Open letter to U.S. Ambassador to Latvia Mark Pekala

I was disappointed that you chose not to meet with me when I was in Latvia recently, even though I mentioned to you that I have been going to Latvia for 25 years and you just arrived there. Even if you did not like what I wrote in The New York Times Sept. 15 issue, working for such an inept and mistake prone organization as the U.S. State department, you should value some outside input.

After all, the U.S. government turned a one month war in Afghanistan into a 10 year war.
We now face a major problem in Iran. Once there was a very simple, easy solution to Iran’s nuclear program, and the solution was called Saddam Hussein, and he was removed. Congratulations.
Besides being inept, the U.S. government is also immoral and dishonest and keeps pushing “old lies,” the biggest of which is that Russians in Latvia are a minority, which they are not. Before Latvia was occupied by Russia, there was a small Russian minority of 5 percent, which was only the third largest minority in Latvia. Only a few of today’s Russians can trace themselves back to these, the rest are in Latvia illegally and are colonists and occupiers and entered Latvia after it was occupied, which is illegal by all international treaties.

Also, most of the Russians in Latvia are children, grandchildren and other family members and relatives of militarists and secret policemen, i.e. the occupation apparatus. This means that from birth, all of them have been taught by their parents to dislike the Latvians, that Latvia is part of Russia, that Latvia’s independence in 1918 was a mistake and an accident.

When a country is occupied and then becomes free, the occupiers must leave, because they will not be happy living together as equals with people over whom they once had life or death powers, but don’t have them any more. Ask any psychologist how impossible that situation is.

The U.S. State department did not ask this, and only keeps pushing the “big lie” of a Russian minority and integration.
That is why the previous U.S. ambassador to Latvia, Judy Garber had mainly Russian friends in Latvia. Her best contact was the Russian ambassador to Latvia, and therefore the U.S. really had two ambassadors to Russia, one in Moscow and one in Riga, and none to the Latvians. Garber visited the homes of Russian politicians and introduced Russian as the second language at the U.S. embassy. And you, Mr. Ambassador, are following in her footsteps.

But there is also good news. At a recent conference in Vladivostok, Vladimir Putin bragged to your boss Hillary Clinton that he would now develop Russia’s Asian part (3/4 of Russia). But with what? With Vietnamese, Korean, Chinese workers alone it won’t work; there also have to be a substantial number of Russians, or you might as well give Siberia to China now and not waste time. In Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Konigsberg, there are almost 3 million Russians, nearly all in some way descended from the militarists and secret policemen. These people are ruined and can live peacefully and happily only in Russia, especially the kind of Russia Putin is building. The solution is simple: these Russians can not remain and live happily in the previously occupied countries, but can and are needed in Russia.

Therefore, U.S. should appoint a new ambassador to Latvia with the main task of working with Russia/Putin and the Latvian government to remove these Russians from Latvia and send them where they are needed - in Russian Asia.