the conference, which is cosponsored by the ruling Conservatives.
The gathering, dubbed the International Congress on the Evaluation of Communism, will include a mock trial of atrocities committed by the Soviet Union, China and other communist states last century.
One of the main organizers of the conference is Li Peng’s Lithuanian counterpart and expected host, Parliament Speaker Vytautas Landsbergis, a fiery anti-communist who has spoken out forcefully in the past against China’s occupation of Tibet.
It was Landsbergis who invited Li to visit Lithuania to discuss bilateral relations and investment opportunities when the Lithuanian leader was on a visit to China last year.
At the first session of the conference in June, Landsbergis said communists who killed or deported opponents should be tried before an international court of justice in the same way Nazis were after World War II.
Lithuania’s reformed communist Democratic Labor Party has also blasted the conference’s mock trial of communism, saying it is a populist ploy by Conservatives to draw electoral support in October parliamentary elections.
Since regaining independence, Lithuania, more than almost any other post-communist state, has endeavored to address the legacy of totalitarian rule, including by passing laws placing job restrictions on former agents of the Soviet secret police, the KGB.

Some 80 percent of Estonians polled said they don’t believe official conclusions about why the ferry Estonia sank six years ago this month in one of Europe’s worst maritime disasters, local media reported on September 2.
Investigators said the Sept. 28, 1994 tragedy, which killed 852, occurred when fierce waves broke badly made locks in the bow door, causing it to fall off and for water to flood the ship. They also said the crew reacted too slowly.
Critics said the investigation was sloppy and conspiracy theories, including that a bomb blast may have crippled the vessel, have abounded. Some relatives of the mostly Swedish and Estonian victims have called for a new investigation.
Of 400 Estonians questioned by ES Market Research, 78 percent said they didn’t accept the 1997 findings of official Estonian, Finnish and Swedish investigators, reported the Eesti Paevaleht daily, which ordered the survey.
Sixty-seven percent also said they backed last week’s controversial dive of American Gregg Bemis to the Baltic Sea site of the shipwrecked ferry, which area governments opposed as a desecration of an officially declared gravesite.
The poll, which had a margin of error of 4 percent, was conducted just before the dives got underway. Bemis said on September 1 that he may have found a previously undiscovered hole in the ship’s hull, though he said it required further study.
In an editorial, Eesti Paevaleht said Swedes were more likely to believe the official conclusion, though it didn’t cite poll results. It said Estonia’s past under Soviet totalitarian rule made it more skeptical of official findings.
Jaan Metsaveer, one of the investigators, adamantly defended the official explanation, arguing that laymen sought simplistic answers because they couldn’t understand the technical accounts in the commission’s lengthy final report.
“It was a document that was written for experts, not for the general public,” he was quoted as saying. He said some relatively minor details about the accident remain unknown, but that the general conclusions still stood.
Estonia’s government also dismissed suggestions that the dives led by Gregg Bemis last week may have made significant enough discoveries to justify a new investigation.
“From the government’s point of view, we’ve seen nothing new,” government spokesman Priit Poiklik said. “We don’t believe a new investigation is warranted.”
Ander Paeorg, who lost his wife on the Estonia and opposed the diving expedition, said Bemis got the hopes of relatives up that he would find something new during his expedition.
“I feel sorry for those people because they were promised new answers. But I don’t believe there will be any new answers,” he said. “Those people will fell badly let down.”

Estonia’s economy grew 7.5 percent the second quarter of 2000 compared to the same period last year, more proof Estonia is back on the road to strong growth after a lackluster 1999, officials said on September 1.
The economy last year slipped into a recession triggered by 1998 financial turmoil in neighboring Russia; in the second quarter of 1999 it shrank by 2 percent and, for the year overall, contracted by 1 percent.
The first sign of positive growth after the collapse of Russia’s
market, one of Estonia’s largest, came in the last quarter of 1999. Four percent growth that quarter was followed by 5.2 percent growth in the first three months of 2000.
Buoyed by strong exports to Western markets and increasing consumer demand, analysts say the economy has performed better than expected and that annual gross domestic product growth for 2000 should be a respectable 4-6 percent.
“These latest growth numbers are encouraging. The economy’s livening up,” Daniel Vaarik, spokesman for Estonia’s Finance Ministry, said.
But he warned Estonia had to maintain fiscal discipline to ensure
economic stability and sustainable growth. He said the center-right
government expected to balance the national budget in 2001, though more spending cuts may be needed.

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News Highlights from August 21-August 28, 2000

