LETTONIE - RUSSIE, Traités et documents de base

Tallin May 14, 1989 : APPEAL to the Heads of States, Members of the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, and the Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR

APPEAL of the Representatives of the Popular Fronts of Estonia, Latvia and the Lithuanian Reform Movement Sajudis to the Heads of States, Members of the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, and the Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR

Having gathered at the Baltic Assembly on May 13-14, 1989 in Tallinn, plenipotentiary representatives of the Popular Fronts of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania,

BEING WELL AWARE of the unconditional freedom of all nations to choose their road of political, economic and cultural development, the peoples' and nations' right to equality of rights and self-determination,

TAKING INTO ACCOUNT the clearly expressed aspiration of the three Baltic nations, feasible under conditions of the present-day process of restructuring, to achieve real economic independence and state sovereignty,

STRESSING the peculiarity of the historical development of the Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian nations, their political independence in the years 1918 to 1940 as well as the fact that the Baltic states alone lost their independence as a result of World War II,

REGARDING the events of 1939-40 in the Baltic states which deprived Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania of independence as a direct consequence of the realisation of the criminal collusion between Stalin and Hitler in the division of Eastern Europe, as a gross violation of the rules of international law and obligations of the USSR, and as forcible seizure, i.e. annexation, of the Baltic states by the Soviet Union,

IN FULL CONFIDENCE that the government of the USSR will, during this current year, renounce and declare null and void from the very moment of signing (ex tunc) the Agreements of August 23rd and September 28th, 1939, together with the secret protocols, concluded between the stalinist regime of the USSR and the German Reich, concerning political transformations in Eastern Europe, and will not prevent the restoration of the state sovereignty of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania by means of negotiations and with the participation of plenipotentiary representatives of their peoples,

APPEAL to the heads of states, members of the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe, the Secretary-General of the United Nations and the Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR to heed the aspiration of our nations to self-determination and independence in a neutral and demilitarised zone of Europe, as well as the need to solve this problem on the international level, with the participation of plenipotentiary representatives of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

The free, democratically expressed will of the Baltic nations must be decisive in the determination of their fates.

Tallinn, May l4th, 1989

On behalf of the Council of Representatives of the Popular Front of Estonia
On behalf of the Duma of the Popular Front of Latvia
On behalf of the Seimas of the Lithuanian Reform Movement Sajudis

Source:
Baltic Assembly, Tallin, May 13-14, 1989, Popular Front of Estonia, Valgus Publishers 1989