Get to know a NATO member: Estonia

[uawchild]

"NATO’s essential purpose is to safeguard the freedom and security of its members through political and military means.

POLITICAL - NATO promotes democratic values and encourages consultation and cooperation on defence and security issues to build trust and, in the long run, prevent conflict.

MILITARY - NATO is committed to the peaceful resolution of disputes. If diplomatic efforts fail, it has the military capacity needed to undertake crisis-management operations. These are carried out under Article 5 of the Washington Treaty - NATO’s founding treaty - or under a UN mandate, alone or in cooperation with other countries and international organizations."

http://www.nato.int/nato-welcome/

Let's take a look at what Amnesty International has to say about the state of democracy in some of the newer NATO member states, today's member -- Estonia.

"Estonia Human Rights

Discrimination – linguistic minorities

Members of the Russian-speaking minority faced discrimination. Non-Estonian speakers, mainly from the Russian-speaking minority, were denied employment due to official language requirements for various professions in the private sector and almost all professions in the public sector. Most did not have access to affordable language training that would enable them to qualify for employment.
In January, the Equal Treatment Act entered into force, prohibiting discrimination on grounds of ethnic origin, race and colour in areas such as employment, education, and social and health care. However, the measure has limited effect with regard to public sector employment, because amendments to the Public Service Act established that unequal treatment of state and municipal officials based on official language requirements should not be considered as discrimination.
Human rights defenders

In its report published in April, the Security Police Board continued to attempt to discredit the Legal Information Centre for Human Rights (LICHR), an NGO promoting and defending the rights of linguistic minorities. The report stated that Aleksei Semjonov, the LICHR director, would be a pro-Russia candidate at the 2009 European Parliamentary elections, that he was a member of the pro-minority Constitutional Party, and that he carried out activities financed and directed by the Russian authorities.
However, Aleksei Semjonov had stated publicly on 20 March that he would not take part in the European Parliamentary elections. Official information available on the internet showed that he was not a Constitutional Party member and that he did not register as an independent or party candidate for the European elections.
Freedom of expression and assembly

On 15 October, Parliament approved the so-called "Bronze Night" package (Bill N.416UE), a set of amendments to the Penal Code, the Public Service Act and the Aliens' Act. The amendments expand the definition of "an offence committed during mass disorder", which might now include acts of nonviolent disobedience during peaceful demonstrations. They also provide for non-nationals, including long term residents and those born in Estonia, to have their residence permit revoked for these offences and for other "intentional crimes against the state". This could include non-violent acts such as the symbolic destruction of national flags or those of foreign states or international organizations."

http://www.amnestyusa.org/our-work/countries/europe/estonia

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"NATO promotes democratic values". Well, OK, Estonia remains a work in progress then.

[Duckhunter935]

1. still much better than Russia at this point

http://www.amnestyusa.org/our-work/countries/europe/russian-federation

[uawchild]

2. Russia is not in NATO though

and is rightly criticized for its undemocratic behavior.

Your type of reply is what DU user uhnope likes to call a "whataboutism" distraction and it's also a logical fallacy.

"Whataboutism is a case of tu quoque or the appeal to hypocrisy, a logical fallacy which attempts to discredit the opponent's position by asserting the opponent's failure to act consistently in accordance with that position, without directly refuting or disproving the opponent's initial argument.

he term "whataboutism" was coined during the Cold War by western commentators.[1] British journalist Edward Lucas, writing in the The Economist in 2007, noted it as a tactic he had observed in student debates at the London School of Economics in the early 1980s. He recalled it was an "approach by the Kremlin's useful idiots [...] to match every Soviet crime with a real or imagined western one. It was called 'whataboutism'".[2] [3]

Lucas wrote in 2008 that "Soviet propagandists during the Cold War were trained in a tactic that their western interlocutors nicknamed 'whataboutism.'" He said it was a common rhetorical tactic used by the Soviet Union in dealing with criticism originating within the Western world, so that the common response to a specific criticism would be "What about..." followed by the naming of an event in the Western world.[4][5].