An American-led diving team began a controversial search on August 22 of the shipwrecked MS Estonia, which sank en route from Tallinn to Stockholm six years ago in one of Europe’s worst ever maritime disasters.
The privately funded expedition was meant to find new clues about the accident, but regional governments, especially Sweden’s, condemned the dives as a desecration of an officially designated gravesite where 852 died and some 750 bodies remain entombed.
Many victims’ relatives, however, say they back the dive as a way to answer questions still haunting them about exactly why the huge luxury ferry sank in stormy seas on Sept. 28, 1994.
Ulo Veide, a 62-year-old Estonian whose twin daughters died on the Estonia, said he is closely monitoring the expedition. He said he’s been waiting for such a mission for five years.
“They speak about disturbing the peace of the dead. But what about the peace of the living?” he asked. “We deserve answers to why our children died. It’s about time there was an expedition like this.”
With Swedish and Finnish coast guard ships looking on, American-led divers began inspecting the ferry Tuesday and were expected to continue for at least a week.
Finland, Sweden, Estonia, Denmark, Lithuania, Russia and Britain have declared the site an off-limits sanctuary. But they can’t arrest the divers because the wreckage is in international waters.
Gregg Bemis, an American millionaire leading the dives, dismissed official appeals to abandoned the mission, saying he’s determined to find new information about why the Estonia went down or confirm official versions of events once and for all.
Veide and other relatives enthusiastically welcome the effort, saying they doubt official conclusions that poorly made bow door locks on the Estonia broke, causing the 50-ton door to crash into the sea and allowing water to rush onto the car deck.
Veide, whose 24-year-old daughters Hannely and Hanka-Hannika were at their first day of work on the ferry, suggests a bomb or collision with a submarine might have sunk the ferry—persistent theories that investigators dismiss as fantasies.
“We’re very thankful to Mr. Bemis. He’s doing a wonderful thing,” Veide, a metal works director, said.
Others are less complimentary.
Ander Paeorg, whose wife died in the accident, said the dive was unnecessary and only brought bitter memories back to the fore.
Witnesses described scenes of horror on the building-sized Estonia as it sank, with sea-water swirling up stairwells and slot machines and tables crushing people as they slid across restaurants and dance floors.
“I see my wife in the eyes of my son every day, so of course I can’t forget,” said Paeorg. “But I have found a new rhythm in my life, and so these kind of events, these dives, can be very hurtful.”
Paeorg also said he was suspicious about the divers’ motives, saying that vested interests wanted to divert attention away from the bow door locks, which Paeorg said he accepted was the primary cause of the accident.
He said Germany’s Meyer-Werft, which constructed the locks and faces possible legal action, would be particularly pleased if Bemis later claims he found proof an explosion.
Film footage is also being taken of the dives which will later be sold to television stations, prompting critics to ask whether the dive is a for-profit venture.
Others wondered about the competence of the diving team, saying they didn’t appear to have the expertise or equipment to assess what they were seeing.
Official investigators based many of their own findings on 100s of hours of film footage of the Estonia taken within months of the disaster, and they have stood by their conclusions.
Some survivors say they don’t know who to believe.
Risto Ojassaar, one of just 138 people who managed to get out of the ship alive as it rolled over and sank to the bottom of the Baltic Sea in 15 minutes, said he hopes Bemis finds something that would shed light on the most terrifying day of his life.
“But I very much doubt he will,” he said. “I don’t think we will
ever know what really happened.”
(Also on this site see, How it Happened and Risto Ojassaar’s Story, about the sinking of the Estonia.)

A three-man team of Latvian sailors on August 24 guided their makeshift boat across the Gulf of Riga to Estonia—the vessel was kept afloat by none other than 20,000 inflated condoms.
The day-long voyage, sponsored by a Latvian-based condom maker, was a trial run for a possible trip across the Baltic Sea—which would reportedly be the longest condom-powered voyage of its kind.
The Latvians said the condoms held up well against the buffeting wind and waves. Several thousand of them did break en route, but the Latvian vessel was never thought to be in serious danger of going down.
The Latvians said one of the most difficult aspects of the expedition was blowing up the thousand of contraceptives, which took about a week.

After months of bitter controversy and years of hard negotiations, the United States-based NRG Energy signed an agreement on August 25 to buy 49 percent of Estonia’s main power generation plants— in the biggest deal of its kind in Estonian history.
NRG will pay 65 million dollars and 300 million dollars more in investment for the stake, while the government retains a 51 percent share of the two plants, which produce some 95 percent of the nation’s electricity.
The agreement has been highly controversial, inciting some of the most heated political debates in Estonia since it regained independence in 1991.
Opposition parties say the deal will lead to unnecessarily high energy prices and is a sell-out of Estonian sovereignty to foreigners. Other critics say the agreement has been too shrouded in secrecy.
A recent poll by Estonia’s EMOR agency indicated 67 percent of Estonians questioned opposed the sale. Many people have said they don’t understand the complicated, legalistic deal or fear higher energy prices.
The government has emphasized that the deal, which took four years to hammer out, will enhance national security by more closely enmeshing Estonian vital interests with American interests.
Officials have defended it as economically sound, but concede geopolitical factors, and not just economics, were main motivations.
“The government has never said it was an enormously good deal, but it is necessary now and for the future,” said government spokesman Priit Poiklik, who said parliament would not have to approve the deal.
Backers say it will also draw badly needed capital to modernize the rundown, Soviet-built stations, which are powered by oil shale. Without American capital, they say the plants will eventually grind to a halt.
The deal comes as giant energy firms from the United States, Russia and the Nordics vie for a piece of the Baltic energy sector, which is restructuring faster than other areas of the former Soviet bloc.
Last year, in a deal that also faced fierce opposition, Lithuania sold 33 percent of the Mazeikiai Oil refinery to the U.S.-based Williams International for 150 million dollars and 650 million in investment.
All three Baltic states are bidding to join the European Union, which is forcing consolidation and a greater liberalization of their energy markets.
Under heavy pressure from electricity consumers worried about price rises, Latvia’s parliament earlier this month banned the sale of its state-owned national power utilities, Latvenergo.
(Also see, in the current September/October edition of CITY PAPER magazine, an interview with the NRG representative in Estonia, Hillar Lauri.)

