Saeima of the Republic of Latvia

Interviewer.

Were there any signs in Latvia of the impending Putsch?

O. Kostanda.

I already mentioned that there was that strange Soviet army training with columns of armoured vehicles, armoured personnel carriers and others heading somewhere. One could follow their routes to see where they were driving… to be ready to take immediate control… over the Brasa Bridge and bridges over the River Daugava. Why such training all of a sudden? The army had never done anything like that in Riga before. And they had started it already in summer, apparently in preparation for events that were about to happen in August.

Of course, we at the Defence and Interior Committee continued to keep in touch with the Estonians and Lithuanians. Tālavs Jundzis [member of the Supreme Council of the Republic of Latvia] deserves credit for… actually he gave the green light and allowed us to proceed.

Interviewer.

But Tālavs said that we were not really getting ready for the Putsch, and we weren’t ready for it in August.

O. Kostanda.

Honestly, no; but he allowed me to do anything that I considered necessary. Of course, he didn’t know what and how I would do. But I maintained my contacts...

We had one important meeting very soon after the Barricades in January; it was either in February or March 1991 when Māris Markuss, Auseklis Pļaviņš and I went to the Lithuanian border town of Zarasai, where we met with Audrius Butkevičius [member of the Supreme Council of the Republic of Lithuania]. It was very soon after the Barricades. And the main purpose of the meeting was to assess the situation – just as we are doing now – in which nothing is over, and everything will continue for I don’t know how long – a month, two or three. What should we do? It was clear that no one would allow us to erect barricades again. It would be impossible, and later that proved to be true. Then we made an agreement that that if we acted, we would act in concert; one would not choose one defence tactic while the other chose another tactic. We decided on two action plans. First, we would continue... Lithuanians were doing that overtly; they were forming a National Guard... Although we managed in January 1991... Tālavs Jundzis managed to propose and justify the formation of a self-defence force in Latvia, and he got the Supreme Council to vote for that. But that decision was never implemented. Therefore Jundzis is completely correct in saying that we were not ready for something like that; we didn’t have our own defence forces. The only thing that had been implemented from this decision was Article 2 regarding formation of a special police battalion, so-called White Berets.

We agreed with Audrius Butkevičius that, first of all, we have to form and improve the quality of combatants and armament. In Lithuania, in the cellar of the Supreme Council building, Audrius Butkevičius had established the National Guard Department’s headquarters, which had workshops. In these workshops, old weapons of the wartime were being repaired – right under the parliament building, the Seimas. Empty bullet casings were brought there in boxes and filled; new ammunition was made. The Lithuanians made grenades, we also got some of them. They were plastic… pineapples… with all kinds of stuff – nails, screws, pieces of metal – melted into plastic casings. Lithuanians were working on their own sub-machine gun. They had managed to construct some good ones, and we hoped, we were waiting to get these sub-machine guns for our combatants, but there were some problems with the barrels. They were wearing out rapidly... the quality of metal was inferior. And we did the same here. Markuss, I and the people from those groups that were formed here during the Barricades went around Latvia and held what could be called “guerrilla” meetings... we held meetings with the commanders of combatants in the regions – in Latgale, Vidzeme, Kurzeme. By the way, the meeting in Kurzeme was held in the farmstead of Oskars Grīgs, a well-known farmer and member of the Supreme Council. Oskars Grīgs himself had collected an entire arsenal. In order to be able to lead their men, commanders of combatants had to have tactical skills, training in the use weapons and diverse systems, familiarity with German or Russian weapons that might be obtained, knowledge of how to organise communication and deal with explosives, etc.

Where could we train such commanders of combatants in Latvia? Nowhere. But since the Lithuanians had the National Guard Department, they actually and legally… as legally as possible in the Soviet Union... well, at least legitimately... formed a self-defence force – the National Guard. Then Audrius Butkevičius said: “I will help you, my Latvian friends. Send your combatants here for a 10-day training programme.” And we sent them. I was very glad... Māris Markuss  handled the organisational tasks; he took those men there, turned them over to the Lithuanians for training, and then brought them back... I was glad that afterwards, when at the end of 1991, when we were forming our National Guard and National Armed Forces in Latvia, many of those men who then had been illegitimate combatants became officers of the National Guard, became colonels. For example, Gaidis Ošenieks became the commander of the Kurzeme brigade of the National Guard, and so on. It all began with these, let me call them combatants, with these soldiers. So this was the first action plan.

The second action plan which Audrius Butkevičius once again... I wanted to emphasise that the barricades were his idea. And he said: “Odisejs, look for books by Gene Sharp.” Gene Sharp is an American who had studied the use of non-violent resistance around the world – in India with Ghandi, and elsewhere. He said: “Go look for those books.” He gave me some copies he had in English. “You will understand a lot from these books, and we have to think about… We cannot arm all the people; you see how we are doing. People have to be prepared for other forms of protest – protests by the masses.”

Then I returned home and involved Oļģerts Eglītis, a philosopher and participant in the Awakening movement. Oļģerts Eglītis was gifted with an amazing capacity for work; we worked day and night and translated several works by Gene Sharp, and then we could begin drafting basic tactics that could be applied in Latvia. Concurrently, Jundzis fought for and advanced the idea of establishing a Centre for Non-Violent Resistance.

