Lithuania secretly supports Lukashenko: Lithuanian press digest

Regnum Russian News ^ | 02/04/2006 | Viktor Oljich

[jb6]

Lithuania secretly supports Lukashenko

Such a formulation became possible after Lithuanian Prime Minister Algirdas Brazauskas thought it possible to meet with the Byelorussian Social-Democrat presidential hopeful Alexander Kozulin in Vilnius last week. It is not a secret in Lithuania that this hopeless hopeful is just supposed “to split the opposition” and to cut the chances of Lukashenko's key rival Alexander Milinkevich. Now that Milinkevich has just been welcomed in Brussels by the EU foreign ministers and has been proclaimed by the EU as the only alternative to “dictator Lukashenko” as Byelorussian president, such a meeting of an EU prime minister with the “puppet” of today's ruler of Byelorussia seems to many strange, if not symptomatic.

Reflecting the position of the ruling Lithuanian Social-Democratic Party (SDPL) on the Mar 19 presidential elections in Byelorussia are the following words of the Lithuanian premier: “The Lithuanian Social-Democrats support the Social-Democrats of Byelorussia and their candidate Alexander Kozulin.” He said that after his meeting with Kozulin. “For several years already, we have been tight, we wish our Byelorussian colleagues tenacity and success in the elections and are ready for further constructive cooperation.” Why after all — wonder Lithuanian political scientists — does the ruling Lithuanian party support not the “western” candidate Milinkevich but “some opposition splitter” and, in fact, Lukashenko servant Kozulin? And — what is more — makes this known to everybody?

True, Kozulin said that he visited Lithuania to, allegedly, congratulate the Lithuanian Social-Democrats on the 5th anniversary of SDPL's consolidation with the Democratic Labor Party of Lithuania and to discuss further cooperation. “We believe that in the future Lithuania must be a key partner of Byelorussia and the ties between our Social-Democratic parties can be a tool for attaining this partnership.” As if in excuse, the SDPL information center said that “the Lithuanian Social-Democrats regularly invite their Byelorussian colleagues to seminars and conferences.” (ELTA)

But these excuses seemed just funny to the opposition leader, Pro Patria Union chairman Andrius Kubilius, who was the first to slate the Lithuanian premier. DELFI reports the Conservative to say unambiguously that “this meeting was a display of indirect support for today's authoritarian ruler of Byelorussian President Lukashenko.”

In a press-conference Jan 30 Andrius Kubilius said: “Brazauskas is advertising himself that he has met not with the united opposition candidate Alexander Milinkevich but the united opposition splitting candidate, Social Democrat Kozulin. Thereby the Lithuanian premier is showing his support not for the united opposition but for those disuniting it.” “Alexander Lukashenko will have to commend Algirdas Brazauskas for that.”

Kubilius says that such steps of the former first secretary of the Communist Party of Lithuania undermine the solidity of the country's foreign policy on Byelorussia in the eyes of its western partners — for “after such nomenclatural foreign political games, it is no longer strange that western political leaders and experts are unofficially expressing an increasingly big surprise at the new maneuvers of the Lithuanian policy on Byelorussia.”

But, perhaps, this meeting with the de facto “pro-Lukashenko” candidate was actually a coincidence? Kubilius says that today one can see a whole tendency of “quiet friendship with Lukashenko,” with one typical example being the defiance of the Lithuanian authorities to give the green-light to Byelorussian Humanitarian University, a higher school ousted by Lukashenko from Minsk. The university has moved to Vilnius, but the authorities there prevent it from getting official status. Andrius Kubilius: “As far as I know, the education ministry bureaucrats are finding whatever stupefying arguments just not to legalize the university's status. In fact, our bureaucrats are zealously exercising the new concept of their relations with the Lukashenko regime: if Lukashenko does not like the university, we must not like it either.”

