Andrew Eiva
{{short description|American soldier, political lobbyist, and activist}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2020}}
{{BLP Sources|date=August 2022}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Andrew Eiva
| image =
| alt =
| caption =
| birth_date = {{birth date and age|1948|10|26|df=y}}
| birth_place = Bonn, West Germany
| death_date =
| death_place =
| occupation = soldier, political lobbyist and human rights activist
| party =
| education = West Point (BS)
| awards = Order of the Cross of Vytis
| native_name_lang = Lithuanian
| birth_name = Andrius Linas Eitavicius
| baptised = Catholic, 1948
}}
Andrew Eiva is an American soldier, political lobbyist and human rights activist.Wiland, Chandler; Personal interview with Andrew Eiva, 11 February 2016, 10 am - 12:40 pm
He is best known for his role in lobbying Congress and grassroots organisations to expose and upgrade the US covert operation in Afghanistan which, in his opinion provided Afghans "only enough to fight and die," which he believed had squandered over 500,000 Afghan lives by 1984.The Washington Post; Anderson, Jack; "State Officials Lobby Against Aid to Afghans," 14 June 1984
Eiva also contributed to the defence of the Lithuanian Parliament during the January Events of 1991.{{cite book|author=Aurimas Svedas, Irena Veisaitė|title=Life Should be Transparent: Conversations about Lithuania and Europe in the Twentieth Century and Today|publisher=Central European University Press|year=2020|pages=272|isbn=978-963-386-359-6}} During the collapse of the USSR, he came to Lithuania to train supporters of independence in guerrilla warfare.{{cite book|author=Kyle Burke|title=Revolutionaries for the Right: Anticommunist Internationalism and Paramilitary Warfare in the Cold War|publisher=University of North Carolina Press|year=2018|pages=301|isbn=978-1469640747}}
Career
Eiva specialized in guerrilla warfare support and, as a refugee from the Soviet occupation in Lithuania, dedicated himself to overthrowing the Soviet empire. After graduating from West Point in 1972, Eiva served in the US Army in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, first with the 82nd Airborne Division, then with Special Forces where he pioneered early UAV delivery systems.
As a lobbyist, Eiva works to organize committees of ordinary Americans to influence the Congress.
Arming the Afghan Mujahideen against the Soviets
Due to his testimony to the Republican Platform Committee's National Security Subcommittee on 13 August 1984 at the Republican Convention in Dallas, Texas Eiva was responsible for having language inserted into the party platform calling for support of the Afghan Mujahideen in their fight against the Soviets.{{cite web|last=Eiva|first=Andrew|title=Remarks to the Republican Platform Committee's National Security Subcommittee|url=http://www.jezail.org/03_Eiva-FAAA/Eiva_1.pdf|publisher=Jezail.org|accessdate=4 April 2013}}
From 1983 to 1988, Eiva published the Afghan Update, a newsletter which provided analysis and criticism of CIA and State Department policy. He was executive director of two sister organizations, the Federation for American Afghan Action and the American Afghan Education Fund. With the support of the right-wing, Mormon lobbying group Free the Eagle, Eiva was able to influence opinion in Congress in favour of the Afghan resistance.{{rp|328}}
Lobbying to pass legislation for effective aid, Eiva encountered opposition from political opponents as well as US government agencies.{{cite book|last=Crile|first= George|title=Charlie Wilson's War: The Extraordinary Story of the Largest Covert Operation in History|url=https://archive.org/details/charliewilsonswa00geor|url-access=registration|publisher=Grove Press/Atlantic Monthly|year=2003|isbn=978-0-8021-4341-9|authorlink=George Crile III}}{{rp|327}} Nonetheless, the bill passed unanimously as Senate Concurrent Resolution 74 on 3 October 1984, and the House of Representatives on 4 October 1984.
