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News highlights from Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.

News Highlights from December 14—December 21, 1998

• Statues of Vladimir Lenin which once stood in city-center squares all across Lithuania will now be put on display in a rural forest, government officials announced on December 17.
         Some 40 communist-era statues, including of Karl Marx and others associated with the founding of the Soviet Union, would be given by the government to a private club, which will then put them up in a new forest park in southern Lithuania.
         The club receiving the statues is funded by Lithuania’s No. 1 mushroom canning factory, Hesona. The club said it intended the park to be a kind of outdoor museum.
         The forest-bound Lenins include the one taken down in central Vilnius after the Kremlin coup in Moscow unraveled in August, 1991. The image of the statue, cut at the knees, being lifted off its pedestal by a crane became one of the enduring symbols of the Soviet Union’s collapse. Until now, the statue has been lying on a scrap heap outside of the Lithuanian capital.
         After regaining independence from Moscow in 1991, Lithuanians pulled down scores of Soviet statues around the country, blasting them with dynamite or using blow torches to cut them from their pedestals.
         In much of former Soviet Union, including Russia, Lenin statues still stand in many city squares and parks. In the Baltic states, virtually all public Lenin statues were pulled down within months of independence.

• The Estonian Shipping Company said on December 18 that it will file for damages incurred from a week-long boycott by dock workers in Finland.
         The company, Estonia’s largest shipping firm, said it will demand 2.7 million dollars from the Finnish seamen's trade union in a Finnish court.
         For over a week, Finnish longshoremen have refused to unload several Estonian cargo vessels in Helsinki, saying they were demanding that pay for Estonian seamen be raised to Finnish levels.
         Currently, seamen in Estonia make around 300 dollars a month, compared to the average 2,500 dollars per month made by Finnish seaman. Some Finns in the past have complained that the lower wages give Estonian companies an unfair competitive edge.
         Estonian shipping officials say the action taken by the Finnish seamen's union wasn't meant to improve the plight of Estonian seamen, but to squeeze the cheaper Estonian cargo ships out of lucrative routes that crisscross the Baltic Sea.
         Rein Merisalu, head of the Estonian Ship Owners’ Union, said the Finnish unions were demanding that Estonian seaman make more than leading Estonian government officials, most of whom earn the equivalent of between 1000 and 2000 dollars a month.
         "In our economic situation, it is unthinkable and quite impossible for an Estonian sailor to earn more than the Estonian prime minister," Merisalu was quoted by BNS as saying.

• Russian State Duma Deputy Speaker Sergei Baburin told a visiting Latvian parliamentarian that "springtime has come in Russia's relations with Latvia." He added that he thought Moscow’s relations with Latvia were now warmer than with either Estonia or Lithuania.
         Earlier this year, tensions between Russia and Latvia were dramatically raised over the breakup of a demonstration by Russian-speakers and several mysterious bombings in the Latvian capital.
         Moscow said the incidents illustrated what it claimed was rampant anti-Russian sentiment in Latvia. Russia also accused Latvia of trying to disenfranchise Russian-speakers via tough citizenship laws. Latvia, in turn, said Russia had resorted to hysterical rhetoric that was all out of proportion to the actual situation in Latvia.
         But in recent months, sharply worded statements on both sides have died down almost completely. Latvia’s recent moves to liberalize its citizenship laws have also helped cool Moscow's hot temper of earlier this year.
         But statements out of Moscow characterizing its relations with the Baltic countries have been famously inconsistent and unpredictable. Russia’s attitude about the Baltics has often changed overnight with no apparent justification. Moscow has also tended to single out one Baltic state at a time for harsh criticism.

• The body of a young child and her grandmother were recovered from an apartment building that partially collapsed in Tallinn after a powerful explosion on December 18.
          Media reports said the blast in the residential neighborhood of Lasnamae in the early morning hours was almost certainly caused by a bomb.
         Speculation was that the bomb was planted to exact revenge on someone living in the house, but that the two victims were not the intended targets.
         Five other people were also injured in the explosion, though only one seriously.
         The rescue operation proceeded slowly because rescuers feared that the entire three-story building was still in danger of collapsing.
         Bombings linked to gangland activity have been fairly common in Estonia, and also in Latvia and Lithuania. But deaths from such attacks have been rare.

 

News Highlights from December 7—December 14, 1998

• Lithuania’s speaker of parliament and leader of the country’s ruling party has introduced a controversial bill that would ban ex-Communists from serving in high-level government positions.
         Parliament Speaker Vytautas Landsbergis said the legislation was needed to set the historical record straight about what he said were crimes committed by the Communist Party.
         The law, submitted to the Lithuanian legislature on December 8 would prevent ex-Communists from serving in parliament, national government and a wide range of other official posts.
         The ban would not apply to current members of parliament or government, and it would only remain in effect for five years.
         A long-time anti-communist, Vytautas Landsbergis led Lithuania as president during its drive for independence from Moscow in the early 90s. He now heads the nation’s ruling Conservatives.
         The ruling party’s main rival is the Lithuanian Democratic Labor Party—the successor the Lithuanian Communist Party—and critics say the proposed ban is politically motivated.
         A head of Lithuanian Democratic Labor Party, Ceslovas Jursenas, also charged that the draft law was unconstitutional and an act of revenge.

