UN General Assembly
1992

forces. The lack of control over this army, its sometimes chaotic demobilization, and its wilful and covert merging with economic enterprises and civil institutions in Latvia, create the threat of unsupervised arms transfers, even to international markets. Today there is no other nation State in the world with as many active or retired military persons per civilian as in Latvia. Our small nation has been pressured to provide social guarantees, including living accommodation, to the military forces of a great Power upon their withdrawal from Latvia. Meanwhile, Latvians who were deported to Siberia on a mass scale in 1941 and 1949 are still unable to find housing in their homeland. Latvians who fled to the West as a result of oppression by the former occupation regime, and who now wish to return to their native land, are also unable to find accommodation. The great neighbouring Power also attempts to determine the political basis of our State the composition of its body of citizens. We welcome the adherence of the Russian Federation to the Helsinki