Estonian minister accused of lying

TALLINN- Jaanus Rahumagi, chairman of the parliament's security institutions supervisory committee, has evaded statements by Interior Minister Juri Pihl to the effect that the committee wishes to keep the intelligence function of the defense forces.

Rahumagi, of the ruling Reform Party, told the daily Eesti Paevaleht that the assertions of Pihl, a Social Democrat, were untrue.

He said there were two security institutions in Estonia -- the Security Police dealing with counterintelligence and the Information Board focusing on military, foreign and economic intelligence.

"At the request of the national defense committee, an amendment has been made by our special security institutions supervisory committee. It regards military intelligence not as an independent intelligence unit in the composition of the defense forces, but as a sphere of activity of the Information Board," Rahumagi added. "We are getting rid of the system that created a lot of bad blood and in which the defense forces had its own intelligence unit."

Pihl said in Friday's issue of the daily Eesti Paevaleht that Rahumagi had made an amendment to the defense forces organization bill extending authority of the military intelligence as well as carrying out domestic surveillance activities.

"This would bring the effective system out of balance," the minister said.

Rahumagi said that the intelligence chapter was very contradictory. "It was clear that it had been drawn up in a hurry," he added.

The MP underlined that the wording had mostly been made more intelligible in the security institutions committee. "To read from the paper the interior minister's reproaches is the same as to accuse the parliament of being a rubber stamp," the committee chairman said.

Rahumagi said that the problem was in that by the bill control of at least one thousand members of the defense forces would have been given to the Security Police.

"This means planning the activity of the Security Police not in Estonia alone, but also in Afghanistan," he said. "Substantially the Security Police should be transferred to the defense forces territory, which means friction between structures and which we do not want by any means."

Rahumagi added that actually the Security Police already had control over the defense forces because it exercised security control of the leadership of the Information Board as well as the defense forces staff.

"To say that the control will disappear as a result of our motions is a lie," he said.

Rahumagi reiterated that for an unknown reason Pihl wanted to hand over to the Security Police the execution of security control, which means that the Security Police and the Interior Ministry would start controlling the personnel policy of the defense forces.

"I personally do not consider this to be right and find it is a security risk," he saidf.

Pihl himself said in Saturday's issue of Eesti Paevaleht that the defense forces organization bill had been written over several years and mainly the Defense Ministry and the Justice Ministry had thoroughly polished it.

"The role of the Interior Ministry in the issue what the structure of the defense forces intelligenece and counterintelligence should look like is secondary," he added, "Before handing the bill over to the government, there were numerous discussions in which also the justice minister, the defense minister, the interior minister and the defense forces headquarters took part.

The minister said that the final position was endorsed by the government security committee and the compromises and solutions were approved also by the government.

"They do not concentrate power and permit agencies to perform their main duties," said Pihl, a former head of the Security Police.