In 2005, as the executive director of the Federation for American Afghan Action, Eiva reported that this organization had 'found up to 70% slippage' in supplies to Mujahideen forces.{{cite magazine|last=Johnson|first=Marguerite|title=Pakistan: Leaks in the Pipeline|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1074846,00.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090114202020/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1074846,00.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=14 January 2009|accessdate=4 April 2013|date=21 June 2005|magazine=Time}}
Support for anti-communist movements
Leslie Gelb of the New York Times says that Eiva, in 1983, counted the score of American support for liberation movements since World War II as "0 to 12, with Afghanistan as lucky 13". The other such ventures supported and then dropped by Washington he lists as Lithuania, Albania, Ukraine, Poland, Tibet, China, Cuba, Kurdistan twice, Angola, the Hmong tribe in Laos and Sumatra.{{cite news|last=Gelb|first=Leslie|title=From One Kind of Army to Another|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1983/05/25/us/from-one-kind-of-army-to-another.html|accessdate=4 April 2013|newspaper=The New York Times|date=25 May 1983}} Eiva continues to support freedom and resistance movements around the world, including those in Sudan and Balochistan. He advocates that the people of Balochistan themselves author their own Freedom Charter, rather than accept one written by foreigners.{{cite web|last=Walsh|first=Eddie|title=Could Baloch Freedom Charter Do More Harm than Good?|url=http://asiapacificreporting.blogspot.com/2012/03/could-baloch-freedom-charter-do-more.html|work=Asia-Pacific Reporting Blog|accessdate=1 April 2013|date=26 March 2012}}
In February 2014, Eiva launched a new website, Liberation Pulse, supporting freedom and resistance movements.{{cite web |url=http://www.liberationpulse.com/ |title=Liberation Pulse | Window on Freedom Struggle |accessdate=21 February 2014 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20140227052716/http://www.liberationpulse.com/ |archivedate=27 February 2014}}
Personal life
Andrew Eiva's parents escaped communist Lithuania in 1944, met and married in 1947 in Bonn, West Germany, where Andrew was born in a refugee camp in 1948. He was reared on stories about Lithuanian resistance, American support for a while and, finally, abandonment.{{cn|date=September 2022}}
His maternal grandfather, General Kazys Ladiga, drove the Soviet forces out of Lithuania after World War I, and was chief of staff of the armed forces of independent Lithuania from 1925 to 1927. In 1940, when the Soviets seized Lithuania, General Ladiga was deported to Siberia, where he was tortured and executed.
Andrew's maternal grandmother, Stefanija Ladigienė sheltered and saved a thirteen year old Jewish girl, Irena Veisaitė. In recognition of Stefanija's rescue of Irena, the Yad Vashem Institute in Jerusalem, engraved her name on its wall as Righteous Among the Nations.{{cn|date=September 2022}}
Awards
Andrew Eiva was presented with the Order of the Cross of Vytis in Vilnius, Lithuania on 16 February 2012 for his services to the cause of restoration of the Independent State of Lithuania. Eiva was involved in defending the Lithuanian Parliament during the January Events of 1991.{{cn|date=September 2022}}
Eiva was also honored on 16 December 2011 at the Lithuanian Embassy in Washington, D.C. for his service to the cause of Lithuanian independence.{{cite web |title=Eiva 11 23 10 [video] | website=YouTube | date=7 June 2013 |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTAxROn-RHw |access-date=31 August 2022 |language=en}}
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
- [http://www.jezail.org/03_Eiva-FAAA/Eiva_4.pdf Eiva Publications Requesting Afghan Aid]
- {{YouTube|icgPjobAQqs|Balochistan International Conference 30 April 2011—Andrew Eiva Speech}}
- {{YouTube|vTAxROn-RHw|Andrew Eiva Describes Participation in January Events (Lithuania)}}
- [https://itunes.apple.com/us/itunes-u/dr.-carroll-lecture-series/id418583196 Warren Carroll Lecture #19 "Andrew Eiva and the End of the Communist Empire"]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Eiva, Andrew}}
Category:American people of Lithuanian descent
Category:United States Military Academy alumni
Category:Members of the United States Army Special Forces
Category:United States Army officers
Category:People of the Soviet–Afghan War
Category:People of the Singing Revolution