Premier for a pandemic: How millennial Sanna Marin won Finland’s approval (CS MONITOR 4/20)

How do they do it? Finland is known for superlative levels of happiness, its education system, and the social safety net. Now it’s showing that being young and female can mean effective leadership.

COVID-19 has already made heroes and goats of many leaders, as the pandemic that envelops the world is revealing whether their governments are equal to the crisis. 

Among the former is Sanna Marin, the world’s youngest head of government at the time she became prime minister of Finland last December. In a recent poll, 85% of Finns supported her handling of the pandemic, a striking level of confidence in these uneasy times. 

When she took office last year, Ms. Marin and her mostly female cabinet faced a minor storm of social-media criticism. “Spice Girls” was one taunt, “Lipstick Cabinet” another. Four of the cabinet’s five parties on a left-to-center spectrum – a so-called red-green coalition government – are headed by women in their 30s. Ms. Marin is 34.

But as the severity of the health crisis has become clear, skepticism of Ms. Marin has fallen away.

“Marin has really stepped up,” says Eddy Hawkins, an American who has lived in Finland since the 1970s and reports for Finnish Broadcasting. “Her performance at press conferences and in parliament, has been just what works best for Finns – clear, concise, unemotional; but with an undertone of warmth.” Mr. Hawkins adds that Ms. Marin’s style complements that of Sauli Niinistö, Finland’s popular 71-year-old president, with each effectively appealing to different demographics.

Ms. Marin, who was elected to parliament in 2015, is well known for her straight-shooting style. A YouTube clip of her as vice chair of the Tampere city council, calmly cutting off one long-winded member after another during a fractious debate about transportation needs in 2016, has nearly half a million hits. She easily won reelection last spring, after which her Social Democratic predecessor, Antti Rinne, appointed her his minister of transportation.

Now, Ms. Marin is learning how to be prime minister while also steering Finland through its greatest crisis since World War II. 

Paavo Lipponen, prime minister from 1995 to 2003, gives her high marks. “Sanna Marin is a one-in-a-generation natural political talent,” he says. He feels that the new government reflects a modern face of Finland that is more confident on the world stage. “She is a very balanced person, focused on the job, with a human touch, but without populism.”   

Mr. Lipponen, who helped oversee Finland’s recovery from the worst recession in its history in the 1990s, adds, “I have been greatly impressed by the way the five government parties and their young women leaders have been able to work together. They are all competent, hard-working, solution-oriented politicians.” Like Ms. Marin, he is a Social Democrat.

Ms. Marin “comes across very much as primus inter pares” (first among equals), says Mr. Hawkins, the journalist, and notes her willingness to defer to her fellow ministers. “That’s a style that works very well here, post-Kekkonen,” referring to Urho Kekkonen, Finland’s authoritarian president from 1956 to 1981.

The success of Finland’s strategy in controlling the epidemic within its borders remains to be seen. At 2,176 cases in a population of 5.5 million, the country’s COVID-19 rates are still low compared with its Nordic neighbors, and most of the rest of Europe. Its health care system’s high state of preparedness includes an ability to tap into a national stockpile of personal protective equipment that it has amassed since the 1950s, the New York Times reports. 

Yet many Finns are still upset about how slowly the government enacted a quarantine for the 200,000 nationals who returned in early March from areas with high COVID-19 rates. Officials blamed the contretemps on an information disconnect between the government’s Institute of Health and Welfare and the state company running Helsinki’s bustling international airport.

Nevertheless, Prime Minister Marin refused to pass the buck. “I can’t say that we the government will be completely successful in all its actions,” she conceded March 26, in response to a query about the airport imbroglio. “We live in insecure times, and only one day at a time at the moment.”

“But I can say,” she continued, “that we are doing our best to control the disease and save lives.”

Ms. Marin and her cabinet colleagues are keenly aware of the social impact of the approach they recommended March 25. Most notably, nonessential travel is prohibited in and out of Uusimaa, the region where the capital is located, and the area hardest hit by the contagion.

