Latvian youth organizations organized a picket in front of the U.S. Embassy in Riga

Latvian youth organizations -- the nationalist Visu Latvijai and Klubs 415, along with the leftist Social Democratic Youth Union have organized a picket in front of the U.S. Embassy in Riga on 13 February to oppose Washington's seeming intention to use military force against Iraq. The protest was attended by the members of the Environmental Protection Club and the ultraright Latvian National Front. Fearing that there might be an attempt to provoke public disorder, the organizers asked police to remove a group from the radical-left Russian National Bolshevik Movement who had come carrying a flag with a swastika on it. All For Latvia leader Raivis Dzintars pledged that his organization will soon stage a protest against Russian military intervention in Chechnya by marching from the U.S. Embassy to the Russian Embassy in Riga with burning torches.