Estonian removal of war memorial angers Russians

ESTONIA:Estonia deployed riot police to guard excavation work at a Soviet war memorial yesterday amid fears of violent protest and threats of diplomatic and economic retaliation from Moscow.

About 200 policemen watched workers at the Bronze Soldier statue in central Tallinn erect a fence and a large tent to shield the monument while they exhume bodies buried beneath and prepare to move it to a suburban cemetery.

About 100 protesters gathered at the statue, which some Estonians see as a grim reminder of Soviet occupation but which many of the country's 300,000 ethnic Russian residents consider a symbol of heroic victory over Nazi invaders.

Estonia's government has promised to exhume the bodies of Red Army soldiers that are believed to lie under the statue, and move them, along with it, to a cemetery - despite warnings of serious repercussions from some leading Russian politicians.

"In an effort to ensure that any human remains we might find at the site are treated in a respectful and dignified manner . . . a special tent has been set up at the scene," said a statement from Estonia's defence ministry, which is in charge of war graves.

The fate of the monument has strained ties between Moscow and Tallinn, whose politicians have regularly clashed since Estonia escaped the Kremlin's grip in 1991 after almost 50 years of Soviet occupation.

Russia's foreign ministry said in a statement: "We express deep concern over Estonian government plans to move the buried soldiers of various nationalities who gave their lives for the liberation of Europe from fascism, and for tearing down the Soldier-Liberator Memorial in Tallinn."

Mikhail Kamynin, a spokesman for the ministry, called the excavation work "inhuman" and said Russia considered the actions "to be an attempt to rewrite the lessons of the second World War".

Nine Russians were prevented from entering Estonia yesterday as the country stepped up security against a perceived threat of violence from Russian nationalists, who some Estonian officials say are being spurred on by Moscow's rhetoric.

Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov has said Estonia's "sacrilegious" actions will "have negative implications not only for Russian-Estonian relations, but also for all of postwar Europe".