COMMONWEALTH OF INDEPENDENT STATES….

COMMONWEALTH OF INDEPENDENT STATES….

The CIS seems to have run its course– a phoenix that flapped its wings and fell back into the ashes. The CISsummit in Moscow on April 29 lasted but three hours, and painful ones theywere. No one disputed Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbaev when hecharacterized the meeting as “totally empty” and “leading nowhere.” ARussian-drafted “Declaration on the Further Development of EquitablePartnership and Cooperation” was not approved, nor was a draft program onmilitary cooperation. There was no communiqué and no joint pressconference. The leaders simply went home. It is odd, then, thatgazillionaire Boris Berezovsky, who does not need the work, accepted theposition of CIS executive secretary when Russian president Boris Yeltsinarranged to have it offered to him. It is expected that Berezovsky willwork to put Russian capital, perhaps including some of his own, intoindustrial assets being privatized in CIS member states.