#18 - JRL 8046
From: Richard Krickus <Rvkrickus@aol.com>
Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2004
Subject: remarks at the W. Wilson Ctr on Lith Presidential Crisis

Remarks made at Wilson Center on Jan. 28.

The Presidential Crisis In Lithuania: It's Roots And The Russian Factor
Richard J. Krickus

Dick Krickus is professor Emeritus at Mary Washington College and has held the H.L. Oppenheimer Chair For Warfighting Strategy at the U.S. Marine Corp University. He writes a column on world affairs for Lithuania's leading national daily, Lietuvos Rytas, and his last book was The Kaliningrad Question. He made these remarks on January 28, 2004 at the Woodrow Wilson Center For International Scholars where he conducted research as an East European Studies Fellow.

On the eve of the 2002 presidential elections, a growing number of Lithuanians had cause to rejoice. Scholars proclaimed Lithuania enjoyed "democratic consolidation" while the economy had achieved a steady rate of growth with declining rates of inflation and unemployment on the one hand and rising rates of investment on the other one. Several elections had been conducted to choose a legislature and a president since Lithuania reclaimed its independence in 1990 and there had been a peaceful exchange of authority between right and left more than once. A free press was flourishing and unlike neighboring Estonia and Latvia, Lithuania did not have a minority-group problem. In November 2002 the American president George W. Bush visited Vilnius to celebrate Lithuania's membership in NATO. It would be completed in the spring of 2004, almost simultaneously with Lithuania's joining the European Union. Moreover, fractious areas of dispute between Lithuania and its largest neighbor, Russia, had been resolved. Indeed, Yevgeny Primakov, who enjoyed the reputation of a hard-liner in Washington, called Lithuania a "good neighbor."

After lagging behind Estonia and Latvia, Lithuania displayed new economic vigor in the first years of the 21st century. Initial estimates proclaimed that during the first nine months of 2003, the country's economy was racing along at a 13-percentage point clip and if that pattern held, it would enjoy the highest growth rate of any country in the EU existing or projected. In the capital Vilnius and the port city of Klaipeda there was a boom in construction as real estate prices soared and entrepreneurs provided a diversity of quality products that had been missing from stores only several years earlier.

There was, however, a darker side to the Lithuanian picture. More Lithuanians proclaimed they were unhappy with their legislature (Seimas) than any neighboring population in Eastern Europe. Polls indicated that crime and corruption remained a major national concern and over a third of Lithuanians complained about corruption among the police and health care agencies. A little over thirty percent of the population endured poverty and pensioners and people residing in the countryside and working in old Soviet-style enterprises complained that they lived better under the USSR. Poverty and economic inequality had produced a large number of disgruntled Lithuanians. But for the younger, better-educated urbanites that had successfully exploited the transition from a command to a market economy, and the political elite in the country, it would be only a matter of time before a wider cross-section of the population experienced better living standards. With prosperity, and an expanding civil society, rates of crime and corruption would decline and complaints about the political system would subside.

And while many Lithuanians feared that powerful groups in Russia still claimed the Baltic countries belonged "to them," once Lithuania entered NATO and the EU "the threat from the East" would vanish.

The Presidential Election: 2002-2003

This was the backdrop for the presidential elections which pundits predicted would result in the reelection of Valdas Adamkus, the American émigré. Adamkus had left Lithuania in his late teens and lived in the United States for over fifty years. Six years earlier, after completing his career as an official in the Environmental Protection Agency, he returned to his homeland and narrowly won his bid to become president of Lithuania.

Even his political opponents agreed that he was an honest, decent, uncorruptable man who had provided a model for leadership that succeeding presidents would be wise to emulate. Polls indicated that he would easily win his bid for election against a wide field of candidates. But not receiving a majority of the votes cast in the first round-he got 35 percent-he had to face Rolandas Paksas in a run-off, his closest competitor who had received 19.4 percent of the vote.

Paksas was a 47 year-old engineer and stunt pilot who had served as mayor of Lithuania's capital Vilnius on two occasions and twice as the country's prime minister. His detractors cited his proclivity for disserting high political posts and his admission that he relied upon the advise of a psychic, who claimed to heal the sick and converse with God, to support their claim that he was a "flake." It was beyond the realm of plausibility the best and brightest in Vilnius reasoned that Paksas of all people would send Adamkus into retirement.

