Russian version
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| Riga Seaport |
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Ceremonial presentation of the logo of NATO Heads of State and Government Summit, which is to be held in the Latvian capital Riga on 28 and 29 of November, coincided with the worrisome preparation of the regular report by the Latvian Prime Minister to his government. This week PM Aigars Kalvitis faced the unpleasing task of making his cabinet aware of the scorching message of the recent US expert delegation concerned with the security situation at the Riga Seaport. Delegation that included the US security servicemen and military intelligence officers had apparently used the least flattering expressions to characterize their feeling about the lack of security awareness at the vast area located at a distance of a few kilometers from the scheduled site of the forthcoming NATO summit.
Kalvitis admitted to his government that the country might face serious international-scale problems due to the unsatisfactory security situation in the country’s seaports. In order not to infuriate the “moneybags”, whose interests are represented in Riga Seaport, the Prime Minister generalized the resolution of the US delegation applying it to all ports of the small country. This week Peteris Ustubs, Foreign Affairs Adviser of the Latvian Prime Minister, had to admit at the government’s session that lately the country’s embassies, Foreign Ministry and the Office of the Prime Minister have repeatedly received warnings and complaints concerning development and security of the Riga Seaport. “Something should be done, otherwise I foresee tremendous problems,” Neatkariga daily quoted Prime Minister Kalvitis as saying.
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Aigars Kalvitis |
From fragmentary information about the US experts’ conclusions, five main points can be drawn up: lack of public access to the Riga Seaport administrative and board decisions; port’s territory is disproportionately large raising questions about the destination of vast areas and their inadequate protection; the fact that none of internationally recognized cargo enterprises is currently working at the port; lack of security concept and security plan of the port; lack of a special seaport police.
The territory of the Riga Seaport occupies 2530 hectares with at least 60 companies, including 30 stevedore companies, in operation there. Our source in Riga underlined that the mentioned rootless feeling of the American experts at the Riga Seaport is evidently first of all related to the individuals who make the running there. The publicized “free port zone” appeared to be no more than a state administration zone closed to the public, where decisions are being taken in the interests of individuals with suspicious connections. The lease of the vast lands belonging to the seaport area was accorded without any tender to the businessmen owing the assets of dubious origin, and it’s only one of the latest examples of the seaport management policy. In Latvia no one will wonder if the port authorities would not be able to tell for what purpose or what content a certain area or facility in the seaport’s territory is intended. Viesturs Silenieks, the Environment Ministry representative at the Riga seaport management, admitted that right now each of the private companies controls its own gateway. The advice was given to the government to establish the seaport police to control the seaport territory and aquatorium.
80 hectares of land at the port belong to the Popova Legats company owned by Arnolds Laksa, the former member of parliament and former CEO of a few banks, known for his ties with Russia. According to AIA, while serving as the President of the Latvian Savings Bank, Laksa himself had coordinated a suspicious deal in Ukraine, with the offshore company Jetfirm Ltd. that, according to the open sources’ information, had close connections with the Russian Defense Ministry and Russian secret services. International audit company Deloitte&Touche, investigating the deals of the Latvian Savings Bank with the companies represented by the current leader of the Rodina political party, banker and Russian Army Central Sports Club (CSKA)
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| Alexander Babakov |
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Board of Directors Chairman and co-owner Alexander Babakov, concluded that Laksa as the bank’s president, by “individually appropriating and signing the loan documents without the agreement of the corresponding structures of the Savings Bank, had violated both, his authorities and the policy of the bank”. Latvian press notes that CSKA belongs to private investors and the Russian Defense Ministry, and it is also built upon the assistance of the Russian secret services. A few years ago Laksa and his colleague Ainars Slesers, the former Economy Minister and a millionaire businessman, attempted to move in their business partner Viesturs Koziols as the Riga Seaport board member. This information was reported by RFE/RL in August 2003. After the failure, the activities of the port had been hampered by the absence of the board for a long time.
By the way, according to the Telegraf daily, Jaunrigas attistibas uznemums, a company, implicitly connected with the abovementioned Ainars Slesers, has “occupied” the area of the port called Andrejsala.
58 hectares of the port territory is bought by the president of the Itera Latvia company Juris Savickis, the former Soviet KGB officer. According to AIA, at least his
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Juris Savickis |
Comunist party record-keeping was done in Moscow, as Savickis was a member of the KGB of Latvia 1st department (intelligence) that may mean that in certain extent he was subordinated to the main KGB apparatus. At present Savickis linked up with his former colleagues in the association Felix, a kind of an ex-KGB club in Riga. Kompromat.lv online magazine emphasizes that in the late 1980’s Savickis “was spying on the German direction”, and since then he allegedly considers Vladimir Putin to be a good friend of his.
These three is only a part of the mixture of “moneybags”, monkey-business representatives, as well as “mafia and bandits” (as the daily Diena puts it, describing the seaport lords) who, in fact, are controlling the Riga Seaport.
Formally all the decisions concerning the port are finally made by its highest decision-making body, the Board of Governors, consisting of four Riga City Council (the capital city mayor including) members and four delegates of the government. Observers in Latvia are tending to come to the conclusion that until now the board has only being implementing the will of the real decision makers.
The conclusion drawn by the US delegation that their senses related to the Riga Seaport might create more important political-level problems is evidently connected with the deep worry of the Americans about the overwhelming postulation of the Latvian state authorities with the aftereffects of the grave malady of corruption when the interests of the state and its security stay of minor importance. Sure enough, after the US experts inspection, Washington has got their alarming message that the strategically significant seaport of a NATO member state might have become not only an arena of the economic and other activity not serving to the interests of the state of its whereabouts and, inter alia, a kind of smithy of the agents of influence of the superpower that under the skin has restored its totalitarian-age ideology.
Some of the Latvian media, controlled by the local business structures, already have erected a version that all the fuss about the Riga Seaport is nothing but a display of the efforts of an influential American company that is pushing its new business project with the help of the US officials. Regretfully this is too good to be true. Everybody in Riga has already accustomed to fact that the news from the seaport are limited with the reports on regular scandals, incomprehensible deals and enormous salaries of its managers. It seems that now it is the turn of the European Union institutions to express their worries about the security of the EU external frontier and to put its intensified efforts to make sure of the real lie of the ground.
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