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October 20, 1996
Belarus Knight on a Charger Carries Hammer and Sickle
By MICHAEL R. GORDON
Thousands of Belarus demonstrators march through Minsk to protest Pres Aleksandr Lukashenko's plan to gain near-absolute power, demanding he abandon attempt to rewrite constitution; photo; map; Lukashenko portrays himself as model of flexibility, offering to delay, but not drop, referendum on expanding his powers; Belarus appears to be going back in time five years after gaining independence from old Soviet Union; privatization is halted, bank accounts of independent newspapers are frozen, lead...
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MINSK, Belarus, Oct. 19�́With this former Soviet republic teetering on the brink of crisis, thousands of demonstrators marched through the streets today to protest President Aleksandr Lukashenko's plan to gain near absolute power.

Against a backdrop of red-and-white banners, opposition leaders warned of an impending dictatorship and demanded that he abandon his effort to rewrite Belarus's Constitution.

But Mr. Lukashenko had a message of his own.

Portraying himself as a model of flexibility, he offered to delay, but not drop, the referendum on expanding his powers, leaving the opposition and the President on a potential collision course.

Belarus's new date of reckoning, he suggested, would be Nov. 24.

''If you think Lukashenko is the man who will give away the power you gave him, you are wrong,'' he said today before a gathering of supporters.

Five years after Belarus gained its independence during the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the country appears to be going back in time.

Privatization has come to a screeching halt. The bank accounts of independent newspapers have been frozen. To the distress of the West, Belarus has yet to return to Russia 18 nuclear missiles left over from the Soviet Union.

Belarus is even festooned with the symbols of the old Communist order. The nationalist symbol of Belarus -- a knight astride a charger -- has been stripped from the Parliament building, leaving the Soviet hammer and sickle on display.

''We see dictatorship approaching,'' said Valentin F. Golubev, 41, a historian. ''That would bring us back to worse than we had before.''

Already, there are signs that the intimidation is working. As rumors spread that the authorities would use dogs, tear gas and even snipers to attack protesters, today's march in front of the old opera house numbered 5,000 to 10,000 -- a far cry from the 30,000 demonstrators opposition leaders had anticipated.

As it turned out, there were no dogs. But early this morning, army trucks and armored personnel carriers rumbled through the capital toward the Palace of Sport, where Mr. Lukashenko had convened a meeting of hand-picked supporters.

When seven decades of Soviet rule came to an abrupt end in 1991, the hope was that this newly independent nation of 10 million would reclaim its national traditions and carry out economic reform.

The former director of a collective farm, Mr. Lukashenko was elected on a platform of fighting corruption and initially went along with economic changes.

But after taking the first jarring steps toward a capitalist economy, by October last year Belarus was reversing course. The shift back to a command economy was popular with the rural and elderly voters accustomed to the Soviet ways.

Aleksandr I. Feduta, a former speechwriter for Mr. Lukashenko who broke with the President to join the opposition, said privatization was a concept Mr. Lukashenko found hard to accept. ''He thought it was just robbing the state,'' he said. ''He could not agree to something independent of him. He thought it was stolen power.''

As the nation veered off the reform track, the International Monetary Fund suspended its loans, and World Bank projects were shelved.

To fight unemployment, Mr. Lukashenko ordered state-controlled factories to step up production. But that has succeeded primarily in creating excess and unwanted goods.

''It is a very serious economic situation and there is a possibility of a sharp crisis,'' said Christopher Willoughby, the director of the World Bank office here.

As the economy has declined, Mr. Lukashenko has cracked down on his critics. Television news was put under tight Government control.

Instead of reporting on today's demonstration, the state television presented a program on folklore and then man-in-the-street interviews with citizens who backed the President.

Independent newspapers have been harassed. Ihar Hermianchuk, the editor of Svaboda, a monthly magazine, said the Government had frozen the paper's bank accounts, limited his newspaper's access to printing plants and is trying to raise its rent.

In another turn toward the past, Mr. Lukashenko has sought to prop up his ailing economy by cementing a confederation with Russia. And apparently in an effort to bargain for more aid, he has delayed the return of the nuclear missiles to Russia.

To strengthen his hand, Mr. Lukashenko secured the backing of Aleksandr I. Lebed, the former security adviser to President Boris N. Yeltsin. Mr. Lebed flew to Minsk last month to meet with Mr. Lukashenko, and the public dismissal of Mr. Lebed by Mr. Yeltsin on Thursday was a blow to Belarus's President.

The demonstration today was sparked by Mr. Lukashenko's originally announced plan to hold a national referendum on Nov. 7 -- the old Soviet holiday commemorating the Bolshevik revolution -- to amend the Constitution.

The date was an apparent effort to play to nostalgia, and one of the main thoroughfares here has been draped with electric lights and a large five-pointed Soviet star.

The adoption of the referendum would give Mr. Lukashenko another five years as President and give him the power to appoint members of Belarus's Constitutional Court and Parliament, two institutions that have challenged Mr. Lukashenko's policies.

''He practically wants to eliminate the parliamentary form of government,'' warned Gennadi D. Karpenka, the Deputy Speaker of the Parliament.

Seeking to blunt Mr. Lukashenko's drive for power, the Parliament had scheduled a competing referendum on Nov. 24 on whether to eliminate the Presidency.

Today Mr. Lukashenko did a tactical retreat by saying he could accept the Parliament's date for a referendum, but he still stressed the need to amend the Constitution to expand his power.

Anatol Maisenya, a political scientist here, said that Mr. Lukashenko's move was forced by a lack of strong support in Msocow, pressure in the West and opposition at home.

The Parliament's date for a referendum is less advantageous for the President because a series of city elections are scheduled then, which will bring urban voters to the polls.

Mr. Lukashenko's strength has been in rural areas, where he has posed as a corruption-fighting crusader wrestling with an unruly Parliament. The procedures governing the Nov. 24 election will make fraud more difficult, Mr. Maisenya said. Further, the Parliament will insist on having its question on the ballot.

Mr. Lukashenko's support, according to some polls, stands at about 40 percent. While this is more than his rivals show, the support of more than 50 percent of the electorate is needed to change the Constitution.

Still, Mr. Lukashenko has not wavered from his view that constitutional changes to strengthen the presidency are needed, making it likely the confrontation with the opposition will extend through the referendum and beyond.

At a news conference in Moscow this week, Mr. Lukashenko said Belarus was free, even as he scribbled down the names of reporters who asked unfriendly questions.

Fears of a dictatorship, he declared, resulted from an American plot to thwart an alliance between Russia and Belarus.

''The C.I.A. cares about the revival of an empire,'' Mr. Lukashenko said. ''It scares them.''

But Mr. Lukashenko was blunt about his concept of how Belarus should be ruled. It should, he said simply, be the responsibility of ''one strong man.''

Photo: Belarussians, many carrying the national flag, rallied in Minsk yesterday against President Aleksandr Lukashenko's bid to extend his power. (Reuters) Map of Belarus showing the location of Minsk.
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October 12, 1996
U.S. Presses Shaky Belarus to Honor A-Weapons Pact
By STEVEN ERLANGER
US seeks to prevent Belarus from slipping into a dictatorship and reneging on its promise to give up its nuclear missiles by the end of the year; Pres Aleksandr G Lukashenko has called for street demonstrations by handpicked 'people's deputies' on Oct 19 in an effort to disband Parliament and force through a new constitution in a referendum on Nov 7 that would extend his term until the year 2000, allow him a second seven-year term, let him appoint a majority of the highest court and con trol a ...
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U.S. Presses Shaky Belarus to Honor A-Weapons Pact

By STEVEN ERLANGER
WASHINGTON, Oct. 11�́The United States, its influence limited, is trying to prevent the former Soviet republic of Belarus from slipping into a dictatorship and reneging on its promise to President Clinton to give up its nuclear missiles by the end of the year.

Ukraine and Kazakhstan, two other former Soviet republics that also inherited modern missiles, have both become nuclear-free, handing over their missiles, as agreed, to the Russian authorities for dismantling. But Belarus has not even begun the process.

The Belarussian President, Aleksandr G. Lukashenko, has called for street demonstrations by handpicked ''people's deputies'' on Oct. 19 in an effort to disband Parliament and force through a new constitution in a referendum on Nov. 7, the anniversary of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution.

The proposed constitution would extend his term until the year 2000, allow him a second seven-year term, let him appoint a majority of the highest court and control a new upper house of Parliament with veto power over the lower house. And despite opposition in Belarus, senior American officials say Mr. Lukashenko could win such a referendum, even without election fraud.

Mr. Lukashenko, a flamboyant, demagogic 41-year-old elected in 1994 to replace the man who brought the country to independence, wants to reunite with Russia and stymie market reform. He ran on an anti-corruption program and the promise to integrate with Russia and restore Soviet-style economic security. He has restored the Soviet-era flag, shut down newspapers and radio stations, fired elected officials, restricted human and civil rights, broken up some opposition demonstrations and banned others, and prevented the Parliament's chairman, Semyon Sharetsky, the country's second-ranking official, from appearing on television.

