Russia's Baltic Annexation

Russia's Baltic annexation
Written by David Ferguson in Brussels
Wednesday, 22 June 2005

"It is especially important for the Baltic nations to feel sure that the tragedies of the past will never happen again. This will be possible if the Russian Federation, as the legal successor to the Soviet Union, would accept assessments given by the European Parliament and other democratic bodies as to the occupation of the three Baltic States," said Estonian MEP Tunne Kelam.

Kelam, together with MEP Vytautas Landsbergis, Lithuania's first president following independence from the Soviet Union, is behind a draft resolution up for consideration at the ongoing Brussels plenary session of the European Parliament. "As the three Baltic States remember the 65th anniversary of their occupation and annexation by the Soviet Union, the solidarity expressed by the European Parliament strengthens consolidation of the European spirit," said Landsbergis.

Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia were annexed from 15 till 17 June 1940 The occupation of the three Baltic States was a direct result of the 23 August 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact providing for the three countries' division into zones of 'influence'.

The right-of-centre EPP group in the European Parliament sent a communiqué expressing "... their deep regret that the 1940 illegal occupation resulted in the total extinction by brutal force of state structures and civil society of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, wiped these three member states of the League of Nations from the political map of Europe for half a century and caused massive terror, suppression of basic human rights as well as innumerable human tragedies and damage."

The draft resolution comes at the same time as the pan-European institution, the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, debates Russia's record on human rights. The Council of Europe's 630 members, who hail from national parliaments in the 46 member states including Russia, are likely to give the Soviet Union's legal successor short shrift at the Parliamentary Assembly's Summer Session. "We are concerned about the apportionment of powers which, because of the further development of Putin's 'controlled democracy', is threatened by strong power wielded from the top down," said German Socialist Rudolf Bindig.

"The death penalty has still not been formally abolished. The Yukos case with the condemnation of Mikhail Khodorkovskii has again raised doubts about judicial independence. The Kremlin is constantly extending its influence over television and the press," continued Bindig. Together with British Conservative David Atkinson, the German Socialist presented a report on Russia today in Strasbourg.

(via MAK)