The slashing criticism by politicians and political scientists has forced the Lithuanian premier to look for an excuse. Jan 31 Brazauskas said to Lietuvas Radijas: “Professor Alexander Kozulin attended our holiday and I used the occasion to have a talk with him. Kozulin is the leader of a trade union, the leader of a Social-Democratic party, he seeks to unite all Social-Democrats. They are broken apart. We are looking for ways to support Social-Democrats in the neighboring countries. I see nothing bad in my meeting with him. I have my personal view of how to contact with the Byelorussian Social-Democrats.”

This justification was also criticized. The former first secretary of CPL has since long been disrespectful and opinionated with journalists — he often cuts them short and thinks himself right in whatever he says. Meanwhile, some experts note that by saying the above Brazauskas just confirmed that he is working “for Lukashenko.” Instead of helping the single pro-western candidate Milinkevich and, thereby, upholding the EU's stance, the Lithuanian premier is helping “to unite the Byelorussian Social-Democrats,” who, as soon as united, will take from Milinkevich the votes of those defying Lukashenko's regime. Brazauskas is cunning when pretending not to see the difference between the actually free Social-Democrats of Germany or Sweden and the often puppet Social-Democrats of the former Soviet republics. To wish “success in the elections” to the Byelorussian Social-Democrats rather than Milinkevich is to openly support Lukashenko.

Also thinking so is one of the leading political scientists of Lithuania, the director of the Institute of International Relations and Political Sciences of Vilnius University Raimondas Lopata. In an interview to BNS he says that at first glance the wish of the Lithuanian Social-Democrats to be friends with their counterparts in Byelorussia seems easy to understand. “But, given the peculiarity of the neighboring state, the Social-Democrats better find out first who is who in Belarus. After the statement of the Social-Democrats it has become clear that they support the regime rather than the alternative.”

The other well-known political scientist, the director of the NG Institution of Byelorussia Lauras Belinis is of the same opinion. In an interview to BNS he says that “SDPL has not so far had and does not have a stance on Belarus.” “In the last few years we have heard and seen many controversial words and actions by the Social-Democrats on Belarus, which proves that they have no party platform. Obviously, some of them have their personal, hardly explicable, views of Belarus, but they run counter to the relevant viewpoints of either the Lithuanian state or the European Union.” Lithuanian media have repeatedly reported scandalous trips by some local Social-Democrats to Byelorussia and their lauds of “the positive aspects” of the life there.

Meanwhile, in late Nov last year Milinkevich was received by Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus. The criticism of the Brazauskas-Kozulin meeting by Raimondas Lopata, once reported as Adamkus' “gray cardinal,” suggests that there might well be an alternative view of Belarus. But the real power in Lithuania is in the hands of the ruling parties, controlling the Seym and the Government.

Is Islam winning in Lithuania?

As you may know, it has long been disallowed in Lithuania to publicly express thoughts and feelings — say, to opine on some “poles” of the life in Byelorussia or to be critical of the US, — or to have some kind feelings to Russia or even to the Russian culture (instead Lithuanian politicians are well allowed to defame Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, as “imperial” ideologues and to call for replacing them at schools by third-rate but “western” writers.)

In its article “Tolerance on the Way to a Bunker” one of the two leading dailies of Lithuania, Respublika, speaks about almost Islamic intolerance in the country. This was the daily's response to the announcement of the most “tolerant” man of the year by those inveterately intolerant themselves, namely, by the forces sponsored by Soros and already occupying the pedestal of “lords of the truth.” It is quite noteworthy that the most “tolerant” man of the year is the critic of the critics of Soros. “A company of guys — blessed by George Soros — have just picked the nicest chappie in their company in 2005 and have called him as the most tolerant person of the year. Having the honor to be one is Arunas Peskaitis, a monk that has blamed the critics of Soros.” “Everything is logical. First, the company picked their own guy. Second, picked the guy who stood up to defend his own guys. Third, picked a clergyman to make the defense look more sacred.”

