From: david mardiste <dam@coombs.anu.edu.au>
Newsgroups: talk.politics.soviet
Subject: re: Furstenburg and other things
Date: 13 Oct 1992 02:02:20 GMT
Organization: federalism research centre   RSSS ANU
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Subject: Re: Furstenberg and other things (Was: Human
From: INFIDEL, wojdylo@maths.uwa.oz.au
In article <1aue65INNlm5@uniwa.uwa.edu.au> INFIDEL,
wojdylo@maths.uwa.oz.au writes:
>david mardiste <dam@coombs.anu.edu.au> writes:
>
>>In article <1araklINNj85@uniwa.uwa.edu.au> INFIDEL,
>>wojdylo@maths.uwa.oz.au writes:

>
>Your wish is my command.
>
>The Arajs Kommando was led by a Latvian by the name of Janis Arajs who
>was tried for war crimes  in the late 1980's by the International Court
>of Justice. Proceedings of the Court's work can be obtained directly
>from them.
>
>The daily, the Melbourne "Age" newspaper (Oct.3-4) carried
>a two-page article by a former Australian prosecutor who'd been
>investigating suspected war criminals in Australia, in particular,
>collaborators with Arajs in the period 1941-1943. ...
>
...

John, thank you for the quick reply. the SNews has been broken for the
last week here, so it's been impossible to post a reply.
I've read the article in "THE AGE" this morning and I'm waiting for the
ICJ report from the law library. It has been good to fill in some of the
details on these issues. However, I need some details on the support for
this statement:

>The existence of the Arajs Kommando and the other SD divisions on
>Latvian soil are well known amongst everyone but die-hard Latvian and
>Estonian nationalists --- the sorts of people who instigated and
>enacted the recent Estonian citizenship laws.

The article was about the Latvian case, no one denies that SD units
operated in Estonia, but the article did not refer to a flourishing of
the SD divisions in Estonia. In fact Estonia is not mentioned in THE AGE
article. The camps refers to are around Minsk with Latvian witnesses.

Can you support your statement 
>...Estonian nationalists --- the sorts of people who instigated and
>enacted the recent Estonian citizenship laws.

This is important to me as I'm working on a paper which considers the
political processes involved in the drafting and implementation of the
citizenship law. So let me know what you have on this.  I've looked
through " Estonia" around the law's drafting time and through clipping
from Estonian press, RFE/RL reports, and on the Reuters Service in my
research. There is nothing in the interviews I have with Tunne Kelam when
he visited Australia in 1989 or in the documents of the ENIP. 
 

Stuff deleted not relevant to the discussion on Estonia

>>From a political science perspective and from policy analysis it is very
>>easy to understand why the previous Estonian government adopted the
>>citizenship laws they did. 
>
>From the perspective of building a strong nation whose citizens will
>prosper etc., in the context of current events in the immediate
>vicinity, the decision was insane.

interesting use of the word nation and the word nationalist. I'm a bit
lost on this vague reference. please list "the current events in the
immediate vicinity"


>
>If you're refering to the old republic, then I submit the flourishing of
>SS mass-murder divisions -- the SD -- such as the Arajs Kommando, as
>evidence of the rabid nationalist character of enough of the population 
>of the time.
My statement is to those who support the citizenship laws now - but I
have not seen any docs on the "flourishing" yet.  


>>John, you will be hard pressed to show me instances of anti-Semitism in
>>pre-WWII Estonia.  

>And the SD divisions flourished out of love for their fellow man.

Please, I need some details. I cannot find any claims or records that
anti-Semitic discrimination was practiced in Estonia during the
independence period. The actions of the few sociopaths that joined the SD
units is not the actions of the whole community or enough of the
community. The same as Janis A in the article did not represent the
actions of the Riga Law Faculty.  



>>In fact, it seems, that for historical reasons,
>>German nationalism (see any basic history on Estonia) was more
distrusted
>>than the Russians were before the Soviet occupation in 1940-41. 
>
>Arajs and his ilk didn't shoot the occupying Germans or Russians, but
>innocent Jews and Gypsies in their thousands. The men in these
>mass-murder divisions were Latvian and Estonian, and were schooled in the
>art of murder by Goerhing's henchmen who were German. 
>
 Arjas and his ilk are not all or even most of the population of Estonia
then or now.  The efficiency in which those units carried out their
crimes cannot attributed to the people who lived in Estonia in WWII.  Do
you know how many Jews or Gipsies lived in Estonia at the outbreak of
WWII. The number was very small 0.4 % of the population in 1922 and 1934
-- approx 4,434 people from the 1934 Census. The Nazis appears to have
executed 6,000 people in Estonia, most Jews, Communists and alleged
Communists sympathisers. Given the practice the Nazis had in other
European Countries it is not surprising that the murder of these people
would have been quick. This quickness reflects more on the practice of
the German authorities than on a complicity by the citizen of Estonian,
weather they were Russian or Estonian. 

