From: thietaniemi@cc.helsinki.fi
Newsgroups: talk.politics.soviet,soc.culture.soviet
Subject: Human rights VIOLATIONS in ESTONIA
Date: 29 Sep 92 11:14:17 GMT
Organization: University of Helsinki

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(ESTONIAN) INDEPENDENCE LOST
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The fate of Estonia was decided by the so-called nonaggression treaty
of August 1939 between Nazi Germany and the U.S.S.R. A secret protocol
to this treaty assigned Finland, Estonia, Latvia and eastern Poland
to the Soviet orbit. After the defeat of Poland this arrangement was
revised on Sept. 28 and a secret supplementary clause extended the
Soviet sphere of influence to Lithuania. On the same day the Soviet
government imposed on Estonia a treaty of mutual assistance, which
reaffirmed the Tartu peace treaty and also the Soviet-Estonian non-
aggression treaty of May 4, 1932, but conceded to U.S.S.R several
military bases on Estonian territory which were manned forthwith. 
A broadly based nonpolitical government under Juri Uluots was appointed.
On June 16, 1940, a Soviet ultimatum demanded a new Estonian government,
"able and willing to secure the honest application of the Soviet - Estonia
mutual assistance treaty." The following day Soviet armed forces occupied
the whole country, and on June 19 Andrei Zhdanov, a member of the Kremlin
Politburo, arrived in Tallin to complete the designs of the Soviet 
government. On June 21 a puppet government headed by Johannes Vares
took over. On July 14-15 the "election" of a new Chamber of Deputies
took place under a new procedure ignoring the provisions of the
constitution and electoral law. Only the single list of Soviet-sponsored
candidates was allowed to stand. On July 21 the new chamber was
presented with a resolution to join the U.S.S.R.; it was unanimously
adopted the following day in spite of being contrary to constitutional
procedure. On Aug. 6 the Moscow Supreme Soviet incorporated Estonia
into the U.S.S.R. Meanwhile, Pa"ts, Laidoner, and many political
leaders were arrested and deported to the U.S.S.R. In the first
12 months of Soviet occupation more than 60,000 persons were killed
or deported: more than 10,000 were removed in a mass deportation
during the night of June 13-14, 1941.

On June 22, 1941, Germany attacked the U.S.S.R. -- Large areas
of Estonia were freed from Soviet forces by improvised Estonian
units before the German front reached Estonia. For three years
Estonia was under German occupation. It became part of the Ostland
Province. By February 1944, however, the Russians were back on the
Narva front. A few thousand Estonian youths, who had escaped to
Finland to fight the Reds in the Finnish Army rather than with the
Germans, returned but of course could not save the situation.
About 30,000 Estonians escaped by sea to Sweden and 33,000 to Germany;
many thousands perished on the sea. On Sept. 22, 1944, Soviet troops
took Tallin. It is estimated that about 20,000 Estonians were deported
in 1945-46. The third large deportation took place on March 24-27,
1949, and comprised about 40,000 persons, mostly farmers who resisted
collectivization.

After restoration of the Soviet regime, Vares became the first
chairman of the Presidium of the Estonian Supreme Soviet; he
committed suicide in 1946 --

send by
the observer
Tapani Hietaniemi, University of Helsinki
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Disclaimer: "See pole minu oma jutt, see on u"hest inglise keelsest
raamatust. Ko~ike head!"                              (ja"rgneb)