Recognizing the victims of totalitarianism in Canada

Posted Saturday, February 20, 2010 by Anders Hjemdahl

On November 30, 2009, Hon. Bob Rae introduced a resolution condemning the crimes of Nazi and Communist regimes in Europe and the establishment of an annual Canadian day of remembrance for the victims of those regimes, Black Ribbon Day, on August 23rd.

We congratulate the Canadian government for unanimously bundling off Communism and National Socialism to the ash heap of history, and commend the tireless work of the Canadian Human Rights activists that have influenced and inspired the actions of the Government.

One of these groups, Tribute To Liberty, has been advocating the erection of a Memorial to the Victims of Communism in Ottawa:
“A major commemoration to the victims of totalitarian Communism in Ottawa will serve as a reminder of the over 100 million victims of Communism worldwide. Over 8 million Canadians trace their roots—and for many their own lives—to countries that lived or live under Communism.”

A major step in the process of realizing the monument came on September 22, 2009, when the Canadian National Capital Commission approved the “Memorial to Victims of Totalitarian Communism—Canada, a Land of Refuge” to be built on national capital region land.

Read more about Tribute To Liberty here.

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Categories Canada, Human Rights | 4 Comments »)

Russia-Europe: The dangers of a “reset”

Posted Friday, February 19, 2010 by Anders Hjemdahl

bomb

By Françoise Thom

What strikes a historian when looking at the relationship between Russia and Europe is the unchanging illusions Russia produces in the imagination of Westerners, and Russia’s ability to dictate the conceptual frameworks within which it wants to be interpreted –and misunderstood– abroad.

This explains another mystery in the relationship between Russians and Europeans: the astonishing imperviousness of the Western partners to experience.
The successive setbacks suffered by businessmen in Russia, the snubs regularly inflicted on European statesmen, the murders, the insults to diplomats, the abusive nationalizations, the broken commitments, the violations of international law, all are instantly forgotten.
No sooner had Russia launched a war of conquest allowing it to occupy 20 percent of the territory of a neighboring state, than the United States spoke of a “reset”; that is to say, of wiping off the slate (and thus erasing a valuable experience from which the lessons should have been drawn), while France is eagerly offering Russia the means for its next war of aggression against neighboring states by selling it Mistral helicopter carriers.

Rarely has the actual misunderstanding of Russia been as great as it is now, and as fraught with disastrous consequences for Europe.

Read the whole article in Eesti Elu (in English) here and in French in Géopolitique de L’Europe here.

(Categories Estonia, Finland, Geopolitics, Latvia, Lithuania, NATO, Russia, Security, Sweden, United States | 1 Comment »)

Nord Stream Project Faces Hard Slog Against the Tide

Posted Friday, February 19, 2010 by Anders Hjemdahl

by Vladimir Socor

Nord Stream, the gas pipeline project on the Baltic seabed from Russia to Germany, has cleared the final legal requirement, obtaining the construction permit from the state administration agency of the Southern Finland region (Financial Times Deutschland, February 15).

The governments of Finland, Denmark, and Sweden had granted the construction permits last October and November for the Gazprom-led project (EDM, November 10, 12, 2009). Their neighbors on the opposite Baltic shore (the EU members Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland) had resisted this project. They continue objecting to Nord Stream on the basis of energy security and ecological risk considerations. Once Nord Stream is built, Russia could politically manipulate gas supplies to the Baltic States and Poland by overland pipelines, without affecting Germany, which would be supplied through the seabed pipeline. The EU’s risk-sharing and solidarity might be subjected to strain in such situations, or in the event of supply shortfalls in Russia itself.

The Gazprom-led project is now set for starting construction work this coming spring, despite rapidly changing fundamentals of the gas trade. Development of liquefied natural gas (LNG) and unconventional gas raise new doubts about the economic sense of Nord Stream.

Read the whole article by Vladimir Socor at the Jamestown Foundation’s Eurasia Daily Monitor.

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Categories Estonia, Finland, Geopolitics, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Russia, Security, Sweden | 3 Comments »)

Denmark caves in to Russian pressure over Nordstream

Posted Tuesday, October 20, 2009 by Anders Hjemdahl

The city of Viborg in a painting by Mikael S. Erassi in 1854. The city, founded by Swedish marshal Torkel Knutsson in 1293 close to the historical eastern border of Sweden, Systerbäck, Viborg was for more than six centuries one of Sweden/Finlands most important cities. Illegaly occupied by the Soviet Union/Russia since 1944 and renamed "Vyborg", the city is according to current official Russian sources "an ancient Russian city". To see the city and its architecture as it was before the destruction and decay of the Russian occupation, please visit the University of Tammerfors virtual Viborg project by cklicking on the picture.

