Pres. Vike-Freiberga in Israel - February 2006

Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga Visits Israel

Feb. 21	Israeli MFA:	Acting PM Olmert meets with Latvian President
Feb. 20	Jerusalem Post:	Latvia's Jewish Connection
Feb. 20	Jerusalem Post:	Latvia, then and now
Feb. 20	Jerusalem Post:	Latvian president apologizes for war crimes
Feb. 20	Jerusalem Post:	The 'iron lady of the Baltics'
Feb. 19	Jerusalem Post:	Latvian president arrives in Israel

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Ministry of Foreign Affairs - 02.21.2006

Acting PM Olmert meets with Latvian President

(Communicated by the Prime Minister’s Media Adviser)

Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert met this morning (Tuesday), 21 February 2006, with Latvian President Dr. Vaira Vike-Freiberga, who has arrived for her first visit to Israel along with a delegation of senior Latvian ministers.

Acting Prime Minister Olmert emphasized the importance of the world maintaining a unified position against terrorism and on the three principles that Israel has presented regarding relations with Hamas: Recognition of the State of Israel, the cessation of terrorism and the abrogation of the Hamas Covenant, and recognition of previously signed agreements between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA).

Latvian President Vike-Freiberga said the European position has always supported the vision of two states and added that there is no doubt that the Hamas victory in the recent elections has moved the two sides backwards. She said that Europe must press Hamas to change and not be just another terrorist organization, and to accept the three principles. She noted that the entire European Union intends to press the PA on this issue.

The two leaders discussed advancing bilateral trade relations (Latvian President Vike-Freiberga was also accompanied by 75 businessmen) and the development of cooperation in the high-tech field. The Latvian President invited Acting Prime Minister Olmert to visit Latvia in order to advance this issue; it was agreed that a professional seminar on the issue would be held soon.

Acting Prime Minister Olmert thanked Latvian President Vike-Freiberga for the struggle against anti-Semitism in Latvia, for the Latvian government’s cooperation in the struggle, and for legislation that the Latvian government is advancing on the restoration of Jewish property.


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Jerusalem Post - 02.20.2006

Latvia's Jewish connection

By Greer Fay Cashman

Latvia is one of the three Baltic States. Covering an area of 64,589 sq. km., it borders the Baltic Sea and is sandwiched between Estonia and Lithuania. Its population of approximately 2.3 million is made up of a number of ethnic groups of which 57.7 percent are Latvians, 29.6% Russians, 4.1% Byalarussians, 2.7% Ukrainian, 2.5% Polish, 1.4% Lithuanian and combined others 2%.

Prior to World War II, there were 80,000 Jews in Latvia, with 45,000 living in Riga, the nation's capital, where they made significant contributions to the cultural and commercial life of the city.

Jews had lived in Latvia since the second half of the 16th century, frequently persecuted, but never as cruelly and collectively as by the Nazis, who occupied Latvia from 1941-44. On July 4, 1941, they locked 300 Jews in the Great Synagogue of Riga, and then burned it to the ground. There were no survivors. Later that year - on November 30 and December 8 - 25,000 Jews were taken from the Riga Ghetto to the Rumbula pine forest some 10 kilometers away, where they were murdered by the Nazis. The Rumbula forest is thus sometimes referred to as the "killing field."

There was also the notorious Salaspils concentration camp 20 kilometers from Riga, where tens of thousands of people, including Jews who had been brought from other parts of Nazi occupied Europe, were murdered.

After the war, only 150 Jews remained in Riga. In total, the Nazi's killed 90% of Latvia's Jewish population.

There were several Latvians who collaborated with the Nazis, but who have never been branded as war criminals by any Latvian government. This issue has been frequently raised by the Simon Wiesenthal Center, which demands that all Nazi collaborators be brought to justice.

In a Holocaust commemoration address in July 2000, Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga said that any Latvian citizens who had participated in crimes against humanity should be prosecuted.