Belarus, with only a thin and debatable history of sovereignty separate from Moscow, might be considered just another victim of history, a sort of geopolitical joke. But unlike the authoritarian governments of Central Asia, for example, Belarus is a European country with nuclear weapons, bordering what are likely to be the boundaries of an expanding NATO and led by an unpredictable and openly anti-Western leader who is pushing for nearly unlimited power.

In light of the recent developments there, Defense Secretary William J. Perry, who is going to Moscow next week, has canceled plans to stop in Minsk, the Belarus capital, because of serious doubts that Belarus will become non-nuclear by 1997. Such a high-level visit would be seen as support for Mr. Lukashenko and its cancellation as a form of criticism.

The restoration of a Communist dictatorship in Europe would be an embarrassment for the Clinton Administration, which has broadcast its success in helping the former Soviet Union make a transition to a relatively democratic, free-market way of life.

A failure to get Belarus to give up its 18 nuclear missiles, however, would be dangerous, even if they are currently under the control of Russian officers. The SS-25 missiles are Russia's most modern mobile single-warhead missiles.

The Clinton Administration is using what tools it can muster to influence Mr. Lukashenko. The Americans are pressing the Russians hard to get Belarus to live up to its nuclear promises.

''We'd be comfortable with Russia playing a role in this,'' a senior American official said.

Mr. Lukashenko, for his part, has talked darkly of a Washington-Moscow conspiracy to undermine him. Last April, he and President Boris N. Yeltsin signed a pact of ''federation'' between Belarus and Russia, but Amrican officials suggest that Mr. Yeltsin was looking more to his own re-election struggle than to real reunification, a notion popular among Russian Communists and ultranationalists. The Russians are also leery of absorbing the sizeable debts of Belarus, which has made little effort to reform its economy or collectivist agriculture.

The United States has also tried to strengthen the democratic opposition to Mr. Lukashenko by providing assistance to non-governmental organizations working there and discouraging large corporations like McDonald's and Ford, who seek advice from the State Department, from making significant investments in Belarus just now. The United States also gave quick political asylum to the leader of the main democratic opposition party, Zenon Poznyak.

Congress, in the 1997 Foreign Assistance Act, has banned all American aid to the Belarus Government.

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August 1, 1996
2 Belarus Dissidents Seek U.S. Asylum
Zenon Poznyak and Sergei Naumchik, prominent leaders of democratic opposition in Belarus, apply for political asylum in US
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2 Belarus Dissidents Seek U.S. Asylum

WASHINGTON, July 31�́Two prominent leaders of the democratic opposition in Belarus said today that they had applied for asylum in the United States, saying that their lives were in danger in the former Soviet republic.

''We were convinced that there was a real threat to our lives and freedom,'' Zenon Poznyak, chairman of the Belarussian Popular Front, said. He appeared with a front spokesman, Sergei Naumchik, at a news conference arranged by Representative Martin Hoke, an Ohio Republican.

Mr. Hoke's spokesman, Larry Vanhoose, said this was the first time since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 in which democratic movement leaders had sought asylum as a result of the reimposition of authoritarian rule in a former Soviet state.

The two exiles, who left Belarus four months ago, accused the Government of President Aleksandr Lukashenko of persecuting the political opposition, banning unions and controlling news reporting.

The State Department and the Immigration and Naturalization Service declined comment on the asylum request.

Mr. Poznyak was a leader of the Belarus independence movement and a sharp critic of the Soviet Union's environmental policies.

The asylum seekers said they would have more freedom to work for human rights in Belarus by continuing their political activities abroad. In Belarus, they said, they had been denied access to radio and television and had been beaten, and their families had been intimidated.

In Minsk, leaders of the Belarus Popular Front pledged to continue their campaign against President Lukashenko.

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March 25, 1996
World News Briefs;Demonstrators in Belarus Oppose Tie With Russia
AP
About 15,000 people, many waving red-and-white Belarussian flags, marched through downtown Minsk today to demand continued independence and protest Government moves to form a political, cultural and economic union with Russia. At one point, demonstrators shouting anti-Government slogans broke through a police cordon. Scuffles broke out between the police and marchers who pelted them with snow and ice.
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March 24, 1996
BELARUS TO JOIN RUSSIA IN A UNION
By MICHAEL SPECTER
The leaders of Russia and Belarus agreed today to form a "union state" which, while it would not quite merge the Governments of the two Slavic nations, would nevertheless tie them to each other economically, politically and culturally. Such a plan has long been discussed, particularly in Belarus, where it has been eagerly sought. But the speed and timing of the decision clearly grows mostly from election-year politics in Russia, where the Communist-dominated lower house of Parliament voted last...
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November 13, 1994
World News Briefs; President of Belarus Cuts Short Treatment
President Aleksandr Lukashenko of Belarus cut short medical treatment in the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi to return home, saying he was worried about soaring prices and political tension. He called a special Cabinet session today.
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October 9, 1994
What Does Russia Want?
By GRIGORY A. YAVLINSKY
An increasingly disquieting feature of Russian politics is President Boris Yeltsin's ambiguous attitude toward integration with the former Soviet republics. Big unanswered questions hover in the air. With which members of the Commonwealth of Independent States -- if any -- should Russia integrate? How? On what basis? With what goals? And with what consequences for Russia, those republics and the rest of the world?
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July 17, 1994
Belarus Winner Remakes His Image
By MICHAEL SPECTER,
The angry young man who just became the first President of Belarus learns fast. Elected by flailing away at the Government, belittling the idea of free enterprise and promising that crime would stop at once, Aleksandr Lukashenko performed a quick pirouette this week. After five months of shouting that the ex-Communist leadership of Belarus was running the country into the ground, Mr. Lukashenko said he was "shocked" to find out how bad things really were. He called for peace. And despite hints ...
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Belarus Winner Remakes His Image

By MICHAEL SPECTER,
MINSK, Belarus, July 14�́The angry young man who just became the first President of Belarus learns fast. Elected by flailing away at the Government, belittling the idea of free enterprise and promising that crime would stop at once, Aleksandr Lukashenko performed a quick pirouette this week.

After five months of shouting that the ex-Communist leadership of Belarus was running the country into the ground, Mr. Lukashenko said he was "shocked" to find out how bad things really were. He called for peace. And despite hints to the contrary during his campaign, he said only true democracy could save the struggling country.

"I promise you there will be no dictatorship," Mr. Lukashenko said in his first public appearance after receiving more than 80 percent of the votes cast on Sunday. "I am of the people, and I am going to be for the people." Promised Radical Change

With scarcely any experience in setting domestic or foreign policy, the 39-year-old former farm manager and lawmaker won election in this country between Russia and Poland mainly by promising to take a sledgehammer to a Government of former Communist Party chiefs.

He vowed to put his opponent, Prime Minister Vyacheslav F. Kebich, in prison. He said he would freeze prices, beat inflation, provide jobs for everybody. He pledged more Government support to the elderly and a brake on privatization, a program that so far has touched almost no one and that most people oppose as a gift to profiteers.

"If he can do it all, he is Moses," said Stanislav S. Shushkevich, a bitter enemy whom Mr. Lukashenko helped remove from his post as Speaker of Parliament. "But he is not. Solzhenitsyn said that Vladimir Zhirinovsky was the caricature of a Russian patriot. Well, Lukashenko is the caricature of Zhirinovsky."

That does not seem to have bothered the voters. Mr. Lukashenko's promises were sweet music here in Belarus, where 10 million live as if the Soviet past were still very much in the present. It is reflected in the country's wary mood, the unwillingness of many people to talk with outsiders and the sheer number of busts and statues of Lenin. Government-Run Economy

The state still reigns supreme, controlling nearly all of the heavily industrialized economy. To use the currency, one has to add an imaginary zero to each bill; prices move too fast for the Government printers.

The future is in the clouds. People want a better life, a little stability, some sense of fairness, a free press.

Polls show that most people associate private enterprise with the huge dachas built in the last few years by men who own fancy cars. At the same time, they associate Communism with the anti-reform politicians who have run the Government since the Soviet Union broke up and who have called repeatedly for reunion with Russia.

"This election was not a mandate for a new frontier or a new vision or even a new man," said Anatol I. Maisenya, president of the National Center for Strategic Initiatives, an independent think tank here. "Mr. Lukashenko has no ideology. He has no program. He has no economic or political background. He said the bad guys are running your country and its time to get rid of them. And as an achievement, that may be enough."

Yet by toning down his remarks this week, Mr. Lukashenko seemed to be saying he knows he will have his hands full. The man who tried to stop the dissolution of the Soviet Communist empire now says he likes the way Margaret Thatcher went about her program of privatization in Britain -- "carefully, so people understood it and accepted it."

He backed off from his pledge to prosecute his opponent, saying that "it would be up to the courts." And he has suggested that some of Mr. Kebich's aides -- the men he recently accused of trying to assassinate him, lock him out of state buildings and ban him from radio and television -- might make good senior officials in the Government, though he says he still intends to halve its ranks.

