EICEE - Estonia

Foundation for the Investigation of Communist Crimes
www.communistcrimes.org

The purpose of the Foundation for the Investigation of Communist Crimes is to diffuse knowledge and increase international understanding of the crimes against humanity conducted by violent communist regimes across the globe in different times. The goal of the Foundation is to deal away with a shockingly common and ubiquitous illusion that any ‘semi-good’ violent regimes – yet based on the violation of human rights, torture and constant threat on life – ever existed or could exist.
Communist crimes need to be understood globally, and they must be condemned the same way Nazi crimes were. In pursuing its mission, the Foundation gathers data regarding Communist crimes and Red terror across the world, provides grants for scholarly research, diffuses information globally via modern communication channels, and supports experts advising the last remaining communist regimes in their transformation to free democracies.

Mart Laar - Founder, Member of Council - In 1992, at the age of thirty two, Laar was appointed Estonia’s first post-communist Prime Minister by Estonian President Lennart Meri. In 1999 he returned to the post to bring Estonia’s economic crisis to an end and to lead Estonia toward admission to the European Union.

Laar led Estonia through rapid and profound economic reforms. These reforms won praise and laid the groundwork for Estonia’s tremendous economic growth and its acceptance to the European Union. Under Mart Laar Estonia’s economy became widely known as the “Baltic Tiger.”

As a historian, Laar has written several books on Estonian and Russian history, including War in the Woods: Estonia's Struggle for Survival, 1944-1956 about those who refused to accept the Soviet Union’s annexation of Estonia.