As The Baltic Times went to press on Feb. 14, it appeared a foregone conclusion that Estonia's parliament would pass the so-called Law on Forbidden Structures on the following day. The new law will essentially empower the government to remove the Bronze Soldier monument on Tonismagi. Passage of the law will elicit a deluge of criticism from both Estonia's minority Russian community and Moscow. The latter's reaction, of course, will reverberate throughout the international media.
To be sure, the hailstorm of criticism from Russia has been 's and will continue to be 's tainted by sanctimony. As Estonian officials are quick to point out, Russia's rapid economic expansion has not prevented the unceremonious removal of war monuments there. To his credit, President Vladimir Putin recognized this fact during a recent press conference in Moscow.
The Law on Forbidden Structures, which is supported by the ruling Reform Party and the oppositional Pro Patria and Res Publica Union, a center-right group, comes just five weeks after the Riigikogu (Estonia's parliament) passed the War Graves Protection Law, which was also designed with a view to dismantle the Tonismagi memorial site, which in addition to the Bronze Soldier also contains a grave allegedly containing 12 's 14 human remains. This week the Defense Ministry announced that, pursuant to the law, it had formed a war grave commission, which will have one year to decide upon the fate of all war graves in Estonia. There are hundreds of such graves scattered throughout the country; in many the number of human remains, and even who they belong to, is unclear.
The forbidden structures law, however, increases the stakes. Lawmakers in support of the legislation added a clause that obliges the government to remove the Bronze Soldier within 30 days after the laws goes into effect. Lawmakers want to prevent a situation where every May 9 and September 22 's during Russian and Estonian remembrance days, respectively 's throngs of flag-waving citizens use Tonismagi as a political soapbox. Emotions run high in such settings and are guaranteed to spark confrontations and vandalistic attacks on the monument. This is exactly what happened last year, and why local police were called upon to protect Tonismagi.
But the haste with which lawmakers 's who have a limited number of sessions left before a new Parliament is elected on March 4 's are ramming through the Law on Forbidden Structures has elicited concern. MPs from the Center Party claim that the law contains four violations of the constitution, an opinion that President Toomas Hendrik Ilves has also expressed. He may veto the bill on this basis.
While the war grave law is commonsensical 's there is no need for an unmarked war grave in downtown Tallinn, the deceased should rest in a proper cemetery 's the one of forbidden structures is tricky. If Estonian politicians take away Tonismagi, the Russians will just take their Victory Day celebrations elsewhere. In defiance, they may even organize louder, grander memorial events. And then what? Will lawmakers demand that the interior minister dismantle that memorial as well? As Foreign Minister Urmas Paet wrote this week, "We consider memorials that are not located in cemeteries or battlefields as political monuments." One can see a vicious circle forming here. And the end will be an irrevocable schism in Estonian society. For a small nation with a large demographic problem, this is the last thing Estonia needs.