Admitting the merits of the religious expert Arunas, Respublika wonders: will a truly tolerant man be so ardently intolerant to others' view if this view has nothing to do with crime? Against humanity, state, whatever. A tolerant man will respect such a view — at least, because two different views build up a dialogue. “But dialogue is exactly the thing our most democratic are trying to break,” says the daily.

If society echoes in unison to the only and alleged infallible mentality — there is no society — “but just separate little men, scared by dictatorship. Intellectual. Academic. For some reason wrapped … in Voltaire. While a Koran circumcised by a radical Islamist would suit better. The same ‘circumcision’ of thoughts, their artificial ‘improvement’ they are trying to thrust upon people in Lithuania. Any other thought is — only under the veil.”

But Respublika does not lose hope. “Lithuanians are not fundamentalists, they can think. And by thinking they can give birth to a health diversity of thoughts. Something essential for democracy to develop. But Peskaitis has taken for heresy a natural public dialogue and has very ‘tolerantly’ and enthusiastically assaulted the ‘heretics.’ In reality, the naive Mr Monk is assaulting straight from the shoulder against one party of the dialogue in Lithuania.” “Having closed his ears and heard out.” “The mystery with which the most tolerant man was elected has proved that taking shape in Lithuania is not an open society but some circle, section, bunker. The circle gets together, pulls the shutters down, locks the door from inside not to let the life in, and starts creating … open society!”

Respublika's conclusions about “intolerance” in Lithuania have quite surprising proved to coincide with the results of the public opinion survey held by the Baltijos Tyrimai company in late 2005 on the order of Civil Society Institute — the tolerance rate in Lithuania is dropping. If in 1990 “tolerant” were 57% of Lithuanians, in 1999 58%, in 2005 already 53%. But this is if taken generally.

If specified, the figures get by far more impressive. Generally considered as agreeable, the Lithuanians have got sharply intolerant to representatives of other nations and cultures. If in 1990 only 9% of them would refuse to be neighbor to a non-Lithuanian, in 2005 the figure grew to 20%. Specifically for Jews, the figures are 18% and 31% respectively, for Muslims 31% and 51%, for Gypsies 59% and 70%, for labor immigrants 15% and 34%.

The Lithuanians have got increasingly intolerant to neighboring drug addicts, alcoholics, AIDS patients, with as many as 70% of them refusing to live side by side with one having AIDS in 2005 against 55% in 1990. The most typical shift was in the attitude towards large families. 12% said they would not want neighbor a large family 15 years ago, with as many as 20% saying the same today. This proves that the Lithuanians are getting increasingly egoistic to make a new type of individualist “bourgeois” living in the shell of his “private life.” For many years already many experts have said that the Lithuanians are losing their relative open-heartedness and hearfulness (for which the Latvians and the Estonians have once scorned them as “Baltic Italians”). They are no longer naive and are more focused on material assets, personal success, and wealth. In fact, degrading is the national morality, which has always been welcoming to families with many children.

One more characteristic symptom of the changing Lithuanian type is tolerance to homosexuals. Here everything is opposite: intolerant to gays in 1990 were as many as 87%, in 1999 — 68% and today — only 66% (OMNI naujienos). The first commentators would naturally ask: how come that in the last 15 years the once tolerant Lithuanian nation has got increasingly intolerant to people of other nationality, other mentality? And why degrading at all points, the Lithuanians are, at the same time, getting steadily tolerant to homosexuals, who have never been in favor with the Catholic morality? When answering this question, one cannot help thinking about brainwashing, about the influence of Brussels (who is threatening with sanctions against countries disliking gays), the analysis of the official propaganda, the pathos of the leading media, the activities of the organizations, Respublica is writing of.

