Paranoia strikes deep

Buffalo Springfield once sang:

Paranoia strikes deep.
Into your life it will creep.
It starts when you're always afraid.
Step out of line, the MAN come and take you away.

In Latvia it isn't the man, but Linda Murniece, the lady Minister of the Interior, who has, wittingly or unwittingly (wits are a little short among Latvian politicians) taken a number of steps to put a chill on peaceful public dissent. The latest is having Latvia's Security Police, a kind of KGB-Very Lite (there is no Gulag, they don't pull out people's fingernails) investigate who has been circulating appeals for a peaceful gathering in Riga's Old Town on November 13 to protest additional cuts in public spending that the anonymous authors assume will occur by then. Unlike appeals circulated ahead of the January 13 riot which, well, openly called for a riot (a far more destructive one than actually happened, those anonymous instigators urged people to bring Molotov cocktails, none were used), the current appeal is simply for a gathering to express grievances. Sounds like democracy and free speech to me. It is also a timely call, a kind of viral marketing of the idea that by November, there may be another round of budget cuts reducing formerly tax-supported education, medical care and pensions to a defacto pay-as-you learn/heal/and save before you get old system.

It is more than two months until November 13, leaving plenty of time for NGOs and civic groups to organize and to help the police prevent or limit any violence (let's have no illusions, people are angry about what the previous fuckwit governments have done or failed to do as the economic crisis approached). What the government and Ms. Murniece have done is to turn loose the dogs of intimidation (the Security Police have a wonderful record of arresting people for their speech, it's what got this blog started almost a year ago) in a clear attempt to put a chill on any calls for public, anti-government gatherings. The government showed its attitude when it sent a riot squad to disperse demonstrators blocking bridges near Bauska to protest the reorganization of the local hospital, closing maternity services and drastically reducing emergency care. The message sent by the robocops, who might have been a little rough with some angry demonstrators, including some older women, was that the politicians in Riga feel threatened by any spontaneous public activity and will threaten back, rather than discuss the issues (Minister of Health Baiba Rozentale, at the center of the clusterfuck surrounding the reform/defacto switch to pay-as-you heal medicine, did later go to Bauska and had a heated discussion with a crowd of local people. Good for her on that count).

There is absolutely nothing illegal about anonymously suggesting that there should be a nationwide rally on November 13. The anonymity could, in a twist of black humor, be the result of earlier intimidation of dissent by the Security Police. In other words, send the Security Police to find those that the Security Police has intimidated into "better safe than sorry" forms of expression. Latvia is not Iran or some tinpot African dictatorship yet, but it will be unless people stand up and say they will not be intimidated.

I URGE EVERYONE TO GATHER ON NOVEMBER 13 IN THE DOM SQUARE IN RIGA AND NEAR THE SAEIMA BUILDING -- IN THE NAME OF FREE SPEECH, IF FOR NO OTHER REASON. And I am not anonymous.