When asked during her state visit to Israel why this has not happened - especially in view of the fact that Latvia has instituted a Holocaust education program in schools - Vike-Freiberga said that the Latvian Prosecutor General's office has been in touch with the Israeli, Canadian, US and Australian authorities to ask for information. No specific complaints were filed, she said, although a team of special prosecutors has been sifting through records to see if anyone alive in Latvia participated in crimes against humanity.

All evidence has been carefully examined, she said, but no suspect has been found. One such person who was charged in Australia died during the trial. Others were killed by the Soviets in reprisal for having aided the Germans and others simply died of old age.

Some 120,000 Latvian men were killed during World War II, noted Vike-Freiberga. Half of them were drafted into the Soviet Army and half into the German Army and sent to the front as canon fodder. Tens of thousands of Latvians were deported to Siberia, and an estimated 200,000 went into exile.Thousands eventually returned, but there are no exact statistics.

Just as the majority of Jews returning to Israel had to learn Hebrew which was a foreign language to them, so many Latvian citizens have to learn Latvian. Under Soviet occupation, everyone living in Latvia had to learn Russian, said Vike-Freiberga, "but the Russians didn't learn Latvian."

Today, she said, there are free lessons in Latvian for the Russian-speaking population.


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Jerusalem Post - 02.20.2006

Latvia, then and now

By Efraim Zuroff

An official visit by a foreign head of state is always a good opportunity to assess the bilateral relations between Israel and the guest's country. This is particularly important when the visiting president comes from post-Communist Europe or, as in this case, from the former Soviet Union's Baltic republics.

All these places were the home of large and vibrant Jewish communities before the Holocaust. All the communities suffered extensive physical and spiritual destruction at the hands of the Nazis and their numerous collaborators. These locals played a critical role in the murders, and it is this factor which makes this week's visit by Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga of particular importance.

Latvia, like its southern neighbor Lithuania, had an usually high percentage of Holocaust victims, a statistic which was to a certain extent a result of the widespread participation of local Nazi collaborators in the murders. During the Holocaust not only were 95% of the Latvian Jews living under Nazi occupation murdered, 20,000 additional Jews, primarily from Germany, Austria, and Czechoslovakia, were deported to Latvia to be murdered, in many cases by local killers.

In addition, Latvian Security Police units, particularly the notorious Arajs Kommando, which murdered at least 30,000 Jews, were sent to other countries, primarily Belarus and Poland, to assist the Nazis in the implementation of the Final Solution.

HOW HAS independent Latvia dealt with this legacy? To date, the record has been mixed, with important progress on easier issues such as commemoration and documentation but abysmal failure as regards the prosecution of Latvian perpetrators.

Thus Latvia has established a special memorial day (July 4, the date of the massacre of hundreds of Jews in the Gogol Street synagogue in Riga) for the victims of the Holocaust, has built a few new memorial monuments, and has sponsored considerable research on the annihilation of Latvian Jewry. But to date, it has failed to prosecute a single Latvian Holocaust perpetrator and has refused - with two exceptions - to cancel pardons granted to convicted Nazi murderers. By comparison, it has brought to trial more than 10 Communist criminals, most of whom have been convicted and punished.

President Freiberga herself reflects Latvia's mixed record on Holocaust issues. To her credit, she has been a fixture at Holocaust memorial meetings and monument dedications and has often spoken about the tragedy of Latvian Jewry. But she rarely, if ever, mentions Latvian complicity in Holocaust crimes, and has downplayed the need for justice.

More seriously, she has been in the forefront of the efforts to relativize the Holocaust by equating Communist crimes with those of the Shoah, and has on numerous occasions tried to present Soviet crimes against Latvian citizens, deplorable as they were, as genocide, which they were not. Moreover, she failed to speak out forcefully against two extremely problematic phenomena linked to the events of World War II.

The first is the annual (March 16) march of Latvian SS veterans in Riga, a stark reminder that important elements of Latvian society still fail to understand the moral implications of the willingness of their countrymen to fight for the victory of the Third Reich.

