|
|
|
Latvia: "Giving Democracy a Bad Name" (Brian Worley, resident of Ogre, Latvia)
Our
Story Sensing that real estate in California had gone crazy and history telling us that the acceleration just couldn’t continue; Everita and I decided that we would invest in her native Latvia when we married in 2003. We left California with goals of getting our business established and heartily giving back to the community. Our
plan assumed the application of the rule of law; after all this wasn’t the
USSR anymore! I’m an American citizen that has had a taste of what it is like
to live in a society where human and civil rights are cherished, and fought for
when they are infringed upon. Turns out that we were naïve in our
assumptions because corruption rules here rather than law. We have lost all hope
of attaining justice domestically. Until this point, I have tried to keep a
relatively low profile as a Latvian guest; but enough is enough! My wife, Everita is an sharp, educated lady with a Masters degree in economics and has served upon the Latvian National Broadcasting Council as an elected official. She is also a founding member of the Latvian People’s Party (TP). A leading Latvian woman’s magazine Ieva, has just published her hard-hitting article that outlines how corruption leads to massive emigration of the Latvian people. She also touched upon regional governmental protectionism, which curtails competition while crippling growth that cheats municipalities of much needed additional tax base revenue. These factors are all in the mix as Latvia suffers the greatest pain within EU’s membership during the economic crisis! Everita's article generated quite a stir because the message resonated with so many that suffer here! Beyond complaining, there isn’t much a non-wealthy citizen can do because Latvia’s democracy is impotent! Yea, the sign hangs on the door outside, but go inside and you would find that democracy is just like piped in elevator music (a nice sound to help pass the time.) Latvia is giving democracy a bad name! We
bought a 3-story house in the center of the town of Ogre. No, the town name of
Ogre isn't a typo and yes, the Ogre city council does their best to live up to
the English definition of the name! Our 3-story home’s first floor is
commercial property in arguably the best location in town. We have put a lot of
blood, sweat and tears into fixing up the place and have tried to the best of
our abilities to be good citizens. Upon my arrival in November 2006, my first day in the yard was quite eye-opening. First thing I noticed was that the city ran large thermal underground pipes through our yard rendering a large portion of our land unusable. The city uses our land and derives benefits at our expense without compensation for our loss. All the while requiring us to pay tax upon a representative portion of land that has little to no redemptive value. This and other matters show a disdain for private property rights. Even if we had the lawyer money, we have no confidence in getting justice in a land renown for corrupted officials! Newspaper
slander, Xenophobia in print! We
discovered quite early that the regional government, judicial system, police,
business leaders and political leaders “work together”. For example, the now
defunct Ogre Zinas newspaper with a clear xenophobic message that is ugly
towards foreigners unjustly slandered me; the intention it seems was to inflict
damage upon our business enterprises. They succeeded! When this case was taken
to the Latvian National Human Rights Office, they were unprofessional throughout
the process with the ombudsman stalling until we forced him to address the
issue. Everything is in writing, he rubber stamped the gesture and protected the
Diena owned newspaper abdicating his responsibility of protecting human rights.
Upon his decision, I asked for a face to face meeting with the man and was told
that he would be on medical leave and wasn’t allow to speak with him!
Diena should have been held accountable and been penalized for the
damages they caused us! A high-powered law firm should be able to come in and
easily win the case! I would like to own Diena! The
Ogre Zinas hatchet job stirred xenophobic hostilities against us. Besides
awaking to crosses and other projectiles in our yard, we have had people piss on
our home amongst other things. The most heart wrenching was the conjured up
grave medical diagnosis that an Ogre pediatrician pronounced about our infant
daughter. We were told that her medical condition was the worst case that she
had witnessed in her 30 plus years of “service.” Those were very dark days
for us, not knowing how much time we might have left with our newborn daughter.
It drove me to study the diagnosed condition. My daughter showed none of the
symptoms, so we went for second and third opinions. In a side note, while
getting the second opinion my wife alerted me to a doctor (Valdis Zatlers)
mentioning that he was to be the new president of the country (the country is
that small.) Two specialists in amazement pondered how anyone could render such
a grave medical diagnosis when my daughter had absolutely no symptoms
whatsoever! I believe that pediatrician is still allowed to practice medicine.
