Lithuania 'hurt' by U.S. resolution

Oct 03, 2008
Talis Archdeacon in cooperation with BNS

VILNIUS - A Lithuanian foreign ministry spokesman has said that the country was "hurt" by a U.S. House of Representatives resolution condemning the country over its failure to halt construction on a Jewish cemetery near Vilnius.

The House passed a resolution on Oct. 2 criticizing the Lithuanian government for failing to address the controversial issue. Almost all members of the House of Representative voted in favor of the resolution.

"We've repeatedly asked the Lithuanians to stop construction until the cemetery's boundary disputes could be resolved... yet at every turn, the Lithuanian government has failed to be responsive and protect this sacred ground. It's my hope that this resolution will shine much-needed light on the Lithuanian government's failure to act and ultimately motivate them to do the right thing," Mike Ferguson, author of the resolution, was quoted as saying in the New Jersey Jewish News portal on Thursday.

The Lithuanian Foreign Ministry said that the resolution did not accurately reflect the situation.

"We are hurt by the resolution passed in the U.S. House of Representatives, which was initiated a year back and which fails to take into consideration that the Lithuanian government has given considerable attention to issues of enshrining cultural heritage in Snipiskes, all the while closely cooperating with Jewish experts. The former Snipiskes Jewish cemetery has been granted status of cultural heritage of the Republic of Lithuania, and with it the corresponding legal protection," said Violeta Gaizauskaite, Director of the Foreign Ministry's Information and Public Relations Department.

"We would see this type of a resolution by the U.S. House of Representatives as not reflecting the actual situation," she said.

Under agreement struck between Lithuanian and Israeli experts, an archeological dig was to set to determine the extent of the cemetery and whether construction had taken place over Jewish remains. Jewish representatives, however, requested to have the dig put to a halt due to discovery of human remains some 30 centimeters below ground.

The research was expected to reveal whether a luxurious apartment building on the bank of Lithuania's second largest river, the Neris, was built in the location of a former Jewish cemetery.

The said cemetery had been open in the center of Vilnius since the 16th century, was closed in the 19th century and dismantled in mid-20th century.

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