INSIGHT INTO THE NEWS
by David Marples
Ten years after the demise of the USSR: A report card on the new independent states
CONCLUSION
Nation-building
How far have the new states progressed in nation-building? Do they form a cohesive entity in an established and generally accepted territory? Are they affected by separatism or regionalism? Has the process occurred peacefully? Do they have an accepted native language and culture? Are they independent of former Soviet influences? These questions are complex, and scholars have often disagreed strongly on the conclusions reached.
In at least five republics - Russia, Moldova, Georgia, Ukraine and Azerbaijan - there are significant territories, encompassing an assertive ethnic minority, that have sought and may continue to seek outright separation from the titular nation. Both Tajikistan and Georgia have requested the intervention of Russian troops in a civil war situation, while in Moldova renegade Russian troops intervened in the Transdniester region, allegedly to defend the rights of the Slavic population against the Moldovan majority. Of these countries, I would argue that Georgia is in the weakest position: it has virtually relinquished control over south Ossetia, Abkhazia is for all intents and purposes a separate republic, and the Black Sea region of Adjaria virtually ignores central decrees from Tbilisi.
The Central Asian states (other than Tajikistan) and Azerbaijan are Turkic-speaking and seemed ripe for picking by neighboring states - especially Turkey and Iran - in 1991-1992. Russia and Iran were also concerned to maintain or create influence over the general region of the oil-rich Caspian Sea. The West, in turn, sought to push the Central Asians toward a reliable ally (at least in their book), Turkey, rather than a fundamentalist Muslim state like Iran.
However, the Central Asian states, including and led by Kazakstan, asserted their independence, notably on the grounds that having just removed one onerous leader (Russia), they were not about to replace her with another. Thus, though friendly with Turkey, they have kept their distance and maintained close economic ties with each other. All but Uzbekistan have friendly ties with Iran, though in no case thus far has Muslim fundamentalism gained much ground. The other external power that can hardly be ignored is China, which has begun to flood the Kazaks, Kirghiz and Tajiks with cheap consumer goods.
Moldova deserves a separate word on nation-building because of its remarkable resistance to pressure to unite (or reunite according to one's outlook) with Romania. The Parliament in the capital, Chisinau, has twice rejected proposals that Romanian replace Moldovan as the state language, and, in a referendum of March 1994, over 95 percent supported the country's continuing independence.
The most influential factors may have been the continuing dissension in the Transdniester region and the more obvious one that, having been able to freely visit Romania in the post-Soviet period, Moldovans did not like what they saw and had no wish to unite with a country that looked like a throwback to the drab era of late Stalinism. Romania is not West Germany and does not have the money or the time to invest in a former, now impoverished, province.
Moldova was also heavily influenced by the Soviet period, a factor that often is curiously overlooked in many contemporary analyses. It accounts, to some extent, for strong regional sentiment in eastern Belarus and Ukraine. Only in the three Baltic states can it be considered negligible - and even there not among the substantial ethnic Russian population of Latvia and Estonia - since these states had long insisted that the Soviet takeover of 1940 was illegal.
In areas such as language and economic groupings, the NIS have asserted their independence. The Turkic-speaking republics have all adopted different forms of the Turkic alphabet, and Latvia and Estonia have applied a fairly stringent language law that bypassed the so-called Russian immigrants.
Language, however, can also be a factor that undermines the process of nation building. This is the case in Belarus, where President Alyaksandr Lukashenka has equated the native language with subversion and opposition to his government (he speaks only Russian in public), and to a lesser extent in Ukraine, where approximately half the population continues to use Russian as the working or conversational language. In Ukraine also, Crimea and oblasts on the Russian border have frequently demanded the establishment of Russian as a second state language.
Paradoxically, regional sentiment is most evident in the Russian Federation, though new president Vladimir Putin has stressed as one of his priorities the renewal of central control over the various regions, particularly those rich in resources.
The new economic grouping of GUUAM (Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan and Moldova) has taken a significant step away from the Russian-dominated CIS toward a more nationally oriented economic and trading association that seeks to maintain good working relations with NATO.
