Odd mix of ex-Soviet rulers meet, some stay away
By Jonathan Thatcher
Reuters, UK
May 7 2005
MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday hosts
leaders of an ill-assorted alliance of former Soviet states, kicking
off three days of summits and glittering parties he hopes will lift
his international image.
The high point of the May 8-10 ceremonies will be Monday’s 60th
anniversary of the Soviet defeat of Nazi Germany in World War Two,
attended by over 50 leaders, among them U.S. President George W. Bush
and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.
The gatherings come after stinging criticism by the United States of
what it sees as Putin’s excessively strong grip on power and concerns
over the risks of investing in Russia rooted in uncertainty over the
application of laws.
Russia itself has had to watch its influence, in a region where it
once held absolute sway, steadily erode as former colonies shift their
allegiance from Moscow and towards a welcoming and more financially
alluring West.
The Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) joins 12 of the 15 old
Soviet republics, stretching from Central Asia on the border with
China to the edge of the European Union, with a combined population
of 280 million — half of it in Russia.
They are ruled by an unlikely mix of leaders, most of whom trace
their political roots to the Soviet days and who rose to power in
elections internationally criticised as flawed at best.
At one end of the political spectrum are the autocratic rulers of much
of Central Asia, including Turkmenistan’s President Saparmurat Niyazov
who has built up a bizarre personality cult, and Belarus’s Alexander
Lukashenko who heads what Washington calls Europe’s last dictatorship.
Most have made plain that they will not ease their grip and allow the
‘people power’ revolutions that brought pro-Western leaders to office
in Georgia and Ukraine.
Tiny Moldova too is slipping out of Russia’s orbit with its president,
Vladimir Voronin, and the only official communist leader in the CIS,
saying he wants greater integration with the West.
Georgia will be the last port of call for Bush on his tour of the
region which began in the Baltic states, also once part of the Kremlin
empire but which as EU members now are pressing Moscow to atone for
decades of Soviet oppression.
It will confirm Kremlin alarm that Washington is stepping a little too
eagerly into its former domain. On Saturday, Bush rubbed salt into
the wound by saying the Baltic states were an example of democracy
for Russia.
GEORGIAN LEADER BOYCOTTS PARTY
Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili — who came to power in the
‘Rose Revolution’ in late 2003 — is boycotting the Moscow festivities
after failing to reach a deal late last week with Russia to quickly
dismantle Soviet-era bases on Georgian soil that he calls a form
of occupation.
Azeri President Ilham Aliyev is also staying at home rather than
meet Armenian leader Robert Kocharyan on May 8 which is also the
anniversary of a decisive defeat of Azeri forces in the war over
Nagorno-Karabakh, one of the bloodiest conflicts to erupt in the
dying days of the Soviet Union.
But Ukraine’s President Viktor Yushchenko, who came to power in the
last ‘Orange Revolution’ and defeated the candidate openly backed by
Putin, will attend the CIS meeting.
Putin, who dismisses suggestions that the group is an attempt by the
Kremlin to hang on to past glory, says the CIS still has value.
“(It is) a very important instrument that helps us to exchange
information, to solve common political, humanitarian and administrative
problems. We … must not lose this,” he said recently.
A key goal of the CIS has been to try to resume trade ties and
recreate what it calls a single economic space but latest statistics
show that the group accounts for just 17 percent of Russia’s exports
and 21 percent of its imports.