Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, July 17, 1990 TAG: 9007170144
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
DATELINE: MOSCOW LENGTH: Medium
The declaration goes further than most similar declarations: It spells out a vision of permanent neutrality for the Ukraine and demands full control over its industry, agriculture and natural resources.
The Ukrainian Supreme Soviet also called in the declaration for the establishment of the republic's own armed forces and the end to the deployment of conscripted Ukrainian youths in military units outside the republic.
While the declaration, adopted 335-4, stops well short of proclaiming Ukrainian independence, it adds considerable momentum to the drive for a new constitutional basis for the Soviet Union as a federal state.
As the country's largest and wealthiest republic after Russia, the Ukraine has a political and economic weight that far exceeds that of other republics, and its declaration of sovereignty, coming after that of Russia, Moldavia, Uzbekistan and the Baltic republics of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, seems certain to speed the development of a new "union treaty."
The declaration was adopted under strong pressure from the Ukrainian nationalist movement, Rukh, which emerged in elections this year as a force to challenge the Communist Party. Communist deputies, attempting to match their Rukh counterparts in Ukrainian patriotism, finally yielded to the declaration after a fierce debate in recent weeks.
The Ukrainian lawmakers, meeting in the republic's capital of Kiev, proclaimed the "supremacy, independence, absolute authority and indivisibility" of the republic's laws and its government, according to the official Soviet news agency Tass.
But most of the deputies who spoke during the Supreme Soviet's debate did not support Ukrainian secession from the Soviet Union, Tass said.
by CNB