Euphoria has hardly swept the nation since the election results were announced. In markets and on factory floors, workers say they voted for Mr. Lukashenko but show little delight in their choice. Again and again, a concern for stability and for the nation's youth emerges in conversations with workers.

"I am concerned about my children, about my grandchildren," said Lyda I. Ovsykevich, 57, a retired woman who worked as an industrial manager during the Communist era and now sells tomatoes at the central market in Minsk.

"I don't even like to discuss what system is better. I don't care," she said. I want a normal meal every day, and I want my grandchildren to be able to afford bananas.

"It would be nice if people in other countries took us seriously, if we had a real currency. But those things don't really matter. This new man is a young man, so he has to have a stake in change. And for me that is plenty." What Kind of Change?

It remains to be seen what kind of change, if any, Mr. Lukashenko can bring.

His vision is hard to pin down. He has pledged to pursue monetary union with Russia, which would effectively mean surrendering a considerable amount of control over the Belarussian economy. Yet as a member of Parliament he opposed the founding of the Commonwealth of Independent States, a grouping of most of the former Soviet republics.

Mr. Lukashenko rose quickly to prominence last year after he was appointed head of a parliamentary anti-corruption commission. He accused 70 senior officials of corruption and demanded that they be removed. Lawmakers' Strategy

To limit the political fallout, Parliament removed the reformist Speaker, Mr. Shushkevich, from office. By sacrificing Mr. Shushkevich, lawmakers thought they would be able to satisfy Mr. Lukashenko while preserving the possibility that one of their own, Mr. Kebich, would become President.

But that backfired. So did the portrayal of Mr. Lukashenko by Government-controlled newspapers and television stations as a wild-eyed farmer who had no business visiting Minsk, much less running the country as President.

"It wasn't very subtle," said a Western diplomat based here. "And it didn't work. Lukashenko perfectly represents the feelings of the normal man or woman here. They are feeling disenfranchised and are not sure which way to turn."

Photo: Aleksandr Lukashenko. (Associated Press)

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July 16, 1994
Ethnic Politics in the East
All politics is ethnic, or so it seems, in the former Soviet Union these days. This kind of politics, with its attendant demagoguery and violence, can destroy all chance for peaceful change. President Boris Yeltsin's hint last week that the withdrawal of 2,500 Russian troops still in Estonia would depend on better treatment of Estonia's Russian residents could run just such a risk. In an effort to appease Russia's nationalists, he hinted that the troops might not all be out by Aug. 31, as promi...
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July 12, 1994
Discontent of Belarus Voters Fueled Landslide for Outsider
By MICHAEL SPECTER,
Suggesting a deep unhappiness that has surfaced in other former Soviet republics, voters in Belarus have elected as their first President a man who promised to dismiss everyone connected to the Government "within a day." Aleksandr Lukashenko, 39, a crusader against corruption who comes to the job with no significant experience in domestic or international politics, rolled to a thunderous victory, receiving more than 80 percent of the vote.
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July 10, 1994
Voting Today In Ukraine And Belarus
By STEVEN ERLANGER,
Ukraine and Belarus will choose Presidents on Sunday in elections that have been dominated by debates about relations with Russia. The outcomes, which are likely to produce a tighter core of Slavic post-Soviet states, are being closely watched in Washington and Europe, where worries about Russian neo-imperialism are growing.
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June 25, 1994
Belarus Voters Back Populist in Protest at the Quality of Life
By MICHAEL SPECTER,
Showing once again how distressed people in the countries of the former Soviet Union are with the current state of their lives, Belarussian voters overwhelmingly supported a populist anti-crime crusader against the current Prime Minister in the results today of the first round of presidential elections. Alexander Lukashenko, 39 years old, whose vitriolic rants about government and the country's shattered economy remind many observers of the Russian ultranationalist Vladimir V. Zhirinovsky, rece...
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Belarus Voters Back Populist in Protest at the Quality of Life
By MICHAEL SPECTER,
MOSCOW, June 24? Showing once again how distressed people in the countries of the former Soviet Union are with the current state of their lives, Belarussian voters overwhelmingly supported a populist anti-crime crusader against the current Prime Minister in the results today of the first round of presidential elections. 

Alexander Lukashenko, 39 years old, whose vitriolic rants about government and the country's shattered economy remind many observers of the Russian ultranationalist Vladimir V. Zhirinovsky, received 45 percent of the vote on Thursday -- more than all five other candidates combined. Candidates cannot win on the first round, however, unless they receive more than 50 percent of all votes cast. 

Prime Minister Vyacheslav Kebich, 58, who had been universally considered the front-runner, came in a distant second, with 17 percent of the vote. He and Mr. Lukashenko, who led in all six regions of the country, wedged between Poland and Russia, will face each other in a runoff in two weeks. Although it would seem hard to imagine that Mr. Lukashenko would lose so soon after such a decisive victory, the rules for the runoff state that if 50 percent of all eligible voters fail to turn out, there would have to be yet another election. 

"What happened today came as a sensation only to those who refused to face the truth about our country," Mr. Lukashenko told reporters in Minsk, after the results had become clear. "The poor and deprived people for the first time had a chance to elect somebody like them to this supreme post, and the people spoke." 

They have a lot to speak about in a country where inflation averages nearly 40 percent a month and jobs are disappearing by the day. And, as was the case in the Russian parliamentary elections last December, the people mostly spoke by saying no to the current Government. 

Economically faltering, politically unsure of itself, Belarus is the Slavic heartland of the former Soviet Union, and its 10 million residents have suffered greatly since their independence in 1991. They have already voted to form a monetary union with Russia, and practically all candidates in the race -- including the two who will face each other in the runoff -- stressed the need for closer ties and more certain relations with Russia. 

Mr. Lukashenko prided himself on the fact that he was the only political leader from the country who voted against the Brest pact of 1991, which proclaimed the end of the Soviet Union. Crucial Base for Soviets 

When it was under Kremlin rule, Belarus was a crucial agricultural and technological base for the Soviet Union. Its outmoded and now idled factories made many of the heavy machinery and industrial tools that found their way onto the enormous state farms. When, after independence, reforms failed to sustain or improve production, the economy collapsed and political leaders fought with each other to see who could argue most eloquently for a new union with the country they had fled. 

The Government in Minsk remains largely packed with apparatchiks installed during the days of Kremlin power. Mr. Lukashenko's political star rose during the last year when he was made the head of the anti-gangster commission of the Belarussian Parliament. The polls have shown that most citizens feel Mr. Lukashenko, a former factory manager, is the first man to take resolute steps to rid the nation of corruption at the highest levels. 

He submitted a list of 70 ranking officials, including two vice-premiers and the Defense Minister, who he said were corrupt and should be removed from office. The embarrassed Government ended the work of his commission prematurely, securing his fame and popularity. Economic Program Lacking 

Yet Mr. Lukashenko, who survived an assassination attempt during the presidential campaign, has little to offer in the way of an economic program -- other than to endorse monetary union with Russia. His main disagreement with Mr. Kebich has not been on the vital issue of sovereignty for the country or economic independence, but who could negotiate better terms with Russia. 

"I am neither with the leftists nor the rightists," he said during the campaign. "But with the people against those who rob and deceive them." 

An aide to independent Belarus's first head of state, Stanislav Shushkevich, who received less than 10 percent of the vote, said the election runoff presented the country with a choice between "one man symbolizing a gradual collapse and another who stands for an abrupt crash," of the economy. Mr. Shushkevich was the Parliament speaker -- the head of state in Belarus -- until earlier this year, when Mr. Lukashenko forced him to resign after allegations of corruption. 

Map: The Belarus Government in Minsk remains packed with apparatchiks from Soviet days. (The New York Times) 

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June 24, 1994
Heavy Voting in Belarus
In a heavy turnout, Belarussians cast ballots in the first presidential election in the former Soviet republic, a race dominated by economic worries. More than 73 percent of the 7.3 million eligible voters went to the polls in a race among six candidates ranging from Communist-era technocrats to ardent reformists. Prime Minister Vyacheslav Kebich was considered the front-runner, but no results are expected until Friday.
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Heavy Voting in Belarus
MINSK, Belarus, June 23? In a heavy turnout, Belarussians cast ballots in the first presidential election in the former Soviet republic, a race dominated by economic worries. 

More than 73 percent of the 7.3 million eligible voters went to the polls in a race among six candidates ranging from Communist-era technocrats to ardent reformists. Prime Minister Vyacheslav Kebich was considered the front-runner, but no results are expected until Friday. 

Authorities said there were no election law violations, but opposition supporters accused officials of fraud. More than 100 foreign observers were present. 

