From: janeric@control.lth.se (Jan Eric Larsson)
Subject: Re: Karelians the palestinians of the north
Originator: janeric@bellman
Organization: Dept. Automatic Control, Lund Inst. of Technology, Sweden
	<JANERIC.93Jan21132446@bellman.control.lth.se>
	<sedergre.35@valt.Helsinki.FI>
Date: 22 Jan 93 14:36:18



Jari Sedergren writes:

> 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 think that the only sensible developemnt is to try and connect the
former Soviet Union to the west, but step by step. It is practically
impossible to open the borders to Russia right now. So it must be done
in small steps, like closing Estonia more against Russia, and opening
a bit more towards Sweden, for example. And that's the way it must go
on. Here I think that one step might be closer cooperation with the
Karelian ASSR parts, but who knows?

> 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. 

Well, once the contacts are more open, owner's problems will come up.
They always do where there has been borders and people moved by war,
as in East/West Germany, Germany/Poland, Jugoslavia, etc.

> 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.

Well, it doesn't help to think. The statement in question was quoted
on Swedish TV and on CNN about half a year or a year ago. It said
something like that most of what was done during the 70 years of
communism, both internally and internationally, was indeed illegal and
should be revised. The Stalin time wa smentioned.

Of course, I don't remember the specifics, and I can't think of an
easy way to find out the facts. Can someone help me with this?

Anyway, such a statement is not very strong anyway, as it depends
completely on the Russian interpretation. As you say, Russia won't
give up its land easily.

But! If the communist regime of Soviet Union is declared illegal by
its followers, it may also mean that the treaties and agreements done
by it may me changed and reconsidered. A theoretical, long run
possibility. And with this quickly chaning world, that may be next
month!

> Jari Sedergren
> Department of Communication
> University of Helsinki

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."


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