Russia, Belarus Sign Union Treaty

Striking back at the West for its planned expansion of NATO, Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin signed a pact Wednesday with Belarus to form a new union that will seek economic and political integration of the two nations.

By signing the pact with Belarus’ authoritarian ruler, Alexander G. Lukashenko, Yeltsin gains a buffer between Russia’s western border and Poland--a likely candidate for North Atlantic Treaty Organization membership. But the move toward reunification with Belarus--a much smaller country with a backward economy and a Soviet-style leader--could ultimately prove a financial and political liability for Russia.

The treaty is a beefed-up version of a similar pact signed by the duo last year and was sought by Lukashenko in the hope of bailing out Belarus’ struggling economy. Critics of the union contend that it also could open a door for the ambitious Lukashenko, who they say aspires to succeed Yeltsin.

The move gratified those residents in both countries who long for the old days of the mighty Soviet Union, which until 1991 included Russia, Belarus and 13 other republics.

However, faced with opposition--including objections from members of his own government--Yeltsin backed away at the last minute from signing a more sweeping treaty that would have brought the two nations into even closer partnership.

“The union of Belarus and Russia doesn’t create a single state,” Yeltsin said at a Kremlin ceremony with Lukashenko to sign the agreement. “Both countries preserve their sovereignty.”

The pact cites the “spiritual closeness and common historical destiny” of the two countries and calls for “integration in the economic and other spheres of public life.”

Among the goals of the union are “to ensure security and maintain a high level of defense capability” and “to help ensure European security.”

The treaty is the biggest step toward re-integration by any of the former Soviet republics since the empire collapsed.

Lukashenko, 42, has become an international pariah in recent months for his seizure of broader presidential powers, his crackdown on the Belarus opposition movement and his repression of the press. Last week, Lukashenko ordered the deportation of a Russian television correspondent who had been covering the opposition movement in Belarus.

After Yeltsin and Lukashenko signed the pact, Russian television showed footage of police in Minsk, the capital of Belarus, beating and kicking demonstrators they had arrested in protests against the new treaty.

Belarus may be best remembered in the United States most recently for shooting down a hot-air balloon in 1995 during a major international race, killing two American balloonists.

Lukashenko, who earlier gained notoriety for praising the methods of Adolf Hitler, proclaimed last week that his people wanted him to model himself after Josef Stalin. “People are saying, ‘Mr. President, give us dictatorship. Give us Stalin’s times,’ ” Lukashenko said in a television appearance.

The United States recently canceled $40 million in aid to Belarus in protest over its human rights record. It also expelled the Belarussian ambassador in Washington after a U.S. diplomat was detained by police at a protest in Minsk and expelled from Belarus.

In a Moscow visit Friday, Lukashenko charged that he has been the victim of a slander campaign orchestrated by the West. “We are facing a propaganda aggression against Belarus, and big money is being spent on it,” he said. “Its aim is to prevent the next step in the Russian-Belarussian integration.”

Unlike Russia, which has privatized large segments of its economy and moved haltingly to a market economy, Belarus under Lukashenko has maintained a state-run economy in the Soviet style.

While the two economies are no longer compatible, the pact gives Yeltsin something to offer nationalist critics who complained of his inability to stop the enlargement of NATO when he met last month with President Clinton at the Helsinki summit in Finland.

Inspired by the treaty with Belarus, Communist members of the Russian parliament proposed reinstating the hammer-and-sickle emblem and red flag of Soviet days but fell short of the needed votes.