“I feel badly that as a result of the measures we feel necessary to save people’s lives and sustain our health care system, problems in less privileged households are escalating,” concedes Maria Ohisalo, the Finnish minister of the interior, of the Green League. “Mental health problems, shortcomings in child support, and drug use represent the dark side of the lockdown.”

Ms. Ohisalo stresses that combating the epidemic has been very much a group effort, involving not only the government, but the entire Finnish society. She says that she is pleased by the way the blockade of Uusimaa – involving one-third of Finland’s population and a large proportion of the national police force – has been accepted by the country. “I feel that the Finnish people have been really supportive of our course of action,” she told the Monitor, “and that is very gratifying.”

Some observers have likened the spirit and virtual unanimity with which the Finnish people have responded to the crisis, as well as the entire government’s coordinated strategy for dealing with it, with the way Finns responded to the Soviet invasion of 1939 during the Winter War. Except this time, the invader is an invisible one.

For young Finns, “of course she is a role model,” says Vuokko Schoultz, a 26-year-old graduate student in history. “Look at where she came from,” she says, referring to Ms. Marin’s humble roots, which included a stint as a cashier while at university. “I think she is the best prime minister we have had in many years.”

“I think anyone who serves the country at this time is a hero,” says Ms. Schoultz.

Latvia and Lithuania begin to tackle a chronic scourge: suicide (CS MONITOR 2/20) →

Few countries have had a greater problem with suicide rates than Latvia and Lithuania. But both have begun to recognize the extent of the issue and are finally pursuing the underlying causes.

Latvia and Lithuania are two of the most westernized of the fifteen former Soviet republics, with robust economies and relatively sound democratic political systems.

Unfortunately, both countries share a less happy distinction when it comes to suicide. While they have made considerable progress in overcoming their global-high rates of suicide, significant obstacles remain. Perhaps the most stubborn is the stigma attached to mental illness and seeking help for it, a vestige of the Soviet era. But more recently, authorities in both countries have started to make modest headway against a longstanding reluctance to treat mental illness, including suicidal or potentially suicidal patients.

“The good news is that we have the lowest suicide mortality rate ever,” says Toms Pulmanis, vice dean of faculty in the school of public health at Rīga Stradiņš University, referring to the situation in Latvia. “The bad news is that our suicide rate is still amongst the highest in the world.”

“Yes, suicide rates are decreasing,” says Paulius Skruibis, a psychologist on the staff of Vilnius University, and one of the small, dedicated group of Lithuanian suicidologists. “But obviously we have a long way to go.”

Challenging old beliefs  

Lithuania had 24.4 deaths by suicide per 100,000 population in 2017, the world’s highest rate, with Latvia not far behind with 18.1 per 100,000, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

This is a marked improvement for Lithuania in just a handful of years. In 2013, the country had a suicide rate of 31.9 per 100,000.

“Somehow suicide has become part of the Lithuanian story,” Vaiva Klimaitė, a psychologist at Vilnius City Mental Health Center told the Monitor in 2015.

That year, several hundred Lithuanians lay down in the capital’s Cathedral Square in a widely publicized protest over the lack of progress fighting suicide. That, along with the alarm raised by mental health professionals and increased attention from the media, spurred officials to start publicly addressing the issue.

“Over the last few years, the entire field of suicide prevention has become much more active in Lithuania, particularly in Vilnius,” says Dr. Skruibis. “We have a lot happening,” he adds. “We have extensive gatekeeper training. We have policies in place to decrease alcohol consumption.”

In April 2016, the mental health center established a new department of suicide prevention. Also, Vilnius initiated its first comprehensive suicide strategy, though Dr. Skruibis says that “We still need to scale it up to the national level.”

Antanas Grizas, the founder of Youth Line, a psychological outreach program, acknowledges the positive changes, at least on the municipal level, but feels there is a lack of attention from the national government. “I still see the Ministry of Health as presenting the situation as much less dangerous than it is.”

