JBANC Press Reliese: For Immediate Release

March 26th, 2001

Contact: Karl Altau or Simonas Girdzijauskas

JBANC Conference's Summary and Overview

The Joint Baltic American National Committee held its fourth biannual conference March 8-10 in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area on the theme of " Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania: the Next Ten Years". Most of the presentations and discussions concerned Baltic security issues, especially the desirability of enlarging NATO in 2002 to include all qualified aspirant countries, especially the three Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

Among the notable participants from the Baltic countries were Juri Luik, Estonia’s Defense Minister, Alvydas Medalinskas, Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee of the Lithuanian Seimas, Maris Riekstins, Latvia’s Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and Giedrius Cekuolis, Lithuania’s Deputy Foreign Minister.

Ambassador Jurgenson of Estonia, Ambassador Ronis of Latvia and the newly arrived Ambassador Usackas of Lithuania also addressed the conference.

Lisa Bronson, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense spoke on U.S.relations with the Baltic Countries, and informed her audience that no decisions have yet been taken by President Bush’s Administration regarding either the enlargement of NATO in 2002 or the selection of new members. She described the preparations needed to meet admission standards into NATO and emphasized their importance.

Dr. Ronald Asmus, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs and currently a member of the Council of Foreign Relations, endorsed Baltic membership in NATO. They qualify on moral, political and strategic grounds, he said. Dr. Asmus thought that even now, any U.S. president would defend the Baltic contries if they were threatened. Maj. Gen. Kievenaar, U.S. Army (ret.) asserted that the Baltics were defendable militarily despite some voices that maintained a contrary view.

Dr. Paul Goble of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty informed that the Russian Duma had allocated more than $50 million to launch a propaganda campaign to advance its objectives, including keeping the Baltics out of NATO. He warned that on the road to NATO membership a concerted effort would be made in the media to blacken the reputation of the Baltic countries. Helle Bering, editor at the Washington Times, the newspaper that broke the story about Russian nuclear weapons in Kaliningrad, said she too expected to see more critical articles about the Baltics appearing in the media as a result of Russian efforts.

Many other speakers participated in panels on regional cooperation, security and stability within the NATO framework, defense cooperation and the view of the Baltics in the media. They included Ambassador Butora of Slovakia, Conrad Tribble, the Northern Europe Initiative Coordinator at the Department of State, former U.S. Ambassador to Lithuania, Keith Smith, Bruce Jackson of the U.S. Committee on NATO, Col. Janusz Bojarski, Polish Military attaché in Washington, Col. Grant Hayden of the Maryland National Guard, and Gintas Alksninis, Washington correspondent of the Lithuanian daily, Lietuvos Rytas.

Other conference events included visits to Congress and the State Department. Participants attended briefings by staff members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Durbin’s office and Senator Campbell’s office. They spoke about Senator Helm’s support for Baltic membership in NATO, the work of the Helsinki Commission, and the forthcoming Congressional trip to attend the NATO Parliamentary Assembly meeting at Vilnius. The staff members also described recently held hearings conducted by Senator Gordon Smith and Senator Joseph Biden during which General Wesley Clark and other witnesses testified in favor of NATO enlargement to include the Baltics. Cameron Munter, Director of Central and East European Affairs at the National Security Council, presided over the State Department briefing. The conference also featured a Department of Commerce hosted session on investment and trade opportunities in the Baltic countries.

The conference program was conducted by the then president of JBANC, Janis Kukainis, president of the American Latvian Association (ALA) and assisted by Mati Koiva, President of the Estonian American National Council, Inc. and Saulius Kuprys, President of the Lithuanian American Council, Inc. The Managing Director, Karl Altau, assisted by his program assistant, Simonas Girdzijauskas and the manager of expandnato.org, Rojs Dauburs, made the necessary administrative arrangements. According to JBANC’s practice of rotating leadership positions among its three member organizations, Mr. Kuprys took over as JBANC president following the conference.