2016-01-20 Juris Kaža, RIGA
Pro-independence protesters during the events of Latvia's "Days of the Barricades" [Image: medium.com]
Latvia looks back 25 years after Soviet crackdown
Pro-independence protesters during the events of Latvia's "Days of the Barricades" [Image: medium.com]
Where couples
with dogs now stroll along snow-covered paths in Bastejkalns Park,
tracer bullets streaked across the night sky 25 years ago in the Latvian
capital Riga, leaving four people dead and a fifth, a TV cameraman,
mortally wounded.
As every January 20, Latvian parliamentarians and government officials laid flowers and candles at four flat stone plaques marking where victims of the shooting by Soviet special police forces had fallen, this time marking 25 years since the dramatic events of 1991.
Then a Soviet republic, Latvia had elected a new Supreme Soviet in semi-open elections in 1990 and adopted a declaration of independence on May 4 the same year.
Lithuania, also under Soviet rule, had declared full independence on March 11, triggering a blockade of deliveries of food and energy from centralized Soviet institutions.
After the New Year, as the US and its allies prepared to launch Operation Desert Storm to liberate Kuwait from Iraqi occupation, Soviet security forces tightened their grip on the Lithuania and Latvia, leading to an attack by on the Lithuanian TV tower in Vilnius the night of January 12–13 that left 14 people dead and dozens wounded.
That triggered what is called the “Days of the Barricades” when thousands of Latvians flocked to key government buildings and dozens of tractors, heavy trucks and other equipment — all then property of Soviet farms and enterprises — were driven into the capital to block streets near government buildings. Latvian Television and access roads to the city center.
While Latvia and neighboring Lithuania have undergone radical political and economic changes since fully regaining their independence in August, 1991, and with all Russian troops withdrawn from the Baltic countries by the mid-1990s, Russia is still seen as a latent threat to Latvia and its neighbours.
Moscow is still a potentially irrational threat to Latvia, the way the Soviet Union was 25 years, said Ivars Godmanis, who was Latvia’s Prime Minister in 1991 and recalls meeting then Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in Moscow just hours before Soviet soldiers started shooting in Vilnius.
He recalled that Mr. Gorbachev, in an apparently reasonable discussion with Mr. Godmanis, said there would be no bloodshed as a result of efforts by the Baltic countries to regain their independence.
The shootings in Vilnius just hours later showed that elements of the Soviet leadership were capable of acting irrationally, Mr.Godmanis said.
Looking back at events in the Ukraine, including the seizure of Crimea, Mr. Godmanis said that Russia’s leadership seemed to show the same level of irrationality in its actions.
The trained physicist and hobby rock drummer served again as Latvia’s Prime Minister from 2007 to 2009 and has worked in banking and private business over the past 25 years.
The former prime minister spoke following an event to commemorate the “Days of the Barricades” at the Cabinet of Ministers or Government House, which was encircled by heavy vehicles and barriers 25 years ago.
Outgoing Prime Minister Laimdota Straujuma, while addressing former participants in the events of January 1991, said she, like other Latvian women in Riga at the time, had spend most of the crisis days making sandwiches for the thousands of volunteers manning the ad hoc barricades and jury-rigged tank barriers around Latvia’s Soviet-era legislature — the Supreme Council (now the parliament or Saeima building), the Government House, Latvian Radio (in Riga’s Old Town) and Latvian TV (located on an island in the Daugava River which bisects the capital).
Dainis Ģēgers, who was Latvia’s Minister of Agriculture in 1991, said that preparations for building barricades had been discussed even before the January events, but nothing had been done in practice so as not to provoke the very Soviet police and military forces that the obstacles were aimed at hindering. Things changed after the shootings in Vilnius and plans previously discussed in confidence were executed.
Mr. Ģēgers noted that one remarkable aspect of the barricades action 25 years ago was that almost all of the vehicles, machinery and services used to put them up were owned by Soviet state enterprises, essentially using the resources of the centrally-planned economy to protect against its own security forces. An elaborate field of anti-helicopter obstacles was erected around Latvian Television’s headquarters by an agrarian services enterprise.
