In 1968, Per Olov Enquist wrote his controversial "docudramatic" novel "Legionärerna" about the so-called "baltutlämning" in Sweden at the end of the Second World War. I would like to write a word of warning to the Danish authorities, so that history does not repeat itself.

It is difficult and embarrassing for a Balt to explain how an Estonian or Latvian might have ended up in German uniform during World War II, for most Balts find the swastika and the hammer and sickle to equally distasteful. In our family, a familiar dinner-table topic was "who has done us more harm - the Germans or the Russians"?

Without wanting to go into this in depth, two observations might help a Scandinavian reader to cast him- or herself in the role of a Baltic person, and in the destinies of the Baltic countries - a destiny that has not visited the Nordic lands.

First: the Balts and the Finns found themselves in a situation in 1939 and 1940 that differed from the situation of the remainder of Northern Europe. Norway, Denmark and Sweden were not the victims of Soviet aggression. In my country of Estonia, we experienced war crimes, deportations, disappearances and torture under the Soviet regime before our German occupation began. This convinced most Estonians that the return of the Soviets had to be averted at any cost. As my mother says: "when you are tossed in among murderers and thieves and no other choices are apparent, one chooses the lesser evil". For the Balts, it really is true - there were two occupations and the Nazi occupation - nasty and tragic as it was - was the lesser of the two. The inference here is not that the Germans somehow spared us. They behaved the same way in Estonia that they behaved in Denmark, Norway, etc.

Second: Estonian men who wanted to try to go into battle against the Red Army during 1940-1944 had three choices: to go into the woods or to serve in the German Army, or the Finnish armed forces - if you could get to Finland. Those who wanted to avoid fighting as conscripts in the uniform of the Nazi occupants could either to try to escape to Finland, or go into the woods and hide. The one choice not available to Estonian men during WW II was to fight against the Germans or the Soviets in their own Estonian uniforms, for the Soviets had dismantled the Estonian armed forces and sent the officers to Siberia.

This helps to explain how Estonian men - very few of whom believed in Nazi ideology - ended up as internees in Sweden in 1945.

The major issue for Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians during 1939-1991 was lack of national independence - an issue that has concerned many Chechens in a similar manner for the past 150 years.

The problem with the period following the tragedy of the World Trade Center in New York a little more than a year ago is that concepts have gotten confused. The West has started to "throw out the baby of the institution of self-determination along with the dirty bathwater of terrorism". The fact is that the Chechens have tried for more than a decade to sue for independence. What is going on in Chechnya is a war of national liberation with unfortunate excesses from time to time, not something that can be conveniently lumped together with an all too indistinct idea like "international terrorism". The fact that incidents of terrorism have come up within the framework of the war between the Russians and the Chechens is truly regrettable. It simply has to be added that there is documented proof that the Russians have committed numerous war crimes in Chechnya. I would suggest that America and the UN and Russia etc. should concentrate more on specific crimes and war crimes and getting all perpetrators of war crimes to trial, and less on terrorism. Consistency is always a goal to strive for.

None of the above changes the fact that the right to self-determination is a legitimate institution set forth and promised to all peoples under international law. The right to self-determination does not disappear even amidst a dirty war.

You have a Chechen in Danish custody at present, Mr. Ahmed Zakajev. Should Denmark remand Zakajev to Russia - even if there were evidence of his having been involved in crimes - he would probably not get a fair trial in Russia. Far better in such a case would be to have the International Tribunal in the Hague try Ahmed Zakajev - assuming that there really is compelling evidence of wrongdoing.

The worst thing to do would be to simply extradite Ahmed Zakayev to the Russians. A similar fate might await Chechen fighters presently in American custody on Cuba, if there are Chechen fighters being held there. Recently, the Americans released three Afghanis to Afghanistan, and presumably nothing bad will happen to these three.

The situation that Chechen fighters and Chechen politicians find themselves in differs dramatically. Amnesty International has recently released an extensive report outlining the abnormal and harsh conditions in the Russian system of justice, with a special chapter being reserved in the report for the particular cruelty and violence that hundreds and thousands of Chechens have to endure, many of them totally innocent people. To extradite under such circumstances would actually be to punish, even if the ensuing ill treatment were an unintentional aftereffect of the act of extradition by Denmark. Ahmed Zakayev should not be handed over to the Russians, because of the considerable danger that he will not be accorded a fair trial or fair treatment.

The extradition of Estonians and Latvians to Soviet Russia in 1945 and 1946 by Sweden resulted in tragedy for the extradited men (they were sent to forced labor and those who survived lived marginalized lives). The true culprit in all of this was Moscow. The USSR should never have aggressed against the Baltic States, and had she not aggressed, the lives of these men - extradited by Sweden - would never have been ruined.

There was a case in 1970 where a Lithuanian seaman named Simas Kudirka succeeded in jumping from the deck of a Soviet merchant vessel to the deck of an American Coast Guard ship off the coast of New England. Instead of giving him the political asylum he was legally entitled to, the American officers watched as Russian sailors gave Kudirka a beating aboard the American ship and then forcibly took him back aboard the Soviet vessel.

Denmark should try to avoid repeating the mistakes that Sweden made during the "baltutlämning" of 1945 and 1946, and that the Americans made in 1970 with Simas Kudirka.

The Balts, who know Russia all too well, cannot help but empathize to some extent with the Chechens. Their situation is all too familiar to us. In 1985, the Baltic Tribunal documenting Soviet human rights violations in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania took place in the SAS Radisson Hotel in Copenhagen. Moscow exerted considerable diplomatic pressure on Denmark back then to try to keep the Tribunal from taking place, and also to try to stop the Baltic Peace and Freedom Cruise that subsequently visited the ports of Stockholm and Helsinki.

Ahmed Zakajev is a man trying to do the things that his society expects of him. There are situations where a man's or woman's internal voice speaks louder than any man-made law. These are matters of honor. To hand him over to the Russians would amount to extrajudicial punishment. If Zakajev has committed crimes, he should be given a fair trial (preferably under neutral circumstances), and if he has not, he should most certainly not be extradited to the Russians, for by remand him, a man who is doing the bidding of his conscience would be unfairly punished.

(This opinion piece was sent to the Danish newspaper Berlingske Tidende as well as to Estonian Life. ed.)

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