World Continued from page 1 immigrants. And they claim that economic development on their lands has been lop- sided during the Soviet years, accompanied by gross ecological mismanagement. People of the Baltic republics have mobil- ized politically over the past couple of years, with huge popular front organizations, to demand complete sovereignty — including their own citizenship and currency — as the only guarantee of their national rights and security. Against the old slogan, which one still often hears, that “strong republics require a strong centre,’ Baltic Congress deputy Klara Hallik recently retorted: “As for the strong centre, I want to ask: what is it? Is it the 16th Republic in our country? If it has appeared, it has done this secretly, without any voting by the other 15 republics for it On the other side are the voices of inte- gration, of Sovietism versus nationalism, which can sometimes sound equally fright- ened, and equally militant. “History shows.that confederations are usually a temporary formation on the way to the creation of a federation or to disinte- gration.” write law professors N. Mikhaleva and S. Papidze in the newspaper Izvestia. ““We do have a federation already. So, wha- tever is meant is obviously disintegration.” Indeed, life is raising the spectre of disin- tegration rather forcibly these days. Look- ing around the USSR recently, there were volatile political strikes in Moldavia and Estonia, staged by mainly Slavic minorities in those republics opposed to new — they say discriminatory language and election laws. Meanwhile, Baltic peoples held mas- sive demonstrations to mark the 50th anni- versary of the Hitler-Stalin pact, an accord which they claim set the stage for their invo- luntary incorporation into the Soviet Union the following year. (Ina related development, of incalculable significance in this complex political pro- cess, CPSU Politbureau member Alexander Yakovlev, writing in Pravda, described the Hitler-Stalin pact as “a deviation from the Leninist norms of Soviet foreign policy, from Lenin’s renunciation of secret diplo- macy.” It had involved, he wrote, a great power claim for “territorial-political recarv- ing.” The long controversy over the exist- ence of a secret protocol outlining these goals, is irrelevant to the present debate, he said, though there is no doubt such a pro- tocol was drawn up, even though the origi- nal has never been found.) Looking deeper, there are disturbing signs that almost all Soviet minorities are in ferment. Crimean Tatars, Volga Germans, Meskhetian Turks, Kalmyks, Chechens, Balkars, and innumerable others are press- ing old claims and seeking historical redress for wrongs done them under Stalin. Azer- baijanis.and Armenians are locked in a con- flict that looks increasingly like civil war, over the tiny enclave of Nagorno- Karabakh. Now a new, though totally predictable, level of conflict has become activated. Small minorities in several republics are rising up to demand their own autonomy against the resurgent nationalism of Moldavians, Geor- gians, Lithuanians and others. In Moldavia, last week, the tiny Gagauz people — num- bering barely 140,000 — were threatening to join Slavs in mass strikes against the new Moldavian language law which effectively requires them to know three language to get by: Gaguaz, Russian, and now Moldavian. In Georgia, the Abkhazian minority has been rioting for months against what they see as the great-nation chauvinism of the Georgians. It is not wild-eyed to suggest an almost infinite regress of national, tribal and local conflicts. In fact, the nightmare that torments many Soviets these days is the breakup of the USSR into a swam of medieval principalities. 6 « Pacific Tribune, September 11, 1989 Policy targets inter-ethnic conflict NATIONALIST PROTESTINESTONIA... of overcoming centrifugal forces. The USSR, plainly, is an unfinished union. Some 120 nationalities bound loosely in 15 national republics, 20 auto- nomous republics and 18 national districts, share a common history that contains more tragedy than joy. Modernization and inte- gration have altered all past realities beyond recognition, yet have not resolved many basic problems. the present crisis of central authority — and unifying vision — almost inevitably fuels backward-looking, paroch- ial, centrifugal forces. Yet the extent to which Soviet develop- ment has done its work is little understood, or appreciated at this point. As Yuri Brom- _ley, one of the USSR’s foremost ethno- graphers, writes in Pravda: “The Soviet Union is a complex system whose parts are connected, besides political, by millions of other ties formed in the years of Soviet government, such as power, industrial, CPSU central committee faced with task trade, social, cultural and scientific ones . It is self evident that no complex system can function without some form of overall con- trol.” And there is one living, breathing reality, which recent history has created, and which no national-exclusivist or confederal solu- tion can ever adequately address: today, ° some 55 million Soviet people live dispersed across the USSR, outside of their allotted national territories. All eyes in recent weeks have been trained on Estonia, where both the politics and the contradictions inherent in this crisis are already most highly developed. Following the passage of a language bill in July, making Estonian the state language, the mainly Slavic minorities which make up some 40 per cent of the republic’s popula- tion, went out on strike. They viewed the new law — with considerable insensitivity— as an infringement on their right to live and work in Russian. However, there is no monopoly on insen- sitivity: early in August the Estonian parli- ament passed an electoral law, with two-and-five-year residency requirements, which effectively disenfranchised many recent arrivals to the republics. The minori- ties struck again, and suspended their strike only last week under pressure from Mos- cow. The Slavic minorities in Estonia are not — this has to be pointed out — the representatives of an oppressor class OF nation. They are immigrants, who have come to build industry and stayed to oper- ate it. They constitute the bulk of the blue- collar work force, while Estonians tend to be the farmers, intellectuals and service workers. During their recent strike, the minority demonstrated the practical impli- cations of this class breakdown rather viv- idly: they virtually shut down industry, crippled transport and — but for the grace of the strike committee — would have switched-off the republic’s electricity as well. The Estonian parliament — in a move that will not bring them credit in the minds of progressive people anywhere — res- ponded by passing the first anti-strike legis- lation ever seen in the USSR. The fate of the country, and perestroika with all its hopes, now hangs upon the out- come of the debate the CPSU has set in motion with the publication of its draft plat- form on nationalities policy. And its central, crucial points, is this: “A citizen of a republic is simultaneously a citizen of the USSR, Privileges for some or infringement of the rights of others for rea- sons of nationality, religion, language oF duration of residence are impermissible. - . - A Soviet citizen should feel at home in any area of the country. Such is the supreme and final goal of all work to harmonize inter- ethnic relations.” All ISRAEL | HUSNT. LAB SID DU never hear the end of it,”’” Israeli minister's visit draws protest no NO PEACE sual i ey Local Palestinians and supporters protest visit to Vancouver Sept. 6 of Israeli Justice Minister Dan Meridor, in town to address a fund-raising dinner of the Associates of Ben-Gurion University in the Negev. Meridor is considered one of the architects of the policy of repression towards Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, and at a press conference the minister defended his govenrment’s policy of refusing to negotiate with the Palestine Liberation Organizaiton. Canada- Palestine Association representative Hanna Kawas told the demonstration that Ansar III, an Israeli prison in the Negev desert, holds up to 4,000 residents of the Occupied Territories, in violation of the Geneva Conventions. ‘The Canadian and U.S. governments don’t voice any dismay over these practices, but if they were done by any other state but Israel, we'd Kawas said. EES ne a IG PE ne Ogee OR S aeelll ap TE ee ee Fo lcs ne ee fe 71 fo)