It was especially touching that Vike-Freiberga reminded us in her statement that the UN plays a major part in protecting various groups of people in rich and poor countries. It made me think about a certain group of people - 475,000 of them, in fact - whom the Latvian president could start protecting now, without moving to New York.

They are the Russian speakers of Latvia who still carry the humiliating violet passports of "non-citizens". More than 40% of Latvia's population have limited political and civil rights, are prohibited from taking up some professions, are discriminated against in business, and in general are treated as second-class people.

This is the result of a political choice by the Latvian authorities, and a personal one by Vaira Vike-Freiberga. She spoke exceedingly openly about the Russian minority in a recent interview. "They should admit that this is an independent country and become Letts of Russian origin. If they want to remain Russians, they should go to Russia," she said.

The Latvian president publicly denied nearly half of her population the right to a national tongue, traditions and culture. To earn the right to citizenship, Russian speakers should pretend to become Letts.

Latvia's disregard for the rights of ethnic minorities has grown into an open challenge since May 1, 2004, when it joined the European Union. Upon admission, it pledged to comply with the co-called Copenhagen criteria. The criteria require the acceding state to have the necessary institutions to preserve democratic governance and human rights, a functioning market economy, and to accept the obligations and intentions of the EU.

And now the international community is being called upon to elect a politician who shares this unacceptable view of human values to the highest post in the United Nations. What for? So that she will have more opportunities to spread the ideology of intolerance towards the rights of ethnic minorities on a global scale?

I hope the third round of the "beauty pageant", as the vote on candidates set for September 27 is generally called, will prove that the 15 representatives of the UN Security Council states are compos mentis, that is, rationally thinking and of sound mind.

This is cache, read story here