Riots in Riga

Riots in Riga

balticbusinessnews.com

An estimated 10,000 people have jammed into Latvian capital Riga's Dome Square tonight, and cheered loudly when Society for Different Politics Saeima deputy Artis Pabriks called on President Zatlers to dissolve Saeima. By now eight people have been injuried, LETA reports.

(visit the link for the full news article)

A common tactic of Russia is to foment civil unrest in a neighboring country and then when the government moves to put down the 'uprising' Russia moves in to 'support its citizens'.

Latvia has a growing ethnic problem, Russians vs Latvians, and the way the Latvian government continues to mistreat it's Russian citizens this will no doubt end in a lot of tears and bloodshed.

The demonstrations last night were initially peaceful until a 'few troublemakers' incited the violence.

There were reports of rioters offering police financial bribes to switch sides in some of the russian press. The government has been given a short time to respond, presumably by stepping down!, with a promise of countrywide riots to follow if not.

Watch this space ...

balticbusinessnews.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

www.abovetopsecret.com...

reply to post by RogerT


Hold it! Hold it! Hoooold it!

In this riots, ethnic Latvians and ethnic Russians are together!

I remeber when I visited my friend in Riga, about four or five years ago.
The Latvian "Lat" (their currency) were above the Brittish pound. It was way above the euro.
I asked my friend what it felt like to finally have cut loose from the old Soviet heritage and seeing the land rise up from the ashes.
She said that the economic upswing did not reflect upon the people; corruption and "post-Sovied syndrome" ate all the benefits to the bone.
Prices went up, up, up but salaries did not in the same pace.

This has nothing to do with Russian tactics, this is just the result of bad planning. It is happening everywhere and it will continue to engulf the world in flames. Before this one it was Iceland. Next will be London, NYC, Berlin, Paris...

Don't jump into conclusions on such a delicate subject thank youuuu...

reply to post by Raud


I have to agree with you on this.

It was pointed out several months ago by a group of posters (of which I was happy to have the foresight to agree with) that financial meltdown causes civil unrest, and that such unrest would spread across the planet as each nation faced the challenges it brought.

A few of us assumed that the USA would be first to experience this civil unrest, as it had appeared to be the forerunner in all events, forecasting the financial climate for the rest of the world.
But it seemed to happen in Europe first. Perhaps this was due to emotive volatility more than actual financial crisis level?

This will happen everywhere.
But in what order, we can't tell, it all seems to depend on the basic social stability coupled with the level of struggle experienced by the people, in connection to a "perceived injustice" by those in authority.

I expect to see similar in London too, unfortunately.
And as each American state actually experiences financial struggle at the public level (California and NY spring to mind immediately) it will happen there too.

It will take a miracle (financially) to prevent this from happening in the UK and the USA to some degree. How severe it'll be will depend on the response of those in authority and if they are prepared to step out of line and worsen any dissent.
If there were protests like this in America, I fear they would immediately break out the riot police and batons, rounding people up. Someone will be hurt, and it'll spiral.

A measured response would be required by authorities to keep this calm, allow people to speak openly and vent their anger. The risk of it spreading by the actions of a few riot cops is far greater than any damage a rowdy mob in one city would do.

reply to post by RogerT


Hello.

It is a couple of years since I was in Latvia, but I think these riots are about the economy, not about the ethnic tensions between the Latvians and the Russians.

I repeat: These riots are about economics. The ethnic situation is dangerous too, but this one is not about ethnicity!

And it is not created by the Russians. So don't blame them. They are not the ones who took the Baltic nations too far into speculative capitalism!

Those countries don't have a very good economic base for real growth, so the growth of their economies was funded with debt. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania will have a really hard time to get themselves back together after this economic crisis has passed.

Existing thread here:
www.abovetopsecret.com...

Please add further comments to the ongoing discussion.
Thank you







-thread closed-



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