As in Lithuania, the tight-knit community of suicidologists and suicide prevention professionals in Latvia say the biggest obstacle to improving the country’s mental health and bringing the suicide rate further down are the persistent, regressive Soviet-era attitudes regarding suicide and mental health in general.

“During the Soviet time, people who opposed the system were often put in psychiatric clinics,” says Zane Avotiņa, director of Skalbes, a suicide prevention clinic and help line based in Riga. “That’s one of the reasons why people at risk are still reluctant to seek help.”

Another problematic legacy of the Soviet era, says Ms. Avotiņa, “is that many people can’t accept that depression is actually an illness. They think that people who are depressed are just lazy. ... There is a belief that adults should deal with their emotions and feelings by themselves.”

“Beginning of the road” 

Ilze Viņķele, the Latvian minister of health, says she is trying to change that. “Suicide is one of the most extreme indicators of mental health,” she says, “and one which reflects many other factors, including the social and economic health of the country, as well as the culture of public interaction.”

Under Ms. Viņķele’s leadership the government has already taken a number of steps designed to both improve and expedite treatment for Latvians who are at risk of taking their lives.

“We are making progress in raising the profile of mental health,” says Elmārs Rancāns, the head of the psychology department at Rīga Stradiņš University. “New patient facilities are being opened. And multidisciplinary teams – not just doctors and nurses, but others, such as physical therapists – are becoming involved.”

In the meantime Ms. Viņķele is also considering a number of measures to both destigmatize psychotherapy and make it more available to younger Latvians, including developing free online cognitive behavioral therapy, as well as creating a dedicated mental health tent for music festivals.

“We are at the beginning of the road,” Ms. Viņķele says.

Finland used the swastika before the Nazis. Why do they still? (CS MONITOR 9/2018) →

When guests, particularly foreigners, enter the soaring hangar of the Finnish Air Force Museum and find themselves confronted by a menagerie of aircraft adorned with swastikas, they are often taken aback.

“We hasten to explain to visitors, our swastika has nothing to do with the Nazi swastika,” says Kai Mecklin, museum director and a former pilot in the Finnish Air Force (FAF). “The Finnish Air Force adopted the swastika as its logo long before Hitler and the Nazis did.”

And while the FAF’s practice of putting swastikas on its aircraft ended decades ago, it is still easy enough to find swastikas on FAF shoulder badges and at the Finnish Air Force Academy.

For Mr. Mecklin, like many Finns, that is as it should be. “To us the swastika is a symbol of freedom and independence,” he says. But some see the persistence of the swastika in Finnish culture as problematic, particularly with Finland situated between two regions for whom the swastika symbolizes not freedom, but its Nazi opposite. And as Finland’s far right becomes increasingly restive, it could force Finns to change the way they consider the symbol’s place in their modern society.

Finland’s adoption of the swastika predates its association with National Socialism. Mecklin tells the tale of how in 1918, the Swedish count Eric von Rosen had a swastika painted on the wings of an aircraft which he donated to the Finnish White Army, which was then fighting against Soviet-backed Red Guards to establish an independent Finland – a battle which the Whites ultimately won.

The swastika became the official symbol of the Finnish Air Force, and remained so until Finland and the Soviet Union – which had just fought a successful war with the United States to eradicate Nazidom – signed a postwar armistice. As part of the new relationship it was understood that Finnish military aircraft would no longer carry the swastika.

But the swastika can still be found in the emblem of the FAF and at least one Finnish army unit today. And Teivo Teivainen, a professor at the University of Helsinki who often finds himself explaining the numerous swastikas on wartime monuments around the Finnish capital to baffled foreign students, argues that needs to change.

What particularly bothers Professor Teivainen is how the armed forces’ continued use of the swastika could create difficulties for Finland if and when a war breaks out with Russia, and Finland is forced to turn to their NATO partners. “How do you think people in the German parliament or French cabinet or the Dutch general public, for whom the swastika means only one thing, might feel?” he asks.

