Pessimism, soul-searching 20 years on

Latvian President Valdis Zatlers (center) carries flowers to Riga's Freedom Monument with his wife Lilita Zatlers, Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaitė and Estonia's parliamentary speaker Ene Ergma to his left Tuesday.

RIGA – Latvia celebrated the 20th anniversary of the declaration of independence this week amid much pessimism and soul-searching brought on by the worst economic crisis in the country’s young history.

Many politicians past and present had few good words to say about Latvia’s state of health 20 years on from the day the Supreme Soviet declared independence from Moscow, less than two months of Lithuania did the same.

Indeed, given the country’s present circumstances — widespread unemployment and bankruptcy, mass emigration and slow demographic erosion – there would seem to be little cause for celebration.

“I’m ashamed that in 20 years we accomplished nothing. I’m ashamed that we deceived those people who stood next to us at the barricades. I’m ashamed that we stole our own government. I’m ashamed that our government is one of the poorest in the EU, that people live beneath standards of human dignity,” Jānis Jurkāns, a former foreign minister, was quoted as saying.

Others looked back over the past two decades with distinct tones of optimism, pointing to Latvia’s integration into Western institutes — most notably, NATO and the European Union — as irrefutable signs of progress that some country, such as Georgia, now envy.

Many pointed out that Latvians attained the much-awaited freedom, not just from the Soviet empire but also freedom of travel throughout Europe and the opportunity to work in dozens of countries — a luxury virtually unthinkable 20 years ago.

President Valdis Zatlers tried to steer the country away from the dreariness and pessimism and focus on how to accomplish a revival over the next 20 years. For that, he said, the Latvia people needed trust.

“But trust without the requirement of responsibility will lead to selfish interest getting an advantage over both society and the state, and lies, corruption, theft arise. How can we prevent this? Only by loving our country,” Zatlers told a special session of the Saeima in the national opera on May 4 as part of the day’s ceremonies.

It was symbolic of the deep discord in Latvia’s politico-economic system that parliamentarians refused to allow Dainis Ivans, the former head of the Latvian People’s Front, the organization that spearheaded the independence movement in the 1980s, to speak at the May 4 session.

Ivans, a Social Democrat, is a fervant critic of the current political system, characterized by cronyism and corruption, and no doubt would have delivered a message unpalatable to many MPs and foreign guests at the ceremony.

The crisis has exacerbated class differences in Latvia, bringing thousands into poverty.

“If we’re speaking about vicious circles, then we must conclude that over 20 years we never managed to live and act like free people should,” Ivans said in a recent interview in the newspaper Chas. “And that’s our biggest misfortune.”

Protocol notwithstanding, the anniversary, coming in the thick of the political season, inevitably evinced words of caution from the country’s top leaders. Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis, warned that Latvia’s political elite was offering a dangerous development model — i.e., oligarchic, crony capitalism.

“Is that the Latvia the deputies of the Supreme Soviet, some of whom are still in active politics, voted for on May 4, 1990?” Dombrovskis asked rhetorically.

He called on all voters to remember the vision of independent Latvia as it was 20 years ago while heading to the ballot boxes this October. Gundars Daudze, speaker of the Saeima, called on Latvians not to believe cheap promises and campaign slogans and to entrust the next government to the party that proposes the best strategic development plan.