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The home pages for the Usenet newsgroup soc.culture.nordic

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Subject:      Re: Sweden's occupation of Aland (was: Jorn Donner)
From:         Johan Olofsson
Date:         1997/09/17
Message-Id:   <yzzg1r3q4y8.fsf@tiny.lysator.liu.se>
Newsgroups:   soc.culture.nordic



Jari Partanen writes:

> There is a contradiction here. There no longer was a military threat
> by Sweden (as you explain), and Åland was fully in control of
> Finland at the time, when the settlement was made. But Finland
> was still willing to let the League of Nations decide, even though
> Finland _already had_ the islands! It was Finland, who could
> no longer gain anything more (expect satisfaction of trying to be fair,
> and be approved by others).

Not quite. :->

In connection with the Peace Conference at Versailles Finland's position wasn't convincing (suffering among other things from upset press reports from concentration camps with prisoners from the losing side of the Civil War), and it demanded qualified diplomatic efforts from the side of Finland's to get the question away from the Peace Conference's agenda. But Finland succeeded, and as a result Finland was summoned (on Britain's initiative) to the League of Nations on July 11, 1920. This meant that the risk of Finland's losing the islands was considerably diminished. But not eliminated.

Read the minutes I quoted in this news group recently, and you'll discover that according to the League's opinon Finland would lose the sovereignty over the Islands in case she didn't follow the League's demands. In this context "the League's opinion" ought to be understood as England's and France's opinion, I think.

As Finland was accepted as a member of the League of Nations in December 16, 1920, the condition was that the question of sovereignty over the Åland Islands should be left open.

Finland did certainly oppose the League's right to decide, and Partanen's senctence above looks more like biased rewriting of history than pure ignorance.

The League came to the conclusion that the matter was of international character, but also that the people on Åland had no rights according to International Laws to demand separation from a state with internationally recognized borders and territory. The people on Åland had no say in international discussions, why their cause by necessity must by taken up by someone. (Preferably by the "mother country" - which this mother country, i.e. Sweden, did rather gingerly.)

There are certainly some dispute regarding when Finland accepted the League's right to decide in the question. As late as at a meeting of the Council of the League June 23, 1921, Finland's representative Enckell refused (repeatedly) to utter any meaning regarding the League's right to settle the dispute, but he didn't protest as France's representative declared that Finland actually already had accepted.

Parttanen's wording above ("was _still_ willing") is misleading inasmuch that Finland did not declarer her willing to let the League of Nations decide more than a few days or hours before the issue was decided upon.

According to Enckell: Finland had promised to follow the Council's decission, but had however never accepted the question's referral to the League. The promise was made at a point when Finland (i.e. Enckell) felt reasonably sure regarding the result. But (still following Enckell:) that promise was a prerequisite for the favorable settlement of the issue.

Enckell is quoted on page 198 in Tore Modeen's work (published in Swedish Language in Finland 1972) on the international protection of the national identity of the Åland Islands.

>> Because there was nothing for Sweden in the settlement. The Finns got
>> sovereignity over Åland, the Ålanders got far-reaching guarantees for
>> the maintenace of its linguistic integrity. The Swedes got nothing.
>> Had they really wanted something for themselves, I daresay the
>> settlement _would_ have included a litle piece of candy for them, too.

I do not really agree with Jan Böhme here. There was a piece of candy, however maybe not very long lasting, and not much to brag about for the Swedish voters: The islands' status as un-armed was not revoked.

> You view of the way how settlements were made is rather cynical.
> I have a more idealistic view, that the decision was made trying
> to follow the principles of justice of that time, taking into
> account history, geography, culture, economy, international laws,
> etc.

At this time, the end of the 1910s and the beginning of the 1920s, the idealistic view a la mode was the principle of the Nation's and the People's right to self-determination.

Sweden's Cabinets (from autumn 1917 Liberal and/or Social Democratic) obviously believed in this idealistic view more than most other countries. But looking at what the League of the Nations did in its beginning, the settlement of the Åland issue _against_ the outspoken wish of 96% of the Islands' population is a unique event which had to wait for Chamberlain's surrender for Adolf Hitler to find anything comparable.

When the League of the Nation's settled other conflicts involving national minorities the People's self-determination was honored in one way or another - both in theory and practice.

best regards!


Johan Olofsson

-- 
  e-mail: jmo@lysator.liu.se
  s-mail: Majeldsvägen 8a, 582 63  LINKÖPING, Sweden
  www:    http://www.lysator.liu.se/~jmo/

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