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Where there is no law, but every man does what is right in his own eyes, there is the least of real liberty
Henry M. Robert

Nostalgia for Wooden Plow

15 June, 1999 - 00:00

Lefties of three countries integrate

By Tetiana KOROBOVA, The Day

Ukrainian Speaker Oleksandr Tkachenko waxed eloquent at Friday's inter-parliamentary
conference called Belarus-Russia-Ukraine: Experience and Problems of Integration,
hearkening back to the days of Kyiv Rus, when "we were generous with a
single heart, wise with a single mind, and strong with a single wooden
plow and a single sword."

Russian and Belarusian conference participants called for Ukraine to
join the Union of Russia and Belarus.

At the press conference to sum up the gathering, the Ukrainian Speaker
ruminated for journalists about how he views Ukraine's multi-vector foreign
policy. In his opinion it consists in Ukraine's political integration with
the West and economic integration with the East.

The descendants of the three fraternal republics were openly nostalgic.
Russia was represented by a constellation of political stars: Comrades
Stroyev, SeleznСv, and GoriachСva. Meanwhile, the leader of Ukraine's Parliament
spoke of the need for commingling capital, transnational financial industrial
groups, and other economic measures from Kuchma's early program. In general
the mood overcame the ritual refrains, in which the Speaker of the Russian
State Duma sang a moving aria on his dreams about Ukraine's future entry
into the Russo-Belarusian Union. The Serbian representative lent the high
gathering a final anti-Western note.

In this connection the position of Ukraine's executive branch is quite
odd. The President receives the leaders of the delegations of fraternal
peoples in Mariyinsky Palace; he cannot neglect the links with the Russian
leadership on any level and hue, even when they come to Ukraine with the
hope of creating a single state. Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Borys Tarasiuk,
as if suddenly waking up, expressed his disapproval and dismay at the conclave,
criticizing the Left, noting that he was not even aware of the conference
on its eve.

And still one more thing to consider, which a colleague pointed out,
"Stroyev and GoriachСva come openly... But Berezovsky comes every month
secretly, and this is also within the context of the Presidential election
campaign."

PS: Oleksandr Tkachenko was furious at Mr. Tarasiuk's statement,
calling it "the hayseed statement of a private individual," adding at the
press conference, "It is not for the Minister of Foreign Affairs to judge
a meeting of the leaders of three Parliaments. I think that after such
a statement the minister should leave office."

 

Lefties of three countries integrate
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