(Passed in the Riigikogu by 74-1 on June 18, 2002. Unofficial translation. 784 AE-3)

Beginning with 1940 when the Soviet occupation of Estonia began, followed in 1941 by the German occupation and again in 1944 by the Soviet occupation, over a fifth of the Estonian population was repressed and forced to leave their homeland by the Soviet and German occupation authorities.

In remembrance of the victims of those crimes and following that

• the crimes of the German National Socialist regime have been condemned authoritatively and internationally while the equivalent crimes of the Soviet Union's communist regime have not been condemned;

• on June 16-17, 1940 the Soviet Union carried out aggression against the Republic of Estonia based upon the secret agreement with hitlerite Germany, occupying and annexing the Republic of Estonia in violation of international law, including the Peace Treaty signed between Estonia and Russia on February 2, 1920 at Tartu and the Convention for the Definition of Aggression signed at London July 3rd, 1933;

• the Soviet Union's communist occupation regime destroyed the Republic of Estonia's constitutional order, national institutions and citizens' unions and organizations;

• as a result of aggression, the occupation authorities of the Soviet Union carried out genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes on the territory of the Republic of Estonia, illegally confiscated property and deliberately destroyed Estonian national culture, inter alia monuments and printed materials, and with the goal of Russification changed the ethnic make-up of Estonia by massive resettlement of Soviet citizens into Estonia in order to destroy the Estonians as a people;

the Riigikogu declares the Soviet Union's communist regime which committed these crimes and the Soviet Union's organizations which by force implemented that regime, such as the NKVD, the NKGB, the KGB and others and any tribunals, special meetings as well as death squads and peoples' defense battalions and their activities to be criminal.

The Riigikogu emphasizes that responsibility for the crimes against humanity and the war crimes carried out in Estonia by the repressive organs of the Soviet Union in Estonia lies with the ruling Communist Party of the Soviet Union and its organization the Estonian Communist Party.

In declaring the Soviet Union's communist occupation regime's institutions and organizations which carried out aggression, crimes against humanity and war crimes as well as genocide to be criminal, the Riigikogu emphasizes that this does not mean the collective responsibility of their members and workers. Individual responsibility for the crimes of a regime is not determined by one's membership in one of the aforementioned institutions and organizations, but instead by one's specific activities, for which everyone must first of all render his own ethical judgment. Judgement on individual participation in genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes can be rendered by the courts.

The crimes of the occupation regime in Estonia were but part of the inhumane activities by totalitarian regimes in the world of the twentieth century. There is no statute of limitations on crimes against humanity. The danger of repetitions of such crimes has not disappeared. Regimes based upon extreme ideologies will threaten world peace and the free development of people as long as their criminal nature is not thoroughly exposed and condemned.

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