EDITORIAL: Russian bear re-awakens (04/14/96)

EDITORIAL

Russian bear re-awakens

On April 2 Belarus and Russia signed the Treaty on Union of Sovereign Republics. Some Western countries and their leaders are pooh-poohing the union, stating that the move was merely the formalization of what de-facto has existed for some time. However, the implications of the agreement are foreboding, given Russia's long history of imperialism, the current impotency felt by its people and the shadow of Communist Party chief Gennadiy Zyuganov looming over the Russian electoral landscape.

While Belarusian and Russian government officials and Communists hugged, kissed and cried as the documents were signed, according to an April 7 Weekly report, Ukrainian leaders must have winced. This further move to a return to the "good ole times," which began with the Russian Duma's rejection of the Belaya Vezha Accord of 1991 that dissolved the Soviet Union, does not portend well for the future of Ukraine-Russia relations.

How can it be business as usual between the two countries when conventional wisdom holds that Tajikistan is ready to follow the road paved by Belarus? Who goes after that, and when does "voluntary submission" become somewhat less so?

Most frightening, it seems that the Belarus-Russia reunion is the first move in a doctrine that Yevgeniy Primakov proclaimed soon after becoming foreign minister of Russia, which asserted that the course of reintegration of CIS countries was deemed "objective and inevitable," according to a March 31 article by Volodymyr Zviglyanich in The Weekly. And, yes, it was supported by "democrat" Boris Yeltsin who, in September 1995, released an edict stating that the CIS countries are the principal targets of Russia's geopolitical ambitions.

Mr. Yeltsin has very immediate reasons for moving to absorb Belarus back into the Moscow fold, even with its very serious economic problems. After all, it's an election year, and Russian voters - feeling emasculated over the loss of empire- will be at least partly assuaged by a return of one of their "Slavic brothers," and perhaps feel that the resurgence of Russian greatness is sufficiently imminent that they can again support Mr. Yeltsin.

There is also Mr. Yeltsin's continuing failure to travel to Ukraine to sign a frienship treaty. What happened in Belarus is a political victory for him at home; a trip to Ukraine would win no points with the Russian electorate.

Obviously his overriding concern is re-election and not to maintain political stability in the region, or else he would have traveled to Kyiv to calm Ukraine's nerves. Then again, would Ukraine sign a friendship accord that does not include a customs treaty and delineate specific borders, and how would the Russian people react to that?

What Belarus gets out of the deal is far less clear, besides the possibility of financial relief from Russia for its devastated economy. Zyanon Paznyak, chairman of the national-democratic Belarusian Popular Front, said in Kyiv on April 1 that he cannot fathom why Mr. Lukashenka is returning to Moscow. "Why is he renouncing the Belarusian language, abolishing Belarusian schools, refusing to publish textbooks in Belarusian? Can you imagine this taking place in a normal country?" he asked.

He then asserted, "It is a direct threat to Ukrainians, the economy and the independence of Ukraine. It is also a danger to Poland, Lithuania, all of Eastern Europe... a course aimed at renewing blocs of opposition in Europe."

Although Ukraine's President Leonid Kuchma is committed to traveling a path between the CIS and NATO, taking part only in peripheral structures of the two organizations, a return by Russia to ambitions of empire must force the president to push Ukraine towards still closer ties with NATO.

He must not take a wait-and-see attitude, but move assertively to show Russia that Ukraine will not stand idly by as empire returns. Ukraine's history is fraught with instances of its leaders trusting the Moscow bear until it is trapped and swallowed whole. This time Ukraine must have an escape route.

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