Rewriting history- clashes in Tallinn-over 300 protesters detained

[CarpeDiem]

Rewriting history – clashes in Tallinn - over 300 protesters detained by Estonian police
from Russian info agencies;
from http://www.utro.ru/articles/2007/04/27/644584.shtml

During preparations of Estonian Government to ‘relocate’ the grave of Soviet soldiers, who had died during the liberation of Tallinn from Nazi invaders, authorities had infested the streets of Tallinn with policemen to scare defenders of the monument to the Soviet Soldier - Liberator from Fascism. By perimeter of a garden surrounding a monument a fence has been put up.

Bronze monument on the burial place of Soviet soldiers on Tunnismyagi in Tallinn to Soviet Soldier - Liberator from Fascism,
dismantled today by Estonian authorities under cover of night

Estonian police clashed on Thursday with anti-Nazi protesters and detained over three hundred demonstrators protesting against pulling down of the monument to Soviet WWII Soldier - Liberator in Tallinn. Rally of protesters developed into mass street disorders by the yesterday evening. Thousands of Tallinn residents marched along the Parnu highway which is only one block away from the monument shouting ‘Shame!’; ‘Fascists!’; ‘Damned vandals!’; ‘Leave the monument in peace and stop re-writing history!’

Fifteen years of systematic humiliation of Russian-speaking residents in Estonia [they are denied citizenship by Estonian authorities] have poured out as a result in today's splash in human emotions. Also it is reaction to a policy of double- and even triple standards which so is peculiar to the Estonian authorities - separate standards for the European Union, separate - for Estonians and absolutely other - for Russians living in Estonia. Arrival in Tallinn tomorrow or on Saturday of inhabitants of other regions of Estonia where many Russian-speaking inhabitants live is discussed on the Internet.

Estonian police does not cope with the situation, and is possible, that tomorrow center of Tallinn will be blocked by police. The opportunity of introduction of a ‘commandant hour’ is not excluded. In the meantime activists of ‘Night patrol‘ - an organization of Russian activists who defend a monument to Soviet Soldier - Liberator from Fascism from Estonian neonazists and attempts of Estonian Government to dismantle it, have declared that the Estonian authorities ‘break laws, humiliate people and carry out a genocide‘.

According to the lawyer of anti-Nazi movement Sergey Seredenko, Geneva convention rules are violated by Estonian authorities, according to which re-burial of military tombs is authorized only in case of the maximum state necessity - for example, in case of threat of flooding. The leader of ‘Night patrol‘ Dmitry Linter considers that ‘the situation is heated on purpose‘. ‘Someone is very interested in onset in Estonia mass hysteria and disorders. Most likely, the hand of the USA is palpable here as all has begun right after visit of premier-minister Ansipp to Mexico where he met with someone from US officials‘ - he noted.

The official representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia Michael Kamynin said that Russia will continue to use resources of international organizations, first of all European, for rendering influence on the Estonian authorities. Michael Kamynin also emphasized that Moscow repeatedly asked Estonian authorities to not undertake any practical steps to dismantle the monument to the Soviet Solgier – Liberator from Fascism and re-burial of remains of the Soviet soldiers, and has expressed indignation of that these appeals have not lead to any action from Estonian Government.

It means only one: the Estonian Government wishes to rewrite lessons of the Second world war ‘, - the representative the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation has emphasized. Meanwhile the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia Sergey Lavrov declared at Russia-NATO meeting in Oslo that disorders in Tallinn ‘are disgusting’ and ‘will have the most serious consequences for the Russian-Estonian bilateral relationships’.

‘I did not see the footage, but I heard what occurs there’, - Russian minister has told. – ‘I consider that it does not have the justification. And it will have serious consequences for our relationships with Estonia. It should affect and our relationships both with NATO, and with the European Union - with the organizations which have accepted the country [Estonia] roughly trampling those values on which the European Union is based on, and in general the European culture and the European democracy’ – told Lavrov.

http://en.rian.ru/world/20070426/64485313.html

Police use tear gas against Soviet monument defenders in Tallinn
TALLINN, April 26 (RIA Novosti)

Police in Tallinn, Estonia, had to use tear gas to disperse protesters against Estonian authorities' decision to remove a World War II monument to Soviet soldiers.

