Latvia: Aug 23 - Date For Remembering Stalinist, Nazi Victims
The Latvian parliament after a heated debate during the extraordinary meeting on Thursday passed in the final reading the bill about declaring August 23 the date for commemorating victims of Stalinist and Nazi regimes.
The responsible parliamentary committee, when discussing the bill before submitting it for the first reading, added to it another commemorative date -- August 21. On this date in 1991, independence of the Latvian state was restored de facto by adoption of the Constitutional law on the status of the Republic of Latvia.
The parliament upheld also this initiative, and only left-wing opposition MP Vladimirs Buzajevs from For Human Rights in a United Latvia (PCTVL) party strongly objected to the proposal during the debate.
The proposal to make Aug 23 the date for commemorating victims of Stalinist and Nazi regimes was initially submitted by the right-wing Civic Union faction in the Latvian parliament, which said that "Latvia is one of the European countries that have suffered most from the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact and its secret protocol."
Afterwards the ruling coalition parties decided that it would be more appropriate if the whole coalition proposed the bill.
"We cannot permit that the fateful events of August 23 and their consequences are forgotten or that Latvia is among the last of the countries to promulgate the relevant law," said the ruling coalition representatives.
The European Parliament in September 2008 adopted a declaration proposing that August 23 be proclaimed European Day of Remembrance for Victims of the Crimes of Stalinism and Nazism, in order to preserve the memory of the victims of mass deportations and exterminations while, at the same time, rooting democracy more firmly and reinforcing peace and stability in Europe.
August 23 is the anniversary of signing of the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop pact between the Soviet Union led by Stalin and Nazi Germany. Under a secret protocol to this pact, the two superpowers divided Eastern European nations into their spheres of interest and Latvia and other Baltic states [and Bessarabia, part of Romania] were included in the Soviet sphere of interests.
BNS
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