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News highlights from Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.

News Highlights from January 25—February 1, 1999

• An international commission set up to investigate crimes against humanity committed in Estonia during the Nazi and Soviet eras began its first session on January 26 in Tallinn.
         The committee is expected to produce a detailed report on mass executions, arrests and deportations carried out during the Nazi and Soviet occupations of Estonia.
         Latvia and Lithuania have set up similar commissions, though they have yet to convene.
         If incriminating evidence is uncovered during the Estonian committee’s work on still living individuals, commission participants have said the information could be used by Estonian prosecutors to press charges.
         Some 5,000 Estonian Jews perished during the 1941-44 Nazi occupation, and thousands of other Jews were shipped from elsewhere in Eastern Europe and killed at death camps in Estonia.
         Under Soviet occupation, from 1940-41 and then after 1944, thousands of Estonians were arrested and shot, and tens of thousands more were deported to Siberia, where many died in harsh living conditions.
         In remarks before the commission as its started its deliberations, Estonian President Lennart Meri said the panel’s main objective should be "to shed the bright light of truth" on Estonia’s tragic past--no matter how painful.
         "The work of this commission reflects our common conviction that we cannot build a free and democratic future without facing up to the past...Trying to sweep past events under the rug of collective forgetfulness will not help us achieve either reconciliation or a better future," Meri said. "Any effort to prevent the repetition of such crimes in the future requires that we face up to them squarely and sincerely, recognizing why certain events took place and also who was involved."
         Meri added that the investigation process was complicated by efforts of both Nazis and Soviets to destroy documents and falsify history.
         "Those who committed these crimes in all their variety did not rush to take credit for them," he said. "In an unintended acknowledgment of their residual humanity, those guilty of such crimes did and do everything to cover them up not only from the rest of the world but also from their own people."
         The privately-funded, non-governmental committee was launched last year at the initiative of the Estonian president. The American Jewish Committee also took part in its formation.
         Members of the panel include prominent historians and statesmen from the United States and Russia, as well as the former Danish Foreign Minister Uffe Ellemann-Jensen.

• Lithuania’s government said on January 28 that its was declaring war on organized crime, saying the murder earlier in the week of a chief prosecutor had driven home the threat posed to the nation by criminal gangs.
         Prime Minister Gediminas Vagnorius told journalists in Vilnius that new measures against organized crime have been on the drawing board for months, but would now be implemented more swiftly.
         Vagnorius said draft laws making it easier to arrest and convict gangsters would be sent to parliament, and more government funds would also be allocated to fight organized crime.
         "These gangs are atrocious and all law enforcement institutions and the government will focus on fighting these groups that are jeopardizing society," he said.
         After Lithuania regained independence, the crime rate in the country soared. Bombings and murders linked to gangland activity also increased.
         But the killing on January 25 of prosecutor Gintautas Sereika, who was heading investigations of a number of alleged crime bosses, prompted outrage in Lithuania.
         The 30-year-old Sereika was shot dead in front of his home in Panevezys, a city some 135 kilometers northwest of Vilnius and regarded as a hotbed of gangland activity.
         Police said they were convinced the killing was related to the prosecutor’s work. But the authorities have not announced the arrest of a murder suspect.

• A court-appointed medical panel in Lithuania said on January 29 that alleged Nazi war crime Aleksandras Lileikis is too ill to stand trial on charges of genocide.
         The panel was set up after the 91-year-old Lileikis, accused of sending scores of Jews to their deaths during the 1941-44 Nazi occupation of Lithuania, failed to appear at a trial hearing last month.
         In a report handed over to court officials, doctors said various cardiovascular diseases that Lileikis has been suffering for years from had become more serious, making his participation in a court trial impossible.
         Medical assessments that a defendant is too ill to stand trial are usually proceeded in Lithuania by a court ruling to end the trial. Judges, however, are not bound by the opinions of court-appointed doctors.
         The week before a medical panel also concluded that the defendant in Lithuania's second major Nazi trial, 91-year-old Kazys Gimzauskas, was also too ill to stand trial. In neither case have judges have announced when they will make their rulings about whether or not to halt the trials.
         Lithuanian law does not allow for trials in absentia when the accused is seriously ill, and so a ruling by judges to cease the current proceeding against both men would effectively preclude any legal action against them in Lithuania.
         After regaining its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, Lithuania promised to pursue, indict and convict Lithuanians who participated in the massacre of Lithuanian Jews during Nazi rule.
         But many Jewish groups have complained that the process has been too slow.
         Lileikis was the head of the Vilnius security police during the German occupation, and Gimzauskas was his deputy. Both are alleged to have turned Jews over to Nazi execution squads.
         Lileikis emigrated to the United States in 1955, and lived in the Boston area for 40 years. He returned to Lithuania in 1996 as a U.S. court was moving to revoke his citizenship and deport him.
         Gimzauskas also lived in the United States before returning to Lithuania.

