Archive for September, 2011

GREAT ARTICLE IN VILNEWS!

I really liked the latest article in VilNews. But you know, the problem is not only in the small villages of Lithuania. How often do you see Police patrolling in the old town? Where are the police of this country?

Gene Emmer
Vilnius

Yet again, a very interesting and unfortunately a very accurate depiction of the situation in Lithuania. I have had the exact same experiences that you had mentioned. I remember first coming to Lithuania about 10 years ago and the Lithuania then, is definitely not the Lithuania now!

I remember when it was relatively safe to walk in almost any corner of Lithuania, without the fear that I had, in my own country (South Africa). However, on our recent visits, I was advised not to stroll around as freely as I did previously. To the extent, of being escorted wherever I went. I also recognised the development in the major cities and the degradation on the outskirts and villages. How could this happen in a country, where there was once so much of national pride!

I genuinely miss the days of looking at Lithuania, as my second home country, in a very fond light. My wife and children are Lithuania citizens and I would love for my wife and children to continue to be proud Lithuanians! I also want them to have the same romantic view I have had of Lithuania!

Our family and friends in Lithuania are off the same mind set as your dear friend. Where the country has gained internationally, from being included in the EU and NATO, it has lost domestically, by allowing its' people to lose faith. In almost every conversation I have encountered, the central topic was around corruption. This corruption ranges from low level public sector workers to the upper echelons of government.

My view is that the people have THE VOICE! However, when I mentioned this approach to people, I was almost laughed at!

The issue is that the nature of most of the people I have encountered is that the best approach, is to accept the situation as it is. No amount effort on my part could convince them, that they are empowered to take action.
For example: There is a prevalence of bribery in most state departments, especially when it comes to applications or documents, etc. In most cases, a time frame is indicated within which you should receive the

information, however, the norm is that if you bribe the person, only then would you get the information with that timeframe. Failure to bribe, will result in "delays". Now, my approach, is that a person should say NO to anyone who suggests or tries to extract a bribe. My family's view is that it has now become the norm and it is expected for you in some cases to offer the bribe!

I was very irritated by that revelation and expressed a situation to them, which I was hoping would change their perspective.

As you are aware, I am a South African, and I will relate an experience where I realised that sometimes, escalating an issue does resolve the matter. I was experiencing issues with getting a visa to visit Lithuania, despite having visited the country on numerous occasions prior to that. I was met with comments and replies which made no sense and was not complimentary to the visa issuing policies. When I highlighted this to the consular officer, I was met with an irrelevant reply, which intended to insult my appreciation of the English language. I decided to voice my irritation of the situation via an online forum which I found on the Office of the Presidents' website. I did this without any expectation. Much to my delight, I received a reply within 24 hours! The office of the President, accepted that my treatment was unfair and forwarded my details to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Within an hour of that initial mail, I received a mail from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, requesting all my details as well as the details of the consulate and consular officer. Within that same day, I received another mail from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and they had given me assurance that my visa application will be handled in the proper manner and will be issued within the timeframe, described in their visa issuing policy! Needless to state, when I presented myself at the consulate for the collection of my visa, I was met with a very apologetic consular officer as well as having my visa issued more sooner than I had expected. So, it does help to escalate and it does not go unattended!

The response from my family was that this was only done because I was a foreigner. They believe that if they had to do the same, that they would be ridiculed! I respectfully disagreed!

I believe that the way out of this proverbial 'hole' that is being dug, is to empower the people, with forums or support groups, independent of any attachment to government, which will ensure that the faith and trust that should exist, and be available, are there and is being used for what it is intended!
I am willing to lend whatever support I can, to form a lobby group, or to join an existing lobby group, to get a forum in place to address these issues with government in a diplomatic environment, expressing the concerns that we as foreigners (by Nationality only, as I see Lithuania as my second Home country) have!

I think that every single Lithuanian, should remember these names below and the cause that they sacrificed their lives for on January 13, 1991!

