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That same year in Estonia, in order to “stand united and work together,” then-Prime Minister, Jüri Ratas, created a coalition government. One third of the cabinet ministers that he appointed were from the extreme-right Conservative People’s Party of Estonia (EKRE). Its leaders, including former party chair Martin Helme (2015-19), who was Ratas’ Finance Minister (2019-21) and his father, Interior Minister Mart Helme (2019-20), smiled when flashing a white-power hand signals when being sworn in as lawmakers in 2019. EKRE proudly calls for a racially-pure, Christian, “white Estonia.” Its politicians have said they will decriminalize Holocaust denial, and revoke the citizenship of ethnic Russians or Russian speakers in Estonia (which includes most of Estonia’s few remaining Jewish citizens). EKRE’s extremely racist, xenophobic and anti-immigrant slogans include: “If they’re black, send them back.” 3EKRE supporters are among those who attend mass torchlight parades in Estonia. These disturbing events promote widely popular, far-right ethnonationalist policies, display fascist symbols and rally the crowds with such Nazi-reminiscent banners and cheers as “Estonia for Estonians.” EKRE supporters are among those who attend mass torchlight parades in Estonia. These disturbing events promote widely popular, far-right ethnonationalist policies, display fascist symbols and rally the crowds with such Nazi-reminiscent banners and cheers as “Estonia for Estonians.” The Canadian government and its friends in the Estonian Central Council in Canada (ECC) and the Estonian World Council (EWC) have continued to praise Estonia’s government and have excellent working relations with it. While Canada, the ECC and EWC may have some reservations about the open support for fascist ideologies by EKRE and its ilk, they have not condemned Estonian government recognition of the Estonian Legion or its public glorification of Nazi veterans as the “freedom fighting” heroes of WWII. Marcus Kolga: Even Marcus Kolga, former president of the ECC in Canada (2016-20) and vice president of the EWC, expressed some concern in 2019 about EKRE. The problem with EKRE, he said, was that it had sullied Estonia’s “positive brand” with what he called “racist, antisemitic and sexist” talk. 4The Estonian Legion, like other military formations in Eastern Europe were trained, financed, armed and led by Nazi Germany. Their troops wore Nazi uniforms and swore solemn oaths to fight to the death for Adolph Hitler in order to vanquish the “Bolshevik” enemy, the USSR, which was Canada’s wartime ally. With the help of Estonia’s Legion and other such East European armies, the Nazis executed the Holocaust, killed 27 million Soviet citizens and laid waste to their cities. This appears to be of little or no concern to Kolga and his compatriots.
Although the Nazi SS “brand” that was practised in Estonia included mass murder, concentration camps for Jews, Red Army soldiers and others, and the commission of countless other international crimes against humanity, crimes against peace and war crimes, Kolga praises the Estonian Legion and other such military units, by refering to them as “freedom fighters.” In this way Kolga defends Nazi SS divisions and other fascist military units, by trying to whitewash, memorialize and rehabilitate them into noble, antiSoviet warriors.
In 2019, Kolga wrote a virulently Russophobic report called Stemming the Virus, on “the threat of Russian disinformation.”5 In this report, published by Canada’s right-wing MacDonald-Laurier Institute,6 Kolga condemned Canadian journalists who dared speak the truth about Estonian collaboration with the Nazis, by denouncing them for spreading the “virus” of “a particularly popular Kremlin narrative.” For example, Canadian journalist Scott Taylor was smeared by Kolga for supposedly having “mischaracterized Ukrainian and Baltic freedom fighters who resisted Soviet occupation as Nazis.” Taylor who writes columns in Halifax’s Chronicle Herald and for Esprit de Corps, a prominent Canadian military magazine which he founded, and now edits and publishes. Much to Kolga’s chagrin, Taylor’s writings have repeatedly exposed the glorification of fascist WWII military units by Baltic governments.7 Kolga also attempts to discredit the work of Ottawa Citizen reporter, David Pugliese. Kolga takes offence at Pugliese’s articles because they reveal ongoing, official Baltic-state support for their wartime collaboration with Nazi Germany. Kolga’s spin on these news articles was to try to smear Pugliese by saying that he “essentially parroted the Kremlin’s tailored narratives about those nations being neo-fascists.” As