The series of events that led to Belarus's independence began with
the explosion at the Chornobyl' nuclear power plant on April 26, 1986.
The foot-dragging of the government in Moscow in even announcing that
the accident had occurred, let alone evacuating people from affected
areas and providing funds for the cleanup, greatly angered the
Belorussian people, most of whom had no political aspirations for
independence.
In 1988 Zyanon Paznyak, an archagologist who would later play a role
in national politics, revealed the discovery of mass graves of some
250,000 of Stalin's victims at Kurapaty. Many Belorussians were deeply
shaken by this news, and some demanded accountability from the central
authorities in Moscow. Reformers created the Belarusian Popular Front
(BPF) in October after several mass demonstrations and clashes with the
authorities. Paznyak became the spokesman for the reform movement and
nationalist aspirations, and he emerged as the BPF chairman.
The March 4, 1990, elections to the republic's Supreme Soviet gave
the country a legislature that was little different from previous
legislatures: only 10 percent of the deputies were members of the
opposition. But for the most part, the populace seemed satisfied with
the new deputies, and the BPF's calls for independence and efforts at
nation-building failed to stir up the same strong emotions as movements
in neighboring Ukraine and the Baltic republics. Although the Supreme
Soviet of the Belorussian SSR adopted the Declaration of State
Sovereignty of the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic on June 27, 1990
(some two weeks after Russia had declared its own sovereignty), the
March 1991 referendum held throughout the Soviet Union showed that 83
percent of Belorussians wanted to preserve the Soviet Union.
Political change in Belarus came about only after the August 1991
coup d'�tat in Moscow and a display of satisfaction by the Central
Committee of the CPB at the coup attempt--it never issued a condemnation
of the coup plotters. Following the coup's collapse and declarations of
independence by Estonia, Latvia, and Ukraine, Belarus declared its own
independence on August 25 by giving its declaration of sovereignty the
status of a constitutional document. On August 28, Belarus's prime
minister, Vyachaslaw Kyebich, declared that he and his entire cabinet
had "suspended" their CPB membership. The next day, both the
Russian and the Belarusian governments suspended the activities of the
communist party.
Liberals and nationalist reformers used this period of political
confusion to advance their cause. On September 18, the parliament
dismissed its chairman, Mikalay Dzyemyantsyey, for siding with the coup
and replaced him with his deputy, Stanislaw Shushkyevich. The next day,
pressed by the small but vocal democratic opposition, the parliament
changed the state's name from the Belorussian Soviet Socialist Republic
to the Republic of Belarus. A new national flag (three horizontal
stripes, white- red-white) was adopted, along with a new coat of arms (a
mounted knight, St. George, Patron Saint of Belarus, with a drawn sword,
the emblem of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania). On December 8, Belarus
joined Russia and Ukraine in signing the Minsk Agreement to form the CIS, which formally put an end to the Soviet Union.
On December 21, Belarus signed the Alma-Ata Declaration, which expanded the CIS membership from the original three
signatories of the Minsk Agreement to eleven states. And it was agreed
that the headquarters of the CIS was to be in Minsk, a move that the
government of Belarus welcomed as a means of attracting foreign
attention.
The democratic opposition in the Supreme Soviet, led by the
twenty-seven-member BPF faction and some of its allies, continued
pressing for a referendum on the dissolution of the Supreme Soviet and
for new elections. The electorate seemed to be responsive. More than
442,000 signatures in support of the move were collected within three
months, but the initiators had underestimated the conservativism of the
Supreme Soviet.
Meeting in mid-October 1992 and encouraged by the electoral victory
of former communists in Lithuania and growing resistance to President
Boris N. Yeltsin's reforms in Russia, the Supreme Soviet solidly
rejected the demand for a referendum. Claiming violations in the
signature collection drive, 202 deputies voted against the referendum;
only thirty-five deputies supported it, and another thirty-five
abstained. In view of the fact that in May 1992 the Central Referendum
Commission had validated 384,000 of the 442,000 signatures collected
(exceeding the 350,000 signatures required by law), the BPF opposition
accused the Supreme Soviet's conservative majority of an open violation
of the republic's constitution and of an attempt to retain power by
illegal means. Nonetheless, the opposition won a small victory in this
tug-of-war: the parliament agreed to shorten its five-year term by one
year and scheduled the next elections for the spring of 1994.
The Belarusian government headed by Prime Minister Kyebich consisted
of former CPB functionaries and took a very conservative approach to
economic and political reforms. Kyebich himself characterized his policy
as "traditional" and warned about taking "extreme"
positions.
