What Lessons Will President Kuchma Have Learned in Minsk?

Because continuing to pressure Belarus "will not be the best way." In fact, Belarus is "not only its President, but the Belarusian people in the first place." However, both countries have got "carried away playing politics, forgetting about the economy," Mr. Kuchma said in an interview with Interfax.

Talking of forgetfulness, one ought to remember that Leonid Kuchma has been President of Ukraine for the past four years. As for lessons, Comrade Lukashenka can give him more than one at the same time. For example, how one can renew one's office by plebiscite, the way it was previously done by Central Asian presidents.

And how to drive one's own country down the blind alley of international isolation. And how one can lose everything by relying on a single strategic partner, since the Russian crisis had an effect on Belarus as strong as it did on Russia (maybe even stronger). And how to use one's neighbor's "well-balanced" policy, as almost all freight carriages between Russia and Europe traverse Belarus because of Ukraine's draconian customs and other tariffs.

Of course, one can talk all one wants on how isolation will do no good. The fact remains that Ukraine lost its positions in Belarus not because Minsk got isolated internationally. Commodity turnover is going from bad to worse, one of the reasons being that double taxation was canceled only recently and far from all Ukrainian and Belarusian goods can compete with, say, Polish products in terms of prices and quality. Whatever the two Presidents may have agreed upon, business is always profit-oriented, as evidenced by Kuchma-Yeltsin accords, particularly concerning sugar supplies.

Mr. Kuchma calls for synchronized efforts. This will be possible only if Ukraine follows in Belarus's footsteps: no reform, undivided state (i.e., Presidential) control over everything, and a political course set on an unreserved union with Russia. However, the Ukrainian President has promised the West that he will finally embark on reform, that Ukraine does not intend to form any alliances, not yet, and that everything in Ukraine will be done in a democratic manner.

The program of long-term Ukrainian-Belarusian economic cooperation now being signed in Minsk will perhaps have the same lot as a similar document signed with Russia this winter: there is a program but no cooperation, just talk.

Just as the Ukrainian and Belarusian Presidents were talking things over in an atmosphere of utmost sincerity, the United Social Democrats made public a statement condemning violations of human rights in Belarus, particularly the recent arrests in Minsk, during a meeting commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.