In this same regard, both Armenia and Tajikistan seem unlikely to cast off strong Russian influence for the immediate future. Armenia, in addition, has been anxious to end the dispute with Azerbaijan over the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh (the military conflict ended in July 1994) - somewhat paradoxically given that Armenian President Kocharian was formerly president of this region - and now prefers that it remain an autonomous region within Azerbaijan as opposed to a separatist enclave that seeks to become attached to Armenia.
Human rights
I will discuss in this section three issues: freedom of the press; freedom of religion; and toleration of minorities and opposition groups. This brief survey will begin with the freest states and descend to the dictatorships.
Estonia is ahead of all other republics on the fast track to membership in the European Union. It has independent radio and TV stations, private newspapers, and freedom of religion (most residents of Estonia are Lutherans), in addition to independent trade unions. Its main flaw has been the citizenship law, which treated many Russian residents as immigrants who were obliged to seek citizenship. This law was amended in December 1998 to ease the path to citizenship for all stateless children born after February 1992.
A similar pattern, though with some roadblocks, was followed in Latvia, where 650,000 out of a population of 2.5 million are not yet citizens of the republic. In addition, the judicial system in Latvia is relatively weak, and on occasion the authorities have used excessive force against public demonstrations, particularly if the participants have been Russian. Though I have reservations about some of the claims made against Latvia by the Russian Federation, there is evidence that the Russian population is not always treated fairly.
Lithuania, like its neighbors, has established a pluralistic democratic system, although the Communist Party is still officially banned and former KGB officers are subject to a 10-year ban from seeking public office commencing at the start of 1999.
Moldova has a significant free press and a fairly typical plethora of political parties (around 50 in all). In the Transdniester region, there has been discrimination against Romanian-Moldovan speakers, and corruption and organized crime are evident at all levels of society. Public demonstrations that slander the state are forbidden, and the judiciary is not completely free.
In Ukraine, the government has slowly reduced freedom of the press and an influential group from the Dnipropetrovsk region continues to wield undue influence in the Cabinet. On the other hand, there is a notable toleration for minority groups and a lack of civil conflict.
Russia has a free, though increasingly monopolistic press and media. From Chechnya there have been reports of excessive force and torture of prisoners.
In Armenia there have been regular, generally unsuccessful attempts to muzzle the press, the bureaucracy is corrupt, and the president appoints the judiciary. The position of the Armenian Apostolic Church has been strengthened vis-a-vis other religions.
Neighboring Azerbaijan has banned a number of political parties, and the Shiite Muslim nation has respected the religious rights of Russian and Jewish citizens but continues to persecute minority Kurds and Lezhgins.
Kyrgyzstan has been lauded as the exception among the republics of Central Asia for its relative freedom and toleration. The picture, however, has changed in recent years. More frequent are arbitrary arrest and detention, beatings by police, and the use of excessive taxation or accusations of libel to restrict the activities of non-government newspapers and opposition political parties.
In contrast, the human rights situation in Kazakstan is gradually improving, especially in the sphere of religious toleration (most Kazaks are Sunni Muslims), though there is official discrimination in favor of the titular but minority Kazaks. The judiciary remains completely imbued with corruption, and prison conditions are deplorable. Though there is a partially independent press, the printing presses remain under government control.
Belarus has seen regular violations of human rights, the repression of independent newspapers, arrests and even disappearances of major political opponents of the government.
In Tajikistan government control over the presses and newsprint has limited press freedom. Most opposition political parties are banned, and the state controls the trade unions, which in turn supply crucial health care benefits and pension funds. Even travel is restricted within 25 kilometers of the Afghan and Chinese borders. All religious communities require registration with the Committee on Religious Affairs subordinated to the Council of Ministers. President Imomali Rakhmonov personally appears to be anti-religious and anti-Islam, and embodies a real fear of the penetration into his state of Islamic fundamentalism.