Penguins signal that civil disobedience may be next

The informal, non-violent protest and resistance movement in Latvia known as The Penguins* is contemplating civil disobedience and the arrest of movement volunteers. This was discussed at a recent meeting of Penguin supporters in a Riga bar and restaurant. The discussion was led by journalist and commentator Māris Zanders, a "non-leader" of the Penguins, who asked "who is willing to do five days?" (a hypothetical jail sentence for possible misdemeanors related to obstructing buildings or disobeying and "resisting" police) with several of those present indicating they would do so.
The Penguins also discussed, in broad terms, the necessity for organizing a legal aid team to defend those eventually arrested as well as to gain maximum international publicity for those who may become Latvia's first political prisoners since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The Penguins want to resist, by all non-violent means, the present government, which they see as corrupt, incompetent and deaf to its electorate. Their immediate goal is to have the government resign and to dissolve the Latvian parliament or Saeima and hold new elections. Many, however, are skeptical of whether new elections will improve the quality of governance in Latvia. In the long term, the Penguins want to see clean, efficient government, although the discussion on February 18 revealed considerable differences in long-term goals and visions.
A few representatives of the youth nationalist "All For Latvia" (Visu Latvija) party came to the Penguins' discussion. Their goal is to try to get elected in the next Saeima elections (whether snap elections in the next few months or at the end of the present term in 2010). One speaker said he wanted constitutional reform that would exclude "party politics" -- harking back to the authoritarian regime of President Kārlis Ulmanis after 1934.
Another speaker said the most pressing goal was to stop the plundering of the nation and to avoid the great debt burden that would be imposed by the ongoing 7.5 billion EUR package (from various international sources) to bolster Latvia's government finances and the banking system.
Zanders warned that regardless of what the Penguins do, he foresaw likely civil unrest in coming months as the weather gets warmer and the first of a wave of unemployed exhaust their unemployment benefits.
My take on this: The Penguins urgently need international legal, human rights and media contacts to prepare for any eventuality. Several lawyers and a man claiming to be a veteran police officer said that the treatment of persons engaged in civil disobedience, even if this was clearly stated, could be much harsher than in western democracies. One lawyer said Latvian courts and law enforcement structures still bore a heavy Soviet/totalitarian legacy and would not know how to handle "political"cases.
One solution is to have both international human rights lawyers and media ready to intervene and cover the detention and trial of persons engaged in civil disobedience. This would make Latvia less likely to violate human rights and diverge from European best practices in dealing with such forms of (technically illegal) protest.
* the term comes from Latvian Prime Minister Ivars Godmanis' New Year's Eve speech, where he said that in hard times, the penguins huddle together.

Latvia moves from speech to non-violent resistance

After the January 13 street riots in Riga, subsequent threats of government repression and what is widely seen as continued government indifference to public opinion, an informal movement of non-violent resistance, called The Penguins (Pingvini). The term emerged from a remark by Prime Minister Ivars Godmanis, apparently in his New Year's Eve address to the nation (I was in the US at the time and missed it). Godmanis said that in hard (or cold) times, penguins squeeze together.

The penguin movement apparent started before January 13, since a contingent of mainly young people with placards bearing ironic "penguin slogans" was seen at the peaceful opposition rally at Riga's Dom Square that preceded the disorders.

Following statements that were seen as threats to freedom of assembly and speech by the Prime Minister immediately after the riots, journalist, blogger and radio personality (and my editor and colleague at LETA) Māris Zanders said that the government had "declared war" on the public and the only reasonable response was to prepare for non-violent resistance. Transcripts of Zanders' radio commentaries have appeared on the home page of the Penguins www.pingviniem.info, putting him in the unwanted position of being an informal leadership figure for what is emerging as a non-violent, almost anarchist resistance movement.

Zanders has published a number of addresses and mobile phone numbers that he hints might be those of government ministers and has urged the public to call or send SMS to these numbers to express dissatisfaction. He has also listed some addresses and locations in Riga that can be understood to be the residences of the same ministers.  The journalist's commentaries have been formulated in sufficiently vague terms so that no one can call them incitements to harass public figures. Press reports say that several ministers have been turning off their mobile phones after work or failing to answer calls from numbers they do not recognize.

Zanders has also suggested the people go on " peaceful strolls" in areas where the politicians live or where important meetings of the government and parliamentarians are taking place. One could even have a friendly "snowball fight", he said.

The penguin website is developing discussions of other non-violent and civil disobedience actions (silent vigils, refusals to disperse).  There is, too, an undertone of concern that the authorities might use force against such protests and what, then, would be the reaction of the penguins and their supporters.

Aside from the penguins, Latvian farmers, especially dairy farmers, are threatening to obstruct roads with farm machinery and perhaps organize similar militant actions in Riga. The farmers are asking for government support to avoid bankruptcy during the economic crisis.

I think we are seeing the seeds of an extraparliamentary opposition in Latvia, ranging from non-violent demonstrators to civil disobedience, to possibly other forms of resistance if the state is the first to use force.  I will try to keep readers informed.