TROOPS OUT

Edward Lucas says that the West

should not let the Russians retain their imperial ambitions in the Baltic states

Vilnius IMAGINE THAT the second world war had continued rather longer and had ended rather less conclusively. Imagine that Hitler had annexed Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg, and that his resettle- ment programme had proceeded as planned: large numbers of German settlers had moved to the Benelux province of Germany, Benelux culture was suppressed, and one out of every three Benelux citi- zens was deported to Siberia or simply murdered in order to make way for the new immigrants. Now imagine that one of Hitler's successors, a sort of Nazi Gor- bachev, decides to reform the Reich. In the course of these reforms, Benelux citi- zens manage to reclaim their indepen- dence.

Suddenly, Belgium, Holland and Luxem- bourg are faced with a dramatic problem: an enormous population of Germans, who refuse to speak French or Flemish, do not want to return to the Fatherland, and howl `discrimination' when anyone tells them that the Third Reich is over. An ostensibly `post-Nazi' and 'democratic' German gov- ernment in Berlin is not only backing their case enthusiastically, but refusing to bring the remaining Wehrmacht troops home in order to defend the settlers' rights; fur- thermore, the German authorities are maintaining that these countries are part of a historic Teutonic sphere of influence, which the rest of the world should respect.

Replace 'Nazi' with 'Soviet' and this, more or less, is what has happened in the Baltic states. The analogy is not exact: the Baltic peoples eat different food from the Flemish and the French (tepid, salty and potato-based), they speak obscure lan- guages, and, most significantly, the Baltic states are farther away from London, Paris and Bonn, which makes them seem less important.

In most other ways, however, the paral- lel holds. It is certainly true that the Soviet Union annexed the Baltic states, and fully intended them to become Russian-speak- ing provinces by the end of the century, with no separate cultural or political iden- tity. During the era of occupation, the Soviet Union sent tens of thousands of Russians to the Baltic states as part of a systematic programme of colonisation. Most of the settlers never learnt the local languages, received privileged housing and good jobs, and treated the Baltic peoples the same way colonists usually treat natives.

It is also true that the Soviet occupiers did their best to destroy the economy and culture of the Baltic states, far more than they ever dared in Poland or Hungary. Lithuanians calculate that the total cost to their country of Soviet rule is about £100 billion, a figure which arouses sniggers in the West. But while it is certainly more than Russia could ever pay, given the nature of the damage it doesn't seem unreasonable: the loss of one third of the population through deportation, death or exile, the ruination of agriculture by col- lectivisation, the systematic destruction of national culture, five decades of mis- investment in the infrastructure (trains and telephones in the Baltic states are worse now than in 1940), and irreversible radioactive and chemical pollution.

A tour of the now deserted northern barracks in Vilnius, former home of the 109th Soviet motorised infantry (one of the divisions which the Russians have deigned to pull out), provides a helpful reminder of Soviet standards of house- keeping in their occupied territories. Built on land the size of a large industrial estate, the barracks are made of jerry-built concrete; stairwells have no lights; glass `No wonder they lost.' and wood have been removed from the windows (such things are valuable back in Russia). Two or three families sometimes shared the tiny apartments, and the smell of boiled cabbage, mildewed clothes and unwashed bodies still hangs in the air months after the withdrawal. Yet these barracks, because they are in the capital, are the best of the lot. In Siauliai, the Lithuanians have removed radioactive soil from the Soviet base and are trying to pre- vent the spare aviation fuel which was poured directly into the ground (according to standard Soviet practice) from contami- nating the local water table. In Estonia, Russian aviation fuel from a similar source threatens Tallinns's drinking water supply; one of Latvia's most beautiful cemeteries was turned into a bombing range, and unexploded bombs still make visiting the remaining tombstones dangerous.

One would think that these human and environmental monuments to Soviet rule, together with tales of concentration camps and Siberian exile, would be enough to convince western Europe that Russia should never be allowed to expand in such a way again. But there is, it seems, also more confusion about post-Soviet Russia than there ever was about post-Nazi Ger- many. When the second world war came to an end, western Europe said 'never again', divided Germany in two, and raised an enormous fuss whenever Germany showed any signs of recovering its former imperial ambitions. Russia, on the other hand, is perceived in western Europe as having been instantly converted: it is a born-again, co-operative Russia, which enjoys generous access to western taxpayers' wallets.

There is also some confusion in Russia, where the question of whether Russia is the successor state to the Soviet Union is usually answered, 'Only when it suits us.' Assets are fine: Soviet embassies around the world have replaced the hammer and sickle with the Russian tricolour as smooth- ly as they once replaced portraits of Stalin with Khruschev and Khruschev with Brezh- nev. Stalin's annexation of the Baltic states in 1940 is still regarded as legal by the Rus- sian Foreign Ministry, thus providing a technical if repellent justification for the continued presence of Russian troops there. Yet when the question arises of com- pensation for Soviet atrocities, or even for the tens of millions of dollars' worth of Baltic savings which disappeared into the Soviet banking system in 1990-91, the Kremlin argues that today's Russia cannot be held accountable for past Soviet mis- deeds.

