Posted on 05/07/2005 3:20:28 PM PDT by neverdem
Filed at 1:34 p.m. ET
RIGA (Reuters) - President Bush denounced Soviet Cold War rule of eastern Europe as ``one of the greatest wrongs of history'' on Saturday in a jab at Moscow two days before celebrations of the 1945 victory over Hitler.
Bush, visiting Latvia before the ceremonies in Moscow marking 60 years since the end of World War II in Europe, also held up the three Baltic states as examples of democratic reform since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
He said the end of the war brought liberty from fascism for many in Germany but meant the ``iron rule of another empire'' for the Baltic states -- Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia -- and nations from Poland to Romania.
Bush admitted the United States shared some responsibility for the Cold War division of Europe after the 1945 Yalta accord between Russia, the United States and Britain.
``Once again, when powerful governments negotiated, the freedom of small nations was somehow expendable,'' he said. ``Yet this attempt to sacrifice freedom for the sake of stability left a continent divided and unstable.
``The captivity of millions in central and eastern Europe will be remembered as one of the greatest wrongs of history,'' he said in a speech at Riga's guildhall.
The three Baltic states joined both NATO and the European Union last year.
Bush's visit to Riga has angered Russia by reviving tensions about the Soviet occupation when Moscow is focusing on celebrating the end of World War II, a conflict that cost 27 million Soviet lives.
Russian President Vladimir Putin dismissed calls by the Baltic states for an apology for Soviet rule and accused them on Saturday of trying to cover up past Nazi collaboration.
BUSH MEETS PUTIN
The differing versions of history may make for frictions when Bush meets Putin in Moscow on Sunday and Monday.
Putin insists the Red Army was a liberator, not an oppressor, of Eastern Europe.
``Our people not only defended their homeland, they liberated 11 European countries,'' Putin said on Saturday after laying a wreath at a monument to Russia's war dead.
In a recent state of the nation speech he bemoaned the demise of the Soviet Union as ``the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.'' He has also said Washington should not try to export its own brand of democracy.
Bush said Russia's leaders had made ``great progress'' in the past 15 years.
``In the long run it is the strength of Russian democracy that will determine the greatness of Russia and I believe the Russian people value their freedom and will settle for no less,'' he said.
``As we mark a victory of six decades ago, we are mindful of a paradox. For much of Germany, defeat led to freedom. For much of Eastern and Central Europe, victory brought the iron rule of another empire.''
He also held up the Baltics as examples of successful shifts to democracy, a theme he stressed for nations including Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Belarus.
``These are extraordinary times that we're living in and the three Baltic countries are capable of helping Russia and other countries in this part of the world see the benefits of what it means to live in a free society,'' Bush told a news conference.
But Bush did not back pleas by the Baltic countries for an apology from Russia. ``My hope is that we are able to move on,'' he said.
He later flew to the Netherlands where he will spend Saturday night.
The presidents of Lithuania and Estonia will boycott the May 9 ceremonies in Moscow. Georgia's president will also stay away, but Latvia's president will attend.
All three Baltic nations, whose combined population is now about 6 million, were occupied by the Soviet Union in June 1940 after a pact between Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia which divided up spheres of influence in East Europe.
In 1941, German troops occupied the Baltics and remained there until the end of the war when Soviet troops returned and ruled with an iron fist. The collapse of communism enabled the Baltic states to win their independence in 1991.
Bush also urged free elections in Belarus, which shares borders with Lithuania and Latvia, and ruled out any secret U.S deal with Moscow allowing President Alexander Lukashenko to remain in power. ``We don't make secret deals,'' he said.
Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga wrote in the Washington Post on Saturday: ``Russia would gain immensely by ... expressing its genuine regret for the crimes of the Soviet regime.
``Until Russia does so ... its relations with its immediate neighbors will remain uneasy at best.''
But writing in the French daily Le Figaro, Putin dismissed calls for an apology and accused the Baltic countries of trying to justify their own government's ``discriminatory and reprehensible policy'' toward their Russian-speaking populations.
Police detained about 20 protesters from Latvia's big Russian minority after they hurled smoke bombs in a demonstration against Bush.
``Bush is a horror,'' said protest leader Beness Aija. Posters in another demonstration said: ``Stop the war in Iraq.''
But many Latvians welcome Bush. ``It's important to recognize the struggle that our fathers had against communists and the Soviet Union,'' said Ugis Senbergs, a 50-year-old architect.