“Let’s say a decision needs to be made very quickly in, say, a Dutch cabinet meeting, and someone flashes a picture of the swastika as the official Air Force symbol of Finland, would this be likely to increase the Netherlands’ kinship with us?” says Teivainen. “There’s always the chance it will send the wrong signal.”

The question of when, where, and how the swastika should be seen in public has become more sensitive with the rise of a small, but increasingly vociferous, right-wing movement in Finland.

Spearheaded by the so-called Finnish Resistance Movement, which the government is currently seeking to ban, the Finnish far right does not use the swastika as its logo. But there’s always the chance that a swastika pops up at a movement rally. If that happens, the question of the Finnish armed forces’ use of the same symbol as Hitler’s Nazis – even if the Germans adopted it later, in the 1920s – could become an explosive one.

Finnish aviation historian Carl-Fredrik Geust writes that such concerns are overblown. “The reason why we still have our FINNISH swastikas in use – and very limited use, mind you – is due to our unique respect for historical traditions and memories – and not just our own.” He points out that even though Finns in general have no love lost for Russia, Russian tourists are still astonished to find a statue of Czar Alexander II in Helsinki’s Senate Square.

“Tradition means something to us,” writes Mr. Geust.

He also points out that the swastika has been used as an ornament and magical symbol since ancient times, and that many Western countries used it as a symbol of good luck during the beginning of the 20th century. It was for that reason that von Rosen, who many consider the godfather of the Finnish Air Force, decided to paint the swastika on the plane he gave to the Finns.

(While von Rosen’s introduction of the swastika to Finland had no relation to National Socialism, van Rosen himself in later years did. In 1923, his sister married Hermann Göring, and he had ties to Swedish national socialist parties in the 1930s.)

Whether the swastika brings the Finnish Air Force, which celebrated its centenary this year, good luck or controversy remains to be seen.

In the meantime, as far as Finnish authorities are concerned, the question is a closed one. “At present time the Ministry of Defense has no plans to restrict or review the use of the swastika,” says Kristian Vakkuri, the ministry spokesperson.

The same, it would seem, goes for the Finnish people. “If they think about it, or are asked about the swastika, it’s perceived as different: a different symbol from that which was used by the Nazis, a different history and a different meaning,” says Eddy Hawkins, an American journalist who has studied the subject. “But most people don’t think about it.”

Maybe they ought to, says Teivainen.

THE TRUTH ABOUT MONTENEGRO (Politico 7/18) →

President Donald Trump is no fan of Europe, a point which he made clear during his recent hurricane-like sweep of Northern Europe, where he left a wake of diplomatic destruction culminating in his comic soft-shoe with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki. In addition to criticizing the two largest European treaty organizations, the European Union and NATO, Trump managed to spritz the leaders of Germany and Britain, Angela Merkel and Theresa May, respectively, before turning his guns on his own government.

Still, if any of our European allies could be said to have received the bum’s rush from Trump during the course of his tempestuous presidency it is the young Western Balkan republic, and newly christened NATO member, Montenegro.

At a conference of NATO leaders in May of last year, the elbow-happy president brusquely shoved aside Dusko Markovic, the Montenegrin prime minister. Then last week, Trump added insult and calumny to injury in an interview with Fox News host Tucker Carlson. While discussing NATO’s common defense policy, Carlson asked Trump, “Why should my son go to Montenegro to defend it from attack?”

The president’s head-scratching response was as follows: “I understand what you’re saying. I’ve asked the same question. Montenegro is a tiny country with very strong people. They’re very aggressive people. They may get aggressive, and congratulations, you’re in World War Three.”

Predictably, Montenegrin authorities were flummoxed—and outraged—at the smear, as were many if not most of the 642,000 odd inhabitants of this hitherto relatively obscure southeastern European nation. “Today as a new NATO member and candidate for EU membership Montenegro contributes to peace and stability not only on the European continent but worldwide,” the Montenegrin foreign ministry fired back.

