The Weekly Crier
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News highlights from Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.

News Highlights from December 28, 1998—January 4, 1999

• One man was killed when a homemade bomb went off on December 28 at an outdoor market in Tallinn’s city center.
         The early morning explosion occurred at a ramp used for unloading meat and other produce sold at the popular Tallinn Central Market. Three other people were injured, but none of them seriously.
         Media reports suggested that a rival meat producer may have been responsible for the attack on a competing business.
         The fatal explosion was the second in Estonia’s capital in less than two weeks. On December 18, a bomb partially collapsed a small apartment block in Tallinn, killing a baby and her grandmother.
         Since Estonia regained independence, there have been scores of bomb blasts linked to organized crime activity. But fatalities from bomb blasts have been rare.

• Lithuania’s star basketball player Arvydas Sabonis said he will begin playing full-time with his old Lithuanian team, Zalgiris, pending a resolution of the NBA labor dispute.
         The 34-year-old Sabonis, who has been the No. 1 center for the Portland Trail Blazers the past several years, has in recent months been playing with Lithuania’s national team.
         But as the dispute between NBA owners and players has dragged on, Sabonis apparently lost hope of returning to the United States this year, and opted instead to rejoin Zalgiris, a leading squad in the EuroLeague.
         Zilgiris has been doing well in league matches, but with the towering Sabonis on the team, it is now expected to have a good shot at becoming the European champion.
         Sabonis said that once the NBA dispute is resolved, he would fly back to the United States and rejoin the Trail Blazers.

• Estonian President Lennart Meri has launched the 1999 political season by calling on voters to take a critical look at national politicians as March 7 parliamentary elections approach.
         "Do not fail to use your opportunity and your rights," Meri said in a New Year’s speech. "Do not elect an air bubble...the people who really want to build up Estonia are among us. It is our duty as electors to find these people and to summon them to work."
         The Estonian president is not affiliated with any party, but is widely believed to sympathize more with the center-right, pro-reform opposition.
         Meri has indirectly criticized the current government, suggesting that the center, center-left administration of Prime Minister Mart Siimann has been too indecisive.
         In his January 1 speech, the president didn’t name names, but again seemed to call into question the Estonian government’s overall handling of affairs of the state.
         "The closing year undermined Estonia’s self-confidence," President Meri said. "We had our share of bank frauds, misprivatizations and abuse of official status. The judicial system moves slowly, blame is dispersed and people lose their confidence in the state."
         The Estonian president also warned that 1999 would be a difficult one internationally, and he said Estonia would have to work hard to stay out of economic and political difficulties itself.
         "The problems of the world could affect Estonia painfully, with manifold force," he said. "They could affect us, but need not, if only we are able to recognize our strong and weak points and to apply reasonable solutions....(But) the world changes, and more often than not Estonian politicians wake to the changes too late."

• A street in Vilnius has been named "Jerusalem" to commemorate the city’s history as a center of Jewish culture and learning in Europe.
         Before World War II, the Lithuanian capital was home to some 60,000 Jews, virtually all of whom were killed during the 1941-44 Nazi occupation.
         The renaming of the city street, from Kalvarijos to Jerusalem, comes in advance of a January 15th visit to Lithuania by Israeli parliament chairman Dan Tichon.
         Relations between Israel and Lithuania have at times been strained over questions related to Germany’s wartime occupation.

• Resisting pressure from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Estonian President Lennart Meri on December 31 signed a bill requiring that local and national lawmakers speak Estonian well enough to cope in their jobs as representatives.
         The law, adopted by Estonia’s legislature in mid-December, would require that members of parliament and local governments be able to participate in legislative work and also be able to understand the substance of draft laws.
         OSCE commissioner for minorities, Max van der Stoel, said the law was counter to European norms and could be considered discriminatory, and he urged President Meri not to sign it. Moscow and many leaders in Estonia’s Russian-speaking community echoed the OSCE’s criticism.
         Estonian officials say the language requirement would ensure the proper functioning of the legislature. They also argue that the law will help protect the viability of the Estonian language.
         The language requirement will become law only in May, 1999, so it will not affect candidates who are running for parliament in upcoming March elections.