Belarus's conservative Supreme Soviet continued to put obstacles in
the path of reform. A privatization law was finally passed in July 1993,
but it allowed collective and state farms to continue to exist and
operate. Privatization of state-owned enterprises had barely begun in
mid-1995, despite earlier efforts by Shushkyevich, who was largely a
figurehead, to move along reform efforts. Conservative Kyebich, who
actually controlled the ministries, was a temporary victor, when, in
January 1994, he survived a no-confidence vote that ousted Shushkyevich
and replaced him with a Kyebich crony, Myechyslaw Hryb.
In the meantime, the Supreme Soviet adopted a constitution that went
into effect on March 30, 1994, and created the office of president, who
would now be the head of government instead of the prime minister. A
quickly organized election was held in June, and a runoff election
between the two highest vote-getters was held in July; in a surprise
result, Kyebich was soundly beaten by anticorruption crusader Alyaksandr
Lukashyenka. Both Kyebich and Lukashyenka took pro-Russian stands on
economic and political matters, and both supported a quick monetary
union with Russia. Lukashyenka even called for outright unification with
Russia, but it was his anticorruption stance that won him more than 80
percent of the vote.
After Lukashyenka achieved his victory, the BPF granted him a
three-month grace period during which it did not openly criticize his
policies. Because his campaign promises had often been vague, he had
great latitude within which to operate. And because Kyebich resigned
after the election, taking his government with him, there were no
problems in removing ministers.
Lukashyenka's presidency was one of contradictions from the start.
His cabinet was composed of young, talented newcomers as well as Kyebich
veterans who had not fully supported Kyebich. As a reward to the
parliament for confirming his appointees, Lukashyenka supported the move
to postpone the parliamentary elections until May 1995.
Lukashyenka's government was also plagued by corrupt members.
Lukashyenka fired the minister of defense, the armed forces chief of
staff, the head of the border guards, and the minister of forestry.
Following resignations among reformists in Lukashyenka's cabinet,
parliamentary deputy Syarhey Antonchyk read a report in parliament on
December 20, 1994, about corruption in the administration. Although
Lukashyenka refused to accept the resignations that followed, the
government attempted to censor the report, fueling the opposition's
criticism of Lukashyenka.
Lukashyenka went to Russia in August 1994 on his first official visit
abroad as head of state. There he came to realize that Russia would not
make any unusual efforts to accommodate Belarus, especially its economic
needs. Nevertheless, Lukashyenka kept trying; in February 1995, Belarus
signed the Treaty on Friendship and Cooperation with Russia, making many
concessions to Russia, such as allowing the stationing of Russian troops
in Belarus, in hopes that Russia would return the favor by charging
Belarus lower prices for fuels. However, because the treaty included no
such provision, there was little hope of realizing this objective.
Lukashyenka had several disputes with parliament, mainly over the
limits of presidential power (such as whether the president has the
right to dissolve parliament). A hunger strike by opposition deputies,
led by Zyanon Paznyak, began on April 11, 1995, after Lukashyenka
proposed four questions for a referendum and then stated that the
referendum would be held regardless of parliament's vote. The protest
ended when the striking deputies, forcibly evicted in the middle of the
night during a search for an alleged bomb, found that the national
television and radio building had been cordoned off as well because of
another alleged bomb threat. After this incident, the parliament gave in
on a number of matters, including the four referendum questions, because
word of their strike now could not be publicized.
The parliamentary elections held in May 1995 were less than
successful or democratic. The restrictions placed on the mass media and
on the candidates' expenditures during the campaign led to a shortage of
information about the candidates and almost no political debate before
the elections. In several cases, no one candidate received the necessary
majority of the votes in the May 14 elections, prompting another round
on May 28. The main problem in the second round was the lack of voter
turnout. After the second round, parliament was in limbo because it had
only 120 elected deputies--it was still short of the 174 members
necessary to seat a new legislature. Another round of elections was
discussed, probably near the end of the year, but the government claimed
to have no money to finance them.
Belarus - Problems of Democratization
Of the 346 deputies to the Belorussian Supreme Soviet elected in
1990, fourteen were still vacant three years later, owing to voter
apathy. There was also widespread apathy toward the political process
and disbelief that what were being advertised as democratic ways would
improve the situation. This general political malaise was then, and
continued to be in 1995, reflected in the feeble growth, small size, and
low popularity of political parties.