Lucas observed that the use of "whataboutism" had declined at the end of the Cold War but it was seeing a revival in the politics of contemporary Russia. He suggested this was evidence of a resurgence of Cold War and Soviet-era mentality within Russia's leadership. To avoid "Whataboutism" turning discussion into sterile argument, he suggested two solutions: To "use points made by Russian leaders themselves" so that they cannot be applied to a Western nation, and for Western critics to apply more self-criticism to their own media and government.[4]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

[Duckhunter935]

4. Germany changed

I believe Estonia and the other Eastern European nations will as they had to endure 50 plus years of Russian occupation and that Russian system still leaves its presence.

[Depaysement]

3. Sounds a little like the Patriot Act

Really, it might be unfair to pick on Estonia, arguably the most pro-American of the Baltic countries.

Weakening unions in Estonia may be a bigger problem, IMHO.

[Duckhunter935]

5. Agreed

[1939]

6. The reason there is a big Russian minority in Estonia

is that the Soviets deported Estonians to the gulag and moved Russians in after WWII. The same applies to Latvia and Lithuania. The Soviets were trying to "Russify" them and stamp out the independence movements. Moldova and Karelia (still part of Russia) have the same problem.

[Lee-Lee]

8. And now Russia uses their presence as an excuse to bully and intervene in their affairs

In fact, most of that post reads exactly like the kind of stuff the Russians would put out right before invading to protect the Russian speakers...

[NuclearDem]

10. No kidding.

They did this with Georgia and Ukraine too.

[Crunchy Frog]

7. Of course, there's absolutely no historical context to this situation.

Happening in a complete historical vacuum.

[uawchild]

11. At what point does historical context start becoming an excuse for undemocratic behavior?

Its been, what, 27 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union. That's a generation.

I understand that historical context can offer a valid explanation for current undemocratic behavior, but at what point does that slide into being an excuse for it? It's a slippery slope going from explanning behavior to excusing it.

I think Amnesty International is well aware of the historical context in Estonia, and I think Amnesty strives to be honest in reporting current conditions.

Thanks for a thought provoking point.

[NuclearDem]

9. Alright, since we're "getting to know" the Baltics, maybe this would help:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Priboi

Operation Priboi ("Coastal Surf&quot was the code name for the Soviet mass deportation from the Baltic states on March 25–28, 1949, called March deportation by Baltic historians. Some 90,000 Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians, labeled as enemies of the people, were deported to inhospitable areas of the Soviet Union. It was one of the most complex deportation operations engineered by the Soviets in the Cold war era.[1]

While portrayed as "dekulakization", the operation was intended to facilitate the forced collectivisation of rural households and to eliminate the support base for the insurgency by the Forest Brothers against Soviet occupation.[2] Thus the Soviets specifically targeted anti-Soviet nationalists, supporters and kin of the Forest Brothers, veterans who served in the German military and relatives of those already held in the Soviet Gulagfor alleged anti-Soviet activities.[1] The deportation fulfilled its purposes: within a few weeks the majority of the rural households accepted collectivisation and organized themselves into kolkhozes (collective farms).

Due to the high death rate of deportees during the first few years of their Siberian exile, caused by the failure of Soviet authorities to provide suitable clothing or housing at the destination, whether through neglect or premeditation, some sources consider these deportations an act of genocide.[3][4][5] Based on the Martens Clause and the principles of the Nuremberg Charter, the European Court of Human Rights has held that the March deportation constituted a crime against humanity.[6][7]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovietization_of_the_Baltic_states#World_War_II_1944_re-occupation

On January 12, 1949, in an effort to end the insurgency, the Soviet Council of Ministers issued a decree "on the expulsion and deportation" from Baltic states of "all kulaks and their families, the families of bandits and nationalists", and others.[12] More than 200,000 people are estimated to have been deported from the Baltic in 1940-1953. In addition, at least 75,000 were sent to Gulag. 10 percent of the entire adult Baltic population was deported or sent to labor camps,[12] effectively breaking the back of the insurgency.

After World War II, as part of the goal to more fully integrate Baltic countries into the Soviet Union, mass deportations were concluded in the Baltic countries and the policy of encouraging Soviet immigration to the Baltic states continued.

Among those Latvians killed or deported were my grandfather's entire family for daring to resist an illegal invasion and occupation.

Absolute 100% fail on your part. Fucking shameful.