Kommersant, Russia
May 10 2005
Teary-Eyed Summit
// Putin undergoes the trials of hosting
Friendship of the Nations
Moscow is the center of the world for the next few days. More than 50
heads of state are here for the 60th anniversary of the end of World
War Two. Along with the celebration, a CIS summit and high-level
Russia-European Union meetings are planned. There are a host of
controversies hiding behind the festive facade and Russia’s honored
guests have brought complaints along with their congratulations.
There has never been a larger-scale celebration in Moscow. More than
50 present and former world leaders are in attendance, as well as the
general secretary of the UN and general director of UNESCO, and each
has come with a retinue, often of dozens of people. Several millions
of dollars have been spent on security and accommodations. The
inconveniences experienced by local residents are inconsequential
compared to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s desire to show Russia
in the light of world power.
There is another side to the events beside the festivities. The world
community is nowhere near as united as this event would indicate. The
refusal of Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus and Estonian President
Arnold Ruutel to attend was the most obvious sign of this. They said
that, for their countries, the war did not end in 1945, but 45 years
after that, when they declared their independence, the USSR crumbled
and the `Soviet occupation’ ended. To entice them, Moscow signed a
number of important agreements with them, including ones on borders,
which the new members of the EU need desperately. The two presidents
remained unmoved however.
Turkmen President Saparmurat Niyazov has long ignored all events that
do not touch him or his family personally. Therefore, his absence
went practically unnoticed. Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili
gained a lot of attention though. On Friday, Georgian Foreign
Minister Salome Zurabishvili announced that Saakashvili would not be
present at either the CIS summit on May 8 or the May 9 festivities.
`Because we have not made progress in unresolved issues. Because we
have not agreement on a timetable for the closure of [Russian]
military bases in Georgia, Mikhail Saakashvili will not come to
Moscow,’ Zurabishvili stated after negotiations in Moscow. The
Georgian president himself on Friday evening in Batumi said only that
`Today I am in a good mood and don’t feel like commenting. Tomorrow I
will have a comment.’
The CIS summit is to be a balm for the soul of Russian authorities.
Moscow made it clear in the lead-up to it that, as the leader of that
organization, it is ready to take charge of its reform. They hope to
raise its prestige and effectiveness by doing so. The summit will not
shore up Moscow’s faltering leadership nor serve as a display of the
unity of the former Soviet peoples. Not long ago, a summit of the
other post-Soviet regional organization, GUUAM, was held in Chisinau.
Its current members are Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Moldova,
whose leaders made it clear there that the only other organizations
they are interested in are the EU and NATO. They spoke of the CIS in
the past tense there, when they mentioned it at all.
The decision of Uzbekistan to withdraw from GUUAM was small comfort
for Moscow. Tashkent made that decision official last Thursday and
Uzbek President Islam Karimov sent a message to Moldovan President
Vladimir Voronin. `Considering its geographical location, Uzbekistan
sees no possibility of realizing its economy and security interests
within the new initiatives and projects announced by GUUAM,’ he
explained.
Observers are sure that the real reason for Uzbekistan’s withdrawal
was the revolutionary mood among the other GUUAM members.
Saakashvili, speaking in Chisinau, called for the beginning of a
`third wave of revolutions’ in the former Soviet Union. Lithuanian
President Valdas Adamkus accompanied Saakashvili to Chisinau as an
observer. They proposed a resolution in support of freedom and
democracy in Belarus. Even though the proposal was rejected, the
impression remained. Now Belarus, Uzbekistan and other CIS member
states see Moscow as their only savior from the `Orange plague.’ But,
since the rest of the world sees orange as the color of freedom,
Moscow may find itself in the role of suppressor of freedom once and
for all.
The day before the summit, the brotherhood of Slavic peoples was rent
when Ukrainian citizens were arrested in Belarus for taking part in
an opposition demonstration. Russians arrested at the same time were
quickly released, but the Ukrainians were sentenced to prison for
public disturbance. That action by Belarusian authorities elicited a
stormy response in Ukraine. This incident has become a serious
diplomatic scandal and Minsk is already threatening to close its
embassy in Kiev. In spite of that, Ukrainian President Viktor
Yushchenko stated his intentions of demanding an explanation from
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko at the summit in Moscow.
Against this background of Slavic disunity, it is not surprising that
one of Moscow’s peacekeeping initiatives. Moscow’s idea of
reconciling Azerbaijan and Armenia on Victory Day failed. Moscow had
long sought to settle that dispute, one of the oldest in the former
Soviet Union. The intended settlement was to raise Russia’s prestige
and the CIS’s authority. However, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev
refused to participate in the summit. Kremlin analysts had called it
wrong and the peace agreement was not as attractive as Moscow thought
it would be. May 8 was not the best date for it either. On May 8,
1993, Armenian forces seized the Azerbaijani city of Shusha, which
for the Azerbaijanis was as bad as if the Germans had taken
Leningrad. It would have been a risk for Aliyev to spend that day
with occupier, even though he attended the Victory parade the next
day.
Putin’s friends from farther abroad let him down as well. British
Prime Minister Tony Blair excused himself from coming to Moscow,
saying that he was unable to leave the country so soon after the
parliamentary elections, in which his Labour Party was victorious.
Worse still for Russian sensitivities, Putin’s friend U.S. President
George W. Bush came by a route that was worse than a refusal to come
at all. His two-day stopover in Riga on the way was a clear sign of
American political leanings. Worse yet, Bush repeated emphasized in
Riga that the U.S. never acknowledged Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia
as territories of the USSR. Bush did, however, soften the blow by
speaking about the need to heed the rights of ethnic minorities in
the Baltic, which is an issue for the Russian-speaking population
there. `Democracy carries with it definite obligations: the supremacy
of law and the protection of the rights of minorities,’ he lectured.
But that was not enough to save the situation, especially since
upcoming conversations between Putin and Bush will touch on not only
the Baltic, but the troubled question of human rights in Russia.
On the European front, it is still worse. Putin can expect Polish
President Aleksander Kwasniewski to demand an apology from Russia for
the killing of Polish officer in Katyn Forest just before the Soviet
entry into the war. The European Union, taking advantage of Russia’s
desire to enter the WTO by the end of the year, has been making
increasing demands on Russia recently in exchange for its support for
Russia’s WTO membership. Therefore, Putin’s talks with Chairman of
the European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso are not likely to be
easy, nor is the Russia-EU summit scheduled for May 10.
by Alexander Reutov