Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.twt.news From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: CIS limps toward its first birthday Date: Sat, 14 Nov 92 16:22:11 EST Message-ID: \SE A;WORLD \HD CIS limps toward its first birthday \BY Gerald Nadler \CR THE WASHINGTON TIMES \DT MOSCOW MOSCOW - The Commonwealth of Independent States is limping toward its first anniversary, jolted by Ukraine's abandoning the ruble and fresh predictions of the CIS' demise. Formed Dec. 8, 1991, by Russia, Ukraine and Belarus to replace the Soviet Union, the CIS grew to 10 states later that month with the addition of the five Central Asian republics, Moldova and Armenia. Since then, Azerbaijan has also joined, bringing the total to 11, with only Georgia and the three Baltic republics, component parts of the old Soviet Union, electing to stay out. The prime ministers of the CIS states, meeting yesterday in Moscow, again failed to formulate a charter for the loose organization. Some of its member states such as Tajikistan are already disintegrating in the absence of central control from Moscow. Ukraine and Turkmenistan have said they object to signing a CIS charter. In addition, Ukraine abandoned the ruble Thursday in favor of an intermediary currency, a Ukrainian coupon called the karbonets, which will be exchanged initially one to one for rubles. The final Ukrainian currency, the grivna, will be introduced in about six months. Belarus leader Stanislav Shushkevich told Reuters news agency in his nation's capital of Minsk that the CIS would collpase without a common currency. Mr. Shushkevich founded the CIS along with Presidents Boris Yeltsin of Russia and Leonid Kravchuk of Ukraine. "If the CIS fails to create a ruble zone, if its members fail to create a bank, if the ruble does not become a real currency, relations between us will become complicated," he said. Some analysts feel that the common ruble has already been destroyed because each republic issues credits in rubles for payments to Russia. This has forced the Russian bank to distinguish accounts according to the source of the money, in effect creating different exchange rates for rubles from each republic. This article is copyright 1992 The Washington Times. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM