On 30 May 2022, the Ambassador of Latvia to the Kingdom of Belgium, Andris Razāns, submitted a diplomatic note to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Belgium in protest to the intent of removing a monument, “The Latvian Beehive for Freedom”, dedicated to Latvian prisoners of war. Implementing the idea of the Belgian municipality who worked in cooperation with the Museum of the Occupation of Latvia, the monument was unveiled in the Belgian city of Zedelgem in 2018.
“The Latvian Beehive for Freedom” monument reminds the Belgian society of the tragic outcomes of World War II – of more than 12 thousand Latvian prisoners of war kept in captivity in the Zedelgem POW camp from 1945 to 1946 – while paying due tribute to the memory of the soldiers. Latvia finds unacceptable the decision announced just now by the Municipality of Zedelgem to remove the monument without coordinating such action with the Museum of the Occupation of Latvia. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Latvia also expects precise information on the further fate of the monument. The Ministry calls on the Municipality of Zedelgem to engage directly with the Museum of the Occupation of Latvia to address all the matters related to the monument.
At the same time, last week, on 26 May, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Edgars Rinkēvičs, sent a letter to the Minister-President of Flanders, reiterating a call for organising a professional debate among Baltic, Belgian, Polish, and other Western European historians on the monument’s historical context. Regrettably, earlier efforts did not bear fruit, as the expert discussion organised by the municipality towards the end of last year did not offer any clear scenarios for further action; neither did it propose an explanatory text to be inscribed on a possible new informative plaque for the monument. In his last week’s letter, the Foreign Minister of Latvia pointed out that discussions on the monument’s fate failed to take into account the war launched by Russia on Ukraine and Russia’s propaganda that had already been actively targeting the monument.
On 30 May, the Latvian Ambassador intends to meet with the Foreign Affairs Adviser to the Minister-President of Flanders and have a meeting at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Belgium to exchange view on those matters.
Already on 10 December 2021, the Latvian Foreign Minister sent a letter to the Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs, European Affairs and Foreign Trade and the Federal Cultural Institutions of the Kingdom of Belgium, Sophie Wilmès, in which he expressed concerns about developments in Zedelgem in relation to the Latvian Beehive for Freedom monument and requested the Belgian Minister to pay an increased attention to the issue. In his letter, the Minister expressed deep regret over the recommendations of the previous international group of historians to relocate the monument. The Foreign Minister allowed for a possibility that the Zedelgem Municipality might have been subject to strong disinformation of various origin both at the local and international level, with non-democratic and aggressive regimes deploying smear campaigns against democratic European nations to maliciously use disinformation for the advancement of their geopolitical agendas.
Although the monument, unveiled in 2018, has been created with private donations to the Latvian Occupation Museum Association and is not a subject of an intergovernmental agreement, Latvia regards as unacceptable the efforts to relocate the monument without the consent of the Museum of the Occupation of Latvia.
As reported earlier, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Latvia met with representatives from the Museum of the Occupation of Latvia on 26 May, and the participants of the meeting were unanimous that the monument to Latvian POWs in the Municipality of Zedelgem was a monument to Latvian soldiers and Latvian patriots who, while being kept in a POW camp in the territory of Belgium, did not lose their hope in the restoration of an independent Latvian state.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs will continue to closely follow developments concerning the issue and engage with Belgian authorities to address.
The Latvian Foreign Service aims to achieve that a respectful and objective attitude is ensured towards the history of the Latvian state and its people as well as towards commemorative objects and monuments symbolising that history.