And on 15 June 1991, the Presidium of the Supreme Council of the Republic of Latvia discussed establishing such a Centre and allocation of 2 million Latvian roubles for it…

Interviewer.

Wasn’t it July?

O. Kostanda.

No, it was 15 June 1991. And it was planned to establish the Centre by 20 July. The decision was made to establish the Centre, but there was no decision to allocate funding. A decision was made to appoint Odisejs Kostands as the leader of the Centre for Non-Violent Resistance. So there was the Centre, there was Kostanda, but there was no money to organise even training, or to publish, for example, some materials... But materials without people trained to use them would be... Materials were important, but then individuals would have to act on the spot on the basis of their creative approach, experience or other factors. How would they use these materials? Ideally, there should have been some coordinating officers on site. But we didn’t manage to get that far. During the Presidium meetings I addressed the need to allocate funding on several occasions; we had found a building where the training centre could be located. But we didn’t succeed. Jundzis was right – from the organisational perspective, we were not ready as a structure to carry out perfect non-violent resistance.

Nevertheless, we drafted instructions – three types of instructions. First, instructions on what staff members of the state and local government institutions should do in a given situation. Second, instructions for staff members of enterprises, organisations, public organisations, etc. And third, what each person, each individual could do. Each of these instructions consisted of three parts – what to do if violent actions begin, e.g., suppression of Latvia’s striving for independence; what to do if the coup, the dictatorial military coup, is successful; and what to do if the coup lasts for several months or years... two, three years… what to do in the long term... These instructions were prepared. Thank God we had them. We finished the drafting… the final amendments were made on 19 August, when the Putsch began; we did it together with Oļģerts Eglītis and Gunārs Kanda, who was also one of my assistants at that time and whom I had met during the Barricades. Later he headed the special unit of the National Guard... At Gunārs Kanda’s flat, Oļģerts Eglītis and I made the final amendments to the instructions; then they were printed and distributed throughout Latvia, read out on the radio and published in several newspapers, etc. From that point of view, we were ready... theoretically, we knew what to do and how, but from an organisational perspective we were not prepared... Godmanis [Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Latvia] found the money in a second at the last moment on 19 [August], when the events began; suddenly the Council of Ministers had the 2 million roubles we had been requesting since June. But we had access to money only for couple of hours because the putschists froze all bank accounts; however, Māris Markuss, who was a clever fellow, still managed in this short period to buy a huge number of all kinds of walkie-talkies, transmitters… That was already something because we could use walkie-talkies and transmitters to create a communications network, for example, with regions or rural administrative territories in order to at least try to coordinate the process. That’s how the Centre started functioning... the Centre for Non-Violent Resistance... and that’s what it did during the days of the August Putsch.

But during the nights of the August Putsch, I met with my combatants in several regions, including Kurzeme, Zemgale and Vidzeme and talked about how to broaden the scope of action in one segment or another; we took a number of people who had better weapons, sniper rifles to Riga and placed them in the premises of the Defence Committee opposite the main building of the Supreme Council of the Republic of Latvia. These men were, in effect, a death squad with sniper rifles that was supposed to protect the building of the Supreme Council building from being captured.

Interviewer.

Was it possible to erect barricades in August?

O. Kostanda.

No... That was perfectly obvious. First, you can’t step in the same river twice. It is also wrong to do so. Every time you have to use different tactics. Second, the enemy was clearly ready for that. We saw how their armoured personnel carriers were deployed and how bridges were blocked. That prevented movement of any – even the smallest – machinery... tractors from countryside, people with busses... And that was unnecessary. Why? In January that was the right and significant thing to do; we made Riga a fortress of freedom. But during the Putsch we had a different goal – to make all of Latvia a fortress of freedom, to have people who would respond in each village... If they placed an armoured personnel carrier here on the bridge over the River Daugava, people in Kuldīga would say: “Move it away; we need an independent Latvia.” Everywhere! This time this feeling went beyond the borders of Riga. That was the ideological goal.

Interviewer.

And what was the effect of the general political strike which was announced?

O. Kostanda.

I think it had a mobilising effect. When it began... No one knew how long the Putsch would last, and the outcome of the Putsch was not determined in the Baltic States, as we know. It was decided in St. Petersburg, Moscow – in Russia. But I think that the lesson learned from the Baltic States was essential also for people such as Yeltsin or numerous other democrats, as well as for common Russian people who had crossed some kind of line and went against tanks saying no to the Putsch.

Interviewer.

Currently in Latvia there are many persons who say that Latvia actually benefited from the Putsch because no one knows how long it would have taken to regain independence if we had taken the evolutionary path. What do you think?

O. Kostanda.

Well, yes. Every cloud has a silver lining. Even the Barricades had their benefits. They did not solve anything, but at that time, as I said, they increased the nation’s awareness of its power... And that was important.

Did the August Putsch accelerate anything? Well... I don’t like to use such heretical words... but if the price of independence is not blood, it does not mean a lot to people. Does blood always have to be the price? Perhaps that wouldn’t be right either, but there is some truth in that statement. That which has cost the high price of blood is remembered and held sacred for generations. That which has been gained easily is soon regarded as nothing special. Black can be painted as white, and white as black. So there is some truth in the saying that because of the Putsch we regained our freedom sooner. But we also paid the price... there were casualties...