“We build friendships, and we have not lost a single one,” sniffed the government, clearly uncomfortable with being forced to play the role of The Mouse That Roared in Trump’s global floor show. “In today’s world, it does not matter how big or small you are, but to what extent you cherish the values of freedom, solidarity and democracy.”

Daliborka Uljarevic, executive director of the Center for Civics Education, a prominent Montenegrin nongovernmental organization, was less diplomatic. Uljarevic describes her reaction, as well as that of many of her friends to Trump’s remarks as “disbelief.”

“I really could not believe that the person I was watching was actually the president of the United States and that he could make such an absurd statement,” says Uljarevic.

What on earth did Trump have against “tiny” Montenegro? Where did he get the idea that Montenegrins were “very aggressive,” no less that they might start World War III? Clearly Trump needs to learn a thing or two about the geography and history of this stalwart U.S. friend.

Toward that end, with the aid of several prominent Montenegrins, including the ambassador to the United States, Nebojsa Kaluderovic, we have compiled the following corrective Montenegrin primer.

1. Montenegro is not tiny

Trump called Montenegro, with its land mass of 5,333 square miles, “tiny.” In point of fact, there are nine European countries that are smaller than Montenegro, including several which legitimately can be called tiny—Vatican City (0.17 sq. miles), Monaco (0.78), San Marino (24), Liechtenstein (62) Malta (122) and Andorra (181)—and three, Luxembourg (998), Cyprus (3,572) and Kosovo (4,212), which could accurately be described as “small.”

2. Montenegrins aren’t “very aggressive people”

Trump was partly right: Montenegrins are a strong and proud people, but they are no more inherently aggressive or war-like than any other European nation.

The president’s description might have been more accurate during the fratricidal period of Montenegrin history extending from the 15th to the 19th centuries, when the mountainous territory was controlled by a congeries of warlike clans. However, even though they proved to be excellent mountain fighters, most of the wars they fought, including the ones they fought with their historic adversary, the Turks, were defensive ones rather than wars of conquest.

Montenegrins—or at least most Montenegrins—could be said to have gotten the war out of their system at the Battle of Grahovac, where Grand Duke Marko Petrovic and his troops defeated an Ottoman force twice their size on May 1, 1858, a victory which continues to be celebrated today.

That watershed induced the Great Powers to demarcate the border between Montenegro and the Ottoman Empire, granting it de facto independence. Montenegro was later recognized as the world’s 27th independent state by the Ottomans at the Treaty of Berlin on July, 13 1878, the day which Montenegro would henceforth commemorate as the Date of Statehood, or independence day.

If Montenegrins have been fighting for anything since then, Kaluderovic points out, it has been to restore the pride of that 40-year interval of Montenegrin history when it was an independent entity. That four-decade passage came to an end after World War I, when the then-Kingdom of Montenegro was forced to become part of the new, larger Kingdom of Yugoslavia at the post-World War I settlement at Versailles.

As the ambassador points out, the United States unsuccessfully fought for Montenegro to remain independent after World War I—a fact that makes Trump’s misrepresentation particularly painful. “The USA was the greatest supporter of Montenegro retaining its independence at Versailles, and the people of Montenegro still appreciate this. The friendship between Montenegro and the U.S. is enshrined in our history.”

World War II brought more trouble, when the Kingdom of Yugoslavia was occupied by the Axis powers. Then, on July 13, 1941, the Montenegrin people rose up against Nazi Germany and its fascist Italian ally in the first armed uprising in occupied Europe, liberating most of their imprisoned part of the occupied Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Ultimately, though, the rebellion was crushed and the country was reoccupied.

After the war, Montenegro changed hands again when it became one of the six constituent republics of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY), and the capital was renamed Titograd in honor Yugoslav President Josip Tito. Forty years later, after the dissolution of the SFRY, Montenegro remained part of a smaller Federal Republic of Yugoslavia along with Serbia.