Although the 1990 and 1995 parliamentary elections were far from
democratic, the predominance of conservatives in the legislature had
deeper roots than just the lack of means for free expression and the
strictures of the electoral procedure. A widely heard rhetorical
question was, "What is more useful, sausage or freedom?" The
conservative majority in parliament-- largely managers, administrators,
and representatives of such groups as war veterans and collective and
state farm managers-- had successfully slowed the pace of reforms, and
the standard of living had decreased dramatically for most of the
population.
In view of the tremendous economic difficulties that accompanied the
post-Soviet period, the years before perestroika looked
reasonably good to most citizens. The populace was frustrated by the
misuse of a freedom whose benefits were measured predominantly in
material terms. Nostalgia for the so-called good old days had been
growing stronger ever since the country declared its independence, and
the lack of political energy in the country hindered the growth of
political parties not tied to the old ways.
An example of political inertia is the debate on relations between
Russia and Belarus. This debate has proceeded rather noisily and has
been couched in cultural and historical terms, rather than in terms of
the state's interests. National interests and foreign affairs are still
deemed to be beyond the average citizen's competence, and the idea that
the party/government knows best is still prevalent in the popular mind.
The four-question referendum that had prompted the parliamentary
hunger strike in April 1994 was held on May 15, 1995. The populace voted
"yes" on all four questions: Russian as an official language,
the return of a Soviet-era red and green flag, economic integration with
Russia, and presidential power to dissolve the Supreme Soviet. The
result hardly inspired confidence among aspiring democrats.
Belarus - Government Structure
With the exception of the new office of the president, the government
structure of independent Belarus had changed little from that of the
Belorussian SSR. Within the government, the communist-era mindset also
persisted, even though the names of office-holders were often different.
Because Lukashyenka and the legislature were frequently at odds, there
was little agreement or initiative in changing or improving the
government.
The national government consists of three branches: legislative,
executive, and judiciary. Under the constitution, the size of the Supreme Soviet (elected
for a term of five years) was reduced from 360 to 260 members. It is the
highest legislative body of state power. Its functions include calling
national referenda; adopting, revising, and interpreting the
constitution; scheduling parliamentary and presidential elections;
electing members of high-level courts, the procurator general, and the
chairman and members of the board of the National Bank of Belarus;
determining guidelines for domestic and foreign policy; confirming the
state budget; supervising currency issues; ratifying international
treaties; and determining military policy. The role of the Presidium of
the Supreme Soviet was reduced to that of an agenda-setting and
administrative body. The legislature's two subordinate state committees
are the State Customs Committee and the State Security Committee.
Any Belarusian citizen who has the right to vote and is at least
twenty-one years old is eligible to stand for election as a deputy. The
parliament is elected by universal suffrage.
The president, a position created by the new constitution, is elected
by popular vote for a five-year term of office and is the head of state
and of the executive branch of government. He or she adopts measures to
guard the country's sovereignty and territorial integrity, appoints and
dismisses the chairman and members of the Cabinet of Ministers, appoints
judges, heads the country's National Security Council, and serves as
commander in chief of the armed forces.
The president can be removed by a two-thirds vote in the parliament
under certain circumstances, such as violating the constitution or
committing a crime. However, the president cannot dismiss the parliament
or other elected governing bodies.
The executive branch also includes the Cabinet of Ministers, composed
of the heads of Belarus's twenty-six ministries: administration of state
property and privatization; agriculture; architecture and construction;
CIS matters; communications and information technology; culture and the
press; defense; economy; education and science; emergency situations and
the protection of the population from the aftermath of the Chornobyl'
nuclear power station disaster; finance; foreign affairs; foreign
economic relations; forestry; fuel and energy; health care; housing and
municipal services; industry; information; internal affairs; justice,
labor; natural resources and environmental protection; social
protection; statistics and analyses; trade; and transportation and
communications.
Judicial power is vested in a court system headed by the
Constitutional Court, which consists of eleven judges who are nominated
by the president and appointed by the Supreme Soviet. The Constitutional
Court receives proposals from the president, the chairman of the Supreme
Soviet, the permanent committees of the Supreme Soviet, at least seventy
deputies of the Supreme Soviet, the Supreme Court, the Supreme Economic
Court, or the Procurator General to review the constitutionality of
international agreements or obligations to which Belarus is a party. The
Constitutional Court also reviews the constitutionality of domestic
legal acts; presidential edicts; regulations of the Cabinet of
Ministers; the constitution; laws; legal documents; and regulatory
decisions of the Supreme Court, the Supreme Economic Court, and the
Procurator General. The Constitutional Court's decisions are final and
not subject to appeal.
