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EESTI ELU reedel, 10. juulil 2020 — Friday, July 10, 2020
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Quiet diplomacy isn’t working for Kovrig and Spavor Marcus Kolga, Gary Caroline, The Star, July 2020 For nearly 600 days, Cana dians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor have been held hostage by China, their fate contingent on that of Meng Wanzhou, CFO of Huawei, who is facing extra dition to the U.S. and is under house arrest in a luxury mansion in Vancouver. Caught between the compet ing interests of China and the United States, the Trudeau government is faced with unap pealing choices. It can allow Meng’s extradi tion hearing to play out in the courts, knowing that her committal to stand trial in the U.S. could have potentially catastrophic consequences for the two Michaels. Or it can make a political decision to terminate the judi cial process and free Meng, a move that, while lawful, would provoke the wrath of our closest ally and largest trading partner, and cast broad doubts on Canada’s commitment to re specting its treaty commitments. Late last month, the prime minister rejected a proposal by 19 prominent Canadians, who urged the government to take
Not so fondly remembered Operation Anglers. That was the name (Õngevennad) given by the KGB in 1978 to the effort to locate and eliminate the last of the known Forest Brethren, August Sabbe. They succeeded. Two KGB agents found Sabbe fishing on the Võhandu River, near his birthplace of Paidra in south eastern Estonia (Võrumaa) on September 28 of that year. The area is well forested and offered many Forest Brothers shelter and a base for resis tance operations. When the KGB men, who were posing as fishermen, eased Sabbe’s vigilance to the extent that he relaxed, then tried to arrest him, Sabbe proved why he had remained a free man for 34 years, after Estonia fell to the Red Army in the fall of 1944. Sabbe chose his own way out by jumping into the Võhan du. The KGB, which document ed the attempted arrest with photographs, found his body wedged under a submerged log. They claimed that he drowned attempting to escape. However, many suggested that Sabbe’s action was deli berate – the Võhandu is a slow-moving riv er, shallow and narrow at the spot where Sabbe was found fishing. Rather than face trial, imprisonment or execution it may have been that he took his own life, master of his destiny to the end. Priit Vesilind was the first to bring large-scale attention to
the latter approach. Former PM Jean Chrétien made a similar suggestion last year, which was rejected by then-Foreign Minis ter Chrystia Freeland, who told Canadians that “it would be a very dangerous precedent in deed for Canada to alter its behaviour when it comes to honouring an extradition treaty in response to external pres sure.” By capitulating to China’s hostage-taking, Canada would only invite more of the same in future diplomatic disputes, put ting countless Canadians at risk abroad while undermining con fidence in the rule-of-law at home. That being said, there is little to indicate that Canada’s quiet diplomacy of the past 18 months will suddenly bear fruit. It is time for Canada to take a new tack, one aimed at secur ing the two Michaels’ release by putting meaningful and measured pressure on a regime that has scant respect for diplo matic niceties and even less for human rights. In our view, Canada has numerous options: • One is to call out Huawei for what it is: an ostensibly private company that is in fact so closely tied to the Chinese state as to be in some respects indis
tinguishable from it – precisely why Beijing sees Meng’s deten tion as such an intolerable affront. From the perspective of national security, the Trudeau government should consider banning the sale of all Huawei products and technologies in our marketplace, in addition to prohibiting their participation in the building our 5G network. We should co-ordinate and work with all of our allies to advocate for them to do the same, not just those in the Five Eyes intelligence alliance. • Canada could also take puni tive measures against individual Chinese officials involved in the detention of the two Michaels, both of whom are being held in oppressive conditions and have endured what has been des cribed as “torture” as they await near-certain conviction on false charges. Canada’s Magnitsky law, which allows for the imposition of targeted economic sanctions and travel bans on foreign human-rights abusers, was de signed for just this sort of case. It should be deployed to full effect and other countries with similar legislation – chief among them the United States – should be actively encouraged to co-ordinate with Canada to apply their own Magnitsky
sanctions on Chinese officials responsible for the incarceration of Spavor and Kovrig. • Finally, Canada should con sider expelling as personae non gratae any number of Chinese officials and staff engaged in disinformation and influence operations targeting ChineseCanadian communities. Bei jing’s well documented covert interference in our domestic politics is just as unacceptable as its overt bullying and black mail; it deserves a strong response, and now may be just the time for one. Of course, none of these options are without risk, and we do not propose them lightly.
But there is danger in whatever Canada does. The Trudeau government must redouble its efforts to secure the two Michaels’ release through more aggressive means. Quiet diplo macy is not working. It is time to raise the volume.