Then, in the mid-90s, came the horrific Bosnian and Croatian Wars. However, as Kaluderovic points out, Montenegro’s principal role during those wars was an asylum and a haven of peace, when Montenegro took in over 120,000 refugees from the other warring states.

Finally, the resilient spark of Montenegrin freedom rose again on May 21, 2006, by which time the long-suppressed nation was one half of the bifurcated state of Serbia and Montenegro. On that day, Kaluderovic points out, in an arch take on Trump’s slander, “we regained our independence in a pretty ‘aggressive’ way—in a peaceful, democratic referendum supported by the international community” and Montenegro re-emerged into the bright light of freedom.

And so she remains today.

3. Montenegro mostly likely won’t start World War III

Over the past decade, the Montenegrin government has tried to steer the newly independent country toward the West. Montenegro was formally invited to join NATO in December 2015. It officially became a member in June 2017, much to the distress of Russia, which saw in Montenegrin accession the loss of its traditional access to the Adriatic Sea and onetime Balkan ally.

“We worked hard to fulfill the criteria for joining NATO,” Kaluderovic declares. “As the newest member we are committed to fight, together with our allies, the threats that all of us share.” He adds, “We also have our national plan for increasing defense spending by the prescribed deadline.”

That does not mean that Montenegrins are spoiling for a fight.

As Sinisa Vukovic, a native Montenegrin and professor of international relations and conflict management at Johns Hopkins University, points out, Trump’s response to Carlson’s query was as absurd as it was ignorant.

“First of all,” Vukovic says, “Article 5 is a defensive clause and does not stipulate support for aggressive actions of any NATO member state. Just as important, Montenegro is a small country with a population of 640,000 and a standing armed force of approximately 2,000 active personnel. As such, it is in no position to threaten anyone.”

Indeed, he continues, Montenegro, which has lately become a tourist hot spot, is trying to avoid conflict on its soil, or anywhere in the vicinity. “With its long Adriatic coastline and rugged mountain ranges, Montenegro has come to increasingly rely on tourism for revenue,” says Vukovic, “as such any instability in the neighborhood would cause serious problems for us.”

“The last thing we need,” he emphasizes, “is war.”

4. Montenegrin democracy is a work in progress

Like most of the Balkan states, it would be a stretch to call Montenegro a model democracy. On the upside it does hold free elections, and boasts a relatively vibrant and free press. However, it basically has been ruled by one man, Milo Dukanovoic, for nearly 30 years.

Montenegro also has a serious organized crime problem, which, his critics say, Dukanovic has deliberately overlooked. His admirers in the West, while not dismissing these concerns, prefer to focus on the deft way the strongman has steered his young country away from Serbian influence and out of the shadow of the Russia, and toward the West.

Here is how Vukovic, who has few illusions about his homeland, puts it: “Montenegro experienced a great deal of turbulence during the 1990s. With raging wars nearby, the detrimental spillover of these conflicts on its own economy, coupled with international isolation, the country struggled to maintain its statehood and national essence. For the entire Western Balkan region, including Montenegro, the main residue has been organized crime and corruption.”

Mihailo Jovovic, editor of Vijesti, one of Podjorica’s leading dailies, paints an even more downbeat picture of the state of the Montenegrin commonweal. The most accurate way to describe Montenegrin democracy he says, is “democratura—democracy on the surface, but mostly subtle and sometimes open dictatorship,” with rife cronyism, clientelism and corruption, much if not most of it the legacy of Dukanovic’s longtime rule.

For his part, Vukovic, while not denying the problems Jovovic cites, says he is “cautiously optimistic” about his country’s future. “There has been some modest progress” in dealing with Montenegro’s seemingly endemic crime and corruption, the expatriate professor says, with new laws passed as well as a number of indictments against high-profile politicians. Montenegrin democracy is “a work in progress,” he declares, and as such will continue to require the support and advice of other Western liberal democracies—as well as that of NATO.