Belarus has been led since the 1991 Soviet collapse by the speaker of its anti-reform Parliament. Although the country has been politically calm, it has been reeling from inflation rates of 30 to 40 percent a month. 
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January 28, 1994
Belarus Says Aide's Ouster Won't Stop Reform
By STEVEN ERLANGER,
The Belarus Foreign Ministry called in foreign diplomats in Minsk today to reassure them that the country's commitments to denuclearization and a market economy were unchanged by the ouster on Wednesday of Stanislav S. Shushkevich, a non-Communist reformer, as chairman of Parliament and ceremonial head of state. The removal of Mr. Shushkevich by Parliament, on dubious charges of corruption after two years of battling for early elections and economic reforms, leaves Belarus in the hands of the s...
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Belarus Says Aide's Ouster Won't Stop Reform
By STEVEN ERLANGER,
MOSCOW, Jan. 27? The Belarus Foreign Ministry called in foreign diplomats in Minsk today to reassure them that the country's commitments to denuclearization and a market economy were unchanged by the ouster on Wednesday of Stanislav S. Shushkevich, a non-Communist reformer, as chairman of Parliament and ceremonial head of state. 

The removal of Mr. Shushkevich by Parliament, on dubious charges of corruption after two years of battling for early elections and economic reforms, leaves Belarus in the hands of the same Communist Party officials who ran it before the collapse of the Soviet Union in December 1991. 

Mr. Shushkevich, 59, was also considered an outspoken advocate of Belarusian independence from Moscow, which had ruled Belarus since 1772. His opponents, including the longtime Prime Minister, Vyacheslav F. Kebich, who survived a similar vote, favor ties to Russia that are much closer, almost a reunion of the two states. 

President Clinton met with both men two weeks ago to thank Belarus for agreeing to scrap its 81 SS-25 nuclear missiles and to give support to faster economic reform and early parliamentary elections, seen as an effort to prop up Mr. Shushkevich. Fear of New 'Empire' 

Senior Western diplomats in Minsk expressed concern before Mr. Clinton's visit that a reunion of Russia with Belarus could start an "imperial reconstruction" that Washington and the West did not want to see. 

In Minsk today, the head of the opposition in Parliament, Zyanon Paznyak, said the removal of Mr. Shushkevich represented "a creeping Communist coup aimed at eliminating Belarusian statehood and imposing a dictatorship under Kebich." 

Mr. Shushkevich, a physicist who once helped teach Russian to Lee Harvey Oswald, was succeeded by his deputy, Vyacheslav Kuznetov, a conservative former Communist. 

Yuri V. Khadipa, the deputy chairman of the opposition Belarus National Front, said: "Now the last stage of the reconstitution of the Russian empire will begin with the induction of Belarus into the ruble zone. This move will prop up factories of the former Soviet military-industrial complex, which no one needs." 

Having already forced through a military alliance that calls on Russia to defend Belarus and its 10.7 million people, Mr. Kebich is a prime proponent of an economic union that would subordinate Minsk's financial policies to Moscow's in return for cheap energy and the use of the Russian ruble. He recently agreed upon such a union with his counterpart, Viktor S. Chernomyrdin, who is due to come to Minsk next week to iron out details. 

Belarus is heavily dependent on Russia for energy and contracts, and its unreformed economy is experiencing 50 percent monthly inflation. 

Minsk-based diplomats said the return to dominance of Soviet-era managers in Moscow had an obvious impact in Belarus, though they stressed that the Communist-dominated Belarusian Supreme Soviet, first elected in March 1990, has been trying to oust Mr. Shushkevich for months. They almost succeeded in July, but he was saved then by Mr. Paznyak and the opposition. 

But this time, after more months of trying to balance between Mr. Kebich and Mr. Paznyak, Mr. Shushkevich ran out of supporters, many of whom were angered at his failure to protect two Cabinet allies who were removed from office on Tuesday. 

This monetary union, which would cost Russians many millions of dollars if the ruble is exchanged one for one for the weaker Belarus currency and if debts between state enterprises are canceled, was one of main factors cited by Yegor T. Gaidar, the architect of Russia's economic reforms, when he quit Mr. Chernomyrdin's Cabinet, followed this week by the Finance Minister, Boris G. Fyodorov. 

Map of Belarus shows the location of Minsk. 

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(11)
January 27, 1994
Belarus Parliament Ousts Leader
Belarus's Parliament ousted its liberal leader today, further dampening prospects for rapid economic reform and an independent foreign policy. Legislators voted 209 to 36 to dismiss the leader, Stanislav Shushkevich, who has almost single-handedly battled politicians and bureaucrats opposing free-market policies in Belarus.
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Belarus Parliament Ousts Leader
MINSK, Belarus, Jan. 26? Belarus's Parliament ousted its liberal leader today, further dampening prospects for rapid economic reform and an independent foreign policy. 

Legislators voted 209 to 36 to dismiss the leader, Stanislav Shushkevich, who has almost single-handedly battled politicians and bureaucrats opposing free-market policies in Belarus. 

His ouster came two weeks after he received strong backing of President Clinton, who stopped in Minsk after visiting Moscow. 

Belarus's conservative Prime Minister, Vyacheslav Kebich, Shushkevich's constant rival, survived a vote to oust him. A total of 101 legislators voted for his dismissal and 175 against. Although Mr. Kebich survived the vote, some moderates argued that he was morally obligated to resign since more than 100 legislators had voted against him. 

Members of the Parliament, which was elected when Belarus was still part of the Soviet Union, made it plain that their vote was intended as a reprisal for Mr. Shushkevich's support for market reforms and his resistance to aligning foreign policy with neighboring Russia. 

"This is approval for the Government's policy," Mr. Kebich's top adviser, Valery Skorynin, said of the vote to oust Mr. Shushkevich. "Shushkevich is an idealist. You cannot reform and privatize any more quickly than our government has been doing." 

Mr. Shushkevich's first deputy, Vyacheslav Kuznetsov, who served during the Soviet era, took over as acting Chairman of Parliament. 

Advocates of reform, a small minority in Parliament, said the vote portended the end of Belarus as an independent entity, separate from Russia. 

"Belarus's new pro-Russian leadership will conduct its affairs in such a way as to bring the country into the Russian empire," said Zenon Poznyak, leader of the Belarussian Popular Front. "This is a betrayal of Belarussian sovereignty." 

Mr. Shushkevich came under fierce attack in the debate leading up to the vote and even his few reformist allies in Parliament gave him only lukewarm support and refused to take part in the vote. 

Liberals have become disenchanted in recent months over Mr. Shushkevich's concessions, particularly his consent to Belarussian membership in a Russian-led defense pact. 

In contrast to Ukraine, Belarus did not seek independence as the Soviet Union crumbled, and its politics remain dominated by Communists. 

Copyright 2011 The New York Times
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January 27, 1994
Russia Policy: A U.S. Riddle
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN,
The Clinton Administration's policy toward the former Soviet Union is being undermined, slowly but surely, by the takeover in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine by politicians advocating populist economics that American officials believe will lead to financial ruin and political turmoil. Only two weeks ago President Clinton traveled to Moscow and Minsk to deliver his message: more economic reform will lead to more Western aid. The leaders there nodded in agreement and the White House pronounced the vi...
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Russia Policy: A U.S. Riddle
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN,
WASHINGTON, Jan. 26? The Clinton Administration's policy toward the former Soviet Union is being undermined, slowly but surely, by the takeover in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine by politicians advocating populist economics that American officials believe will lead to financial ruin and political turmoil. 

Only two weeks ago President Clinton traveled to Moscow and Minsk to deliver his message: more economic reform will lead to more Western aid. The leaders there nodded in agreement and the White House pronounced the visit a rousing success. 

But no sooner did Mr. Clinton depart than one piece of bad news after another came rolling in from Moscow and Minsk -- everything from the ouster of Russia's key economic reformers to the toppling today of the liberal President of neighboring Belarus. No Reformers, No Reform 

A White House spokeswoman, Dee Dee Myers, tried to put the best face on these sharp reversals, responding with the mantra that "we're more interested in the policies than in the personalities" and that "President Yeltsin, as you know, reassured the President that he remains committed to reform." 

Yet the fact is that virtually all of the Cabinet members left standing in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine are dedicated to policies that run completely counter to the economic advice President Clinton gave those countries just two weeks ago. It's hard to support reform without reformers. 

"I think the news since the President's Air Force One plane took off from Russia has been unremittingly bad," said Lee Hamilton, the Indiana Democrat who is chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. 

"The reformers have been leaving, and the Government is being dominated by those people who are skeptical about free markets and want to go on supporting the big state industries. I for one will find it very difficult to support aid for Russia if the Central Bank there continues to pour money and credit into supporting these inefficient state-run industries." Debate on Who Lost Russia 

Behind its public facade of supporting policies, not personalities, the Administration is also scrambling to figure out what to do and bracing itself for what is already being whispered about: a debate on who lost Russia. 

What makes influencing events in Russia so difficult, say Administration officials, is that the main problem there is not economics. It's politics. That is, President Boris N. Yeltsin understands the economic advice the West is giving him, which goes like this: The only way for Russia to develop a market economy is if it has a currency that is convertible and stable -- so that banks will be prepared to make loans at reasonable interest rates, so that Russian exporters will be willing to bring their profits back into the country without worrying that their earnings will be eroded by inflation, and so foreigners will be ready to invest there. 

The only way to get to that stage is for Russia's Central Bank to stop printing so many rubles. The only way to get to that point is if the Russian Government can close its budget deficit, now running about 9 percent of its gross domestic product. And the only way to accomplish that is if the Government stops subsidizing unprofitable state industries and farms, many of which produce products that sell for less on the world market than the cost of the raw materials that go into them. 

