REMARKS BY PRESIDENT MCALEESE ON THE OCCASION OF AN ADDRESS BY VAIRA VIKE-FREIBERGA
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT MCALEESE ON THE OCCASION OF AN ADDRESS BY VAIRA VIKE-FREIBERGA, FORMER PRESIDENT OF LATVIA
Good evening and welcome to Áras an Uachtaráin, where the most politically active and aware young men and women on the island of Ireland are gathered to meet and engage with one of c0ntemporary Europe’s legendary leaders, Vaira Vike-Freiberga.
The life-story of the recently retired President of Latvia, Vaira Vike-Freiberga, is the story of Europe in microcosm. It is a story full of tragedy and transcendence, of heartache and hope, of oppression and liberation. It would be impossible to do it justice in a brief introduction, but I will try at least to set the scene.
As President of Latvia until earlier this year, Vaira and I have met many times and we have become good friends. I was delighted during a State visit to Latvia earlier this year to see how accurate were the wonderful things she had told me about her country.
Seventy years ago this month Vaira Vike-Freiberga was born in the Latvian capital, Riga. By the age of seven she had already lived through the fearful and bloody occupation of her country by the Soviet Union and by the Nazis. As the rest of Europe celebrated the defeat of Germany, the Red Army marched into Riga, not as liberators but as occupiers. Fleeing from another sure era of persecution, her family suffer unspeakable hardship in a German camp which provides little shelter against the winter that follows, with temperatures down to minus 35°C. Her infant sister dies there and the family trudges on as displaced persons among hundreds of thousands of displaced persons, first to Morocco and nine years later to Canada. It would be almost fifty years before the liberation of her country and fifty-four years before she would live again in Riga.
In Canada she became an eminent Professor of Psychology but she never forgot her homeland. She was not only a renowned expert on Latvian folklore but a formidable champion of Latvian independence and leader of the Latvian expatriate community. Within a year of her return to Latvia in 1998 she was installed as President and led her country through the most remarkable period in its history, culminating in membership of the European Union where she has been a tireless advocate of a strong and effective Union.
Her vision and her work have not been confined to Latvia. She has been a special envoy for UN reform and the first female candidate for the post of UN Secretary General. Out of her distilled life experience and her deep-rooted sense of justice has come a wisdom which is worth sharing which is why we are here.
The Berlin declaration says, ‘Europe’s wealth lies in the knowledge and ability of its people’. There is no-one more knowledgeable, no one more able than our guest this evening. Mrs Vike-Freiberga was in this house on May 1st 2004 for the Day of Welcomes when ten new member states - among them Latvia - rejoined the European family of nations. It is a huge honour that she is back with us again and it is a real joy to introduce to her the very best of young people from our shared island. Please give Vaira Vike-Freiberga the very warmest of Irish welcomes.