Today in Bucharest at the meeting of the Foreign Affairs Ministers of the OSCE countries, US State Secretary Colin Powell made a statement on Belarus. “Presidential elections in Belarus did not meet international standards. The government of Belarus has ignored OSCE recommendations on preconditions fulfillment of which could made it possible to call vote free and fair. Unfortunately, Belarusian government continues to act so that as a result Belarus is left outside the common European political life… We would continue our work with the OSCE members, to support the development of real democratic institutions and strong civil society in Belarus”.

---

“This would signify death to his political system and personal power. He can’t place most financial flows under someone else’s control. Otherwise the state would lose both its own money and that of the private business. So in order to buy, say MAZs, I’ll have to go not to the presidential administration to ask for their permission, but directly to Deripasko (Russian tycoon, owner of the “Siberian Aluminum” joint stock company, bidding to purchase MAZ) and convince him to sell them to me. The power is thus lost. Private business, which had no voting capacity at these elections, would raise its voice and say: “What for do we need this guy Lukashenko? Our business doesn’t depend on him, so why not decide on our own who the next president must be?” For Lukashenko this is synonymous to suicide,” – said in an interview to NASHA SVABODA chairman of the consultative council of the Institute of privatization and management Pavel Daneiko. Following read the full text of the interview.

---

Minsk procuracy resumed criminal proceedings against the leadership of once well-known Belarusian company “Pushe”. The basis for this move was the recent arrest of the “Pushe” Vice-President Stanislav Charnyshevich, who came to Belarus from abroad for a short period. The firm’s managers are indicted for failure to return a large bank’s credit. In his turn, former “Pushe” president Alexander Pupeika, who received political asylum in Poland, told Chernyshevich’s arrest “a tragic event”: according to Pupeika, his former deputy knew nothing about legal action against him.

---

Halina Alejnikava, wife of Vasil Alejnikau, a director of the Stadium ‘Tractor’, regards the arrest of her husband as provocation. Alejnikau was arrested on November 15 allegedly for a bribe of 1000 USD. She said that provocations against her husband continue. On November 29 investigators from Economical Crimes Department came to the stadium and demanded businessmen to write down evidence about bribing Alejnikau in order to receive a place for trade.

---

The Council of Ministers discussed the results of the talks between Navitsky, Chairman of the Cabinet, and his Russian colleague Mikhail Kasianov. Navitsky underlined “outspokenness of the negotiations”, and importance of “bringing into compliance of the two state’ positions in bank, monetary and credit, customs and taxation spheres”.

---

Official car, belonging to the Brest region hall, ran into a pedestrian and killed him. BelaPAN reports that the car accident occurred at around 6p.m. December 2 in close proximity from the “Khaby”: stop on the Minsk-Brest highway. A well-dressed man (50-55 years, 170cm tall) crossed the road in the wrong place. The driver didn’t notice him and hit the man dead at full speed. Brest region traffic police doesn’t comment on the incident.

---

“Forbidden by censorship” – under such title an exhibition in the Minsk art gallery “Zolata” starts on December 10, on the International Day of Human Rights. A famous artist and creator of performances Ales Pushkin is the initiator of the exposition. In his interview to Radio Racyja he said that “The conception of the exhibition has been ripening for a long time, and was formed by me as a coordinator now, by December 10. I would like to present all works of art, not only decorative art, that were banned by censorship”.

---

Today more than 22 thousands disabled persons using wheelchairs live in Belarus, the member of the Central non-state “Republican organization of disabled persons”, Uladzimir Patapenka said at the press conference in Minsk. As said by him, in the period between 1990 and 1995 a good legal base and schemes on the problems of the disabled were adopted in Belarus. New programs considerably improved the state of the handicapped in the society. However recently attention for these problems from the state grew less.

---

“Belarus of today is an anti-model for Europe’s development,” – said leading specialist for Belarus of the Berlin Foundation for science and politics doctor Heintz Timmerman. Present Belarusian leadership, notes the prominent German expert, will soon encounter problems even with Russia, whose foreign policy is becoming more west-oriented.

---

The head of the Advisory and Monitoring Group in Belarus Hans-Georg Wieck said that “purges” under way now in Belarus, the criminal proceedings against top officers in the economic administration, who collaborated with the regime opponents in the presidential campaign, cause concern. As said by Wieck, such purges highlight the polarity of the country and of the civil society. He also remarked that AMG OSCE group receives information about numerous facts of intimidation those who participated in opposition activities.

