From: sedergre@valt.Helsinki.FI (JARI SEDERGREN (COMM))
Subject: Re: Karelians the palestinians of the north
Organization: University of Helsinki, Faculty of Social Sciences
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1993 18:20:02 GMT

In article <JANERIC.93Jan21132446@bellman.control.lth.se> janeric@control.
lth.se (Jan Eric Larsson) writes
:>Jari Sedergren writes:
>>In this world there are many places which have been occupied many
>>times by different powers. Sortavala is one of those places. People
>>living now in Sortavala cannot be accused about what happened in II
>>World War. In that war 1941-1944 Finland fought with fascist Germany
>>against SU. Finland changed side only after losing the war! So Russian
>>claims of that area are unfortunately justified (this time by war),
>>too.
>Well, I don't think it is so simple. The Soviet Union doesn't exist
>anymore, (at least not formally), and the Russian Parliament has
>declared that everything that happened internationally during the time
>of Stalin was illegal.

As You can easily see, I only stated that Russia can legitimally claim 
Sortavala after winning the war against Finland. Losing of Sortavala was 
accepted in Finnish Parliament in september 1944. That was second time, 
because same happened first time in Moscow Peace in March 1940. 
In Paris Peace Conference this was accepted once more. Finland did not make 
any reservations in many CSCE-meetings. Nor were any protests made by 
Finnish Government or political parties in Finland. President Kekkonen did 
have some contacts with SU leaders for "to get Viborg back". He did not 
had luck with it. Maybe some day there will be two governments, both in 
Finland and in Russia, making different decisions. I'll be happy that day.

I don't think a Finnish politician taking slogan: "Let's Get Carelia Back", 
would get any major support here. Why? Losing Carelia was traumatic for 
older people, not for youth, who are mostly looking for a good job and a
luxorious life in an own house and a good car. I think most of people 
accept in principle the idea, that Finnish-Russian border should be as easy 
cross as Finnish-Swedish border. Of course there are people who are 
afraid of Russian citizens to come here. I am not.    

I would not like to be a lawyer, specialized in international law, and 
claiming after that that Sortavala "and its houses" belong to Finland or 
Finnish people. If somebody is saying that, I find it rather stupid, but 
don't care about it a lot, as long as they are not demanding their demands 
violently or threatening to use violence. 

Russian has declared to be the continuator of Soviet Union. Russian 
Parliament never made such a statement! Think: "everything that SU made 
between 1924 and 1953 "internationally" was illegal". And we can imagine 
stalinist era to be even longer than era of Stalin's.

>Of course it is hard to tell what this means, and what the practical
>consequences will be, but at least it isn't obvious that all peace
>treatises based on the World War II must stand forever.

Then, there must be new treatises. Otherwise our generation will see 
more wars, too. 

>Jan Eric Larsson                  JanEric@Control.LTH.Se      +46 46 108795
>Department of Automatic Control
>Lund Institute of Technology     "We watched the thermocouples dance to the
>Box 118, S-221 00 LUND, Sweden    spirited tunes of a high frequency band."


Jari Sedergren
Department of Communication
University of Helsinki