The mid-level courts are regional courts, and below them are district
courts. These are presided over by judges appointed directly by the
president. Trials in all courts are open. The parties involved in a case
have the right to appeal judicial decisions, sentences, and other
rulings. However, the appeal consists merely of a higher court's review
of the protocol and other documents of the original trial. In actual
practice, decisions are rarely overturned.
There is a separate system of military courts. Military judges are
appointed directly by the president.
The Procuracy functions like a cross between a police investigative
bureau and a public prosecutor's office. It investigates crimes, brings
criminals to trial and prosecutes them, supervises courts and penal
facilities within its jurisdiction, reviews all court decisions in both
civil and criminal cases, supervises investigations conducted by other
government agencies, and ensures the uniform application of law in the
courts.
The Procuracy is headed by the procurator general, who is appointed
by the Supreme Soviet. The procurator general then appoints each officer
of the Procuracy, known as a procurator. The constitution states that
the procurator general and his subordinate procurators are to function
independently, yet the procurator general is accountable to the Supreme
Soviet. Procurators are independent of regional and local government
bodies because they derive their authority from the procurator general.
Procurators are generally quite influential because they supervise all
criminal investigations; courts are extremely deferential to the
procurators' actions, petitions, and conclusions.
Belarus - Local Government
Stanislaw Shushkyevich observed at the beginning of 1993 that almost
60 percent of Belarusians did not support any political party, only 3.9
percent of the electorate backed the communist party, and only 3.8
percent favored the BPF. The influence of other parties was much lower.
The Communist Party of Belarus (CPB), part of the Communist Party of
the Soviet Union (CPSU), claimed to rule the Belorussian SSR in the name
of the proletariat for the entire duration of the republic's existence.
For most of this period, it sought to control all aspects of government
and society and to infuse political, economic, and social policies with
the correct ideological content. By the late 1980s, however, the party
watched as Mikhail S. Gorbachev attempted to withdraw the CPSU from
day-to-day economic affairs.
After the CPB was banned in the wake of the August 1991 coup d'�tat,
Belarusian communists regrouped and renamed themselves the Party of
Communists of Belarus (PCB), which became the umbrella organization for
Belarus's communist parties and proRussian groups. The PCB was formally
registered in December 1991. The Supreme Soviet lifted the ban on the
CPB in February 1993.
The most active and visible of the opposition political groups in
Belarus in the first half of the 1990s was the Belarusian Popular Front
(BPF), founded in October 1989 with Zyanon Paznyak as chairman. The BPF
declared itself a movement open to any individual or party, including
communists, provided that those who joined shared its basic goal of a
fully independent and democratic Belarus. The BPF's critics, however,
claimed that it was indeed a party, pointing out the movement's goal of
seeking political power, having a "shadow cabinet," and being
engaged in parliamentary politics.
The United Democratic Party of Belarus was founded in November 1990
and was the first political party in independent Belarus other than the
communist party. Its membership is composed of technical intelligentsia,
professionals, workers, and peasants. It seeks an independent Belarus,
democracy, freedom of ethnic expression, and a market economy.
The Belarusian Social Democratic Assembly (Hramada) emerged in March
1991. Its members include workers, peasants, students, military
personnel, and urban and rural intelligentsia. Its program advocates an
independent Belarus, which does not rule out membership in the CIS, and
a market economy with state regulation of certain sectors. The assembly
cooperates with other parties and considers itself part of the worldwide
social democratic movement.
The Belarusian Peasant Party, founded in February 1991, is
headquartered in Minsk and has branches in most voblastsi. The
party's goals include privatization of land, a free market, a democratic
government, and support of Belarusian culture and humanism.
The Belarusian Christian Democratic Union, founded in June 1991, was
a continuation of the Belarusian Christian-Democratic Party, which was
disbanded by the Polish authorities in western Belarus in the 1930s. Its
membership consists mainly of the intelligentsia, and it espouses
Christian values, nonviolence, pluralism, private property, and peaceful
relations among ethnic groups.
The "Belaya Rus'" Slavic Council was founded in June 1992
as a conservative Russophile group that defends Russian interests in all
spheres of social life, vociferously objects to the status of Belarusian
as the republic's sole official language, and demands equal status for
the Russian language.
