Trade union paradise for KGB general

Major General Stanislau Kniazeu moped up the trade union university for himself.

Charter97.org received a letter from a reader who asks to write about the work of Stanislau Kniazeu, the rector of the International University MITSO (former Higher Trade Union School). The anonymous letter seems to be written by a person involved in a conflict with the rector.

It follows from the letter that the former KGB officer protects the university from those close to former head of the Belarusian Trade Union Federation Leanid Kozik. The website does not take any side of the conflict but just publishes extracts from the letter. Some details from the life of Belarusian officials would be interesting for our readers.

After the dismissal of head of the Belarusian Trade Union Federation Kozik, director for academic affairs Maryna Aliakseeva, head of the audit department Tatsiana Kauko were fired. Some more people are expected to be dismissed soon. The first vice rector and Kozik's son yielded to pressure and submitted his letter of resignation yesterday.

The author of the letter thinks “these people created the system that made it impossible to spend the university's funds at one's sole discretion”.

“According to the university's statute, the rector had the right to command finance only with the consent of the university's budget commission. Kniazeu thinks he alone should have full control of finance. He fires all who don't agree,” the letter author explains reasons for the “mopping operation”.

“Kniazeu engages suspicious people, who earlier hung around money at other organisations. The university will find itself on the verge of collapse if it continues like that,” the author of the letter concludes.

MITSO employees think the KGB major general's only aim is to “receive high personal income”. It is easy to understand the retired KGB officer. Besides his pension as a general, he received about 46mn rubles (more than $4,500) in 2013. The average salary in 2014 was 43 million rubles.

“It seems he is not satisfied with his salary,” the letter author writes with indignation. “But isn't it a paradise for a general? Who else in the country receives such a salary and at what job? The rector sets the salary for himself. He perhaps thinks the life of a khan with 46 million is not enough for him. He wants to be a tsar.”

Major general Stanislau Kniazeu was among the most influential people in the country. He headed the military counterintelligence department at the Belarusian KGB, was the first deputy secretary general of the Security Council,the first deputy head of the presidential administration, the rector of the Academy of Public Administration. He was appointed rector of the International University MITSO on September 3, 2011.