U.S. Boosts Aid to Former Soviet Union

Acting Secretary of State Lawrence S. Eagleburger said Friday that the United States will provide $412 million worth of food and medicine to the former Soviet Union this winter, almost doubling the $417 million in aid approved by the U.S. Congress earlier this month.

His announcement came at a closing news conference after representatives of 70 nations and 19 international groups completed two days of talks on how to alleviate the crushing economic problems facing Russia and its sister republics.

“We have generated and coordinated substantial support,” Eagleburger said. But “none of us would argue that this guarantees the success of the reform effort in any of the republics of the former Soviet Union. I would not deny for a moment . . . that they all have difficult problems facing them.”

Japan and some European countries also promised more humanitarian assistance this winter. But the conference declined to issue a cumulative total.

U.S. officials said that all but $100 million of the $412 million that Eagleburger announced Friday was part of earlier U.S. pledges; the money, however, had not been committed and was not part of the Freedom Support Act passed by Congress.

The new aid was a fraction of the $90 billion that Jean-Louis Cadieux, deputy director general of the European Community, said has already been contributed without stopping a dramatic economic decline in all of the now-independent former Soviet states.

Instead, the conference established consultative groups, organized by the World Bank, to plan technical assistance for the new nations. Russia--which had resisted a leading role for the World Bank, arguing that the former Soviet republics should not be treated like the Third World nations usually aided by the bank--dropped its opposition.

“The Russian Federation doesn’t want to be seen as a developing country,” a senior State Department official said. “They have a lot of national pride, which is understood by the international community.”

Still, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Shokhin conceded that his country needs all the help it can get. Speaking to reporters before meeting privately with Eagleburger, Shokhin said Russia’s most pressing need is for a rescheduling of that part of the Soviet debt that Russia has agreed to repay. “Technical and humanitarian assistance will only be a very, very small part of real needs,” he said.

Aleksandr Chikvaidze, foreign minister of the former Soviet republic of Georgia, said his country needs assistance in building its basic infrastructure. “Humanitarian help is very good, but it is a drop in the ocean,” he said.

Japanese Foreign Minister Michio Watanabe said his government decided to go ahead with a $100-million aid package despite Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin’s abrupt cancellation of a scheduled visit to Japan. Watanabe said the aid package had been planned to coincide with the Yeltsin visit.

At the time, he had angrily threatened to cancel the aid conference in response to Yeltsin’s refusal to visit Japan. But Friday he said only that the Russian president’s decision “was rather shocking to the Japanese public.”

Eagleburger praised Japan for hosting the conference despite its strained relations with Russia. He said the decision showed that Tokyo is ready to play a more important world role, something Washington has urged for years.