Latvian President wants EU stand on Moscow WW2 commemoration

Vaira Vike-Freiberga: Russia may fear demands of reparations for Baltic occupation

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By Kaija Virta in Riga
     
      "The atmosphere in Latvia has been basically supportive of my decision" says Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga, who said a month ago that she would take part in the 60th anniversary celebrations of the end of the Second World War in Moscow on May 9th.
      "Debate has been very intense", she nevertheless concedes with a laugh. Parliament recently gave its support to the President, but not all Latvians felt that the decision was the right one.
      Opinions are also divided in Estonia and Lithuania, whose heads of state have not yet said if they will travel to Moscow.
     
In Lithuania, the top figure in the restoration of independence, former President Vytautas Landsbergis, feels that participation is a bad idea. Estonia's former President Lennart Meri is in favour of taking part, as is his former Foreign Minister Toomas Hendrik Ilves and the former Polish President Lech Walesa.
      Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski said on Wednesday that he would take part in the Moscow celebration, but demanded that there would be an official condemnation of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, which opened the door to the occupation of the Baltic States.
      As Vike-Freiberga noted on January 12th when she announced her trip, the problem of the celebration on the ninth of May is that Russia will only want to remember its victory over Nazi Germany.
     
For the three Baltic States, the collapse of the Nazi regimes did not mean a liberation, but rather, in the President's words, "a second brutal occupation, carried out again by a foreign, totalitarian empire, this time the Soviet Union".
      The dispute over the trip centres around how the world could be made to remember not only the victims of Hitler, but also those of Stalin. The President of Latvia feels that the right way to do this is not to stand aside as dozens of other leaders convene - certainly not now that the Baltic states are members of both NATO and the EU.
      On May 10th, immediately after the commemoration, a summit meeting of the EU and Russia will be held in Moscow.
      Vike-Freiberga does not believe that she will have the opportunity to express her views on the events of 60 years ago - to say that the arrival of Soviet power in the Baltic States was not a liberation, but an occupation.
      "I do not believe that it will be on the agenda", the President says. "Without a doubt the agenda will be set by President Putin, and we are his guests. I certainly do not believe that I would have had the possibility to speak there. For that reason, I have taken it upon myself to bring out my views in advance."
     
After announcing her plan to travel, Vike-Freiberga has given perhaps dozens of interviews on the subject. Her office has actively offered the interviews to journalists. Each statement by the President that reached the public eye could be shown at home as evidence that the decision to go to Moscow was the right one, because it has sparked much international interest and made Latvia's voice heard.
     
Vike-Freiberga feels  that it would not be a bad idea if the EU, which has expanded into Eastern Europe, would take a common stand on the historic anniversary.
      "In the statements it cold be noted that the day is historically very significant, but its significance is by no means clear-cut, nor is it as simple as is sometimes put forward. There are many layers and many meanings that are sharply different in different parts of Europe."
      Latvia's President had rough personal experiences of the consequences of Soviet power in the Baltic States. She was born in Riga in 1937, but had to spend part of her childhood in refugee camps because of the war and the occupation. For decades she lived in exile in Canada, and she did not return to her home country until the 1990s.
     
If Russia were to admit that the Soviet Union had been an occupying force in the Baltic States for five decades, would Latvia seek material reparations for the occupation? The President says that she does not know the answer to that one.
      Not even those who suffered are of one mind. "Many have said to me that their lives were destroyed in any case: their family members were killed, and nobody can bring back the dead. Others said that they were robbed of the results of the hard work of their forefathers, and they want compensation."
      "Quite frankly, I do not know how we could deal with it, how it could be done on an international level."
     
The President believes that there is uncertainty in Russia as well, and the question raises fears there, which prevent even small steps towards re-evaluating history.
      "I do not believe that they want to open the door even a crack, for fear of the consequences. I believe that it is one reason for the intense reactions lately. They are not merely emotional, they are worried about possible practical results."
      In Estonia, a state investigation commission last year calculated that the environmental damage of the years of occupation would warrant reparations of four billion dollars. In Lithuania, Parliament has demanded 20 billion dollars in reparations.
     
Debate over the past is difficult in Latvia itself, where official statistics put the proportion of Russian-speakers at about one third of the population.
      Vike-Freiberga says that there are sharp differences in the way different families view the past. "There are families where the memory of the persecutions is kept alive, and who feel great bitterness. Then there are families in which the grandfather came here as a loyal soldier of the Red Army, where the talk was constantly about how brave he was, and how the people here should be grateful that he came to liberate them."
      "It is certainly not simple. And now all of them are living in the same country as each other's neighbours, and they should reach some kind of common agreement."
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 11.2.2005

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KAIJA VIRTA / Helsingin Sanomat
kaija.virta@hs.fi