Belarusians In US: Sanctions Against Lukashenka’s Regime Should Not Be Lifted

The Belarusian-American Association (BAZA) has filed an appeal to the authorities of the United States in connection with easing the sanctions against Belarusian enterprises.

The text of the appeal has been received by the editorial office of charter97.org.

Since October 30, 2015 the United States provisionally eased the sanctions on 9 Belarusian enterprises. Initially these sanctions were imposed in response to massive crackdown of the Belarusian regime against the political opposition, civil society and common Belarusians, who had rose against the intention of the authoritarian regime to rig the election results in December 2010.

The Belarusian-American Association (BAZA) notes that the US State Department connects the decision to ease the sanctions with the fact that on August 22 the Belarusian regime released political prisoners. It is important to bear in mind that this release of the political prisoners is not a result of positive changes in the home policy of Aliaksandr Lukashenka.

Besides, this release is not a reflection of a positive U-turn to the notions of humanness and human dignity by Lukashenka.

On the contrary, the release of the political prisoners was a reaction of Lukashenka to unfavourable external conditions and difficult economic situation in Belarus – the both cases are following from more than 2 decades of his erroneous policy. Besides, these manoeuvres have become his regular tactics, in order to mislead the international community about the regime and its intentions.

As the obviously falsified “elections” of October 11 have demonstrated, the release of political prisoners removes the symptom, but does not cure the disease, which is a repressive, dictatorial nature of Lukashenka’s regime.

The temporarily nature of easing the sanctions, offered by the United States, its being preconditioned by the actions of the Belarusian authorities and a possible resuming of the sanctions should motivate the Belarusian authorities to positive measures. However, this lever is to act only in case the government of the US would be principled, transparent and convincing in its evaluation of the regime’s actions, and would be consistent in being guided by its own approach.

The BAZA welcomes the joint visit to Minsk by Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Europe and Eurasia Bridget Brink and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor Robert Berschinski, as a clear reminder that in the process of improvement of relations between the two states, the US give prominence to the progress in the sphere of human rights and democracy in Belarus.

We urge the Department of State to obtain a result from this principled stand via responsibility of the Belarusian authorities for further improvement of relations based upon the approach, focused upon human rights, as it had been agreed upon in the Memorandum of Clinton – Martynau on 2010, and in keeping with the concrete steps, outlined in the Act on Democracy and Human Rights in Belarus in 2011.