The city of Viborg in a painting by Mikael S. Erassi in 1854. The city, founded by Swedish marshal Torkel Knutsson in 1293 close to the historical eastern border of Sweden, Systerbäck, Viborg was for more than six centuries one of Sweden/Finlands most important cities. Illegaly occupied by the Soviet Union/Russia since 1944 and renamed "Vyborg", the city is according to current official Russian sources "an ancient Russian city". To see the city and its architecture as it was before the destruction and decay of the Russian occupation, please visit the University of Tammerfors virtual Viborg project by cklicking on the picture.

After several months of being subjected to pressure from the Russian regime, the Danish government has finally reached a decision to allow the controversial Russian gas pipeline Nordstream to be constructed in Danish territorial waters.

The largest Danish energy company, Dong, has also reached a new decision to double the volume of gas purchased in a recently passed agreement with Russian state-controlled Gazprom to two billion cubic meters annually.

The Nordstream pipeline, rather than using the much cheaper and easier overland route, is planned to be constructed from Björkö outside Viborg in the Russian-occupied zone of Finland, to Greifswald in Germany along environmentally sensitive Baltic Sea floor, bypassing the pipeline system which is currently used for bringing Russian gas exports to the West.

The current pipeline system reaching Europe from Russia was constructed by the Soviet Union with the objective of making the West dependent on Soviet energy. Today, inconveniently for the current Russian regime, this pipeline system now passes through countries which since have regained their independence, making it hard for the Russian state to indiscriminately use the “energy weapon” by turning off supplies to troublesome neighboring countries without also affecting supplies to Western Europe in the process.

The Nordstream pipeline is designed to allow the Russian regime to bypass these troublesome countries, giving it a free hand in applying political pressure, not only on the states in Russia’s self-declared “zone of interest” covering neighboring states Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Belarus and the Ukraine, but also on the West, by even further increasing the already significant Western European dependancy on Russian energy.

The pipeline also provides an excuse to project Russian military presence throughout the Baltic Sea.

The Nord Stream project has been explicitly and consistently described by Russian officials, including Vladimir Putin, as a military-political project by the Putin, and the project forms a key part of Russian foreign policy and military planning.

In response to the controversial purpose and nature of the Nord Stream pipeline project, the Russian plans has been met by fierce opposition in neighboring countries.

The Russian response has been to stifle criticism and speed up the legislative process in countries along the projected route by buying up political clout, including employment by Nordstream/Gazprom of former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder (head of the shareholder’s committee) former Prime Minister of Finland Paavo Lipponen (consultant) and many others, as well as the intensive use of PR firms and lobbyists.

The Managing Director of Nord Stream AG, Mathias Warnig, is a former DDR Stasi agent, and the German subsidiary of Gazprom, Gazprom Germania, has also been heavily critized for being dominated by former Stasi agents.

Robert Larsson’s 362-page study “Russia’s Energy Policy: Security Dimensions and Russia’s Reliability as an Energy Supplier” (2006) concluded:

“From Europe’s perspective, Russia is moving in the wrong direction. Russia has largely ignored criticism, and has been unwilling to change its behaviour. Dependence on Russian energy would not be a problem if Russia played by the same rules as other energy players or European states. In conclusion, the core problem is the combination of Russia’s perception, intentions, capabilities and track record along with lack of real stability, a high degree of unpredictability and a development away from democracy, rule of law and market norms.”


Download the full 2007 FOI (Swedish Defense Research agency) report “Nord Stream, Sweden and Baltic Sea Security” by Robert A. Larsson here.

(Categories Estonia, Finland, Geopolitics, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, NATO, Russia, Security, Sweden | 2 Comments »)

Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and Munich Agreement Not Equivalent Then or Now

Posted Thursday, September 3, 2009 by Anders Hjemdahl

Polish officers, civil servants and other "enemies of the people", arrested by the Soviet army in the "liberated" Soviet-occupied zone of eastern Poland, September 1939

Polish officers, civil servants and other "enemies of the people", arrested by the Soviet army in the "liberated" Soviet-occupied zone of eastern Poland, September 1939

By Paul Goble, New York, September 2, 2009

Efforts by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and other Russian officials and commentators to justify the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and Stalin’s ill-fated alliance with Hitler because of what British and French leaders had done in Munich highlight a dangerous trend in Russian thinking, according to a Moscow commentator.

