Conservative party fights shadows of the past

  • 2007-01-24
  • By Arturas Racas

UNSOLVED CRIMES: Paksas' Liberal Democrat Party believes the Homeland Union was behind several terrorist acts in the 1990s.

VILNIUS - The opposition Liberal Democrat Party, headed by former President Rolandas Paksas, has urged Interior Minister Petras Baguska to suspend the activities of Homeland Union (Conservative Party) until its alleged links with the terrorist acts in Lithuania are refuted. "The facts related to the explosion of Brazuole bridge, Juras Abromavicius' murder, the volunteers' riot, the detonation of the Lietuvos rytas building, which recently broke, suggest the decisive role of the conservatives in the organization of these terrorist acts," Liberal Democrat Party said in a statement released on Jan. 22.

All the above mentioned incidents took place in Lithuania in 1993-1997 yet none were subsequently investigated, the Liberal Democrats claim.

Now, however, these infamous events have been resurrected during the meetings of a special parliamentary commission that is investigating one of them 's the murder of former State Security Department employee, Juras Abromavicius.
Audrius Butkevicius, Lith-uania's first defense minister, Egidijus Bickauskas, the country's first ambassador to Russia and signatory of the Independence Act, and Kristina Sudziene, volunteer of Lithuanian army, all testified to the commission in the beginning of January that Juras Abromavicius' murder was ordered by politicians.
And all three indirectly pointed at the Conservative Party.

Both Sudziene and Butkevicius said that the reason to murder Abromavicius was that he had information about the volunteers' riot in 1993 and the explosion of Brazuole bridge in 1994.
In the so-called riot, a group of armed volunteers set up in the forests near Kaunas in 1993 after the 1992 parliamentary elections in which the former Communist Party scored big. Recalling wartime partisans, the volunteers spent a few months in the forest and refused to obey orders from the new government.

The Brazuole bridge was detonated in November 1994. Local residents immediately reported the incident, which in turn prevented a massive train wreck. One of the two trains scheduled to pass the bridge not long after the explosion was a passenger train going from Russia's mainland to its Kaliningrad enclave.

"The politicians who inspired the detonation of Brazuole bridge 's I believe this was a result of Vytautas Landsbergis' games with bombs 's are responsible that people, who executed their political orders turned into criminals. You should make step B, once you have made A, and to relieve yourself from the man who had much evidence," Butkevicius told the commission.
Sudziene and Bickauskas also told the commission that Landsbergis, the first actual Lithuanian head-of-state and then head of the Conservative Party, could have stopped the action of volunteers. Instead, he did nothing.

"Landsbergis was like God for those soldiers'sthey worshiped him. If Landsbergis said that volunteers must leave the forest and obey the government, they would do it. But everything turned out just the opposite," Sudziene told the commission.
Landsbergis, however, has claimed that the 1993 riot was inspired by Russian special services.
"The reason was very simple 's it was the last stage of Russian army withdrawal, and Lithuania was the first [Baltic] country to be rid of the Russian army. There were ideas to retain Lithuania, and plans were drawn up how to do it," he explained.
"One of the ways…to announce to the world that Lithuania has fallen into instability and will threaten other countries once the Russian army leaves," Landsbergis said.

He also said that detonation of Brazuole bridge was also a provocation aiming at reaction from Russia.
"One can only imagine what would be Russia's actions and demands following the alleged murder of its people. Military actions against Lithuania could have been taken already in 1994," Landsbergis said.
The parliamentary commission investigating Juras Abro-mavicius' murder is the second official organ trying to establish the truth. The first parliamentary commission was established in 1997, when the Conservative Party had an absolute majority in Parliament.

However, it was unable to find the answer to the main questions: who murdered Abromavicius and why he was murdered. Few believe that final answers will materialize this time around as well.