But he did, beating the incumbent president by a 54.9 percent to 45 percent margin. Paksas equaled or exceeded Adamkus in garnering a large campaign war chest and with expert help conducted an aggressive race that was focused and on message. What's more, Paksas spoke about things that really mattered to those Lithuanians who had not exploited the new economy, the pensioners, the poorly educated of all ages, those working in pre-independence enterprises and those residing in poverty stricken villages.

Paksas understood that there were two Lithuanias; one comprising the younger better-educated urbanites and those older folk who exploited their political contacts, and the disgruntled groups described above. He adroitly manipulated their despondency to great effect. And while the president under Lithuania's constitution has little control over domestic affairs, he spoke about issues that preoccupied most voters-crime, corruption, educational problems, joblessness and meager protection against old age and sickness. Paksas's supporters saw him as someone who was not part of the political clique in Vilnius-including old communists like Algirdas Brazauskas, the Prime Minister, as well as his perennial adversary on the right, Vytautas Landsbergis who led the Lithuanian rebellion over a decade earlier. In the eyes of the people who favored Paksas the latter clung to the status quo, as did Adamkus.

By contrast, Adamkus' campaign lacked energy as he suffered a cold early in December and that infirmity made him look and sound old. Many of his supporters, assuming his re-election was a done-deal, did not bother to vote on that cold Sunday in January. Unlike his opponent, who had formed a political party after resigning as prime minister, Adamkus did not have a political network to exploit. (Under Lithuanian law, the president cannot be affiliated with a party at the time he runs for election.) Many voters resented Adamkus' support for the sale of the country's largest enterprise Mazeikiai Nafta to an American firm, Williams International. That 1999 transaction was deemed a bad deal for Lithuania and subsequent developments proved that assessment accurate. Rather than sanction it as prime minister, Paksas resigned from office. Later when Williams sold its shares to Mikhail Khodorkovky's Yukos, without first informing the Lithuanian government about the transaction, many Lithuanians concluded that those who had supported the American firm's purchase of Mazeikai were guilty of corrupt practices.

Stunned by the election results, Paksas' opponents claimed he was a right-wing populist akin to France's demagogue Jean-Marie Le Pen. But there was no evidence that Paksas was a racist and to portray him as someone on the right was questionable since he won most of the Polish and Russian votes-both groups that customarily voted for left-wing candidates. Nonetheless, on the basis of his past behavior, Lithuanian analysts were convinced that he would commit a faux pax in the near future.

Upon taking charge, Paksas raised eyebrows when he threatened to go to Brussels and "clarify the situation on certain points that do not satisfy me." But once in the presidential palace, he neither opposed the EU nor NATO and conducted his affairs without incident-that was until late in October when the head of Lithuania's State Security Department, Mecys Laurinkus, informed members of the Seimas that the president's national security advisor, Remigijus Acas, had ties with Russian mobsters. Laurinkus a leader in Sajudis, the popular front movement that had led the Lithuanian rebellion, was a close associate of Landsbergis. Under Paksas' initiative Laurinkus had been reassigned as SSD director to become Lithuania's ambassador to Spain-an obvious move on the president's part to place his "own man" as head of security. But after the scandal broke, the Seimas refused to sanction the transfer.

Paksas's supporters asked why Laurinkus had waited so long to reveal his charges? In their eyes, his actions were part of a conspiracy to oust Paksas from office. This claim, that Paksas' opponents could not defeat him in a free election and now were conspiring to remove him from office through extra-legal methods would become part of their mantra as new revelations justifying his impeachment materialized in subsequent weeks.

The Case Against Paksas

Laurinkus said that Paksas had been informed of Acas' ties to the Mafia but the president had ignored them. Acas was a businessman, who managed a Lithuanian-Russian joint venture in Belarus, and journalists questioned his appointment since he lacked experience that was relevant to his national security duties.

But the focus of the investigation soon centered on the man who was the largest donor to Paksas's campaign, Igor Borisov. He provided over 300,000 euros to Paksas but that was the official sum, it was believed in actuality to be far larger than that. Paksas' opponents cited Borisov's financial support as evidence that large amounts of Russian money had been injected into the campaign.