This is where economics ends and politics begins. To close such factories and farms would require laying off thousands and thousands of Russians, at least until new businesses sprout up to re-employ them. 

The new Government, dominated by conservatives like Prime Minister Viktor S. Chernomyrdin, Central Bank Chairman Viktor V. Gerashchenko and Agriculture Minister Alexander K. Zaveryukha, is not ready to risk the political reaction that such draconian policies would involve -- especially in light of the last election. That was why key reformers Finance Minister Boris Fyodorov and First Deputy Prime Minister Yegor T. Gaidar quit. 'Voters Have Spoken' 

"The Russian voters have spoken," said Dimitri Simes, Russian affairs expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "The Administration is, on the one hand, praising Russian democracy and Russian democratic elections. On the other hand, it is pressuring Yeltsin to adopt policies that were supported by less than 15 percent of the Russian people -- who voted for the Russia's Choice party, led by Gaidar." 

Senior Administration officials say they are trying to deal with this situation by holding to a two-track policy. One track is to keep shining a light on the path of real economic reform that President Clinton laid out in Moscow. American officials hope that after this new Russian Government dabbles in populist economics it will return to its senses and bring back the reformers. 

The United States will keep its offer on the table to Mr. Yeltsin's Government: Adopt real economic reform and the United States will galvanize the Group of Seven industrialized democracies to come up with real money to support it. 

The other track is to continue pressing ahead with the $4.1 billion in direct assistance already approved by the Congress. That money is not going to the Russian Government but to support various projects on the ground, from small businesses to housing for soldiers, to energy development, to technical advice on subjects ranging from democracy to accounting. These are the "ground-up" projects that the Administration hopes will plant the seeds of capitalism, no matter what the Government in Moscow does. 

But this two-track approach may not be sustainable for long. 

"I think that is a phoney distinction," Mr. Hamilton said. "If you have hyperinflation again in Russia, all bets are off. If you have hyperinflation it doesn't matter if you supply them $10 billion or $1 billion. You have to have the fundamentals in line." 

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January 17, 1994
Leading Russian Reformer Quits, Questioning the Cabinet's Policies
By STEVEN ERLANGER,
A day after President Clinton left Moscow, carrying assurances of continued Russian market reforms, their architect, Yegor T. Gaidar, announced today that he was quitting the Government because he did not think that it would pursue a sensible economic policy. "I cannot serve in the Government and at the same time be in opposition to it," Mr. Gaidar said, citing recent decisions made without Cabinet approval that he said contradicted his efforts to stabilize the economy and bring the budget defi...
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Leading Russian Reformer Quits, Questioning the Cabinet's Policies
By STEVEN ERLANGER,
MOSCOW, Jan. 16? A day after President Clinton left Moscow, carrying assurances of continued Russian market reforms, their architect, Yegor T. Gaidar, announced today that he was quitting the Government because he did not think that it would pursue a sensible economic policy. 

"I cannot serve in the Government and at the same time be in opposition to it," Mr. Gaidar said, citing recent decisions made without Cabinet approval that he said contradicted his efforts to stabilize the economy and bring the budget deficit under control. 

His resignation, in a letter to President Boris N. Yeltsin, is a considerable embarrassment for Mr. Clinton, who cited Mr. Yeltsin's "strong assurances of his intention to continue the reform process" as one of the most important achievements of their three-day summit meeting. Yeltsin's Pledge to Clinton 

Mr. Yeltsin, in his joint news conference with Mr. Clinton on Friday, said, "As regards reforms, we will be resolute and radical." But by then, according to Mr. Gaidar, Mr. Yeltsin knew of his impending resignation after a long private talk on Thursday. 

[ Heading back to the United States from Geneva, Mr. Clinton said that Mr. Yeltsin had told him several days ago that Mr. Gaidar was going to resign. "We are not going to reverse our reform course," Mr. Clinton quoted Mr. Yeltsin as saying. "But we do want to cushion the impact of it." 

[ Secretary of State Warren Christopher seemed to play down Mr. Gaidar's resignation. "I'm not sure it's a bad thing that there are one or two changes," he said on the NBC News program "Meet the Press." ] 

Yet if the Finance Minister, Boris G. Fyodorov, who is said to be considering resigning, joins Mr. Gaidar in leaving the Government, that would shake already dwindling Western confidence in Moscow's commitment to financial stability and structural change. 

Mr. Gaidar said he had no assurances that he would be able to control financial and economic policy, even if he kept his posts as one of four FirstDeputy Prime Ministers and as Economics Minister. He refused, he suggested today, to serve as window dressing for a sharp turn in Government policy toward higher spending and inflation that would inevitably continue to be described by Russian officials as "reform." 

"I cannot answer for reforms without being able to prevent unwise actions of the Government, without possessing the necessary levers to persistently pursue the economic policy I am convinced is correct," Mr. Gaidar wrote Mr. Yeltsin. 

He objected specifically to a projected monetary union of Russia with Belarus and plans for a new $500 million parliamentary center. 

Mr. Yeltsin and Prime Minister Viktor S. Chernomyrdin are expected to meet Monday to discuss the resignation, and may try to persuade Mr. Gaidar to change his mind. Mr. Gaidar would insist on assurances of control over economic policy that are unlikely to be forthcoming, however, after Mr. Gaidar's Russia's Choice party came in second to the party of the caustic nationalist, Vladimir V. Zhirinovsky, in the Dec. 12 parliamentary election. 

Mr. Fyodorov, whose efforts to control expenditure more strictly have been widely applauded in the West, has said he would resign if reformers lose control of economic policy and Viktor S. Gerashchenko, the director of the Russian Central Bank and an opponent of reform, keeps his job. 

An official of Russia's Choice told Interfax news agency that Mr. Fyodorov also planned to resign, because "he cannot bear the responsibility for a policy that will inevitably spur inflation." Pressure on Yeltsin Seen 

But it may also be that Mr. Gaidar and Mr. Fyodorov are trying to force Mr. Yeltsin to dismiss Mr. Gerashchenko, who has regularly received support from Mr. Chernomyrdin, and to give fewer important posts to enemies of reform when the Government is shuffled, perhaps as early as Tuesday. 

"Gaidar has to carry the can for the poor performance of Russia's Choice," a senior Western diplomat said. "And it would be hard for Gaidar and Chernomyrdin to work together in Government." Mr. Chernomyrdin took the election results as a clear sign to slow and soften economic reform. 

But if Mr. Gerashchenko stays and Mr. Fyodorov goes, the diplomat said, "that would be in policy terms a pretty unwelcome signal, and makes it a lot harder to let any of this I.M.F. money loose." 

Much of Western aid to Russia is funneled through organizations like the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. The Fund's loans are loosely contingent on some form of prudent Russian economic performance, a position the Clinton Administration has intermittently applauded and criticized. 

At the moment, with Mr. Clinton talking of social protections and his Treasury Secretary, Lloyd Bentsen, talking of fiscal rigor, the Russian reformers themselves are disheartened and confused. Washington seems to be using the possibility of further loans from the Fund and World Bank as an incentive to keep Russian reformers, already a minority, in power. If Mr. Yeltsin is willing to play that game, another senior Western diplomat suggested, Mr. Gaidar seems sick of it. Deferred Spending to Come Due 

But with inflation due to surge in April, given a huge amount of deferred spending in November and December, an abandonment of Mr. Fyodorov's efforts to restrain inflationary deficits would put the Fund and World Bank in an even more awkward position. 

"Is this the worst of the news, or just the start of the bad news?" the diplomat wondered. 

One of Mr. Gaidar's allies, Social Security Minister Ella Pamfilova -- the only woman in the Cabinet -- said she would also resign, while Mr. Gaidar said Mr. Fyodorov's decision would come in a few days, suggesting a coordinated, last-ditch effort to force a change in Government direction. "We hope that the Government's policy will not be drastically altered after all," Mr. Gaidar told Interfax. 

Mr. Fyodorov said the Government was at a "turning point, where everyone is being promised money and there are offers of stronger social support policies." But "no one says who will pay or how," Mr. Fyodorov continued. "When these great projects arise from who knows where, of course one's enthusiasm for work in the Government is low." He said his decision about resignation would depend on the shape of the future government. Gaidar's Changing Fortunes 

The fortunes of Mr. Gaidar, a balding, round-faced man of 37 with a courtly manner, have been a measure of the wildly uneven pattern of Russian economic changes. He has been a Yeltsin favorite and was chosen to initiate the great experiment of turning Russia into a free-market, private economy in January 1992, after the collapse of the Soviet Union. 

Forced out of office in December 1992 by conservatives in Parliament, Mr. Gaidar was asked to return to office by Mr. Yeltsin last September, to reassure the West about the future of reform just days before the President disbanded Parliament. Again, after the December elections and sharp criticism of Mr. Gaidar by Mr. Chernomyrdin, Mr. Yeltsin, at a news conference Dec. 22, answered a question about the future of economic reform by intoning: "Gaidar stays. Which means that the policy he pursues stays -- naturally, together with the Government and the President." 

