(23 Dec 2012) SHOTLIST
Dobele
1. Wide of Latvian President Andris Berzins laying flowers at the monument for Soviet soldiers
2. Low shot of monument
3. Wide of Berzins and other officials
4. Sign reading (Russian) "Eternal memory to the soldiers of the Great Patriotic War"
5. SOUNDBITE (Latvian) Andris Berzins, Latvian President:
"Soldiers are not guilty. We should remember when this happened. We should understand that they now live quietly."
6. Soviet veterans and former Latvian Legionnaires laying flowers
7. Wide pan of the flowers
8. SOUNDBITE (Latvian) Aloizs Luksa, Soviet veteran:
"Of course it is a time for unity. Why should we argue? They drafted both sides into the army. Do you want to fight? Nobody asked us that. Who wants to be at war?"
Lestene
9. Wide of Latvian president and veterans at cemetery for members of the Latvian Legion
10. Wide of Lestene monument
11. Wide of veterans laying flowers
12. SOUNDBITE (Latvian) Raimonds Graube, commander for National Armed Forces of Latvia:
"A civilised country honours the fallen, independently of the side with whom they were at war, on the side of the winners or the losers. This happened all over the world and this is what I teach my officers - the fallen enemy should be honoured."
13. Soviet veteran looking at the memorial stone
14. Wide pan of snow-covered graves of Latvian fallen soldiers
15. Wide of monument
STORYLINE:
Latvian President Andris Berzins honoured the fallen soldiers of World War II at two memorial services on Sunday.
The Latvian president, who was elected to power in June 2011, invited veterans to lay flowers together at a monument to Soviet soldiers in Dobele and a monument to Latvian Legionnaires, who fought for the Germans, in Lestene.
Berzins said the events of the Second World war should not be forgotten.
"We should remember when this happened. We should understand that they now live quietly."
Raimonds Graube, commander for National Armed Forces of Latvia said a "civilised country honours the fallen, independently of the side with whom they were at war."
Hundreds of veterans from the Waffen-SS, the armed wing of the Nazi Party's Schutzstaffel, marched in Riga in mid-March to mark Legionnaires' Day, which commemorates Latvians who fought for the Germans during World War II.
Berzins argued it was foolish to assume that Waffen-SS veterans were criminals and that they deserve the public's respect.
Soviet forces occupied the Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia in June 1940, but were driven out by the Germans a year later. The Red Army retook the Baltics in 1944, and reincorporated them into the Soviet Union.
About 250-thousand Latvians ended up fighting alongside either the Germans or the Soviets in World War II and some 150-thousand Latvians died in the fighting.
Veterans who fought on the side of Nazi Germany say they were simply fighting for their freedom against the Soviet menace.
But many ethnic Russians, who comprise approximately one-third of the country's 2.3 (m) million population, claim that the Soviet army liberated the Baltic state from fascism.
Latvia remained under Soviet control until 1991, when it regained its independence.


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