WORLD view From Ukraine

CIS Enters Virtual Status

All the peripeteia and commentary on Boris Yeltsin’s decision to fire Boris Berezovsky as CIS Executive Secretary led us to overlook one detail. Mr. Yeltsin’s action is nothing but a first step toward liquidation of the CIS, which was in fact hinted at by Verkhovna Rada’s Rightists.

For example, a high-placed Ukrainian diplomat, speaking to The Day’s correspondent, noted that all we can say now is that the CIS is a virtual space. All previous agreements are being crossed out, which puzzles even the Belarusians.

Ukrainian diplomacy (perhaps unlike the top leadership) treated the figure of Mr. Berezovsky with a certain suspicion, because he took too much on himself. Still, Berezovsky pursued a policy coinciding with that of Ukraine: introduction of an unlimited free trade area and revision of the whole Commonwealth structure.

Now it would be natural to expect this and many other things to fall apart because of, as anonymous Ministry of Foreign Affairs sources say cautiously, “ Yeltsin’s biased and free interpretation of the agreements made by twelve presidents.”

The fact that the baron is convinced he can do whatever he likes, as if he were an autocrat, only scares off those who are still uncertain about Russia’s intentions. If even President Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan says this is not the proper way to do things, then it becomes clear: this Commonwealth already exists in a state of virtual reality, in which nothing has been done over the past seven years to interest those who live in real life. Maybe, for this reason, we should not argue too much about Ukraine’s affiliation with such an odd thing as the CIS Interparliamentary Assembly, for there will be hardly any Assembly if there is no CIS. In essence, the only losers today are Messrs. Berezovsky, Yeltsin, and Kuchma, who at first initiated the appointment of Berezovsky and then took Yeltsin’s side posthaste. To give the Ukrainian President his due, he added that this cadre issue can only be solved by joint decision of the Commonwealth presidents. This decision is expected to be made at the CIS summit still slated for late March, as Ukraine’s permanent representative to the CIS Yuri Vusaty told The Day.

It is not ruled out that this will be the last more or less realistic decision of the Commonwealth as such.

And what now? Who will be the new CIS executive secretary? Minsk-based well-mannered and amorphous apparatchik Ivan Korotchenia? Russian Deputy Premier Vadim Gustov, who is said to be lobbied for this post by none other than the victorious Premier Primakov? The former would be certain to handle the problems of Minsk bureaucrats: the latter would make declarative speeches.

The Commonwealth, of course, is no great loss. Nobody — not even Russia — needs it anymore. It should and will vanish together with its executive secretaries and interparliamentary assemblies. What is a shame is the money we spend to take part in this weird association of the exasperated: they did not even ask us when deciding to fire the executive secretary, and we are supposed to be the second republic.

We won’t be second in Europe for a long time, but Europeans will at least ask our opinion, for they respect procedure.