The incident occurred in a clash between police that surrounded a small park around the bronze statue and those who came to defend the monument and protest against the Estonian authorities' decision exhume and identify the remains of Soviet soldiers buried at the site.
Estonia started work Thursday to relocate the soldiers buried by the Bronze Soldier statue in central Tallinn to a military cemetery on the outskirts of the capital in a move that could further strain relations with Moscow, which has accused the Baltic state of encouraging Nazism and discrimination against ethnic Russians.

‘If the Nazis could not cope with living [soldiers], the Estonian government is trying to cope with dead ones,’ said Boris Gryzlov, chairman of the State Duma, parliament's lower house.

Police cordoned off the area around the memorial in the run up to May 9 Victory Day.

The six-foot statue, which could also be dismantled and relocated, has become a rallying point for ethnic Russians. Following clashes with Estonian nationalists near the statues the authorities called for the Bronze Statue and other monuments ‘dividing society’ to be removed.
Estonia's prime minister said earlier Thursday the work, being done under a Defense Ministry recommendation in mid-March, could last two weeks to four months. Andrus Ansip also said the central square was not a proper burial place.

‘We cannot talk of respect for wartime graves, when people stage rallies, wave flags and consume alcohol there,’ the premier said, adding the Soviet soldiers would be laid to rest a military cemetery on the outskirts of Tallinn.

Moscow has threatened Tallinn with economic sanctions and said it could refer the case to the European Union, the Organization for Security and Organization in Europe, and NATO.

Russia already initiated a resolution to condemn plans by the EU member to remove the memorial at the Council of Europe earlier April.
The Russian delegation in Strasbourg also insisted the European body address the recent closure by Polish authorities of a Russian exhibition at Poland's Auschwitz death camp memorial, and Hungarian radicals' plans to remove a Soviet WWII memorial from central Budapest.

The governor of the Russian enclave region in the Baltics has meanwhile suggested moving the Bronze Soldier to Kaliningrad.

 

[Rauno]

I am surprised to find this topic from SOTT forum.

From my perspective this is an A influence which gives a chance to study negative emotions.


Nevertheless...Russian media is highly biased.

What really happened is a long story. And roots for this conflict are historical.

At first we should get back to years 1918 - 1920 when Estonia fought for it's independence and won against freshly bolshevized Russia. This was our chance ''between two fireguns'' - Germany and Russia - at the end of the WWI, when Germany started his withdrawal and Russia was to weak for major force.

In August 1939 a pact was made between ''two fireguns'' - Germany and Russia that divided Europe into two spheres of influence. Estonia along with Latvia, Lithuania and Finland were planned to become part of Russia. In June 1940, without any defensive tactic from Estonian side our land again was de facto occupied. It wasn’t wise to reject an ultimatum of a military force that had a capability to produce same amount of tanks as we had armed troops. In Estonia there lived and lives about 1 million natives.

At the beginning of WWII Estonia declared itself neutral. But was finally annected by Nazis in December of 1941. WWII in the soil of Estonia was a huge moral an material catastrophe. The brother had to fight against brother because the land was many times divided between same ''two firegun'' mentioned before. General sympathy was on the side of Nazis.

Finally in September 1944 after the collapse of Nazi Germany, Estonia declares itself independent. This lasts for three days. In 22th September of 1944 Tallinn is captured by Soviet military and the least wanted regime roots itself for the next 50 years.

Now we come to the heart of this problem.

In the April 14. 1945 about 12 soldiers, allegedly killed during ''liberation'' of Tallinn are re-buried to the central place of a capital city, to give an ideological and propagandistic stroke. The place is re-named as a Square of ''Liberators''. And that’s were the events described in previous post took place. Actually now this place is called just Tõnismägi but the statue of Bronze Soldier erected in 22.09.1947 has remained as a last symbol of occupation. And as extremist views are greatly budding in todays Europe this place has become a centre of more-or-less violent fights.

In May 9. 1945 the whole world is celebrating a Victory Day. The Great Fatherland War for Russians has been won. What day should Estonians celebrate? The annihilation of Nazis was good but occupation masked as ''liberation'' is not so digestable after 16 years of re-independence in the year 2007.

