New draught Conception of totalitarian state appeared
| Białoruś /Беларусь | 2010-08-28
Lately an announcement appeared in mass media which didn’t draw much attention to itself. It was about Security Council Secretary of State having performed the draught of new national security Conception to the president.
Soon this document will be submitted for approval by the members of Security Council and in the end of August – the beginning of September – by the president. Why does appearance of such kind of document again coincides with another presidential campaign and what should Belarusian citizens expect after passing this document? Political analyst Roman Yakovlevsky answers questions of www.Euramost.org.
-Is this information about appearance of a new national security Concept draught in Republic of Belarus, which is believed to be passed soon, unexpected? – As far as we know this question was discussed in the end of 2009 in the report of Security Council Secretary of State Leonid Maltsev to Aleksandr Lukashenko. It was also noted that the present system of national security in Belarus has shown its effectiveness in practice: we have a stable economic, social and political situation in the country. But still the initiators of the new national security conception project thought that new challenges and threats appearing in the world demand advanced system of national security. That’s why it was planned to develop in 2010 a new conception of national security which would be a methodological background and guide to all governmental structures’ work. – And how many conceptions of that kind have Belarusian citizens had? – I think it will be the third one. Let’s remind you that the first conception in a presidential Belarus was passed by the Security Council of republic of Belarus on March 27, 1995. Then as a result of referendum in 1996 the Constitution of Republic of Belarus was significantly altered and it signalized a new stage of social-political development of the country. A new system of ruling power with president’s “tsar authority” was formed. All this has resulted a well-known process of foreign isolation of the ruling power and we all are still “cleaning up the mess”. – And that’s why in Minsk they have decided to “give birth” to a new conception of national security? – Well, yes. By the time it was passed in 2001, a new historical reality appeared. And not only in Belarus. The authors of the second conception referred to contradictions in the sphere of security protection which appeared when NATO used armed force when regulating Kosovo conflict, and appraisals and political decisions which appeared after this (alliance’s adopting a new strategic conception and Russian military doctrine alteration). Belarus made an adequate action when it signed several agreements with Russian Federation in a military sphere, a Treaty about creating Union State and extended the Collective Security Treaty. They also said that in this new historical reality the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe showed its inability to localize major conflicts. That’s why OSCE began to transform old institutions aimed to security assurance on a different quality level and began to create new ones. All this is still up-to-date for institutional changes in European Union, building a unite foreign policy and security policy of EU. – But there also appeared a new historical reality in the relations of Russia and Belarus, didn’t it? – Here we observe a farseeing of those who last year decided to create a new, the third Conception of national security of Belarus. I think in this conception the Treaty about creating a Union State (Belarus and Russia Union – BRU) will play a minor role. The last meeting of Aleksandr Lukashenko and this virtual institution’s Secretary of State Pavel Borodin can be the last one indeed. I mean their official status – the Chairman of the Supreme State Council and its Secretary of State. After all the reception of Lukashenko in August when he was performing the report of the Security Council Secretary of State Leonid Maltsev about the new Conception of national security happened together with deterioration of Belarusian-Russian relations which don’t seem to be improving so far. It is clearly seen in personal relations of the heads of the two countries, taking into account a full energy dependence of Belarus on imperial Russia. – Does it mean that these circumstances made the regime write the Conception of national security again? – On the outside these facts can explain appearance of the third Conception of national security, the project presented to the head of the state by the Security Council Secretary of State, candidate of sociologic science Leonid Maltsev. Unfortunately, this project didn’t become a matter of public discussion. Some are enjoying summer vacations and the others - senseless wordy warfare on the topic “How to become a president”. But nowadays project is very contradictory and even a dangerous for the present Constitution of Republic of Belarus and its citizens. In particular, the new project foresees replacement of personal interests’ security (in earlier versions) by national interests’ security. National interests are supposed to be treated as a harmony of personal and public interests (in our case it should be read as “state”). In practice we have only state institutions instead of real public society. So, let’s speak about harmony. Some experts-lawyers note that the term “harmony” is not legal and in a common sense means orderliness and coherence. Those who have powers in our country are confident that there are no pre-defined harmony in the relations of a person and society, instead such organs as Security Council and others would be unnecessary. So, these relations must be harmonized. And it’s not a secret what do competent organs see as the ideal of orderliness and coherence. It seems that they have officially announced that a totalitarian state is being built in the country, but this contradicts Constitution of Republic of Belarus so far. We can remind that among 19 participants of Security Council who must sign the approval of this document up to September, there is the Prosecutor General, doctor of legal sciences Grygory Vasilievich. Some time ago, being a member of Constitutional court, he left a significant imprint on a modern history of Belarus. He was a head of a working group which prepared the project of a new Constitution-96. I would be interesting to know his opinion today. The opinion about contradictions found by independent experts between the draught of national security Conception and national Constitution-96.
