Balts sulk for independence celebration

Ten years ago the Baltic states stood down Soviet armored personnel carriers to win their independence, but the anniversary is being marked only by low-key ceremonies as many Balts sulk rather than celebrate.

"People don't value what they got -- freedom. People have changed the scale of their values," said Ivars Godmanis, who was then Latvia's prime minister.

When Soviet hardliners tried to oust Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev in a coup launched on August 19, 1991, they were not only trying to gain control over Moscow, but also clamp down on the independence-minded Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.

Godmanis spent a nervous August 20 alone in his office as Soviet OMON riot troops cleared supporters from a square in front of the government building with batons and tear gas as they moved armored personnel carriers into place for an assult.

"I don't consider that step a big feat," Godmanis told AFP. "I wanted to stay alone in my office and wait for the OMON. Let them shoot me but let no one else get hurt."

But the assult never came.

Instead the coup crumbled following resistance by Russian leader Boris Yeltsin, and the international community slowly began to recognize the independence of the Baltic states.

"We achieved what was beyond the imagination 10 years ago," said Vytautas Landsbergis, who was the leader of Lithuania's independence drive as the chairman of the parliament.

The success of the Balts' non-violent "singing revolution," where they pitted their national songs against Soviet power, caught many off guard, including no less than the American CIA.

But it easily could have turned out differently, Landsbergis noted.

The Balts could have ended up with only some form of greater autonomy under a Soviet system, or subsequently fallen back under Russia's sway, as some other former Soviet republics already have, he said.

Instead "we are very near to fulfilling both of our goals of joining the European Union and NATO," said Landsbergis. "It is a very great achievement."

But few are celebrating. Only in Estonia is August 20 marked as a holiday, and even there celebrations are subdued.

Estonian newspapers have been full of stories on developments over the past decade, but such a public debate is largely absent in Latvia and Lithuania.

It turns out many Balts had overblown hopes, and unfulfilled expectations have led to disappointment.

"Ten years ago people were guided by the idealistic memories of the sovereign Estonian state of the 1930s, as well as by the glossy pictures of the Nordic welfare states as seen from Finnish TV," said Rein Veidemann, a columnist who was active in Estonia's independence drive.

"But the Republic of Estonia that we achieved does not correspond to those idealistic perceptions, therefore it is quite reasonable to witness shades of disappointment as Estonia celebrates ten years of the restoration of
independence," he added.

The average gross monthly wage ranges from 250 dollars in Latvia to 330 dollars in Estonia. By gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, Latvia and Lithuania are at just 29 percent and Estonia 37 percent of the EU average.

Polls conducted last year found 40 percent of Latvians are unhappy with their lives, as are 33 percent of Estonians and 24 percent of Lithuanians.

Some 57 percent of Latvians also believe their country has not developed positively since independence, according to a poll conducted this April by the SKDS agency.

"Most of society feels disillusioned with independence," said SKDS Director Arnis Kaktins.

"Most people didn't get the material wealth they dreamed of in the beginning of the 1990s. They blame the authorities and concrete politicians for what happened," he said.