Those who fought this war are dead now. The center of a town is not meant to be a symbol of foreign military power.

The forces that are behind yesterdays and todays violence are extremist in nature. A Bronze Soldier is simply a motive to rebell. A form of identification. What really happened was that when police repeatedly ordered people (about 1500) to leave this place alone and nobody moved - the legal force were conducted against them that rallied up negative emotions in part of protesters which winded up in a snowball effect (with the help of alcohol of course). Firstly bottles and stones vs. police pepper-gas. Then vandalism against cars and shops vs. water-cannon. Etc…

Russian media and government of course wants to extrapolate some major schisma between Russians and Estonians. To tell the truth nothing as such exists. Does anyone with brains wants to fight over several tons of bronze and symbolic meanining of a place which reminds us history 60 years ago – a fight between two pathocratic forces.

If you really mourn, mourn in your heart until the grave and the Soldier are being relocated to a new place. Official proposal for Russian government was made for supervising the archeological work done in this place.

60 years of free mourning without compromiss to the side of Estonian viewpoint is a way too much.

But those who vandalized yesterday and today do not really care of this memory. They were young men who wanted action. And they got it.

 

[Hildegarda]

The crisis in Estonia is a perfect case study in ponerology.

I have been following this crisis through Russian media and, mostly, through independent blogs. My conclusion is that Russian diaspora\enclave in Estonia and the bronze soldier are simply dice in the political game of the Kremlin team and their Estonian\European partners. The hysteria about the national question has been overblown out of proportion and biased to cover it up. The roots of the conflict are NOT historical, although they do have some history. It is about POWER and MONEY -- lots of it.

Ethnic Russians constitute up to 30% of Estonian population. After Estonia left the Soviet Union, Estonia began to style itself as a mononational, monolingual nation-state, which is understandable given its small size and cultural ties with scandinavian countries. Because of this, it requires non-estonian population to pass a language test aand a citizenship test to obtain estonian passports. Russians didn't take too well to this. There are 126 thousands of Russians in Estonia who don't have citizenship -- they carry the so-called 'alien passports', which gives less rights. Additionally, Russians complain about being discriminated when it comes to emplyment. Russians are also represented disproportionately as prison inmates in Estonia. To sum it up, Russians are the estonian underclass.

That being said, when Soviet Union collapsed, no Russians ran back to Russia from Estonia -- unlike other former soviet republics in the south, where people were getting out with barely a shirt on their backs, to run away from ethnic conflicts. No, the Russians in Estonia stayed -- to enjoy a quiet, peaceful and relatively high european standard of living, and to await the inevitable acceptance of Estonia into the European union, which allows one to become a European citizen. Estonian economy is the fasted growing in the European Union. It's seaports are important in import, export and transit. In recent years, Estonia does a lot of IT outsourcing -- e.g., SKYPE technology was developed there.

The economic discrimination of Russians continues, but it seems that in the latest years things have JUST started to calm down. Enough Russians integrated into Estonian culture and economics. New generation of children grew up, that learned the estonian language in schools and counted the graduation exam in it as their ticket to citizenship.

Russians in Estonia hold on to the Russian history and WWII heritage as the only tie to their Motherland. They resent increasing pro-nazi attitudes of certain estonian politicians and the society as a whole. Estonia has its own legitimate grievances against Russians, too. Russians and Estonians will probably never have the same view of the history -- but it is irrelevant. For the most part, people agree to disagree, and cohexist peacefully. The only people who make a stir are a very small segment of the bottom-dwellers, who gravitate to the russian nationaist movements such as 'Night Patrol' (clearly supported by the Kremlin). They are normally shrugged off by both Estonians and Russians. A pro-russian nationalist party got only 1% of votes in the last election.

The conflict around the Bronze Soldier started last spring, around election time. It became a contention point between the reformist party of Andrus Ansipp and the centrist party of Edgar Saavisar. Saavisar wanted to leave the Bronze soldier alone, so Ansipp naturally campaigned to move the monument. Ansipp won by a small margin of votes and had to stick by his promise.