Viktor Kozak
-Is this information about appearance of a new national security Concept draught in Republic of Belarus, which is believed to be passed soon, unexpected? – As far as we know this question was discussed in the end of 2009 in the report of Security Council Secretary of State Leonid Maltsev to Aleksandr Lukashenko. It was also noted that the present system of national security in Belarus has shown its effectiveness in practice: we have a stable economic, social and political situation in the country. But still the initiators of the new national security conception project thought that new challenges and threats appearing in the world demand advanced system of national security. That’s why it was planned to develop in 2010 a new conception of national security which would be a methodological background and guide to all governmental structures’ work. – And how many conceptions of that kind have Belarusian citizens had? – I think it will be the third one. Let’s remind you that the first conception in a presidential Belarus was passed by the Security Council of republic of Belarus on March 27, 1995. Then as a result of referendum in 1996 the Constitution of Republic of Belarus was significantly altered and it signalized a new stage of social-political development of the country. A new system of ruling power with president’s “tsar authority” was formed. All this has resulted a well-known process of foreign isolation of the ruling power and we all are still “cleaning up the mess”. – And that’s why in Minsk they have decided to “give birth” to a new conception of national security? – Well, yes. By the time it was passed in 2001, a new historical reality appeared. And not only in Belarus. The authors of the second conception referred to contradictions in the sphere of security protection which appeared when NATO used armed force when regulating Kosovo conflict, and appraisals and political decisions which appeared after this (alliance’s adopting a new strategic conception and Russian military doctrine alteration). Belarus made an adequate action when it signed several agreements with Russian Federation in a military sphere, a Treaty about creating Union State and extended the Collective Security Treaty. They also said that in this new historical reality the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe showed its inability to localize major conflicts. That’s why OSCE began to transform old institutions aimed to security assurance on a different quality level and began to create new ones. All this is still up-to-date for institutional changes in European Union, building a unite foreign policy and security policy of EU. – But there also appeared a new historical reality in the relations of Russia and Belarus, didn’t it? – Here we observe a farseeing of those who last year decided to create a new, the third Conception of national security of Belarus. I think in this conception the Treaty about creating a Union State (Belarus and Russia Union – BRU) will play a minor role. The last meeting of Aleksandr Lukashenko and this virtual institution’s Secretary of State Pavel Borodin can be the last one indeed. I mean their official status – the Chairman of the Supreme State Council and its Secretary of State. After all the reception of Lukashenko in August when he was performing the report of the Security Council Secretary of State Leonid Maltsev about the new Conception of national security happened together with deterioration of Belarusian-Russian relations which don’t seem to be improving so far. It is clearly seen in personal relations of the heads of the two countries, taking into account a full energy dependence of Belarus on imperial Russia. – Does it mean that these circumstances made the regime write the Conception of national security again? – On the outside these facts can explain appearance of the third Conception of national security, the project presented to the head of the state by the Security Council Secretary of State, candidate of sociologic science Leonid Maltsev. Unfortunately, this project didn’t become a matter of public discussion. Some are enjoying summer vacations and the others - senseless wordy warfare on the topic “How to become a president”. But nowadays project is very contradictory and even a dangerous for the present Constitution of Republic of Belarus and its citizens. In particular, the new project foresees replacement of personal interests’ security (in earlier versions) by national interests’ security. National interests are supposed to be treated as a harmony of personal and public interests (in our case it should be read as “state”). In practice we have only state institutions instead of real public society. So, let’s speak about harmony. Some experts-lawyers note that the term “harmony” is not legal and in a common sense means orderliness and coherence. Those who have powers in our country are confident that there are no pre-defined harmony in the relations of a person and society, instead such organs as Security Council and others would be unnecessary. So, these relations must be harmonized. And it’s not a secret what do competent organs see as the ideal of orderliness and coherence. It seems that they have officially announced that a totalitarian state is being built in the country, but this contradicts Constitution of Republic of Belarus so far. We can remind that among 19 participants of Security Council who must sign the approval of this document up to September, there is the Prosecutor General, doctor of legal sciences Grygory Vasilievich. Some time ago, being a member of Constitutional court, he left a significant imprint on a modern history of Belarus. He was a head of a working group which prepared the project of a new Constitution-96. I would be interesting to know his opinion today. The opinion about contradictions found by independent experts between the draught of national security Conception and national Constitution-96.
Viktor Kozak