Not only was the mendacity of the two actions fundamentally different – the British and French acted shamefully as part of an effort to maintain peace while Stalin acted shamefully to cover his seizure of the territory of neighboring countries, but the lessons the two have learned, Leonid Radzikhovsky says underscore the difference.

In an article in yesterday’s Yezhednevny Zhurnal, the Moscow commentator says that there is now question that both Western Europe and the Soviet Union “conducted themselves in a mendacious fashion in the 1930s” in their dealings with Hitler. But “there is mendacity and mendacity,” both at the time of action and in the lessons those who engage in it ultimately learn.

It is certainly true, he writes, that “Europe handed over Czechoslovakia to Hitler.” But “European politicians did not conclude secret deals and did not seize pieces of foreign territory.” And however cynical their actions, their goal was “an idiotic hope” of keeping the peace, something those who had experienced the first world war felt was essential.

In any case, Radzikhovsky suggests, “the real motives of the USSR [in concluding the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and its secret protocols] were different.” They were “the simple, classical, ‘healthy imperialist’ motives – a secret protocol and the seizure of the territories of others.”

Encouraged by their leaders, Russians still are unwilling to acknowledge that the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact opened the way to war and that it was an imperialist act not only by Berlin but by Moscow. And still worse, they have been encouraged by their leaders to view the cynical politics of force that the Europeans have rejected as still the proper order of the day.

Read the full commentary on Radzikhovsky’s article by longtime specialist on ethnic and religious questions in Eurasia, Mr. Paul Goble, at his blog Window On Euarasia, here.

(Categories Geopolitics, NATO, Russia, Security | 2 Comments »)

Kremlin’s Crimes

Posted Thursday, June 11, 2009 by Anders Hjemdahl

By Janusz Bugajski from Wall Street Journal Europe, June 11

As European democracies celebrate the 20th anniversary of their liberation from communism and the Soviets, Moscow seeks to restore its dominance over former satellites. Rewriting Russian history is part of this plan. The Putinist notion of a progressive Soviet system in the past is designed to provide justification for Russia’s current assertiveness in the region.

Take Moscow’s annual May 9 parade, which celebrates the “victory over fascism” on the anniversary of Nazi Germany’s surrender to the Allies. The entire exercise is based on a monumental national delusion fostered by the Kremlin. Although Russia was one of the victorious powers at the end of World War II, Moscow continues to disguise the historic record that the Soviet Union itself helped launch the war in close alliance with Nazi Germany. Through the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact, Stalin schemed with Hitler to carve up Eastern Europe.

Russia has recently intensified its revisionist campaign, claiming that it voluntarily gave up communism and the Soviet Bloc and that the Cold War ended in a draw with the West. Russia’s state propagandists maintain that the USSR never occupied its neighboring states after World War II, but rather liberated them from tyranny.

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Western countries, including the former Soviet satellites, can take steps to expose Russia’s historical revisionism by sponsoring international conferences and symposia, by opening up all pertinent state archives to scholars, by educating the younger generation about communist crimes, and simply by talking openly about the Soviet era.

As Russia glosses over its dark past and flexes its muscles, the fear is that those who rewrite history may also be determined to repeat it.

Read the full article in the Wall Street Journal here.

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False choices for Russia

Posted Thursday, June 11, 2009 by Anders Hjemdahl

Lev Gudkov, Igor Klyamkin, Georgy Satarov and Lilia Shevtsova writes in the Tuesday, June 9 edition of The Washington Post:

As intellectuals and liberal Russians, we have read with great interest many recommendations American experts have compiled for President Obama regarding the U.S.-Russian relationship. While there are several constructive ideas, many of these reports reflect a serious misunderstanding of the situation in Russia and the course it is following.

We object, for example, to the basic proposition of calling for a return to realpolitik because some believe that the worsening of Russian-American relations was mainly caused by Washington’s insistence on “tying policies to values.” The result, some American “realists” argue, is that the United States needs to build a new relationship with Russia based on “common interests and common threats.” Yet in blaming the Bush administration for trying to “teach” Russia about democracy, these realists appear to accept the official Russian position. In our view, America has ignored the problems of democracy and civil society in Russia, but even turning a blind eye did not prevent the breakdown in the U.S.-Russian relationship — and now Obama is essentially being asked to treat Russia as though it is incapable of democratic transformation.

While there is anti-democratic sentiment here, such feelings are not ubiquitous. In fact, nearly two-thirds of Russians would like to see the establishment of democracy and the rule of law, according to a 2008 Levada Center poll. The ruling elite oppose the development of democratic institutions, but the key is that members of the elite are more than ready to integrate into the Western world on an individually beneficial basis; they will do everything in their power to “protect” the rest of Russian society from the perils of such integration.

