YELTSIN SAYS BELARUS “FREE” TO JOIN RUSSIA.

In an interview for the current issue of Germany’s news magazine “Der Spiegel” during the G-7 summit in Cologne, Russian President Boris Yeltsin portrays the unification of Russia and Belarus as a natural process well underway. Yeltsin cites the “community of historic fate,” “common strategic interests,” “security requirements” and economic considerations as the basis for “integration” of Russia and Belarus. “This is a move toward one another by states and peoples acting of their own free will,” Yeltsin concludes, thereby implying that Belarus could exercise its free will under the rule of its President Alyaksandr Lukashenka (Der Spiegel, June 21; full text issued by Itar-Tass, June 19).

LEADING BELARUSAN WRITER FLEES PERSECUTION.