Lukashenka, in Kyiv, calls for Slavic union (03/21/99)

Lukashenka, in Kyiv, calls for Slavic union

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - President Alyaksandr Lukashenka of Belarus reiterated his call for a Slavic union while on a 24-hour working visit to Ukraine on March 12 and announced that plans are being laid for inclusion of his country in a strategic partnership with Ukraine and Russia.

"Sooner or later we will be united," said Mr. Lukashenka, referring to a union of Belarus, Ukraine and Russia, which he supports, as he appeared at a press conference with Ukraine's President Leonid Kuchma at the Mariinsky Palace.

The Ukrainian leader had no comments about Mr. Lukashenka's proclamation, but he did not disagree when the Belarusian president said Ukraine has expressed its willingness to take part in discussions that would include Belarus in the strategic partnership that Ukraine signed with Russia in 1997, which was recently ratified by Russia's Federation Council.

Mr. Lukashenka said he had already obtained the approval of Russian President Boris Yeltsin for such talks.

As the Belarusian president was arriving in Kyiv, scores of picketers demonstrated outside the Belarusian Embassy here, demanding that presidential elections in Belarus proceed as previously scheduled before Mr. Lukashenka changed the Constitution and dissolved the Belarusian Parliament in 1996.

Demonstrators also protested the idea of the Slavic union that has become Mr. Lukashenka's holy grail as the Belarusian president has become increasingly ostracized in the West for his totalitarian inclinations. Last year he formally bound Belarus to Russia in an economic union that Moscow has shown little desire to implement while it is still coming to terms with its own economic upheaval.

In clamoring for a political union of Kyiv, Moscow and Miensk, Mr. Lukashenka has said such a political partnership is needed to give the region economic stability and a confederation that would equal the power and prestige of the European Union.

In Ukraine, at least one political leader openly expressed support for a "Great Slavic Brotherhood."

"The most important thing we talked about was an economic union, one political doctrine and a single legal system for a fraternal union of the Slavic people," said the chairman of Ukraine's Verkhovna Rada, Oleksander Tkachenko, after his meeting with the Belarusian leader on March 13. Mr. Tkachenko has expressed support for a Slavic union several times before, initially during Ukrainian Independence Day celebrations in August 1998 and then most recently in Miensk last month.

However, even if a move towards such a union proceeds, it will be difficult to come to an agreement on the most elementary of matters, if what happened in Kyiv during the Lukashenka visit can be used as a barometer. The two sides could not agree on how much money, if anything, Kyiv owes Miensk for trade discrepancies between 1992 and 1995 that arose after Ukraine dropped the Soviet ruble as it national currency in 1992.

Ukraine has resisted a Belarusian demand that Kyiv repay a debt of $217 million, while arguing that it owes nothing because the debt was incurred by private legal entities of the two countries.

The two sides did, however, find agreement and signed memoranda on an accelerated citizenship process for former citizens returning home, and for expedited customs procedures at the countries' common border.

The two presidents, who decided to keep in closer contact by meeting once a quarter, also agreed that the Commonwealth of Independent States is an impotent organization that needs major reform and restructuring.

While President Lukashenka waxed on about the need for a strong CIS, his Ukrainian counterpart remained a bit more reserved and cynical about the role of the Russian-dominated organization. "What about the CIS? It barely exists," said President Kuchma. "We haven't met in a year."

In an attempt to lure Ukraine further into the CIS structures that Kyiv thus far has been reluctant to join, Mr. Lukashenka went so far as to suggest that it may be time for a Ukrainian to take the helm of the 10-nation confederation of former Soviet republics whose history has been marked by disagreement and internal conflict.

"I see a certain objective here. As journalists have said, Ukraine has not signed some CIS treaties. This way it may have to," explained Mr. Lukashenka.

For his part, Mr. Kuchma would only say that his administration would "consider the proposal."

Mr. Kuchma also did not echo his guest's vocal opposition to the entry of Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic into NATO, which occured on March 12. While Mr. Lukashenka was declaring the need for Belarus to reinforce its armed forces, Mr. Kuchma merely stated that the expansion is a fait accompli and the new geopolitical situation must be accepted.

"We must accept the realities that now exist on the European continent," explained President Kuchma. "Regardless of what we declare, how loudly we shout, the position of NATO will not change."

The 100 or so protesters who picketed the Belarusian Embassy, mostly supporters and members of the Rukh Party, the Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists and the Youth - Hope of Ukraine Association emphasized that Ukraine does not need closer ties with Belarus.

"The Belarus of today is reminiscent of the pre-war era," said National Deputy Pavlo Movchan, a member of the Rukh faction in the Parliament. "If we must trade with Belarus, then for what? Aren't we capable of manufacturing our own tractors? Our own factories are at a standstill."

Serhii Zhyshko, a member of the presidium of the Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists. called the effort to bring Ukraine into a union with Russia and Belarus a move by Communists and Parliament Chairman Tkachenko "to revive the Russian Empire and again threaten the world."

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