From: 160955r@garnet.berkeley.edu ()
Newsgroups: soc.culture.europe,soc.culture.romanian,talk.politics.soviet
Subject: Re: Russian intervention in Moldova?
Date: 20 Aug 1992 08:00:18 GMT
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
NNTP-Posting-Host: garnet.berkeley.edu



In article <1992Aug19.203447.27758@enea.se> sommar@enea.se (Erland Sommarskog) writes:

>I'm sorry, Stalin is dead and you cannot ask Ukraine to appear
>as stand-in on the accused's bench for him.

Easy Erland! Stalin has forced Moldova and Ukraine to swap land; just because
he is dead it does not mean it can not be undone; nobody ever accused
Ukraine in connection with the initial swap; what are you talking about?!!

>
>Each of the areas has to be handled separately. And each of the land
>has to be handled according to the will of the people who lives there.
>If there is a strong will in northern Bukovina to join Roumania, this
>should happen. The same applies to the sourthernmost Bessarabia. And 
>the same should of course apply to Transdniestra and Gagauzia.

Agree; mind though this is a tough deal for Romania/Moldova since
Romanians in all three areas have been forcibly relocated by Iossif
Vissarionovich..Since this can not be undone, the best way is of course
to go with the will of the present-day population. Also: referring to
South Basarabia as  Gagauzia is misleading; they have never owned a
state there and are not in absolute or relative majority IN THE AREA
IN DISCUSSION: former Romanian counties of Cahul, Bolgrad, and Ismail.

>But the question is: does such an opinion have a majority support in
>these areas? As far as I know, this is not the case in northern Bukovina
>and not in Transdniestra, since Roumanians are in minority in these areas.

A hard to interpret sentence; you "know" that "such opinion" does not have
majority support since "Romanians are in minority in these areas". If you
want to make some sense you need to replace "know" with "assume". While I
by no means intend to claim that Transnistria is or ever was Romanian ter-
ritory, or that it should be, I nevertheless invite you to contemplate fol-
lowing figures, made public by the Transnistrian president, referring to
local population ethnic breakdown:
	-Romanians 39%
        -Ukrainians 31%
        -Russians 26%
        -others 4%

I bet you had no idea about this particular piece of trivia. 

>I don't know about southern Bessarabia. Gagauzia may eventually choose 
>the Roumanian option, if this would be the least bad of several bad 
>choices.

There are, obviously, many relevant facts you really do not know of.
Again, Gagauzia is not identically equal to the area in question:
former Romanian counties of Cahul, Bolgrad and Ismail.

>It is even more ridiculous to include Ukraine in the Transdniestrian
>conflict. Ukraine doesn't claim the area, or any other Moldovan or
>Roumanian land, and would probably prefer if Transdniestra followed
>the rest of Moldova in case of a unification. Roumania on the other
>hand has raised claims on Ukraine, and I'm sorry, but I find these
>plain silly. And it's even more silly to link them to Transdniestra.

Really, where do you get these incendiary information? Romania has
been air-tight lipped  on the issue :'to whom does Transnistria belong?',
which I find absurd: they should come out and say it loud and clear that it
belongs to Ukraine and that Romania has no claim to it. If you can
make any referrence to official Romanian claims to Transnistria I
will be indebted. My feeling though is that you have no clue whatsoever  
of what you are talking about, especially since you stumble to write that
"Romania has raised claims on Ukraine", thereby exhibiting a degree of
lunacy unparalleled since Tristan Tzara.
	Back to Earth and out of Dadaism I can provide you with
references showing that Mr. Kravchuk has claimed Transnistria,
which is perfectly OK since it has always been  Ukrainian and nothing
else.

Cheers!
-- 
Radu T. Tomescu at UCBerkeley
Department of Economics

Newsgroups: soc.culture.europe