• Estonian officials told their Swedish counterparts in Tallinn on January 25 that they continue to oppose a proposal to recover hundreds of bodies trapped inside the Estonia ferry that sank in 1994.
         After a meeting with Swedish Deputy Economics Minister Mona Sahlin, in Tallinn to survey opinions on the body recovery plan, Estonian Transport Minister Raivo Vare said Estonian opposition was firm.
         "It is impossible to solve the question so it would satisfy all sides, and there will always be those who regard the decision as unjust. But a line will have to be drawn somewhere," Vare, in charge of overseeing Estonian policy on ferry-related issues, told journalists.
         The Swedish deputy minister said Sweden had not yet made a final decision on the controversial proposal, made by a Swedish government appointed panel last year. But she said she understood the emotion surrounding the issue.
         "I have wept together with those who want the bodies to be brought up, and with those who do not want it," she said. She added that she hoped a decision would be arrived at with "consideration" and "respect."
         In Tallinn, Sahlin also met with ferry-accident support groups and with religious leaders. She also laid flowers at a memorial to the more than 800 people who perished on the Estonia.
         At a press conference later in the day, Sahlin refused to reveal her personal view on the controversy, but admitted that the meetings with relatives of victims of the Estonia had been emotionally draining.
         "Today was a very difficult, very emotional day," she said.
         Because of an earlier agreement between Sweden, Estonia, Finland and Denmark to declare the ferry site a sanctuary, she also said no country would be able to exhume the bodies from the wreck without the consent of the other three countries.
         "Since the four countries signed this agreement, then they must be of one mind in order to change it," she said. "I am very aware of this. But Sweden still has to make its own decision on this."
         She said the Swedish government would make a final decision about whether or not to back the body-recovery proposal in two or three weeks.
         The Estonian government already announced in November that it opposed any body recovery plan. Officials said there was overwhelming opposition to the idea throughout Estonia, including from relatives.
         Estonian President Lennart Meri also adamantly opposed the body-retrieval plan, saying it ran counter to the seafaring traditions of Estonia.
         "The place where a person has had his life taken by the sea is just as sacred as any graveyard next to a church," Meri told journalists last year.
         The building-sized ferry that bore this country’s name sank in a 1994 storm en route from Tallinn to Stockholm. Of the over 800 people died, most were Swedes and Estonians. Only 137 people survived.
         The Swedish panel that made the recommendation said it widely consulted survivors and family members of ferry victims in Sweden and that the majority supported the plan to recover bodies entombed in the ship.
         But several polls in Estonia asking relatives of ferry victims how they felt have indicated that more than 80 percent are opposed to any body retrieval operation.

• Estonia’s national post office said on January 26 that it was preparing to issue a special stamp on the occasion of Estonian President Lennart Meri’s 70th birthday.
         The announcement was met with criticism in some quarters, with some arguing that issuing a stamp with the figure of a living person was usually only done in countries with monarchies.
         Critics said putting a living leader on a stamp was reminiscent of practice in the Soviet Union.
         But post office officials told journalists that they saw nothing inappropriate about putting Meri’s likeness on a stamp, arguing that he is not only Estonia’s head of state but, before entering politics, was an accomplished writer.
         Meri, whose birthday is on March 29, has seen his popularity soar in recent years. He is widely regarded as one of Estonia’s most effective international envoys.

 

News Highlights from January 18—January 25, 1999

• An Estonian court on January 22 found an elderly Estonian man guilty of participating in Soviet deportations in the 1940s—the first ever conviction of someone in Estonia for Stalinist-era crimes.
         Johannes Klaassepp, 78, was charged with crimes against humanity for ordering the arrest and deportation of over 20 Estonian families when he worked as an official for the NKVD, a precursor of the KGB.
         His victims ranged from 83-year-old Mihkel Lemberg to four-year-old Aino Nano, prosecutors said.
         A judge handed down an eight-year suspended sentence to Klaassepp, who faced a maximum term of life imprisonment. He wouldn’t have to go to jail, but would remain on probation for two years.
         Klaassepp maintained his innocence throughout the trial. Prosecutors presented deportation orders signed by Klaassepp as evidence, but he said he could not recall signing them.
         "I don’t remember," he told a judge at one point in the trial. "Honestly, I don’t."
         Many who followed the proceedings welcomed the guilty verdict, saying a decision against a Stalinist-era criminal was long over due.
         But others complained that Klaassepp got off too easy, with just a suspended sentence. Vaike Vilta, whose father was deported by Klaassepp, said she would be more forgiving if the ex-NKVD official had expressed remorse.
         "But Klaassepp doesn’t feel that he is guilty at all," the 65-year-old Vilta told the Estonia’s Eesti Päevaleht daily immediately following the Friday verdict.
         The trial, which took place in Haapsalu, a small town 100 kilometers southwest of Tallinn, was the first in Estonia to reach a conclusion. Previous trials failed to get underway because the alleged Stalinist criminals either died or were declared too ill to stand trial.
         After the Soviet Union occupied Estonia during World War II, tens of thousands of Estonians were deported by secret police. Most were shipped in train wagons to Siberia, where many deportees died in harsh conditions.
         While Russia and much of the rest of the former Soviet Union has largely ignored the question of bringing alleged Stalinist agents to justice, Estonia and the other two Baltic states have actively pursued prosecutions.
         The first successful prosecution of a Stalinist-era criminal was in Latvia several years ago. An ex-secret service agent was also found guilty in Lithuania late last year.
         Estonian authorities say they are investigating the cases of more than 100 other suspects, and expects to shortly hand down five new indictments.

