Mozaīka appeals Rīga ban of gay pride parade

Andris Straumanis | 

A group representing sexual minorities in Latvia has appealed a decision by Rīga officials to ban a planned May 16 march in the city’s downtown.

Mozaīka, a Rīga-based organization advocating for the rights of gays, lesbian, bisexuals and transgender people, has been organizing the Baltic Friendship Days event. The march was scheduled to begin at noon in the Vērmaņdārzs park and then move into surrounding streets.

Mozaīka filed its appeal May 14 with the Administrative District Court in Rīga asking it to overturn a decision by the Rīga City Council’s Commission on Meetings, Marches and Demonstrations disallowing the parade.

The city commission initially approved the march on May 8, but repealed its decision on May 14 citing security concerns.

“We believe this decision to be unlawful, without any legal justification whatsoever, and based on political pressure,” Mozaīka said in a press release.

The commission suggested Mozaīka could hold the march just in the park without going into surrounding streets, or along 11th November Shoreline. Mozaīka, however, rejected the alternatives, arguing the commission’s decision “have no legal justification.”

Numerous conservative politicians and religious leaders protested the commission’s initial approval of the march. In an open letter to Rīga Mayor Jānis Birks, the Rev. Jānis Šmits on May 12 wrote that the commission’s approval was illegal and against the wishes of the majority of city residents. He called on the mayor to overturn the decision and to sack Rīga City Administrator Andris Grīnbergs. Šmits, a member of the conservative First Party of Latvia (Latvijas Pirmā partija), posed a question to Birks: “In whose interests does the Rīga council work—those of 50 amoral homosexuals or those of 1 million Rīga inhabitants?”

Linda Freimane, chair of Mozaīka, said in a statement that the city council had yielded to political pressure.

“All of this foments hatred in Latvia,” she said, “and causes Latvia to become an object of mockery among other European countries.”

Andris Straumanis is a special correspondent for and a co-founder of Latvians Online. From 2000–2012 he was editor of the website.

Zatlers begins weeklong visit to United States

Andris Straumanis | 

Latvian President Valdis Zatlers has begun a weeklong working visit to the United States that will include meetings with government officials and politicians, speaking to Baltic-Americans and participating in an ethnic school’s commencement ceremony.

The president’s agenda, according to his press office, begins May 14 with a speech to the U.S.-Baltic Foundation’s business development conference in Washington, D.C. The conference is part of the foundation’s annual Gala weekend program.

The same day the president is set to meet with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton; Speaker of the House Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California; Rep. Robert Wexler of Florida, who is chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s Subcommittee on Europe; Sen. John McCain of Arizona, and Sen. George Voinovich of Ohio.

He also will visit the Latvian Embassy in Washington, D.C., where he will view the art exhibit “Latvian Dimensions: Contemporary Installations and Sculpture” and present Latvian state honors to a number of U.S. officials and Latvian-American community activists.
 
On May 15, the president is slated to visit The Brooking Institution, where he will present a speech, “Opportunities and Challenges Beyond 2009: The Role of Transatlantic Partnership in a Post-Economic Crisis World.” The presentation is scheduled from 10-11:30 a.m. at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1779 Massachusetts Ave. N.W., Washington. Also on the schedule is a meeting with U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and a speech during a reception for the U.S.-Baltic Foundation’s Gala.
 
The next day, May 16, sees the president speaking at the opening of the Joint Baltic American National Committee’s conference on Baltic security. In the evening, Zatlers will speak again during the U.S.-Baltic Foundation’s Gala, when he will be the guest of honor.

Before leaving May 17 for Seattle, the president and First Lady Lilita Zatlers will attend a Family Day church service and Latvian school commencement ceremony beginning at 11 a.m. in the Latvian Ev. Latvian Lutheran Church of Washington, 400 Hurley Ave., Rockville, Md.

On the West Coast, Zatlers is scheduled May 18 to visit the University of Washington, where among other agenda items he is to visit with Assistant Professor Guntis Šmidchens and students in the Baltic Studies Program. Later in the day he will meet with the Seattle Latvian community at the Latvian Cultural Center, 11710 Third Ave. N.E., Seattle.

The president on May 19 will visit Microsoft Corp. and meet with company CEO Steve Ballmer. Zatlers also is to meet with Sylvia Mathews Burwell, who is president of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Global Development Program. Finally, Zatlers is to speak to the World Affairs Council at 7 p.m. in the Town Hall Seattle, 1119 Eighth Ave., Seattle. To register for the event, telephone the World Affairs Council at +1 (206) 441-5910. Tickets are USD 10 for council members and for students, USD 20 for nonmembers.

The First Lady’s schedule during the U.S. trip includes a tour of a Ronald McDonald House Charities mobile assistance center in Washington, D.C. A similar project could be implemented in Latvia, according to the president’s press office.

Mrs. Zatlers, who is patroness of a boarding school and developmental center for children with hearing difficulties in Valmiera, will visit similar schools in the Washington area. Among these are Key Elementary School, which has integrated students with special educational needs, and Gallaudet University, where she will learn about a program for children with hearing loss.

Also in the nation’s capital, Mrs. Zatlers is to visit the Newseum, a museum about journalism and the news industry, where she will present the book Latvia Under the Rule of the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, 1940-1991 as a gift from the Museum of the Occupation of Latvia. The First Lady also will tour the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.
 
In Seattle, Mrs. Zatlers will accompany the president when he meets with the Latvian community and when he visits Microsoft.

Andris Straumanis is a special correspondent for and a co-founder of Latvians Online. From 2000–2012 he was editor of the website.

