First trials over ZUBR activists, who protected Kuropaty, took place earlier in the day. Ten members of the resistance movement were summoned to the Sovietsky district court of Minsk. All ten were charged with violating art.166 of the Administrative code (insubordination to a legitimate police command), although most of the guys had been arrested near the Miroshnichenko str., 51 police station, where they stood, awaiting the release of their fellows. Evgeny Klimov was fined 7 minimal wages. The rest of the trials were put off till Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, as far as ZUBRs required to be provided with an attorney.

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Public association “The Comradeship of the Belarusian Language” pleads with the Belarusian prosecutor general Viktor Sheiman to announce the findings of the investigation, carried out in Kuropaty in the years 1997-1999. In a letter, forwarded to Sheiman, CBL chair Oleg Trusov marks that due to the widening of the Minsk ring road the public’s interest to the real place of burial of Stalinist repressions has greatly aroused.

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“Road across the tombs”, “Lukashenko needs highway, not tombs” – under such headings the leading Polish newspapers publish today articles on the construction of a ring road through Kuropaty memorial. The most popular Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcha tells in an article “Why Kuropaty?” how the police clamped down on the protesters in Minsk outskirts.

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Prominent Belarusian painters Marochkin, Pushkin, Drozdov, Timokhov, Kostuchenko, Khilko, Rusak and others are organizing a charitable exhibition-sale “All things will pass away, the art will remain”. The exhibition will open at 5p.m. November 15 in Minsk (Surganova str., 16 in “The Gold” gallery) and will continue until November 22. Visitors may acquire there various artifacts of the above-mentioned authors. Money, obtained from selling the pieces of art, will go to cover the expenses on the construction of the national memorial in Kuropaty.

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Belarusian delegation, led by the Minister of Industry, will be on a scheduled visit to Iraq from November 8 till November 17. The delegation’s make-up includes representatives of the Belarusian companies, manufacturing military commodity. According to the UCP leader Anatoly Lebedko, “…in Teheran the Belarusian delegation is ostensibly discussing not the shipment of Christmas trees but rather the production of military and strategic character. Official Minsk is walking on razor’s blade. Arms trade with Libya, Iraq, Iran and Syria may lead to harsh sanctions against Minsk. And senator Helms’s draft bill can be but a first sign.”

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Last week in the cardiology clinics of the Yagelonsky University in Krakow the renowned Belarusian politician, ex-candidate for the president, Syamon Domash underwent a heart surgery. The operation, very complex in its nature, lasted for three hours and, according to the Polish surgeons, finished successfully. Right now Syamon Nikolaevich feels pretty well and already signed out of the hospital. For the next month he will have a post-surgery rehabilitation period in Grodno. Polish medics pledge that in six months’ time his health condition will be restored to normality. As you know, on August 27 Syamon Domash was hospitalized to the 1st Minsk clinics with the heart attack diagnosis.

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The Federation of the Belarusian Trade Unions says that over 80% of domestic enterprises are to be subject to bankruptcy procedures. The Federation believes that the situation in economy is getting real rough. The problems are on the rise and have clear outlines now. For instance, the share of the unprofitable companies, that operate at the loss, is acutely going uphill. At this point their percentage constitutes 35,1% of all companies. Last year this index amounted to 22%.

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Indebtedness for energy supplies in the Grodno region reached colossal heights of 70 billion rubles. 51 billion of them are owed by agriculture companies. Out of 300 collective farms only 12 paid for the past heating season, whereas 120 haven’t paid a penny, so far. These facts were cited at the press-conference by the director general of the state company “Grodnoenergo” S.Bely.

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The Minsk city hall ruled to change tariffs on passenger transportation services. From November 10 one ride in public transport will cost the passengers 80 rubles, and those, enjoying privileged rides – 40 rubles. In express-buses this figure will be raised to 160 rubles.

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Investigators of the International tribunal for former Yugoslavia presented on November 12 to the judges the third accusatory conclusion on the matter of former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic. It comes last amid all previous accusations, being formulated as “genocide of peaceful Bosnian population during 1991-1995 war period”.

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The Kuropaty defenders keep resisting police attempts to get the place cleared for the construction works. Over the past four days hundreds of Minskers visited the site, indignant with the barbarity of the authorities, which ruled to lay the ring road across the cemetery. In response, the government dispatched there riot police units to suppress the protest moods. The cruelest beating occurred in Kuropaty on November 8. Over two hundred riot police officers beat old people, women and teenagers with rubber clubs, heavy military boots, dragged them on the ground, threw down into the mud and again brutally beat… They also applied tear gas against the protectors of Kuropaty.

