The First Years of U.S. - Belarus 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 Boris Yeltsin, and Ukraine President Leonid Kravchuk 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 Stanislav Shushkevich (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) dissolution of the Soviet Union. The U.S. Embassy in Minsk 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. President of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko. 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).