
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, April 30, 1990                   TAG: 9004300234
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A10   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

LET RUSSIANS USE THE CANADIAN OPTION

MR. GORBACHEV is now employing Mr. Gerasimov as his personal Dr. Goebbels to spread the big lie. As is apparent from a recent letter to the editor in the Roanoke Times & World-News, some people have already swallowed it.

None of the U.S. states or territories was forced to join the Union by eliminating the opposition with a pistol shot in the head. This happened in the Baltic republics, where all of the candidates in the staged communist elections who opposed the incorporation into the Soviet Union were either killed outright, or deported to Siberia with their wives and children, where most of them died. I know, because I was there.

In the ensuing 50 years of Russian rule, more than a million and a half ethnic Russians were resettled into the Baltics in order to dilute the ethnic vitality of these people, but as is evident in Lithuania, without success.

Why do the Russians not use as an example the options available to the French-speaking population of the Province of Quebec in Canada? They need just a simple majority vote to separate from Canada, if they wish!

\ HENRY H. ROOS\ ROANOKE

by CNB