Indeed, as he and other Montenegrins point out, Montenegro’s NATO membership and its prospective EU membership are the guarantors of the future of Montenegrin democracy.

5. If anything, Russia has been “very aggressive” toward Montenegro

During the run-up to NATO membership, Vukovic points out, Montenegro was “the target of excessively aggressive Russian rhetoric, which deemed Montenegrin membership as ‘an openly confrontational step’ and ‘a prelude to the new Cold War,’ and openly threatened retaliation.”

Vukovic sees a “stark and shocking” resemblance between Russia’s rhetoric at the time, and Trump’s recent anti-Montenegrin—and anti-NATO—rhetoric.

Russia’s less than friendly intentions toward Montenegro were further manifested in November 2016, when a group of Russian nationalists attempted to stage a coup in Podgorica, Montenegro’s capital, on the day of the parliamentary election. According the country’s chief special prosecutor, who investigated the coup attempt, which was thwarted with the aid of Serbian authorities, the plotters planned to assassinate the prime minister, bring a pro-Russian coalition to power, and thereby block the government’s drive to join NATO and the EU. (The government is in negotiations with Brussels to join the latter organization by 2025.) Among the 20 Serbian and Montenegrin citizens arrested in the failed plot were a number who fought for pro-Russia rebels in eastern Ukraine.

Predictably, Russia denied involvement in the coup. Still, it was fairly clear who was the aggressor.

Was Trump aware of the coup, which took place the month before his election? One doubts it. Was he aware of it when he articulated his uninformed, ill-advised response to Carlson? One wonders.

In any case, as Wesley Clark, the retired U.S. general and former NATO supreme commander, points out, the president’s stunning, destabilizing jeremiad must have been music to Moscow’s ears. “Worrying to hear Trump use Russian talking points with Tucker Carlson about Montenegro,” Clark tweeted. “Montenegro has been under continuous pressure by Russia for more than a decade. Trump’s comments weaken NATO, give a license to cause trouble and thereby actually increase the risk of renewed conflict in the Balkans.”

Uljarevic was more philosophical about the president’s remarks about her country, pointing out that it led to “abundant jokes on the Montenegrin social media, led to a lot of people who had never heard of Montenegro to Google it, and provided lots of material for comedy sketches worldwide.”

If anything, she says, the joke of the matter—insofar as one could joke about it—was on the American people “who had the misfortune to elect Donald Trump as president.”

THE KGB LIVES (CS MONITOR, 7/2018)

More than a quarter of a century after the fall of the Soviet Union, the three former occupied Baltic states are still agonizing over the legacy of their harrowing, respective “Soviet times.”

In the case of Latvia, dealing with that legacy is particularly controversial because of its physical nature: a catalog of 4,500 people who served as agents and contacts for the KGB during the 1980s. Ever since it was left behind in 1991 when the Soviets evacuated, as the Latvians were taking back their independence, politicians have wrestled with the question of whether the list should be made public.

One of the reasons is that the catalog is incomplete: It says nothing about what the contacts actually did, or why. Now, in the wake of a report by the government’s KGB Scientific Commission, this Pandora’s box-like issue has come to the fore again.

“Dealing with the aftermath of totalitarianism is a complicated matter for the countries that were under the domination of the Soviet Union during the cold war,” says Pauls Raudseps, an American journalist of Latvian descent who has been working in Riga since 1990. “However in Latvia’s case the issue is even more complicated because of the incomplete nature of the available KGB materials.”

Although the shadow of the USSR and the KGB still hangs over all three Baltic states, the fact that the KGB was unable to remove all its archives from Latvia means that the process of purging the country of the Soviet occupation is somewhat further behind here.

Russia eyed in UK spy poisoning case. But why would the Kremlin do it?

It is hard to exaggerate the effect that the KGB had on Latvia, says Aiva Rozenberga, director of the Latvian Institute, a government institution that promotes Latvia abroad. “Either at your job or your social activities or when meeting relatives from abroad, you were always surrounded by some ‘eyes’ or ‘ears’ that could put you in danger. There was always a risk that one of your ‘dear colleagues’ or even ‘friends’ could report on what you have said, even what kind of jokes you told.”

