From: sommar@enea.se (Erland Sommarskog)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.soviet
Subject: Re: Sovok's black/white list
Date: 11 Apr 92 22:40:19 GMT
Organization: Enea Data AB

Jarmo Ryyti (ryyti@jyu.fi) writes:
>>1. Territorial claims
>>There are some terrtiorial disputes going on because some people want back
>>1920 Tartu treaty borders. XSU removed parts of Estonia into Russia.

And Estonia should forget all about this. Don't they have enough
of minority problems already?

>>2.Russian minority.
>>There are many kinds of russians in Estonia: Red- Army retirees, people born
>> before
>>the occupation (who get automatically citizenship).

There are also regular immigrants.

>>There is still the army (should the members of the occupation army get
>> citizenship automatically?)

Only if they leave the army. Member of a foreign army could never 
gain citizenship in another state.

>>4. As far as I know there is no new citizenship laws in Estonia.
>>The system if I remenber right goes the following way:
>>There will be an election among the people who elect new parlament from
>>those who are born before 1940 and their children. This parlament
>>will decide the which kind of citizenship law there will be in the future.

That's right. There is no *new* citizenship law. They're trying
to apply the old law from 1938 as nothing have happened. In any
case that a significant portion of the population is locked out
from the election is a serious problem for the democracy in
Estonia. (But it does not make them semi-fascist as Vinzyuk
is trying to tell us.)

>>2. You have to pass a language test in Estonian, a few hundred words.

The requirement is 1.500 words, as I already have reported to this
newsgroup, definitely a non-trivial obstacle.

>>The Estonian minority policy is much more open hearted than for instance
>>Swedish minority policy, but nobody is protesting Swedish government.
>>In Sweden even if there are aproximately 500 000 Finns living there there
>>are no Finnish speaking educational system. Compare this to Estonia!
>>Estonian policy is in this sence very mild.
>>Sweden for instance does not acknowledge that there are minorities in Sweden
>> but immigrants.

Here we go again. If you have complaints on minority issues in
Sweden I suggest you take this to soc.culture.nordic. It has
nothing to do with Estonia. Absolutely nothing. Sweden may burn
every non-Swede who enter its border, it would still not justify 
Estonian mistakes.

Since most of the above is inaccuarate, permit me to correct:

1) The main bulk of Finns in Sweden are indeed immigrants. Only in
   the northernmost part of Sweden, there is an indigeneous Finnish
   population. I have no figures, but I'd expect this group to be
   10.000-50.000. Jarmo's numbers of Finns is Sweden is probably
   also incorrect. I would guess around 300.000.

2) There are no official Finnish schools in Sweden, but children with
   at least one non-Swedish parent has a right to extra lessons to
   learn their parent's native language (which may or may not be the
   native language of the child). Also, it is perfectly possible to
   start a private school with teaching in Finnish, although there
   might be practical obstacles.

3) Estonia requires a non-trivial knowledge of Estonia to gain
   citizenship. You can become a Swedish citizen without knowing
   a single word of Swedish.

4) The Lapps are a recognized minority in Sweden. Also in another
   message Ryyti claims the Lapps having being mistreated in Swedish.
   Yes, this is true, but that's history. Today Sweden work actively
   to help the Lapps to keep their language and culture alive, and
   have done so for many years.

>>Let us look at Sweden and compare her policy still: a foreigner does not
>>get automatically a right to vote in Sweden. A foreign citizen have to live
>>certain time in order to apply citizenship. And it is not given automatically.
>>So it is in Finland too.

A foreign citizen may vote in local and regional elections if he
have lived here for three years. If he have lived here for five
years (three years for Danish, Norwegian, Finnish and Icelandic
citizens) he can receive citizenship, and will in most cases do so.

Most Russians in Estonia fulfils these requirements.

>Ps. What interesting is that the estonians who are a nation of only 1 million
>people are considered as a danger for the russians, a nation of 150 millions
>people by some people!!!

Are you nuts? Who have claimed that Estonia is threatning the Russian
nationhood as such? The Estonian citizenship law is unfair to many of
the Russians who live there. That has nothing to do with how many
Russians there are in the rest of the world.
-- 
Erland Sommarskog - ENEA Data, Stockholm - sommar@enea.se