Borisov owned Avia Baltica, a company that sold and serviced Russian helicopters. It was soon revealed that this Lithuanian-based firm had done business with Sudan, which both the EU and the U.S. had declared to be a terrorist state. The media reported that according to American intelligence sources, Borisov also had attempted to do business with Iraq. Furthermore, in a search of Borisov's villa outside of Vilnius, officials found a plan that was designed by a Russian PR firm, Almax, to discredit Lithuania's political elite and insure victory for Paksas's Liberal Democratic Party in the 2004 parliamentary elections. Almax was said to have close ties with Russian security services.

What's more, SSD produced phone taps that had Borisov grousing about Paksas not honoring his promise to appoint the businessman to a high post in the new administration. Borisov said he would ask for his money back and at one point said that if Paksas continued to spurn Borisov, he would become a "political corpse." SSD provided the Seimas with a memo outlining a full complement of charges against the president's office and Paksas himself. It was published by the Lithuanian daily, Respublika, on November 1, 2003.

It's author, Laurinkus, claimed that wealthy Russian interests were attempting to exploit Lithuania's next round of privatization by purchasing profitable gas, oil and transportation enterprises. The purchase of strategic Lithuanian firms was also predicated upon the expectation that Lithuania would serve as a springboard into the massive EU market.

Lithuanian and Russian crime groups-they were named along with individuals associated with them-were likewise striving to secure ties with high-level public officials in the hope of buying favorable treatment. They too saw such activities as a pathway into the EU's economic space.

Lithuania, the memo warned, was being used to sell and transport arms and launder money all of which could be used "to finance international terrorism." Laurinkus cited Russia's western-most Oblast, the poorly guarded Kaliningrad exclave, as a point of access to Lithuania and the EU. Finally, he warned, "Persons directly connected to Russia's special services…arre interested in the privatization of strategically important objects in Lithuania."

The Seimas organized a special ad hoc commission under direction of the Social Democrat, Aloyzas Sakalas, to investigate the case against Paksas. On December 1 it reported that there were six charges indicating that Paksas had committed impeachable act and was a risk to Lithuania's national security.

A 12-person panel comprised of 6 lawyers and 6 members of the Seimas was then authorized to assess these charges-which ballooned to 11--and to determine whether they justified Paksas' impeachment. If the team answered in the affirmative, then the Lithuanian Constitutional Court would assess the charges and if it found them legitimate, the Seimas then voted on his removal. If 85 of the 137 deputies (four seats were vacant) voted for impeachment, Paksas would be removed and a new president would be selected in 60 days.

In addition to Prime Minister Brazauskas and Speaker of the Seimas Rolandas Paulauskas, the head of the Catholic Church and leading intellectuals have demanded that Paksas resign. A poll conducted in the late fall favored his resignation by a margin of 57.3 percent to 38 percent but he has refused to do so claiming he is not guilty. Since the Christmas holidays Paksas has taken the offensive traveling throughout Lithuania to rally his supporters. He has had some success for a new poll released in mid-January shows him running second behind Brazauskas as the most popular politician in Lithuania.

The Russian Factor

Lithuanian officials and members of the media all agree that the Russian mafia, powerful Russian economic interests, Russian media organizations, and members of the Russian security services are active in Lithuania. There is no question all of these entities see that the penetration of Lithuania as beneficial even if their motives may not be identical and they are operating on a non-collaborative basis.

The big as yet unanswered question is: does the alleged involvement of Russian operatives indicate that Moscow is attempting to exert pressure on Vilnius to secure Lithuania's cooperation on a range of economic, political and security matters? There are related questions. Does Russia hope to penetrate Europe's economic space through Lithuania? Or is the motive driven by hard-security concerns; for example, to punish Lithuania for entering NATO and entertaining the deployment of NATO military assets on its territory? Or worse yet, is there a plot afoot to destabilize the Lithuanian government and thrust into authority officials who will do Moscow's bidding on a range of issues?

The plan designed by Almax could be interpreted as not merely an effort to promote the political welfare of Paksas and his party but to achieve the last mentioned objective.

There are many American analysts who have reported powerful Russian economic interests and crime groups collaborating with Russian officials. According to Steve Blank, a Russian analyst at the U. S. Army War College: "Russian attempts to subvert East European governments through economic penetration, corruption of politicians, intelligence penetration, etc., have continued as least since 1997, if not earlier. The evidence from the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Hungary, Slovakia, Poland and the Baltic states is overwhelming and points to a strategic decision in Moscow."