The second is the recent efforts by Latvian nationalists to restore Latvian aviation hero Herberts Cukurs to icon status despite his active participation in mass murder as deputy commander of the Arajs Kommando. Freiberga's failure to condemn the blatant anti-Semitic responses to the criticism leveled against Latvia regarding these issues is another serious failure. President Freiberga's visit is therefore an opportunity for Israeli leaders to stress the importance of these issues and encourage her to take a more honest and courageous stance on Latvian complicity in the Holocaust. When she visits Yad Vashem it is important that the identity of the killers of tens of thousands of Latvian and foreign Jews inside Latvia, and tens of thousands elsewhere, be noted clearly and emphatically.

Only by openly confronting its Holocaust past can Latvia truly be a future partner of Israel and the Jewish people.

The writer is Israel director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center and coordinator of Nazi war crimes research.


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Jerusalem Post - 02.20.2006

Latvian president apologizes for war crimes

By Greer Fay Cashman 

Standing in the grounds of Beit Hanassi at a state reception hosted for her by President Moshe Katsav, Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga, looking directly at the Israeli military honor guard standing in front of her, apologized to the Jewish people for Latvian war crimes. 

"We are deeply sorry about the participation of Latvia in the atrocities of the Holocaust," she said, adding that Latvia was deeply committed to its children growing up with a full understanding of what happened under Nazi and Soviet occupation, including the collaboration that occurred. 

Taking her cue from Katsav, who had referred to parallels in Israeli and Latvian history, Vike-Freiberga said that Latvia, which for most of its history has been under foreign domination, has a special sympathy for the people of Israel in their striving for independence. 

As for the current situation, the Latvian president expressed Latvia's wish and that of other EU countries for a peaceful settlement, and has urged Hamas to accept the basic standards of international law and international intercourse and to continue a way of peaceful coexistence so that people can have a future free of fear. 

"Every nation has the right to be respected," said Vike-Freiberga as she reiterated Latvia's commitment to stand by Israel in its right to exist. 

Katsav told his guest that Israel was again facing frustration and disappointment. Intimating that the election for the Palestinian Legislative Council had not been democratic, Katsav said that immediately afterwards Hamas had declared that Israel had no right to exist and that it would continue its terror activities. 

"Hamas does not honor the international commitments of the Palestinian Authority," said Katsav. 

When he was asked by a Latvian journalist to explain what he meant by the PLC elections not being democratic, he responded that if a terrorist organization could take part in an election campaign with a weapon on its shoulders, such an election could not be called free and democratic. 

On the issue of Iran, Katsav asserted that if the free world stood strong against Iran, it could prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. 

Vike-Freiberga stated that it was not acceptable in international relations for one member of the United Nations to call for the destruction of another. 

She concurred with Katsav on the need to prevent Iran from developing nuclear capability, underscoring that the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons had been cause for global concern for a long time. 


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Jerusalem Post - 02.20.2006

The 'iron lady of the Baltics'

By Greer Fay Cashman

Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga arrived Sunday on her first state visit to Israel, the only country in the Middle East in which Latvia has a diplomatic mission. Diplomatic relations between Israel and Latvia were established on January, 6, 1992. Latvia was the first of the Baltic countries in which Israel opened an embassy, with Tova Herzl, Israel's first ambassador to Latvia, presenting her credentials in Riga in October, 1992. The Latvian Embassy in Tel Aviv was opened in February, 1995. The current Latvian ambassador, Karlis Eihenbaums, has worked hard to strengthen ties between the two countries on many levels. 

Relations between Latvia and the Arab world are not very developed, said Vaike-Freiberga, primarily because Latvia - which has been a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the European Union (EU) since the spring of 2004 - has put a priority on developing relations with NATO and EU countries. 

For all that, she believes that Latvia should have an embassy in one of the Arab countries - "probably Egypt, and we should do it soon." Egypt was chosen firstly because it is a regional power, and secondly because of its trade relations with Latvia. 

