ESTONIA: Almost extinguished, successfully reborn
The following text is the shortest possible review to help inform friends and guests from abroad about Estonia’s experience with foreign occupation and totalitarianism as well as its road to peacefully re-establishing national inde-pendence on the basis of democracy. Tunne Kelam Member of the European Parlament
The following text is the shortest possible review to help inform
friends and guests from abroad about Estonia’s experience with
foreign occupation and totalitarianism as well as its road to
peacefully re-establishing national inde-pendence on the basis
of democracy.
Tunne Kelam
Member of the European Parlament
You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
<strong>ESTONIA</strong>:<br />
<strong>Almost</strong><br />
<strong>extinguished</strong>,<br />
<strong>successfully</strong><br />
<strong>reborn</strong><br />
ready to invade the country whose sea and air connections<br />
with the outer world had been cut off. On<br />
June 14, 1940, the same day the Wehrmacht entered<br />
Paris, the Soviet Union presented an ultimatum to Lithuania,<br />
followed on June 16 by similar ultimatums to<br />
Latvia and Estonia. All three Baltic States were accused<br />
of plotting against Moscow and of violating the<br />
mutual assistance treaties. The ultimatums demanded<br />
the immediate formation of new Soviet-friendly governments<br />
and the stationing of even more Red Army troops<br />
on their territories. In the early morning of June 17 th ,<br />
the complete military occupation of Estonia began. An<br />
additional 80,000 Soviet troops entered Estonia.<br />
Under international law, the Republic of Estonia<br />
was an occupied State as of 16 June 1940. Stalin’s<br />
plenipotentiary Andrei Zhdanov arrived in Tallinn on<br />
June 19. His task was to conduct a civil transfer from<br />
the legal Government to a puppet Soviet regime. By<br />
that time, the Red Army had assumed total control of<br />
the country. Estonian army units were confined to their<br />
barracks, the paramilitary Defence League was disarmed.<br />
The Soviet security apparatus, the notorious<br />
NKVD, began to arrest people and to purge Government<br />
institutions while formally the Republic of Estonia<br />
still existed. To disguise the occupation, Zhdanov ordered<br />
Estonian communists (numbering 150) to organise<br />
demonstrations on June 21 against the incumbent<br />
government. Most of the participants were workers<br />
from Soviet military bases, troops in civilian clothes as<br />
well as Russians from border areas who were brought<br />
13
Change language