Max van der Stoel and Latvia

Latvia was a very frequent stop in the busy travel schedule of Max van der Stoel during his tenure as the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities (HCNM) from 1993 to 2001. As the Director of the non-governmental Latvian Centre for Human Rights and Ethnic Studies from mid-1994 to the end of 2002, I met with the HCNM regularly over the years and had numerous telephone conversations with him and members of his staff to exchange information and coordinate strategy for pushing minority-related reforms. I came to have deep respect for his role in resolving some of the most sensitive political issues in post-independence Latvia.

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