Xenophobia brings out cruelty in people, and being the receptor of their poison
isn’t pleasant. Rampant
police corruption In
a reasonable time period new security cameras were installed in a place where
trucks couldn’t destroy them. KNAB delivered and I was feeling so good about
this. Strange, but soon thereafter the KNAB chief was dumped causing a national
uproar! While in Ogre, the installation of those new cameras obviously upset the
local police that quite boldly told us that if people wanted to sit in the park
and openly shoot up or smoke their dope that it was within their rights to do so
(with the implication being that they could care less about it!) Talk
about being openly brazen! I have pictorial evidence of a culprit committing
over $200 worth of property damage that the municipal police chief laughed at.
He put it in writing that he lacked “jurisdiction” in the matter! We took
this to the “top cop” in the land (by the way he is the spitting image of
Bennie Hill) and he basically told us to get lost! A month or so later he had
the nerve to publicly state that “petty crimes” of lesser amounts should not
be prosecuted. Imagine you as a business owner, when the top cop says publicly
that stolen items (say a pair of pliers) wasn’t important to the police and
you should just take the hit! Talk about giving the “green light” to
criminals…what incompetent fools! Sleeping
watchdogs, improbable “suicide attempts”, & caller ID at the police
station A
few days after this, I called Delna (Transparency International’s affiliate)
and was told that they hadn’t even heard of the police chief’s ridiculous
statement. I could tell you of a case where a handcuffed prisoner was being
transported in the back seat with armed officers on each side. This prisoner was
“skillful” enough to stop a moving squad car upon a bridge over the Daugava
River, managing to escape and to jump over the side rail because he wanted to
commit suicide. I’m not making this stuff up, this was the story that they
tried to sell to the public! The prisoner being the suspect of planting a bomb
in an KNAB’s officials car. Two
policemen disturbed us and my sister-in-law’s business on May 31st.
Why? Although they have all the required permits, seems that an Ogre’s Doma
member with purported links to the amphitheatre and Ogrenet website directed the
police to harass us because we allow them to park their mobile catering business
on our city center property to sell kabobs. We asked for their ID’s and
they refused! We asked what law have they broken, they didn’t answer!
Next thing we know that someone placed a slanderous article on the
popular community website Ogrenet. This deviant pattern of crude Latvian “business
as usual” needs to get slammed by the force of an overlooking international
agency that would monitor the application of the rule of law and justice.
Latvian’s would like to see that democracy isn’t a two-cent word or elevator
music! We need intervention! In
May 2008, I called the Ogre police department due to drunks disturbing the peace
at 2:30 am. Nobody even picked up the phone! I had given up after 10 minutes,
and in desperation decide to step outside and asked them nicely to please go
home. That wasn’t too wise of me because I was jumped by three men and took
some blows. I recovered and beat the hell out of these guys, but had broken my
foot in two places in the process and was on crutches for sometime afterwards.
This would have been a moot point if one could rely upon the police department
to answer their calls regardless of the number on their caller’s ID screen!
When they cannot produce the tapes upon request, heads should roll! Did I
mention that the municipal police chief is accountable to city council (Doma)? Which
is worse? Latvia’s Regional or
National Corruption? Our prime downtown location is a great place for a café! It is hard for a man to see his wife cry, but we realized the “death blow” had been struck by Ogre’s Doma when they denied us an opportunity to open our café. We met the standards and then they “changed/re-interpreted” them. They continually “bled us” to spend money in varied ways until we simply ran out of money. All the while, they were just “toying” with us. I could take any news agency to at least 3 new sit down eating establishments that have been permitted to open in town that do not have a public toilet which was required in our café application! There is something rotten on top of the hill in Ogre! Corrupt
officials like these who don’t abide by the law should be held accountable and
made to pay from their own pockets when they act from personal prejudices! Our
case is not an isolated incident either! These types of incidents all factor
into the demise of Latvia, because the alternative brings the fight or flight
mechanism into the picture. Riots occur when citizens cannot get the
application/protection of the rule of law. Some just suffer and accept a
diminished lifestyle while vast numbers of families are split up when a member
has to leave the country for “greener pastures.” Many Latvian children grow
up without the benefit of their fathers due to unacceptable living conditions
here (father sends money home from abroad.) Sometimes both parents go leaving
the kids to be raised by a sibling or grandparent. The residual effect in your
country is that when Latvian workers come to your country due to our problems,
you pay the price because the wages of workers in your country are kept down by
the influx. See, corruption’s price is spread out and paid for by others
around the world! Earlier
this spring upon hearing that a desperately poor country decided to fork over
money from the public treasury to save a risk-taking bank, my wife had heard