• The Baltic states say they are in the final stages of setting up a joint military college—another sign of increasing security cooperation among the three nations.
         Estonia’s government said on January 20 that it had formally approved an agreement with Latvia and Lithuania establishing the college, which will be located in the Estonian city of Tartu, 190 kilometers southeast of Tallinn.
         Seven years after breaking with Moscow, the small Baltic-coast countries are still anxious about their security vis-à-vis Russia and have made strengthening their defense structures high national priorities.
         Baltic officials say one aim of the new college will be to boost their chances of winning NATO membership—a top foreign policy goal of all three countries—by bringing military standards up to Western levels.
         A Danish officer has been named as the first head of the joint Baltic defense college, and officers from other NATO countries will also be on the staff. The main language of instruction will be English.
         The college will be inaugurated on February 25, and the first classes will begin in August.
         In recent years, the three Baltic states have established a joint peace-keeping force and a joint mine sweeping unit. They are also setting up a common air defense system.
         Combined, the standing armies in the Baltics number fewer than 20,000 men. The Russian army numbers around 1 million.

• The risks of investing in the Baltic countries compared to other markets around the world have reduced over the past year, according to a survey by the respected Euromoney journal.
         The publication, which each year ranks markets from the least risky to the most risky, had all three Baltic countries moving up their table for 1998.
         Estonia, at No. 50, made the best showing among Baltic countries on the 1998 list. In 1997, Estonia was No. 60. Latvia was No. 57 on the 1998 table, and Lithuania was No. 62.
         Among the countries scoring better than the Baltic states were Slovenia, at No. 33; Poland, No. 38, and the Czech Republic, No. 40.
         Out of the 104 countries surveyed, tiny Luxembourg was in the No. 1 slot, considered by Euromoney as the safest place in the world to invest your money. Also in the top ten were the United States, Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, Switzerland, France, Norway, Great Britain and Ireland.
         Russia, whose economy has been in free-fall for the last six months, didn’t even make it onto the Euromoney list.

• A phony interview with NATO Secretary General Javier Solana, in which he purportedly criticizes Latvia, recently developed into a major scandal.
         The interview appeared in the Russian-language Respublika daily on January 11 and quoted the NATO secretary general as questioning Latvia’s democratic credentials.
         The alleged comments prompted Latvian calls for Solana to account for the interview. But the NATO leader quickly released a statement saying the interview had never taken place and was "a total fabrication."
         Adding to the controversy was that the author of the phantom interview was a spokesman for the ruling Latvian Way party, Mikhail Mamilov. He was promptly fired by Latvian Way and roundly blasted by various press organizations.
         Commentators said the interview, run by the traditionally pro-Moscow, anti-NATO Respublika newspaper, may have been designed to throw the question of Latvia’s entrance into the Western alliance into confusion.
         Latvia, like the other two Baltic states, has consistently declared that NATO membership is a top foreign policy goal. Russia strongly objects to Baltic membership, but NATO has said the alliance door is open to the Baltic countries.

• Russian activists in Narva have threatened to hold alternative local elections if a new law requiring that all candidates be able to speak Estonian stays on the books, Estonian media reported on January 22.
         Activists in the northeast Estonian city—which is over 90 percent Russian-speaking—say the vast majority of Russians in the city speak little or no Estonian, and so won't be able to qualify as candidates under the new law.
         In Narva, some 200 kilometers east of Tallinn, only 2,000 of the city's 80,000 residents are thought to speak Estonian well enough to qualify as candidates under the new law.
         Elections for seats in Narva’s city council are slated for October.
         The two hardline Russian organizations pushing for a protest ballot—the Russian Citizens Union and the Narva Voters Union—say they haven’t yet decided whether they would also convene a new representative body in the city.
         The law in question was passed by Estonia's national parliament in December, and requires that candidates for both national and local elections be able to speak Estonian well enough to follow legislative processes.
         Provisions of the law take affect on May 1 and so won’t apply to candidates for Estonia’s March 7 parliamentary election.
         Estonians say the inability of some lawmakers to speak Estonian hampers the work of representative bodies and, in general, undermines the country’s national identity, culture and language.
         Russia, however, has denounced the law, saying it effectively disenfranchises many Russian-speakers.
         The OSCE has also criticized the law. The European humans right body, while agreeing it would be better if all legislators spoke Estonian, said that voters should be allowed to decide the issue for themselves.