Curiously enough, the Russia whose presence looms over the ruined but elegant streets of Tallinn, Riga and Vilnius still looks quite a lot like a country using the tactics of the old imperialist Soviet Union. It is impossible, for example, not to note the new Russian Foreign Ministry's sense of timing. Last week, Boris Yeltsin went to Poland, announced that he wouldn't mind after all if Poland joined Nato, and won applause for his broad-mindedness. In the same week, the Kremlin quietly reneged on earlier promises to remove its remain- ing 2,500 troops from Lithuania: this was because the Lithuanians, the Kremlin com- plained, had impudently refused to sign away all claims to possible compensation. Therefore the pull-out would be halted, and resumed only at a 'time convenient to Russia'. This week, the withdrawal might be on again; this fickle attitude hardly comes as a surprise in Estonia and Latvia, where Russia now says flatly that it will keep its troops in place indefinitely in order to 'safeguard' the rights of the local Russians, whatever that means.

The distinction between the way Russia is now behaving in eastern Europe and the way Russia behaves in its former Baltic colonies derives directly from the distinc- tion which Russian politicians make between 'abroad' and 'near abroad'. The near abroad — the countries which were formerly occupied by the Soviet Union will not be treated as sovereign, indepen- dent countries. Instead, they will be subject to a European version of America's Mon- roe Doctrine in Latin America: the Baltic states, together with Moldova, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Tajikistan and Georgia, can expect continuing interference in their internal affairs from their former occu-

piers. Russia recently complained when Estonia had the temerity to appoint a retired United States army general of Estonian extraction, Alexander Einseln, as commander-in-chief of its armed forces; the head of the Russian intelligence ser- vice has also protested about western influence in the Baltic states' security ser- vices. It is as if post-Nazi Germany had complained about American and British influence in liberated Belgium.

Given the depth of the cultural, human and environmental damage caused by the Soviet Union, the Baltic states are to be commended for their restraint. Apart from military and KGB personnel, all Russian settlers are being allowed to stay. Eco- nomic and social rights are broadly the same for all. In Lithuania, which had a small Russian minority, everyone was granted citizenship; Estonia, with a 40 per cent non-Estonian population, requires a modest period of residence, a simple lan- guage test and an oath of loyalty. Latvia is expected to adopt a similar law shortly. This is hardly 'discrimination' — most western countries erect far higher hurdles for immigrants wanting to gain citizenship — but Russia has reacted to these require- ments with a hectoring, threatening tone fully reminiscent of the Cold War.

Most of what the West hears about this conflict between the occupiers and the occupied is wrong. The Baits have few friends, little practice in diplomacy or pub- lic relations, and no experience to match the Russians in the techniques of disinfor- mation. Most of the western media still cover the Baltic states from Moscow, with a predictably one-sided result. Many in the West already take accusations of 'discrimi- nation' against the Russian minority as proven, and accept without question accu- sations of Baltic anti-Semitism, neo-fascism and sympathy for war criminals. Despite the fact that planting slanted stories in the western media is a favoured KGB tactic, and despite the threadbare nature of the `evidence', damage to the Baltic image has been done. But western leaders have already forgotten about the KGB; it is no wonder that they have forgotten about the history of the Baltic states as well.

Not long ago, Miguel Martinez, a senior member of the Council of Europe and a vigorous critic of 'anti-Russian' Baltic minority policies, came to Vilnius. During his press conference, I asked him whether the Council of Europe thought of the Baltic states as former Russian colonies. He looked down from his podium scornful- ly. History, he replied, was 'irrelevant': 'we must look to the future instead of the past,' he explained.

Timidly, a Lithuanian journalist offered a follow-up question in halting English. How would the Council of Europe feel, she asked, if Russia occupied Strasbourg, deported a third of its inhabitants, and replaced them with a million Russians? Would those Russians then be considered a minority? `I can't take your question seri- ously,' he replied. 'It is not a question, it is a poem.' And besides, he said, it was impossible: there wouldn't be enough air- ports in Strasbourg to carry out such an operation.

But it was possible and it did happen in the Baltic states, even without enough air- ports. That is why the West must insist that Russia pull out its soldiers, speedily and unconditionally, from all three Baltic states, cease all interference in their inter- nal affairs, and pursue its concerns about ethnic Russian rights solely through con- ventional international channels. Until this happens the Baits will feel that while the second world war ended for most of Europe in 1945, and for Germany in 1990, it has not yet ended for them.

Edward Lucas is the managing editor of the Baltic Independent, an English-language paper published in Tallinn.