The removal of the movement and the remains of the soldiers may contradict Geneva convention. Besides the article stating that the reburial of military tombs should happen only in case of maximum state necessity, there is one that suggests that it is the native country of those buried that has priority in deciding the place of their final location. Whatever the technicalities may be, this particular removal was done in a HIGHLY inflammatory manner. It was, as if on purpose, timed to coincide with May 9, the Victory Day in WWII, which is held by Russians in highest regard. It was preceded by extended discussions in the media, the magnitude of which surprised even Estonians. Also, derogatory statements have been made in the media, that the remains actually belong not to the 13 heroic soldiers, but to two drunk soldiers who were ran over by a tank, or related versions. The media brainwashing and purposeful spreading of hysteria was in the works.

The first night when the monument was dismounted, there was a large crowd that was protesting relatively civilly. Some bottles, rocks were thrown. According to the eyewitnesses, police and specials forces went into offense first. However, that too was relatively civil, especially when compared with baseless police ruthlessness during the recent opposition marches in Moscow and Saint-Petersburg.

At some point, the situation went out of control, and the riot started. Cars were turned over, shop windows crashed. Stores were looted -- this was done mostly by drunk youth, and to be fair, 2\3 of the looters were Russian, and about 1\3 were Estonians, following the crowd. THis action, BTW, was condemned by Russian and Estonian bloggers on both sides.

During the next day, two things transpired. One was the obvious support of the action from Kremlin. Some people were being paid by pro-Russian nationalist firces to participated in the demontrations in Tallinn (people quote a mobile phone message received from a Night Patrol activist). Busloads of pro-russian activists were brought in from other estonian towns, and various drunks and bums, too, to create a crowd. In Moscow, Russian nationalists groups, Nashi (Ours) and Mooldaya Gvardia (Young Guard), picketed the Estonian Embassy. They blocked entrances and exits, waving flags, yelling obscenities and covering the whole street with posters with poster, featuring a vandalized picture of the Estonian ambassador and words, "Embassy of the fasist country of Estonia". These two youth organizations are known to be supported by Putin's administration. Moscovites couldn't get thorugh the area and coulnd't use a local metro stop because of police cordon. Police apparently was protecting the demonstrators and turning away other people, especially activists from opposing political parties. At night, the protesters put up tents and ... organized a disco in the middle of the street. Absurd, but true.

In the meantime, in Estonia the emergency meeting of the government took place at night, and the monument was removed immediately. Next day the crowd or protesters was larger and angrier, and the police went into action in much more ruthless and organized fashion. Besides tear gas, they brought in light bombs and water guns. Rubber bullets and clubs were used liberally. Night Patrol activists were arrested in their homes. The beatings of the protesters were brutal, journalists too were assaulted. More than 300 people were arrested. Since the jails were full, almost 200 people were put in an empty airport hangar, where they were kept without food or water or the opportunity to use restrooms (which were absent), in handcuffs, on their knees -- and beaten mercilessly. Regulations on humane treatment of prisoners have clearly been violated in this case. Some people died. The Estonia-Russia borders were controlled, cars and tour-buses were turned away, people's visas were annulled.

Russian government was quick to condemn the action of the Estonian side. Lavrov, the head of the Ministery of Foreign Affairs, called the removal of the monument ‘a sacrilege’ and hinted ominously that this incident may hurt the relationship of Russia with Estonia, NATO and the European Union. The Federation Council unanimously accepted a resolution about severance of diplomatic ties with Estonia. A specially created delegation of 30 Russian officials will visit Estonia to deal with this problem.

However, nothing is proposed to solve the real problems of the Russians in Estonia. Moreover, the Russian diaspora in Estonia has been hurt immesurably by this conflict. Their dignity and national pride was insulted -- but most importantly, their integration process has been set back by the mass hysteria and hatred on both sides. E.g., a russian post-woman was called 'russian b&tch' in the small country houses where she has been delivered mail for years. Estonian children are told in school not to be out in the evening, to walk in groups and not to speak Estonian. Adults feel more resentment than fear: an editorial in a national newspaper PosTimees talks about 'a newly re-emerged face of the Russian bastard'. Russians, on the other hand, are afraid to speak Russian in public places. People are scared, sick and tired of violence. They lament that it would take long to mend the broken ties and restore good relationship with their neighbors.


