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Current Events

Lithuanian Parliament Endorses Bill on Compensation for Soviet Rule

The Lithuanian parliament approved a bill, on May 16th, calling on Moscow to compensate Lithuania for five decades of occupation by the Soviet Union.

The initiator of the bill, Parliamentary Chairman Vytautas Landsbergis, said at the plenary sitting that the compensation of losses is based on the international law and the will of Lithuanian people expressed during a referendum in the early 1990s.

According to an explanatory note presented by Landsbergis, Russia vowed upon its accession to the Council of Europe (CE) in 1996 to assist people deported from the occupied Baltic states, or their descendants, to return to their homeland in line with special repatriation and compensation programs.

The draft law suggests that Lithuania's government should establish a special fund that would assist Lithuanians who were exiled during Soviet rule to Siberia.

According to the draft legislation, a possible source of inflow to the fund is tariffs on transits of Russia's military and hazardous cargo through Lithuania.

The bill will now go on discussion at parliamentary committees and will return to the parliament's plenary sitting on June 6. 

 

Lithuania Adopts EU Integration Program

The Lithuanian governmental European Integration Commission confirmed the National Program for the Adoption of the Acquis for the 2000-2003 period on May 11th.

The program, drafted by the European Committee, is the main instrument to plan and manage the integration into the European Union (EU), said a European Committee spokesman.

The Acquis program is revised on an annual basis in response to the situation and recommendations of the European Commission (EC.) The most recent change is the third wording of the national EU readiness program. According to the program, over 1,500 European legal acts should be transferred to Lithuanian law by Jan. 1, 2004.

The governmental European Integration Commission approved the country's positions in two other negotiating chapters, customers and health protection and fisheries.

Presently, the commission has adopted Lithuania's positions in 11 out of 29 negotiating areas: statistics, small and medium-sized undertakings, education and training, telecommunications and information technologies, culture and audio-visual policy, company law, competition policy, industrial policy, and external relations.

Lithuania opened its EU pre-accession talks in eight negotiating chapters in the beginning of the year. The Baltic state hopes to complete the talks by 2002 and be prepared to take on membership obligations by the year 2004. 

 

Ignalina’s Financial Assistance to be Addressed

Lithuanian Premier Andrius Kubilius and European Commission (EC) member Gunter Verheugen sent out joint invitations on May 11th to heads of financial groups and governments of the European Union members and associated states asking them to attend a donors' conference for the closure of the first power unit of the Ignalina nuclear power plant.

The conference -- coordinated by the Lithuanian government with EC assistance -- will be held in Vilnius on June 21st to the 22nd this year.

The invitation letters were also mailed to the heads of U.S., Canadian, Japanese, Ukrainian, Russian and other governments, said the governmental press service.

Lithuania noted that the country's parliament approved the national energy strategy last year, which served as the basis for the law on decommissioning the first energy block by the year 2005. Lithuania said that this legislation, passed on May 2nd this year, will be useful for Lithuanian people and the rest of Europe.

The closure of the first of Ignalina’s two reactors will be a difficult process requiring extensive funding; therefore international financial assistance will be needed, according to the invitations. The two RBMK-type reactors were launched in 1984 and 1987 and are of the same model that exploded in the Chernobyl nuclear

plant 14 years ago. They are considered unsafe in spite of a number of Western safety technologies introduced since the start of the last decade.

The preliminary cost of the closure of the nuke's first reactor should total at about 20 billion litas (USD 5 bln,); however, the expenses will be distributed over several decades. The EC allocated 10 million Euros to the decommissioning of the plant last year, and vowed to grant an annual of 20 million Euros during the 2000-2006 period. 

 

Lithuania’s Chechen Allies Urge Stop of Russian Polls

Lithuanian supporters of Chechnya's independence have stressed that the planned Russian elections in the country are illegal, urging the international community to meet lawful leaders of the republic.

The head of an international parliamentary group for Chechen problems, Algirdas Endriukaitis, wrote a letter to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's (OSCE) chairwoman Benita Ferrero-Waldner on May 15th, calling the organization to meet the lawfully-elected Chechen leaders in the republic or in a third country.

