• Українська
  • Русский
  • English
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

The Organization That Never Was

15 December, 1998 - 00:00


In its day every regular CIS anniversary was celebrated at least as
a big political date: they argued about tendencies, tried to understand
what inner coalitions exist in the Commonwealth. This year almost no one
recalled the CIS: the organization, which is being reformed by apparently
the most energetic politician of the post-Soviet era Boris Berezovsky,
has become out of date.

When the leaders of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus were adopting decisions
to liquidate the USSR in Bilovezhskaya Pushcha, all the parties had their
own different views of the Commonwealth. It must be admitted that for Boris
Yeltsin's entourage it was not only a chance to get rid of a weakened Mikhail
Gorbachev, but a tool to establish the new union with a new name under
Yeltsin's aegis. For the first Ukrainian president the CIS was a means
for a civilized divorce, and Kravchuk never bothered to hide it.

Time proved that Kravchuk was a realist. However the CIS was an unsuccessful,
imperfect tool. Mainly because Russian illusions never gave it a chance
to become a divorcing structure; the fears of other participants that in
every word uttered by Moscow there veiled its dream of Union - fears supported
by the odious union of Russia and Belarus - made it impossible for integration
projects to be implemented. The Commonwealth rapidly turned into a political
invalid, and after the famous summit in Chisinau, where the CIS presidents
decided to tell surprised Yeltsin the truth, it simply vanished from the
political map.

The Commonwealth of Independent States does not exist any more. Frankly,
it never existed; there was only the name, and now this trip by Berezovsky.
However for Ukraine its participation in the CIS turned out to be another
obstacle on the way to Europe. There is nothing we can do to help the Commonwealth.
So perhaps it is worth considering how to avoid complicating our participation
in more viable structures? If not now, then at least after presidential
elections, when Berezovsky's trips will not be so important to the people
in the Presidential Administration.

 

Rubric: