Three Baltic Countries Are NATO’s Front Line Against Russia

 By Henry Srebrnik, Fredericton Daily Gleaner

Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine the three Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have been on the frontlines of Europe’s confrontation with Russia. On Sept. 19, three Russian MiG-31 jets flew above Estonia before escorted back to their own side. European Union countries are considering building a “drone wall” to ramp up defences.

Canada is very involved in the region. Prime Minister Mark Carney visited Latvia in August. In Riga, he met with the Prime Minister of Latvia, Evika Silina, and announced Canada’s renewal of Operation REASSURANCE for another three years. It remains the Canadian Armed Forces’ largest overseas mission, with approximately 2,000 troops and 400 vehicles of all types currently deployed to defend NATO territory.

If the Baltic nations are nervous about the future, history suggests they have every reason to be. Although they are now members of NATO and the European Union, the west has not always proved a reliable ally in times of crises.

 This is nothing new. More than any other European nations, the three found themselves crushed between Nazism and communism in the 20^th century.  They freed themselves from tsarist Russia after the First World War, followed by precarious interwar independence, and then by first Soviet, then Nazi, and then again Soviet, occupation during the Second World War.

Re-incorporated into the Soviet Union, they suffered decades of subservience to Moscow, until renewed independence in 1991, so they have good historical reasons to fear Russia. The brutality and ruthlessness of the Soviet occupation of the three Baltic states is well known.

Given their past, all three countries spend heavily on defence. Latvia devotes almost five per cent of its GDP for protection, Lithuania will be increasing theirs to almost six per cent, and Estonia is raising its defence budget to 5.4 per cent.

Since they regained their sovereignty, these nations have in general fared well, Estonia in particular. It has transformed itself in a generation into a tech hub and undisputed leader in e-government. Starting with the success of Skype, the video-calling platform that was sold to eBay for $2.6 billion in 2005, Estonia today has built a thriving tech ecosystem. It has the most tech start-ups per capita in Europe with 10 start-ups valued at more than one billion dollars built in the country or by Estonian founders.

Estonia has raised its GDP per capita by 2,500 per cent, overtaking Greece, Portugal and even Poland. What transformed the country’s fortunes was a combination of free market shock therapy plus the embrace of technology. Estonia embarked on an unprecedented experiment with a flat 20 per cent income tax rate and tax-free reinvested corporate profits. It privatized state-owned assets and dismantled trade barriers.

For a country with few natural resources, a small population, and limited state capacity, technology was a logical way to deliver public services and accelerate economic development. Every citizen was given a digital ID at birth, as the key to accessing government services online.

But there is also a fair amount of alienation, especially among the ethnic Russians who make up 22.5 per cent of the population at large and 73 per cent in the north-eastern region around the cities of Narva and Sillimae.

Latvia, with the largest number of Russian speakers both in absolute terms and relative to its population, has faced arguably the greatest obstacles. Regarded by the country as Soviet “colonists,” they make up 24.5 per cent of Latvia’s population, and the wider pool of native Russian speakers account for 35 per cent of the country’s residents. The city of Daugavpils is 54 per cent ethnic Russian and 80 per cent of its residents speak Russian at home.

Since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, most Russian state-sponsored television channels have been banned. A new law was passed that strips Latvian citizenship from Putin supporters with dual nationality. The deadline for eradicating school classes taught in the Russian language was brought forward to 2025. A poll found that only 23 per cent of Russian speakers felt they could express political opinions without fear of the consequences.

Unlike Estonia, the country has not done as well. Chaotic privatisation and lax regulation led to the emergence of politically influential oligarchs. Corruption and speculation were and remain rampant. Latvia has the second highest level of income inequality in the EU, after Bulgaria. Latvian politics became so fixated on the nationality question that it has neglected the state’s other duties.