Loreta Asanavičiūtė, Virginijus Druskis, Darius Gerbutavičius, Rolandas Jankauskas, Rimantas Juknevičius, Alvydas Kanapinskas, Algimantas Petras Kavoliukas, Vytautas Koncevičius, Vidas Maciulevičius, Titas Masiulis, Alvydas Matulka, Apolinaras Juozas Povilaitis, Ignas Šimulionis, Vytautas Vaitkus

Let not let THEIR sacrifice be in vain!

Come on Lithuania! Be proud! Remember Baltijos kelias! Anything is possible if you put your heart and soul into it! Democracy does prevail!

Eugene Rangayah
South Africa and United Kingdom

 I was severely shocked by the latest edition. That is not professional journalism. No effort was made for the police commissariat to rebut or clarify your statement. Yet you use their emblem at the top of the page. You avoid libel by putting the attack on the police in her words, that ‘many of them probably get a share of the cake from many theft and assaults…’ instead of yours.

Think about it. Rural tourism is big business in Lithuania but after reading your piece, I would immediately cancel any plans to visit a village. In actuality, it may even be safer, since back in 1995, they were torturing pensioners to death so that they would disclose where they had hidden a couple hundred litas. I have not heard of that going on recently.

But you do not have to go to the village to have this problem. The criminals come into Vilnius on the train, carry out nasty crimes in the vicinity of train station, and then leave before the police can catch them.

You talk about the president addressing the problem. She is more concerned with foreign policy than domestic. Aside from signing laws and appointing the head of the various government organisations, like the police commissariat, she really has little domestic power. She does not have the right to introduce legislation or work it through the Seimas. So what are you expecting her to do? Why are you unnecessarily raising dissatisfaction with our government? People have enough trouble trusting it and the various officials without fruitless attacks.

And what is at the core of this problem? It is that we have lots of people without work or hope of work. These are the people turning to crime. But the state does not have money to increase unemployment benefits. It does not have money for retraining workers. And the thieves do not really care whether the state feeds them or crime does. Furthermore, the current drive in EU policy, which strongly influences our laws, is to reduce penalties for theft and assault and to increase prevention, including using home arrest instead of jail time.

That some police officers are turning a blind eye for a piece of the pie is almost sure to be true. But to give that as the reason for state-wide ‘incompetence’ is absurd. This was a wonderful, lost opportunity to show that you get what you pay for. The police are woefully underpaid and under-financed. A comparison of Lithuanian financing with that of neighbouring countries and the EU, adjusted for cost of living, would have been fantastic. Furthermore I think the police took a cut in pay when the crisis hit. I remember the medical and fire fighting staffs protesting. You also did not show how many officers have lost their lives in the line of duty.

As to your statistic that around half the cases are not investigated, it is taken out of context. Some anecdotal evidence might clarify the point. My friend has been robbed three times. One time his telephone was taken out of his backpack on a crowded bus. He didn’t see it happen and so he can’t identify the culprit. Fabric does not retain fingerprints. Without evidence, the police have no right to search someone, as if they could find a random passenger from the no. 5 trolley two hours after he got off. The second time, a little old lady picked his pocket at the cash register in a provision shop. Since she did not rob the shop, they were not interested in co-operating. Since it was a little old lady who could not really be sent to jail or ordered to pay a fine (She’s stealing because she can’t pay her bills now.) and because the judge would find the victim guilty of negligence, there was no need to investigate as it would have been a fruitless waste of taxpayers’ money. The third time his basement was robbed. His son had let his friends know he kept a nice bike down there and one of them helped himself to it. Fingerprints do not last for more than 24 hours in most cases and basement surfaces are rough, making fingerprints hard to acquire even if reported immediately. So how were the police supposed to investigate these crimes? And why should they?

