"There can be no justification for SS Legion veterans marching in the center of the Latvian capital and for the police using force against anti-fascists. Moreover, these events are taking place in modern Latvia, which is a member state of the EU and the OSCE," the Russian permanent representative told an OSCE session in Vienna, Russia's Foreign Ministry reported on Monday.
Alexei Borodavkin pointed to the inadmissibility of the "attempts to justify the nazi' ideology and crimes, heroize the fascist SS organization and its former legionaries."
"The fascist manifestation in Riga cannot be qualified otherwise than an insult to the memory of those who saved the world from Nazi's plague," his statement says.
According to Russia's permanent representative, it was very cynical that the SS Legion march in Riga took place on the eve of the 60th anniversary of the end of World War Two. On the eve of this date, the OSCE Council of Foreign Ministers adopted a special declaration in Sofia in December 2004, the diplomat reminded the OSCE session.
The document, in particular, says the following: "We mourn for tens of millions of persons who perished in the war, tens of millions of the victims of the war, the Holocaust, the occupation and repressions. We commemorate all those who fought for the victory of humanism over the dictatorship, oppression and aggression. Time will be unable to belittle the grandness of their sacrifice."
"However, we have to state regrettably that we do not find a satisfactory explanation for the fact that the OSCE and the European Union have refrained from their assessment of what took place in Riga," Alexei Borodavkin stressed.
Russia's OSCE permanent representative expressed the hope that the OSCE would give a principled assessment of the fascist manifestation in Riga and the act of desecration of the monument to Soviet soldiers - liberators in the capital of Latvia in January.
The Russian side has on many occasions qualified SS marches in Latvia as immoral, inadmissible and contradicting the judgement of the Nuremberg Tribunal, which recognized the SS a criminal organization, Russia's OSCE permanent representative said.