Commentary—Janis Stavrovs, jstavrovs@nmcable.com.
The bombing last week in a Latvian shopping center in which one person was killed and more than 30 others were injured was certainly a disturbing event. While it was something little discussed in the international press, certainly many Latvians first cast their eyes to Russia when they heard news of the blasts. It may turn out that Russia or Russian intelligence had nothing to do with the bombing, but one should at least entertain the notion of Russian involvement. It’s a possibility.
Those who remember the early 1990s in the Baltic states, recall the Kremlin using bombings (usually small-scale ones in which no one was injured) as a way to portray the Baltics as being out of control, in chaos and therefore in need of a heavy, steadying hand (the Kremlin). Sure, Russia wouldn’t be trying to justify a crackdown these days. But one could ask: Does or does it not serve Moscow’s purposes to create the impression that Latvia is, at least to some extent, unstable or unsafe. Diplomats and anyone with any contact with Latvia, knows Latvia is no less stable than most Western countries, this bombing being highly untypical. But for the masses in Europe and maybe the United States, these kinds of high-profile incidents only serve to strengthen the argument in some camps that admitting Latvia, and by association, Estonia and Lithuania, into NATO is too darn risky. Fostering such impressions plays right into the hands of the Kremlin, which has said it strongly opposes NATO expansion to the Baltic states.

Reader Commentary—Stewart Johnson.
NRG’s purchase of 49% of Estonia’s shale driven power plants is nothing more than profit-driven, despite claims it will enhance Estonian national security by tying it more closely to Washington. It is highly possible NRG will shut the plants down sooner than expected to force Estonia to purchase electricity from other sources more profitable to them. This possibility is supported by examining U.S. business trends for the past three decades. NRG spokesman Hillar Lauri has all but admitted that the purchase would provide no benefits for Estonia in terms of security and quickened entry into NATO by transferring all responsibility for these security questions to the U.S. embassy. Anyway, does entry into the European Union and other international organizations really require selling off all valuable states assets in Estonia to foreigners? Some 300 million dollars, the amount NRG says it will invest, is not pocket change by US standards, but it is nowhere near the amount that would make the U.S. government so concerned about Estonian security that it might plausibly risk a confrontation with Russia.
Lauri also says that NRG would save and create new jobs in the economically hard-hit Narva area, where the plants are located in the northeast of Estonia. That’s hard to believe. That’s just not how U.S. companies work in this day and age; the emphasis is on streamlining, and this would actually increase the unemployment rate. I feel the NRG-power plants deal is crooked and unfair to Estonia.

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News Highlights from August 14-21, 2000

Powerful city-center bombs killed one and injured at least 34 others in the Latvian capital on August 17—one of the worst incidents of its kind in the Baltic state’s history.
Two bomb blasts came minutes apart at the Centrs shopping center in an area where people check in bags while they shop. The early evening explosions appeared to be professionally planned and designed to injure as many people as possible, coming at peak shopping hours.
A 53-year-old employee at the check-in area became the first fatality, dying four days after the attack. She had fractured her skull as she was thrown violently by the force of the first bomb, said to be the equivalent of a kilogram of dynamite; she also sustained major burns and lacerations over most of her body.
Witnesses described scenes of mayhem as the bomb detonated, cutting through crowds of shoppers and sending people, dazed and bleeding, stumbling onto the street. Others, including shopping officials, rushed to the scene—only to be injured in the second explosion ten minutes after the first.
The five-story shopping center, which features fashion boutiques and specialty stores in the heart of Riga’s Medieval-era old town, is one of Latvia’s most popular and busiest malls. After the explosions, Centrs employees and passersby milled around outside, many in tears or appearing to be in shock.
There were no warnings before the attack, and no one later called to take responsibility for it.
Police said the possibility the bombings were a terrorist act was being seriously considered. They said they could also be related to a business dispute or an attempt at extortion. Others said they couldn’t rule out political motives.
Latvia has seen more than a dozen, mostly minor bombings since regaining independence 1991. But they have often been linked to gangland activity; explosions have usually occurred late at night when streets or stores are empty, and injuries have been rare.
There have been several apparently politically motivated bombings, including in 1998 when a small explosive went off across the street from Russia’s embassy. Many Latvians said such attacks were designed to give the appearance of instability in the country and some observers at the time even pointed the finger at Russian intelligence.
Police said the explosive materials used in Thursday’s shopping center attack may have included hexogen, a nuclear missile propellant that Russian police said was also the explosive used in the devastating apartment bombings in Moscow last September.
Riga police said they hoped that security cameras in the Centrs building might have picked up pictures of those who carried out the bombing, though some of the monitoring systems were badly damaged by the explosion.
A drawing of one possible suspect—a man of about 40, with dark hair and blue eyes—was put together from witness interviews. Police said he left bags at the check in area and left the building before the explosions occurred.
Those badly injured included Knut Kviskvik, general-director of the Norwegian-owned Rimi grocery store, which is located right next to the area where the blasts occurred on the ground floor. He ran to the bag check-in area after the first blast and was injured when the second bomb went off just meters away. He was said to be in serious but stable condition.
Another employee who collected bags also suffered burns over more than 50 percent of her body. She was also said to be in serous but not life-threatening condition.
Thirty-two others suffered less serious burns and cuts caused by flying glass and splinters, and still others reported hearing loss from the sound of the detonations—which shook the ground and rattled the windows of nearby buildings.
Latvian leaders expressed outrage at the attack and vowed that authorities would pursue those responsible and bring them to justice. Among world leaders who sent their official condolences over the attack was Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Reader Commentary—from David Sepp, David_Sepp@hotmail.com.
Recent news that Latvia has banned the privatization of its energy utility, Latvenergo, and that many Estonians are incensed by the sale of its main power plants to Americans goes to show that the pro-West, pro-reform Baltic states also have xenophobic strains. We tend to hear almost exclusively flowery analyses about these whiz kids of post-communist reforms, so one could have gotten the impression the that Baltics don’t have such problems. There’s no doubt the three Baltic countries have come much farther than their hapless neighbors, like Russia and Belarus, which have been walking disaster zones when it comes to reforms. But no one should be surprised that these foreigner-phobic elements also exist in the Baltics, as they exist almost everywhere in the world.
The question is: Are these threads strong and deep enough to do real and lasting damage to the solid pro-market reputations the Baltics generally enjoy? Will it really mean these countries will close in on themselves and keep American and other international investors at arms length for the sake, supposedly, of national pride? I’m guessing the answer is no. And as someone who has followed Baltic economic progress with glee, I’m hoping I’m right.

