Putin tells leaders of ex-Soviet bloc to preserve unity
HENRY MEYER

AP Worldstream
May 08, 2005

Russian President Vladimir Putin told leaders of the troubled
Commonwealth of Independent States on Sunday that their grouping of
ex-Soviet republics remained relevant today and urged them to defend
its existence.

At a summit held the day before commemorations of the 60th anniversary
of the defeat of Nazi Germany, Putin said the body that groups 12
out of the 15 former Soviet republics had a key role in combatting
the spread of terrorism, extremism and xenophobia and fostering peace.

“For all of us it is obvious that Nazism, extremism and terrorism are
threats feeding on a single ideological source, a terrible threat,
against which we are obliged to defend our unique and peaceful
commonwealth,” Putin said.

“The new generation of our citizens should know the truth about the
events of those days. To know that truth means having an internal
immunity to the propaganda of extremism and xenophobia, national and
religious incitement. In the final analysis, it means to protect
the world from a repeat of conflicts and wars based on genocide,
national and racial superiority.

“I’m convinced that the CIS is capable of becoming an effective
instrument of such … work,” he said.

The meeting convened amid growing questions about the viability of
the CIS, which brings reformist leaders cheek to cheek with entrenched
Soviet-era autocrats following the popular uprisings against regimes
in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan.

Putin himself in March questioned the body’s usefulness, saying it
had been created for a “civilized divorce” unlike the European Union,
which worked to pull its members closer together.

But on Sunday he said that six decades after the end of what Russia
terms the Great Patriotic War, the fraternity the peoples of the
Soviet Union felt as they fought in World War II was still palpable
today. Maintaining “historical unity” was a good basis for stable
development of the countries, he said.

In a reflection of the disputes between the member-countries, two of
the leaders, Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili and Azerbaijani
President Ilham Aliev, were not attending.

Saakashvili was staying away from Sunday’s meeting, as well as Monday’s
Victory in Europe Day celebration in Moscow, because Georgia failed
to win agreement last week on the withdrawal of Russian bases it
regards as a legacy of Moscow’s imperial domination.

Aliev was boycotting because of the attendance of Armenian President
Robert Kocharian, and because Sunday is a day of mourning, marking
a key battle during the six-year war between Armenia and Azerbaijan
over the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh.

The CIS was born in the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, and its
advocates hoped it would foster closer integration between the newly
independent countries. However, many of its initiatives have foundered
_ including the plans to remove trade barriers that have dominated
the CIS agenda since its creation _ and it has long been criticized
for being little more than a talking shop.

The group’s attempts to prove otherwise have often only fostered more
discord. Its peacekeepers have been accused of destabilizing conflict
zones in the former Soviet Union, and its election monitors _ deployed
to provide a counterbalance to Western-dominated observer missions
from such groups as the Council of Europe and the Organization for
Security and Cooperation in Europe _ have consistently given high
marks to blatantly fraudulent ballots.

Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova, where the Communist government is also
looking West, are aiming for membership in the EU and NATO,and they
have forged close ties within a rival organization, GUUAM, as they
seek to throw off Moscow’s influence.

Uzbekistan’s authoritarian President Islam Karimov quit the five-nation
body this week in protest at its pro-Western tilt.