There are truly no winners in this conflict except for the politicians and pathocrats who made it happen. Their benefits are political and financial. To understand this, we have to go back into the years when Estonia became independent.

to be continued

 

[CarpeDiem]

People are scared, sick and tired of violence. They lament that it would take long to mend the broken ties and restore good relationship with their neighbors.

proven strategy. It will definitely take a long time and focused efforts to patch that hole. Conflict is clearly overblown, and i think it's engineered and perpetrated likely by all involved parties. When Soldier has been dismantled before the Victory day they fore-knew that definitely would push immensely an emotional button and 'patriotism mood' in Russians. I was thinking along the lines of three crisises happening simultenuously: EU-Estonia - Russia; then looking almost perpetual constitutional crisis in neughbouring to Russia and strategically important Ukraine; and then - religious crisis in Turkey, that seem to be to be engineered too (but i don't have much to back up that). All happening at the same time. The question is of who benefits?
my thought is - it's like a cover for upcoming 'operation freedom' in Iran. Any thoughts, speculations on this?

 

[Hildegarda]

The question is of who benefits?
my thought is - it's like a cover for upcoming 'operation freedom' in Iran. Any thoughts, speculations on this?

I am pulling information together to explain this in details. Here it looks like it is all about energy, specifically: 1) old semi-shoadow ties of Putin's administration with their estonian cronies, 2) the Nord Stream gas pipeline that is being built in the Baltic Sea, and 3) Russia's political weight in Europe, unilateral cooperations with Germany, and the NATO's opposition to that. Stay tuned ;)

 

[Hildegarda]

I'll write about the Estonian\Russian ties tomorrow, here is the scoop on points 2 and 3, i.e., the North Stream pipe line and european politics

*********

Presently, with the looming world energy crisis, high oil prices and renationalization of its key companies, Russia is using its vast natural resources to reclaim its influence in Europe. It shows in the following two ways. Russia uses its natural resources for political blackmail, as it happened in the 2006 Ukrainian gas crisis. It also showed tendency to bypass the transit fees of middlemen and make direct contracts with the European powers: e.g., the Baltic Pipe System is a direct shot from the Primorsk Region into Finland, which diverts oil from Belarus, Latvia and Poland. In addition, Russia tightened the requirements for cooperation with western companies, which amounts to picking and choosing business partners.

This and other development have lead senator Richard Lugar, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee chair, to suggest during the 2006 NATO summit that NATO should assist under its Article 5 mutual defense clause any member whose energy supplies are threatened. Poland, with its conservative pro-american government, dubbed this ‘energy NATO’. While this has not gone as far as to be officially cemented, it hangs over as a sign of a revival of the Cold War, and the analysts predict a further worsening of relations with Russia in the year 2007.

An old saying from the cold war times defines NATO’s job as follows: "Keep the Americans in, the Germans down, and the Russians out." The ‘energy NATO’s ’ seems to include mostly the ‘new Europe’, supported by the US, but, ironically, the conflicts fall along the same lines of allegiance and dislikes.

There is a plan to build a direct 700 mile (1200 kilometers) long gas pipeline across the Baltic Sea, from Portovaya bay near the Russian town of Viborg to Greifswalder Bodden along the German coast. This line will provide 25% additional gas demand in the EU by transporting 55 billion cubic meters of gas per year. The importance of this project is underscored by its status of Trans-European Energy Network (TEN-E) which it has received in 2006. The pipe will cost approximately 5 billion euros to build, and is planned to be put into operation in 2010.

A company named Nord Stream is responsible for the Baltic pipeline. It is owned by the russian giant Gazprom, and german companies, BASF and E.ON. The ex-chancellor of Schroeder acts as the supervisory board chairman (the reason for his support of Russia in the Bronze Soldier conflict immediately becomes clear � �).

Other European countries immediately expressed concerns over this construction. Sweden cited environmental threat, while Poland went into the heart of the matter and expresses anxiety over the fact that Germany will basically control the hub for the European gas distribution. This exclusive business cooperation between Germany and Russia shuts out other West European firms and countries. It is also matched by increased military cooperation: joint exercises have been taken place for years, and in 2006 Russia helped Germany launch its military espionage satellite into space. According to german political analyst Horst Teubert, Germany intends to use this axis with Russia to gain a greater power status within the European Union; Russia’s gains in political weight are also apparent.

