The vote in Kiev
Ukrainian deputies came to work on the text of the agreement on creation of the CIS — they made 12 amendments. These amendments are needed to harmonize Russian and Belarusian sides, causing the vote itself was much later than scheduled.
Some amendments have been significant. For example, the agreement disappeared mention of coordination of foreign policy activities of the parties to the agreement, it was replaced by the wording “consultation in the field of foreign policy.”
The President of Ukraine Leonid Kravchuk in his address to the deputies accused the centre of the Union the collapse of the country and the intention to concentrate power in their hands. “If Gorbachev is just beginning their fight, the question arises with whom? It is ill-conceived, dangerous steps to the confrontation. Someone wants to teach us and care about our people more than himself. This screen!” — said Kravchuk.
In Kiev turnout of 367 deputies, 288 voted for the ratification of the agreement, opposed by 10 people.
The President Of Ukraine Leonid Kravchuk. December 1991
Photo: Alexander Sentsov, Dmitry Sokolov/TASS
The vote in Minsk
Belarusian parliamentarians were not originally configured so unanimously. With doubts about the approval of the text of the agreement was made by the right and left. The first expressed fears that the new Commonwealth eventually transformed into the likeness of the Soviet Union with a strong center, second, on the contrary, believed that the agreement would finally destroy the Union and would lead to chaos in the country.
More surprising were the results of the vote. After learning that the Ukrainian deputies have ratified the agreement, their Belarusian colleagues immediately did the same. The document was supported by 263 deputies with only one person against and two abstentions.
Two days later, a similar election would be held in the Russian Parliament.
The actions of the opposition
1991 changed the country completely. Now the opposition became Soviet parliamentarians, some of whom began to collect signatures of supporters of the convening of an extraordinary Congress of people’s deputies of the USSR. By mid-day the idea was supported by about 200 people, among them the former Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers Nikolai Ryzhkov.
General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Mikhail Gorbachev and Chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers Nikolai Ryzhkov on the podium of the Mausoleum on red square. Photo 1988
Photo: Yuri Abramochkin/RIA Novosti
The collection of signatures was held in the parliamentary building on Noviy Arbat street in the same building the political Council of Deputy group “the Civil consent” prepared statement in which the Belavezha accords was called “an act of tyranny, entailing insurmountable contradictions”. “Civil consent” by that time, joined several dozen political movements, including the monarchist party, party “all-Slavic Council” and LDPR.
December 10 at a meeting with parliamentarians from the Yeltsin arrived Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Parliament Gennady Burbulis and state adviser Sergei Shakhrai, who tried to dissuade the deputies from the idea of convening the extraordinary Congress, which may raise confrontation in society. The meeting was cold.
The editorial of the newspaper “Izvestia” on December 11, 1991
News from the republics
- Kazakhstan officially took the post of President Nursultan Nazarbayev. Speaking before Parliament, he called “problematic,” the prospects of signing a new Union Treaty, which insisted Gorbachev. The Belavezha accords he called “too serious to be in the tracks to give them a definitive assessment”. Nazarbayev said that Kazakhstan can live independently, but remains a supporter of integration.
- The President of Azerbaijan, Ayaz Mutalibov, speaking at an emergency session of Parliament, said that the idea of Commonwealth can be taken positively, “if it does not exclude the process of sovereignty and independence”.
- The head of Georgia Zviad Gamsakhurdia, speaking at a rally in Tbilisi, said that the Republic’s leadership takes time to develop a clearer position in relation to the CIS.
The foreign press
- If it turns out that this CIS will develop in the direction of democracy and respect for the market, then the West has its own interest to help them achieve success. Sooner or later, large-scale [financial] help from the West will be essential if a peaceful transition from communism to democracy will have chances of success (The Times).
- The day after the reunification of the Slavic republics — Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, which is trying to erase with a sponge Soviet Union, all the leaders, old and new, starting with Gorbachev and ending closest allies, Boris Yeltsin, tried to reassure the world that Moscow has lost control over the military leadership and nuclear weapons (La Repubblica).
- Expansion plans of major private Italian group in the former Soviet Empire risk considerably hurt. Also, the alarm state banks that have loans in the Soviet Union, which yesterday asked for a delay in the payment of debts to commercial banks to 90 days, on loans maturing in the first quarter of 1992 (La Repubblica). .
Other news of the day
- The Russian government announced Erich Honecker that he must leave within three days. The former head of the GDR from March is in the Soviet Union, fleeing from prosecution, the new German authorities.
- The residents of Nagorno Karabakh, a territory in the centre of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict, voted for independence in a referendum.
- Chapter 12 European countries approved the treaties on economic and monetary and political Union at a meeting with Maastricht. The agreement laid the foundations for the creation of the Federal structures of the United Europe.
- The Nobel peace prize was awarded Aung San Suu Kyi — the opposition leader of Myanmar (Burma), a supporter of non-violent struggle for democracy.
- The newspaper “Izvestia” published an interview with the Chairman of the newly formed Interstate aviation Committee (IAC), who became doctor of technical Sciences Tatiana Anodina.