But the poor election performance of Russia's Choice, and the failure of Mr. Gaidar to persuade other reformers like Grigory A. Yavlinsky to unite with him against Mr. Zhirinovsky, have weakened Mr. Gaidar enormously. Even though he was out of office for nearly all of 1993, he was still seen by many voters as the embodiment of economic reform, even though it was Mr. Chernomyrdin who was Prime Minister. Mr. Gaidar himself criticized the slow and incoherent pattern of reform, which made social pain sharper and more prolonged. 

In an interview today, Mr. Yavlinsky was dismissive. Mr. Gaidar "was decoration -- he fulfilled his role Oct. 3 and 4," when Mr. Yeltsin shelled the old Parliament, Mr. Yavlinsky said. "He couldn't change the situation; he wasn't an active member of the Government; he wasn't included." But Mr. Yavlinsky denied reports he has been approached about a Government portfolio. 

In his resignation letter, Mr. Gaidar cited two cases to explain his growing frustration over economic decisions made about which he was either uniformed or strongly opposed. 

First, he objected to the monetary union with Belarus, an agreement announced Jan. 4 with no discussion in the Cabinet. If the weak Belarusian currency is exchanged for the Russian ruble at one to one, it could cost the Russian economy $1.4 billion, Mr. Gaidar estimates. "We are not rich enough to sacrifice the welfare of Russian citizens to political considerations," he said. His objections were ignored. 

In objecting to the new parliamentary center, he wrote that "this destructive decision was taken without my knowledge and despite my resolute objections." It, too, was never discussed in any Government meeting. 

Mr. Gaidar said he would continue to support Mr. Yeltsin "and your policy of reforms." But he said his party would not blindly back the Government in the new Parliament. 

Photo: In an embarrassment to President Boris N. Yeltsin and to President Clinton, the planner of Russia's economic reform, Yegor T. Gaidar, quit yesterday, saying he did not feel he had received enough backing in Moscow. Mr. Gaidar, right, spoke at a reception for Mr. Clinton on Saturday with Foreign Minister Andrei V. Kozyrev, center, and Sergei A. Filatov, Mr. Yeltsin's chief of staff. (Reuters)(pg. A7) 

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January 16, 1994
CLINTON IN EUROPE; Clinton Promises Help for Belarus Before Changing Focus to Mideast
By DOUGLAS JEHL,
Switching his focus from Russia to the Middle East, President Clinton flew from Moscow to Geneva today for meetings on Sunday with President Hafez al-Assad of Syria aimed at getting the stalled Mideast peace talks started again. On his way to Geneva, Mr. Clinton stopped in Belarus, where he pledged at least $50 million in additional aid, including $25 million to help the Government carry out its pledge to surrender all 81 of the old Soviet SS-25 nuclear missiles left on its soil.
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CLINTON IN EUROPE; Clinton Promises Help for Belarus Before Changing Focus to Mideast
By DOUGLAS JEHL,
GENEVA, Jan. 15? Switching his focus from Russia to the Middle East, President Clinton flew from Moscow to Geneva today for meetings on Sunday with President Hafez al-Assad of Syria aimed at getting the stalled Mideast peace talks started again. 

On his way to Geneva, Mr. Clinton stopped in Belarus, where he pledged at least $50 million in additional aid, including $25 million to help the Government carry out its pledge to surrender all 81 of the old Soviet SS-25 nuclear missiles left on its soil. 

During his six-hour stopover in Minsk, Mr. Clinton also became embroiled in a local dispute over which victims of oppression to honor first. 

On his arrival in Geneva, Mr. Clinton was met by President Otto Stich and Foreign Minister Flavio Cotti. He is to meet with President Assad for three hours on Sunday before flying home to Washington at the end of his eight-day visit . On Diplomatic Tiptoe 

Administration officials expressed hope that the prospect of better relations with Washington might prompt Mr. Assad to seek a comprehensive peace with Israel. The Syrians, who have faced economic hardships since the collapse of the Soviet Union, hope to build a new relationship with the United States. 

But the officials said President Clinton is not ready to remove Syria from his Administration's list of terrorist states, a designation that carries heavy sanctions, as Mr. Assad has demanded. 

Mr. Assad will be seeking to restore Syria's position as a key player in any Middle East peace negotiations. His position has been eclipsed by the separate Israeli accord with the Palestine Liberation Organization, which was signed in Washington on Sept. 13. 

En route to Geneva, the White House faced a diplomatic squabble over Mr. Clinton's plans to visit a memorial for the victims of Stalinist oppression in Belarus before laying a wreath at a monument to those killed by the Nazis. 

The original White House itinerary for Belarus called for Mr. Clinton to go straight from Air Force One to a stark memorial in Kuropaty forest, just outside Minsk, that was raised to victims of Stalinist repression. 

But in deference to the leaders of Belarus, most of them former Communists, the White House agreed to postpone Mr. Clinton's stop at the Kuropaty memorial and first lay a wreath at the black obelisk in Victory Square in Minsk that honors victims of World War II, as Prime Minister Vyacheslav F. Kebich had insisted. 

The last-minute change was viewed with dismay by Belarus's political opposition. The switch also exposed White House uneasiness about possibly offending the Soviet-style Government, which Mr. Clinton was prodding to hold elections this spring. No Signs of Modernization 

Despite Mr. Clinton's support, there is no indication that Belarus will accept Washington's advice to go forward with economic reform. The nation's leading reformer, Stanislav S. Shushkevich, chairman of the Supreme Soviet, holds less power than Mr. Kebish, the old-line Prime Minister. 

The importance of Kuropaty to domestic politics lies in the fact that it is the country's only known mass grave for those executed by Stalin's secret police between 1937 and 1941, giving it symbolic importance for the anti-Communist opposition, whose leader, Zyanon Paznyak, was the archaeologist who discovered it. 

As many as 200,000 bodies of Poles, Jews and other victims of Stalin are believed to be buried at the site, and a senior Western diplomat in Belarus bluntly described it as "unfortunate" that the White House had backed away from its original plan. 

"What is needed here is for the West to remind everyone about the Communists' past," the diplomat said. 

The Administration had initially added Belarus to Mr. Clinton's itinerary partly as a gesture of thanks for its decision to relinquish its nuclear weapons, but more importantly as an object lesson for Ukraine, which until Mr. Clinton's visit had refused to do so. An Unnecessary Symbol 

But Ukraine's about-face last week, under which it will surrender its 176 nuclear missiles and 1,500 warheads over the next seven years, stripped the Belarus stop of its symbolism, leaving Mr. Clinton confronted more starkly with a system that has seen few changes from the old Soviet style. 

In Minsk this afternoon, senior White House officials sought to minimize the significance of the decision to reschedule the visit to Kuropaty, an ice-covered clearing with a crude wooden cross crowned with barbed wire. 

In a speech this afternoon at the Academy of Sciences in Minsk, Mr. Clinton tried to keep the focus on the arms agreement, telling the audience that Belarus deserved the "thanks and credit of citizens all over the world" for being the first former Soviet republic to plan a nuclear-free future. 

But he made a clear reference to the Government's refusal to assure March elections, saying he would "hope and pray" that they would go forward. He also called upon Belarus to "press ahead" with economic reforms. Separate Meetings 

Mr. Clinton was greeted at the Minsk airport by Mr. Shushkevich, a former nuclear physicist turned centrist democrat whose position makes him the leader of Parliament, and whom American officals regard as the country's best hope of reform. 

The President also held what the officials described as cooler talks with Mr. Kebich, who rose through Communist Party ranks and who has headed the Government since 1990. Mr. Clinton met separately with the opposition leaders, among them Mr. Paznyak, who told reporters later that they had urged Mr. Clinton to cut off aid to Belarus altogether on the ground that it would support only the Government and not reform. 

But there was also evidence of the resentment felt by some Belarusians at Mr. Clinton's visit: a group of Communists marched around a statue of Feliks Dzerzhinsky, the founder of the K.G.B., and waved banners that included one reading, "Yankee Go Home." 

Photos: President Clinton saluting as he and his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, left Russia yesterday for Belarus. (Agence France-Presse) (pg. 1); Mr. Clinton angered nationalists in Belarus yesterday by laying a wreath first at a memorial for the Nazis' victims, then for those killed by Stalin. (Reuters) (pg. 10) 

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January 14, 1994
CLINTON IN EUROPE; In Belarus, Memorials Define a Nation
By STEVEN ERLANGER,
President Clinton's decision to lay a wreath in the Kuropaty Forest, just off the highway from the airport, as he arrives in Minsk has ignited a debate that tells much about Belarus's fragile sovereignty and Soviet-style politics. The fuss threatens to overshadow Mr. Clinton's six-hour visit here on Saturday, a quick thank-you to the former Soviet republic for agreeing to give up all 81 of its SS-25 nuclear missiles, an accord that was reached without any of the haggling needed to produce a sim...
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CLINTON IN EUROPE; In Belarus, Memorials Define a Nation
By STEVEN ERLANGER,
MINSK, Belarus, Jan. 12? President Clinton's decision to lay a wreath in the Kuropaty Forest, just off the highway from the airport, as he arrives in Minsk has ignited a debate that tells much about Belarus's fragile sovereignty and Soviet-style politics. 

