May 8, 2007, 12:27 GMT
Tallinn - Police in Estonia were on high alert on Tuesday as the Baltic state braced itself for possible trouble on the anniversary of Soviet victory in World War II, May 9.
'We're gathering information and analyzing possible threats - we're ready to keep order,' police spokesman Taavi Kullerkupp told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.
Estonia officially celebrates the end of WWII on May 8, the date which is commemorated across Western Europe. The country's Russian minority, however, celebrates a day later - and with passions running high over the recent relocation of a Red Army war memorial, the authorities are taking no chances.
Across the city, police squads were visible on patrol throughout Tuesday. Clusters of figures in fluorescent yellow jackets studded the boulevards around the city's mediaeval heart, and police vans with wire mesh on their windows waited unobtrusively down side streets.
Public gatherings and the sale of alcohol have been banned across much of the country until Friday morning, with public figures calling on the nation to remain calm.
'History is not learned and taught in the streets ... We believe in the wisdom and rationality of Estonian citizens and their desire to protect their country,' Estonia's president, prime minister and speaker of parliament said in a joint statement.
Less than two weeks ago, Estonia was rocked by the worst riots it has seen since the Russian Revolution as the nationalist government ordered the relocation of a Red Army war memorial from central Tallinn to a war cemetery 2 kilometres from the city centre.
Estonians see the monument as a reminder of the illegal occupation of their state by the USSR, but most Russians see it as a tribute to Russians' sacrifice in the war against Nazism.
And in two nights of unrest on 26 and 27 April, an estimated 2,000 rioters, mainly young Russians, ran amok in Tallinn, looting shops, vandalizing property and battling the police.
On Tuesday morning, Estonia's Defence Minister Jaak Aaviksoo laid a wreath at the statue's feet in its new location in the official war cemetery of the Estonian Defence Forces.
The statue in its new location 'symbolizes the mourning and painful feeling of loss that are common to us all, not the confrontation that it used to symbolize,' Aaviksoo told journalists.
But the heavy police contingent surrounding the cemetery and turning away onlookers revealed the tension underlying his words.
Russian pressure groups have already called on their compatriots to bring flowers to the monument's old site on May 9, ignoring both the official commemorations of May 8 and the monument's new site. Observers have warned that the move could spark fresh confrontations.
And with the shock of the recent rioting still uppermost in Estonians' minds, Tallinn looks set to remain a city in fear until May 9 is safely over.
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