>>My sources indicates that Estonians mostly drafted/joined home defence
>>units (Gr Selbstschutz) or the German army or police and the Waffen SS.
>>Estonian soldiers did serve in the cannon fodder units which were the
>>waffen SS. (as you know not all things branded SS were elite Pure German
>>Units). The Waffen SS served as the combat units for foreign
>>nationalities. The special forces that acted in Klooga and Kalevi-Liiva
>>death camps were not Waffen SS, although these units did contain some
>>Estonians, as well as other nationalities. 

>>To say that the existence of these units that you mentioned means that
>>ALL estonians served with them is a bit of a gross generalisation. 

>That is why I did not say it. 


>To deny the nationalist character of the Estonian citizenship laws is to
>invite the repetition of history, of insane interethnic conflict.

You've cited examples of the SD units operating in Latvia, and
Belyorussia against unarmed civilians and communist party people. I
imagine that the people arrested and murdered were not armed and most
likely executed in a manner that does not suggest inter ethnic conflict. 
These people did not have a chance. So I'm not real sure that you have a
historical justification to say, based on the murder of people during
WWII, that the new citizenship law will lead to inter-ethnic conflict. In
fact you have to prove that "inter-ethnic" conflict was the cause of the
6000 people murdered from Estonia. The emphasis here is on the use of the
term "inter-ethnic".
The situation between the Nazi program of murder and the current
citizenship laws are quite different the laws do not legalised murder of
non-estonians. Non-estonians are also allowed to vote provided that they
were member of the old republic. It is meaningless to say the term
"inter-ethnic" is applicable to both. 
It is not good for debate to blur the meaning of words in this manner, it
adds nothing to rational debate.

>>Most
>>did not. To imply this is the same as saying that all of the CPSU
members
>>were involved in Stalin's purges of the 30s, when infact most were
>>victims of the purges. 

>Nevertheless, the fact remains that the victims of the purges chose to be
>part of an insidious machine in the first place: they cast their lot in
>with the rest, they subscribe to their measure of culpability.

the CPSU is an example which you have not debated the validity of.

>>The following is a quote from an article by Toe No~mm Vice Chairman of
>>the Society of Estonian War History, Published in The Monthly Survey of
>>Baltic and Soviet Politics, December 1991 pp12-13.
>
>>"True, that during the German occupation thousands of Jews were killed
in
>>Estonia and besides German officials and special troops this was done by
>>Estonians. But it was so all over occupied Europe wherever crimes like
>>these were committed the "help" of local residents was used. The
Estonians
>>are just as guilty as he Belgians, the Latvians, the Poles, the French,
>>and so on."

>This is the kind of obfuscation one can expect from a patriot (is he 
>also a nationalist ?). Does he call himself a historian? What a disgrace.

I have no idea of what is or is not a nationalist in your parlance. But
argument ad homminim (attacking the person and not their propositions) is
an old Sophist trick not worthy of being distracted by. You note below
with more examples that "help" from locals happened on a greater scale
than in Estonia. You support this point below; and I don't assume that
you are employing a obfucatory tactic.

>Estonians are NOT "just as guilty as the Poles", for instance. There was
>never a flourishing SS mass-murder division consisting of Poles killing
>Jews and Gypsies or anyone else.  I hope you understand the difference
between
>compliciting individuals and compliciting institutions. 

you have not justified the flourishing point yet. 

>(The Belgians had their Flandria Division; and the Ukranians had their
>feared fascist UPA. The French had a compliciting government as well as
>French SS divisions.)

>Institutions do not die out in a mere fifty years.

when is an institution an institution? other countries have had a very
long history of anti-Semitism. It difficult to say that this was the case
in Estonia in the independence period, I need some data on this
flourishing first!  Especially in Pre WWII Estonia.

>>Obviously, this issue is important to you or why waste the band width
and
>>the time.

>5 years from now, Western liberals and Estonian nationalists will be
>dismayed at and abhorred by the interethnic slaughter in Estonia.
>They'll wonder what went wrong; and while Western liberals sit back in
>their cushy armchair having another wine, the Estonian nationalist will
>be out on the street killing yet another  non-Estonian in  a
>"revenge-killing" that "had to happen".  Maybe "ethnic cleansing" will
>then seem like a very good idea.
>
a very grim scenario and one that I am terrified of, but one that is not
shared by all non-estonians in Estonia.  See some of the interviews on
the Reuter's service in the last two weeks.  I have not had a chance to
see Sovietskaja Estonia for the last few weeks but, I will report what
the writers in the paper have to say in time


>>However, I would like to know more about the groups that you
>>mentioned and if you have any details you could send and especially the
>>exact numbers of estonians that were involved with the units you
>>mentioned. 

>I'll dispatch this information soon.


>>David Mardiste

>>>>Tapani Hietaniemi

>>>JW

>John Wojdylo

David Mardiste