Foreign Correspondent Inside Track On World News By International Syndicated Columnist & Broadcaster Eric Margolis ,,ggddY"""Ybbgg,, ,agd888b,_ "Y8, ___`""Ybga, ,gdP""88888888baa,.""8b "888g, ,dP" ]888888888P' "Y `888Yb, ,dP" ,88888888P" db, "8P""Yb, ,8" ,888888888b, d8888a "8, ,8' d88888888888,88P"' a, `8, ,8' 88888888888888PP" "" `8, d' I88888888888P" `b 8 `8"88P""Y8P' 8 8 Y 8[ _ " 8 8 "Y8d8b "Y a 8 8 `""8d, __ 8 Y, `"8bd888b, ,P `8, ,d8888888baaa ,8' `8, 888888888888' ,8' `8a "8888888888I a8' `Yba `Y8888888P' adP' "Yba `888888P' adY" `"Yba, d8888P" ,adP"' `"Y8baa, ,d888P,ad8P"' ``""YYba8888P""'' `The Great Slaughterer' by Eric Margolis 25 Jan 1996 Last month, tiny Latvia did the right thing. It sentenced retired KGB Maj. Gen. Alfons Noviks, known as `the Great Slaughterer,' to life in prison. Unfortunatly, his punishment will be too short: Noviks is 87. Other surviving members of Stalin's secret police are equally aged. These monsters still deserve the same draconian punishment given to elderly Nazis. There must be no statue of limitations on mass murder. That's because this century's greatest killer has not been war - but communist regimes. Communist governments have killed at least 65 million of their own citizens. Wars of all kinds caused 35.5 million deaths. Noviks was a senior `Chekist,' or Soviet NKVD secret policeman during the USSR's annexation of Latvia in 1940. He supervised the mass deportation of 120,000 Latvians to Stalin's Siberian death camps, as well as interrogation and torture of thousands of victims. The NKVD (later, KGB), also deported 160,000 Lithuanians and Estonians to concentration camps. Even before Hitler invaded the USSR, about 3-4% of the total population of the Baltic states was sent by the NKVD to the gulag. The world did nothing. By some estimates, from 1940- 45, 8-10% of Latvians died icy deaths in Siberia, or were shot by the NKVD. After the war, Latvian nationalists, backed by Britain's Secret Intelligence Service ( MI6), fought a heroic, but ultimately futile, struggle against Soviet occupation. Noviks helped penetrate and break the anti-communist underground. When Latvia finally regained its independence after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Noviks was put on trial. He claimed he was `only following orders.' The former Latvian Communist Party boss, Alfred Rubiks, was jailed for eight years for trying to mount a coup against the new, post- communist government in 1991. Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia have enacted laws enabling prosecutors to charge former NKVD/KGB agents and senior communists accused of crimes against humanity. This policy is in sharp contrast to other post-communist states of East Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia, who have never made the slightest effort to prosecute former Stalinists - whose crimes far exceeded in numbers, if not ferocity, those of Hitler's Germany. Stalin's Soviet Union, it is conveniently forgotten, was a partner of Nazi Germany. They began World War II by jointly invading Poland. From 1930 to 1953, according to latest estimates by Russian historians, Stalin's secret police murdered 40 million people in the USSR alone - 40,000,000 - either in execution cellars or Arctic death camps. This is more than three times the highest estimated number of Hitler's victims. Most shockingly, the major portion of this titanic slaughter occured before World War II. The world chose not to see Stalin's crimes. We remember Auschwitz, but not Vorkuta. In Russia, old NKVD/KGB thugs who are still alive enjoy quiet retirement and state pensions. The party for which they killed so diligently, creeps back into power. No one in the west seems much to object. A few cretinish street thugs in Germany, who call themselves Nazis, produce international alarm, and howls of anguish in the media. Yet the members of Russia's resurgent communist party, who urge a return to Stalinism, these heirs of history's most efficient, ruthless killing machine, are dismissed in the west as harmless grumblers, or dotards. While Germany continues to atone for its crimes, and pursue aged Nazis, Russia shrugs off its past horrors. Aleksander Solzhenitsyn's lonely voice calls for confession of Russia's sins, and punishment of surviving Soviet criminals. Few listen. The Soviet Eichmann, Commissar Lazar Kaganovitch, one of Stalin's favorite henchmen, who organized and directed the murder of 10 million Ukrainian farmers, died peacefully in Moscow not long ago. One of the century's greatest murderers ended his long career feeding pigeons from a favored, sunlit bench in Moscow's Gorky park. Latvia, at least, has not forgotten. Its courageous action puts to shame the rest of East Europe. copyright eric margolis 1996 **************************************************** --------------------------------------------------------------- To receive Foreign Correspondent via email send a note to Majordomo@lglobal.com with the message in the body: subscribe foreignc To get off the list, send to the same address but write: unsubscribe foreignc Back Issues can be obtained from: ftp.lglobal.com/pub/foreignc For Syndication Information please contact: Email: emargolis@lglobal.com FAX: (416) 960-4803 Smail: Eric Margolis c/o Editorial Department The Toronto Sun 333 King St. East Toronto Ontario Canada M5A 3X5 ---------------------------------------------------------------