This left a hidden layer of “trauma,” as Ms. Rozenberga describes it, one which many Latvians are reluctant to discuss, or even acknowledge, today.

Now, the risk of revisiting that trauma by publicizing the list’s names threatens to wreak havoc on Latvian society, as well as the future of Latvian democracy – which some worry may have been the Soviets’ intent in the first place. That is one of the reasons why Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga, who served as president from 1999 to 2007, thrice vetoed the Latvian parliament’s decision to open the archives, once in 2004 and twice in 2006. It is a decision she still stands behind.

“We have to consider the possibility that the KGB deliberately left the incomplete archives in order to create trouble for Latvia,” says Dr. Vīķe-Freiberga. More importantly, “we know that many important files were destroyed and others taken to Moscow” when the Russians evacuated.

Kārlis Kangeris, a former professor and head of the KGB commission, scoffs at the notion that the records were deliberately left incomplete. He says that the manner in which they were left was the accidental result of the haste with which the KGB had to evacuate Latvia – an accident which the government is duty-bound to take advantage of in order to expose the former KGB agents who he feels sure now live and work in Latvia.

Vīķe-Freiberga disagrees. “Just publishing the names of people with an agent’s card seems to me to be insufficient,” says the former president, who remains the country’s best known public figure. “I look forward to getting more information from the commission about exactly how the KGB operated in Latvia.”

Whether that information, or the list itself will become available – as the commission, whose report has been “conceptually” accepted by the parliament, recommended – remains unclear. The imbroglio is further complicated by questions which some have raised about the quality of the Kangeris commission’s work.

“This issue – to open the records or not – continues to be a ‘heavy’ topic for our society, as well as our legislators,” says Annija Emersone, a former journalist who worked as a museum assistant at the former KGB headquarters in Riga, also known as the Corner House, after it was opened to the public in 2014. “However,” she adds, “the challenge of catalyzing the political will and support from the parties in power to enact those recommendations is still ahead of us.”

A POET’S CONFESSION

A core concern for many here is what happens after the list is finally published.

Latvians got an idea of what may be in store in December 2016, when a celebrated poet confessed to having worked for the tormentors of the Corner House. “I was a KGB agent,” said Jānis Rokpelnis, revealing that his job was to report on the mood of civil society groups. “I have a feeling that I am a murderer and that I carry the corpse inside me. I have killed my life, myself, and my honesty,” he said.

Mr. Rokpelnis’s confession astounded his countrymen. Some praised him for his forthrightness. Others branded him a traitor. What would happen if and when the 4,500 contacts on the fateful list are compelled to explain what they did – or did not do – for the still hated KGB?

That question also weighed on the mind of Valdis Zatlers, the president from 2007 to 2011. It weighed even heavier after Dr. Zatlers took the opportunity to examine the KGB archives himself. “To see some of my friends there was a big surprise,” he says. “Some of them did very nasty things.”

However, although he continues to share many of Vīķe-Freiberga’s reservations about the lustration process, Zatlers says that he has changed his mind about whether the list should see the light of day. He feels it is better now to open the records and let the chips fall where they may. “It makes no sense to keep secrets,” he said. “It’s much better to disclose all the documents and end speculation.”

Even if the dossier is published and the names revealed, it remains an open question if Latvia will ever fully face up to its past and finally put the Soviet time, including the depredations of the KGB, to bed. But perhaps that’s not so unusual, says Otto Ozols, a noted Latvian journalist.

“After all it took the French 40 years to fully expunge the taint of the German occupation as well as bring to justice those who collaborated with the Nazis during World War II. It seems that it will take just as long for Latvia to purge itself of the KGB,” he says. “France was only occupied for five years. We were under the shadow of the KGB and its helpers for nearly 50.”