a forthright apologist for the Estonia’s wartime collaboration with Germany against Canada’s Soviet ally, Kolga characterizes the present day’s SS-revering Baltic governments as victims by calling them “states targeted by Kremlin aggression.”8 Kolga’s report also slurs my work. He critiqued my research documenting Freeland’s career-launching jobs with SS-exalting Ukrainian nationalist media published in Canada, the US and Europe. These jobs included Canadian government-paid writing contracts for a far-right, Edmonton-based publication that her grandfather, Michael Chomiak, had previously worked for. (Freeland also worked for a second Ukrainian nationalist publication in Edmonton that her grandfather, the Nazi’s top Ukrainian-language news propagandist, had written for before becoming its chief editor. This research of mine, documented with hundreds of footnotes, was merely written off and slurred by Kolga as being typical of “pro-Kremlin media and trolls.”9 Urmas Reinsalu:
In 2014, Reinsalu celebrated Estonia’s best known SS soldier, Harald Nugiseks, who had been awarded the Nazi’s top medal, the Iron Cross. When this notorious soldier was buried with full Estonian military honors, Reinsalu eulogised him as “a legendary Estonian soldier” who battled for “freedom.”11 As justice minister in 2018, Reinsalu sent warm, official greetings to a public ceremony that included the veneration of Estonia’s Waffen SS fighters.12
In 2019, Reinsalu denounced Venezuela’s elected leader, Nicolas Maduro. Reinsalu also blasted Russia for aiding those who he called the “communist fanatics” leading Venezuela’s government. 13 In taking this right-wing stance against Maduro’s democratically-empowered government, Reinsalu joined with Canada’s foreign minister Freeland, and the Trump-led US government, in “stand[ing] united” with the ultraright Western-backed coup efforts of Juan Guaido, the self-proclaimed but totally fraudulent “president” of Venezuela, who never ran in the country’s presidential election.While the scandal-ridden Ratas government eventually collapsed in January 2021, it’s demise was not due to its tremendous pride in Estonia’s Nazi collaborators. This pride has long been established as the accepted mainstream culture in Estonia. Those who dare to question this Estonian mythology are maligned and smeared for spreading a dangerous Kremlin virus. References and notes
5. Marcus Kolgas, Stemming the Virus, 2019. 6. Marcus Kolga is a "senior fellow" of the
MacDonald-Laurier
Institute. Here is some background on these two criminals whose "brand" is still glorified and revered by the MacDonald-Laurier Institute: [Sir] Wilfrid Laurier (1841-1919): "On the occasion of the first increase to the head tax under his authority, Laurier said: 'In my opinion, there is not much room for the Chinaman in Canada. He displaces a good Canadian, or a good British subject.' "Laurier also opposed the immigration of black people into Canada. "On Aug. 12, 1911, his cabinet approved an order-in-council which stated: 'For a period of one year from and after the date hereof the landing in Canada shall be and the same is prohibited of any immigrants belonging to the Negro race, which race is deemed unsuitable to the climate and requirements of Canada.' Laurier’s signature sealed the deal. "[I]n the House of Commons in 1886 [Laurier spoke] about the nation’s right to take land from 'savage nations' because a Canada under Indigenous control would 'forever have remained barren and unproductive, but which under civilized rule would afford homes and happiness to teeming millions.'" [Sir] John A. Macdonald (1815-1891)
10. Leena Hietanen and Petri Krohn, "Estonia’s 2012
'Valentine’s Day Law,'" Defending History, May 26, 2012. 11. Leena Hietanen and Petri Krohn, "Estonia’s Last
'Knight’s Cross' Waffen SS Man Gets Full-Honors Military Funeral,"
Defending History, January 13, 2014.
13. Urmas Reinslau, "Estonia must
immediately recognize the Speaker of the Parliament as the interim President
of Venezuela, not the Communist Maduro," Eesti
Päevaleht, Jan. 26, 2019. (Translation from
Estonian.) |
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In
2012, when Estonian lawmakers passed “Valentine’s Day” legislation to exalt
their nation’s SS veterans, it was roundly welcomed by Estonia’s new defence
minister Reinsalu. He even issued “a publicly stated wish to see in [Estonia’s
capitol city] Tallinn ‘one day soon’ a new statue erected specifically for the
‘freedom fighters’ rehabilitated by the act.”10 Such monuments erected in
Eastern Europe since the USSR was destroyed, have allowed the public and
government authorities to lionize these soldiers for their valiant efforts
during WWII. 