In December 1999, the then Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin "subjectively and without legal grounds" cancelled the results of the parliamentary and presidential elections of Jan. 27 1997, Endriukaitis said in the letter.

Aslan Maskhadov was lawfully elected the president of Chechnya in the polls of 1997.

According to the statement, the gesture of Putin indicates Russia's turndown of the results of the democratic polls approved by Russia itself and OSCE observers.

The Russian administration plans to hold elections to the Russian State Duma in Chechnya on Aug. 20 this year.

Endriukaitis said in the statement that the holding of the polls in Chechnya is illegal, adding that "no elections are possible under the military regime." In his opinion, "the only way to understanding is negotiations with the lawful leaders of Chechnya."

The leader of the international groups for Chechen problems said that OSCE's refusal to meet Maskhadov or other authorized officials would mean refusal of its course of policy in Chechnya. 

All news from Lithuania
— Baltic News Service

Lithuanian Court Adjourns Hearing Soviet Genocide Case

The court hearing of a criminal case of the former KGB officer, Petras Raslanas, accused of genocide, was adjourned on May 15th for six months by the Šiauliai district court in central Lithuania.

The court had failed to hand in the bill of indictment and the summons to the court to the defendant, as Raslanas currently resides in Russia and could not be reached.

Early in May, the Lithuanian Ministry of Justice received a letter of refusal to render legal assistance in handing the summons to the Šiauliai district court to Raslanas, resident of the Russian town of Balashikha near Moscow.

The Russian Justice Ministry said that Raslanas was unable to come to collect the summons to the court because of his poor health. A certificate of medical examination attached to the letter said to the effect that Raslanas, 84, was seriously handicapped.

Raslanas escaped to Russia almost a decade ago. He is a Russian passport holder.

The latest amendments to the Code of Criminal Procedure, which had already come into effect ,stipulate that a trial in absentia is only possible if the court summons have been officially handed to the defendant.

The former high-ranking Soviet KGB officer, Petras Raslanas, is charged with organizing and supervising the execution of 76 civilians in Rainiai, western Lithuania, in 1941. 

 

New Platform for the Conservative Party

The Conservative Party's success in the upcoming elections will depend on its ability to present a "particularly bright, unambiguous and resolute program of creating a modern Lithuania," Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius said at the party's forum on May 13th.

Kubilius, a co-leader of the ruling Conservative Party, briefed the participants of the conference on the principles of the “New Wind” platform, which could serve as the basis for the party's program for the parliamentary elections scheduled for this October.

The prime minister read seven keynotes, on which, in his opinion, the party's electoral program should be based:

  • digital economy,
  • modern and competitive industry,
  • energy and infrastructure,
  • modern management of state and stability,
  • modern security,
  • modern conservatism,
  • modern relations with other parties.

Kubilius called for sufficient funding of the reinforcement of national security and implementation of NATO obligations. "Good relations with neighboring states should be a priority of foreign policy; however, it should not prevent us or them from choosing a right way of ensuring security," said the prime minister.

In his words, "Russia remains an obscurity, and obscurity does not contribute to the reinforcement of security." Meanwhile, NATO "is clarity-ensuring stability in the entire region," said the premier. 

 

Conference in Washington Focuses on the Baltics

The 17th Conference on Baltic Studies, sponsored by the Association for the Advancement of Baltic Studies (AABS), will be held at the Georgetown University Intercultural Center (ICC) on the Georgetown campus in Washington, D.C. from June 15th to the 17th.

The Conference’s subject will be “Baltic Countries and Their Baltic Neighbors: Redefining Relationships”.

Some of the topics for the panels will be:

  • Baltic Entrepreneurs and Managers
  • Democratic Reform.
  • Problems in Interwar History of the Baltic States
  • Baltic Literature
  • The International Effect on Baltic Politics

To receive information about the Conference and AABS, write to AABS Conference, P.O. Box 3444, Merrifield, VA 22116-3444 or e-mail at AABSconference@aol.com.

— Ramune Kubilius