This Seimas Declaration was supported by 91 Members of the Seimas, while 7 parliamentarians abstained.
In the Declaration, the Seimas stressed that Adolfas Ramanauskas-Vanagas, Deputy Chairman of the Presidium, was the highest living Lithuanian public official from 26 November 1954, the death of Jonas Žemaitis-Vytautas, Chairman of the Presidium, in the occupiers' captivity, to the day of Adolfas Ramanauskas-Vanagas' execution in the KGB prison in Vilnius on 29 November 1957.
The Deputy Chairman of the Presidium of the Council, Adolfas Ramanauskas-Vanagas, who, after the execution of Jonas Žemaitis-Vytautas, Chairman of the Presidium, carried out the functions of the Chief Commander of the armed forces of the Republic of Lithuania, was the highest state official leading the struggle of the political liberation of the state, the Declaration reads.
The Seimas noted that Adolfas Ramanauskas-Vanagas, First Deputy Chairman of the Presidium of the Council, carried out his duties in good faith and, when held captive by the occupiers from 12 October 1956 to his heroic death on 29 November 1957, remained faithful to the oath given to the Lithuanian State.
The document stresses that the Republic of Lithuania, as an international legal entity, was not destroyed over the whole occupation period from 1940 to 1990, and maintained the continuity of the state. The Declaration of the Council of the Movement of the Struggle for Freedom of Lithuania of 16 February 1949, the basic document of the constitutional level in the occupied State of Lithuania, together with the other documents adopted by the Congress of the Lithuanian partisan commanders on 16 February 1949 , formed the legal basis for the armed resistance of Lithuania, legalising the Movement of the Struggle for Freedom of Lithuania, an organisation of popular armed resistance to the Soviet occupation.
The initiator of this proposal is Ramūnas Karbauskis, Chair of the Lithuanian Farmers and Greens Union Political Group and Chair of the Committee on Culture of the Seimas.
On 12 March 2009, the Seimas adopted a Declaration on the Recognition of Jonas Žemaitis, Chairman of the Presidium of the Council of the Movement of the Struggle for Freedom of Lithuania, as the Head of State of the Republic of Lithuania. The Declaration reads that, from the adoption of the Declaration of the Council of Movement of the Struggle for Freedom of Lithuania on 16 February 1949 to his death on 26 November 1954, Jonas Žemaitis, Chairman of the Presidium of the Council of Movement of the Struggle for Freedom of Lithuania, was the Head of State of Lithuania fighting against the occupation and de facto held the position of the President of the country.
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