The First Years of U.S. - Diplomatic Relations David H. Swartz September, 2020 The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics effectively arrived at its welcome demise on December 8, 1991, at a Belarus government dacha in the Belavezhskaya Pushcha of western Belarus. The signing of the so-called Belavezha Accords by, inter alia, Belarus Supreme Soviet Chairman Stanislau Shushkevich, Russia President , and Ukraine President was most certainly an event of exceptional importance. “Signing the Agreement to eliminate the USSR and establish the On December 25, 1991, the U.S. Commonwealth of Independent States”. Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk (second from left seated), Chairman of the Supreme recognized Belarus’ independence and Council of the Republic of Belarus (third from established diplomatic relations when left seated) and Russian President Boris Yeltsin (second from right President George H.W. Bush seated) during the signing ceremony to eliminate the USSR and establish the Commonwealth of Independent States. Viskuly announced these decisions in a Government House in the Belorusian National Park "Belovezhskaya nationwide address regarding the Forest". (Wikipedia) of the . The U.S. Embassy in was, according to the State Department’s Office of the Historian, officially opened on January 31, 1992. However, an “Advance Party” of the U.S. Embassy was organized and sent to Minsk earlier in January to undertake the necessary preparations. At about that time I entered the picture, having been selected to preside over the official opening as well as to prepare for appointment as ambassador once the two countries had agreed on exchanges of chiefs of missions and when. My Belarusian counterpart, in that regard, was Syargey Martynau, who was then serving in the Foreign Ministry and eventually became Belarus’ first ambassador to the United States. I arrived in Minsk as charge d’affaires ad interim in mid-January. The Advance Party had been lodged in several rooms of the Hotel Belarus, north of downtown, pending negotiations with the Foreign Ministry over a reciprocal agreement on embassy locations in the two capitals and other housing issues. The staff when I arrived included one consular officer, one administrative officer, and one communications technician. All were unaccompanied by spouses or children. Among other things, I was amazed to find one of the “embassy” rooms completely filled with boxes of MREs—Meals Ready to Eat—which the U.S. military had transported in with the first diplomatic arrivals earlier in January. No one knew in early 1992 whether local food was safe to eat—although Belarusians of course had been eating it right along—even though the Chernobyl nuclear disaster had occurred nearly six years earlier, in April, 1986. The first order of business for the fledgling Advance Party was to find a chancery to house the embassy and possibly some staffers. Soon the Foreign Ministry offered a property for the Embassy Minsk chancery at #46 Starovilenskaya Street, with possession to commence April 13. These premises had in fact been the personal residence of the commanding officer, General Kostenko, of the Byelorussian (sic) Military District of the former Soviet Army. “He is giving it up with the greatest reluctance,” I informed Washington, “and there may yet be serious glitches in our taking possession. The relations between the MFA and the former Soviet Army are extremely tense over this property issue . . . and Kostenko’s envoy has threated to remove everything from the site that can be removed, down to sinks, toilets, doors, and light fixtures.” Fortunately, that did not happen; the Russians even left behind a fabulous antique pool table. Belarus’ governmental structures included an executive—the Council of Ministers—and a legislature, the Supreme Soviet. The latter reflected the political malaise of those early days of independence. The largest faction were communists, including but not limited to the “Belarus” group. On the other side was the growing nationalist-oriented Belaruski Narodny Front (BNF), headed by Zyanon Paznyak, whose numbers in the Supreme Soviet at that time were small, but growing. Supreme Soviet Chairman (and titular head of state) Stanislau Shushkevich as a non- party, independent deputy was positioned between these two sides, maintaining ties to both and beholding to neither. What all political forces unqualifiedly favored, the embassy reported, was the need to maintain a “socially oriented” system, meaning one with a strong safety net for the citizenry no matter what kind of post-Soviet economic structure would finally be adopted. On a personal note, in retrospect amusing but then very embarrassing was the following event. The ceremony for presenting my ambassadorial credentials to Chairman Shushkevich took place on August 25, 1992. The Foreign Ministry had organized a motorcade led by police vehicles for my wife, me, and the embassy staff to travel from the chancery to the Belarus government’s protocol building. Approaching it, I reached in my suit pocket for the letter of accreditation from President Bush to be handed over to Shushkevich. It was not there. I had absent-mindedly left it behind at the embassy. So the entire motorcade had to turn around then and there, return to the embassy, and wait in bewilderment as I went in and picked up the errant document. Eventually the ceremony did take place. Shushkevich and I recalled the incident many times later, laughing at my faux pas. In promoting U.S. goals and objectives in Belarus, the embassy established and maintained contacts with the political groupings just mentioned; media organizations; commercial firms (both “old-style” ones and new companies, including