Captain Peeter Mitt, the center's commander, confirmed that a number of Paldiki residents called the center several times during the evening of July 23 complaining that peacekeepers were beating people up.
The police department of Harju county, where Paldiski is located 50 kilometers to the west of Tallinn, also received calls from the townsfolk and sent a patrol car to the town. The policemen reported that everything was quiet.
Paldiski does not have its own police station, and this is generally seen as the main reason why the assaults occurred, said Kaupo Kallas, the town's mayor.
"We have two police officer posts, and one of these is currently vacant due to a lack of interest from possible candidates," said Kallas.
But it is becoming clear that the main reason for the assaults is one of ethnicity in a town that was formerly a closed Soviet military base dominated by Russian speakers.
Andrei Krutikov, 23, was going by bicycle to meet his friend working at a baker's shop when a crowd of about 20 young men barred his way, stopped him and asked if he spoke Estonian.
The modest answer, "Yes, I do speak it, but just a little," became crucial for Krutikov. He was seriously beaten and kicked and had to spend a week off work.
Krutikov told the Postimees daily that the gang were peacekeepers from the local training center looking for some local youngsters who stole a mobile phone and a wallet from one of the soldiers earlier in the evening. He added that he was sure he was beaten simply because he did not speak the state language fluently. He also said that he was not the first victim of the "violent peacekeepers."
"I was beaten like several other innocent people in the town, even including a couple of women," he said.
Krutikov said there would be no use writing a complaint to the police because it was dark and he would not recognize any of the offenders.
On the same evening, July 23, the peacekeepers also paid a visit to the Sadko Bar. Owner Galina Maljutina has sent a bill for broken furniture and smashed dishes to the Peacekeepers Operations Center.
According to Maljutina, the soldiers visited the bar looking for a fight by asking clientele if they spoke Estonian. Those who did not were beaten.
The bar, located next to St. Nicholas Church in an old and unrenovated house, is a popular spot in town despite the jerry-built interior and post-Soviet standards of service.
According to unconfirmed information, a young woman who witnessed the incident lost her breast milk due to psychological shock.
Irina, owner of the small Vaike-Paala store about 100 meters from the bar, confirmed that peacekeepers were loose in the town that evening. They also terrified visitors in the shop by asking if they spoke Estonian.
According to Harju County's police department, none of Paldiski's residents have written complaints about the soldiers. On the contrary, some of the peacekeepers have kicked up a fuss about assaults from local youngsters who supposedly offended and beat them a week before.
The police, however, have already solved several cases regarding the offended peacekeepers, and stated on Aug. 6 that in all three cases the soldiers were drunk.
Speaking of another, older case, police reported that even the Peacekeepers Operations Center's priest who was assaulted and robbed last December was drunk during the assault.
Peeter Tali, a spokesman for the Estonian Defense Forces tried to point out last week that the violent spirit of the peacekeepers was a reaction to the offensive attitude of local people toward the soldiers.
The case revealed and reported by Postimees became a tidbit for Russia's Foreign Office, which did not fail to accuse Estonia generally of anti-Russian attitudes.
In a statement full of explicit expressions and composed according to the best traditions of political propaganda, Russian Foreign Ministry chief spokesman Aleksander Yakovenko blamed the soldiers for behaving like "fascist-minded hooligans" even though as peacekeepers they should be especially well aware of the dangers of national extremism.
"These incidents would remain a routine case for the police chronicles if the witnesses had not reported that the soldiers beat only Russian-speakers and only because of their poor command of Estonian," wrote Yakovenko on Aug. 1.
Mayor Kallas managed to come out with a much simpler explanation for the beatings. "The local girls apparently adore men in uniform. And the local boys don't like that," he suggested in a news conference on Aug. 3.
Estonia's only Peacekeepers Operations Center was created in Paldiski in 1994. Soldiers who have graduated from there have been on operations in Croatia, Lebanon, Bosnia and Kosovo. A private receives 4,600 kroons ($260) monthly salary while training there, and a hefty 15,000 kroons ($847) a month when on a peacekeeping mission.
The former Soviet naval base has a population of 4,100. Estonia only gained complete control over the town in 1995 after a nuclear reactor at a submarine crew training center had been dismantled.
The Defense Forces' press service emphasized that there was no reason to believe the Paldiski conflict had any nationalistic hue.
Defense Forces commander Rear Admiral Tarmo Kouts said a soldier has a right to defend himself when attacked, pointing out Paldiski is divided between teenage interest groups who do not accept newcomers and the peacekeepers themselves.
Please enter your username and password.
2024 © The Baltic Times /Cookies Policy
