Putin’s World War II celebration clouded by feud on postwar history
Agence France Presse — English
May 8, 2005 Sunday 5:30 PM GMT
MOSCOW May 8 — President Vladimir Putin greeted fellow leaders
Sunday ahead of World War II anniversary ceremonies, seen by Russia
as a tribute to its unrivaled sacrifice in defeating Nazi Germany
but darkened by stormy debate over Moscow’s postwar behavior in Europe.
As Putin ended an informal meeting of most heads of ex-Soviet
republics, US President George W. Bush joined United Nations Secretary
General Kofi Annan and Chinese President Hu Jintao among a handful
of leaders who have arrived in Moscow to attend Monday’s ceremonial
events.
Bush and Putin were scheduled to have a private dinner Sunday at the
Russian leader’s official country residence and US officials said
last week that the US leader would raise questions about democratic
progress in Russia during the meeting.
A US official also told AFP that before the start of Monday’s events,
Bush planned to hold a meeting with around 18 “civil society leaders”
in Russia. The term generally refers to human rights activists and
high-profile political opponents of Putin.
With Moscow locked down under unprecedented security measures, the
dignitaries, ranging from Bush to communist-era Polish leader Wojciech
Jaruzelski, will stand in Red Square on Monday to observe a military
parade in an almost surreal celebration of Soviet wartime bravery.
But while the official program centers on commemorating the Allied
victory 60 years ago, it is the unscripted crescendo of recriminations,
between Russia and the many countries it dominated from the end of
the war until recently, that may determine how this week’s events
are remembered.
The angry diplomatic exchanges reached fever pitch as Bush visited
Latvia ahead of his trip to Russia, with leaders of the three
ex-Soviet Baltic republics demanding that Moscow apologize for the
postwar Soviet occupation of their countries and Putin saying Moscow
had done enough already.
On Sunday Poland’s President Aleksander Kwasniewski urged Russians
“not to fear the truth” of Stalin-era reprisals in Poland and elsewhere
and of the Soviet Union’s post-war rule over the Baltic states.
He had earlier called on Russia to recognize the massacre of thousands
of Polish soldiers during World War II in the Katyn forest in western
Russia as a crime against humanity.
A spat between Russia and Georgia as well as enmity between
Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) republics Azerbaijan and
Armenia have also cast a cloud over Monday’s ceremonies on Red Square.
Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili — due to host US President
George W. Bush on Monday — refused to attend because of the continued
presence of two Russian military bases on his country’s soil.
In neighboring Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev said he could not
sit at the same table with Armenian President Robert Kocharian on
the anniversary of an occupation of Azeri territory by Armenian forces.
However Putin attempted to downplay the signs of strains among the
CIS members, making a call Sunday for unity to his counterparts from
the ex-Soviet Union and vowing their historic bonds “can be neither
torn nor destroyed.”
“The peoples of the commonwealth countries are separated by state
borders, but our friendship and brotherly, truthfully blood ties are
without bounds,” he said in an address to war veterans and leaders.
Putin’s main message is the Red Army’s massive sacrifice during the
defeat of Nazi Germany in WWII which was reinforced with the release
of new official figures that show the Soviet Union lost 26.6 million
people in four years of savage fighting with Germany, far more than
all other Allied countries combined. And it is the Soviet Union,
many historians agree, that deserves the most credit for defeating
the Nazis.
This is the message that Putin aims to get across Monday and one which
he reiterated again on the eve of the commemorative ceremonies as he
dedicated a new war monument on Victory Square near central Moscow.
“Our people did not just defend their own homeland — they liberated
11 European states. On the field of battle from the Barents Sea to
the Caucasus the aggressor’s military machine was broken,” the Russian
president stated.
It is precisely this point — the notion that the Soviet Union in
fact “liberated” anyone at all after defeating the Nazis — that has
reignited latent passions in Europe, rekindled historical debate and
as a result, to an extent, subverted Russia’s V-Day celebration even
before it began.
In a letter to Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga prior to his
arrival in Riga, Bush expressed sympathy with the grievances of former
Soviet-bloc states in eastern Europe.
For them, he said, the end of World War II “marked the Soviet
occupation and annexation” of the Baltic states “and the imposition
of communism” in much of central and eastern Europe. The Latvian
leader said Bush’s very presence in Riga was an acknowledgment of the
“double meaning” of the war.
Speaking to German media last week, however, Putin seemed to strike a
more conciliatory note. The Soviet takeover of the Balts, he said, was
a “tragedy” for the Baltic peoples, but the former Soviet leadership
had already repudiated a 1939 secret deal with Nazi Germany that let
it happen.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress