were worried and afraid of the relaxation. As for political rights, Balts have never had these under the Soviet Russian rule. Violations of civil rights include, among others, restrictions placed upon getting inheritance from abroad. Only small sums are forwarded to the inheritors by the State, which keeps most of the money for its hard currency reserves. A private telephone as such does not exist. Telephone conversations are monitored on a wide scale. The State can at any time disconnect one's phone service, especially when the phone has been used for long distance calls to western countries, or to western newsmen within the Soviet Union with complaints about illegal procedures or bad conditions. This happened, for example, to Estonian scientist Juri Kukk in Tartu. His phone was repeatedly disconnected because of his contacts with the Moscow-based American correspondent David K. Willis, who wrote several articles in The Christian Science Monitor based on information received from Kukk. After Kukk was arrested on March 13, 1980, and accused of anti-Soviet slander, his wife Silvi was told that if she wants telephone service restored she must sign a personal promise that she will not use the telephone for calling abroad and that she will refuse to accept any calls from abroad. The national rights of the native peoples are constantly violated in the Baltic Republics of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Russians behave as if they were some kind of "herrenvolk" (master race) and they get many advantages. In recent years there are increasing pressures to further the study of the Russian language in all walks of life. Emphasis is being placed on teaching Russian especially to children; plans exist and are being implemented to start universal Russian language training for Baltic children at the kindergarten and day care center levels. Recently it was decreed that all dissertations at Baltic universities have to be written in Russian, or be accompanied by a full Russian translation. If these plans work, Estonians would have to speak Russian instead of Estonian in their native land. The influx of Russians and other Russian-speaking Soviets into the Baltic States continues, resulting in degradation of national identity for Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians. According to the Soviet census of 1979 as compared to the census of 1959, the percentage of Russians and other Soviet immigrants has risen in Estonia from 22% to 35%, in Latvia from 37% to 54%, and in Lithuania from 20% to 22%. Russians have mostly settled in the larger cities where they constitute civil garrisons whose task is to further russification and suppress the national aspirations of Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians. As a result of this colonial Soviet policy, Latvians now make up approximately 40% of the population of their capital, Riga; Lithuanians approximately 65% of their capital, Vilnius; and Estonians barely 50% of their capital, Tallinn. In connection with the preparations for the Olympic regatta in Tallinn, large numbers of Russian construction workers were brought into Estonia. Upon arrival in Tallinn many of them took jobs at other locations and settled permanently in Estonia, thus worsening further the ethnic balance of Estonians in their native Jand, The work so far left undone at the Olympic regatta site is being forced on a so-called "voluntary" basis--without wage compensation--upon Estonians, especially high-school and university students. When persons refused, they were threatened with removal from waiting lists for new apartments, with cutoffs of bonus payments at their regular place of work, with cancellation of stipends and eviction from dormitories, and, in some cases, even with dismissal from the universities. I have been informed that employees and workers in Tartu and other Estonian cities will not be permitted to take their vacations in July and August of this year. This is to prevent them from going to Tallinn while the Olympic yachting races are in progress. Persons who have applied for permission to emigrate from the Soviet Union are not allowed to stay in Tallinn from June 18 to September 3. This is obviously meant to prevent them from contacting foreign visitors. Only this The authorities have devised a plan according to which special Olympic script money will be used for paying wages to Tallinn's inhabitants during the Olympics. script can be used in stores. The foreign visitors, athletes, officials, as well as tourists, will be given the opportunity to exchange their hard currency against this special script in unlimited amounts. The Olympics are regarded by the authorities as an ideological and propaganda exercise, an event which will justify and advance the cause of the Soviet State. For this reason I was very happy to hear that the United States Olympic Committee has decided to boycott the Olympic games and I think this initiative by President Carter is finding some support in other countries. I personally hope that the Olympics will not take place, even knowing that it might have helped to establish more western contacts within the Soviet Union. I also question why the boycott idea was not raised because of the fact that Estonia and the other Baltic States have the status of occupied countries. Even more, why did the United States Olympic Committee agree to holding the games in the Soviet Union. Is it because the western powers want to forget the injustice done to the Baltic Nations? In Estonia, human rights activists intensified their efforts in the beginning of the 1970's. Both the Estonian Democratic Movement and the Estonian National Front were then founded. Their leaders were arrested in December, 1974, after it became known that their memorandums, addressed to the United Nations, had reached the West and were given publicity. Extensive cooperation between human and national rights activists in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania started in 1975. A joint Estonian-Latvian appeal for self-determination of the Baltic peoples was issued on June 17, 1975, addressed to all governments participating in the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe. This cooperation was given a more formal status when a joint Estonian-Latvian-Lithuanian National Movement Committee was formed in August, 1977. This committee has held meetings, worked out action programs and composed memorandums. The first of these was issued in September, 1975, on the 35th anniversary of the Soviet occupation of the Baltic States, and was addressed to "all leaders of the world's freedom loving nations, organizations and associations." These activities culminated on August 23, 1979, when the Baltic Appeal, signed by 45 Estonians, `Latvians and Lithuanians, addressed to Mr. Kurt Waldheim, Secretary General of the United Nations, to the governments of the Soviet Union, West and East Germany and others, was released in Moscow to the western press. This appeal, which marked the 40th anniversary of the infamous Nazi-Soviet pact of 1939, was released with an accompanying |