News Highlights from December 21—December 28, 1998

• The International Monetary Fund has revised its growth figures for the Baltic states downward, saying the crisis in Russia and tight financial markets worldwide were hitting the three countries harder than expected.
         But growth rates of around 4 and 5 percent are still considered healthy, and few economists suggest that the Baltic economies are headed for serious trouble.
         An IMF report released on December 21 suggested that Latvia may be weathering world economic turmoil best, saying growth in the country would be 6 percent for 1998 and 5 percent for 1999. Lithuania’s economic growth was expected to drop from 5.3 percent in 1998 to 4.0 percent in 1999.
         Estonia’s economy, which in 1997 grew at over 11 percent, was expected to register a growth rate of just 5.1 percent in 1998. For 1999, the IMF said growth would be just below 4 percent.
         A recent European Union report was more optimistic, saying growth in all three Baltic countries would hover around 6 percent for 1999. Baltic government figures have been closer to the EU predictions.
         Sometimes wildly varying forecasts indicate continued confusion, even nervousness, about the Baltic economic situation in the near term. Business confidence is somewhat lower than in previous years, and stock market prices also continue to sag.

• Ten people were killed in Lithuania when a truck carrying forestry workers plunged into a river on December 22. Five of the 15 passengers managed to escape after the truck crashed into the partially frozen river and turned upside.
         The mishap, one of the worst single accidents in Lithuania for decades, occurred on the Venta River near Kursenai, a town some 250 kilometers northwest of Vilnius.
         The driver—who survived the accident—was apparently intoxicated and swerved into the river as the vehicle approached a bridge.
         Rescue teams took more than a day to recover all the bodies from the wreck. Their efforts were hampered by ice flows and strong currents.

• In a move they hope will speed up the country’s integration into Europe, Lithuanian legislators have abolished the nation’s Soviet-era death penalty.
         The Seimas voted 76 to 3 on December 21 to scrap capital punishment. The law had been in force since before Lithuania regained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.
         The country’s death penalty had been criticized by European human rights groups, and the European Union said the law could be an obstacle to Lithuania’s goal of winning EU membership.
         Lithuania had not carried out a death sentence since 1995, when organized crime boss Boris Dekanidze was executed for ordering the assassination of a Lithuanian journalist.
         But lawmakers have been reluctant to strike capital punishment from the books because of overwhelming popular support for it. A recent poll indicated more than 80 percent of Lithuanians support the death penalty.
         But earlier this month Lithuania’s highest court put pressure on parliament to change the law when it declared the death penalty unconstitutional, saying it violated provisions against cruelty and torture.
         Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus has also lobbied for the death penalty to be scrapped.
         Life imprisonment will now be the maximum sentence a Lithuania court can hand down.
         Estonia abolished its death penalty earlier this year. Legislation banning capital punishment is also pending in Latvia.

• Estonian President Lennart Meri has been named the European of the Year by the respected French weekly La Vie.
         European Union leader Jacques Delors, who chaired the weekly’s selection committee, said Meri was being recognized for his role in restoring Estonian independence and in bringing the country back into the European fold.
         Said Delors, announcing the winner of the prestigious prize: "It was the wish of the jury to decorate a statesman who has been nourished by European culture, who is convinced of the need to unite this continent, and who has done everything in his power to help Estonia become one of the most serious candidates for rapid integration into the European Union."
         Earlier recipients of La Vie’s award include former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl and UN Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson.
         President Meri’s popularity in Estonia has soared since he first took office in 1992. Initially, Meri was seen as too eccentric, even quirky, but has since come to be regarded as one of the most scholarly and effective statement in the region.
         French President Jacques Chiraq will president the La Vie award to President Meri in Paris in February.

(For more about Estonian President Lennart Meri see A Portrait of a President and Renaissance Man on this site.)