ANALYSIS: The new union signed by Russia and Belarus (04/21/96)

ANALYSIS: The new union signed by Russia and Belarus

by David R. Marples

On April 2 in Moscow, Belarus and Rus-sia signed a "Treaty on Forming a Union of Sovereign Republics."

The signing of the treaty, from the Belarusian perspective marks perhaps the climax of a long campaign by Russophile elements to draw closer to Belarus's eastern neighbor.

Belarus was a founding member of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS); in fact, it hosted the December 1991 meeting of Slavic states at which the CIS was formed in December 1991.

Under the premiership of Vyachaslau Kebich in the spring of 1993, a powerful lobby of Communists in Parliament introduced the concept of a military and security union with Russia, a motion that was accepted over the angry opposition of the speaker, Stanislau Shushkevich, the Belarusian Popular Front and other opposition deputies.

In February 1995, Belarus signed a detailed Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation with Russia; a title ominously similar to that signed by the Soviet Union with client states (such as Afghanistan) during the Brezhnev period. The signing of the treaty followed a failure to achieve a currency union between the two states. It signaled Belarus's inability to alleviate a rising debt for the import of energy supplies - principally oil and gas - from Russia.

The current agreement is a much more radical document, and can be perceived as the latest in a series of high-handed maneuvers by President Alyaksandr Lukashenka in violation of the existing Constitution. Recently he has taken steps to consolidate his authority over opposition groups and mildly independent media centers. On April 2, however, he effectively signaled the death knell of the young independent state.

The union is not a treaty between equal partners. Rather it signifies the subjugation of a small struggling nation to a larger and powerful state. That Mr. Lukashenka will play a prominent role in the new supra-national organization does not conceal the fact that policy will effectively be decided in Moscow. The stipulations publicized appear remarkably similar to the sort of role that Mikhail Gorbachev envisioned for union republics in his unsuccessful attempt to form a revised union in the spring and summer of 1991.

The treaty has created a Supreme Council (Soviet) as the major organization, which is to be composed of the highest officials of each state. President Lukashenka is to be chairman of this body for a two-year period, while Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin will head an Executive Committee. The third body is a parliamentary assembly. The supra-national organizations will elaborate a common foreign and military policy.

Moreover, the two sides have stated their intention in the 26 articles of the agreement to coordinate both economic policy and economic reform. Taxation, energy, ownership of property and agriculture are all to be developed according to a joint pattern. Indeed the currency issue appears to be the only sphere of the economy not yet subject to a unified policy, and even this aspect, it is envisaged, will be coordinated in the foreseeable future.

The Executive Committee will, in practice, be the most active working group, and on the Belarusian side, Mr. Lukashenka's close associate, Deputy Prime Minister Mikhail Myasnikovich, will join Russia's Deputy Prime Minister Aleksey Bolshakov working in the presidential residency in Moscow to formulate a common budget.

Immediately after the signing of the agreement, the presidents of the respective countries declared April 2 as a day of popular unity and stated that thereafter that date would be marked as a public holiday. It appears that, theoretically, other CIS countries, such as Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan could join the union, and certainly those two states have indicated such a desire over the past two weeks. However, they are unlikely to seek as deep an integration as that engineered by Mr. Lukashenka for Belarus. One month ago, even Russia was expressing reservations about the sort of union envisaged by Mr. Lukashenka. The April 2 agreement does, nevertheless, fall in line with the recent and controversial decision of the Russian Duma to declare the dissolution of the Soviet Union illegal.

There are two key questions:

1. How serious are Belarus and Russia about full integration?

2. What is left of Belarus's Constitution, Parliament and independence as a result of the treaty forming this "Community"?

For Boris Yeltsin, the signing of such a treaty can hardly be divorced from his re-election campaign for the presidency of Russia. It has already solicited praise from his presidential rivals, Gennadiy Zyuganov and Vladimir Zhirinovsky, and it has perhaps gone some way to alleviate President Yeltsin's reputation in Russian nationalist circles as a politician who betrayed the USSR, an image still displayed in hardline Communist newspapers. Even moderate Russian politicians appear to favor closer integration. One can say, therefore, that the treaty has satiated to some extent the wishes of the Russian "imperialist" lobby.

President Lukashenka's motives are more difficult to assess. As a politician he has often acted irrationally, and in a dictoratial and high-handed fashion. His venom toward any form of opposition has been manifested frequently of late, and particularly toward the Belarusian Popular Front, which he has equated with German fascism of the wartime variety (this accusation has been somewhat negated by Mr. Lukashenka's own assertion of his admiration for Hitler.).

He has long emphasized the fact that he was the only politician in the old Belarusian Parliament to oppose the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Yet his policies have been inconsistent. At times he has appeared to resist Russian intrusions into the Belarusian economy. He has alternately asserted a wish to integrate more closely with Russia than in the Soviet period, and that any agreement with Russia would not negate Belarusian independence. The most convenient adjective to describe the Belarusian leader would be "unbalanced."

President Lukashenka has entered into this agreement seriously. That he will continue to play a leading role in the long term, however, is unlikely. On March 30, he assured Polish President Alexander Kwas-nieski that the treaty did not signify a loss of independence. The treaty itself mentions the continued "sovereignty" of Belarus. Yet the latter can be applied mainly to the formal existence of two states: the recognition of Belarus as a member of the international community; and perhaps with regard to matters such as internal law and order.

In terms of military-security policy, Belarus has been formally integrated with Russia, even to the extent of losing control of its own western border. It remains to be seen - and it is a potentially explosive issue - whether Russian officers will now begin to patrol the southern border with Ukraine. At a time when Poland may be added to the "family" of NATO, Russia has added to its own strategic force by moving its border westward.

Perspectives

Over the past two weeks, the city of Miensk has seen a series of unprecedented demonstrations, violence, and clashes between protesters and police.

On March 24, a pro-independence demonstration close to Independence Square turned into an ugly clash between the Belarusian Popular Front (BPF) and militia. At least one policeman died of wounds incurred. On March 31, it was the turn of Communists and trade unionists, who staged a large demonstration in favor of the union agreement. The numbers involved in both demonstrations have been estimated at around 30,000.

On April 2, the anti-union forces again came out in force, this time without the benefit of an anniversary date and in spite of a ban on such a gathering. About 20,000 demonstrators took to the streets at the behest of the BPF, a party that lost all its parliamentary seats in the recent elections, but which appears to have engendered more unity in the face of a threat to the very existence of a Belarusian state.

The BPF and its leader, Zyanon Paznyak, appealed to President Yeltsin directly not to sign the union treaty. On the eve of the treaty's signing, Mr. Paznyak had traveled to the Ukrainian capital to publicize the Belarusian situation. Certainly he has been harassed at every turn in his own country. On March 26, he was physically prevented from addressing some 600 international delegates at a conference on the 10th anniversary of Chornobyl, organized by the largest independent NGO, the Belarusian Fund for the Children of Chornobyl. His house has reportedly been surrounded by militia.

In turn, Belarusian independentist newspapers have been forced to lead an underground existence. The editor of the parliamentary newspaper Narodnaya Hazeta was recently dismissed, barely a year after coming into office, ostensibly for his failure to offer support for the president's policies. In Miensk, phone-tapping and KGB surveillance have become all too common.

At present, however, Belarus is not merely a poor neighbor of Russia economically, it is also a more repressive state in which privatization and a major foreign presence have yet to be felt. paradoxically, therefore, the treaty may offer Belarusians the best hope for the introduction of more liberal economic and social policies. Yet the price to be paid - the loss of independence - is a high one.

David R. Marples is professor of history at the University of Alberta in Edmonton.

| Home Page |