ANALYSIS: Estonia draws painful lessons from Bronze Night

Apr 22, 2008, 5:08 GMT

Tallinn - The political crisis in Estonia a year ago ripped the veil off the Baltic nation's image as an integrated society.

But it also exposed the Kremlin's use of propaganda in foreign relations, its tolerance of cyber attacks and its stage-management of the youth organization Nashi, which gave it a bad image in the world.

The integration of ethnic Russians into Estonian society hadn't run as smoothly as it was assumed, the head of the Estonian Foreign Policy Institute, Andres Kasekamp, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

The 50 years of Soviet occupation of this tiny Baltic nation had led to a significant influx of Russians, diminishing the ethnic Estonian population in the country from 97 per cent in 1945 to 65 per cent in 1990, a year before Estonia became independent from the Soviet Union.

Ethnic Russians today make up about 25 per cent of Estonia's 1.35 million people. They live in largely segregated areas, in several Tallinn neighbourhoods and the eastern Estonian town of Narva near the Estonian-Russian border.

The popularity of Estonian Prime Minister Andrus Ansip has swelled following his government's decision to relocate a monument Estonians saw as a symbol of their nation's 50 years of Soviet occupation. And he still retains some political capital in spite of criticism.

Some of the criticism surrounds a different monument. The Estonian government plans to erect the Estonia's Freedom Monument in the centre of the capital, in spite of public opposition to the project.

The Freedom Monument will be a glass structure in the shape of the Estonian Cross of Liberty, extending to a height of 26 metres from its base, according to a draft.

'It offers more than artificial connection with the Bronze Soldier. It says, 'My monument is bigger than your monument,'' Kasekamp told dpa.

In the past, the Kremlin used its influence on Estonia's Russians through mass media which often presents skewed views of events in the Baltic nation. There are no Russian-language TV channels funded by the Estonian government.

And the Bronze Night forced the government to consider launching a new public TV channel tailored to a Russian audience. Within days after riots in the capital Tallinn in April 2007, the Estonian government launched an online news portal in Russian in an effort to reach out to the Russian population.

Russian politicians said that Estonia's criticism of the Red Army was an open declaration of fascist sympathies and an attempt to 'rewrite history.'

However, they nearly repeated it.

Before some Russian politicians arrived at Tallinn's airport last year to negotiate with the Estonian government, they demanded Ansip's resignation. It reminded Estonians of a painful history lesson when the Soviet Union made similar demands.

In 1940, it had cost the small Estonia its independence.

Following the 2007 riots, the pro-Kremlin youth organization Nashi (Ours) laid siege to the Estonian embassy in Moscow, culminating in attacks on Swedish and Estonian ambassadors, which drew condemnation from the European Union, NATO and the United States.

Pro-monument hackers launched large-scale attacks on Estonian government websites. According to the Estonian authorities, some of the attacks came from Russian government web servers.

The Bronze Soldier created unity in the 27-nation EU when its leaders lined up against Russia, ahead of an EU-Russia summit three weeks after the riots.

'It showed a common front which was a milestone for the EU,' Kasekamp said.

Amidst souring Russian relations with Estonia and a Russian ban on Polish meat, the EU-Russia summit ended without agreements.

The chief of the EU's executive arm - the European Commission - Jose Manuel Barroso's statement at the EU-Russia summit that a problem for one EU member is a problem for all members echoed well in Estonia, Kasekamp said.