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To: MarMema
Viktoras Petkus

"LITHUANIAN HELSINKI GROUP LEADER VIKTORAS PETKUS"

"Until then virtually unknown though prominent in dissident circles, Petkus was associated with the Catholic dissident movement and with the Lithuanian Helsinki group which monitored Moscow's compliance with the civil rights provisions of the Helsinki agreement of 1976. Arrested on August 28, 1977, and illegally held for many months, he was tried on July 10-13, 1978, that is, at the same time as Anatolii Shcharanski in Moscow and Alexander Ginzburg in Kaluga, Russia. This threefold event—Shcharanski's trial on espionage charges, Ginzburg's punishment for administering Solzhenitzyn's aid fund and Petkus' condemnation for his work with the Lithuanian Helsinki group has been reproved by Western press and statesmen, including West German Chancellor Helmut Schmid who singled out Petkus, and our own President Jimmy Carter, though many of the American Catholic publications and congregations, it is sad to say, still have to discover the case of their co-religionist."

Viktoras Pektus homepage

" Released in 1987, now lives in Vilnius and has returned to his research in history."

Research in history, indeed. I believe I have a good idea who this person is, from one of the Helsinki-laden pro-chechen lists.

28 posted on 09/17/2004 8:24:48 PM PDT by MarMema
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To: MarMema

I haven't heard about that organization, though it sounds very praiseworthy. I assisted someone with an adoption in the Ukraine, and it was a chore. Ukraine's a bit simpler than Russia - you can call a bribe a bribe and no one gets huffy. Russians, now, they take it personal, especially if the vzyatka in question isn't enough.

It's not so much about corruption, as no one is getting paid (or enough), and for that extra bit of service you're expected to give a little token of your esteem.

Here's something related, which I completely disavow.

About Viktoras Petkus... I can almost understand why he's so vehemently anti-Russian. Many in Eastern Europe have transferred their hate of the Soviets onto the Russians. I had a friend in Brno, Czech Rep, who was fluent in Russian, but he'd make me stumble along in German because he wasn't going to speak another world of it.

A lot of mercenaries in the first Chechnyan war were from the Pri-Baltic (Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and they hate being called "Pri-Baltic"), there were a pair of female super-snipers from one or another of those countries, whom the Russians called the beliye kalgotki (white pantyhose?). Supposedly they worked just for the pleasure of plugging Russian officers. A friend from Donetsk, Ukraine, who served in the Russian army in Chechnya told me that he captured a Black American ex-serviceman who was working for what they called back then the "Khattabists".

Mr. Petkus deserves more than a measure of respect for his dissident work. The Soviet Union is gone, however, and there are scarier animals in the woods these days.

42 posted on 09/17/2004 10:15:02 PM PDT by struwwelpeter
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