RIGA - Several thousand ethnic Russian schoolchildren skipped classes on April 15 - the fifth time so far this year - to protest the government's education reform program that will cut the number of Russian language classes for high school-age students.
The protest, which was held in Esplanade Park in downtown Riga and gathered some 5,000 protesters, went ahead despite calls from the principals of several predominantly Russian-language schools not to involve adolescents.
Latvian officials, who typically brushed off the throngs of schoolchildren in white T-shirts and carrying a variety of posters, expressed increasing frustration at the regularity of the demonstrations, which are organized by an unregistered group - the Headquarters for the Defense of Russian Schools, or Shtab - with dubious origins and financial backing.
Prime Minister Indulis Emsis decried the demonstration and all attempts to involve school kids in "unsanctioned protest events, aimed against securing a quality educational system and the integration of Latvian society."
Pursuant to the education reform, students at minority high schools will have to study 60 percent of their subjects in Latvian.
Emsis asked law enforcement agencies to "thoroughly look into information submitted by schoolchildren and their parents as separate groups unfriendly to Latvia are possibly trying to turn the protests into a more violent means" of demonstration.
The Cabinet of Ministers, which will enforce the education reform program when it goes into affect on Sept. 1 of this year, condemned the protest.
"The Cabinet of Ministers will not succumb to pressure, which is promoted with cunning, lies and sometimes even threats, using children, [and] funded by unknown sources, whose aims have nothing in common with solving issues of the education reform," it said in a statement.
Security Police Chief Janis Reiniks said that he believed that Shtab, which had promised to bring 50,000 minority schoolchildren out to protest, is no longer in control of the situation and that the protests are becoming more aggressive.
"The unregistered organization that calls itself the Headquarters for the Defense of Russian Schools can no longer control the situation, and aggressive forms of action on behalf of participants of the events are increasing," said Reiniks.
The police chief added that a number of violations were registered at the April 15 events.
The Riga city public order police chief, Valdis Voins, said that those protest participants who had stood outside the Cabinet of Ministers had acted provocatively and used force.
Several officials responded by calling for resolute action to punish organizers of the protests, including billing them for the costs of maintaining security.
Kristine Apse-Krumina, an aide to the security police, said that if in the future the organizers of such events were unable to control the situation, they would be held accountable.
Jurijs Petropavlovskis, a Shtab activist, said that Reiniks was exaggerating the situation.
"I wouldn't say we cannot control it - all ended well," said Petropavlovskis.
He said that there was a small incident when a few kids had not been aware that they may not come within 50 meters of a government building, but the situation was dealt with.
The government, however, disagreed. Officials claimed that organizers of the event have gone out of bounds, mentioning that rural school kids were persuaded to take busses to Riga, promising to take them shopping, the Baltic News Service reported.
The government also claimed that schoolchildren, parents and teachers have informed of suspicious individuals posted at Russian language schools in Riga on April 15 and who prevented kids from entering so that they partook in the protest.
Official frustration with the protests was felt as far away as China. Speaking from Beijing where she was on an official state visit, President Vaira Vike-Freiberga told a press conference that the protests are "instigated by Moscow politicians" and "could be regarded as interfering with our internal matters."
The president explained that Latvia supports education in minority languages and has schools with Polish- and Lithuanian-, as well as Russian-,language classes.
Commenting on relations with Russia, Vike-Freiberga said that after 50 years of occupation tension has remained between the two neighbors.
"Latvia does not have a border treaty with Russia because Russia doesn't want it. It might retain an illusion that Latvia is not free," said Vike-Freiberga.
The government stated that "regarding the concerns of parents... a negotiation group headed by the Ministry of Education and Science has launched a dialogue with teachers at Russian-language schools, schoolchildren and their parents. The essence of the education reform is being explained to them, and together, ways for implementing the reform are sought after so that the quality of education is not threatened in the future at any school in Latvia."