The fuss threatens to overshadow Mr. Clinton's six-hour visit here on Saturday, a quick thank-you to the former Soviet republic for agreeing to give up all 81 of its SS-25 nuclear missiles, an accord that was reached without any of the haggling needed to produce a similar pledge by Ukraine. 

Kuropaty, an ice-covered clearing in the forest marked by a crude wooden cross embellished with a circle of barbed wire, is not one of the plentiful memorials in this blood-soaked country to the victims of Nazi Germany. It is the site of a mass grave of those executed by Stalin's secret police from 1937 to 1941, and it is thought to contain up to 200,000 corpses. Symbol of a Nation 

The current Government looks at Kuropaty with extreme ambivalence. 

When excavation at the site began in 1988, Kuropaty took on symbolic importance for nationalists. The archeologist who discovered it, Zyanon Paznyak, a leader of the political opposition, regards Prime Minister Vyacheslav F. Kebich as a traitor, accusing him of "conducting a pro-imperial, pro-Russian policy." 

So the wreath-laying will serve to highlight Mr. Clinton's support for faster political and economic change in this nation of 10.7 million, including early elections to a Parliament that has been in place since 1990, before independence. 

Mr. Kebich said in an interview that the legislature had decided to ask the White House to schedule Mr. Clinton's visit to Kuropaty last, as he departs -- and not before paying his respects at the official Soviet-built monument to the victims of Nazism in downtown Victory Square. Legacy of Bloody Wars 

But for Mr. Paznyak, such a schedule change would be an outrage. 

"The old Communist Party and Supreme Soviet are still in place in Belarus," he said. "Kuropaty is a crime committed by their predecessors, and they hate that Mr. Clinton will pay respects to this horrible place, this factory of death. It is a symbol of Stalin's genocide and the massacre of our nation." 

A senior Western diplomat said it was unlikely that Mr. Clinton's schedule would change. 

Like Ukraine, to the south, Belarus has seen centuries of bloodshed and has been chewed up by many larger neighbors. An estimated 1.3 million Belarusians died during the Nazi occupation in World War II -- including virtually every Jew and half the population of Minsk. 

Up to 2 million died in Stalin's purges. 

And Belarus, like Ukraine, is trying to build an independent state, but on weaker foundations, with little left of ancient Belarusian culture. Except for the Nazi occupation and a few months of independence after the Russian Revolution, the area has been under the control of Russia since 1772, and of Poland and Lithuania before that. Few people even speak Belarusian. 

"Not so long ago, on a tram car, if I heard someone speaking Belarusian, I knew who it was without even turning around," said Ihar Germyanchuk, an opposition deputy and editor of Svaboda, or Liberty, a small nationalist newspaper. 

So Kuropaty is also important in the search for symbols of Belarusian nationality. Minsk's vast main street, for instance, once named for Lenin, is now named for Frantsisk Skaryna, born about 1490. He was Belarusian all right, but he is honored for having printed the first Bible in what was then Lithuania, and he spent most of his life in Cracow and Prague. 'Think of Survival First' 

Stanislav S. Shushkevich, the embattled centrist democrat who is Chairman of the Supreme Soviet, says Belarusians have learned humility from their history, which helps to explain the paucity of reform and the willingness to kowtow, if necessary, to Russia. 

"We've been beaten so many times and put in such difficult situations, we always think of survival first," said Mr. Shushkevich, a nuclear physicist. 

Mr. Shushkevich has been kept in power by Mr. Paznyak and the opposition, but he tries to steer a course between them and the old Communist officials around Mr. Kebich, who now promises elections this year, after rejecting a petition to hold them earlier. 

"I don't sense the building of an independent state," Mr. Shushkevich said. He finds the Government to be reactive and wavering, first promoting a Belarusian currency and then, as inflation worsened, promoting an ill-defined economic union with Russia. In the Bear's Embrace 

Many workers see the embrace of Moscow and its ruble as a sort of salvation. One said, "I can't think of sovereignty and independence when I can't feed or clothe my son." 

Mr. Kebich denies that economic union, which is by no means fully negotiated, would diminish sovereignty -- despite the need to coordinate Minsk's currency, budget and financial policies with Moscow. 

"We're realists," he said. All oil and gas pipelines come from Russia and 75 percent of Belarusian industry depends on Russian products and markets. 

But when asked if he is worried about Russia's putting economic pressure on Belarus, he replied: "Of course we're worried. That's why we should behave ourselves! That's why we must behave very quietly!" 

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September 22, 1993
SHOWDOWN IN MOSCOW; YELTSIN AND LEGISLATURE ACT TO OUST EACH OTHER; CLINTON BACKS PRESIDENT
By SERGE SCHMEMANN,
Declaring that the "irreconcilable opposition" of the Russian legislature, with its large number of Communists, had paralyzed his reforms and his ability to govern, President Boris N. Yeltsin ordered the group dissolved on Tuesday and called elections to a new parliament for December. Almost immediately, the Supreme Soviet voted by an overwhelming margin to depose Mr. Yeltsin and ordered security forces not to obey him.
SHOWDOWN IN MOSCOW; YELTSIN AND LEGISLATURE ACT TO OUST EACH OTHER; CLINTON BACKS PRESIDENT
By SERGE SCHMEMANN,
Correction Appended 
MOSCOW, Wednesday, Sept. 22? Declaring that the "irreconcilable opposition" of the Russian legislature, with its large number of Communists, had paralyzed his reforms and his ability to govern, President Boris N. Yeltsin ordered the group dissolved on Tuesday and called elections to a new parliament for December. 

Almost immediately, the Supreme Soviet voted by an overwhelming margin to depose Mr. Yeltsin and ordered security forces not to obey him. 

To wild applause, the deputies then swore in Vice President Aleksandr V. Rutskoi as acting president. Mr. Rutskoi, a hero of the Afghan war and erstwhile ally of Mr. Yeltsin, has become his most bitter foe and an open champion of reconstituting the Soviet Union. Few Signs of Troops 

For the moment, Moscow was calm. The Army pledged "strict neutrality," and there were no signs of sizeable troop movements in the capital. 

As night fell Tuesday, some truckloads of soldiers and police officers were spotted outside the offices of the Mayor, near the headquarters of the legislature. Truckloads of soldiers also pulled up to the Central Bank, the Finance Ministry and the central television complex, for which Mr. Yeltsin ordered "intensified security." 

Several hundred furious hard-line Communists gathered around bonfires outside the Parliament building to build makeshift barricades and to shout their hatred of Mr. Yeltsin. Court Upholds Ouster of Yeltsin 

A crack unit of Interior Ministry troops loyal to Mr. Yeltsin, the Dzer zhinsky Division, had been moved into the capital earlier in the week, purportedly to help fight crime, but they were not in evidence. In a brief appearance on television, the Interior Minister, Viktor F. Yerin, said his commanders "correctly understood" Mr. Yeltsin's decree. [ Excerpt from Mr. Yeltsin's speech, page A19. ] 

As the Supreme Soviet adjourned early today, the Constitutional Court -- whose chairman, Valery D. Zorkin, has long been openly hostile to Mr. Yeltsin -- upheld the decision to depose Mr. Yeltsin. 

With that, the bitter political feud that has undermined Russia's fledgling attempts at democracy and market economics reached the open fracture that has been widely predicted and feared, with the threat of civil violence between parallel governments now real and no evident ground left for compromise. In the past, Mr. Yeltsin and Parliament have backed away from direct clashes, and there was little certainty this morning about what might occur. 

As domestic politicians and foreign governments began choosing sides, various prospects loomed, from total paralysis of the Government to bloodshed. Much depends on how regional authorities will respond, and on what moves Mr. Yeltsin or Parliament take next. Some moderate voices called for immediate elections for President and Parliament. 

Preceded by two days of nervous rumors, Mr. Yeltsin appeared on national television at 8 P.M. Tuesday to finally make the move that he has repeatedly threatened in the nine months since his feud with the conservative, Communist-dominated legislature changed from political scuffling to a total battle over Russia's destiny. 'Irreconcilable Opposition' 

The legislature, he declared, "has ceased to be an organ of rule by the people." 

"Power in the Supreme Soviet of Russia has been seized by a group of persons who have turned it into the headquarters of irreconcilable opposition," he added. 

Pausing in his measured and stern delivery, Mr. Yeltsin sipped slowly from a teacup and then issued his verdict: "My duty as President is to state that the current corps of deputies has lost its right to be in control of crucial levers of state power." 

Anybody who tried to block the elections would be brought to justice, he declared, though all current deputies had the right to run for the new, two-chamber parliament. 

Soon after, at a hastily convened news conference at Parliament headquarters -- the same White House from which Mr. Yeltsin led his resistance to the Communist putsch two years earlier -- Ruslan I. Khasbulatov, the wily Speaker of Parliament who has orchestrated the opposition to Mr. Yeltsin, declared: "This putsch will collapse with a crash." 