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News Highlights from August 7-August 14, 2000

Lithuanian officials said on August 7 they were preparing to publicly expose ex-KGB agents and informers who missed a deadline to confess their links with the once-mighty Soviet secret police.
More than 1,400 former KGB collaborators came forward by the deadline, which passed on August 4. But officials said thousands more did not confess as required by law and many of them could have their names made public within the month.
Some official estimates put the total number of former KGB collaborators in Lithuania during Soviet rule, from 1940-1991, as high as 10,000.
According to the KGB law, passed last year, all ex-agents and informers had six months to file detailed confessions. Those who met the deadline will have their names kept on a confidential database.
Anyone about to have their name published will be told in advance and would have a chance to appeal. If the person doesn’t appeal or loses the case, their name would be printed in a state newspaper.
The law supplements earlier legislation banning ex-agents from most public and some private jobs. Informers also had to register, though most job restrictions only apply to former KGB employees.
The law’s supporters say it’s needed to keep tabs on ex-agents and ensure they are never in a position to sabotage national security. Other say it addresses the bitter legacy of KGB human rights abuses.
But critics question the motives behind the law, strongly backed by the ruling Conservatives. Names could be published prior to October national elections, undermining some parties if any of their members are pegged as ex-KGB.

Estonia will soon begin setting up one of the world’s first country-wide gene banks where the detailed genetic codes of two-thirds of the population will be stored, the government said on August 9.
The depository, which will take five years and 200 million dollars to complete, would help scientists link genes to diseases and would enable Estonians to benefit from personalized, gene-specific drugs in the future, officials said.
Scientists believe breakthroughs in the study of genes, which make up the blueprint of how the human body develops, could dramatically improve knowledge of illnesses and open the way for revolutionary new medications.
Estonia (pop. 1.4 million) says its small size makes it easier to collect the large number of gene samples required by researchers. The only other nation that has launched a similar project is Iceland (pop. 270,000).
Estonia’s Cabinet on August 8 approved the project and submitted a bill to parliament limiting access to the gene data to researchers and forbidding access to employers or insurance firms, government spokesman Priit Poiklik said.
The project is expected to get fully underway in 2001, when people will be asked to give blood samples to their family doctors and provide detailed family medical histories.
Surveys found that 90 percent of Estonians were willing to take part, meaning the genes of at least 1 million people would be stored, said Andres Rannamae, head of Estonia’s Genome Foundation which drew up the project details.
Estonians, who say their country hasn’t developed a strong enough industrial base since regaining independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, hope the gene-bank program will also help spur the growth of a dynamic biotechnology sector.
“With other companies that will spring up around this project, the biotech industry here could boom by ten fold in just a few years,” said Rannamae.
At least half of the funding is expected to come from business sources, including firms which would buy rights to access and later profit from Estonia’s storehouse of gene research. Other funds would be provided by the government.
Despite strong privacy rules in the government draft bill, critics warn that that the genetic information, possibly indicating someone is prone to a debilitating illness, could still be leaked to employers or insurance companies.
Others argue that costs of the project are too high and that money would be more effectively spent on improving the nation’s ailing post-Soviet medical system or funding advertising campaigns to stem high alcohol and cigarette use.
“Estonian living and health standards aren’t so high that we can afford such expensive projects as this,” Tiina Tasmuth, a medical
professor in wrote recently in Estonia’s Postimees daily.
But advocates say any costs or potential risks are outweighed by the benefits and by the chance for the country to leave its mark.
“This is a rare chance for Estonia to make scientific history,” Rannamae, of the Genome Foundation, said.