Dealing with the deficit and with Rubiks

Uldis Ozoliņš | 

Since Latvia’s new government came into office two months ago, the atmosphere of Latvian politics has changed almost beyond recognition. When President Valdis Zatlers picked Valdis Dombrovskis to be prime minister, a sequence of events began that now show us a government facing up to the realities both of the catastrophic financial crisis engulfing Latvia, and of the need to change a political culture of corruption and self serving.

Dombrovskis is from the New Era Party (Jaunais laiks, or JL), which stood outside the previous coalition, but he quickly stitched together a coalition that has been remarkably trouble free. Paradoxically, the situation made it easier to form a government, in that all the former coaliton parties were keen to do so quickly, or face a possible early Saeima election. Dombrovskis was also able to sideline a mortal enemy of JL. Ainārs Šlesers’ First Party of Latvia (Latvijas Pirmā partija, or LPP) was not accepted into the coalition, leaving it and the two Russian-oriented parties in opposition. To show he does not give a damn, strongman Šlesers himself is now a candidate for the mayor of Rīga, another source of potential kickbacks now that his political businesses in the national government (transport, communications, infrastructure) are no longer accessible. The former coalition-leading People’s Party (Tautas partija), the Union of Greens and Farmers (Zaļo un Zemnieku savienība) as well as the much bruised and discredited For Fatherland and Freedom (Tēvzemei un brīvībai / LNNK) make up the coalition together with JL.

Overshadowing the politics is the daunting economic situation, with Latvia needing to borrow several billion euros from the International Monetary Fund but needing to bring in severe cutbacks in spending. Budget cuts of just under LVL 1 billion (EUR 1.4 billion) will reduce the deficit to an acceptable level. Latvia must be able to eventually bring its budget deficit down to 3 percent of gross domestic product to qualify for acceptance into the euro zone. This time around it is intent on limiting the budget to a 7 percent deficit, fearful that revenue decline will even make this hard to achieve.

Dombrovskis gained his credentials as a Europarliamentarian, with a penchant for economic and infrastructure issues. His team includes the extraodinary return of a previous superstar, Einars Repše, who was the celebrated director of the Bank of Latvia that maintained the currency despite all adversity, then the ill-fated self-directed prime minister of the first JL government, and then a petulant isolate. Now Repše is back in the hot seat as finance minister, and seems to have regained much of his financial credentials. He and the government are in an almost impossible situation: given falling revenues, cuts to government spending must now approach some 40 percent. The government has indicated there will be protected core areas: health, education, internal affairs (including fighting corruption) and justice, but even they must restructure many of their activities. And “protected” is a very relative term: both teachers and health workers are facing salary cuts.

One other area that has already been cut savagely was the raft of committees, councils, advisory panels, secretariats and boards of dozens of enterprises and semi-government institutions where representatives—almost all with close links to one or other former coalition parties—gained enormous salaries for little work. These sinecures have been almost totally abolished. There is an ongoing reduction of numbers in all government departments. More worryingly, both the state-owned TV and radio face massive cuts. There are concerns over their maintianing programming standards and questions have been raised even about their viability. Other state-owned institutons of national importance, including libraries, also face uncertain futures.

Under this barrage of financial woe a remarkable scene is unfolding of ministers relatively rarely openly squabbling, and even those who despised JL and kept it out of previous coalitions have had to put their heads down and follow Dombrovskis and Repše into financial responsibility. While it is certain that drastic cuts in the upcoming budget will be unpopular, ministers of all parties are caught in a bind: Each wants to fight for their area of responsibility, but each knows that if IMF requirements are not met, the country will be in even greater financial chaos, and they will be blamed.

The first test of the new political order will soon be upon us with local government and European Parliament elections on June 6. Here other, more traditional, political issues are to the fore. Both elections will be a test to see what support the former coalition parties still have in the electorate. The People’s Party has been down to less than 2 percent popularity in some recent opinion polls, and although it holds power in many local government areas it could be in for a shellacking. For Fatherland and Freedom may share a similar fate, and even the traditional Union of Farmers and Greens has struggled to gain 5 percent support. JL is now the leading party, according to opinion polls, alongside the Russian-oriented Harmony Centre (Saskaņas centrs, or SC).

Yet it will be the Europarliament elections that will generate most heat, and there the SC is at the heart of the issue. The SC is a peculiar organisation. At the last Saeima elections it had considerable success in vastly outpolling the other traditional hardline Russia-leaning party, For Human Rights in United Latvia (Par cilvēktiesībām vienotā Latvijā, or PCTVL). SC consists of three factions. Two are moderate, gaining most of their votes for Russians who are Latvian citizens, but gaining some support among Latvians as well. Their very presentable leader, Nīls Ušakovs, is running for mayor of Rīga in the local government elections. Many Latvians indeed would prefer him to Šlesers, the other celebrity candidate. Ušakovs’ faction runs a moderate line on ethnic and national issues.

The third faction is headed by the notorious Alfreds Rubiks—former mayor of Rīga, Communist Party first secretary and unreconstructed pro-Moscow advocate—who was jailed in 1991 for six years because of his treason against the new Latvian state. Detesting the very existence of the Latvian state, he has worked hard to align himself with the SC instead of the PCTVL.

Now Rubiks is the No. 1 candidate for the SC in the European Parliament elections. Having a possible Latvian representative of this calibre in the EP has shocked many. It also raises questions about the “moderate” credentials of the SC. Was it really a put-up piece of political craftsmanship to assume a moderate face while still harbouring anti-Latvian and pro-Moscow policies? Although voters have the option of crossing off names and even many SC voters may balk at electing this troglodyte figure, there is a chance Rubiks may become one of Latvia’s Europarliament deputies. If PCTVL still manages enough votes, we may have two such deputies representing Latvia.

If you are a Latvian citizen your vote on June 6 may be more than usually needed.