Sabbe’s death in National Geo graphic magazine (“Return to Estonia, #4, April, 1980, pp 485-511) a year and a half after the event. Historian and politician Mart Laar’s splendid “War in the Woods. Estonia’s Struggle for Survival 19441956”, translated by Tiina Ets, appeared in 1992 (a year before the Estonian language publica tion of the work, Metsavennad) details extensively the actions of men (and a few women) who fought the communists post WWII while living off the land. The book includes the before and after photos of Sabbe – smiling at the camera with the KGB officer at his shoulder, then his retrieved remains. He died a free man. Even though the Soviet Union has crumbled, Estonia has regained freedom; the KGB legacy has not been forgotten. Indeed, Russia’s President is a former KGB man who has sub verted democracy for decades while keeping an iron fist on power. Last month a prominent KGB officer, behind many such operations, although not per sonally present at Sabbe’s at tempted arrest and death died. Only a few, it seemed, publicly remembered his work as a senior officer in the organiza tion. In fact as is often the case, the past of An(t)ti Hans Taluri was not mentioned at all in an obit published in Postimees Estonia’s leading daily news paper on June 25th. Except for one telling fact. His cronies actually had the chutzpah, gall, to identify themselves as “õn gevennad”, first name only, just
in case they might be identified as KGB men. Journalist Holger Kaljulaid expressed outrage and brought attention to this fact by twitter (https://twitter.com/KaljuLaid/ status/1276797317262143488) He added to how “angling brothers” bid their crony a final adieu more detail in a lengthy recent e-mail. Even if we are not to speak ill of the dead, it seems that in the modern world certain evildoers are singled out, others not. At the time of Operation Anglers Taluri had already been working for the KGB for over 10 years in Tartu. The city was responsible for the entire southeastern area of Estonia. Indeed, Taluri was the last head of the “Tartu Railway” KGB unit, so-called as it ruled over the area that the railway fed, including Võrumaa from 1982–1991, when Estonia re gained independence. Kaljulaid called Taluri a devil (pisike kurat who did his utmost to suppress the spirit of the literati in Tartu, Estonia’s univer sity city. He notes that among those Taluri beleaguered were dissident Mart Niklus, journalist and later editor-inchief of Edasi, to be renamed Postimees Mart Kadastik and poet Jaan Kaplinski. Taluri harassed, then arrested Niklus, which resulted in the latter’s imprisonment in Siberia. He also was responsible for the demise of political prisoner Jüri Kukk, who famously went on a hunger strike protesting the regime’s cruelty while im prisoned in a Soviet labour camp at Vologda, resulting in
his death. And that was not enough for Taluri – he con tinued to torment Silvi Kukk, the widow of the principled Estonian professor of chemistry. Both Kadastik and Kaplinski have chronicled their interac tions with Taluri and his at tempts to subvert them in their memoirs. For Holger Kaljulaid the final indignity came after Estonia regained independence. Citing dissident Viktor Niitsoo, who was present when members of the Home Guard (Kaitseliit) and ERSP, the party with perhaps the largest numbers of dissi dents as their members entered the Tartu KGB building on August 26, 1991 in hopes of having the KGB surrender their weapons and archives. Taluri smirked – too late, people (“hiljaks jäite!”), suggesting that much of the archival material had either been removed or de stroyed. A day later, according to Niitsoo, some 20 “personal weapons”, ammunition and other such items were, in fact, handed over to the Tartu Police Prefect Gero Kartau. Ne gotiations continued, however, over surrendering archives. Taluri used his experience to advantage, becoming the se curity chief of the Estonian Landbank (Eesti Maapank). Later he was the safety (töö ohutus) specialist for the Tartu Kivilinna shopping and business centre. After that he was re sponsible for the maintenance and security of another such complex, the Tartu Lõunakes kus. He lived a sweet life, never having to face responsibility for
his actions. Kaljulaid notes the irony of where Taluri lived – in a quiet, luxurious apartment building at Riia maantee 15a, set back from the street, and but a mere stone’s throw from the infamous “Grey House”, where the KGB tortured and executed liberty-minded Estonians. Now the basement of the building is the KGB Cell Museum. Having visited the museum in 2014 the undersigned can attest to how the cells, where one could not either sit or lie down, where prisoners were kept for days, exemplify cruelty. The entire museum merits a lengthy visit, to remind us of what the Soviets were capable of.
(Gary Caroline is the principal of Caroline Law Corporation and an expert on consular affairs. Marcus Kolga is a senior fellow at the MacdonaldLaurier Institute and a Cana dian leader in the international campaign for Magnitsky sanctions. They are partners in the international crisis management company Ofelas Group.)
Taluri was an Estonian na tional who by accounts enjoyed his work as a KGB officer. We need to be reminded that he was not alone in this regard. And emphasize that almost 29 years after regaining Estonia’s freedom one’s individual and collective past should be re membered. Not only by the fond memories of coworkers, anglers of humans. Not fish. TÕNU NAELAPEA
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