From: viznyuk@physics.ucla.edu (Sergei Viznyuk)
Subject: Re: "democratic" Estonia
Organization: UCLA Department of Physics
Date: Sat, 29 Aug 92 15:34:08 GMT

In article <1992Aug28.191145.3976@client72.comlab.ox.ac.uk> gecas@comlab.ox.ac.uk (Kastytis Gecas) writes:
>
> In Subjects: "News from democratic Lithuania", ""democratic" Estonia",etc.
>Oleg Vishnepolsky (originator), Sergey Viznyuk,  Mikhail Verbitsky, 
>Yury Mukharsky et al. write ...
>>[omitted]
>
>While reading this mess I was always wondering why there is such a strong
>concern about a democracy in Baltic countries among these ex-Soviet guys. 
>Read all the postings in t.p.s. posted in June-August and you'll find 
>almost no postings about a democracy in CIS or Russia. Subjects on Lithuania, 
>Latvia, Estonia, Finland,... Russians don't care 
>of their own country?  Or I guess they can't get rid of being real adepts of 
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>`TALK-POLITICS-in-SOVIET-style`!

   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
any such. But fortunately I didn't hear that Russian goverment imposed
so-called "citizenship" or "language requirement" to its residents,
or put in jail its opponents, like "democratic" Estonian and
Latvian goverment did with leaders of Russian-speaking minority.

>
>What an arrogance of the subjects ("News from democratic Lithuania",  
>"Russian Parliament on the Human Rights violations in Baltics",
>`"Democratic" Estonia') where the word democracy is used with or without 
>quotes. Just imagine: News from democratic Germany, United States, 
>Poland, or whatever country you are born or living. 

  Did you hear about human rights violation in US, Germany
or Poland, which could be compared to those in Estonia ?

>
>Recall "News from democratic Lithuania" where the main "issue" was
>that of  a banned usage of Polish names for Lithuanian cities. 
>Knowing nothing, or almost nothing about the real situation
>ex-"big brothers" were trying to cry about an unfair situation of
>Poles in Lithuania. I was wondering that these ex-Soviet guys were the 
>only ones who were actually trying to continue the discussion.
>Mr Verbitsky even taught Poles that they are the "bad" Poles. 

  BTW, the discussion about violation of rights of Polish
minority in Lithuania was started by Polish subscriber on 
RUSSIA list, and then was transferred to talk.politics.soviet.

>
>Now we are watching another piece of the soup opera "Democracy in Baltics": 
>""democratic" Estonia" (though it actually became 
>"One question about Finland"). Yes, the subject is not 
>the "Citizenship in Estonia" or something alike 
>which on its turn seems to be of a rather theoretical 
>interest for Russian, Ukrainian and the other citizens (are they?). 
>Note, no-one of those defenders of democracy does mention 
>the law of citizenship in what they call "democratic" Lithuania. Neither,

   As was mentioned, the situation with human rights
in Lithuania is slightly better than in Estonia and Latvia.
Besides, the Russian minority in Lithuania is much smaller.
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 ?), the Lithuanians appeared less
abusive and revenge-seeking than "brave" Estonians
after they were GRANTED independence.


>what the law is in democratic (?) Russia itself, if any. 
>^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

  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 ?

>In fact, no one from the company above is
>interested in the law itself but in an opportunity to blacken the Baltics
>in the same way as their soviet predecessors were doing years ago.
>Furhermore, the speculation reached the top of the ladder: 
>Russian Supreme Soviet has been discussing why some Russians may not 
>become the citizens of ...Estonia?! 
            ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  You are misinformed. Russian parlament was worried
not with that Russians in Estonia were denied "precious"
Estonian citizenship, but with human rights violations
in Estonia, whether they concern citizens or non-citizens.
Ditto: as you may know, from several hundred thousand
Russians or Russian-speaking non-Russians, living in Estonia,
only 5,000 have stated their desire to become Estonian
citizens so far. Do you really think that just every
Russian, even in Estonia, is dreaming about Estonian
citizenship ? The problem is with human rights, first
of all.

>They should prefer to think of their own citizenship and citizens.

 Ah really ? What about US taking care about human rights
violations in former Soviet Union ? Where have you been then,
with your advice ?

>
>I ask myself whether these guys misunderstand and simplify the notions of
>citizenship, democracy, nationality, etc. or are they falsifying
> the issues intentionally. I think the exact answer was given in 
>Mr Ryyti's posting 14643 of talk.politics.soviet.

  The reference to notorious Mr. Jarmo Ryyti is underscoring
your own writings.
  I'm experiencing a strong desire to quote Mr. Ryyti once more.
Jarmo Ryyti has posted unforgetable masterpiece recently:
>> Sometimes I really
>>suspect that Vizniyk is a KGB people because he is so active in spreading
>>such information what KGB would like and some ultra nationals in Russia.
>>Also the way to turn up and down the contents of the words like democracy,
>>rasism,SU v. russians seem to me very typical tactics of KGB.
>>You just try to give an other content for the words,disinfomation etc.
>>So I were not at all suprised if Vizniyk & Co were revealed as 
>>former or present KGB people.

S.V.