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Well-known American senator J. Helms proposed for the Senate’s consideration a draft bill “Belarus Democracy Act of 2001”. We received the full text of the law and Helms’s introductory speech. Addressing the US president, Mr.Helms said: “On top of the mayhem and slaughter in New York and at the Pentagon in Washington last September, a travesty against democracy occurred again in Belarus. Aleksandr Lukashenka, the dictator controlling this country, stole through intimidation and repression, the presidential elections that took place on September 9. Tragic as the events in our own country were and as serious an undertaking as the war against terrorism will continue to be, we must not overlook the brutality and injustice of a regime such as the one led by Lukashenka, especially in the heart of Europe. For this reason, I am introducing today the Belarus Democracy Act of 2001, the purpose of which is to support the people in Belarus who are struggling, often at great peril to their lives, to revive democracy, and to reconsolidate their country`s declining independence and sovereignty.” Read below the continuation of senator Helms’s speech and the full text of the bill. Democracy has been crushed in Belarus by a fanatical dictatorship that can only be described as a brutal throwback to the Soviet era. Aleksandr Lukashenka is an authoritarian obsessed with recreating the former Soviet Union, which he believes he will ultimately lead. Because of Lukashenka, Belarus has emerged as a dark island of repression, censorship, and command economy in a region of consolidating democracies. Belarus has tragically become the Cuba of Europe.

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OSCE Advisory-Monitoring Group in Belarus urgently forwarded to the OSCE Vienna headquarters a special report on the situation developments in Kuropaty. According to the AMG representative Beata Rasumilovic, who eye-witnessed the scene of beating, they want to keep the world community informed of the ongoing processes.

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German news agency DPA has recently circulated another portion of information, touching upon export supplies of the Belarusian ammunition to countries, that unambiguously relate to terrorism. Belarus is again suspected of supplying weaponry to Islamic terrorist bands. Swedish experts for the former Warsaw pact block Simon Vetseman called Belarus the most mysterious country in the sphere of arms sales. The man added that “everything is done so irresponsibly that one can’t even grasp the way they do it.” The Swedish expert and military Vetseman deems that under the conditions of the totalitarian regime, such arms supplies to the Muslim terrorists are quite plausible. Referring to his own sources in western special services, he claims that behind such contracts with terrorist groups stands Alexander Lukashenko.

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Conference, dedicated to the relations between NATO and Baltic states, was held late last week in Latvia. The event was staged by the Latvian organization in support of LATA Alliance. The forum attracted Latvian Foreign Minister, Defense Minister, former Swedish Premier, some German and USA officials from the US mission to NATO, Russians and Scandinavians. The Baltic States were also interested to learn about the events, that are happening in Belarus and its attitude to the NATO extension eastwards. In this connection they invited to engage in the event Charter’97 international coordinator Andrei Sannikov, who was the only person to represent our country there.

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Former “Almaz” fighter Valery Ignatovich, a leader of a criminal gang, charged with abducting ORT cameraman Dmitry Zavadsky and slaying six other individuals, is no longer present in the courtroom. The judge expelled the suspect from the courtroom, thus satisfying the prosecutor’s petition, who claimed that Ignatovich spitefully talks of other process participants. Meantime, other sources claim that Ignatovich never insulted anyone. They say that, according to Ignatovich, the prosecutor entered his cell and told him to plead guilty for what he had never done. As a result of Ignatovich’s removal, Svetlana and Olga Zavadskys were deprived of a precious opportunity to pose questions to the defendant about the circumstances of Dmitry Zavadsky’s vanishing.

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Folks, protesting against violation of trade union rights, were detained by the law-enforcers on November 9. Same day they fined chair of the Democratic transport trade union Vladimir Makarchuk 200 minimal wages, president of the Belarusian Congress of democratic trade unions Viktor Boboed – 20 minimal wages and leader of the free entrepreneurial trade union of Mogilev Sergei Fomin.

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IMF mission is through with its work in Belarus. The Fund’s experts arrived at a conclusion that the following half a year Belarus may not apply for the IMF’s stand-by loan. The major fault, found with Belarus economy, was the high budget deficit, which, despite all efforts, cannot be liquidated by the Belarusian Finance Minister, says leader of the mission Marta de Costello. Another mission’s frustration was a still pending decree#40, under which the state has a right to seize personal property of private entrepreneurs. This, say the mission members, produces an unfavorable climate for private business, reports Radio Svaboda.

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Opposition politicians keep discussing accusations of money laundering, brought against them by politician and journalist Alexander Feduta. In our last issue we gave the floor to deputy head of the United Civil Party Pavel Daneiko, who shared his opinion over the scandal and its initiator. Today we present to you the opinion of the Charter’97 coordinator Dmitry Bondarenko.

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