Lithuania’s long experience of subjection to foreign powers was in some ways quite unlike those of its Baltic neighbours. It had more than 400 years of union with Poland, followed by absorption into the Russian empire in 1795. The new rulers banned the Lithuanian language altogether. Poland grabbed Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital, in 1920, two years after both countries attained independence.

Lithuania has recently witnessed a sharp rise in Russian-speakers driven by the war in Ukraine. Current estimates suggest that over 200,000 Russian-speaking individuals now reside in the country, comprising both long-established ethnic Russian communities and newer arrivals. There is concern over their growing prominence. A law was even passed in 2024 mandating that foreign staff must serve customers in Lithuanian.

It seems the three Baltic states still confront issues revolving not just about Russia, but their own ethnic Russian inhabitants.

 

The International Criminal Court’s Africa Issue

 By Henry Srebrnik, Fredericton Daily Gleaner

On Sept. 22, Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger announced their withdrawal from the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court. The three West African states, led by military juntas, said that the ICC had “transformed into an instrument of neocolonial repression in the hands of imperialism” and had become “a global example of selective justice.” They are not the only African countries that feel this way. What has changed?

In 1998, the international community adopted the Rome Statute creating the International Criminal Court, to stablish the first permanent international tribunal to try perpetrators of the crimes. The ICC was given jurisdiction over genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression, serving as a neutral arbiter of international law.

The ICC was inaugurated in 2003 shortly after the Rome Statute came into force in 2002. The vision when it was established was that it would be a turning point in the history of global justice, administering justice in a way no external force or power could influence. It was to ensure that no one, regardless of power, geolocation or position, would escape accountability for atrocities.

As a continent marred with mass atrocities, Africa could now contemplate an alternative to the prevailing impunity enjoyed thus far by many warlords. The fresh memories of the Rwandan genocide in 1994 strengthened Africa’s decision to support the idea of an independent and effective international court.

The ICC has been much in the news of late because in November 2024 it issued arrest warrants citing alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s former defence minister Yoav Gallant, and Hamas commander Mohammed Deif (who has since been killed), for their role in the Gaza war. This led to huge interest in the court. But the ICC has been mainly involved in Africa, where its legitimacy and impartiality remain questionable.

The initial euphoria on what the ICC could achieve was quickly replaced by a lot of criticism. It has experienced increased resistance from African states who criticize that their nationals are the ones mostly convicted by the ICC. Additionally, they argue that politics plays the main role in the decision to investigate and prosecute specific individuals within its jurisdiction.

This critique argues that postcolonial power structures are maintained by the ICC, first, by practising selective prosecution and second, by being a hegemonic tool of the West. The ICC’s location in The Hague, a location in a faraway continent, and its funding from Western countries only deepen the sense that it’s a modern version of a colonial court, where Europeans judge Africans. It can even be invoked by the Security Council, where a majority of the permanent members are not themselves subject to the Court’s jurisdiction, which questions the credibility of the ICC as an independent court of law.

From the start, the ICC’s investigations centred on Africa, which created a visible pattern of focus in prosecutions. It began with a referral in December 2003 from Uganda, targeting Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) leaders like Joseph Kony for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including child soldier recruitment.

Not long after that, in 2004, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) self-referred, resulting in cases against militia leaders like Thomas Lubanga, who was convicted in 2012 for child soldiers, and Bosco Ntaganda, sentenced to 30 years in 2019 for rape and murder. That same year, the Central African Republic’s referral brought Jean-Pierre Bemba to trial, and he was acquitted in 2018 after a decade in detention.

So far, African leaders like Sudan’s Omar al-Bashir, Kenya’s Uhuru Kenyatta, Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi, Côte d’Ivoire’s Laurent Gbagbo, have faced prosecution.

In 2005, the UN Security Council sent Sudan’s Darfur crisis to the court, charging 51 people implicated in crimes against humanity. President Omar al-Bashir in 2009 was charged with genocide, which was the first time in history a sitting leader faced such charges. Sudan is not a state party to the Rome Statute, however, and he remains in the country.