An informal summit between the presidents of eight European countries (Latvia, Finland, Germany, Italy, Austria, Portugal, Poland and Hungary) took place on April 11 in Riga, Latvia. The discussion has not been made public, but it was known that European energy questions were on the agenda, and the analysts suspect that Nord Stream project was discussed and that some anti-russian attitudes were vented.

Estonian media had attacked the Baltic pipe on environmental grounds, but as a country, Estonia was the only Baltic nation that didn’t criticize the North Stream project. Moreover, the parliament asked the Estonian Political Institute to research the question, and the Institute expressed the approval of the project. It soon became apparent why.

On April 11, the reform party introduced into Estonian Parliament a new bill, dubbed ‘On Sea Border’. If approved, this decision will extend the sea border of Estonia by 3 nautical miles. According to the deputee Igor Griaznov, ‘the gist of this proposal is to return the territorial waters of Estonia to the original size (12 nautical miles) that they had prior to 1993. At that time, Estonia and Finland voluntarily decreased their territorial waters by 3 miles, which is equivalent to 5.5 km’. That measure had left a 6 mile neutral corridor within the Gulf of Finland.

He also noted that the new law doesn’t need to be coordinated with other nations: it can be put into practice unilaterally, according to the UN Law of the Sea Convention of 1982. This contradicts the 2005 agreement between Estonian and Russian Federation states that any changes in the sea border in the Gulf of Finland must be coordinated between the three countries: Russia, Estonia and Finland. Russia maintains that the agreement has not been properly signed and ratified, and that it shouldn't affect the gas pipe project. However, Finland already expressed political support of Estonia in the current Bronze soldier conflict. This may mean de facto siding together in the sea border question as well.

The scoop here is that Nord Stream gas pipe falls WITHIN the redrawn Estonian sea border. Therefore, Estonia will be entitled to receiving regular transit fees from gas transmission. This is a potential economic drawback for Russia.

Another far-reaching risk for Russia is to lose the neutral corridor in the Gulf of Finland, which may happen if Finland follows Estonia and moves its sea border, and NATO rallies behind both countries. Historically, the Gulf of Finland was Russia’s ‘window to Europe’, a highly strategically important geographic location. If push comes to shove, the control of the gulf of Finland may be used as a sanitary cordon of both Russia and the ‘old Europe’.

Turnes out that this initiative was discussed previously in the Estonian government, soon aftre the construction of the pipe was announced, but it went nowhere. This time, a two-week long timeline was mentioned for the discussion of the sea border bill. This means that it should have been going on right about April 25-27. That just happened to be the time that they choose to start the process of removing the Bronze Soldier. A mass hysteria followed, and the rest, as they say, is history.

 

[Miss Isness]

It's really great having the luxury of viewing this situation from all sides. Thanks so much for the information. It really is an excellent lesson in how the ptb divide and conquer preying on the unique weakness of each faction.

 

[CarpeDiem]

FreeTrinity, you really rock here! I was in total black with sea-borders re-drawing and summit in Riga. So much going on sidetracked! Where do you get the info? That means i'm too lazy to look in depth...

 

[Hildegarda]

Thank you -- a lot of this information was pulled out by Russian bloggers from Livejournal, so kudoes go to them :)

This Riga summit was informal and seemed like a supersecret affair -- nobody was reporting what it was about save for Latvian and Polish sources. I had to laugh when, after reading how much Poland is fretting about this gas pipe, and how it was known what the topic will be to begin with, I see Polish president saying, 'jeez, I don't know why they invited me to this summit, it's a strange company out there, some old powers, some new members of the EU, this should make for a fun discussion!' Who do they think we are, really?

Now, once you know where to look, it turns out that about a week or two before this affair there was an unprecedented surge of news about Estonia, Russia and the pipe. Among those is the following supremely curious snippet:


Estonian officials concerned at prospect of Russian gas major's "private army"

20 April 2007
04:34 pm GMT
BBC Monitoring European
English
(c) 2007 The British Broadcasting Corporation. All Rights Reserved. No material may be reproduced except with the express permission of The British Broadcasting Corporation.