• In a step it hopes will improve its chances of European Union membership and smooth relations with Moscow, Estonia’s parliament on December 8 adopted a bill providing citizenship to thousands of stateless children in the country.
         The law, passed by a 55-to-20 vote in the Riigikogu legislature, will mainly affect Estonia’s large Russian-speaking minority, mostly ethnic Russians who immigrated to Estonia when it was occupied by the Soviet Union.
         Most of the 400,000 Russian-speakers in Estonia (total pop. 1.5 million) did not qualify for citizenship under rules established after Estonia regained independence in 1991. Moscow has sharply criticized Estonia’s citizenship polices, saying they discriminate against Russian-speakers. Brussels also said denying citizenship to stateless children violated European norms and could undermine Estonia’s EU bid.
         Under the new law, stateless children born in Estonia after independence now become eligible for automatic citizenship. Some 6,000 will qualify within a matter of months and another 1,500 are expected to qualify in each proceeding year.
         The Estonian government welcomed parliament’s vote, insisting that the bill brought the country’s legislation on citizenship fully into line with European standards.
         Estonian government spokesman Daniel Vaarik said ministers broke into applause at a Cabinet meeting upon hearing the news that the bill had passed.
         "This vote shows we are dealing with some of the problems we have in Estonia and that we are dealing with them seriously," he said.
         Days later, the EU also praised the citizenship changes, saying Estonia had fulfilled its obligations to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
         "The European Union welcomes this farsighted decision which constitutes an important step towards further integration of all inhabitants of Estonia," an official EU statement said. "The European Union acknowledges that Estonia has now fulfilled the OSCE recommendations with regard to citizenship."
         Reaction out of Moscow was mixed, with some officials saying the changes were encouraging, while others were adamant that the changes were not extensive enough. In the past, Russia has called for automatic citizenship for all residents of Estonia, without any preconditions.
         After Estonia regained independence, citizenship was granted to pre-World War II residents and their descendants: that meant virtually all ethnic Estonians became citizens, while the majority of Russian-speakers were left stateless.
         Estonia argued that Soviet-era Russians had arrived in the country illegally, under conditions of occupation, and therefore had to meet additional requirements for citizenship.
         Estonia allows for citizenship via naturalization, which requires that applicants take an oath of loyalty to Estonia and pass an Estonian language exam. But most Russians speak little or no Estonian, and so can’t pass the language test.
         Prior to Tuesday’s vote, Estonian President Lennart Meri pushed hard for the law granting citizenship to stateless children, saying it was the most important legislation the parliament would adopt all year.
         Estonia is the only ex-Soviet republic to have started membership negotiations with the EU—but Estonian leaders warned that failure to liberalize its citizenship law might knock Estonia off the fast track into the EU.
         Critics of the bill said Estonia was caving in to pressure from Russia and the European Union. They also said having thousands of new citizens who weren’t able to cope in Estonian could pose a threat to Estonian culture and, in the long run, to the Estonian language itself.
         Earlier this year, under heavy pressure from the West and Moscow, Latvia also softened its citizenship laws, including granting stateless children citizenship.
         Latvia held a divisive referendum before the amendments became law. But Estonian spokesman Daniel Vaarik said he didn’t think any major political parties in Estonia would try to force a similar referendum in Estonia.

• Alma Adamkus, the 71-year-old wife of Lithuania’s president was named this week as the most elegant women in Lithuania by the Stilius fashion magazine.
         In recent years, the magazine has invariably picked women in their twenties and thirties. The runner up in the annual competition this year was 28-year-old ex-beauty queen Ingrida Sabonis, wife of Lithuanian basketball star Arvydas Sabonis.
         The slender, white-haired Alma Adamkus, like her husband, left Lithuania for the United States after the Soviet occupation in 1944. She returned to Lithuania from Chicago earlier this year after Valdas Adamkus won a surprise victory in Lithuania’s presidential election.
         When asked by Stilius what she would take to a desert island if she could only take one thing, the slender, white-haired Alma Adamkus said that she would take her husband.
         Lithuania’s First Lady , like her husband, has seen her popularity ratings soar throughout the year.

• Lithuania’s highest court on December 9 declared the country's Soviet-era death penalty unconstitutional, saying it violated provisions against cruelty and torture.
         The death penalty has wide backing in Lithuania, with some 80 percent of respondents in a recent poll saying they supported capital punishment. But the law has been criticized by European human rights groups and the European Union has said it was an obstacle to Lithuanian EU membership.
         Like virtually all other former Soviet republics, Lithuania kept its death penalty in place after independence. It hasn't carried out a death sentence since 1995, but capital punishment has remained on the books.
         Wednesday’s ruling by Lithuania's highest court does not immediately abolish the death penalty, but it should preclude parliament from including capital punishment in a new criminal code now being considered by parliament.
         President Valdas Adamkus, one of the few Lithuanian politicians who has spoken out against capital punishment, welcomed the high court's ruling. But some legislators warned that violent crime was bound to increase without the death penalty.
         Latvia’s parliament this week also took its first steps towards abolishing the death penalty. Estonia’s parliament struck capital punishment from the criminal code earlier this year.