"...to the people that did this to Warsaw"
You mean Russian SS ?
Hay, apparently you Ukrainians always belonged to your kind masters in Poland and should be thanking them. Well according to ms_68 anyways.
This whole argument is getting ridiculous! Deep breaths everyone..
My two kopeks -
Poland got screwed before, during AND after WWII. The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact destroyed any right for Russia to herald their "victory" over brown fascism - they just replaced it with red fascism. Nothing they did during the war was done with the "liberate Poland" moniker - they wanted the territory under their control (they being the Soviets).
Now, I love Russia and its people, but I am not naive enough to not realize that there are a few there who are nostalgic for the time (in their opinion) they were a great and might superpower. What Putin should have done is acknowledged the Soviet Union's role in the rise of the German (NAZI) Army. He also should have paid homage to the Ukrainians, Belarusians, Poles, Balts, etc., who suffered from BOTH Nazis and Soviets before, during, and after the war. (Especially those who were either mowed down by NKVD rear-guard motorized rifle regiments - such as the NKVD 10th Motorized Rifle Regiment at Stalingrad, or killed by pure Soviet Army incompetence of its officers)
The current somewhat offensive statements coming out of Russia are due to hurt feelings - they've invited the world to fete the "Soviet" victory and aren't to happy to be reminded of Soviet guilt.
"I just hope some of my fellow country man would take deep breath and relax."
I guess that's why the Reds collaborated with the Nazis to make the Molotov - Ribbentropp pact. I guess they wanted to protect the Slavs by dividing Poland. I guess nations on the border of the Soviet Union were too ignorant to comprehend what refugees from that country told them.
It appears to me that you're trying to make some relativistic differentiation between Nazis and Commies, i.e. some marginal distinction without a real difference. Nazis initially went after Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals and then Slavs, according to their priorities, but they still looked at anyone else who was not an Aryan as an inferior, to be dealt with later, while the Reds were equal opportunity killers if you did not tow the party line.
As for the numbers killed by Nazis versus Russian Commies, Nazi killing fields were accessible. Stalin's killing fields were not. It also ignores the aid and comfort that the Soviet Union gave to Chinese Communists, Korean Communists, Vietnamese Communists, Cuban Communists, etc. It also ignores the repression they practiced in their own country and behind the Iron Curtain, especially during the uprisings in East Germany in 1953, Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslavakia in 1968. This doesn't count the cost of their adventurism in South America, Africa and other parts of Asia.
Give me a break. My in-laws fled North Vietnam in 1954. Commie or Russian apologia get no sympathy from me. To me, both Nazis and Commies are equally vile. How Nazis were placed on the right side of the political spectrum still escapes me. They espoused nothing that was conservative or libertarian, only racist.
Thank you
I fully agree with you. What's going on on this thread is sheer madness. If some of those guys were in one room not one of them would come out alive. I'm a Pole but this is really disgusting.
"Thanks for your input and Understanding"
Thank you"Admin Moderator"
The horse and the man both had an enemy, the wolf. One day the man came to the horse and told him , if you will let me ride on your back we can kill the wolf and both benefit.
The horse thought it over and agreed. So the man saddled and bridled the horse and they went off and killed the wolf.
Afterward the horse said, " thank you for your help in getting rid of our enemy, now if you would be so kind as to remove yourself from my back." To which the man replied, "THE HELL YOU SAY DOBBIN, GIDDE UP!"
Getting rid of the wolf didn't give Russians the right to 50 years of domination over Eastern Europe.
For me and many other libertarians and conservatives it is a major flaw. It is almost as bad as him lobbying for the ICC treaty. The point that you can't gloss over is that LOST takes the UN a bold step closer to being a real one-world government. That's not hyperbole, it gives part of the UN a real legal power to tax and regulate independently of the member states. You know as well as I do that within 10 years we'll be officially under the ICC and the UN will be marching hard and fast toward a one-world government.
"The Soviets killed Polish officers and intellectuals as a way to prevent an uprising against them - barbaric practice for sure - they did not seek to kill every Pole or turn the Poles into mules like slaves for the German master race."
... and Hitler didn't engineer a famine of millions like Stalin did in the 1930s in the Ukraine.
Both Stalin and Hitler were horrible, evil, dictators. There is no need to excuse either one.
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