IMPROBABLE TRUTHS excerpt (by Andres Kahar)

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(Excerpt from the highly mootable forthcoming collection _IMPROBABLE
TRUTHS FROM THE NEAR EAST_ by Andres Kahar)

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LATVIAN SAMURAI IS A REAL PISTOL (1997)

By ANDRES KAHAR

In the middle of an otherwise routine afternoon in November 1996, a
loaded pistol was found at the seat of Socialist MP Modris Lujans.
Right there, in the middle of Latvia's parliament.

After a brief flurry of excitement, fellow MPs discovered that the
weapon belonged to none other than MP Janis Adamsons, a Social
Democrat, by party affiliation at least.

Adamsons failed to account for the appearance of his stray firearm on
Lujans' desk.

In a way, the incident was emblematic of Adamsons' political career. 
In the autumn of 1995, during Latvia's second post-Soviet general
election campaign, Adamsons' vaguely James Cagney-esque face adorned
campaign posters for the popular centrist party Latvia's Way.
Throughout the campaign, he was painted the party's "locomotive" to
reelection.

Janis Adamsons was a chief vote-getter for a party that seemed to be
made for winning elections.

Since those heady days, things changed considerably for Adamsons.

These days, he is almost comfortable chit-chatting about a range of
subjects, from Far Eastern philosophy to the virtues of owning a
Japanese car. But he's in best form discussing abstruse conspiracy
theory detail.

Upon offering the glad hand, Adamsons will tell you about the Toyota
he once owned while serving for 13 years in the Soviet coast guard in
the once-Japanese Kurile Islands.

"The steering wheel was on the right," he chuckles, still plainly
struck by the novelty of steering from the right. Adamsons' current
political affiliations, however, are anything but right-leaning.

Once a high-profile interior minister, Adamsons' decided last autumn
to leave Latvia's Way and join the ranks of the Social Democrats, a
somewhat fractious left-wing party unrepresented in parliament. His
move to the political fringe was hard for pundits to fathom.

While the Social Democrats do find durable kernels of support among
disgruntled pensioners and factory workers, the party's current
efforts at revamping itself into a Western European social democratic
party have not won them mainstream appeal among the middle class and
business élite – voters who feel they had more than their fill of
leftist ideology during Soviet times.

But Adamsons sees his cross-party shift in moral terms.

"I blamed Latvia's Way for not fulfilling promises in its party
programme, such as supporting small- and medium-sized businesses,"
Adamsons explains. "I wanted to develop a normal group, one which,
like the Social Democrats, does not think only about their own
interests and pockets, but of the entire state's development. I think
this party's day will come in the nearest time."

If pressed, Adamsons says that he remains a centrist at heart. To this
he adds that he is prepared to fight tooth and nail against what he
sees as a wrong-headed state development process – one guided by
politicians' interests, not economic realities.

Adamsons rhetorically asks why the current government is so determined
to privatize state-owned enterprises. His explanation: "Many of these
enterprises, led by leading politicians, had credit ties with the [now
notoriously bankrupt] Banka Baltija, and according to privatization
rules, the losses will be covered by the state budget."

Parties, he says, are not political groupings, but little more than
fronts for economic interests.

"We're developing along the Latin American model," Adamsons explains.
"Thirty-five percent [of the population] are average or above average,
and the rest are poor."

Although Adamsons sounds studiously moderate when compared to some of
his fellow party faithful, his general prescription is no different:
the left must consolidate, he insists. His party and other
left-leaning forces – except Lujans' Socialists (a lineal descendant
of the Communist Party, he adds) – must join forces with an eye to the
next parliamentary elections [in 1998].
As Adamsons vows to "end the robberies," he doesn't put much political
store in Latvian Premier Andris Skele's right-leaning, reformist line.
According to Adamsons, since Skele is a businessman, he is also de
parti pris.

"Nearly seventy percent of the meat industry is owned by Skele,
directly or indirectly, and as finance minister [Skele] forgave many
enterprise debts," says Adamsons. "If this is not a crime, it is
certainly a conflict of interest."

Time in the Far East has left its mark on Adamsons. The influence runs
ostensibly deeper than a professed preference for Japanese cars (he
owns a Mitsubishi Lancer) and being inordinately proud of the samurai
sword he acquired in Japan.

"Far Eastern philosophy is very close to me," he tells. "If I wouldn't
have studied it, life would be much harder."

A self-declared follower of the "life ethics school," Adamsons
believes that the Baltic states would do well to introduce a blend of
Krishna and Tibetan Buddhist philosophy to the political pot.

"We the Balts are in a very unique position, but unfortunately we
don't know how to use it," he says. "We have to unite Western
materialism with Eastern tuition, and I think in the nearest time this
will happen."

Adamsons explains how Far Eastern philosophies have inspired a belief
in the "forces of light struggling to eventual triumph over the forces
of darkness." Unlike Christianity, he says, the "law of reincarnation"
in Eastern philosophies has not been changed through history.

The MP's moralistic rhetoric has made him a target. Adamsons admits to
being cheesed off over politicians and journalists labelling him a
"populist." His critics have recently pointed out that the same
Adamsons who once deemed receiving a Soviet military pension from
Russia "amoral" finally decided to collect his $6,000 last year.

This Soviet-era pension money paid for the Mitsubishi Lancer, and then
some.
"The reason I took it [the pension] is very simple," Adamsons informs.
"In a period of six years, no Latvian law on officers' pension has
been passed and officers are the most vulnerable groups in society. It
was like I just started work in 1992."

In his own defence, Adamsons points out that, as of last December
[1996], he stopped receiving his monthly Soviet-era pension payment of
$200. He footnotes this news with another piece of personal trivia:
"Everyone forgets that I was refused a Russian visa three times. I
guess I'm not a good person in their [Russia's] view."

Adamsons, who many see as the Social Democrats' Trojan horse in
Parliament, shirks all criticism, concluding that his opponents are
simply trying to blacken his name in order to burnish their own.

The controversial MP devotes most days and evenings to an "explanation
campaign," letting the public know about his party's ideas.

Janis Adamsons looks forward to future parliamentary elections. 

He clearly hopes that his current incarnation will put him in a good
position to score a few points for what he considers to be Latvia's
forces of light.

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(Originally published: The Baltic Times, 13 February 1997)

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