Clinton Hails Belarus for Arms Policy : Europe: President stops in former Soviet republic to commend it for giving up its nuclear weapons. But he also reprimands lawmakers for their resistance to political and economic reforms.
MINSK, Belarus — President Clinton dropped into this most docile of former Soviet republics Saturday to give it a pat on the head and a kick in the pants. In the process, he stepped into a wasteland of fog and ice, where remnants of the Cold War linger and the faces of people on the crumbling streets are stony with continuing hardship and undimmed memories of slaughter.
The pat on the head was for Belarus’ quick, complete compliance with Russia’s request that it give up the nuclear weapons on its territory.
The kick in the pants was for the country’s Parliament--an old-style Supreme Soviet left over from Communist days--for its stubborn resistance to political and economic reform.
Officially, quiet Belarus sometimes behaves as if it wished the Soviet Union had never disappeared. On military questions such as nuclear weapons, it often follows neighboring Russia’s line. Its leader, Stanislav Shushkevich, is trying to institute gradual reforms--but the Supreme Soviet, an unreformed assembly of old-time apparatchiks, wants him to stop even that.
But when Belarus gave up any claim to the nuclear weapons on its territory in 1991, it instantly became one of the United States’ favorite former Soviet republics. The United States worked for more than two years, ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union, to persuade Ukraine and Kazakhstan to get rid of their nuclear weapons too, but neither was as cooperative as Belarus.
That prompted Clinton, wife Hillary Rodham Clinton and daughter Chelsea to spend a cold and dreary Saturday in Minsk, a city that has never ranked among Europe’s tourist attractions, before heading to Geneva, where the President will meet with Syrian President Hafez Assad today for discussions on the stalled Mideast peace talks.
“Belarus led the way†in eliminating nuclear weapons, “and you deserve the credit and thanks of citizens all over the world,†Clinton told an audience of government officials, university professors and students at the Belarus National Academy of Sciences.
“I hope you will follow through with the commitments that have been made to hold new elections in March of this year,†Clinton said. “I hope you will press ahead with plans to create a new constitution.â€
Shushkevich wants to write a new, de-Sovietized constitution and hold early elections for a new Parliament, but conservatives in the Supreme Soviet have resisted both moves.
But the abstract wrangling about foreign and domestic policy is overshadowed by the all-too-visible practical realities of Minsk--and Kiev and much of the rest of the former Soviet empire that Clinton tried to reach out to on his weeklong trip.
All but leveled during World War II and rebuilt to the shabby, graceless standards of the Soviet empire, Minsk reflects the grim face of more than half a century of determined communism. It has also suffered mass butchery on a scale and frequency that most Americans can scarcely imagine--at the hands of both the Nazis and Josef Stalin.
Clinton ran unexpectedly into all of that Saturday when he planned to visit a memorial to tens of thousands of Belarussians who were summarily executed for suspected disloyalty from 1937 to 1941, during the Stalin era.
The President originally planned to visit the site, a patch of fields and pine forest that was ankle deep in melting ice and snow Saturday, as his first stop in Minsk. But former Communist hard-liners in the government complained that he was giving the memorial--a simple, cross-like stone slab--too much significance (they have been promising for several years to erect a permanent memorial, but it has yet to be built), and Clinton postponed the visit until later in the day.
Even so, a small band of unreconstructed Communists unfurled red banners along Minsk’s main boulevard and protested Clinton’s visit with signs calling for a return to the old days.
Another showed a cartoon of a hook-nosed Uncle Sam stealing Belarus’ wealth, a reminder of the historic anti-Semitism that contributed to the liquidation of one of Central Europe’s largest Jewish ghettos during World War II.
Such remnants of historic passions are scattered all over the former Soviet Union, but nowhere are they more stark than in Belarus. Under a Supreme Soviet full of former party members, the country seems trapped in a time warp, between an old world that has disappeared and a new world they refuse to join.
Minsk’s government center still sports a giant, brooding statue of V. I. Lenin. The main street is no longer Lenin Prospect, but a nearby avenue is still loyally named Karl Marx Boulevard. And while the Communist Party officially rules no more, its headquarters has simply been turned into offices for--surprise--the Supreme Soviet.
Belarussians seem to have a hard time remembering they are supposed to be independent--not surprising for a nation that was part of Russia for centuries until 1991. When people in Minsk talk about “our country,†they often mean the whole of the former Soviet Union.
Belarus hasn’t even set up a real currency of its own, one of the most basic steps in achieving economic independence. The new Belarussian ruble is linked to the Russian ruble and is referred to here as the “rabbit†( zalchik ) -- for the picture on the bill--to distinguish it from its older brother.
The Clintons came to Minsk from a three-day visit in Moscow, which concluded with a gala dinner Friday night hosted by Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin and an overnight stay in a guest apartment in the Kremlin.
In Minsk, Mrs. Clinton met children suffering from rheumatoid arthritis, heart disease and other illnesses during a visit to Pediatric Hospital No. 4.
The Clintons flew Saturday evening to Geneva, where the President was to meet today with Syria’s Assad.
The meeting is aimed at giving a jump-start to Syrian-Israeli negotiations in the U.S.-sponsored Middle East peace negotiations.
But a senior State Department official warned that no immediate concrete results are likely from the talks.
* RELATED STORIES: A8-10
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