The Lithuanian judiciary is corrupt

The Lithuanian media have begun to say this especially often after the recent acquittals of the ruling parties and their representatives. The Public Prosecutor's Office of Lithuania has found no violations in the purchase of a skyscraping hotel in the center of Vilnius by the wife of Prime Minister Algirdas Brazauskas Kristina Brazauskene. But any thinking man would see that such a hotel could have never been bought by an ordinary employee of the governmental buffet — later the wife but then the “girlfriend” of then president Algirdas Brazauskas — without the influence of his personality and his presidency (there is documentary evidence of Brazauskas' ordering to transfer the hotel to the presidential jurisdiction).

This was followed by a verdict saying that there is no ground for investigating the case of Brazauskas' party being subsidized by EBSW, a no longer existent concern, who has once robbed the deposits of many ordinary Lithuanians (its president Petrikas is now in jail in the US). Respublika reports journalist and editor Jaroslavas Baniavicus to have just confessed that Petrikas personally brought him money for printing SDPL booklets. After a talk with Brazauskas and Linkiavicus (former defense minister, today Lithuanian representative to NATO), Baniavicus had a talk with Gediminas Kirkilas (present defense minister), who said that a man would come and bring the money. All the above politicians refute the facts, but Baniavicus says that there are bookkeeper's records that can show who paid and there are also many witnesses.

Kauno Diena says that the anti-corruption campaign in Lithuania is just “a blind.” Last year saw many scandals over Seym members and the mayor of Vilnius. And only former MP Martisauskas has been given 1.5 years in jail. All the rest — that is the “cream” — have been acquitted. They have made pay the pointsman. “If taking a closer look at the case, you will see why in one case the servants of Themis were merciless, while in the others quite merciful. In the old times, to propitiate the gods, you would have to sacrifice somebody. In this case this somebody must have been Martisauskas,” says the daily.

It is noteworthy that whoever trying to see the whole system so far has been quickly got out of the way. Shedding some light on it were, in their time, the chief of the special investigation service Junokas and the public prosecutor Klimavicus. “But, unfortunately, the system has crushed them — they both have been forced out of their offices.” “It is not hard to understand that the judges are not ready to risk their seats and so they will not convict the officials and politicians — the servants of the corruption system. Otherwise they will not see either a raise, or well paid jobs,” says the daily. There is a strong interconnection inside the corruption network. "You convict one and you will have to pass on to the other. This will (and has already!) get resistance from politicians. So, you should not be surprised to see judges and law enforcers preferring an easy life to the hard struggle with corruption. It is enough for them to just pretend struggling — to just expose someone on his own, who has awkwardly tried to “raise money for his electoral campaign.”

The most frequently faked passports in the EU — from Lithuania

Lietuvos Zinios daily reports that the Lithuanian passports are the most frequently faked IDs in the EU. Experts give the highest mark to the fake Lithuanian passports. One can easily get the secret of such a quality when one gets to know that the passports are faked with the help of state officials. Just for a test, a Sunday Herald employee has ordered a Lithuanian passport from local criminals. He told them an invented name, surname, date and place of birth and gave a photo. All this was sent to Lithuania to be got back — for a certain fee — in a top-quality fake passport — obviously not without a hand by civil servants. No single Lithuanian service has recorded the fake or the transfer of the faked passport.

Quite recently another Lithuanian daily Lietuvos Rytas reported that they on the Polish and Ukrainian borders force Lithuanian citizens to write translations from Russian into Lithuanian and vice versa. Alerted by the news of faked Lithuanian passports, the customs officers there are now trying to check up if the men they face are actually Lithuanians.

[jb6]

ping

[lentulusgracchus]

Makes you wonder if the old Kremlin Wall isn't still intact in a way.....instead of all the old Soviets standing on top of the wall together in their black coats and porkpie hats, looking for all the world like Giancana's Chicago Mob in their funeral suits, reviewing the May Day parade, now little knots of two or three of them are standing on top of little pieces of wall here and there -- Vilnius, Riga, Kiev, Tbilisi, and so on.