Translated material
"They did a glorious business"
25 years ago, on December 8, 1991, in Viskulya near Brest, in the government residence in the middle of the Belovezhskaya Pushcha , the leaders of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus signed agreements that put an end to the existence of the Soviet Union. On the eve of the anniversary, one of those whose signature is under this document, the former chairman of the Supreme Council of the Republic of Belarus Stanislav Shushkevich - in an interview with the Belarusian edition of Radio Liberty shared his thoughts on the then events and their historical role.
We have done a glorious business. And made a consensus. There is no doubt that we all wanted this together was there.
After all, if we missed something, then, I am afraid, it would be what many diplomats of the world predicted in correspondence with their governments. Because the union actually broke up without us. For a long time, even after the August coup. But the fact that the threat of the Yugoslav version of the decay was a fact.
The fact that the threat of the Yugoslav version of the decay was a fact
We understood that so far we are not formulating who we are and how we relate to our previous documents and decisions, for example, to the declaration of state independence of Belarus or a referendum in Ukraine , if we do not solve those issues that cannot be postponed, we will not do anything good. And we resolved these issues.
The choice of Belovezhskaya Pushcha was because it was a unique object in Europe. I had to say to Yeltsin: here it is so beautiful that it cannot be better, but we have a different beauty. Look, you're a hunter. He says: Okay, I will be happy to go to you. This is how it began.
By the way, if not for Yeltsin, there would be no agreement. For me, the signature of Yeltsin under the Belovezhsky agreement also means the recognition of Russia's independence of Belarus. This man was a real democrat, he was a man of a word who did not change his beliefs for the sake of someone. And I am proud that I am a man of Yeltsin.
As for Kravchuk, it was not necessary to sign him to persuade him - he immediately agreed. He had a strong help, because he was elected president on December 1, and on the same day a referendum was held, at which almost 92% of Ukrainian citizens spoke out for independence. Kravchuk, one might say, arrived "on a white horse" to Belovezhskaya Pushch. And we came our way. But, unlike Alma-Ata, where the board hangs, by whom and what was signed on December 21, there, as Nazarbayev believes, formed the CIS (we are talking about a meeting of the heads of 11 former republics of the USSR, who then announced the accession to Belovezhsky agreements.-RS) , then there was no board on the house where the CIS was really proclaimed.
We felt that it was necessary to officially state in order to never repeat what was. To officially say: everything, the end of this program! It is necessary to create a new political system. But there are a lot of obstacles along the way. This is a difficult very period - the transition from one political system to another. To take advantage of this, to say that all the difficulties because of the innovations is very simple. To do this, you do not even need to be a smart person, you can simply be like Lukashenko, and say that everyone ruined the "shitty".
You can just be like Lukashenko, and say that everyone was destroyed by the "shitty"
Now we would like to, and have already begun to create such a structure, one of the units of which would be people who have extensive experience in leading the state. (We are talking about the conference in Kiev under the auspices of the International Center for the Baltic and Black Sea Research with the participation of a number of former leaders of the post-Soviet countries.-RS) . This approach is actually the development of what has been called the problem of the Baltic and Black Sea region for quite some time. Indeed, all the difficulties, all inconsistencies in Europe and on the threshold of Asia took place in this region. So we are the "eight", I have this picture taken in Kyiv, gathered. We have certain initiatives. I will not publish them now, but there is a desire to find a way to convince certain current leaders that it needs to be done to live better here.
I have not lost a single university colleague (before coming to politics, Stanislav Shushkevich worked as a vice-rector of the Belarusian State University.-RS) , because I did not subordinate his actions to powerfulness, his own profit or something like that. I take care that my children and grandchildren have a good name.
And history is no longer my business. What they say, they will say.
