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22.11.2001 Markus Lehtipuu KARELIA IS PART OF FINLAND, CURRENTLY UNDER RUSSIAN OCCUPATION Return of Karelia to Finland: (The former Finnish) Karelia is part of Finland, currently under Russian occupation. Why this definition? Because Finland is a "new" country. Finland only gained independence in 1917. Russia, Sweden and other nations recognised Finland in 1918. At that time, Finland did not have an army of its own, nor any defined, acknowledged borders. Finland was not acountry, yet. In 1920, Finland and Soviet Russia signed a carefully prepared Peace Agreement, in the Estonian town of Tartu. Thus, Finland was born. Only after the 1920 agreement, Finland had, in addition to a national army, defined borders. In other words, "Finland" as a geographical entity, was and still is defined as it was after the 1920 Treaty. In 1932, the Soviet Union and Finland signed a Non-Aggression Pact (renewed in 1934) and Finns assumed that Russians would honour those borders. They didn't. Today Finland is smaller. Why? Because the Soviet Union was an aggressive dicatorship, ruled by one of the worst dictators in the history, Josif Stalin. The Soviet system was, indeed, based on its world-revolutionary principle: "Workers of the world, unite!". None of the neighbouring countriesever wanted to unite with the Soviet Union. They had to. In 1939, Stalin sent up to one million Red Army soldiers to "unite" Finland with the Soviet Union. The Finnish Army resisted, but the enormous military aggression was eventually too much for the Finns. So, Karelia had to be ceded. Finns never wanted to surrender nor give a single square inch of their territory to the dictator and his dictatorship. But Finland had to, just to remain an independent country and to avoid being bombed to the stone age. After the war, in 1944, the Soviet Union humiliated Finns and started a "re-education", which included new borders, new geography and "new history". All maps (of Karelia) had to be surrendered to the Soviet Union, over 1,700 book titles had to be withdrawn from public libraries, and 288 titles from book shops. This was just the beginning of the humiliation. Finns have always been peace loving people. Even during the humiliation, there never was any attempt to regain the lost territory. Finns generally obey the rules and stick to the signed agreements. When the Soviet Union collapsed, Finland was dragged into a very severe economic recession. There was no time to think about Karelia. Only slowly are many Finns starting to realise what kind of are-education has taken place, and what really are the initially agreed, pre-dictatorship borders of Finland. The new Russia is not an aggresive, Soviet-style country which wants to conquer the world. As the recent research indicates, almost all Finnish Karelia has become an empty, abandoned wasteland in ruins, with little, or no use for the present Russian "owners". As a result of that, many Finns want to return the stolen territory back to Finland. Karelia was legally owned by 420,000 individuals and thousands of companies and societies. All that property was stolen. As the victims have been thinking ever since, and many younger Finns think today, stolen property must be returned. What do Russians say? First of all, Russians are not bad people. Karelia is currently part of Russia because of the former dictatorship, not because Russians themselves would like to attack all their neighbours, steal their property, take them to concentration camps and kill them. They once had to, because their dictator told them to do so. While keeping Karelia, Russia sticks to its former dictatorship and lets Stalin, with his bloody hands, to decide where international borders should be. There is an alternative. The 1920 peace agreement was based on mutual trust and respect. The 1932 Non-Aggression Pact was based on expectation of peace and harmony. Today, both Russians and Finns want peace and harmony, but the Karelian issue remains. By returning the Finnish Karelia back to its legal owners, Russia would give a message of diplomacy, trust and non-aggression, and would thus cut its links to the formerly aggressive dictatorship and distance itself from Josif Stalin. That would benefit Karelia, it would benefit Russia and it would benefit Finland and the whole European Union. Is there courage to cut the bloody ties to the horrendous dictatorship, or does Josif Stalin's fatal rule still dictate the fate of this beautiful territory? Markus Lehtipuu Suomalainen Matkaopas  ^ Takaisin ylös  Lisää artikkeleita kirjoittajalta
Artikkeli-arkisto
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