The bloody but abortive moves by Soviet special police forces (also known as the OMON) were a precursor for the failed coup against Mr. Gorbachev in August, 1991, that saw the Baltic countries break away from the Soviet Union and get international recognition.
This article first appeared on Medium.com on January 20, 2016, and was written by Juris Kaža
As every January 20, Latvian parliamentarians and government officials laid flowers and candles at four flat stone plaques marking where victims of the shooting by Soviet special police forces had fallen, this time marking 25 years since the dramatic events of 1991.
Then a Soviet republic, Latvia had elected a new Supreme Soviet in semi-open elections in 1990 and adopted a declaration of independence on May 4 the same year.
Lithuania, also under Soviet rule, had declared full independence on March 11, triggering a blockade of deliveries of food and energy from centralized Soviet institutions.
After the New Year, as the US and its allies prepared to launch Operation Desert Storm to liberate Kuwait from Iraqi occupation, Soviet security forces tightened their grip on the Lithuania and Latvia, leading to an attack by on the Lithuanian TV tower in Vilnius the night of January 12–13 that left 14 people dead and dozens wounded.
That triggered what is called the “Days of the Barricades” when thousands of Latvians flocked to key government buildings and dozens of tractors, heavy trucks and other equipment — all then property of Soviet farms and enterprises — were driven into the capital to block streets near government buildings. Latvian Television and access roads to the city center.
While Latvia and neighboring Lithuania have undergone radical political and economic changes since fully regaining their independence in August, 1991, and with all Russian troops withdrawn from the Baltic countries by the mid-1990s, Russia is still seen as a latent threat to Latvia and its neighbours.
Moscow is still a potentially irrational threat to Latvia, the way the Soviet Union was 25 years, said Ivars Godmanis, who was Latvia’s Prime Minister in 1991 and recalls meeting then Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in Moscow just hours before Soviet soldiers started shooting in Vilnius.
He recalled that Mr. Gorbachev, in an apparently reasonable discussion with Mr. Godmanis, said there would be no bloodshed as a result of efforts by the Baltic countries to regain their independence.
The shootings in Vilnius just hours later showed that elements of the Soviet leadership were capable of acting irrationally, Mr.Godmanis said.
Looking back at events in the Ukraine, including the seizure of Crimea, Mr. Godmanis said that Russia’s leadership seemed to show the same level of irrationality in its actions.
The trained physicist and hobby rock drummer served again as Latvia’s Prime Minister from 2007 to 2009 and has worked in banking and private business over the past 25 years.
The former prime minister spoke following an event to commemorate the “Days of the Barricades” at the Cabinet of Ministers or Government House, which was encircled by heavy vehicles and barriers 25 years ago.
Outgoing Prime Minister Laimdota Straujuma, while addressing former participants in the events of January 1991, said she, like other Latvian women in Riga at the time, had spend most of the crisis days making sandwiches for the thousands of volunteers manning the ad hoc barricades and jury-rigged tank barriers around Latvia’s Soviet-era legislature — the Supreme Council (now the parliament or Saeima building), the Government House, Latvian Radio (in Riga’s Old Town) and Latvian TV (located on an island in the Daugava River which bisects the capital).
Dainis Ģēgers, who was Latvia’s Minister of Agriculture in 1991, said that preparations for building barricades had been discussed even before the January events, but nothing had been done in practice so as not to provoke the very Soviet police and military forces that the obstacles were aimed at hindering. Things changed after the shootings in Vilnius and plans previously discussed in confidence were executed.
Mr. Ģēgers noted that one remarkable aspect of the barricades action 25 years ago was that almost all of the vehicles, machinery and services used to put them up were owned by Soviet state enterprises, essentially using the resources of the centrally-planned economy to protect against its own security forces. An elaborate field of anti-helicopter obstacles was erected around Latvian Television’s headquarters by an agrarian services enterprise.
The bloody but abortive moves by Soviet special police forces (also known as the OMON) were a precursor for the failed coup against Mr. Gorbachev in August, 1991, that saw the Baltic countries break away from the Soviet Union and get international recognition.
This article first appeared on Medium.com on January 20, 2016, and was written by Juris Kaža
Latvia looks back 25 years after Soviet crackdown
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