In the summer of 1940, when Paris was occupied by Nazi Germany's armed forces, Latvia was violently seized by the Soviet Union, as was previously agreed in the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. The occupation was followed by the most severe oppression that Latvia had ever suffered.
Within a year, more than 35,000 people were arrested, tortured, shot dead or deported - among them were women, children, infants, and the elderly.
Hundreds of Latvian army lieutenants, soldiers who had fought for a free Latvia in the 1919-20 war of freedom against the Germans and the Bolsheviks were either shot dead or otherwise severely punished.
We were deprived of our statehood, our human dignity, our basic rights and freedoms. Many of our family members lost their lives.
In the following year, in 1941, Soviet occupation gave way to Nazi occupation, which also imposed a violent rule on our citizens. Following its failure on the Eastern front, Nazi Germany, gravely in breach of international law, started to draft Latvian citizens into its armed forces, just as it was previously done by the Soviet Union in 1940.
Those who resisted this illegal Nazi political move were either sentenced to death or sent to concentration camps.
The young Latvian men of that time, if they were to save their lives and retain a glimmer of hope of regaining independence for their country, had no choice but to fight one enemy of Latvia in the uniform of another.
Our only hope on the battlefield was that there would be a recurrence of the history of World War I, when two superpowers battled each other until Latvia was able to win its own statehood in 1918.
Miserably, the hopes that we put on the West - as Latvians had also done in 1919 - did not materialize, and history did not repeat itself. In 1944, Colonel Kurelis led an unsuccessful attempt to resist the Nazi forces on Latvian soil.
As peace was restored to Western Europe in 1945, resistance against the Soviet occupation that had swept away Nazi German rule continued throughout Latvia. As there was still a glimpse of hope for Western intervention throughout the following 10 years, guerrilla warfare continued.
We felt betrayed, humiliated and exposed to Soviet cruelty, as there was no power capable or willing to stand up for our dream: a free and democratic Latvia. We were forced to wait half a century until the subjugation of our native land ended. Many of us did not live to see that moment.
The Latvian National Soldiers Organization believes that for the sake of our innumerable victims and for the sake of our grandchildren, everything must be done to irreversibly preserve Latvian statehood. We are of the belief that this goal can be achieved by Latvia becoming a NATO member state.
We understand that NATO is an organization that can prevent such a tragic recurrence of European history as that to which we fell victim 60 years ago. We strongly renounce all defamation that portrays us as supporters of any kind of totalitarian regime, whether communist or Nazi.
We share an equally firm condemnation of both regimes, as well as of those Latvian citizens who participated in the repressive acts of the Nazi and communist regimes against the peaceful civilians of Latvia or elsewhere.
We firmly repudiate the Holocaust and all other acts of genocide.
At this crucial moment in the history of Latvia, the Latvian National Soldiers Organization calls on everyone to abstain from commemorating March 16, which, as experience has shown us, has been mendaciously distorted by opposing groups as a demonstration against democracy, human rights and freedom.
The Latvian National Soldiers Organization dissociates itself from any defiant actions that might be misused against ourselves or against the interests of our country by association with March 16.
We have but one goal - a free, secure and independent Latvia within a free Europe.
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