Yeltsin signs tame union pact linking Russia and Belarus

PRESIDENT Yeltsin yielded to out rage from the media, liberals and some of his closest supporters yesterday and signed a largely…

PRESIDENT Yeltsin yielded to out rage from the media, liberals and some of his closest supporters yesterday and signed a largely symbolic "Union Treaty" with Belarus. It stops far short of the full blooded reunification Russian nationalists had hoped for and keeps Belarus's president, Mr Alexander Lukashenko, at arm's length from interference in Russian affairs.

Up to the last minute, it had seemed that Mr Yeltsin and Mr Lukashenko would sign into being a new confederation deliberately modelled on a combination of NATO and the most extreme federalist version of the European Union. In the end, to Mr Lukashenko's chagrin, they signed only a short, declarative document setting up a "Union of Russia and Belarus".

In Minsk, the capital of Belarus, last night, baton wielding police clashed with pro independence protesters. Scuffles began when more than 2,000 protesters broke away from a 4,000 strong group after a peaceful march and headed towards the Russian embassy. Witnesses said at least 100 people, had been detained.

The most controversial articles of the unification plan - including the powers of a "Higher Council" which would have given the Belarussians an equal say with the Russian leadership - were put into a separate draft charter which will be thrown open to what is sure to be a stormy public debate.

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"The union does not create a single state," said Mr Yeltsin before the signing ceremony in the Kremlin. "Each side maintains its sovereignty. At the same time it takes our integration into a qualitatively new phase."

He made clear it was the draft charter, now likely to be significantly revised, which will fix the nature of the union. "It is the charter which will become the legal and political basis for the unification of peoples," he said.

A senior government minister, Mr Boris Nemtsov, expressed the relief of Russian reformers when he said the new document was "much more thought out than before, thanks to intelligent people".

Yet Mr Lukashenko's allies in Russia, such as the Communist leader, Mr Gennady Zyuganov, also said they were pleased. "I congratulate you," he told journalists. "Once again, we are all living in the Union."

As with last year's community treaty between Russia and Belarus, and an earlier customs union, Mr Yeltsin is trying to placate popular Soviet nostalgic and Pan Slavic sentiments. Many Russians bear a bitter grudge against him for signing the 1991 Belovezhskaya treaty which dismantled the USSR.

Closer ties between the Russian and Belarussian military would cock a snook at NATO, potentially creating a new frontline between a NATO Poland and a Union Belarus and bringing Russian forward positions to within 40 miles of their western enclave of Kaliningrad. Moscow also plans to use Belarus as an alternative transit route for Siberian natural gas to western Europe.

Apart from a small minority of nationalists, Belarussians have not felt comfortable with independence, and most Russians, including liberals, support unification.

What Russian reformers fear is not so much a union with Belarus as a union with Alexander Lukashenko, a glib populist who has spoken approvingly of Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin, repressed the media, free trade unions and opposition politicians and broken the law to give himself near dictatorial powers.

Western financial organisations have given up Belarus as a hopeless case and the speed of privatisation and market reforms is wildly out of step with Russian. Nevertheless, some Russian experts believe Belarus, which has only 10 million people to Russia's 148 million, could be hooked up to the Russian economy without serious consequences.

But Russian economic reformers, such as Mr Nemtsov and Mr Anatoly Chubais, both close to Mr Yeltsin, are afraid that instead of Belarus adopting Russian policies, the Union would act as a kind of Trojan horse, planting Soviet revivalists in positions of power in Russia.

As previously drafted, the Union agreement would have left, Mr Yeltsin dangerously outnumbered in the Higher Council by Belarussians and Russians who abhor the collapse of the USSR and radical market reforms.