U.S. and other foreign firms); cultural groups; and ordinary citizens. I developed relationships, indeed in some cases genuine friendships, with inter alia, Chairman Shushkevich, Council of Ministers head Kebich, Foreign Minister Pyotr Krauchanka, Ambassador-designate Martynau, and BNF leader Paznyak. Prime Minister Kebich was a very interesting person. I believe he was sincere in professing his desire for friendship with the United States and its people, despite his communist affiliation and obvious intent on maintaining close ideological and political ties with post-Soviet Russia. I single out Kebich because of another unusual event I experienced during my tenure in Belarus. He invited me to join him for a hunting trip in autumn, 1992. I agreed with a combination of pseudo-enthusiasm and genuine trepidation (this was NOT in my comfort zone). On the appointed day he arrived in mid-morning at my residence in his official limousine. (I had been housed, courtesy of another agreement with MFA, in one of the “dachas,” i.e. mini-mansions, of the former Drazdy (Belarusian: Дразды, Russian: Дрозды, communist elites in the fenced and gated community Drozdy) is a microdistrict in north-west Minsk of Drozdy just north of Minsk.) I climbed in and we where many top state officials lived during the Soviet times and today, including the headed north to a rather remote wooded area. , . Turning into a driveway there, I saw what turned out to be a large lodge and on the surrounding grounds covered tables laden with all kinds of food and drink. Numerous aides and KGB security personnel were already there. After much toasting and snacking, we set off in cars for the hunt. Kebich and his guards went one way, I and another of his security force the other. My guard (silent as a tomb, dressed in suit and tie, and carrying the rifle) and I got out and climbed a ladder up to a platform in one of the trees. There we stood silently for about two hours, waiting in vain for any kind of game to show up. I was extremely glad none did, as I had never (and still have not) shot a firearm in my life except for a BB gun when I was a kid. Eventually, Kebich and his guards returned and we drove back to the lodge grounds. There, much more food and drink awaited. Afterward—it was now late evening—we went into the lodge to watch a speech by a certain Mr. Lukashenko on television. I had not met him. Kebich yelled: “I hate him.” Immediately all his minions also shouted out as if in unison, like a chorus from a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta: “And we hate him.” Eventually we got in Kebich’s car and started the journey back to Minsk. On the way, the prime minister suddenly made this request: “Teach me about democracy.” So we talked about that the entire return trip. A very interesting day, to say the least. As of mid-1992, the Embassy and State Department had elaborated a list of assistance projects for Belarus that were intended both to foster improvements in the day-to-day lives of Belarusians as well as to promote identified U.S. interests in Belarus per se as well as more broadly with respect to each new country in the entire region of the former USSR, including Russia itself where appropriate. These fell into the following categories: 1) provide needed medical/food aid; 2) support independence/sovereignty; 3) promote democratization; 4) support market economic reforms; 5) support denuclearization, arms control, and establishment of small, defensive armed forces; 6) foster respect for human rights; 7) foster Euro-Atlantic integration; and 8) promote Chernobyl clean-up. There follow comments on several of these suggested projects. With respect to food aid, the Embassy reported to Washington in late summer 1992 that grain shortages, due particularly to a lengthy and ongoing drought throughout the country, were perhaps the most dire of Belarus’ immediate agricultural—and hence food—problems. The drought and its consequences were evident not just to farmers but also to ordinary citizens (and foreign diplomats). Traditional garden plots were dried out. The air, even in Minsk, was filled day after day with smoke from fires affecting, according to media reports, approximately 4,500 hectares of land throughout the country. The United States responded with shipments of grain and other agricultural commodities under then-existing Department of Agriculture assistance programs. By summer 1993, however, food production, distribution, and availability had substantially improved. The embassy in August responded to a report that a private American aid agency intended to distribute 1,000 metric tons of U.S. butter to some 400,000 Belarusians citizens free of charge in 2.5 kilogram packages. In a cable to Washington on this matter, the subject line of which read: “Enough of the Free Food Already,” the embassy reported that Belarus was not in need of food grants. “No one is starving,” the embassy stated; “indeed, Belarus is generally recognized as having the highest standard of living in the former Soviet Union.” The embassy continued: “Although some foodstuffs—including butter, vegetable oil, flour, and sugar—are rationed at state-controlled outlets and prices, they are freely available at farmers’ markets and private kiosks, albeit for much higher prices.” A key embassy project relating to the economy in general, agriculture in particular, and most particularly to the continuing scars of Chernobyl on the Belarusian psyche—deep and long-lasting by then more than six years after the disaster—was the so-called “canola (var. rapeseed) biofuels initiative,” conceived by the embassy in late 1992 and enthusiastically endorsed by all Belarusian political circles from communists to the BNF. The idea grew out of discussions I had held in Washington with knowledgeable officials in USDA (Department of Agriculture). It envisaged growing canola on Chernobyl-irradiated acreage across southern Belarus, determining if the derived vegetable oil contained radioactivity, and then converting this oil (using American technology to remove radioactive pollutants, if any) to a substance substitutable for diesel fuel. There were four specific goals: --To assist in putting Chernobyl-polluted agricultural land back to economic use; --To assist Belarus in reducing its near 100% fossil fuel dependency on Russia;

