Paul Goble
Staunton, July 4 – A call by some
Duma members for the Russian government to review and declare illegal the
Soviet government’s recognition of Baltic independence in September 1991 has
attracted widespread attention and concern as an indication of Moscow’s
intentions but ultimately ridicule as otherwise meaningless grandstanding.
But there are other straws in the wind
which suggest some in the Russian government are laying the groundwork for a
more aggressive stance against the Baltic states, and two of them which have
appeared this week, while they have received little notice internationally, may
ultimately be a more important signal of the Kremlin’s plans.
That is because they reflect the
longstanding Russian tactic of “divide-and-rule,” which in this case means the
playing up of differences or even the creation of differences where they do not
exist among the three Baltic countries in order to make it more difficult for
these three NATO members to cooperate with each other and with the Western
alliance as well.
The first involves a Latvian
activist of the Association Against Nazism, a group that has often followed
Moscow’s line. Janis Kruzinis has
launched a petition campaign on the manabalss.lv portal to seek “’the return of
the territory of Palanga” from Lithuania (ru.delfi.lt/news/live/latviec-sobiraet-podpisi-za-vozvraschenie-palangi-latvii.d?id=68404500).
Kruzinis says that such a return
would resolve “a historical dispute about the sea border between Latvia and
Lithuania and return Palanga kray which historically was the territory of
Latvia.” Latvia would benefit, he
continues, because there are supposedly oil deposits in the region and because
of new jobs for Latvians in the restored Latvian region.
He wants the Latvian parliament seek
the help of the EU to review the agreement about the borders between Latvia and
Lithuania. According to him, Latvia handed over Palanga kray to Lithuania in
1921 because “Lithuania did not have an outlet to the Baltic Sea.” But in 1923,
Lithuania obtained Klaipeda kray which gave it one but did not return Palanga
to Riga’s control.
In a little over two weeks, slightly
more than 10,000 people have signed Kruzinis’ petition, although it is unclear
what this will lead to except for the possibility of sparking tensions between
Latvians and Lithuanians, something Moscow would be certain to exploit in the
event of a crisis.
The second case is more curious but
equally disturbing. It comes from the
pen of Dimitry Klensky, notorious for his pro-Russian and anti-Estonian
writings and activism. In “an appeal
compatriots,” the activist notes that five pro-Russian activists were arrested
in Riga at the end of June but that Russians in Estonia have failed to react (iarex.ru/articles/51867.html).
“The Union of Organizations of
Russian Compatriots of Estonia and the Coordinating Council of Russian
Compatriots of Estonia have remained silent. Social and cultural organizations
and rights activists have as well, including the Russian School in Estonia, the
Pushkin Institute, the Russian Academic Society of Estonia, the Assembly of
National Minorities of Estonia, the local Russian press and intelligentsia,”
Klensky says.
Moreover, he continues, “Russian-speaking
and Russian social-political activists, representatives of political parties
which consider themselves to be on the left, the Social Democrats and the
Centrists have said nothing as well.”
And the major Russian websites in Estonia have ignored what is going on
in Riga.
“This creates the impression,” he
continues, “that in Estonia, the local Security Police has already successfully
dealt with the suppression of any dissent” much as their predecessors did in
pre-war Estonia, albeit with more modern methods, including “easily falsified
electronic elections” and buying off ethnic Russians with grants and high pay.
“Silence in such conditions,”
Klensky says, “means approval of the existing situation when democratic
institutions have become decorations in the form of democracy. The silence of
the Russian and Russian-language population, almost a third of the population
of the country, speaks to its moral-ethnic repression” by “an ethnocratic state.”
Klensky, of course, is not open to
the possibility that the Baltic countries have treated the ethnic Russians sufficiently
well that the overwhelming majority of them are loyal citizens even if they
identify with Russian culture. But unfortunately, he is not the only one of
whom that is true, and Moscow seems set to launch a new effort on the basis of
its own misconception.
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