THE SECRETARY GENERAL
LA SECRÉTAIRE GÉNÉRALE
159 CIR 21 E
15 October 2021
TO SECRETARIES OF DELEGATION FOR DISTRIBUTION TO ALL MEMBERS
Dear Member,
I am profoundly saddened to inform you that Ojārs Ēriks Kalniņš, Head of the Latvian
delegation, passed away on Thursday 14 October 2021.
Ojārs was a son of Europe’s troubled history and embodied the transatlantic bond through his
mixed Latvian-US background. He was born in Munich in 1949 in a displaced persons camp
after his parents fled Soviet-occupied Latvia. His family emigrated to the United States, where
Ojārs grew up in Chicago – a city he talked about with great affection and which coloured his
native English accent.
In parallel to his successful advertising career, Ojārs was active in various Latvian American
organizations, raising awareness of the Soviet occupation of the Baltic States and building
support in the United States for the continued non-recognition of their annexation.
Following the fall of the Berlin wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ojārs served as
Latvia’s ambassador to the United States and Mexico from 1993 to 2000. In 2000, he was also
one of the founders of the Latvian Transatlantic Organization (LATO) – the Latvian chapter of
the Atlantic Treaty Association.
Ojārs was one of the most active promoters and architects of Latvia’s membership in NATO in
2004.
He was first elected to the
Saeima
in 2010, where he served as Chairman of the Foreign Affairs
Committee until 2018. He joined the NATO PA in 2011 and led the Latvian delegation ever
since.
Ojārs was one of the leading members of the Political Committee. He was its Chairman and
had just been elected General Rapporteur at the 2021 Annual Session, where many of you
will have seen him. He was also a Co-Chair of the Ukraine-NATO Interparliamentary Council
and a member of the NATO PA’s informal support group for the Crimea Platform. As such, he
represented the NATO PA at the Crimea Platform Summit at the end of August. Having
experienced the Soviet occupation of Latvia, he was a strong supporter of Ukraine and Georgia
as well as a powerful advocate for the continued non-recognition of Russia’s illegal and forcible
annexation of Crimea.
In the Standing Committee, Ojārs provided a clear-headed, calm, thoughtful, and steady vision
as a committed transatlanticist and one of the most respected voices in the Assembly. Ojārs
also served on the Assembly’s Bureau between 2014 and 2016.
INTERNATIONAL SECRETARIAT
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