Dear fellow countrymen!


First of all, I would like to thank you for your flowers, your good wishes and your loyalty. One year has passed, and it has been the busiest year of my life so far. Like yours, it has sometimes been troublesome, sometimes happy, and at times it has caused disappointment. Yet it has been a year of Estonia. And for Estonia it has been a year where our small country has gained a still firmer footing in the world.

We have not made any major blunders, but there have been minor ones; and the sum of those blunders has generated disillusionment and animosity. Do not allow that to tow you along, for it would lead to indifference and alienation from Estonia. It would open the door to - no, not communists, as their number is trifling - but to a certain kind of politicians who have been around in every society and at all times. Whether out of childishness or greed for power, but they would like to govern alone, without the obstructing parliament, without judicial authority, without international commitments or traditions. "The end justifies the means" is their motto, and they may even be honest in so thinking. But it will inevitably lead to making undemocratic decisions, behind which there is the sneering face of totalitarianism. There is more than one name to totalitarianism, but it has a single face. And I am sad to say we know the face.

The Estonian constitution has created a mechanism to prevent us from rolling downhill and to help us ascend to the peak of democracy. During the first constitutional year we have learned to know, to sustain and to apply that mechanism. This is what can be declared the most valuable, though inconspicuous, achievement of the past year. Little by little the constitution has begun to work. You can well appraise it against the the recent conflict imn Moscow. The constitution is our shield. It remains unnoticed as long as it has a protective power. It has protected you.

Now elections are at the doorstep. Everybody in Mary's Land have their rights and duties. Most of the time we know what our rights are. But is it also clear what our duties are? Power is coming back into the hands of the people, and it is on you that the duty rests to exercise power on your farm, in your village, your parish, your city district. Power is vested in the people rather than in Toompea.

I should like to address the recap of the first year first and foremost to the peasants, the old-age pensioners, and the Estonian intellectuals. It is on you that the reconstruction of the state and the restructuring of the economy have dealt the smartest blow. Today I just want to thank you for holding out, for feeding the whole nation with your hope and faith like at the marriage in Cana. Three years ago I said in a speech of mine that I could promise sweat, blood and tears. I said the rebirth of Estonia would be hard. Today I dare say the harder times are over. In the winter frosts we have been warmed most of all by the old-age pensioners' memories of a pre-war Estonia. Those memories have infused faith and hope. You told your grandchildren about a country that most of the people have never seen and which they conceive as a fairyland. It was a country where there was no malice; where doors were kept unlocked; where a rustic was a proud man who never crooked his back; where the stronger one helped the weaker one without asking what he would profit by it. In the meantime that land did not exist. Now that land is coming. It is coming quicker than elsewhere, since Estonians have a marvellous feature: daily for fifty years on end we used to ridicule to death Soviet power. Even behind barbed wire. Today Estonian irony is none the less ruthless to ridicule to death populist politicians so they will never rise again with the aid of their promises of milk and honey.

The Republic of Estonia is coming; the Russian troops are going, provided one now takes quick, unanimous and resolute action. On the last day of September I told the General Assembly in New York that Boris Yeltsin, the President of the Russian Federation, who was getting rid of the sham parliament, was now presented with an opportunity to demonstrate to the whole world that his deeds do not dissent from his words, and the easiest way for him to demonstrate it was here, in the Baltic space.

There is no other place for Estonians to upbuild their home and their state, and we never intend to look for another place. We have begun dozens of times under this tepid sun of ours, and always managed to raise ourselves - the way we did in 1918 by exercising our right to self-determination, since we had realized that nothing but our own statehood, governed by the will of the people, would grant the survival of the little Estonian nation, the Estonian language, the Estonian traditions and way of life.

To this end each and all of us have to have their own aspiration and their own vision. Those need not, and must not, coincide in details, but we must have complete unanimity in the main thing: our national continuance, perpetuation of our freedom and independence.