Lithuania’s ruling Conservatives seem destined for a resounding defeat in upcoming parliamentary elections, drawing less than five percent support in a poll released on August 8.
The party’s popularity has waned thanks to a struggling economy, including a jobless rate of over 10 percent. Belt tightening measures by the government and unpopular privatizations have also hurt the Conservatives.
The poll, conducted by the Baltijos Tyrimai agency, said the Conservatives were supported by just 3.6 percent of respondents, meaning the party’s four year-reign is almost certainly coming to an end.
Elections to the 141-seat parliament are slated for October 8. Parties must pass a five percent threshold to win seats in the legislature.
The center-left New Union, which is led by former prosecutor and one-time presidential candidate Arturas Paulaskas, scored best in the poll, drawing 16.5 percent support.
The reformed Communists, the Democratic Labor Party, registered 6.8 percent support, and the Liberal Union, headed by former Prime Minister Rolandas Paksas, received 6.9 percent. The Center Union had 5.5 percent.
There appeared to be room for poll numbers to change in the coming weeks, however, with 19 percent of those polled saying they were still undecided about how to vote. Another 17.8 percent said they didn’t plan on casting ballots at all.
The same poll also indicated that the top four politicians in the country were President Valdas Adamkus, former President Algirdas Brazauskas, Arturas Paulaskas and Rolandas Paksas—in that order.
The two highest-profile leaders of the Conservatives, Prime Minister Andrius Kubulius and Speaker Vytautas Landsbergis, didn’t even make it into the top-twenty list of Lithuania’s most popular politicians.

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News Highlights from July 31 to August 7, 2000

A main motivation behind a recent to decision to sell a stake of Estonia’s power stations to Americans was to boost national security, Estonian Prime Minister Mart Laar wrote in an article published on August 4.
Estonia, which has security concerns vis-a-vis neighboring Russia, agreed to sell a 49 percent stake in the plants to the U.S.-based NRG Energy for 55 million dollars and 361 million more in investment.
Opposition parties blasted the deal, saying it would lead to unnecessarily high energy prices. They also said the sale of the plants, which produce 95 percent of the country’s electricity, would jeopardize Estonian sovereignty.
But writing in Estonia’s Postimees daily, Laar said the controversial deal was not only sound economically, but would enhance national security by more closely enmeshing Estonia’s vital interests with those of the United States.
“The NRG investment will guarantee an American presence here…ensuring that the only superpower in the world will have a continued interest in the stability and fast development of our region,” he wrote.
“Who could be a better advocate (for Estonia) in the U.S. government than a company which seeks a profit in this region,” said Laar, who also criticized the center-left opposition for what he said were displays of disturbing xenophobia in opposing the deal.
He said the price of electricity, which NRG energy will be allowed to raise by over 20 percent, shouldn’t be the only criteria by which to judge the deal.
“The price you pay for security can never be too high,” he said. “It is a price that is assessed in human lives—not kilowatt hours.”
Backers of the agreement say it will also draw badly needed capital to modernize the rundown, Soviet-built stations, which are powered by oil shale. Without American capital, they say the plants will eventually grind to a halt.
The government said a few days earlier that the deal, in which the state would keep a 51 percent share, was virtually sealed and that intense opposition from some parties and business groups would not be able to stop it from going through.
The Minneapolis, Minnesota-based NRG, a world leader in the power generation sector, has not made national security an explicit benefit of selling the utilities to them.
But if the plants fall into disrepair, NRG warned that one of Estonia’s only options would be to turn for electricity to Russia, a nation Estonia has been anxious to distance itself from—including by seeking membership in NATO.

Energy issues also took center stage in Latvia, where parliament on August 3 voted to ban the privatization of Latvia’s state-owned energy utility, the nation’s largest company.
Responding to widespread public sentiment against its sale, the 100-seat Saeima convened a special session in the middle of its summer recess to approve the legislation by a 50-to-22 vote; 21 deputies abstained, and seven were either absent or didn’t vote.
Opposition parties solidly supported the bill, but several pro-government parliamentarians also backed it. The government said it opposed the ban.
Critics of privatizing the utility, called Latvenergo, say it’s the backbone of the economy and so should be kept in state hands.
Successive governments have talked about privatizing Latvenergo. But disputes over sale terms—frequently within the ruling coalitions themselves—have continually thrown the process off track.
Thursday’s vote is a setback for the government, which had earlier said it planned to auction off a 49 percent stake in the utility.
But government officials said the ban wouldn’t preclude the privatization of Latvenergo in the long run. They said they would wait until emotions over the issue subsided before they revisit the issue.
Anti-privatization groups circulated a petition in recent months calling for a referendum on banning the sale of Latvenergo. Some 300,000 people signed the petition—emboldening the opposition to go forward with Thursday’s vote.

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News Highlights July 24-July 31, 2000

