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The President of the Republic on the parade of Victory Day, 23 June 2002, at Põlva
23.06.2002


Mr Admiral,
Excellencies,
Members of the Defence Forces and of the Defence League,
Reservists at home,
People of Estonia,


Today, on our Victory Day, on the 83rd anniversary of the Battle of Võnnu, while standing here in front of hundreds of Estonian soldiers, members of the Defence League and its youth organisations, it is appropriate to summarize what we have achieved in building up our national defence and Defence Forces.

Ten years ago we were lacking in almost everything needed to set up defence forces: professional personnel, weaponry, equipment and infrastructure. We had no national officers corps. Yet, we had won back the most important prerequisite of them - our national independence.

To have success in building up defence forces several factors are needed. First - political will which motivates society. The Soviet occupation and concomitant repressions having lasted for nearly half a century had disrupted historical traditions of our national defence and caused a trough in defence will of the people. At political level, we had to overcome sceptical attitudes towards funding our young national defence, towards young people enlisting in the Defence Forces and in the Defence League.

We had to train our own national civil servants and specialists experienced in military affairs. That was no easy task because our politicians and young civil servants first lacked in necessary experience in the field of security and defence policy. But at this point, those countries having supported the process of restoring our independence gave us a hand. Now they saw in us partners in building up and operating European and other structures of international security.

As a result of joint efforts, the people of Estonia have in a very short time - in ten years - built up from scratch a considerable system of national defence.

More than 25,000 of officers and enlisted personnel have been trained for the wartime forces. We have established an efficient training system, which has laid the basis for our national corps of commissioned officers and cadre non-coms.

Owing to often self-denying efforts of both commissioned and non-commissioned officers we have created Defence Forces, in which the principal values are high defence will, team spirit and fair relations between the superiors and subordinates. Service and training of conscripts in the defence Forces is not an end in itself, its purpose is to prepare our citizens for times of crisis and war.

Our defence will has grown decisively in parallel with our statehood strengthening, living standards of the population rising and the Defence Forces developing continuously. According to the last opinion polls are 80 % of the Estonian men ready to take part in defending the country.

I guess I am not betraying a big state secret saying that Estonia today has weaponry and equipment for nearly 100,000 combatants. Our Defence Forces have attained the capability of successfully fulfilling the international obligations of the Republic of Estonia. Estonian soldiers have participated and are participating as equal partners in peace operations in Lebanon, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, and Kosovo.

As a Member of the Board of the Defence League I am pleased to note that its membership has reached nearly 8,000 by now. At the same time we have got rid of those for whom belonging to the Defence League was just a thrilling adventure. The Defence League's role in preserving our military readiness, organizing Estonian territorial defence and raising the defence will can hardly be overrated.

The whole people have made great efforts to increase our defence expenditures up to 2 % of our gross national product. In a situation, where not only education and welfare, but also culture and many other areas of life needed additional funding, it has not been an easy decision to give priority to national defence. However, to an independent nation nothing is more important than its existence and security. The security guarantees, which the Republic of Estonia will get by joining NATO, cannot be measured against any amount of money.

For this reason, Estonia's first, unquestionable priority in the field of security policy and in our practical foreign-political activities is and will be accession to NATO, until we will have reached the status of full membership of the North Atlantic Alliance.

Although Estonia, neither at present nor in the near future sees any direct military threats to its security, the security environment surrounding Estonia still remains unpredictable in the long term. And this is just the greatest risk to our security. While building up the national defence it would be irresponsible to start from anything else than from the principle: "Hope for the best but prepare for the worst!"

Estonia never has either sought or bred enemies. And still, the message of mine as of the supreme commander of national defence is unambiguous: Estonia will resist any aggressor no matter how overwhelming.

It is quite clear that for such a small country like Estonia while building its system of national defence one factor takes precedence - to minimize casualties among civilian population. It also is clear that we can reach it, as well as our readiness to react to a great variety of unforeseeable future security risks, only through a system of total defence integrating whole society.

The creation of an independent defence potential is the prime prerequisite for retaining national independence. It is possible to offer military aid only to a nation, which, at the moment of aiding, still exists and is capable of receiving it.

More important: the decisive precondition of military national defence - the defence will - can only be safeguarded by integrating whole society into building up the national defence. We must be aware that whatever capabilities the Estonian Defence Forces had, they only can be implemented when our society as a whole and every member of it separately have firm will to defend the country.

Our people and Defence Forces have made a remarkable progress in building up our system of national defence and Defence Forces. But a lot remains to be done to preserve these achievements and to develop them further.

Every citizen must know his place in the system of national defence. For this purpose, we have to complete the systems of readiness and mobilization of the state and the Defence Forces. We must support the efforts to create urgently needed training conditions for our battalions. In addition, a lot remains to be done in order to build up a system of total defence and to create security reserves for the population.

We really have to exert ourselves to become a full-fledged partner of the member states of the North Atlantic Alliance. But, we are doing all this in the name of peace and international security, in the name of the survival and sustainability of the Republic of Estonia. In the name of ourselves persisting both in time and in space.

While performing those tasks we will neither spare our strength nor give in or get exhausted!

Long live the Republic of Estonia!


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