19 March 2024, Tuesday, 7:14
Support
the website
Sim Sim,
Charter 97!
Categories

“We Did A Decent Thing”

11
“We Did A Decent Thing”

The Bialovezha agreements helped the peoples of the former USSR to avoid the “Yugoslavian scenario” of the empire’s collapse.

25 years ago, on December 8, 1991, the leaders of Belarus, Ukraine and Russia inked the agreements which ended the existence of the Soviet Union, in a governmental residence in the middle of the Bialovezha Forest, in Visculi near Brest.

The first leader of the independent Belarus Stanislau Shushkevich has shared his memories and contemplations about those events and their historical role, in a conversation with Radio Liberty:

- We did a decent thing. And we did it in consensus. There is absolutely no doubt that all of us wanted it.

If we had missed anything, I’m afraid the things many diplomats of the world predicted in their correspondence with the governments would have happened. Because the Soviet Union indeed fell apart without us. It happened long ago, right after the August coup. However, it remains a fact that there was a threat of the Yugoslavian scenario.

We understood that until we clearly worded who we were and what our attitude to our previous documents and decisions was, for example, the declaration on State Independence of Belarus or the referendum in Ukraine, if we didn’t solve the issues which couldn’t possibly be postponed, we would do nothing good. So we solved those issues.

We chose the Bialovezha Forest because it was a unique object in Europe. I had to tell Yeltsin, it’s so beautiful here at your place, but we have a quite different beauty. Just come and look, you are a hunter after all. He said, good, I would be delighted to come visit you. This is how it all started.

Besides, if it wasn’t for Yeltsin, there would have been no agreements. For me, Yeltsin’s signature under the Bialovezha agreement also meant Russia’s recognition of the independence of Belarus. This man was a real democrat, a man of word who never changed his convictions to please someone. I am proud of being Yeltsin’s man.

STANISLAU SHUSHKEVICH

As for Kravchuk, we didn’t have to persuade him to sign the agreement – he agreed to do it straightaway. He had a strong support, as he was elected President on December 1, and they held a referendum on that very day, at which 92% of the Ukrainian citizens voted for independence. Kravchuk, if you let me say so, went to the Bialovezha Forest riding a white horse. And we came by foot. However, unlike Almaty, where a memorial shield reminding who signed what on December 21 – Nazarbayev thinks the CIS was formed there is hanging (he is referring to the meeting of heads of 11 former republics of the USSR, which claimed accession to the Bialovezha agreements at the time – Radio Liberty), there are no shields hanging on the building where the CIS was indeed proclaimed on December 8, 1991.

We felt back then we should have officially stated it so that never to repeat it again. We needed to officially say – this is the end of this program! We must create a new political system. There were many obstacles in that way. It was a very complicated period – transferring from one political system to another. It might seem very easy to take advantage of it and say all the difficulties happened because of the innovations. It did not require even being a clever person, just be like Lukashenka and tell that the “shitocrats” destroyed everything.

Now we would like to, and we have already started doing it, create such a structure one of the elements of which would involve the people who have a great experience of heading a state. (He is referring to the conference with participation of many former leaders of the post-Soviet countries, which was held in Kyiv under the aegis of the International Center of the Baltic-Black Sea Studies – Radio Liberty). In the actual fact, all the difficulties and discrepancies in Europe and at the threshold of Asia took place in that region. So we got together, as an “eight”, I have a photo which was taken in Kyiv. We have certain initiatives. I will not tell about them now, but there is a desire to find the way to convince the current leaders of what needs to be done to make life better here.

SIGNING THE ALMATY DECLARATION OF POST-SOVIET STATES, DECEMBER 21, 1991

I haven’t lost any of my university colleagues (before he was engaged in politics, Stanislau Shushkevich worked as vice-rector of the Belarusian State University – Radio Liberty), because my actions were never dominated by aspiration for power, self-profit or anything like that. I always cared to give my children and grandchildren a good name.

As for the history - it's none of my business. Let them say what they say.

Write your comment 11

Follow Charter97.org social media accounts