From: gecas@comlab.ox.ac.uk (Kastytis Gecas)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.soviet
Subject: Re: "democratic" Estonia
Date: 31 Aug 92 17:46:37 GMT
Organization: Oxford University Computing Laboratory, UK
Originator: gecas@client72.comlab


In article: 14714 of talk.politics.soviet
gecas@comlab.ox.ac.uk (Kastytis Gecas) writes:

>In what follows I would like to return to the origin of the discussion--
>the issue of citizenship and, in particular, to a test
>of *official language* comprehension.>

In article: 14746 of talk.politics.soviet
viznyuk@physics.ucla.edu (Sergei Viznyuk) writes:

>Good begining. At least your style differs from all those defenders
>of newly-born Baltic "democracies" and I would like to consider what
>you wrote more closely. So you said: Russians don't care of their
>own country ?  I could only answer for myself: I don't. But I do
                ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>care about the Russian people whereever they live. And that is
>the main difference between the position of Estonian goverment
>as ANY other facist goverment, which puts the "rights of nation"
>before the human rights, and my position. And I would like to
>discuss the violation of human right in Russia as well, were there

Thanks for an acknowledgement. I am also glad  that Mr Viznyuk has 
expressed his personal opinion on a citizenship so explicitly saying 
so much about point of view of some Russians the Baltics are afraid of.
I don't think that his personal feeling of what is being 
a citizen agrees with point of view of the other citizens of Russia. 
But it is symptomatic, isn't it? The denial of personal responsibility
about his/her country is an exact borderline between a citizen and 
a resident, two notions which I'd like to separate and which are 
so often interchanged by the author and others, not to mention 
broad subject of human rights referred to.

>As was mentioned, the situation with human rights
>in Lithuania is slightly better than in Estonia and Latvia.

Thanks for the positive opinion yet it contradicts to your previous
postings, but I was talking about a law of citizenship in Lithuania.
The law allows all permanent residents till 1989 to apply 
for citizenship. Note that even foreign Lithuanians could not
be automatically the citizens if they had not been residents
and had a citizenship of another country.
 
>And the third thing, which is really remarkable, is that
>while Lithuania was all the time ahead Est.&Latv in its
>independence move and, therefore, has suffered much more
>than Est&Latv (just remember Vilnius'91), while Estonia
>was cowardly hiding behind (did you hear about any such
>protests as in Vilnius, took place in Estonia before
>dissolution USSR ?), 

Really, this is an astonishing piece both of misunderstanding and
an attempt to divide Baltic countries. The struggle for independence
was shared by all Baltic countries whatever form it had. 
The main problem for ex-Soviet 
authorities was exactly an unpredictable character of what you call 
independence movement. It was mysterious  what and in what country in 
Baltics will happen something next time. Do you remember Estonian
attempt of so called  economical selfdetermination
(ekonomicheskaya samostoyatel'nost')? Latvian deputies in
former Soviet Parliament? Human chain from Tallinn to Vilnius?
Estonian National Front which was the first one
in former Soviet Union? 
Lithuanian armless defence of their Parliament and other buildings in
Vilnius?  And so on. 

> The citizenship law in Russia is pretty simple: any
>citizen of former Soviet Union living or born on its
>territory is entitled to Russian citizenship.
>Furthermore: Russian laws permit double citizenship.
>Do you have any complains ?

I do have. 
First, the persons who were participants
in massacres in Baltic countries and who have moved to Russia 
became citizens of Russia and thus they are now under jurisdiction 
of Russia. Where, do you think, are  these people of KGB and 
KPSS (Burokiavichius, Alksnis, Kogan, etc.)
who ruled so-called salvation committees living now? 
Remember the cry in Russia because of bringing back to Latvia 
OMON guyes responsible for killing people.

Second, the double citizenship is not obviously good thing.  
For a double citizen is actually a half-citizen. 
May a state allow  any possibility of preference for
 a person with double citizenship?
Less and less countries provide such a legal opportunity 
for their residents. Even "nationalistic" Baltic countries 
with their huge number of
emigres all over the world do provide what may be called 
"double citizenship" in very restricted cases. 
Persons who might be such half-citizens
may cause  real problems for Baltic countries (political, 
economical--recall a possibility to revert their possessions
before WWII, etc.). Therefore a double citizenship law  in Russia 
is not so good with respect to Baltic countries as it may be a 
chance to form a "fifth column". But the law is totally the matter of
sovereign Russia.

Kastytis Ge^cas
Newsgroups: talk.politics.soviet