PRESS RELEASE
Russia Charges West Turns Blind Eye to Neo-Nazism, While Feigning Concern For ‘Liberal Western Values’
March 17, 2017 (EIRNS)—Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Russian envoy to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Alexander Lukashevich, have sharply attacked the hypocrisy of Western nations for turning a blind eye to Neo-Nazi activities in the nation of Latvia, and elsewhere, while at the same time claiming to be concerned about threats to "liberal European values"—purportedly from alleged "Russian aggression."
Speaking this morning to representatives of Russian non-governmental organizations, Lavrov referenced yesterday’s march in Riga, Latvia of veterans and supporters of the volunteer Waffen SS Latvia Legion, which during World War II carried out mass killings of Jews and atrocities against other national groupings. European governments complain about threats to "liberal European values," Lavrov said, yet "we see the so-called silence of the lambs regarding the state support for regular marches of neo-Nazis in Latvia," Tass reported. "This is shameful for the European Union and for NATO," Lavrov charged,
"and such actions, which actually conspire to insult the memories of millions of victims, ignore decisions of the Nuremburg Tribunal, and the UN General Assembly’s resolution against glorification of Nazism."
Lukashevich has called on the OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights to demand that Latvian authorities stop supporting "or ignoring neo-Nazis ... gatherings of SS veterans and their supporters are an affront to the memory of millions of World War II victims." Lukashevich pointedly noted that the annual Latvian Legion march goes on, with not a peep out of Washington, London or Paris, or the EU leadership "which is quick to make harsh statements concerning others."
Governments ignore these Neo-Nazi activities at their peril, Lukashevich warned, as doing so "will inevitably lead to a tragedy." Referencing Ukraine, he remarked that
"for several years, nationalists wearing Nazi symbols have been torturing and killing people for their beliefs in one of our neighboring states."
More broadly, he said,
"we are witnessing a defacto rehabilitation and glorification of those who, as members of the volunteer Waffen SS Latvian Legion, committed numerous crimes in Russia, Belarus and Poland and were involved in large-scale punitive actions against hundreds of thousands of civilians and the mass killings of Jews."