Controversy has erupted over the sale of Estonia’s main energy plants to Americans—with opponents of the deal on July 25 attempting to turn up the heat on the government and the U.S investors.
The government last month agreed to sell a 49 percent stake in the two power stations to the Minnesota-based NRG Energy for 55 million dollars and 361 million more in investment to revamp the Soviet-built utilities.
The state-owned Estonian Energy would retain a 51 percent share of the installations, which burn oil shale to produce some 95 percent of Estonia’s electricity.
Negotiators for the government and NRG say they hope they’ll be able to sign a final agreement next month; it would also need to be approved by parliament.
But the NRG deal has angered opposition parties and also many local business leaders who say the desire to cozy up to the United States for national security reasons has led the government to accept unfavorable economic terms.
In one of the largest rallies in Estonia in recent years, some 1500 people denounced the deal outside parliament Tuesday, saying it forfeit Estonian sovereignty. “The government’s sold the state, it’s sold us,” one placard read.
Opposition deputies on July 25 also returned from their summer recess to try to force through a special session of the 101-seat Riigikogu parliament to debate the sale, but they fell four seats short of the 51 necessary for a quorum.
Critics have focused on provisions allowing NRG to raise the price of electricity by some 20 percent over the next few years. Opponents say higher electricity bills will hurt the poor and slash profits of many Estonian firms.
The opposition has launched a campaign against the deal, including ads showing a man sitting in a jail-like room under a
switched-off lightbulb—his hands tied behind his back: “Is this what we wanted?,” the ad text says.
But backers say the sale to NRG is the only sure way to draw
desperately needed capital to modernize the rundown stations and to make the plants, which spew tons of sulfur dioxide into the air daily, more environmentally friendly.
Another decisive benefit, they say, is that the deal will enhance Estonian national security by enmeshing the economic interests of this Baltic state with the United States.
NRG also adamantly defends the sale.
Hillar Lauri, NRG’s representative in Estonia, said that without the capital the Americans were able to scrape together and invest, the aging plants would continue to deteriorate and could eventually grind to a halt.
“These plant are crumbling,” Lauri said, speaking Monday at NRG’s office in Tallinn. “We will be able to guarantee that electricity will be there when needed. There’s no such guarantee today.”
Lauri said local investors have neither the experience to carry out the complicated restructuring nor the access to big capital the project will require.
He also said the price rises envisioned by NRG were moderate and necessary to ensure the plants can reinvest profits into repairs that have been put off since Estonia regained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.
If the plants fall into disrepair, Lauri said one of Estonia’s only options would be to turn for electricity to neighboring Russia, a nation Estonia has been anxious to distance itself from—including by seeking membership in NATO.
“Do you want to depend on Russia? That’s the question. That’s your alternative,” he said.
Andres Tarand, a leader in the three-party ruling coalition and once a skeptic of the NRG deal himself, said he now see that the NRG deal is the best offer on the table.
“Now I believe that the NRG deal is the least of evils,” Tarand was quoted as telling Monday’s Postimees daily. “We don’t have that many choices.”

A leading industrialist, Viru Mine director Gennady Gribovsky, was murdered on July 22 , police reported Monday.
The 60-year-old, who headed the oil-shale mining firm for over 10 years, was shot three times by an unknown assailant outside his apartment in Johvi, 175 kilometers east of Estonia’s capital, Tallinn.
Investigators were looking into the possibility that the killing was family related or linked to illegal business activity, regional police chief Alexander Zhegulov told Eesti Paevaleht.
“He is known to have been involved with some illegal business
activity, but just what that was isn’t yet clear,” Zhegulov was quoted as saying.
A former co-worker of Gribovsky’s, Vaino Viilup, doubted the
suggestions.
“We were former colleagues and also neighbors, and I certainly never noticed anything suspicious in his behavior or activities,” Viilup was quoted as saying. “Gribovsky was one of Estonia’s best industrial leaders.”
Viru Mine, one of Estonia’s largest industrial concerns, extracts the bulk of Estonia’s rich deposits of oil shale, which is used to generate the country’s power stations.

News Highlights from July 24-17, 2000

Police say they believe one of Lithuania’s wealthiest men, oil tycoon Gediminas Kiesus, has been kidnapped—though they still have very few leads in the case.
Kiesus, 45, disappeared two weeks ago along with his 20-year-old son Valdas and his driver, Alfonsas Galminas, 38. They were thought to be driving at the time from Vilnius to the coastal city of Mazeikiai.
The luxury Mercedes in which they were traveling was later found in Vilnius, unlocked and with the keys in the ignition. Police said there were no signs that there had been a struggle.
Police said they hoped the three men were still alive, but left open the possibility that they had been murdered.
No ransom has been sought, though 25,000 dollars was withdrawn from an ATM machine using the businessman’s credit card a day after he vanished.
Desperate for leads, police have also consulted professional psychics for hints about the whereabouts of the men.
Kiesus headed Mazeikiai Oil until state-owned shares in the refinery were sold to the U.S.-based Williams last year. Since then, he has continued to be involved in the oil business.

Moscow said on June 21 it would have a new early-warning radar up by the end of the year to replace the station in Skrunda, Latvia, which Russia turned over to Latvia last year.
The radar will be in Baranovichi, in neighboring Belarus. Russia has said the lack of a radar in the region has left its western flank vulnerable. Western experts also have expressed concern that a weakened air defense system increased the chances of dangerous false nuclear-attack alarm.
Russia handed control of Skrunda over to Latvia on October 21, 1999, formally ending its resented, half-century military presence in the Baltic states.
From 1971 until the radar was switched off, Skrunda was a key component in Russia’s air-defense network, responsible for scanning the western skies for any incoming missiles.
In the years after the Baltic states regained independence in 1991, virtually all Russia’s bases were abandoned and its troops withdrawn. But as part of a its pullout treaty with Moscow and at the urging of Western governments, Latvia grudgingly agreed in 1994 to let Russia operate the Skrunda radar for four more years.
Russia switched the radar off in 1998, then had 18 months more to dismantle it.

