VILNIUS 's Parliamentary Speaker Arturas Paulauskas said that President Valdas Adamkus should not go to Moscow to mark the victory over Nazi Germany if Russia's plans to unveil a monument to Joseph Stalin proved bore themselves out prior to May 9.
"If the recent news about plans to unveil a monument to Stalin in Moscow on May 9 proved true, my decision would be clear - not to go," Paulauskas said in an interview to Lithuania's national radio on Friday. "To participate in the unveiling of a monument to the person who caused so much harm to Lithuania, to people, who headed the country that occupied Lithuania and exiled Lithuanians would mean to pay tribute to a butcher."
Ambassador to Russia Rimantas Sidlauskas this week asked the Russian Foreign Ministry for an official explanation as to whether a monument to Stalin was really planned to be unveiled in Moscow on May 9.
The scandal erupted after reports filtered out of Moscow about plans to build a monument to the Allied leaders 's Stalin, Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt 's in Moscow. Later it was reported that a memorial picturing four nameless soldiers, but not the three anti-Hitler coalition leaders, would be unveiled on the occasion of V-Day.
Paulauskas also said that even if the report about a monument to Stalin turned out to be false, one should not forget that May 9 "was not a festive day for Lithuania," as it was followed by the half-century occupation of the country. "So it is not a jubilant day… It is not a jubilant day for our country, and these circumstances should be taken into consideration when making a decision," he said.
