Tombs Of Soviet Soldiers Vandalized In Estonia

[Kollyvas]

http://www.mosnews.com/news/2005/11/11/soviettomb.shtml

Tombs of Soviet Soldiers Vandalized in Estonia
Created: 11.11.2005 21:32 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 21:32 MSK

MosNews

Tombs of Soviet soldiers have been vandalized at the military cemetery in the Estonian capital of Tallinn.

From November 6 to November 11, unidentified persons have overturned and partly destroyed 69 headstones.

An accidental witness informed the Tallinn police on the vandals’ acts of November 6, RIA-Novosti news agency reported.

Police have instigated criminal proceedings on the article of offending the memory of the dead. They are currently questioning the witnesses.

In Estonia, tombs and monuments of Soviet soldiers have been numerously vandalized, including the famous monument to the Soviet soldier in Tallinn.

[Kollyvas]

http://www.mosnews.com/news/2005/10/15/ ... ment.shtml

Estonia Restores Monument to SS Legionnaires, Russia Angered
Created: 15.10.2005 17:45 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 17:46 MSK

MosNews

The Russian government has released a statement saying Estonia has mocked the memory of victims of fascism by restoring a monument to an SS legion, RIA Novosti reported.

The monument to Estonians who fought on the side of Germany during World War II was initially put up in 2002, but taken down after an international outcry. In 2004 Estonia first restored it but it did not survive criticism again.

On Saturday it was installed near a private Museum of Fight for Estonia’s Freedom in a village of Lagedi outside the capital, Tallinn, in presence of at least 500 people .

“It is especially outrageous that this is happening in the year that marks 60 years since the end of World War II,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement. “A new attempt to glorify the Estonian SS legion shows that official Tallinn continues to have a supportive attitude toward them. We believe that such an approach has no justification.”

[Kollyvas]

http://www.mosnews.com/news/2005/10/14/ ... onia.shtml

Created: 14.10.2005 21:06 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 21:06 MSK

MosNews

Russian Foreign Ministry has blamed Estonia of protecting the revival of pro-Nazi attitudes in the country. Russia considers the restoration of the monument to SS legionaries in Estonia as jeering at the victims of Nazism.

“The restoration of the monument cannot be considered otherwise than as a direct challenge to the ruling of the Nuremberg Tribunal that acknowledged the SS activity as criminal,” the ministry’s statement said.

The monument to the Estonians who fought in the World War II on the German side is to be restored in the village of Lagedi on Saturday. This monument was first unveiled in August 2004 in the village of Lihula but was dismantled due to the international resonance.

[Kollyvas]

http://www.mosnews.com/news/2005/09/29/ ... orts.shtml

UN Drugs Chief Says Baltic States Exporting Amphetamines
Created: 29.09.2005 10:00 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 11:50 MSK

MosNews

The Baltic countries of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia are no longer importers, but exporters of amphetamines and drug abuse in the region is on the rise, the UN’s drugs and crime chief said Wednesday, the Associated Press reported.

Antonio Maria Costa, the executive director of the UN’s Office on Drugs and Crime, said escalating drug abuse in the region is leading to a rise in organized crime, HIV/AIDS, human trafficking and corruption. Costa, speaking at a Lithuanian government-sponsored forum on drug abuse and control in the Baltic region, praised the Baltic governments for their efforts to combat drug abuse but said more must be done.

“The Baltic region, the Nordic countries and Eastern Europe remain targets for heroin traffickers,” Costa said. Located on the European Union’s easternmost border, the Baltic countries are a logical entry point for heroin manufactured in Afghanistan to reach the EU through neighboring Russia and Belarus, Costa said.

Amphetamines, which were mainly imported into the Baltics during the 1990s, are now being made in underground labs and exported, according to police. In 1997, for example, Lithuanian police uncovered one such lab. In 2000 alone, they uncovered six. “Those amphetamine factories are mushrooming faster than we are able to track and close them down,” Lithuanian Interior Minister Gintaras Furmanavicius told the forum. “Lithuania has already become an amphetamine exporter.”

Police say the criminal gangs producing these drugs are looking to establish themselves throughout the EU. Illegal drug use was strictly punished and pushed underground by the totalitarian Soviet regime that ruled over the Baltics during the nearly five-decade-long occupation of the region. But with independence in 1991 came a growth in the illegal drug trade.

“If you go to a techno club in Vilnius, someone will offer you an Ecstasy pill or amphetamine within five minutes,” said Raimonda Dainye, a 26-year-old student who attended the forum. “It was not like this six years ago.”

[Kollyvas]

http://www.mosnews.com/news/2005/07/19/ ... ches.shtml

Monument to SS officer in Tallin / www.redvoltaire.net

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Russia Denounces SS Marches in Estonia
Created: 19.07.2005 17:17 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 17:17 MSK

MosNews

The Russian Foreign Affairs Ministry has spoken out against parades involving former SS officers in Estonia, RIA Novosti reported Tuesday quoting a foreign affairs spokesman.

On July 16, a parade was held in Tartu involving Estonian veterans of the Nazi Waffen-SS. The event was organized by the “Union of Freedom Fighters,” which has members from the Baltic countries, Finland, Sweden and Canada.

“Russia has repeatedly expressed its disapproval of this event, which is regularly held in the Baltic States,” the spokesman said.

“It is all the more unacceptable because it is taking place within the EU, the members of which actively oppose all neo-fascist events and forbid the use of Nazi symbols.”

At the 61st session of the UN Committee for Human Rights (UNCHR) serious concerns were expressed over the rise in extremist movements and political parties provoking racism and xenophobia, and spreading the ideologies of fascism and racial supremacy, RIA Novosti added.

The spokesman said that 60 years after the end of fascism, the international community must not allow racism to emerge and attract the younger generation. He added that history severely punishes those who fail to learn from its lessons.

[Kollyvas]

http://www.mosnews.com/news/2005/06/17/ ... poll.shtml

Russians Say No Need to Apologize to Baltics — Poll
Created: 18.06.2005 12:09 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 12:09 MSK

MosNews

Most Russian people questioned in a poll said their government should not acknowledge any faults for the actions of the Soviet Union in the Baltic states. The Bashkirova & Partners pollster interviewed 1,500 Russian adults in the middle of May.

Only 3.9 percent of the respondents “completely agreed” that the current Russian government should give apologies to Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, 6.2 percent said they “partially agree”. 66.4 percent of the respondents “completely disagreed” with the idea of apologizing, 13.8 percent said they “partially disagree”. 9.7 percent said they did not know.

52.3 percent of respondents completely disagreed with the statement that the Soviet Union occupied the Baltic States in 1940. 18.2 percent “partially disagreed,” 9.9 percent “partially agreed,” 7.1 percent “completely agreed,” 12.5 percent said they do not know.

Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga has recently demanded from Russia condemnation of the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop agreement that led to the annexation of the Baltic states by the Soviet Union. She also insisted on the restoration of a 1920 peace treaty with Russia. But the Russian leadership rejected those demands. Russian President Vladimir Putin said the Soviet leadership had already condemned the 1939 pact, and that Latvia’s territorial demands made no sense.