Lithuania’s parliament has begun discussing a bill calling for the reconstruction of the Vilnius Jewish quarter, a major center of European Jewish life before the 1941-44 Nazi occupation.
The proposal aims to restore some ghetto buildings that fell into disrepair over the past 60 years and completely rebuild others.
The project, including rebuilding the entire Great Synagogue dynamited by the Nazis, would require foreign donations. Drafters of the bill refused to estimate final costs, saying only that Lithuania couldn’t cover them alone.
Lithuanian, French and Israeli architects—consulting detailed pre-war maps of the Jewish quarter—have already discussed how to carry out the plans. If the legislation passes, some work could begin as soon as December.
Proponents say the rebuilt ghetto would help maintain a key part of the nation’s heritage and would also be a major tourist attraction, drawing tens of thousands of Jews around the world who trace their roots back to Lithuania.
Before World War II, Vilnius was a hub of Jewish culture, learning and political activism. Many people at the time referred to Vilnius, home of many influential rabbis and leading Zionists, as the “Jerusalem of the North.”
The ghetto, with its close-knit, 17th century buildings and narrow cobblestone streets, was also home to leading Jewish theaters, thriving Jewish publishing houses and the acclaimed Yiddish Institute of Higher Learning.
But during the Nazi occupation, the district was circled by
barbed wire fences and became a holding center for most of the city’s 60,000 Jews. Virtually all the detainees were later executed by Nazi killing squads in a nearby forest.

News Highlights from July 10-July 17, 2000

One young man was killed and another badly injured on July 12 when an explosive they found at an abandoned Soviet military base went off, Latvian police said.
A 21-year-old died in the blast and his 15-year-old companion received severe burns, shrapnel wounds in the chest and a broken arm, according to Latvian state police spokesman Krists Leskalns.
Leskalns said investigators were still determining whether the explosion at the site in Cekule—some 30 kilometers from Latvia’s capital, Riga—was caused by an artillery shell or by some other type of military device.
The men entered the fenced-off base without permission, possibly to find scrap metal to sell; curiosity seekers also often enter the area, police said.
Regional authorities have earlier appealed to the government to clean up the installation, now under the jurisdiction of the Latvian army, but action has been prevented by a lack of sufficient funds.
The Cekule military base was one of hundreds abandoned by withdrawing Russian troops in the years after Latvia and the other two Baltic states, Estonia and Lithuania regained independence.
Virtually all troops withdrew from the Baltics by 1994, but they left behind thousands of discarded shells and other potentially deadly materials. Unexploded bombs were also left over from fighting during World War II.
Last year in Estonia, a girl was killed during a school excursion after a classmate placed a World War II bomb into a camp fire, setting it off. Months later, six teen-agers were injured in Latvia when they tried to hack open a Soviet-era army explosive with an ax, causing it to explode.

Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus said on July 13 that he would appeal to the United States to resume searching for a Lithuanian ship that sailed into a hurricane in the Pacific Ocean last month and disappeared.
During a meeting with family members of the missing 18-member Lithuanian crew, Adamkus promised he would broach the issue with U.S. rescue services, according to the president’s spokeswoman, Violeta Gaizauskaite.
“The families think there’s hope their loved-ones are alive. So the president felt he had to act,” she said, adding the meeting in the presidential palace was emotional and that family members were still deeply traumatized.
The official said the request shouldn’t imply Lithuanian criticism of the rescue effort, led by the U.S. Coast Guard. After a week-long search, rescuers said they presumed the Lithuanian-owned ship sank and its crew all perished.
“We have no criticism of the rescue work,” she said. “But you can imagine the feelings of the families. They have hope and they believe that such a country as the United States has possibilities to do even more.”
While two empty liferafts, several buffer tires and an oar thought to be from the ship were recovered, no bodies, wreckage or signs that some sailors might have survived were ever found.
The Coast Guard lost contact with the 101-meter Linkuva at midnight on June 20 as it sailed near the eye of Hurricane Carlotta and lost engine power; at the time, sustained winds were 240 kph in the area.
The ship, on its way to California to refuel before heading to pick up its cargo in Canada, was 354 kilometers southwest of the Pacific resort of Acapulco when radio contact was lost, Coast Guard officials said.
The rescue mission was officially called off on June 29.

Latvia and Australia on July 14 signed a long-awaited extradition treaty that is seen as a turning point in efforts to bring alleged Nazi Konrads Kalejs back to his Latvian homeland to face war crimes charges.
Jewish groups and Nazi hunters say Kalejs, 86, was a key figure in the Arajs Kommando, a Nazi-sponsored death squad believed to be responsible for the murder of 30,000 people, mostly Latvian Jews, during the 1941-44 German occupation.
Kalejs, who denies the allegations, hasn’t been indicted as
prosecutors have said the investigation is ongoing. But they said this month they hoped to bring charges soon, but also warned a final decision could take several more months.
“These cases should be investigated very carefully and we should proceed only from facts, not from emotions,” a cautious Rudite Abolina, Latvia’s lead prosecutor in the investigation, told journalists after the treaty was signed.
The signing of the treaty cleared a major obstacle to deporting the Melbourne, Australia resident, but an indictment would have to be handed down before Kalejs could be put on a plane for Latvia, according to the treaty.
Signed by Justice Minister Ingrida Labucka and Australian Ambassador to the Baltic states Stephen Brady, it still requires parliamentary approval. But backing for the treaty is strong and it’s expected to take effect by year’s end.
“The government of Australia is committed to the pursuit of war criminals using all appropriate means. The best means is extradition by the appropriate country,” Ambassador Brady said.
Nazi hunter Efraim Zuroff, of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, also welcomed the agreement, but said it needed to be used by Australia and Latvia without delay to bring the elderly Kalejs to court.
“It’s a step forward. But the onus is on the parties to give the treaty practical effect,” he said in a phone interview from Jerusalem. “The critical moment has arrived.”
Other alleged Nazis have died or become incapacitated before trial proceedings against them could get underway, and so speed was now of the essence, according to Zuroff.
“Every day that goes by without action only brings Kalejs closer to evading justice,” he said.
Kalejs was deported from the United States and Canada in the 1990s for lying about his Nazi past. Earlier this year, he fled to his adopted country of Australia after Nazi hunters tracked him to a retirement home in England.
Kalejs would be the first alleged Nazi to face a Latvian court on genocide charges since 1991.