On Oct. 6, the ICC found a commander of a Sudanese militia, Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-Al-Rahman, guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity for his role in leading attacks in the western region of Darfur August 2003 to March 2004.

Many African countries have been involved in similar ICC charges, including Kenya in 2010, where charges against Uhuru Kenyatta were dropped in 2015, and Côte d’Ivoire in 2011, when Laurent Gbagbo was convicted in 2021. In addition, there were similar involvements in Mali in 2012, as well as in Burundi in 2017, which later left the court.

 Leaders and governments say the ICC treats them unfairly, acting like a neo-colonial power. In 2013, the AU demanded the ICC stop prosecuting Kenya’s Kenyatta and President William Ruto, saying it ignored African ways of resolving disputes and disrespected their sovereignty.

In response, Africa has sought its own solutions. In 2014, the 55-member African Union (AU) proposed a new African Court to handle such crimes, though it’s not yet active. The AU in 2016 even contemplated a mass withdrawal from the ICC by the 33 African states that are parties to the Rome Statute. Burundi did so in 2017 and South Africa and Gambia also considered following suit, but that has not yet materialised.

 

Baltic Envoys Reinforce Relations in P.E.I.

 By Henry Srebrnik, Charlottetown Guardian

The ambassadors of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania visited Prince Edward Island Oct. 2 to promote Baltic relations with the province. There were meetings with government representatives and the business community on matters of trade. Margus Rava of Estonia, Kaspars Ozolins of Latvia, and Egidijus Meilunas of Lithuania also met with faculty and students at UPEI.

Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine the three countries have been on the frontlines of Europe’s confrontation with Russia. On Sept. 19, three Russian MiG-31 jets flew above Estonia before escorted back to their own side. There have also been drone incursions above their skies.

Canada is very involved in the region. Prime Minister Mark Carney visited Latvia in August. In Riga, he met with the Prime Minister of Latvia, Evika Silina, and announced Canada’s renewal of Operation REASSURANCE for another three years. It remains the Canadian Armed Forces’ largest overseas mission, with approximately 2,000 troops and 400 vehicles of all types currently deployed to defend NATO territory.

Lithuanian ambassador Meilunas called his country and Canada “like-minded nations” and noted that after the First World War Canada recognized the new state. Ottawa never acknowledged Lithuania’s absorption by force into the Soviet Union after 1945 and therefore when it regained its independence Canada was among the first to respond.

Latvia’s Ozolins, too, mentioned that his country continued to exist de jure in the eyes of Canada. “We were captive nations behind not just an iron curtain,” like the east European Soviet satellite states, but, having been incorporated into the Soviet Union itself, “behind an iron wall,” he explained.

Given their past, all three countries spend heavily on defence. Latvia devotes almost five per cent of its GDP for protection, Lithuania will be increasing theirs to almost six per cent, and Estonia is raising its defence budget to 5.4 per cent. But of course, as small countries, they rely mainly on their membership in the European Union and NATO for security against potential Russian aggression. “We need our NATO allies,” Ambassador Rava of Estonia emphasized. Meilunas agreed and also hoped that Ukraine would be allowed to join NATO.

Estonia and Latvia have significant ethnic Russian minorities due to their former status as Soviet republics, but they played down any potential pro-Russian sentiment among them in the current tension between NATO and Moscow, even in cities like Narva, largely Russian populated, on the Estonian border with Russia.

Ozolins stated that of his country’s Russian population, who make up about a quarter of the country, he estimated that no more than some 10 per cent favour Russia, and pro-Russian parties have no seats in parliament. “They are European Russians,” he remarked, and “Putin has given up trying to influence them.” Estonia, too, has seen its Russian population – some 21 per cent -- become more integrated over time. Lithuania has a very small Russian population.

The three Baltic ambassadors emphasized that as their three countries serve as the first line of defence against any potential Russian advances in Europe, they provide an invaluable service for the rest of NATO.