From: sommar@enea.se (Erland Sommarskog)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.soviet,soc.culture.romania
Subject: "Moldavian" language and other musings
Date: 6 Sep 92 18:49:35 GMT
Organization: Enea Data AB

Sergei Viznyuk writes:
>  As you may know, the ORIGINAL script of MOLDAVIAN
>language was Cyrrilic, except for the time, Moldova was
>occupied by Romania, i.e. during 20 years.

Excuse me, I must have overslept some lessons in school.
The "Moldavian" language was created in 1940 or so by
Joe Stalin, which implies that if what you say is true
Roumania actually occupied Moldova for 20 years after
that. I missed that completely!

I leave to the Roumanian netters to make more fun of
the above.

>that I'm supporting the return the script back to
>Cyrrilic, as was supposely done (?) in TransDniestra,
>except for the case when such move is supported by
>Moldavians themselves.

Judging from the RFE/RL report the schools on the left
bank had refused to follow previous demands to use the
Cyrillic script.

>President of Moldova x-communist Snegur, who used tanks
>and terrorist gangs against population of its own country,
>as that "old-timer who is fighting to preserve his power" ?

And what does Smirnov use? Tanks and terrorist gangs? Or do
you use other worde to describe your side? Like "the 14th
Russian Army" (whose commander Lebed is a scum, least to
say). A foreign army or "terrorist gangs", what's the
difference?

As for Snegur wanting to stay in power, well my favourite
theory why he is against unification with Roumania is that
he wants to stay in office.

>It could have been "serious enough" under certain
>circumstances. But TransDniestra officials allegedly "supported"
>August coup only because they hoped that strong central
>goverment would be able to defend the population from
>"democratic" Moldavian regime.

So they didn't give a damn if the democratic in the USSR was
disrupted as long their "population" was defended? What a
crap, Viznuyk. If you think the coup was a good idea, just
tell us, so we know who you are.

>1. Narva region of Estonia belongs to the people who live there. If the
>   majority of them want to be part of Estonia, Narva also
>   belongs to Estonia. However, apparently people in Narva
>   does not want to be part of Estonia.

If they don't want to, tell me why do they bother about
citizenship?

I have actually expressed the sentiment that it could be a good 
solution if Narva and Sillamde went over to the Russian side, 
since it would reduce the number of Russians in Estonia without
anyone would have to move. But that requires of course that
people in Narva really wants the change, and that is not obvious.

>2. TransDniestra region of Moldova belongs to the people who live there.
>   If the majority of them want to be part of Moldova, TransDniestra also
>   belongs to Moldova. However, apparently people in TransDniestra
>   does not want to be part of Moldova.

I'm not sure about that. They certainly does not want to be part
of Roumania, but would really Moldova be such a bad alternative?
With its mixed population, there are not very good presumptions
for an independent state.

>3. The same with South Ossetia <-> Georgia

Strangely, of all cases you present, this seems to the only
obvious one.

>4. The same with Abkhazia <-> Georgia

How many of the people in Abkhazia do you think support the secession?
Hint: who many are Abkhazians?

>5. The same with Crimea <-> Ukraine

Maybe. Maybe not.

>etc, etc...

Don't forget Chechenia <-> Russia, Tatarstan <-> Russia.

>So would you refuse this right to people in Narva, TransDniestra,
>etc ?

Of course, not! But it has to be proven in a fair plebescite, and
we haven't seen such yet. Sure there was one in Trans-Dniestra,
but I cannot recall there were any international surveillance.
There was one in Narva in February 1991, and there were surveyors -
and they had significant complaints. And there was one on Crimea,
and you know how that one went.
-- 
Erland Sommarskog - ENEA Data, Stockholm - sommar@enea.se
"Recreation of source code from design documentation can be costly"
IEEE Std 1042/1987
Xref: sparky talk.politics.soviet:7801 soc.culture.romanian:924