---

The investigators lifted an indictment against Kalugin of using phony payment documents, but left another three. “Atlant” director’s case was passed from the Minsk city into the National department of financial research. Head of the department’s investigative committee Gennady Agaponenko was placed in charge of the case, which testifies to the extreme seriousness of the matter. The official refuses to contact to journalists, referring to the confidentiality of investigation.

---

The first impression one gets from reading the Constitutional act (at Soyuz-Info web-page) is this: at last, after agonizing integration processes the lawyers found a civilized legal base to include Belarus into the composition of Russian Federation. On one hand, the project proclaims the equality of both countries. It also reads that the key goal of the new state formation is the creation of conditions for the decent lives of citizens and protection of their rights. Meantime, from other project’s provisions it gets clear that the union state’s structures will dictate their conditions to the union’s subjects. Of course, nobody would dare dictate anything to Russia. Putin will never tolerate commands from some inter-state bodies.

---

Former Homel Medical Institute heads Professor Yuri Bandazheusky and senior lecturer Uladzimir Raukou, who were sentenced by a Military board of the Supreme Court to eight years of imprisonment for corruption, filed complaints to a Committee on Human Rights in the Board of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (Geneva) and International Court of Human Rights (Strasbourg). In the complaints prepared by lawyers of the convicted they tell that in this case significant violations of criminal and legal procedure took place, that prevented the investigators to consider the case comprehensively, fully and objectively.

---

Court proceedings on the case of General Lev Rokhlin’s murder resumed in the Naro-Fominsk court behind the closed doors. Tamara Rokhlina is prisoner at the bar again. She was found guilty a year ago, but than the case was directed to retrial. And it is possible that A.Lukashenka would become of the witnesses.

---

Court proceedings over four participants of the Freedom March-1 (October 17, 1999) – German Sushkevich, Gleb Dogel, Andrei Volobuev and Anton Lazarev – charged with violating art.186/3 of the Criminal law will be held December 6 in the Minsk city court. This article defines responsibility for “organizing or active participation in group actions, violating public order”.

---

At the next parliamentary plenary session, to be held on December 13 or 14, the deputies will decide whether they should give their consent to the prosecutor general on the deprivation of the MP’s immunity of the former head of the Belarusian railroad department Viktor Rakhmanko, reports BelaPAN from the parliament’s information service. The date of the next session had to be determined on December 3 by the presidium of the Republic’ Council, but the session was shifted to Wednesday, December 5.

---

Minsk courts keep trying the Kuropaty defenders. The Sovietsky district court of Minsk fined the Youth Front member Roman Kazakevich 100,000 rubles (equivalent of $75). Trial over Sergei Popkov didn’t result in a verdict, as far as police witnesses never turned up. Today the process against him will resume.

---

Rechitsa district procuracy extended for another two months the term of the criminal investigation into the defamation of president’s honor, allegedly committed by the local resident Natalya Brel, BelaPAN was told December 3 by the woman’s attorney Dmitry Ivanishko. On August 30 the post-graduate student of the Institute of history of the National Academy of Sciences Natalya Brel congratulated Lukashenko with his birthday, having passed him through mass media a box with the objects, which are necessary for the Belarusians: a rope and a soap.

---

Criminal persecution of correspondents of the independent newspaper from Krychev “Volny Gorod” Sergei Nerovny, Vadim Stefanenko and Nikolai Matorenko has been stopped again, BelaPAN was told December 3 by Stefanenko.

---

Supreme Court judge Nikolai Bobkov satisfied the petition of the Justice Ministry and ruled to liquidate the Association of Belarusian Students. The judge claims that the student organization regularly violated domestic laws and, in particular, was involved in political affairs, which it ought not to.

---

Head of the Brest Helsinki Committee Igor Maslovsky was sacked today. This is in no wise the first incident when members of opposition political parties and public associations are deprived of their right to work in the Brest State University. The reason for the Maslovsky’s dismissal was his failure to get elected to the post he currently occupies. That was the decision of the scholarly council of the BSU geographic department.

---

Valery Eromenchuk, chairman of the Free trade union at the “Samana Plus” woodworking company, was dismissed from job. The company director’s order reads that the man was fired due to professional unfitness. According to the worker himself, he has the highest qualification and a few years of experience as electrician, so the dismissal can be explained by his trade union activism.

---

The state secretary of the Russia-Belarus union Pavel Borodin declared that he knows nothing about the plans to launch a “union TV” at the facilities of the popular TV-6 channel, which the court ruled to close down a while ago.

---