Yeltsin renounces Latvia's highest decoration

RIGA (BNS) - The first president of Russia, Boris Yeltsin, has renounced Latvia's highest decoration, the Order of Three Stars. Latvia had decided to bestow the medal on Yeltsin for his assistance to Latvia in regaining its independence.

"Having become president of a democratic Russia, I gave resolute support to Latvia's movement along the path of asserting its state sovereignty," Yeltsin said in a statement. "We were hoping that the neighboring state would become a civilized democratic society, where human rights are respected.

"Unfortunately, we are witnesses to another policy today - Latvia's population is divided into first-class and second-class citizens. The rights of national minorities are being infringed upon, and there is open discrimination against our compatriots," Yeltsin said.

"In Latvia, a campaign of persecution is being launched against war and military service veterans, who bore on their shoulders the main brunt of the fight against fascism," Yeltsin claimed.

"The recent court sentence on the 77-year-old war veteran Vassily Kononov, especially against the background of liberal attitude towrds Nazis, amounts to sneering at the memory of thousands of Fascism victims and shook the entire Russian community," the former president noted.

"Under these circumstances, moral and human convictions prevent me from accepting the award," he said in his statement.

Yetsin is the first statesman to refuse the decoration, Tristar Order Council Secretary Sarmita Baumane said.

"The Order of Three Stars is a very high decoration to be awarded for great and distinguished merits, therefore Yeltsin's statement came as an unpleasant surprise for me," she said.

The suggestion to decorate the former Russian president with the Tristar Order was made by Latvia's New Party.

The New Party and a number of Latvian state officials believe that the personal position of Yeltsin in recognition of independence of the Baltic states is invaluable and Yeltsin has provided not only political and moral but also material support.

New Party chairman Raimonds Pauls told reporters he regretted the decision by Yeltsin. "It was a good will gesture," he said. In addition, the New Party noted that Yeltsin also had blocked decisions of the Russian State Duma about the economic sanctions against Latvia.

Parliamentary foreign committee chairman Gundars Krasts told BNS from the very start he had predicted problems in Russia, not Latvia. Nevertheless, Krasts had not expected Yeltsin to respond so harshly. He said Yeltsin feared negative response from Russia's community.

"He could not afford [to take] the order," said Krasts.