The threat of global terror is one of the subjects that Vike-Freiberga will be discussing with Israeli leaders. 

"We feel nobody is protected from terror by definition," she said. "It might strike anywhere at any time. Everyone should feel equally affected." 

Characterizing terror as the denial of the laws and principles of civilization, Vike-Freiberga declared: "None of us should have an indulgence or tolerance for terror, because it destroys the fabric of society." 

Vike-Freiberga has frequently been compared to Margaret Thatcher, to whom she bears some resemblance. It is thus that she is often referred to as the "Iron Lady of the Baltics," though Israelis reading her biography would probably liken her more to Golda Meir than to Britain's former prime minister. 

Having fled from her homeland as a child to escape the invading Red Army, Vike-Freiberga spent much of her adulthood documenting, preserving and disseminating Latvia's cultural heritage, an endeavor which took her on speaking engagements to many parts of the world. She has written about almost every sphere of Latvian culture, and her essays, books and short stories on Latvian folklore, poetry, literature, music and other subjects were eagerly snapped up and reprinted throughout the Latvian diaspora. 

Born in December, 1937, Vike-Freiberga left her homeland in October, 1944, escaping with her family on one of the last boats. 

Initially, they lived in a Latvian refugee camp in Germany. Later they went to Morocco, where they remained for a few years before moving to Canada when Vike-Freiberga was 16. 

From the presidential suite of her Jerusalem hotel room on Sunday night, Vike-Freiberga recalled that when she came to Morocco at the age of 11, she picked up French very quickly and became like a fish in water in the French milieu and won many scholastic achievement awards. One reaction on the part of one of her teachers, she said, remains indelibly imprinted on her mind: "What a shame that a foreign child is getting all the prizes." 

More than half a century later, she said, she can still recall how deeply offended she was at being singled out as a "foreign child." 

"It put in me a feeling of resistance," she said. 

This feeling of being different, she said, was reignited in Canada, where everyone asked her where she came from and where she got her funny name. At the time, she said, she thought Canadians were very rude - until she realized that "everyone from Canada came from somewhere else," and that in some kind of clumsy way they were trying to be friendly. 

In July, 1960, six years after her arrival in Canada, she married fellow Latvian emigre Imants Freiberg, a computer expert, who shared her passion for the preservation of Latvia's cultural heritage. 

When Latvians were eventually allowed to visit the West, the couple's home was both haven and hotel for numerous Latvian intellectuals, many of whom became their close friends. 

A highly respected academic in the field of cognitive psychology - and eventually vice president of the Canadian Science Council that advises the government on science policy - Vike-Freiberga was in high demand at international conferences, which enabled her to meet with Latvian emigres scattered in different parts of the world. 

Many of these had assimilated and gradually lost their native language, but all dreamed, Vike-Freiberga said, of one day returning home to a free, independent and democratic Latvia. 

Vike-Freiberga finally visited Latvia in 1969 - with the permission of the Soviet authorities. It had been 25 years since she had left her native country. She was kept under constant surveillance, but nothing, she said, could mar the joy of her homecoming. This was the first of many visits. 

However, it was not until 1998 that she returned for good. That year, she was made Professor Emeritus of Montreal University. 

A YEAR later, with no political background and no history of being part of the Communist regime, she became the first woman to be elected president of Latvia by its 100-member parliament. 

She is now in the penultimate year of her second term which she will complete in June, 2007. 

Under Latvian law, a president can serve only two terms. The president is the only Latvian citizen who is not permitted to have dual nationality. When she was first elected, Vike-Freiberga had to surrender her Canadian citizenship. Technically, she can get it back next year. But she's not sure how ethical that would be. 

Much as she loves Latvia, she found it difficult to give up her Canadian citizenship. 

"A part of me was there - my life, my work," she said. "But I couldn't give up the chance to come back to my native country. When I left Latvia, I didn't know if I would come back at all."

