GERMAN EUROPE SEEKS TO WREST KALININGRAD FROM RUSSIA

Report date 22 July 2002
Translated on 5 August 2002

There is speculation in the German press about possible separatist movements in Kaliningrad. One of these groups is credited with a "clear concept", a NATO operation with the goal of "a guarantee for free elections in a young republic, threatened from the East".

According to the report in the "Tagesspiegel" the Baltic Republican Party (BRP), founded 10 years ago, is demanding independence from Russia, although the state administration is considering proceedings against it on grounds of High Treason. The party programme of the BRP envisages that Kaliningrad should attain the status of a state by means of a referendum of its inhabitants. By treaty with the Russian Federation , this should transfer to themselves the property of the territory and plenipotentiary legislative powers. Alongside the BRP there exists another "Movement Bernsteinkuste" which also wishes this name for the new state. As a first step to a sovereign state, Kaliningrad should be receptive to the retrospective name of Koenigsberg - the Tagesspiegel suggests.

The Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper had previously speculated about " a new form of separatism with all the unpleasant concomitants". Solomon Ginsberg, a Liberal Deputy of the Kaliningrad Duma was reported as saying that, on account of low living standards, Kaliningrad could change "its anti bureaucratic opinion into an anti-Russian Federation opinion".

"Young Republic, threatened by Aggression from the East"

The four pointed star on the substantially retained Russian flag of the Baltic Republican Party looks identical to the NATO logo - and that is publicly admitted to be no coincidence - according to the "Tagesspiegel".

According to the opinion of BRP Party Leader Sergej Pasko, NATO would shortly have a "thoroughly clear concept" of "a guarantee for free elections in a young republic, threatened from the East". In accordance with this concept, NATO manoeuvres began in March in the Polish Baltic. Three divisions and forty warships took part.

TRANSLATOR'S COMMENT

Shades of the Danzig Corridor because of the part of Europe in which this is taking place!
Shades also of the Sudetenland where Hitler instructed the "German Community Leader" Heinlein to make ever more impossible demands on the Czechoslovak state.

Source : Better off without Moscow. Party in Russia's Exclave of Kaliningrad
demands Independence . Tagesspiel 22 July 2002