Amendments urge KGB collaborators to confess Soviet past

  • 2006-10-04
  • By Arturas Racas

FESS UP: Sadeckas (Pictured above right with former State Security Department head Laurinkus) hopes that KGB collaborators will confess.

VILNIUS - In an attempt to rid the country of its Soviet legacy, the Lithuanian government may give former KGB informers and collaborators one more chance to relieve their conscience and confess their past. Amendments to Lithuania's so-called lustration law, which are scheduled for discussion in Parliament, would introduce another year-long term for Lithuania's former KGB collaborators to confess their allegiance and avoid possible blackmail.

The legislation would provide those who didn't already speak up in 2000 's the last term of confession - with a second chance to do so.
"I believe that the proposal to give a new term for confession is sound and fair. There are more than one or two people in Lithuania who would like to seize this last opportunity and relieve their conscience," Dalia Kuodyte, chairman of Parliament's lustration commission, told The Baltic Times.

At the same time, the government would abolish restrictions on the employment of former KGB officers in private companies, following a European Human Rights Court ruling that such restrictions violate the European Convention on Human Rights.
In 2000, Lithuania adopted a law obliging all former KGB informers to confess their relations with the Soviet secret service within six months. KGB officers were asked to confess in 1999.
However, experts say less than half of the Baltic state's former KGB collaborators used the opportunity.
"The lustration process has taken too long in Lithuania, and we have to find a way to conclude it correctly," Kuodyte said.
She added that official documents suggest some 4,000 people were KGB agents or informers during the 50-year long Soviet occupation.

"Approximately 1,600 people confessed their relations with the KGB, and 53 were declared collaborators. There are still many hiding their past. After 15 years of independence, the state may allow itself to be generous and give them one more chance," Kuodyte said.
But she believes that the term for confession should be shorter than one year. Six months is enough, Kuodyte said.
Alvydas Sadeckas, head of Parliament's national security and defense committee, also believes that the confession term should be extended.

"It is in the interests of the country to allow those people to reveal their cooperation with the KGB. It is in our interest to get as much information as possible on KGB activities in Lithuania," Sadeckas, who headed the parliamentary group, which prepared the amendments to lustration laws, told The Baltic Times.
However, he predicted that there would be much debate about the amendments in Parliament.
"There is still much tension around the issue," Sadeckas said.

Last year, the Lithuanian media reported that two of the country's top officials 's then Foreign Minister Antanas Valionis and head of the State Security Department Arvydas Pocius - were included in the list of KGB reserve officers. Both men insisted that their names were added to the list without their consent, and a special parliamentary commission was established to investigate the allegations.
In the end, the commission cleared Valionis and Pocius, stating that no laws were violated when the officials were appointed. Yet many politicians disputed the verdict, and argued that being included on the KGB reserve list should be treated as collaboration. They also insisted that this should be pointed out in Lithuania's lustration law, which does not discuss the status of KGB reservists.

"I would say that now, confessions are more a symbolic farewell with the past, as threats related to former KGB officers are more theoretical than real," Kuodyte said.
Alongside the recently proposed amendments, legislators will discuss a law passed in 1999 that bars former KGB officers from working in the public sector, banks, private security companies, communication sector, and as a lawyer, notary or teacher.
In its 2004 and 2005 ruling, the European Court of Human Rights Court stated that employment restrictions on former KGB collaborators working in the private sector violated basic human rights.
However, restrictions on former secret service agents working in the civil service sector and in private security firms would be left in the new law, Sadeckas said.

"We have new proposals and new issues to address every day," Sadeckas said, declining to predict when Parliament might adopt the amendments.
Parliament was scheduled to debate the lustration law amendments on Sept. 28, however the meeting was postponed due to internal debate over questionable KGB documents.