Legislation that would ease visa requirements for Latvian citizens traveling to the United States is again under consideration in Congress and the American Latvian Association is asking its members to write to key senators and representatives urging its adoption.

Both the Senate and the House of Representatives have passed bills addressing domestic security, but only the Senate version would expand the Visa Waiver Program to include Latvia. The bills are now headed to a conference committee where legislators will hammer out differences between the two.

“This is our last chance to get the revised VWP established as law,” Valdis Pavlovskis, the ALA director for public affairs, wrote in an e-mailed “Call to Action” sent July 19 to Latvian-Americans.

The Senate bill does not specifically mention Latvia, but would extend the Visa Waiver Program to “foreign countries that are allies in the war on terrorism.” Latvia is considered such in part because it has troops stationed in Afghanistan and Iraq, although almost all troops in the latter were pulled out in June. Only three Latvian soldiers remain stationed in Iraq, while about 80 serve in Afghanistan. Three men have been killed in Iraq since 2003, when Latvian soldiers first began deployment there.

The Senate’s version of the bill—the Improving America’s Security Act of 2007, or Senate Bill S.4—and the House version—Implementing the 9/11 Commission Recommendations Act of 2007, or H.R. 1—are expected to go before the conference committee in the coming week, Pavlovskis said.

Under the Senate bill, admission to the Visa Waiver Program would not be automatic. The Secretary of Homeland Security would still have to approve a country’s application.

Latvian officials have been working for several years to convince the United States to grant visa-free entry to its citizens. U.S. citizens entering Latvia may do so without a visa and stay up to 90 days.

A total of 27 countries now participate in the Visa Waiver Program, according to the U.S. Department of State.

President Valdis Zatlers will promulgate controversial amendments to two national security laws, which a July 7 referendum failed to revoke, but their power will be short-lived, the president’s press office announced July 16.

Zatlers will promulgate the amendments after his return from a July 17 visit to Brussels.

However, the following day both laws will return to their previous versions, because the parliament had already rescinded the amendments before the referendum.

“The Saeima understood and corrected its mistake,” Zatlers said in a press release, “rescinding the amendments that allowed third parties access to information held by security services that contain state secrets.”

The amendments, which in part would have broadened access to the information to include several ministers, were added in January by an emergency decree from the Cabinet of Ministers. The Saeima subsequently approved the amendments, but former President Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga vetoed them. When the Saeima overrode her veto, Vīķe-Freiberga suspended implementation of the amendments to allow time for a referendum on the issue. On April 3, just days before a petition drive for the referendum was due to start, the parliament rescinded the amendments. However, the referendum had to continue but ultimately failed when not enough citizens voted July 7.

The referendum was viewed by some critics as a test of popular support for the parliament and the government of Prime Minister Aigars Kalvītis. Although only 338,765 voters cast ballots, more than 95 percent were in favor of striking the amendments.

Jānis Ritenis, who spent much of his life in exile in Australia only to become Latvia’s first ambassador to Denmark and subsequently the Minister of Welfare, has died in Latvia. He was 82.

Ritenis was born in 1925 in Dobele, Latvia.

From 1989 to 1990 he led the information bureau of the World Federation of Free Latvians. In 1990, as Latvia was increasingly pushing for independence from the Soviet Union, he established a representative office for his homeland in Denmark.

In November 1992, Ritenis became Latvia’s first ambassador to Denmark.

Foreign Minister Artis Pabriks, in a statement issued July 13, lauded the work Ritenis did in the area of foreign affairs.

“Latvia has lost a bright man of state,” he said. “The Latvian exile J. Ritenis’ investment is among those that in a very short time allowed the renewal of a fully functioning, professional foreign service.”

Ritenis was elected in 1993 to the 5th Saeima as a candidate of the Latvian Farmers’ Union (Latvijas Zemnieku savienība), but from 1994 until his term expired in 1995 was an independent deputy. While in the parliament, he served on the Justice Commission and the National Security Commission.

He served as Minister of Welfare from July 1993 to September 1994 in the government of Prime Minister Valdis Birkavs. In a 2005 study of Latvia’s welfare policy, Feliciana Rajevska noted that Ritenis attempted to introduce a pension plan in Latvia based on the Australian model. His attempts met with resistance within the ministry and in the parliament. As a result, Ritenis grew unpopular as a minister.

Subsequently, Ritenis became a state secretary in the Foreign Ministry and later became chairman of the Committee of Senior Officials for the Council of Baltic Sea States..