Analysis—It’s official. The Baltic states have put the economic turmoil of the past few years behind them, according to a recent report by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. The Baltic states, it said, are back on the road to positive growth after lackluster performances in 1999.
Growth fell in the region mainly because of the financial collapse in 1998 in neighboring Russia, which is still a major Baltic trading partner. Economic tremors there also coincided with instability in Far East markets and also lukewarm economic performance in Western Europe.
The Baltic states and the 23 other nations in the former Soviet bloc all recovered faster than expected and all would see positive growth in 2000, the EBRD said. Estonian growth should rise from minus 1.4 percent in 1999 to 4 percent in 2000; Latvian growth was expected to go up from .1 percent to 3 percent, and Lithuania’s from minus 4 percent to 1 percent. Other analysts have put anticipated 2000 growth at a percentage or two higher in Estonia and Latvia.
Below is a compilation of the key economic statistics for the three Baltic states going back to 1992 and projecting to the end of 2000:

Estonia
GDP Growth
2000 4.0 percent (estimate)
1999 –1.4 percent
1998 4.7 percent
1997 10.6 percent
1996 3.9 percent
1995 4.3 percent
1994 –2.0 percent
1993 –9.0 percent
1992 –14.2 percent

GDP per capita (in dollars)
2000 na
1999 3.532
1998 3.607
1997 3.187
1996 2.982
1995 2.405
1994 1.530
1993 1.084
1992 707

Annual Inflation (consumer prices)
2000 4.5 percent (estimate)
1999 3.3 percent
1998 8.2 percent
1997 11.2 percent
1996 23.1 percent
1995 29.0 percent
1994 47.7 percent
1993 89.8 percent
1992 1.076 percent

Average Monthly Wage
1999 265 dollars

Unemployment
1999 10 percent (Estonian officials put the figure four or fives points lower)

Top Five Investors (by country in 1999)
1. Sweden
2. Finland
3. United States
4. Denmark
5. Norway

Top Five Export Markets (percent of total exports, 1999)
1. Finland 19.4 percent
2. Sweden 18.8 percent
3. Russia 9.2 percent
4. Latvia 8.7 percent
5. Germany 7.5 percent

Latvia
GDP Growth
2000 3.0 percent (estimate)
1999 0.1 percent
1998 3.9 percent
1997 8.6 percent
1996 3.3 percent
1995 –0.8 percent
1994 0.6 percent
1993 –14.9 percent
1992 –34.9 percent

GDP per capita (in dollars)
2000 na
1999 2.581
1998 2.485
1997 2.291
1996 2.099
1995 1.777
1994 1.440
1993 847
1992 576

Annual Inflation (consumer prices)
2000 4.0 percent (estimate)
1999 2.4 percent
1998 4.7 percent
1997 8.4 percent
1996 17.6 percent
1995 25.0 percent
1994 35.9 percent
1993 109.2 percent
1992 951. 2 percent

Average Monthly Wage
1999 230 dollars

Unemployment
1999 13 percent (officials put the figure slightly slower)

Top Five Investors (by country in 1999)
1. Denmark
2. United States
3. Sweden
4. Germany
5. Russia

Top Five Export Markets (percent of total exports, 1999)
1. Germany 16.9 percent
2. Great Britain 16.4 percent
3. Sweden 10.7 percent
4. Lithuania 7.5 percent
5. Russia 6.6 percent

Lithuania
GDP Growth
2000 1.0 percent (estimate)
1999 – 4.1 percent
1998 5.1 percent
1997 7.3 percent
1996 4.7 percent
1995 3.3 percent
1994 –9.8 percent
1993 – 16.2 percent
1992 – 21.3 percent

GDP per capita (in dollars)
2000 na
1999 2.884
1998 2.901
1997 2.588
1996 2.129
1995 1.623
1994 1.143
1993 716
1992 374

Annual Inflation (consumer prices)
2000 2.2 percent (estimate)
1999 0.8 percent
1998 5.1 percent
1997 8.9 percent
1996 24.6 percent
1995 39.6 percent
1994 72.1 percent
1993 410.4 percent
1992 1.020.5 percent

Average Monthly Wage
1999 250 dollars

Unemployment
1999 14 percent

Top Five Investors (by country in 1999)
1. Sweden
2. United States
3. Finland
4. Denmark
5. Germany

Top Five Export Markets (percent of total exports, 1999)
1. Germany 15.0 percent
2. Latvia 12.7 percent
3. Russia 6.8 percent
4. Denmark 6.3 percent
5. Belarus 5.9 percent

Source: Mostly EBRD; Baltic statistics departments/surveys for unemployment rates, wages, investors, export markets.

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