Sitting next to him, Mr. Rutskoi warned darkly that "combat action is not to be excluded." The Recent History 

Russia's legislature consists of two bodies. One is the Congress of People's Deputies, with about a thousand members, which meets infrequently. The other is the Supreme Soviet, whose 250 members meet regularly and make day-to-day decisions. 

The deputies were elected in 1989, in the era of Mikhail S. Gorbachev, when the Communist Party still ruled supreme. Rules set by the party insured the election of many Communists and extreme nationalists, who have blocked Mr. Yeltsin's legislation at every turn. Their terms end in 1995. 

Mr. Yeltsin was elected President in 1990; his term expires in 1996. 

The actions by Mr. Yeltsin and by Parliament were legally questionable, but since the Russian Constitution is based on the Soviet Communist one of the Brezhnev era, the rule of law has had little respect in the current political atmosphere. 

In his televised address, Mr. Yeltsin made no reference to the use of force, except to declare that anyone resisting his decree would be subject to arrest. Mr. Rutskoi, for his part, issued his first decree, ordering the Ministries of Defense, Interior and Security to obey the Constitution. 

[ In a telephone interview with the ABC News program Nightline, Mr. Rutskoi was quoted as saying he had removed the defense and security ministers and replaced them with his own nominees. ] 

[ Mr. Rutskoi said he named Gen. Viktor P. Barannikov as new security minister. Mr. Yeltsin dismissed General Barannikov as security minister on July 27, charging him with corruption. Mr. Rutskoi also said he was naming as new defense minister "General Achalov" -- apparently Vladislav Achalov, a former deputy minister of defense who took part in the attempted coup in August 1991. ] 

Western governments quickly lined up behind Mr. Yeltsin, as did the governments of Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan. 

Once again, Moscow was gripped by intense suspense and crisis. Initial reports spoke of emergency meetings of regional administrations and councils around the country. Much depends on the responses by the leaders of Russia's increasingly assertive regions -- the provinces and ethnic republics -- and on whether violence breaks out. 

But the early declarations from the regions were mostly calls for calm. 

On Saturday, Mr. Yeltsin met with regional leaders in an attempt to create a Council of the Federation, which he hoped would become an alternative legislature. But the conference failed to agree on a founding charter, leaving unclear how strongly the leaders will back Mr. Yeltsin now. Regional and urban legislatures seemed likely to come down on the side of the Parliament. 

There is the chance that the conflict will become simply another phase in the interminable feud between Mr. Yeltsin and the deputies, further undermining governance and reform until the two exhausted sides finally agree to simultaneous re-election. 

There is also the chance that the President, having learned from thwarted offensives in the past, planned this one through to the end and, through force or political maneuver, will succeed in routing the legislature and Mr. Rutskoi, and in holding new elections. 

And there is the chance that Mr. Khasbulatov and the Supreme Soviet will outmaneuver Mr. Yeltsin. 

The mood at the Moscow White House, at any rate, was upbeat, and many deputies seemed to believe that Mr. Yeltsin had finally overstepped his limits and had opened the way for the deputies to force him aside. 

The formal basis for deposing Mr. Yeltsin was a constitutional amendment passed earlier this year by the legislature declaring that if the President tried to dissolve parliament, he would automatically lose his powers. Bicameral Congress Proposed 

On Mr. Yeltsin's side, Prime Minister Viktor S. Chernomyrdin went on television to declare the Government's support for the President. 

Mr. Yeltsin's formal decree, published separately on Tuesday night, called for the disbanding of the Congress of Peoples' Deputies and the Supreme Soviet. It also called for elections to a new bicameral parliament: a federal assembly with an upper Council of the Federation, composed of leaders of the regions, and a lower State Duma of popularly elected deputies. He called for elections to the Duma to be held Dec. 11 and 12. 

Until the new parliament was elected, Mr. Yeltsin said the Central Bank, the General Procurator and the Ministries of Defense, Interior and Security would come under his control. 

In his speech, Mr. Yeltsin said he would call early elections for the presidency once the new parliament was in place. But he gave no date. Yeltsin's Legal Argument 

Mr. Yeltsin devoted much of his address to an attempt to give his move a legal basis, since he had no legal grounds to dissolve the Congress. Under the Constitution, the Congress of People's Deputies has virtually unlimited power to legislate. 

He argued that he derived his authority not from the Constitution but from the people, as the only nationally elected official. It was therefore his ultimate responsibility, he asserted, to save Russia from a body that had "lost its ability to perform the main function of a representative body, the function of concerting public interests." 

"The security of Russia and her people is a higher value than formal compliance with the controversial laws produced by a legislature that has totally discredited itself," he declared. "The time has come for the most serious decision." 

Photos: President Boris N. Yeltsin, top, calling for dissolution of Parliament. (Reuters); Vice President Aleksandr V. Rutskoi, bottom right, a Yeltsin foe, met reporters after the speech. He was later sworn in as acting president. (Agence France-Presse (pg. A1) Chart/Photos/Chronology: "The Players and their Moves" BORIS N. YELTSIN -- President First democratically elected President of Russia . . . led the resistance to the failed coup d'etat against Mikhail S. Gorbachev in August 1991 . . . made enemies of allies in Parliament with his push for quick reforms . . . 62 years old . . . RUSLAN I. KHASBULATOV -- Speaker of Parliament A former ally of Yeltsin . . . led lawmakers in chipping away at President's power and hampering his reforms . . . 50 years old . . . doctorate in economics . . . supports a free market, but more gradual transition. ALEKSANDR V. RUTSKOI -- Vice President Yeltsin's former ally and Vice President . . . has accused administration of corruption and been accused of corruption in return . . . 45 years old . . . Afghan War hero . . . has backed the military-industrial complex in opposing Yeltsin's defense cutbacks. VALERY D. ZORKIN -- Constitutional Court chairman Often sided with Yeltsin's opponents when court tips the balance in the power struggle between President and Parliament . . . 50 years old . . . taught law at Moscow University Chronology of events Tuesday 8 P.M. -- Yeltsin dissolves Parliament and calls elections for a new legislature in december. 9 P.M. -- Khasbulatov calls the action a "state coup," calls for a general strike, orders the police and military to ignore any of Yeltsin's orders. 10 P.M. -- Zorkin joins Khasbulatov at Parliament for a news conference and offers his support. Wednesday 12 A.M. Parliament, under Khasbulatov, names Rutskoi acting president. Rutskoi's first mandate is to nullify all decrees Yeltsin made the previous day. 1 A.M. 4,000 people remain gathered in front the the White House in Moscow. 2 A.M. Constitutional court declares Yeltsin's decree grounds for impeachment. Moscow is eight hours ahead of Eastern daylight time. (pg. A18) Map of Moscow shows location of Russian Parliament. (pg. A18) 

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August 16, 1993
Ex-Soviet Republics Look Again to Russia; Undemocratic Belarus
To the Editor: While Belarus can be commended for its policy on getting rid of nuclear missiles, promoting the country as a model for other former Soviet republics seems out of place ('Belarus, a Model for Ukraine," editorial, Aug. 4). Belarus is one of the least democratic of the former republics, with the former Communist bureaucracy entrenched at all government levels.
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Ex-Soviet Republics Look Again to Russia; Undemocratic Belarus
To the Editor: 

While Belarus can be commended for its policy on getting rid of nuclear missiles, promoting the country as a model for other former Soviet republics seems out of place ('Belarus, a Model for Ukraine," editorial, Aug. 4). Belarus is one of the least democratic of the former republics, with the former Communist bureaucracy entrenched at all government levels. 

Since gaining independence in 1991, Belarus has made little progress in democratization and hardly any in economic reforms. Last year the parliament ignored a petition, signed by 400,000 voters and validated by the electoral commission, for a referendum on early parliamentary elections. Most news media are government owned or subsidized. Last Jan. 1 the few independent radio and television stations were shut down. 

As for the economy, Soviet-style price controls and production quotas remain in effect, and 90 percent of the property is state-owned. In terms of governance, Belarus has a long way to go before it can be promoted as an example to be followed by any other country. ART B. ARTMAN Research Assistant, Freedom House New York, Aug. 4, 1993 

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December 27, 1991
AFTER THE SOVIET UNION; New Names For New Lands
With the independence of the former Soviet republics, a number of changed names and spellings have emerged in diplomatic messages and official English-language pronouncements. Five of the republics have adopted preferred English-language versions of their names, and their preference generally guides the usage of other governments.
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AFTER THE SOVIET UNION
AFTER THE SOVIET UNION; New Names For New Lands

With the independence of the former Soviet republics, a number of changed names and spellings have emerged in diplomatic messages and official English-language pronouncements.

Five of the republics have adopted preferred English-language versions of their names, and their preference generally guides the usage of other governments.

Byelorussia has adopted Belarus, Kirghizia is Kyrgyzstan, Moldavia is Moldova, Tadzhikistan is Tajikistan and Turkmenia is Turkmenistan.

The remaining former Soviet republics are retaining the traditional English-language renderings of their names: Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan.
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