SWJED, this is Estonian's daily newspaper "Postimees" blog and author of this short story is former Estonian prime minister Mart Laar. He says that it's time for Estonians (and non-Estonians like Stan) to say in international forums what is going on here. He mentions this forum with link, Stan's and my name. He says that Estonia is under Russian porpaganda offence and situation is similar to 1940 when Soviet Union sent their delegation to orchestrate so called revolution here and this time among Russian speaking population. Russian Duma delegation visited Estonia Monday and Tuesday and according to plan they leave today. Estonian officials gave them overview about events in Estonia during last week riots and according to delegation they got very good overview - they found out that statue is in one pieace, riots were handled correctly, human rights were not violated. The last point was most imoprtant for them, because they got complaints about bad handling and detention (people were held in huge storage hose for 3-6 hours to id them) from Russian and Russian-speaking people. During last meeting they got good explanations form mr. Allar Jõks, Chancellor of Justice, that according to law in special emergency cases people can be handled this way. He said that for this short time the conditions were very ok. He said that if you can't give me any evidences then we can't talk about violations anymore. Russians couldn't produce evidences there. Jõks added that all compalints are welcome and his team will handle them according to law. Russian delegation seemed pleased. There is one more aspect. Some sources claim that delegation met privatly with Edgar Savisaar, who is leader Central party and whose voters are mostly elders and Russian speaking people. He is not in coalition which decided to remove statute. He is head of Tallinn, Estonian capital, where statue is located. His party is in opposition and it is workind against coalition and his statements may become source of inter-ethnic conflict. Estonians have gathered already over 70 000 signatures that he steps back. This is situation in Estonia. Different situation is in Moscow where our embassy is under siege by Russian youth movements that are usually guided by Kremlin and especially Surkov. I suppose personally that Russia is using internationally piecemail stratey (according to Beaufre) to step-by-step devide our allies and destroy our internal stabilty.
Here is one new article by Jamestown.
http://www.jamestown.org/edm/article...cle_id=2372133Russia’s state-controlled television channels misleadingly claimed that the monument had been “cut to pieces,” whereas it is actually being transferred intact to a military cemetery on the outskirts of Tallinn. The Russian channels reported very little about the vandalism and drunkenness. Instead, they blamed Estonian police for “brutality,” characterized the gangs as “Russian school pupils,” “monument defenders,” and “anti-fascists,” and ran archival footage of Soviet-era festivities around the monument. Russian TV generalized that “British MPs” disapproved of Estonia, only to produce the eccentric leftist George Galloway expressing that view.
Article by Moscow Times "Rhetoric Only Outdone by The Hypocrisy"
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/storie...05/02/005.html
I hope that Stan, with his fluent English will and couple words and comments.
PS. One of the most voiceful members of Russian delegation who critisized Estonia about human rights was mr Slutski, member of Shirinovski party, whose good firend is Chechnya's Kadõrov. Here is story how Slutski gave present to Kadõrov's zoo.
http://fmnews.ru/oddly/news.php?date...3200&det=gifts
Here is Mart Laar's blog in English with his explanation why Russia likes Soviet occupation monuments?
http://blog.irl.ee/Mart/
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