No Bush Bashing in Baltics
www.brusselsjournal.com on Wed, 2006-11-29 17:15

"US President George W. Bush was in the Estonian capital Tallinn on
Monday and Tuesday and travelled on to Riga, Latvia, where he met
leaders of NATO. Bush thanked the Estonians for their support in
Afghanistan and Iraq. His visit is seen as a clear signal to Moscow
that the Baltic States are out of the Kremlin's sphere of influence.
The one thing that was NOT on display in Tallinn and Riga was anti-Bush
protests or any visible hostility towards the visit of "the biggest
tyrant and killer."

Altogether four anti-Bush protests had been organized, two of them by
Russians, who object to Estonian membership of NATO and who think the
Soviet Union should still rule one sixth of the world. Not even a dozen
people participated in each of these meetings, which were very peaceful
and diffident. Then there was a local pagan worshiper and neo-Nazi, who
managed to get arrested for throwing fireworks towards the US embassy.
No-one followed his call to join him in his protest march against Bush
and America.

The biggest demonstration was organized by anarchists. How they
reconcile their anarchist ideology with organizing marches is beyond
me. Some 150 to 200 people joined their march. Their main complaint was
not, however, against Bush but against the Estonian government for
sending troops to Iraq.

There was a small pro-US welcome party of about half a dozen people
with Estonian, Latvian, American and NATO flags, but the media mostly
chose to ignore it. Several hundred people lined the streets when
Bush's motorcade arrived on Monday evening.

I have not heard of any serious protests in Latvia either though the
media would be certain to report them, if there were any.

One reason for this calm is the high security that was put in place
both in Tallinn and Riga. Some streets were temporarily closed even to
pedestrians and traffic was restricted as well. But on the whole I am
sure that the general population in Estonia and Latvia have no deeply
rooted animosity towards America or their president. The reason is
pretty obvious - we can still remember what oppression and planned
economy really mean."