In 1995 other parties included the Belarusian Ecological Party, the
National Democratic Party of Belarus, the Party of People's Accord, the
All-Belarusian Party of Popular Unity and Accord, the Belarusian United
Agrarian Democratic Party, the Belarusian Scientific Industrial
Congress, the Belarusian Green Party, the Belarusian Humanitarian Party,
the Belarusian Party of Labor, the Belarusian Party of Labor and
Justice, the Belarusian Socialist Party, the Liberal Democratic Party of
Belarus, the Polish Democratic Union, and the Republican Party.
Belarus - The Media
By late 1992, more than 100 countries had recognized Belarus, and
nearly seventy of them had established some level of diplomatic
relations with it. Belarus had a limited number of embassies abroad
because its diplomatic activities, as all other phases of life, were
severely constrained by economic hardships. There was also a shortage of
experienced diplomats who were Belarusian citizens; international
relations had been the purview of Moscow during the Soviet era and
continued to be mainly the purview of ethnic Russians residing in, but
not citizens of, Belarus.
In 1995 Belarus was a member of a number of international
organizations, including the United Nations (UN) (of which it was a
founding member), the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the
Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), the Organization for Security
and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE; until January 1995 known as the
Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe), the North Atlantic
Cooperation Council, and the European Bank for Reconstruction and
Development (EBRD). Belarus also has observer status at the General
Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and its successor, the World Trade
Organization (WTO). However, the Council of Europe in 1995 declared
Belarus to be ineligible for membership in the Council of Europe because
of shortcomings in its elections and its election laws, including
restrictions on mass media coverage of the spring 1995 parliamentary
campaign and restrictions on candidates' campaign expenditures.
Belarusian authorities, particularly the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
have been trying to promote the widest possible contacts with
Belarusians living abroad (and particularly in the West), with an eye to
developing economic and cultural cooperation. The Belarusian domestic
media have devoted an increasing amount of space to the life of �migr�s,
including their past and present activities. A number of cultural
exchanges, conferences, and joint ventures took place during the early
1990s; a World Reunion of Belarusians was held in the republic's capital
in 1993.
But not everybody in the republic concurs with these initiatives.
From the ultraconservatives came denunciations of the �migr�s for
their alleged collaboration with the Nazis during World War II and their
employment by the United States Central Intelligence Agency. However,
the democratic opposition groups, including the BPF, have engaged in
their own cooperative efforts with Belarusian �migr� organizations,
through which they have reached out for contacts with Western
politicians and governments.
<>Russia
Even though Belarus's new constitution declared that it is a neutral
country, the reality at independence was that Russia was Belarus's
neighbor, its military partner, and its largest economic partner.
Belarus's heavy economic dependence on Russia, especially for critically
needed fuels, has serious political consequences. Russia not only could
bring political pressure on Belarus but could also bring the country to
its knees economically by withholding oil and natural gas. And with more
than 1.5 million ethnic Russians living in Belarus and many of the
officers in the Belarusian armed forces being ethnic Russians, Russia is
in a position to influence Belarus in more subtle ways as well.
The opposition is aware that the government of Alyaksandr
Lukashyenka, using economic difficulties as justification, could try to
append Belarus to Russia, not only economically but also militarily and
politically. Lukashyenka has made it clear from the start that he wants
a "special relationship" with Moscow, which, in terms of
national security, would mean relying on Russia to ensure Belarus's
security and, perhaps, giving Russia a "right of supervision"
over Belarusian foreign and security policy.
Some hard-liners have called for closer contacts not only with the
CIS but also with Russia itself. Because Belarus is so dependent on
Russia already, they argue, it would make sense to be allied with it
militarily as well. The Russian troops and missiles still on Belarus's
soil would seem to make this alliance the logical choice, but it runs
counter to the Belarusian constitution's goal of neutrality. The public
itself is divided on the issue.
Nevertheless, although Russia has strong security concerns regarding
Belarus, it does not appear interested in taking Belarus under its wing
economically. Russia has made a number of changes in its finances and
its economy that Belarus has not replicated; many in Russia see Belarus
as a continuing drain on Russia's own financial resources.
The most concrete efforts to date at a close relationship between the
two countries lie in the economic and monetary spheres. By June 1, 1994,
Belarus had harmonized its interstate trade regulations and taxation
schemes with those of Russia; most export and import fees on mutual
trade were abolished. In May 1995, Belarus and Russia signed a customs
union that eliminated customs checkpoints along their joint border
(effective July 15, 1995) and also signed an agreement on cooperation in
maintaining state borders.
Belarus - United States