The success of hard-line nationalists and the rout of democrats in Russia's recent Duma elections, Putin's war on democracy, and Moscow's meddling in the affairs of former Soviet states provide additional reason why Russia's neighbors are wary of the Kremlin's activities.

Conclusions

Lithuania's democracy will survive the current presidential crisis but the fears that many Lithuanian academics, journalists, and officials have displayed concerning political unrest in the country cannot be ignored.

Consider in this connection four plausible outcomes of the current political crisis in Lithuania: · Under mounting pressure, President Paksas resigns. · President Paksas is impeached by the Seimas after the twelve-man panel finds him guilty and the Constitutional Court endorses that finding. · President Paksas is found innocent after the panel finds no evidence of his guilt and/or the Constitutional Court reaches a similar conclusion. · The panel finds him guilty and so does the Constitutional Court but the Seimas gets cold feet and refuses to remove him from office.

It can be argued that the democratic system has worked in each case but how might EU and NATO countries interpret the fourth outcome? Many observers believe it is likely since members of the Seimas, who previously indicated they would impeach Paksas, have changed their minds because they have been intimidated or see political advantages in doing so.

Since the Constitutional Court has already found Paksas guilty of illegal actions when he granted Borisov citizenship, it will cause some EU and NATO members to have reservations about Lithuania joining either organization-- although being denied membership in either case is unlikely. Lithuania has earned the right to belong to both of them. But henceforth, how confident will EU officials be about Lithuania safeguarding the EU's eastern borders? What reservations will NATO military planners have about sharing sensitive information with Vilnius? Why should European and American leaders feel confident about cooperating with high-level officials in the Lithuanian government?

It is alarming that although small in number, fascists and anti-Semites on the right, and un-reconstructed communists on the left, have taken to the streets to oppose Paksas's removal-even though he has repudiated their help.

The Lithuanians must resolve the crisis and nor expect foreign friends to do it for them. Likewise, democrats from all parties must address problems of the disadvantaged and develop the political capacity to prevent demagogues from exploiting their despair and anger.

But Lithuanian democrats who have looked to the U.S. in the past to help them deal with threats to their security are asking: "Why is the U.S. standing on the sidelines?" From the perspective of cautious American analysts only time will tell whether or not the Russian government is seeking to influence developments in Lithuania with the intention of under-minding the government and not just exerting influence there to achieve more mundane objectives-e.g. distinct economic advantages or ad hoc political leverage. The Russian defense analyst Pavel Felgenhauer has observed that his sources in the Kremlin claim that President Bush has told President Putin that he recognizes that all of the former Soviet republics are in Russia's sphere of influence-albeit with one exception, the Baltic countries.

Lithuanian officials and journalists, however, believe that Moscow is pulling strings behind the scenes and Washington cannot ignore this threat to Lithuania's internal security and to Western interests in the region. There is a compelling incentive for the Bush administration to confront Putin on this score: failure to do so could become a political issue in this election year.

One thing is clear, the factors that underpin the roots of Lithuania's presidential crisis exist in every former communist country in Europe and in most cases they are even more serious in nature-e.g. in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, the former Soviet Central Asian Republics, the Ukraine and some countries in Eastern Europe. Anti-democratic forces on both the extreme left and right will exploit poverty and economic inequality to advance their political objectives and place democracy at risk in the process.

The collaboration of organized criminal groups in league with economic warlords, corrupt local officials and Russian security operatives constitutes an internal security threat to many countries in the New Europe.

Both the EU and NATO must provide material and on-the-ground assistance to combat the activities of trans-national criminal organizations and powerful economic warlords who threaten former communist countries. They must do so with the knowledge in mind that the entities responsible for this new threat consciously or inadvertently provide the infrastructure that terrorist organizations can exploit.

Clearly traditional military assets and doctrine may be of little help here as Javier Solana argues in his so-called "Solana doctrine." His remarks were made last year in reference to non-European countries but they apply to Europe as well.

It may be beyond the capacity of traditional national law enforcement officials alone to cope with the threat, and a new Trans-Atlantic responses must be considered.