The little flags are 'wimpel', German for 'pennant' or 'bunting'. They are a separate mesh (E2H_wimpel.o3d) whose appearance is controlled by a script called wimpel.osc. This script makes those appear on some defined dates. I thought there was a way to do it with a repaint, but I think a simpler solution might just be to edit 'wimpel.osc' to remove everything between {macro:wimpel_frame} and {end} such that the variable is never turned on and the flags cannot be made visible.