Canola --To stimulate the fledgling private farming sector in Belarus; and --To give hope to people in a region made economically hopeless after the Chernobyl catastrophe. The pilot project, if successful, could be transformed later into a full-blown production venture on normal commercial terms, presumably involving foreign investments and financing. Despite resistance for unknown reasons other than bureaucratic ones, the U.S. Agency for International Development (AID) resisted this project from the outset. Therefore, the embassy enlisted the interest and support of the semi-private Volunteers in Overseas Cooperative Assistance (VOCA). VOCA became so enthusiastic about the project that it became the organization’s number one priority in Belarus. Seven varieties of U.S. and Canadian canola seed were acquired and shipped to Belarus in time for 1993 spring planting. The seed was planted on test plots in southern Belarus adjacent to the Chernobyl prohibited zone, on land containing significant quantities of cesium, strontium, and plutonium. The Belarusian partner in the project (Ministry of Agriculture) undertook to harvest the seeds and test both them and the derived oils for radioactivity. The Belarusians requested and were granted some $542,000 in funding to cover the purchase of necessary experimental-scale harvesting combines and radiation testing instruments. That request was in fact supported by the regional AID director in Kiev and a VOCA expert from the University of Idaho. Notwithstanding the resistance from AID, interagency agreement in Washington was reached on the project and the following text announcement was issued in advance of Chairman Shushkevich’s July, 1993, official visit to Washington: “The U. S. Government gives high priority to assisting the Government of Belarus with its experimental project to produce canola on Chernobyl-contaminated lands and convert the derived oil into diesel fuel. The U.S. Government will continue supporting this project by providing appropriate resources for harvest and testing of the spring crop as well as seeds for the fall planting.” The single most critical national security desideratum for the U.S. vis-à-vis Belarus was demilitarization, most especially nuclear. As of the demise of the USSR, significant caches of nuclear-armed missiles were stationed in Belarus (and the other non-Russian nuclear countries of the former USSR: Ukraine and Kazakhstan). Those in Belarus and Ukraine were targeted on Western Europe. With respect to this key area of nuclear weapons—plus other arms control and related military assistance issues—there was also major progress in US-Belarus relations. First, by the end of 1992, Belarus had ratified all the multilateral arms control treaties of key importance to the United States: CFE, START (including the Lisbon Protocol) and the NPT, in stark contrast to Kazakhstan and, yes, Ukraine. An umbrella agreement on Belarus’ denuclearization was reached in principle between Washington and Minsk by mid-1992. Inter alia, it called for creation of a bilateral entity to agree on, manage, and finance Belarus’ nuclear disarmament. Called the US–Belarusian Working Group on Safety, Security, and Dismantlement of Nuclear Weapons (SSD), the entity began meetings in Minsk soon thereafter. The American delegation was led by Major General William F. Burns. Objectives included reaching final agreement on and signing the draft umbrella agreement providing the legal and international framework for US SSD assistance to Belarus; concluding an emergency response equipment and related training agreement; establishing a secure communications capability between the two countries on nuclear matters; and other issues. All these activities were envisaged as taking place under the aegis of the so-called Nunn-Lugar Act, based on the Soviet Nuclear Threat Reduction Act of 1991 which was co-authored by Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Georgia) and Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Indiana). Senators Nunn and Lugar paid a short visit to Minsk in November, 1992, as part of a broader trip to the region for reviewing progress on the various arms control/reduction issues, including nuclear, envisaged in Nunn-Lugar funding in the newly independent states. In Minsk the senators were received by Council of Ministers Chairman Kebich. Inter alia, Kebich reported sending weapons materials from Belarus back to Russia. He also pointedly stressed that one of the country’s biggest problems related to military personnel—especially with reference to social security, retraining, jobs, and housing for military personnel on bases, nuclear and non-nuclear, throughout western and northwestern Belarus. Kebich professed concern also for the alleged fifty thousand Belarusian military officers serving outside the territory of Belarus, mainly in Russia, and wanting to return home to their newly-independent country in the evolving Commonwealth of Independent States configuration. However, embassy reporting to Washington at the time noted that while all these measures were consonant with Belarus’ stated goal of becoming a non-nuclear, neutral country in