The White and Other Russians

The session of the Parliamentary assembly of the union of Russia and Belarussia, held between 2 and 3 November in the town of Jaroslavlje, was attended by a delegation from the Yugoslav Federal assembly lead by Vojislav Seselj. A week before the session, the leader of the Yugoslav delegation surprised the domestic public by announcing an initiative that Yugoslavia should join the union of Russia and Belarussia. The union itself was taken by surprise, considering that it has no formal procedures for accepting new members: immediately prior to the session the vice-president of the Russian Duma Sergei Baburin mentioned the possibility that the Union might discuss the introduction of the status of permanent observer and that ‘if this issue is resolved in a satisfactory way Yugoslavia could be granted such status straight away’.

Before his departure from Belgrade, Seselj told reporters that "we always expected a lot from the Russians, and I hope that Russia will not let us down," as well as that the future of Yugoslavia lies in the Union of Independent States. In Moscow, Seselj met the newly appointed Yugoslav ambassador in Moscow, Borislav Milosevic. Before the Parliamentary session in Jaroslavlje, he told reporters that Yugoslavia wishes to become an equal member of the union, adding that he can not say exactly when this might happen. In the speech which he delivered in Russian, Seselj told the delegates, who began the session with the national anthem of the USSR, that he hopes to attend the next session as ‘an equal partner in the union of three brotherly nations: Russia, Belarussia and Serbia’ because ‘the hearts of our three people have for a long time been like one, and it is now only necessary to give things an appropriate political and legal form’.

The first reactions to the ideas, aspirations and hopes of the Yugoslav parliamentary delegation have already been heard at the session of the parliamentary assembly of Russia and Belarussia. Galina Starovoytova, a delegate in the lower house of the Russian Duma, immediately concluded that "the Yugoslavs are not ready to give up their sovereignty in order to join the Union of Russia and Belarussia whose future and political orientation are still very vague," adding that "recently, Russia and Belarussia made a few steps towards Asia" while Yugoslavia has always been, even in the days of Josip Broz, part of the European cultural environment. The President of Belarussia, Alexander Lukashenko told the Russian television that "for the time being there will be no tripartite union, because it is objectively irrelevant". However, he attempted to console the disappointed advocates of quick unification by expressing his own conviction that Yugoslavia will eventually join the union, because, in terms of economic development, Yugoslavia is not inferior to Russia and Belarussia, and therefore "would not present a burden for the Union."

At the time when Seselj publicized his idea about Yugoslavia’s membership in the Union of Russia and Belarussia, a very different parliamentary meeting was taking place in Warsaw. Representatives from 30 European countries discussed the geo-political changes in Europe which are likely to take place once Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary become members of NATO. From the perspective of this almost universal acceptance of NATO as the only force which can impose peace or prevent the escalation of crises, the gathering in Jaroslavlje must have seemed as some kind of an ‘Eastern’ response, especially since the Warsaw conference concluded that universal democratic standards present the only criteria which will determine membership in a future united Europe, rejecting the notion that in the case of Yugoslavia or Belarussia, Europe is pursuing a policy of isolationism. The latter part of the message, together with the additional comment that the future of these states lies in the hands of their politicians, was directed at Ivica Dacic, the SPS spokesman who led the Yugoslav delegation in Warsaw.

As far as the Yugoslav desire to join the ‘Asian march’ of Russia and Belarussia is concerned, according to the constitution, all matters concerning the admission of other states to the Federation or matters regarding Yugoslavia’s membership in international organizations falls within the jurisdiction of the federal parliament (Article 79, section 2). The constitution, however, was never much of an obstacle for different kinds of initiatives, ranging from those about the brotherhood and unity of Serbs and Cossacks or the proposal which came from Slobodan Milosevic in 1992 when he argued that the ‘Yugoslav-Greek federation would, I am sure, be a factor of stability in the region, and in the interest of the Greek and Serbian people’, down to the most recent Russian-Belarussian excursion of the Yugoslav parliamentarians.