Wednesday, January 4, 2017 (Updated 1/6/17)

The Untouchables

A glaring proof for the fraudulent collapse of the USSR on December 26, 1991 is the absence of even one Crimes Against Humanity indictment levied against the tens of thousands of criminal Soviet government officials and agents in the immediate years following the Soviet collapse. These criminal Soviet government officials and agents - who murdered, tortured, raped, deported to/and oversaw concentration/labor camps - were untouchable.

It would take four years before the first untouchables would be brought to justice, but only in Latvia and Estonia. Of the fifteen republics that made up the USSR on December 26, 1991, only Latvia and Estonia established a commission to investigate Crimes Against Humanity committed by Soviet authorities in those nations. However, the reason Latvia and Estonia created such commissions had nothing to do with bringing justice for the victims of Communism, otherwise the commissions' establishment would have occurred in 1992, not in 1995 for Latvia and 1998 in the case of Estonia.

Latvia

"During the entire period of Soviet rule in Latvia, including the post-Stalinist period, people were subjected to political arrests and deportations, and their total number far exceeded those of the mass deportations. During the post-war era until Stalin's death in 1953, more than 70,000 were arrested, sentenced to GULAG prison camps or executed – in addition of those deported in 1949. Adding the close to 25,000 victims of the first Soviet occupation 1940–41, including those deported, the total number of politically persecuted during the Stalin era alone approaches 150,000."

Yet only three Latvians were sentenced for Crimes Against Humanity for the whole period Latvia was a part of the USSR! They are, head of Soviet Latvia Security police (NKVD) Alfons Noviks; Soviet Security Officer Mihails Farbtuhs; and Vasilijs Kononovs. Why did the Marxist government in Riga convene a Crimes Against Humanity investigation? Because Soviet Latvia's notorious head of state security - Alfons Noviks - was still alive, and he is especially remembered by Latvians for the 1949 deportations of 42,000 to Siberia. It was politically untenable not to prosecute Alfons Noviks, however the authorities waited until they were informed by Alfons Noviks' doctors that he would die soon. Sentenced on 13 December 1995, Alfons Noviks died three months later on 12 March 1996. Not bad timing!

Estonia

The purpose for the Estonian commission was to investigate the 1949 deportations of Estonians to Siberia, but not the earlier 1941 deportations (nor any other of the numerous Crimes Against Humanity committed by Soviet authorities) whose numbers included a particular Estonian family, in fact the family of the first 'post' Soviet elected president of Estonia, Lennart Georg Meri.* By 1998 the absence of such a commission had become a glaring oddity where even the prosecution of crimes committed against the president's family was verboten. The dearth of investigations stuck out like a sore thumb, so one incident would be investigated it was decided...the 1949 deportations to Siberia**...and less than a dozen individuals would be indicted.

The Estonian International Commission for Investigation of Crimes Against Humanity resulted in the indictments of only ten and convictions of eight.*** Four of the convictions involved no actual jail time; three were given probation, and the fourth was given a suspended sentence. The tenth defendant, Arnold Meri (yes, a relative of President Lennart Georg Meri, in fact the president's cousin) , whose trial began in 2008, conveniently died in April 2009 before the end of his trial.

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* The deportation of the Meri family to Siberia wasn’t due to the Meri family being judged as enemies of the Soviet Union, but to protect the Meri family from the impending invasion of the USSR by Germany. This is borne out by the whole Meri family surviving their Siberian ordeal (the Meri family never stepped one foot inside a concentration/labor camp) and finding their way back to Estonia after the war.

** If the 1941 Siberian deportations had also been greenlighted for investigation and prosecution, the result would have been too much publicity on Russia itself due to the Meri family deportation there that year, leading to the obvious question: Why are there no indictments of Russians guilty of Crimes Against Humanity?

*** Johannes Klaassepp, Vladimir Loginov and Vasily Beskov were sentenced to eight years' probation, and Yury Karpov received an eight-year suspended sentence. Charges against Nikolai Zerebtsovi were dropped.

Mikhail Neverovsky was sentenced to four years in prison. August Kolk and Pyotr Kisly were sentenced to eight years in prison with three years of probation. Vladimir Kask was sentenced to eight years in prison with three years of probation. Arnold Meri died before the end of his trial.