the heart of Europe, for those in power—led by pro-Moscow Kebich—they also translated into a domestic comfort zone of living in Russia’s shadow from security, political, and economic standpoints. In the meantime, the 1992 U.S. presidential election had taken place, won by candidate Bill Clinton over incumbent George H.W. Bush. President Clinton’s Secretary of State, Warren Christopher, briefly visited Belarus in October, 1993, as part of a wider trip to a number of the post-Soviet newly independent states. In the case of Belarus, Christopher brought the message of gratitude from the new administration for Belarus’ active Warren Christopher work in dismantling and commencing removal of its nuclear weapons. He of course met with his counterpart, Foreign Minister Krauchanka, but his key interlocutor was Chairman Shushkevich. Christopher also took the time for a visit to the embassy, which was greatly appreciated by the staff, in particular the Belarus citizens employed there. Secretary Christopher’s visit turned out to be the precursor for that of President Clinton himself, who, together with First Lady Hillary Clinton and daughter Chelsea, paid a lightning, eight-hour visit to Belarus in January, 1994, en route from Moscow to additional meetings in Western Europe. President Clinton’s official host, of course, was Supreme Soviet Chairman Shushkevich, whom by this time I of course had come to know quite well and whom I highly respected. Mrs. Clinton and Chelsea had their own program organized by the Belarusians, but I was with the President and Chairman Shushkevich the entire day. The Embassy had of course coordinated with the White House in arranging the schedule, which included a speech to an invited group of young Belarusian professionals, a meeting with opposition (i.e. non-communist) politicians and activists, a meeting and briefing regarding a U.S. company then establishing a commercial presence in the country, and a ceremonial wreath-laying and bench presentation at the monument to Belarusians slaughtered by the Soviet NKVD (secret police) in the 1930s at the killing field of Kuropaty near Minsk. Riding into Minsk with the President from the airport after his arrival on Air Force One, I offered him my assessment of evolving political and economic realities in the country, more or less along the following lines. The embassy felt, I said, that Belarus’ executive branch leadership, i.e. Kebich and Co., together with Location of Chernobyl many allies in the Supreme Soviet, were purposely dragging their feet on institutionalizing political and economic reforms, with the government under Prime Minister Kebich (closely tied to the communist “Belarus” faction in parliament) still hoping for Russia itself to revert to the status quo ante of pre-Yeltsin days. The economy remained weak; little privatization and few other market economy reforms had been instituted. And the public at large—still quite accustomed to how things ran, economically and otherwise, under the Soviet system—was not agitating actively for radical changes to the existing political order and way of life. The Chernobyl nuclear disaster and its ongoing consequences for Belarus, of course, continued to play a huge role in public consciousness. The visit went off quite well, I thought, culminating with the Kuropaty event. The President and his motorcade left directly for the airport from there. The plan was for him and Chairman Shushkevich to ride together with a Belarusian interpreter and Secret Service agents in the head limousine. I was several cars back, with Secretary Christopher. Suddenly a Secret Service person ran up to our car and said I had to come immediately and join the President and Shushkevich. I of course did so, and it still is not clear why they wanted me to interpret rather than the local Foreign Ministry staffer. In any event, we started out and I translated into and out of Russian as I did not speak Belarusian. Before long, the President—exhausted—become drowsy and nodded off. Shushkevich and I just quietly let him sleep. All in all, it was quite a day. Belarus government and diplomatic life returned to normal after the visit. Eventually, however, the government and parliament (Supreme Soviet) needed to take serious cognizance of the new order of things in Belarus. This recognition culminated in adoption of a new constitution that went into effect on March 30, 1994, and created the office of president (combining the functions of head of government and head of state). Very noteworthy, in this context, was the ouster of Shushkevich from his position as Supreme Soviet Chairman (and titular head of state) in late January, 1994, shortly after President Clinton’s visit and just prior to my resignation as ambassador and departure from Belarus. Credible analysis of his political demise suggested that: 1) Shushkevich had suffered politically among the general populace, despite his strong personal popularity and gregarious, open personality, due to his role as signatory to the agreement leading to the end of the USSR and thus institutional divorce from Russia, and 2) strong opposition to him both from the communists and from the BNF activists in the Supreme Soviet had added up to enough votes to remove him. In any event, the first post-Soviet national elections were quickly organized and held in June/July, 1994, with Lukashenko, supposedly independent, winning nearly as many votes as all the other candidates combined. Kebich and BNF leader Paznyak wound up in second and third places, respectively, followed by Shushkevich. The rest is history. Whether free and fair or not, the 1994 presidential election appears to have set the precedent for each of the future ones to date, all handily “won” by Lukashenko.