Now Vike-Freiberga's named is being mentioned as a possible successor for Kofi Annan, when he completes his term as UN secretary-general. 

"It's not the sort of job where they ask for candidates to apply," she said. 

Although it has been widely reported that she has the support of US President George W. Bush, she doubts whether the five members of the UN Security Council who have the power of veto would elect someone from Eastern Europe, and a woman, to boot. 

Is gender important in national and international politics? 

"Gender becomes less important as we have more equality," she said, noting that the recently elected leaders of Germany, Chile and Liberia are all women. "It's a good sign," she continued, "that those countries recognize that half the population is female. Now it's time for the UN to have a woman as its head." 

Vike-Freiberga has enjoyed her period as president, she said, not only because it enabled her to be actively and closely involved with her country's development and destiny, but also because the position affords her the opportunity to meet with so many people. 

"When you're president, you can shake everyone's hand. I like that." 

Yet the job, she admitted, required making certain adjustments, among them being surrounded by bodyguards, even when she went for a walk along the beach near her home just to unwind. 

Although this is her first trip to Israel, it is her husband's second. He was here eighteen months ago for a technological conference, "and he raves about Israel." 

Asked how Latvia will relate to a Hamas-led PA government, Vike-Freiberga responded: "In order to enter into the diplomatic community, Hamas should change the ground rules it plays by. It should renounce terrorism as a legitimate means for accomplishing its aims and should address the aims of the Palestinian people in the normal way of elected representatives." 

She also asserted that in the process of negotiations with Israel, Hamas cannot start by denying Israel's right to exist, because on that basis, "it's a still-born negotiation." 

Further questioned as to whether Latvia would follow Russia's lead in its treatment of Hamas, Vike-Freiberga said: "Mr. Putin has his own ideas on a number of things. He's pursuing policies that the Soviet Union used to pursue in many ways."

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Jerusalem Post - 02.19.2006

Latvian president arrives in Israel

By Greer Fay Cashman

Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga arrived in Israel on Sunday night on a three-day visit that will take her to Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Nazareth. 

She is due to meet with President Moshe Katsav on Monday morning. The Latvian President hosted her Israeli counterpart last year during his official visit to the Baltic countries. 

Katsav will host a state dinner for Vike-Freiberga and her entourage on Monday night. 

During her visit the Latvian President will meet with acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and other government officials with a view to expanding the political dialogue between the two countries and strengthening bilateral ties in economics, science and culture. 

Political discussions are expected to focus on global security, the general situation in the Middle East, prospects for peace and Israel's position with regard to future cooperation with the new Hamas-led Palestinian Authority. 

Although Latvia does not have close ties with the Arab world, Vike-Freiberga has previously visited Jordan and Tunisia within the context of her participation in various international forums. She is also planning to visit Egypt in the near future. 

While in Israel, she has no plans to visit the Palestinian Authority, but will meet with Arab community leaders in Nazareth. 

She will also meet with Latvian expatriates at the Latvian Embassy in Tel Aviv.

In the course of Vike-Freiberga's visit, an exhibition of the lost synagogues of Latvia - an art project that was promoted in Latvian schools by Latvia's Education Ministry - will be on display ay Heichal Shlomo in Jerusalem, and will be officially opened on Tuesday night by President Katsav. 

Part of the exhibition was previously displayed in Tel Aviv last November at the Latvian Independence Day reception hosted by Latvian Ambassador Karlis Eihenbaums. 

Vike-Freiberga is the second Latvian President to visit Israel. Guntis Ulmanis, her immediate predecessor in office, visited Israel in 1998. Accompanying Vike-Freiberga are her husband Prof. Imants Freiberg, Economics Minister Krišjanis Karinš, Finance Minister Oskars Spurdzinš and Agriculture Minister Martinš Roze, as well as a 58-member delegation representing Latvia's business community. 

The Latvian Historians Commission is also part of the visit, as Israel and Latvia have become close partners in historical research.


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