When Simone wandered off in Trakai, the police made a concerted effort to find her and did so within half an hour. We offered them a reward, but they refused, saying a good word now and then would be a better sign of appreciation. Twice our neighbour broke out our car window. The first time, too much time had passed and no fingerprints were left. The second time, a neighbour let us know immediately, a print was obtained, and they found the culprit, whose mother was forced to pay for replacing the second window. She also took measures so that the situation never occurred again. Another time, a gang was terrorising our building and finally our neighbours caught them. We helped hold the culprits until the police came. Since they were minors and no material harm had been done (just faeces smeared on the walls), no retribution or repayment was ever made, but they have left our building alone since then. Another time about 20 youths, male and female, were beating another youth up in our courtyard. We called the police but the gang left within minutes as they realised staying around was not in their best interest. We figured it was better they left the youth they were stomping alone than that the police surprise them in the act. We called the police back when the youths left so they would not waste time looking in the courtyard. I have no idea whether they caught any of them subsequently or not. Another time a young Scot went out to smoke a cigarette in an isolated spot near our house at 2 am and was raped. No one responded to hereinafter referred to as the cries for help. She did not recognise the rapists and soon left the country in disgust. Once again, most of these situations are beyond help. An investigation is just a waste of money. But we do not let our daughter wander outside freely like we both did as children.

These seems like a lot of crime for one short period. But please remember I live in a city of several hundred thousand people and there are literally hundreds in a stone’s throw of my home. With such population densities, it is no wonder that there is so much crime evident.

As to robberies, usually they are carried out by people living far away. The gang that was robbing the building of my friend mentioned above lived in Alytus. They were only caught because a dog started acting strangely and the owner called the police. They surrounded the area as these gangs are well organised. They have lookouts everywhere. As soon as the police approach, they are out of there. That day the police arrested all of them. End of problem.

I have noticed a drastic improvement in the quality of the police officers in the 14 years I have been in Lithuania. When I came here people who could not find work elsewhere often joined the police. Thus their intelligence was often low and their training abysmal. One felt sorry for the culprits when calling the police because it was rumoured that they often administered ‘justice’ themselves. You don’t hear such stories now. We called the police a few days ago to remove some homeless men from our stairwell and they treated the culprits with respect. They simply told the men to pack their things and leave. They spoke for a while, so I imagine they told them where to find free lodgings and food. Then they waited downstairs to see that the men actually left, rather than arresting them.

Next time, please tell the whole story instead of just adding to the problem.

Arturas Bakanauskas
Vilnius

Holocaust in Lithuania

Jews being marched from their ghetto in the centre of Vilnius (today’s Old Town) to the Paneriai (Ponary) forest outside the city for execution, 1942/1943. Paneriai is an area of wooded hills, where in 1941-1944 60,000 to 70,000 Jews from Vilnius were executed.
- Drawing by Fajwel Segal

What happened to the Jews in Lithuania during World War II is a matter of grim record. Of the 250.000 Jews in 1939, only between 12.500 and 17.500 survived; of those, only about 200 remain today.

It has been estimated that of the 265.000 Jews living in Lithuania in June 1941, 254.000 or 95% were murdered during the German occupation. No other Jewish community in Nazi-occupied Europe was so comprehensively destroyed.

The Red Army occupied Vilnius on 19 September 1939. Lithuania and the Soviet Union signed a treaty of mutual aid, in accordance with which Vilnius and the Vilnius region were returned to Lithuania. In 1940, Vilnius became the capital of Soviet Lithuania.

Vilnius remained under Soviet control until 26 June 1941, when the city fell to the invading German Army (Wehrmacht). On 8 July 1941 an order was issued stating that all Jews must wear a special patch on their back; subsequently they were ordered to wear the patch on their chest. In addition Jews were forbidden to walk along the main streets of the city, and shops were ordered to sell them food in limited amounts. Jewish people were fired from their jobs, deprived of the means of personal transportation and radios, forbidden to use public transport, and prohibited from public places. Jews were arrested on the streets, at their work places, and in their houses.

Paneriai forest near Vilnius.
Jewish victims of execution before the mass burial, 1943.