20 years of independent Lithuania-lost dreams an achievement, too?.

VILNIUS, March 13 (By Itar-Tass writer Vladimir Ivanov) -- Last
Thursday, on March 11, Lithuania celebrated the 20th anniversary of its
restored independence. It was a good occasion for many politicians,
experts and activists of Sajudis - the movement that emerged back in the
last years of the former USSR to declare a drive for independence - to
look back on the road left behind.

Central to the flow of comments timed
for the occasion were two fundamental ideas - the recognition of
achievements and the acknowledgement of ambiguity of the current state of
affairs. Far from all of the original expectations have come true. Many
believe that twenty years ago the present day had looked quite different,
although nobody doubts the choice made in 1990 was correct.
Lietuvos Rytas, one of the leading dailies, reviews the country's
achievements with a pinch of irony.
"We are members of NATO and of the European Union, we are free to
travel about the world, we can buy a car without any rationing or waiting
lists. We can fearlessly scold the authorities," the editorial runs. "We
play basketball in the European League, we fly our own flag at the
Olympics. We have equipped our homes with warm plastic windows. We have
built beautiful houses. We no longer have to line up for salami, which is
in scarce supply and about to be sold up. We have forgotten the disgusting
taste of cheep beer. And we are cursing our own, once impeccable smoked
meat products, for containing too much preservatives."
The membership of NATO and of the European Union is pointed to
unanimously as Lithuania's greatest achievement. However, in this barrel
of honey there is a spoonful of tar, contributed by the Euroskeptics. The
critics believe that "The Second Republic" (truly independent Lithuania)
is no more, for it existed just 14 years and two and a half months - till
the moment it joined the European Union. That happened on May 1, 2004.
"Those who say the state we live in today is the state that emerged on
March 11 are telling an absolute lie," says one of those who signed the
March 11 1990 Restoration of Independence Act, Romualdas Ozolas. This is
so, he says, because the legal acts of the European Union have supremacy
over Lithuania's own laws.
"Lithuania has gone truly independent in a sense," runs the editorial
in the daily Respublika. "It is independent from its nuclear power
industry. (The Ignalina nuclear power plant was shut down on December 31,
2009 on orders from Brussels). From its once-advanced industry that
manufactured precision instruments and electronics, "black boxes" for
aircraft and television sets, from its textile industry and iron casting
mills. It is independent from its fishing fleet that had to be scrapped
under pressures from Brussels, and even from match factories. The
industrial facilities have been phased out by kebab kiosks."
This 'independence-from-list' can be prolonged. One of the most
painful 'independences' is the one from youth and from the most active,
industrious and ambitious people.
"One's heart is bleeding at the thought the ideals and the fine
pronouncements repeated many a time from all rostrums 'We shall be
building Lithuania for our children and grand-children' have paled into
insignificance and are hardly visible," said Arvidas Juozaitis, a top
class swimmer, a bronze medallist at the 1976 Olympics and a man whose
relatives offered their apartment for the headquarters of the Sajudis
movement.
"If we really meant it we would be building Lithuania for our children
and grand-children, then why are they fleeing to the West?" the architects
of independence are asking themselves. That people flee is really so.
Economic migrants number half a million. "We have deceived ourselves. We
have been building Lithuania for children and grandchildren only to
discover one day that they do not need it at all," Juozaitis says in
bewilderment. This month Lithuania is likely to post another impressive
record, and a very negative one - 300,000 jobless per 3.3 million
residents.
The situation on the domestic political front looks rather bleak, too.
The worst disappointment is about : the people.
"My greatest disappointment is about the nation - the sovereign of our
state, as the Constitution puts it. Each time they go to vote, the people
of Lithuania saddle the state with ever more demagogues," says another
signatory to the March 11 Act, Kazis Saja.
Lithuania's President Dalia Gribauskaite has described the situation
in very harsh terms only to come under plenty of fire. She argues that all
power in the country has been usurped by "political clans." After making a
comment like this the president began to be reproached for torpedoing the
basics of democracy, because, she was told, no society has ever invented
any other sensible option of running the state. However, the people seem
to be reluctant to agree with this sort of "privatization" of the country.
It is a very telling sign that Lithuania's renowned movie and stage
actor Regimantas Adomaitis refused to attend the official ceremonies timed
for the March 11 anniversary to opt for an alternative event, for the
first time arranged by the general public.
"On that day I preferred to be with ordinary people, who have dreamed
of freedom for the past 20 years, and who have realized all of a sudden
that there is still no freedom for them and can hardly be any," said
Adomaitis. "For the authorities we have remained slaves they are free not
to care about."

-0-str


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