Tunne Kelam

Who is Tunne Kelam?

Tunne-Väldo Kelam MEP is an Estonian politician and Member of the European Parliament for the IRL, part of the European People's Party.

After graduating from Tallinn 2. Secondary School in 1954 he studied history in the University of Tartu. He was a senior researcher in the State Central Archives in Tartu and a senior scientific editor of the Estonian Soviet Encyclopaedia in Tallinn. From 1959 till 1970, as a member of the "Science" society, Kelam was also part-time lecturer and columnist on international relations.

In 1972 he prepared a memorandum to the UN on behalf of two underground citizens' groups, which asked for the UN assistance to evacuate the Soviet occupation forces and organize free elections. Smuggled out of the country, the memorandum caused lively interest in the West but resulted also in the wave of KGB repressions at home. Kelam narrowly escaped arrest but lost his job in the Encyclopaedia and all his public activities were suppressed. He stayed for the next dozen years under strict KGB surveillance but continued to operate half-underground, organizing unofficial opposition groups and passing to the West information about human rights violations in the Soviet occupied Estonia. From 1979 till 1987 Kelam was employed as a night-shift worker on a state poultry farm.