Posted on 03/27/2004 4:45:33 AM PST by Land_of_Lincoln_John
Russian politician, Deputy State Duma Chairman Vladimir Zhirinovsky provoked a diplomatic scandal which resulted in worsening the relations between Russia and Latvia. On March 24 Mr. Zhirinovsky expressed criticism to Latvia"s joining NATO and the reform of Russian language schools in an interview to Latvian TV.
Zhirinovsky predicted terrorist attacks on Latvia and said, "Latvia will be destroyed. Empty space will be there. Absolutely nothing will remain from Latvia. Everybody will forget the words "Latvia" and "the Latvian language". There will be nothing in Latvia, forever. We will destroy everything. If you touch Russians and Russian schools. I assure you. Nothing will remain".
Zhirinovsky made the statements of this kind before. The last vivid example was his criticism of George Bush for the intention to start a war against Saddam Hussein in the winter of 2003. Zhirinovsky was about to be dismissed from his position of Deputy State Duma Chairman for that statement, but State Duma deputies were merciful enough to decide that some different person had been recorded in the scandalous video, not Vladimir Zhirinovsky.
Washington ignored that statement. Latvian authorities expressed different attitude, they seemed to take offence.
The next day after Zhirinovsky's statement Latvian delegation of Baltic Assembly (the organization on cooperation between the Parliaments of three Baltic states - Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia) had a special meeting. At the meeting Latvian deputies condemned Zhirinovsky"s statement and decided to establish a work group for preparation an official statement for Russian authorities. The delegations of Estonian and Lithuanian deputies supported their Latvian counterparts and said they were ready to sign the statement as well.
On March 26 Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga spoke on Latvian radio and called the EU countries to react to the threats of Mr. Zhirinovsky. According to the President, Vladimir Zhirinovsky called for "violence against Latvia". She said that Latvian Foreign Ministry would inform the global community about Zhirinovsky"s statement, "Other countries, especially the EU members, must hear this and express their position on this".
Vaira Vike-Freiberga thinks that for the EU officials conducting negotiations with Russia is "very important to know all the sides of their partner on negotiations". Although Latvian President said that she understands that Zhirinovsky"s statements do not express the opinion of Russian authorities.
Source: Information agencies
"The white race is perishing. Every day there are fewer and fewer of us. We are half as many as we were 40 years ago. We must unite against the yellow peril and the green menace.
"We both have the same problem: the invasion of the Asians. You have Pakistan and India, we have central Asia and the Caucasus.
"Washington, London, Moscow and Tel Aviv need to form a common front. If we don't, the terrorist attacks we see today will continue for another 50 years."
Well he did leave out Latvia -- and most other European countries.
Not jut hot air, pal: all those lives we lost in VietNam and Korea, all the TRILLIONS of dollars we had to spend on defense although we were otherwise protected by the oceans --- all tha was from the "hot air" of communism.
There were plenty of stupid people then who thought that Nazis were full of hot air, that Lenin was full of hot air, that Stalin was the same. Today these people vote fo Kerry. On a conservative board people like you, too, think that.
You'd better take Zhirinivky seriously: it's not what he says that's important --- it's that despite of what he says he in position of such power. The same as was the case with Hitler.
But those European countries of the Eastern Baltic have "betrayed Mother Russia" --- by not agreeing to be raped by it any longer, you see. And, how dare they speak their own native languages rather than Russian on their own soil?! See, that's way too recent to be forgotten.
Zhirinowsky is an epitomy of Russian shovinism that will never die.
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