Vytautas Landsbergis, Lithuania - Speech at the Conference “Crimes of the Communist Regimes”, Given on 25 February 2010, Prague
Vytautas Landsbergis, Lithuania - Speech at the Conference “Crimes of the Communist Regimes”, Given on 25 February 2010, Prague

Author(s): Vytautas Landsbergis
Subject(s): Law, Constitution, Jurisprudence, Criminal Law, Post-War period (1950 - 1989), Transformation Period (1990 - 2010), History of Communism
Published by: Ústav pro studium totalitních režimů
Summary/Abstract: Ladies and Gentlemen, allow me first to say some remarks on war crimes. The most terrible war crime is the war itself. More precisely, somebody’s initiated war of deliberate destruction and conquest, usually based on conspiracy and betrayal of the given international commitments, without regard for the caused human suffering – this is the war crime Number one. If there is no war, where would war crimes come from? The state – initiator and conqueror – comes there as a perpetrator responsible for its deeds. Sometimes all this, as well as the situation of crime, are fixed immediately, in flagranti. Both initiators of the Second World War were excluded or kicked out of the League of Nations as aggressors and blood-spotted robbers of their smaller neighbours. Th en it was clear: the condemned and politically punished states were Germany and the USSR, not the “regimes” or ideologies, to remind of the usual misty self-deception and self-confusion of nowadays. The common starting point for both in 1939 was Poland and Finland, with Baltic States still anticipating their execution. Just before that latter happened, the looters or marauders were in advance bargaining for the forthcoming conquest of the neighbouring lands.

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