"I considered it unthinkable."
This was one of Prime Minister Andrus Ansip's most famous responses to the riots that rocked Tallinn after the government decided to move the statue commonly known as the Bronze Soldier to a site outside of the city.
The statue stood on top of a dozen graves of Soviet soldier that fought against Nazi Germany in World War II. The statue and the remains were moved to a military cemetery outside of the city 's a far more appropriate and respectful locale.
Everyone knows what happened after the Bronze Soldier was moved. The "unthinkable" happened. The riots caused thousands of euros worth of damages, hundreds were left injured and one was killed.
While the scale of the rioting was indeed beyond comprehension, the government should at least have known that something was in the air. The statue had often acted as a gathering point for Russian dissenters, and there was widespread turmoil when talk of the possible move surfaced days before.
Now many in Estonia are shocked by the acquittals of four men that everyone thought had organized the riots. It seems that many would have considered the ruling "unthinkable."
People seem surprised that the judge had actually looked at the evidence before coming to her decision. The ruling may seem like a nod toward Russia 's which hailed the ruling as an "indictment against those who want to rewrite history" 's but it could truly have been a balanced decision based on the evidence at hand.
Nonetheless, and for the second time in this fiasco, many politicians and legal experts should have seen this coming. Many, and the prosecutor's office most of all, should have known that bringing people to justice for the riots would be a long and difficult process.
It can be difficult to single out organizers of mass unrest of the sort that took place during the Bronze Soldier riots. In this case, however, someone needs to be taken to task for more than stealing a new stereo or a few bags of chips and a soda. Those who instigated the destruction should not be allowed to lie in wait for the next opportunity to stir up trouble.
There was clearly some strong organization behind the riots 's there would otherwise be no reason for people to take to the streets en masse over such a relatively unimportant and commonplace move. Not to mention the cyber attacks that followed.
Whether the four men who were acquitted of organizing the riots are actually guilty or not is beside the point. The point is that the prosecutor's office and the interior ministry needed to take the case more seriously, and everyone involved needed to realize that without proper evidence and due process the case could be lost.
Everyone involved seemed to think that a conviction was a foregone conclusion, and that we would all soon be able to put this whole nasty business behind us.
Instead, the unthinkable happened.