enough! She contacted the People’s Party (TP) asking for a reasonable
explanation. A few days later she gets a personal call from then (TP) Minister
of Finance, Atis Slakteris with a patronizing immature explanation…she
proceeds to tell him that she has heard it all before and that she wasn’t
buying the bull! Sad, sad, sad! Who
will protect the citizenry from the bankers? I’ve
never heard of such unethical banking institutions and the compliant politicians
that will not work to protect the interests of its citizens! Banks seem to be
isolated from any risks here. If our understanding of the law is correct, you
can’t just “return the keys” to a financial institution in Latvia should
one find themselves in tough times. What they do here is sell your foreclosed
property to “favored ones” at bargain prices and in turn require the one
whom just lost the property to make up or pay the differences between the
selling price and the original amount of the loan. The result is financial death
for the citizen that can last for their lifetime! Seems like the Latvian
government bails out select risk taking banks and then has the nerve to
sacrifice it’s own citizens upon the bank’s altar when they cannot
repay! Being
denied the fair opportunity by local organized criminals to compete in the
marketplace has brought us to the brink of bankruptcy. We invested; they
discriminated! Our being denied basic human/civil rights has separated us from
our opportunity to generate the revenue to pay our mortgage. Danske Bank has
just told us that they will start legal action against us. The sharks are
circling! With the rule of law, we could make it on our own! We
are good businessmen that have built our real estate holdings to a pre-crisis
appraisal value of over a million dollars. We feel that we would do quite well
in this market if we were only allowed into it!!!
This is not a free marketplace! Without the
discrimination/xenophobia both locally and at the national level, we wouldn’t
need anyone’s help because we could make it on our own!
We are a proud, hard working, industrial couple that has spent
considerable time outside of this “white-collar criminal controlled” town’s
limited perspective. We believe in
the common good and do not want to surrender to those that want to plunder!
Unless we get swift international intervention and the protection of the rule of
law we will be soon foreclosed upon and living in the house pictured below
before long!
There is so much more that I could say, this is just the tip of an iceberg! I don’t like to “show people up” but someone that wanted to make a human/civil rights documentary would have ample material to draw from and I haven’t even ventured into Jewish related matters, homophobia, integration, exploitation of foreigners/tourists, or everyday what should be mundane business world matters! Corruption rules; justice is scarce, and there is little reason for hope with the common man if they choose to stay in Latvia. It always seems that the government is in turmoil here and rioting isn’t uncommon with the high levels of frustration of the populous. What should the IMF release funds to Latvia only to see it eventually settle into the pockets of those that share responsibility for causing the problems in the first place? Latvia
needs some heroes and an influx of courageous statesmen that won’t betray
their fellow citizens! We need your help! What
we are looking for is: 1)
how and where to go (outside of Latvia) in order to get swift justice without
cost to us. 2) Gross violations of
human/civil rights has bled us to the point of bankruptcy, certain parties
should be held accountable, we should be awarded financial compensation for the
damages 3) Some international human rights
organizations with “passion and teeth” should park themselves in Latvia!!! This
line expresses that this article was an opinion of the writer, Brian Worley. (this
ends the article) Please
help our cause by circulating this page! Hereby I give you permission with these two exceptions. 1) If anyone wants to edit anything OUT of this article, you can but must provide a link back to this page! Where readers can read it in its entirety. (Note the above opinion line concludes the article) For questions, my email is webmaster@exminister.org 2)
If you DO NOT edit anything on this page,
then you can omit the link to the Ex-minister.org website should you so desire. We
heartily welcome all media, international human rights organizations and those
friendly to our cause to spread this message because in so doing you can play a
major role towards assisting Latvia and helping us to get justice! We don’t
want sympathy because nobody here wants any part of playing the role of a
victim. We kept this “under wraps” until this time for several reasons
including: 1) not knowing what to do about it
2) we always thought we could handle this on our own and thus maintain
our much desired anonymity. We are
positioned to do something good here, no matter how difficult it might be!
Latvia is a great place that needs rescuing from the thugs! The Ex-minister website will list those whom we have sent this to, and keep a “scorecard.” We will monitor the reactions of where we sent the article and show how and to what extent that they have sought resolutions! We do not intend to let this slide down “the memory hole!” Brian Worley Ex-Minister.org June 5, 2009 Some rights reserved
|
See the follow-up to this article and what "luminaries" who are supposed to be concerned with human rights are doing about our situation! Democracy Scorecard Please visit a blog entitled Ogre Hillbillies where I discuss more Since I cannot speak the Latvian language that well, here is a link to a Latvian-American journalist Juris Kaza and his excellent blog Failed State Latvia
|
