As from February 1st all former KGB agents and collaborators in Lithuania are required to register with a special commission of the Department of State Security.
Published:
3 February 2000 y., Thursday
If former agents fail to register, the Lithuanian authorities have threatened to make public their previous activities. The law of registration, acknowledgement, confession and protection of individuals who secretly collaborated with the special services of the former USSR_ was passed by the Seym (Lithuanian parliament) in November and a special commission of officials from the Department of State Security, the Center of Genocide and Resistance and representatives of the Prosecutor-General_s office has been created. The law states that anyone who collaborated with the KGB must, in the course of 6 months (i.e. before August 1st), phone the Department of State Security and to arrange an appointment with members of the abovementioned commission in order to recount his/her activities. According to a member of the Interdepartmental Lustration Commission Rimantas Martinkenas, the commission is interested primarily in information, documents and objects concerning KGB activities. All the collected information will be classified and the Department of State Security will, upon request, protect the confessors from attempts to force them to collaborate or from any other violence by special services. If the former collaborators do not come forward within the time limit or deliberately give false information about themselves, other persons or the activities of special services, then details of their collaboration will be made public. These people would then be subject to a Lithuanian law, which forbids such individuals from becoming state employees or working in the education system.
Martinkenas says that at the time of its abolishment, there were about four thousand people in Lithuania who were in some way connected with the KGB. For the whole post-war Soviet period, the figure amounted to about 30,000 individuals from all social groups.
Copying, publishing, announcing any information from the News.lt portal without written permission of News.lt editorial office is prohibited.
The most popular articles
Polling stations have opened in the central Asian republic of Kazakhstan for the election of a new parliament
more »
Thousands of Ukrainians have rallied in Kiev in support of opposition presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko
more »
A Ukrainian opposition leader and presidential candidate is in a Vienna
more »
The government promotes this Baltic nation as E-stonia, and it has a point
more »
Lukashenka will face problems with getting support of majority in changing Constitution
more »
Just last month Islamist guerrillas kidnapped and murdered the Italian journalist Enzo Baldoni in Iraq, while security guard Fabrizio Quattrocchi met a similar fate in April
more »
The number of people looking for work in Germany rose in August
more »
Macedonia's parliament has ordered a referendum to be held in November on a law seen to favour ethnic Albanians
more »
Russia began counting the cost today at the end of siege of a school captured by Chechen gunmen
more »
The blast happened at the end of the evening rush hour
more »