Text of report by Estonian newspaper Postimees website on 17 April
[Report by Lauri Linnamae: "Gazprom Pushing Its Way to Estonian Waters Will Get Big Armed Unit"]
Gazprom, the Russian gas monopoly, which is forcing its way into Estonian waters, will probably get authorization from the Russian Federation to establish a well-armed private army consisting of thousands of soldiers.

Russia feels concerned about the security of energy sources, which are important to the state, and so a draft act of the State Duma will authorize Gazprom, as well as the state-owned oil monopoly Transneft, to establish armed units to protect their property.

The draft act is still pending, but according to the newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta it has already been approved by the Kremlin.

The draft act will probably give the personnel of units consisting of a few thousand men the right "to use service weapons and special equipment to protect products important to the state, as well as its storage, processing, stockpiling, and transporting, and for the protection of property important for carrying out international contracts".

Exact Size Unknown
According to Nezavisimaya Gazeta, current legislation does not exclude the possibility of arming the "units" with automatic combat weapons. According to the newspaper, the company fighters will have the right to search people and vehicles as well as to use weapons for the protection of not only facilities, but sites too.

The Gazprom public relations department has notified the media that the size of the future army will be kept secret because of company regulations. According to the gas giant, Gazprom is not a state institution and therefore does not have to give out information.

According to Igor Grazin, member of the [Estonian] parliament, the establishment of private armies for businesses that have good relations with the Kremlin matches the general policy of Russia. Grazin recalled the statement by Vladimir Putin, president of Russia, that the construction of the Russian-German gas pipeline needed military protection.

"As is known, Russia wants to restore the Baltic Fleet. [Sergey] Ivanov, [first deputy prime minister of Russia], has emphasized the importance of the Baltic Fleet for the construction and protection of the pipeline," Grazin recalled. "Because of that, the Russian intelligence capability will inevitably increase too - they will want to be aware of who moves around their pipeline. The Russian intelligence presence in Estonia will certainly grow too, if it has not already."

So far it is unclear whether the planned Russian-German gas pipeline, which will be built by the Gazprom subsidiary Nord Stream, across the bottom of the Baltic Sea, will be protected by the private army as well - for geological reasons, the company plans to move it southward from its initial location, to Estonia's exclusive economic zone.

According to the Ministry of Defence, the position of the Estonian Republic is very clear. "No fighter who belongs to a private army can set foot on Estonian territory," Madis Mikko, director of the Ministry of Defence Public Relations Department, said. "Certainly, Gazprom's plans are alarming and therefore we are watching them closely."

Member of parliament Marko Mihkelson emphasized that at this time the defence ministries of the countries surrounding the Baltic Sea as well as NATO must observe very closely how the security of the planned gas pipeline will be effected. "The energy supply transport routes are already enormously important strategically, and this importance grows as resources shrink," he said.

According to Mihkelson, in addition to the environmental risks, the Estonian Government must understand the military-political dangers that the gas pipeline will bring with it. "There are basically no borders between Gazprom and the Kremlin; this state-owned company clearly implements Kremlin foreign policy," Mihkelson said. "The government will have to seriously discuss matters relating to the gas pipeline in the next few weeks or months, as very complex issues could arise from this in the future which at the moment could still be avoided."

Schroeder Will Visit Estonia
The draft act for arming energy monopolies has been criticized in Russia too. According to Emil Pain, director of the Centre of Ethnopolitical Studies in Moscow, this could lead to the emergence of several other private armies.

"Armed corporations alone are causing enough anxiety, but this could turn out to be a far greater threat for society in the Russian conditions," Pain told the media.

This summer Gerhard Schroeder, former chancellor of Germany and chairman of the board of Nord Stream AG, will probably come to Estonia to lobby for the Russian-German gas pipeline. He got that position in 2005 a month after resigning from the office of chancellor.

Source: Postimees website, Tallinn, in Estonian 17 Apr 07
a62da05c
Document BBCEUP0020070420e34k003pe





Igor Griazin is the same guy that introduced the Sea Border Bill into the parliament -- he seems to have a lot of awareness about Gasprom inner goings.


I think this pretty much setles the question who is calling the shots here. The blogosphere is currently divided on whose provocation it is: whether it is NATO attacking Russia or vice versa. From the info abovem it seems that it is Russia's operation.