We shall get rid of Russian troops. That is our first goal. But that is only the beginning of a long journey. The next move shall be the filling of the security vacuum in such a way that we should have friendly partnership relations with all quarters of the horizon up to the remotest Japan. But above all is freedom itself: not the freedom in the sense of self-defence against foreign troops, but freedom in our selves, freedom of thought, freedom at our homes, in our own parishes, our own counties, our own towns, our own Riigikogu (parliament), our own State. This highest degree of freedom will also provide us with the highest degree of justice and the highest speed of development.
/.../ If we take a closer look at it a simple mechanism becomes apparent: freedom, or balance of rights and duties, will be ensured when power is divided. Power has to be divided in such a way that nobody should have too much of it in their hands, and each should hold the end of a different rope of power: the legislator, or Riigikogu, shall keep hold of the legislative power; the Government shall have the executive power; the judicial system shall have the power to administer justice. The president shall hold the balance of power. And the people shall have the highest power of all, for the people will choose, directly or indirectly, whom they will trust with one or another kind of power.

This is where the structure of our state wobbles most of all. Nobody is willing to divide power. This may be human, but it is short-sighted.

/.../ Ours is a parliamentary state, which means that the government is accountable for its operations to Riigikogu, the parliament. The parliament, in its turn, represents you: it makes laws on the basis of the conscience and intellect of the deputies you elect, but its power is likewise restricted. The operation of the parliament is restricted by the country's constitution adopted by you in referendum and by international treaties which are equally binding for all states. They are above the Estonian laws in Estonia, above the German laws in Germany, above the American laws in the United States, because they proceed, simultaneously, from national and international interests, from international law, from prevention of wars, from avoidance of conflicts, from the creation of a mechanism that should be of particular interest to a small nation like Estonia. For alone we can do little: together we can do a lot more. /.../

I am coming to my own work. A good friend of mine, a respectable member of the National Court has asked me to try and be an unpopular president. Unexpected as it may sound, there is profound wisdom relating to public law in it. It is not my duty to play the role of a father dear to all. My duty is to hold a balance through the observation of the constitution and the protection of the constitution. This is the reason why I have sent back several laws which were at variance with the constitution, hence with your own will and interests. It need not please the government and it need not please the Riigikogu.

When you elected me head of state, you were supposed to bear in mind that a head of state is to incarnate the Republic of Estonia as a whole and to represent the interests of our national security before the world. /.../ I am grateful to those who nominated me for head of state on the Isamaa ticket.
At the same time I am disappointed in those who saw this as a way to gain an extension to the hand of the government. From the moment I took my inaugural oath to my electors I ceased to represent any political party, I only represent the state and the people. This is the way it is in the whole world. It is a gospel truth that we, too, have to learn. In a parliamentary system governments come and go, but the state, the people and the interests of national security will remain. These must be placed higher than the interests of political parties, and whether anyone likes it or not, they shall be placed higher in Estonia, too. No one will force the tail-wagging role of Michail Ivanovich Kalinin upon me. /.../

Let us sum up.

The Republic of Estonia has been a better success than the Government of the Republic of Estonia.

Estonia's international reputation is good. Regrettably, two years of negotiations with the Russian Federation have not lead to any noteworthy results. That is a sign of danger. I do not want to repeat what you may have read in my recent address to the UN General Assembly. I only find it necessary to stress three points. First: President Clinton's new administration has affirmed that a rapid withdrawal of Russian troops from Estonia and Latvia is one of the priorities of the US foreign policy. Second: now is the time for extremely quick and coordinated action in foreign policy. Third: if we wish to integrate with Europe, we first of all have to take care of the integration of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in our economic and security policies. As far as the security policy is concerned, Estonia will have to fill the vacuum in this region with realistic means and to avoid the bragging rhetoric that, fortunately, no one but ourselves has taken seriously.

/.../ We have managed to avoid mass unemployment. We have passed the bottom of the valley, and we are moving uphill. Economic-political contacts with western markets have been fortified by treaties; we have been successful, above all thanks to the Bank of Estonia and the upkeep of a stable kroon.

/.../I am especially delighted by a "Statement in Defence of the Constitution", made by ten members of Riigikogu on August 12, for which I wish to thank them here. It says, "there are spheres in politics, such as national security or foreign policy, where intense confrontation between the government and the opposition is detrimental to the interests of the state as a whole... We are of the opinion that Estonian politicians must place the interests of Estonia above their personal ambitions." As president I had impatiently waited for such a statement, and for my part I promise to do everything within my control to bring the Estonian state and the Estonian people to converge upon the most essential: and that is just the constitutional Estonian state and the parliamentary-minded Estonian people. This and only this, assisted by a vigorous involvement of the intellectuals, will ensure our development, our well-being, and the continuance of the Estonian nation.

back | archive of speeches | main page