Uzbekistan has not seen an opposition party since 1993. It is in effect a one-party state run by the proto-Communist People's Democratic Party that conducts wide-scale arrests of opponents on fabricated charges and subjects them to detention, wiretaps, searches and torture. Citizens of Uzbekistan have little or no access to foreign media. As for corruption, suffice it to say that one of the owners of the largest cotton trading enterprises in the country is President Islam Karimov. Here, as in virtually all the former Soviet republics, women are under-represented at all levels of the public sector, and in Uzbekistan they are not regarded as equal citizens.
Turkmenistan occupies a special place in this presentation as having the most abysmal human rights record of all the former Soviet republics. Indeed it appears to be significantly worse than under Soviet rule. The U.S.-based Committee for the Protection of Journalists has declared that Turkmenistan stands out among all the republics for having the worst record for the treatment of journalists. Further credits hail from the U.S. Commission for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which has termed the country among the "worst case scenarios" in post-Soviet development. Religious minorities - most recently Baptists - are routinely persecuted, and deported if they happen to be foreigners. The media are entirely under government control and critics of the government receive five-year sentences for libel. All journalists are state employees. Though somewhat less repressive in the area of religion, the Law on Freedom of Conscience and Religious Organizations, as amended in 1996, stipulates that any religious organization must contain a minimum of 500 Turkmen citizens over 18 years of age, which effectively allows for the existence of only Sunni Muslims and Russian Orthodox Christians.
Conclusions
The portrayal here of the first post-Soviet decade - albeit slightly premature as it should more accurately be called the first post-sovereignty decade - is not a happy one, though it may put into perspective some of the predicaments experienced by countries such as Russia and Ukraine, which are routinely criticized as a result of their size and a closer scrutiny of events by the international media. Not all the problems that have emerged can be attributed to Soviet rule and the Soviet legacy, though generally the dissolution of the Soviet Union was notable for destroying the ruling group but leaving the political structure and personnel in place. With the notable exception of Belarus, the European countries have attained higher places on this report card than the Asian, but they have also been given a higher priority for foreign investment by the G-7 countries and for loans by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
Russia has been weakened by events but continues to exert a strong influence in most areas. But for the two Chechen wars, Russia's record would be significantly better. The Baltic states' eventual acceptance into the EU and perhaps also into NATO may crystallize a new European power bloc that leaves the former Soviet republics isolated and more dependent on Russia than hitherto. This situation would affect Ukraine especially, which along with Moldova would be the next logical place on which the EU in particular might focus.
Though Ukraine has made some significant achievements, especially in the foreign policy area, it is crippled by debts to international bodies such as the IMF and to Russia for energy supplies, and also by the continuing ramifications of the Chornobyl disaster. Belarus's record seems especially deplorable given the reformist tendencies of almost all its neighbors and its prime location as a focal point of central Europe.
Perhaps the most surprising result of the break-up of the Soviet Union has been the durability of makeshift republics and those based on somewhat arbitrary boundaries. Even the much maligned Turkmenistan - which could be fittingly characterized as the least desirable place to go on vacation - has provided evidence of national self-assertion, and Georgia, seemingly threatened by economic collapse and separatist aspirations from all sides, has shown little tendency to descend into chaos.
However, the nations that have the most influence on the Central Asian republics and Azerbaijan - Iran, Turkey, Russia and China - are themselves far from democratic, and thus there is no external pressure or incentive for these republics to adopt Western paths of development. Indeed, the Chinese model may appear more attractive than most, though some republics, particularly Kazakstan, which has close ethnic ties with northwestern China, are very wary of excessive Chinese influence. In short, the Turkic-speaking states are closer to a form of Oriental despotism than to Western-style democracy.
The final results, then, on this report card for the new independent states are as follows based on the four categories examined:
David Marples is a professor of history at the University of Alberta. This paper was delivered as the keynote address at the banquet of the annual meeting of the Canadian Association of Slavists, held at the University of Alberta on May 29. Slight changes have been made in the format for this version. (The author wishes to thank Stephanie Langton for her assistance in gathering materials.)
CONCLUSION
Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, August 27, 2000, No. 35, Vol. LXVIII
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