Read the full article in The Washington Post here (free registration required).

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Communist agent fired shot that changed West Germany

Posted Friday, June 5, 2009 by Anders Hjemdahl

(From the New York Times, by Nicholas Kulish)

It was called “the shot that changed the republic.”

The killing in 1967 of an unarmed demonstrator by a police officer in West Berlin set off a left-wing protest movement and put conservative West Germany on course to evolve into the progressive country it has become today.

Now a discovery in the archives of the East German secret police, known as the Stasi, has upended Germany’s perception of its postwar history. The killer, Karl-Heinz Kurras, though working for the West Berlin police, was at the time also acting as a Stasi spy for East Germany.

It is as if the shooting deaths of four students at Kent State University by the Ohio National Guard had been committed by an undercover K.G.B. officer, though the reverberations in Germany seemed to have run deeper.

“It makes a hell of a difference whether John F. Kennedywas killed by just a loose cannon running around or a Secret Service agent working for the East,” said Stefan Aust, the former editor in chief of the weekly newsmagazine Der Spiegel. “I would never, never, ever have thought that this could be true.”

Read the full article here.

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Gazprom’s Loyalists in Berlin and Brussels

Posted Friday, June 5, 2009 by Anders Hjemdahl

(By Roman Kupchinsky, from the Jamestown Foundation’s Eurasia Daily Monitor)

Gazprom’s extensive network of loyalists, often act as “men of sacrifice,” devoted to cleansing the image of the Russian state owned gas monopoly. Working out of a modern office building in Berlin owned by Gazprom Germania, a German registered company fully owned by Gazprom Export which, in turn is run by Gazprom, they have built up a considerable empire for the Kremlin. In turn they are being whitewashed by other loyalists in the offices of Brussels-based PR firm GPlus Europe.

There is no doubt that these highly qualified, well connected and very bright individuals employed by GPlus Europe and Gazprom Germania serve a vital purpose in creating an illusion that Gazprom is honorable and transparent, and that it is indispensible for European energy security. As the point men for Putin and Alexander Medvedev, the head of Gazprom Export, who pays their salaries, they are indeed “men of sacrifice” working for a cause which lead to the energy subjugation of the EU by a shady clan within the Kremlin.

Read the full article here.

(Categories Estonia, Finland, Geopolitics, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Russia, Security, Sweden | 4 Comments »)

New Russian bill threatens five years in prison for publishing that the Soviet Union occupied Eastern and Central Europe and the Baltic States

Posted Thursday, June 4, 2009 by Camilla Andersson
The German Army and the Soviet Army meet in Brest-Litovsk on September 22, 1939, for a joint victory parade after the joint occupation of Poland by the Soviet Union and its ally, Nazi Germany.

The German Army and the Soviet Army meet in Brest-Litovsk on September 22, 1939, for a joint victory parade after the joint occupation of Poland by the Soviet Union and its ally, Nazi Germany.

A new Russian bill threatens “punishment” for “falsifers of history”. Among the proposed crimes are alleging that the Baltic States and Eastern and Central Europe were occupied by the Soviet Union. Valery Ryazansky, a senior United Russia official and one of the authors of the bill, said, “If the country (Russia) is suddenly called an occupier – that should be punished”.

The decision also comes on the back of proposed bill that could make “distorting the verdicts of the Nuremburg Trials… to rehabilitate Nazism” or even “calling the actions of Allied countries a crime” a criminal offence punishable by up to three years in prison – five if the perpetrator used mass media, according to a text of the bill cited by Kommersant.

Amid increasingly vocal calls to criminalise interpretations of World War II history that question the role of the Soviet Union, President Dmitry Medvedev has set up a commission to investigate and analyse attempts to “falsify history against the interests of Russia.”

In a video blog posted on his web site, Medvedev called attempts at falsification “more and more harsh, depraved and aggressive.” The commission has raised eyebrows by appearing to throw support behind statements by Emergency Situations Minister Sergei Shoigu that denying Russia’s victory in the war should be illegal. 

 
Read the full article by Anna Arutunyan in The Moscow News here.


Read also “Medvedev Imposes Control Over Russian History” by  leading Russian democracy and human rights activist Oleg Kozlovsky in the Huffington Post.

(Categories Estonia, Finland, Geopolitics, Human Rights, Latvia, Lithuania, Russia, Security | 3 Comments »)

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