Personal reflections on incident in Riga

From: MINELRES moderator <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Date: Thu, 12 Mar 1998 02:03:37 +0200 (EET)
Message-Id: <[email protected]>
Subject: Personal reflections on incident in Riga

From: MINELRES moderator <[email protected]>

Personal reflections on incident in Riga


It seems that the situation around the 3 March incident in Riga is
heating up, indeed. No reason to speak about clashes or the like,
yet, the situation is serious enough to talk about.

1. Background. Not surprisingly, the economic conditions in Latvia,
like in all post-communist states, are hard. A few figures (Monthly
Bulletin of Latvian Statistics, Central Statistical Bureau in Latvia,
No.1, 1998, for the period October - December 1997):

Subsistence minimum (complete minimum consumer basket per
capita) - 79.83 Ls (Ls - Latvian lat, 1 $ US = 0,59 Ls). Estimated by
the Ministry of Welfare, trade unions give higher figures.

Crisis minimum basket per capita - 55.24 Ls.

Net average salaries and wages of the employed - 94.81 Ls

Average old-age pensions - 44.55 Ls

Average disposable income of households per household member -
60.70 Ls.

Thus, average income per capita is considerably lower than the
subsistence minimum and barely excedes the crisis minimum.

Housing and communal payments (particularly heating) contribute a
lion's share into this situation in urban areas. These payments differ

much and are at average within the ranks of 50 till 100 Ls per month.

Municipal authorities grant welfare to cover these expenses upon very
stringent criteria - it is far from being enough to have income below
the
subsistence minimum to claim this welfare. Besides, not all eligible
persons receive welfare, this depends on if municipalities have money
for this purpose. Anyway, over 150,000 residents of Riga (of 816,000
total) received welfare, however, rather symbolic. Several thousands
have been expelled form their housing for inability to pay, and over
8,000 similar cases are pending in courts now.

Most savings were lost because of monetary reforms and bank crises.
Thus, I have no idea how our pensioners manage to survive...

2. What happened. Because of complicated methods of how heating
payments are calculated, in February many Riga residents received
impressive extra bills. Russian-language newspaper 'Panorama
Latvii' invited all interested persons to gather near the Riga city
council 1 hour before the next coincil's session "to discuss the
situation and to meet oppositional members of the council". However,
no one from the opposition was warned. As the journalists say, they
didn't expect so many people to come. Control over the situation was
lost from the very beginning.

People occupied one of the main Riga streets and blocked the traffic.
Police, after warnings had been ignored, used trancheons to free the
street. When I came to the council, nobody wanted to talk to deputies
any longer, elderly people were fighting with police which apparently
embodied their torturers at that moment, and all attempts to stop
them were in vain...

Was there an administrative violation? Yes. Did police use excessive
force? Definitely yes! Instead of using methods of dissolving the
crowd, policemen meddled into "individual" fightings and beated
people. Could our municipal authorities prevent the incident, calm
people down? Probably yes, at least, they should try. Also we
opposition in the city council, should follow newspapers' activities
more closely and forecast the situation.

3. Does the incident have the "ethnic dimension"? No and yes.
Of course, housing and heating payments are unbearable burden for
both Latvians and Russians. Russian-speakers made up most of the
demonstrators because the rally was initiaited by the
Russian-language newspaper. That's all correct.

On the other hand, economic conditions of Latvians and Russian-
speakers are still somewhat different. This can be seen, in
particular,
from the latest New Baltic Barometer III survey (R.Rose, University of

Strathclyde, Studies in Public Policy No 284, Glasgo, 1997). At the
time of the survey, 14 per cent of ethnic Latvians and 26 per cent of
Russians claimed they were at some time unemployed in the past
half year. 7 per cent of ethnic Latvians and 13 per cent of Russians
experienced temporary lay-off when they were not paid by their
employer. Asking the question: "Sometimes people have to do
without things that people usually have. In the past 12 months,
has your household sometimes had to do without:...", the pollsters
received the following answers: "food" - 18 per cent of Latvians and
30 per cent of Russians replied "often", "heating, electricity" - 3
and
9 per cent, "clothes you really needed" - 26 and 36 per cent.

The question of the reasons of this situation deserves special
consideration. One factor is definitely that Latvians make up an
overwhelming majority of the state bureaucracy, numerous jobs
created in the state sector after the restoration of independence
were, as a rule, occupied by ethnic Latvians (according to the same
survey, 31 per cent of employed Latvians and 12 per cent of
Russians had a "non-market employer", if I understand correctly
what is implied here).

Besides, also differing perceptions do matter. For Latvians, the very
fact of having their independent statehood restored - what they were
dreaming about for centuries - is a kind of emotional compensation
for economic hardships. Russians, on the contrary, feel (and really
are) deprived also in political and cultural terms, and for them this
is
an aggravating factor. I heard like elder woman cried: "You took
away our savings, citizenship, money, language, housing!" - thus,
at the emotional level all these things are often put in the same
basket...

4. International reaction. I believe that, indeed, the willingness "to

protect compatriots abroad" is far from being the main reason behind
Russia's accusations towards Latvian authorities. Latvian
government's striving to join NATO, refusal to consider Russia's new
security proposals, and even increase of oil transit tariffs are more
crucial factors. However, it should be mentioned that Latvian
officials
made too many unwise unfriendly gestures towards Russia (like e.g.
statement of the Prime Minister G.Krasts during his visit to Spain
that Russia hasn't put up with the fact of Latvia's independence and
wants to take us back into Russia).

On the other hand, I can't agree with Paul Goble and many other
Western commentators who see only Russia pursuing its political
goals and "inventing the problem of the Russian-speakers". Yes,
Russia does play the ethnic card, but the problems of the Russian-
speakers in Latvia are real. And infringements and violations of their

rights are very real too... Thus, the attitude of some Western experts

and governments - unconditional support of Latvia against Russia -
to some extent mirrors position of Russia itself.

5. Prospects for future. Situaton around the incident is very typical
for the general developments in Latvia. Major "pro-minority" factions
in the Riga city council ("For equal rights" led by Tatjana Zhdanok
and The Popular Concord Party's faction chaired by myself) found
themselves between Scilla and Haribda. Mainstream Latvian-
language media "traditionally" accuse them in "disloyalty" and
"supporting Russia's attacks against Latvia" - because we disagree
with the government's basic statement about the absence of any
mistreatment of Russian-speakers in Latvia. Some Russian-
language media accuse us in "treason" because we are rather
sceptical about the Russia's campaign... Particularly for the
"Concord" party, the situation is quite common.

What could be expected now is further radicalisation on the both
sides, and further decrease of influence of moderate, conciliation-
and compromise-oriented parties. The fact that parliamentary
elections will be held in October this year, makes this trend
particularly alarming.

Hope I haven't misused my moderator's rights with this posting :-).

Boris

--
==============================================================
MINELRES - a forum for discussion on minorities in Central&Eastern
Europe

Submissions: [email protected]
Subscription/inquiries: [email protected]
List archive: http://www.riga.lv/minelres/archive.htm
==============================================================