Paul
Goble
Staunton, March 9 -- Solvita Āboltiņa, chairman of the Latvian
parliament’s security committee, says that the 100 NGOs in Latvia receiving
money from Moscow are not “organizations concerned with the development of the culture
and traditions of national minorities in Latvia.”
Instead,
the 100 Moscow-backed organizations the Security Police have identified are
those which “are carrying out actions hostile to official policy of the state,
including those connected with Latvia’s status as an independent state” and
such actions must be considered “interference in [Latvia’s] internal affairs” (vesti.lv/news/idet-voina-gibridnaya).
The situation in Latvia is less
secure than it was a year ago, the deputy says, given Moscow’s actions in
Ukraine, its declarations of regret about the demise of the USSR and
suggestions that “Latvia is in general not a country but a territory belonging
to Russia, Russian overflights of Latvian territory, and Russian military
maneuvers near the Latvian border.
What makes all these things
especially worrisome, Āboltiņa says, is
that they are quite similar to the actions Moscow took before invading Ukraine
and Georgia.
Latvians
can feel secure because Latvia is a member of NATO and protected by the
provisions of Article 5, “but its own security is the greatest task of each
country.” And consequently, she adds, Riga is boosting defense spending,
although that alone will not be sufficient.
She
agrees with her interviewer that “even the strongest army cannot resolve all
the problems of the security of the country.” Security is not just blocking
invasions; it is about ensuring domestic security, fighting international
terrorism, and ensuring that its media freedom is not exploited by those who
want to destabilize Latvia.
Āboltiņa says that Latvia devoted too
little attention to the impact of Russian television in the past, but it is now
correcting this. On the one hand, she says, people should be free to choose
what they watch. But on the other, the government has an interest in ensuring
that channels which seek to destabilize the situation as RTR does in Latgale are
countered.
In
her view, Latvia does not have the possibility of creating a Russian-language
channel of its own that could satisfy all the entertainment needs of the
population, even with European support. But it does need to work to create a
series of news and information programming for Russian speakers.
Despite
some criticism, Āboltiņa says she always speaks Russian with those journalists
and others who speak it. Her “position,”
she says is that “Latvian is our single state language and speaking it we show
respect to it. But if a politician wants to be heard, then it is important to
speak on that language in which he wants to be heard.”
Translators, she continues, do not
always “catch important nuances,” noting that she often has to correct them.
And she “always stresses: in Latvia at all times have lived people of various
nationalities and it is important to have a dialogue with them.”
Several upcoming holidays, on March
6 and May 9, are likely to be more explosive this year than in the past, Āboltiņa says, because of the geopolitical
situation, Latvia’s current status as chairman in office of the EU Council, and
the dangers of terrorism. But precisely because of those dangers, Latvian
politicians must be careful.
And
she calls on all of them and everyone else as well to attend to the words of
Riga Archbishop Jānis Vanags who has pointed out that “Latvia has a very complicated
history, that Latvia did not start World War II” – Hitler and Stalin did that –
and “that residents of Latvia fought on various sides of the front, but each
fought for Latvia.”
Consequently,
the Lutheran leader says, “each of them has the right to remember his fallen
comrades.” But Āboltiņa says it is imperative and especially in this year of
heightened tensions for politicians avoiding making a political issue out of
how they do.
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