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Date:         Wed, 18 Nov 1992 21:53:51 -0600
From:         "VALENTINE M. SMITH" <CDELL@UMKCVAX1.BITNET>
Subject:      Comments on the "CIS" ..., (#792)
Comments: To: val-l@ucf1vm.bitnet, jwales@iubvm.bitnet, olsenj@stolaf.edu,
          kousen@rayleigh.res.utc.com, klur@maristb.bitnet, christic@igc.org,
          blank@physics.ucla.edu, 76701.103@compuserve.com,
          anthlal@umnacvx.BITNET

Comments on the "CIS"-

As I must study for two tests tonight, and in the morning, I plan to
be out of touch most of the next 16 hours, though touching base
periodically, so this commentary will be short, and perhaps more
questions than comments.

Yesterday, the RFE/RL reports mentioned a "CIS" conference to be held
4 December, the report very ambiuously did not say where the
conference was to be held. What I found intriguing about the dispatch
was that there were AT LEAST three conflicting mssages in that one
paragraph - that Kazakhstan's Nazerbaev saw the summit as "critical,"
that Shavardnadze of Georgia saw the CIS as an impediment that
Georgia wants no part of, and PM Kebich of Belarus thinks the
conference will or ought to be delayed because of the opening of the
Russian Congress of People's Deputies on 1 December.

This observer agrees with both Kebich and Nazerbaev in that the CIS
summit IS important, and WILL probably be delayed. I think the CIS is
dead, what with Ukraine out of the ruble zone, Georgia hostile to the
idea of the CIS (and has consistently been opposed to the idea since
it first came to pass last fall), Azerbaijan is leaning more to a
Turkish "orbit," (as may also be the case for Kyrgystan, Uzbekstan,
Tajikstan, and Turkmenstan) and no one save the Russians seems to
support the idea of joint defense forces, OR joint currency.

I think Nazerbaev's "go together, or go separately with rancor" makes
good sense, at least in the short term. Let all the nations who want
to be nations do so! They will find out how hard it is to be a
responsible part of the comity of nations, that it cannot be done
just by declaring sovereignty from the "old empire" of the Soviets
and before. But, sovereignty IS important, and new alliances will be
formed in the swirling landscape that was once the vaunted
"monolith," the USSR. I suspect a chunk of blood will be spilled
before everyone is content, if ever. The hot spots within the CIS
(nominally) and the remnants of Soviet times - Nagorno-Karabakh, the
Crimea, the Trans-Dniester region of Moldova, the Baltics (though
more stable than one might think facing 130,000 troops on their
soil).

The CIS has much about it to pull the "organization" assunder, little
to commend its longevity. Will Yeltsin be distracted by the Congress
enough to agree to postpone the summit? If the summit is postponed,
does that signal Russia first, CIS second in Russian minds? What will
Georgia do if the CIS continues to exist? How will the varied, and
more numerous land claims of the old SU to be settled? Who gets what?
How far does sovereignty's writ go downward? To Tatarstan as nation?
What of Chechen, Ingushestia, the Caucasus peoples, the Russians in
Crimea and Dniester, the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave, and the Yakuts, to
name but a few?

Then, the thorny questions arise of Ukraine and Kazakhstan still
armed with strategic nukes, or so it would appear. How will this be
dealt with in "the new scheme of things?" What sovereign power will
get these weapons, or will Russia gather them back into the fold
without incident? Over 100 nuclear materials-related "incidents" have
occurred in Europe in the 15 months since the would-be Russian putsch
failed. Does anyone, in or out of the "CIS," have any idea of who has
what, who might have sold what, and what has already gotten away?

The last six weeks of the year promise to be as chock full of
surprises as the rest of the year has been. The CIS is gasping for
air despite niminal adherence to it by 10 or 11 states (I've read
that Azerbaijan is, and isn't, a signatory to the CIS treaties of
Minsk from last year - I do not know the truth of this), but also as
growing stridency between the so-called "allied CIS powers" is
happening almost daily, and open fighting is going on between several
ethnic groups against several others.

Much of how the next year will go may rest on the fate of the "CIS,"
and that may well be a turbulent period as much disintegrates and
changes form in what used to never change. Are we ready for even more
wrenches to the soul than we have had - those affected, Joseph
Brodsky might say - watching the tragedy of Bosnia-Hercegovina? If
the "CIS" collapses, will the dreams of "empire" return, and who will
carry empire's banner if it awakes anew? VMS
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