FOI-R--3990--SE_reducerad

FOI-R--3990--SE
The protection of Russian speakers’ rights in the Baltic states remains a huge
priority for Russia’s Compatriots Policy. Even though a 2008 survey by the
European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights found that Russians living in
Lithuania felt the least vulnerable to discrimination compared to other ethnic
groups in the European Union, 404 Russia portrays Lithuania as having a poor
record on human rights. It is especially interesting that those NGOs which fight
for the Russian-speakers’ rights have chosen to include the fight for the rights of
the Polish minority on their political agenda in Lithuania. 405
The history of this fight for human rights goes back to Soviet times, when the
issue was internationalized through a network of controlled human rights
movements such as the All-Union Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign
Countries (VOKS) and the Union of Soviet Societies for Friendship and Cultural
Relations with Foreign Countries (SSOD). The journalist Edward Lucas called
this strategy “whataboutism”, the tactics of replying to any Western criticism
with the question “What about” apartheid in South Africa, or jailed trade
unionists in the US or the Contras in Nicaragua, and so on. 406 Soviet
propagandists mastered this tactic, and now there seems to be a trend for “neowhataboutism”
emerging that focuses on the fight for the rights of Russianspeakers
in the Baltic states.
Another trend in the Compatriots Policy has its roots in the Soviet experience.
During the Cold War, the Soviets mastered the use of so-called innocents’ clubs
– the use of organizations and NGOs fighting for moral causes, such as peace
and nuclear disarmament or against racism, for the benefit of Soviet foreign
policy. There has been a rise of similar types of NGO in the Baltic states and
specifically in Lithuania, which Russia has started to use as “neo-innocents’
clubs”. Such organizations voice their concern for the environment or promote
green energy, but are in fact being used by the Kremlin to counter strategic
energy projects that threaten the interests of Gazprom or Rosatom in Lithuania.
For example, the Latvian security services have revealed that one of the activists
in the green movement in Lithuania, Tomas Tomilinas, was coordinating
activities with Russian NGOs in Latvia against the Lithuanian Nuclear Plant
Project. 407 Another example relates to Chevron, which had to withdraw its plans
to research the potential for shale gas in Lithuania because of protests by local
activists and their organizations, which in turn benefited from the “Lietuvos
dujos” investments – with Gazprom as one of its major shareholders until 27
404 See EU-MIDIS: European Union Minorities and Discrimination Survey 2009,
http://fra.europa.eu/fraWebsite/eu-midis/eumidis_output_en.htm.
405 See Etnicheskiye konflikty v stranakh Baltii v postsovetsky period. Conference material,
http://www.aif.ru/onlineconf/6139.
406 See “Europe view: Whataboutism”, The Economist (2008-01-31).
407 See “Tikslas – paralyžiuoti valdžią Baltijos šalyse”, Lrt.lt (2013-11-03),
http://www.lrt.lt/naujienos/lietuvoje/2/28677/tikslas_paralyziuoti_valdzia_baltijos_salyse.
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