Au commencement était LEUR confiance

Au commencement était LEUR confiance

On sait que l’un des grands objets de débat sur la crise ukrainienne, sur les responsabilités des uns et des autres dans cette crise, c’est l’élargissement de l’OTAN vers la Russie (que certains voudraient voir aller jusqu'à l'adhésion de l'Ukraine), et la promesse verbale souvent évoquée des dirigeants US (le président Bush-père et secrétaire d’État James Baker), en 1989-1990, qu’en échange de la non-intervention et la non-interférence russe (soviétique) dans le processus de réunification de l’Allemagne (en 1990-1991), l’Ouest (les USA principalement) s’engageait à ce que l’OTAN arrêtât son expansion vers l’Est aux frontières de l’ancienne Allemagne de l’Est.

L’engagement a toujours été évoqué avec certitude par ceux qui l’avancent pour mettre en évidence la responsabilité de l’Ouest (du bloc BAO désormais), mais sans grands détails. Dans un long article (Consortium News, le 2 janvier 2015) sur les prémisses de la crise ukrainienne depuis la chute du Mur, et les immenses responsabilités occidentales, l’ancien analyste de la CIA Ray S. McGovern corrige cette imprécision. Il apporte des précisions et des détails à notre connaissance inédits sur ce moment fondamental de la période, précisément sur cet engagement initial dont nous parlons plus haut et qui est la matrice initiale de la crise. Cet engagement devait être tenu, il ne l’a jamais été... Lorsque McGovern demanda à un conseiller de Gorbatchev, Viktor Borisovich Kouvaldine, pourquoi cet accord n’avait pas été mis sur papier, – ce qui permet à nombre d’analystes du niveau de notre temps présent, incultes et dérisoires, d’en dénier la légalité, sinon l’existence même, – son interlocuteur donna plusieurs raisons de circonstance et de situation avant d’en venir à l’essentiel. Les yeux dans ceux de McGovern, le ton grave et pathétique, Kouvaldine dit brièvement  : «Nous avions confiance en vous...»

Cela, c’est notre pêché originel, et il nous emportera, – nous, le Système, le bloc BAO, cet Occident explosant d’arrogance et de suffisance, donneuse de leçons à tous coins de rue et qui trahit sa parole donnée. L’honneur échangé contre le bon-chic-bon-genre des talk-shows du parti des salonards... Combien nous souffrons parfois, nous-mêmes, précisément dans cette période, de faire nécessairement partie par nos origines, nos racines et notre histoire, de ce “nous” qui traverse sa période d’infamie la plus basse et la plus détestable.

Extrait de l’article ce McGovern sur le point précis envisagé : «Let’s start with a brief mention of the most salient points of this history before addressing its recent detritus — and making a few recommendations as the New Year begins. Less than three weeks after the Berlin Wall fell on Nov. 9. 1989, President George H.W. Bush invited Kremlin leader Mikhail Gorbachev to a summit in Malta where they cut an historic deal: Moscow would refrain from using force to re-impose control over Eastern Europe; Washington would not “take advantage” of the upheaval and uncertainty there.

»That deal was fleshed out just two months later, when Bush’s Secretary of State James Baker persuaded Gorbachev to swallow the bitter pill of a reunited Germany in NATO in return for a promise that NATO would not “leapfrog” eastward over Germany. Former U.S. Ambassador to Moscow Jack Matlock, who was witness to all this, told me in an email, “I don’t see how anybody could view the subsequent expansion of NATO as anything but ‘taking advantage.’” This consummate diplomat, who took part in the critical bilateral talks in early 1990, added that the mutual pledge was not set down in writing. Nonetheless, reneging on a promise – written or not – can put a significant dent in trust.

»Last year I asked Matlock and also Viktor Borisovich Kuvaldin, one of Gorbachev’s advisers from 1989 to 1991, why the Baker-Gorbachev understanding was not committed to paper. Matlock replied: “There was no agreement then. Both Baker and West German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher were putting forth ideas for Gorbachev to consider. He did not give an answer but just said he would think about them. … The formal agreements had to involve others, and they did, in the two-plus-four agreement, which was concluded only in late 1990.”

»Fair enough.

»In an email to me last fall, Kuvaldin corroborated what Matlock told me. But he led off by pointing out “the pledge of no eastward expansion of NATO was made to Gorbachev on consecutive days when he met first with Baker and then with West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl [on Feb. 9 and 10, 1990].” As to why this pledge was not written down, Kuvaldin explained: “Such a request would have sounded a little bit strange at that time. The Warsaw Pact was alive; Soviet military personnel were stationed all over central Europe; and NATO had nowhere to go. At the beginning of February 1990 hardly anybody could foresee the turn of events in the 1990s.”

»Again, fair enough. But when I met Kuvaldin a few months earlier in Moscow and asked him out of the blue why there is no record of the promises given to his boss Gorbachev, his reply was more spontaneous – and visceral. He tilted his head, looked me straight in the eye, and said, “We trusted you.”

»Written down or not, it was a matter of trust – and of not “taking advantage.” Kuvaldin’s boss Gorbachev opted to trust not only the U.S. Secretary of State, but also the West German government in Bonn. According to a report in Der Spiegel quoting West German foreign ministry documents released just five years ago: “On Feb. 10, 1990, between 4 and 6:30 p.m., Genscher spoke with [Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard] Shevardnadze. And, according to the German record of the conversation, Genscher said: ‘We are aware that NATO membership for a unified Germany raises complicated questions. For us, however, one thing is certain: NATO will not expand to the east.’ And because the conversation revolved mainly around East Germany, Genscher added explicitly: ‘As far as the non-expansion of NATO is concerned, this also applies in general.’”»

Mis en ligne le 5 janvier 2014 à 04H22