Fresh Estonia clashes after RA statue removed

By Staff
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Google Oneindia News

Tallinn, Apr 28: Sporadic clashes between police and youths broke out in Estonia's capital today after the removal of the statue of a Red Army Soviet soldier and a night of riots in which one man died.

The authorities took the monument away today, saying it was a public order problem as it attracted Estonian and Russian nationalists.

Russia reacted furiously to the monument being moved and its upper house of parliament voted to ask President Vladimir Putin to sever relations with the Baltic state. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow would ''take serious steps''.

In the capital city, Tallinn, gangs of Estonian and Russian youths shadowed each other around the streets as darkness fell, shouting ''Russia, Russia'' or ''Estonia, Estonia'' at each other.

In one central square, near the site where the statue had stood, police moved in and detained a gang of youths after a short scuffle. Police attempted to keep people from gathering in large numbers and to push them away from the monument site.

Police and around 200 youths later faced off in a street near the city centre.

The 2-metre (6-1/2 ft) high bronze statue of a World War Two Red Army soldier was moved after the worst violence in years in Estonia, including vandalism and looting by mainly Russian-speaking protesters.

''The aim of the ... decision was to avoid further possible actions against public order,'' the government said.

Russians Furious

Removing the statue angered some Russian-speakers, who number about 300,000 in a country of 1.3 million. Estonians tend to view it as a reminder of 50 years of Soviet occupation.

Estonia said one man died in the disturbances, which began after more than 1,000 people gathered to protest against the plan to remove the statue yesterday. He was stabbed.

Police arrested 300 people, while 44 protesters and 13 police were hurt. Looters set fires and damaged cars.

Television pictures from inside a tent erected over the site showed a long patch where the statue, set up in 1947, had been.

''I ask everyone who is planning a protest action to stay at home. It is not sensible to start one's life with a jail term,'' Prime Minister Andrus Ansip said in televised comments.

Russia, which has had troubled ties with Estonia since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, had protested against moving the monument as an insult to those who fought against fascism.

Russia's Foreign Ministry did not specify what measures it was considering against Estonia. Lavrov, at a NATO meeting in Oslo, said the issue was of interest to Estonia, Russia and to Europe as it touched on European values.

Reuters>

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