[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 8]
[Senate]
[Pages 11190-11191]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                        LITHUANIAN INDEPENDENCE

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I am also concerned about another issue 
which has become very timely. It is related to recent statements by 
officials in Russia concerning Russia's view of the Baltic countries. I 
have a personal interest in this. My mother was born in Lithuania, an 
immigrant to the United States. Over the course of my public career, I 
have journeyed to the Baltic countries on several occasions and have 
witnessed the miracle of independence and democracy coming to 
Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. This was something that many of us had 
prayed for but never believed would happen in our lifetime; that the 
Soviet empire would come down and that these three countries, which had 
been subjugated to the Russians and Soviets in the early forties, would 
have a chance for their own independence and democracy.
  In fact, I was able to be there on the day of the first democratic 
election in Lithuania. My mother was alive at the time, and she and I 
took great pride that the Lithuanian people had maintained their 
courage and dignity throughout the years of Soviet occupation and now 
would be given a chance to have their own country again.
  I have met with the leaders of these countries. I am particularly 
close to the President of Lithuania, Valdas Adamkus. The story of Mr. 
Adamkus is amazing. He fought the Nazis in World War II and then fought 
the Soviets and finally decided he had to escape and came to the United 
States where he went to school and settled in Chicago, became an 
engineer, went to work for the Environmental Protection Agency, spent a 
lifetime of civil service, receiving awards from Presidents for his 
service to our country, and then at the time of his retirement 
announced that he was going to move back to Lithuania at the age of 70 
and run for President. When Mr. Adamkus came to me and suggested that, 
I thought, well, it is a wonderful dream; surely, it is not going to 
happen. And he won, much to the surprise of everyone. He is currently 
the President of Lithuania; he is very popular. He believes, as I do, 
that the freedom in Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia is something that we 
in the West must carefully guard.
  Those of us who for 50 years protested the Soviet takeover of these 
countries cannot ignore the fact they are still in a very vulnerable 
position. Not one of these countries has a standing army or anything 
like a missile arsenal or anything like a national defense. Yet they 
look across the borders to their neighbors in Russia and Belarus and 
see very highly armed situations--and in many cases very threatening.
  That is why the recent statements by Vladimir Putin, the new 
President in Russia, are so troubling. According to the Washington Post 
on June 15, Russian President Vladimir Putin made a statement in which 
he said that fulfilling the aspirations of Estonia, Latvia, and 
Lithuania for NATO membership would be a reckless act that removed a 
key buffer zone and posed a major strategic challenge to Moscow that 
could, in his words, ``destabilize'' Europe.
  The Russian Foreign Ministry issued a statement on June 9 of this 
year that claimed that Lithuania's forceable annexation in 1940 was 
voluntary.
  This is an outrageous rewrite of history. The Soviets were legendary 
for their rewrites. They would rewrite history and decide that they, in 
fact, had developed an airplane first, an automobile first, all these 
affirmations, and Stalin was, in fact, a benevolent leader and was not 
a ruthless dictator. All of these revisions were used to scoff at the 
West.
  We thought that the end of the Russian empire would be the end of 
revisionist history. Unfortunately, Mr. Putin and his leadership in 
Moscow are starting to turn back to the same old ways. By the 
statements that they have made, they have said, if we went forward with 
allowing the Baltic States into NATO, it would be an explicit threat to 
the sovereignty of Russia. And they also go on to say it could 
destabilize Europe.
  Such a threat by the Russian Federation against security in Europe 
cannot go unchallenged, and that is why I come to the Senate floor 
today. It is incredible that the Russian President would continue to 
call the Baltic countries ``buffer States'' that would presumably have 
no say in their own security in the future and could once again be 
subjugated with impunity. To suggest that the Baltic nations are 
somehow pawns to be moved back and forth across the board by leaders in 
Russia is totally unacceptable. It is unbelievable that the Russian 
Foreign Ministry could forget the secret Molotov-Ribbentrop pact that 
carved up Eastern Europe between Hitler and Stalin, that moment in time 
when the Nazis and Communists in Russia were in alliance, in league 
with one another, and through respective foreign ministers basically 
gave away countries.
  At that moment in time, the Baltic States were annexed into the 
Soviet Union against their will, and for more than 50 years we in the 
United States protested that. It was the so-called Captive Nations Day 
we celebrated on Capitol Hill and across America to remember that those 
Baltic States and so many other countries were brought into the Soviet 
empire against their will. Somehow, Mr. Putin in this new century is 
suggesting that we did not understand history; the Baltic nations 
really wanted to be part of the Soviet Union. That is a ridiculous 
statement, and it defies history and defies the facts that everyone 
knows. It is beyond belief that the Russian Foreign Minister would 
claim that the Red Army troops occupying the Baltic countries in June 
of 1940 were not the reason that these countries so-called ``joined'' 
the Soviet Union. Listen to the statement by the Russian Foreign 
Minister.

       The August 3, 1940 decision of USSR Supreme Soviet to admit 
     Lithuania into the Soviet Union was preceded by corresponding 
     appeals from the highest representative bodies of the Baltic 
     States.
       Therefore it would be wrong to interpret Lithuania's 
     admission to the USSR as a result of the latter's unilateral 
     actions. All assertions that Lithuanian was ``occupied'' and 
     ``annexed'' by the Soviet Union and related claims of any 
     kind of neglect, political, historical and legal realities 
     therefore are groundless.

  This is the statement by the Russian Foreign Minister.
  Let me tell you, he not only ignores the history of 1940 which is 
very clear, but he ignores the fact that in 1991 the Russian Foreign 
Ministry entered into a treaty with Lithuania in which Russia 
explicitly admitted that the 1940

[[Page 11191]]

Soviet annexation violated Lithuanian sovereignty and that Lithuania, 
they said, at the time was free to pursue its own security agreements 
and arrangements. So in 1991, in those enlightened moments as the 
Soviet empire came down and Russia became a new State with democratic 
elections, they entered into a treaty with Lithuania and acknowledged 
the reality that Lithuania was forcibly annexed into the Soviet Union. 
They said in 1991 Lithuania had the right, as the Baltic States do, to 
pursue their security arrangements.
  Now, when Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia talk about membership in 
NATO, the Russian Foreign Minister and Russian President Putin come 
forward and say unacceptably, it would destabilize Europe; it would 
eliminate the so-called ``buffer States.'' They still view these 
countries as vassals, as pawns to be used. They will not acknowledge 
the sovereignty which should be acknowledged of these countries.
  These disturbing statements show clearly why the Baltic countries 
must be admitted to NATO; that is, to show Russia and any neighboring 
country that it must give up its territorial ambitions against NATO 
membership for the Baltic countries, and it would make it critically 
clear that the West would never again accept ``buffer State'' 
subjugation of them. The idea that the three tiny Baltic States could 
threaten the enormous and powerful Russian Federation is laughable. If 
Russia has no design on the Baltic States, it has nothing to fear from 
their membership in NATO.

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