Charter'97 :: News :: 23/01/2002

President of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly Adrian Severin delivered a speech in Strasbourg at the PA of the Council of Europe. Speaking of Belarus, Adrian Severin stated that in February PA OSCE delegation would not be able to visit Belarus, as “Belarusian authorities bring forth unacceptable conditions for us to come”. President of the PA OSCE ascribed responsibility for progressively worsening relations of Belarus with world community to Belarusian leadership, and characterized this policy as “self-isolation”. Adrian Severin also expressed his concern by “unfriendly” attitude of official Minsk to “our institutes”, as he said implying Belarusian authorities’ conflict with AMG OSCE mission. He said: “We are not going to give up our principles. And we are not to tolerate any kind of threats”.

Former head of the OSCE AMG in Minsk Hans-Georg Wieck commented on the refusal of the Belarusian authorities to issue him entry visa so that he could take part in the first Minsk session on January 25-26 of the International monitoring council of the Center for European and Trans-Atlantic research of the European humanitarian university. In his press-release Wieck expresses regret over the actions of the Belarusian authorities, which, according to him, didn’t let him assist the center’s development – one of the few independent institutes of Minsk, where the Belarusian scholars may cooperate with their foreign partners. “Visa refusal coincided in time with a series of other negative decisions, passed by the Belarusian authorities, touching upon the creation of favorable conditions for the improvement of relations between the country and the European institutes,” – said Hans-Georg Wieck.

At the court proceedings over the “group” of the former “Almaz” special unit soldier Valery Ignatovich the jury cross-examined the experts, who inspected the vehicle, belonging to the missing ORT correspondent Dmitry Zavadsky. As is known, the car was found in a parking lot in the vicinity of the National airport “Minsk-2” July 7, 2000 morning. Since then Zavadsky hasn’t been heard of.

The Belarusian Association of Journalists is alarmed over the troublesome situation with the Russian TV-6 channel. The channel’s broadcasting was halted on January 22 upon the order of the Russian Minister for press Mikhail Lesin “for the protection of citizens’ rights to receive information and for the effective use of the frequency”.

The situation at the Minsk tractor plant continues to remain complicated. The company won’t make it without the state’s support, BelaPAN was told in the MTP administration. The MTP representatives noted that the January 22 meeting at the plant was dedicated to seeking the ways out of the deadlock. The Ministry of industry representatives asked the suppliers of material to resume their supplies. However, MTP’s counterparts are facing great difficulty too. In particular, this is true of the Minsk motor plant. Nonetheless, the Ministry of industry obliged the Minsk tractor plant to continue the manufacture process. Anonymous MTP’s representative said that they have no idea how to organize it under the new circumstances.

Dismissal of the Minsk tractor plant’s director Mikhail Leonov provoked problems in the plant’s stable performance, reads the statement of the Council of the Belarusian trade union of car-building industry, circulated on January 23. The document reads that “there’s a continued and intensified harassment of “unreliable” directors, who enjoy popularity with their personnel and who dare critically evaluate the state-run social-economic policy.”

Some of the Minsk regional committee statesmen lost their jobs on January 22. BelaPAN reports that the counselor of the committee’s chair Andrei Malakhovsky officially switched to another job; the committee’s charge d’affaires Fedor Shpartov and head of the department for control and clerical work Igor Migas were officially sacked. However, according to a committee staffer, who preferred to remain anonymous, at first they planned to dismiss eight personnel members. On January 21 the Minsk regional committee held a meeting, dedicated to the spring sowing campaign, at which the committee chairman Nikolai Domashkevich criticized certain officials for their poor performance and inability to execute his orders, which resulted in their removal from posts.

The situation under which the possible return of the trade union dues may turn into the FTU’s property confiscation doesn’t seem unrealistic at all, says the “Belorusskaya Gazeta”. The Belarusian authorities have logic of their own, while the FTU has plenty of property.

Ukraine introduces a temporary 49% anti-dumping tariff on the import of fiberboard from Belarus, reported the Ukrainian commission for international trade. In the commission’s report, published in the governmental newspaper “Uryadovy Courier” on Wednesday, it is written that the tariff will be introduced for the 4-months period since the moment of the commission’s decision publication.

A first issue of art magazine “pARTisan” was released in Minsk. “Magazine that would make one look at modern Belarusian context in a different way” – this words are written on its cover. The main idea of the new magazine is a concept of a partisan as a new national cultural model. A text of the program “Partisan and Anti-Partisan” by the founder and publisher of “pARTisan” Artur Klinau is dedicated to this theme as well.

In the end of last week the former director general of the Minsk Tractor Plant Mikhail Leonov faced official charges. The Belarusian procuracy yet again demonstrated to the world its bias. When they realized that Leonov is blameless as far as the contracts are concerned, they quickly charged him with bribery. However, they don’t mention who sought to bribe Leonov and in exchange for what services. They claim that it is the investigation’s secret. We asked Mikhail Leonov’s wife Elena LEONOVA to comment on the situation around her beleaguered husband.

The Ministry of Health personnel is in fever with staff rearrangements. Just in a moth after his taking position of the minister, Uladzislau Astapenka declared that he is going to change the staff of the Ministry. And added that he has serious reasons for that: recently some officials lobbied interests of some Western manufacturers of medical equipment and had a good profit from it. Astapenka said that the first step was made by Lukashanke, and now it is his turn…

President of Lithuania Valdas Adamkus, during his visit to the USA, severely criticized Alyaxandar Lukashenka. The situation in Belarus was one of the issues discussed by President Adamkus and US President George Bush. The speech of Adamkus can indicate the key of the discussion on Belarusian theme. Answering the question what is his opinion about Lukashenka and the system of power he established in Belarus, Valdas Adamkus said: “Despite Lukashenka’s desire to demonstrate democratic character to the world, the free world does not have any illusions about it. Violations of democracy and even of law in Belarus have been worrying Euarope for several years already”. According to Adamkus, the situation in Belarus will not affect in any way Lithuania’s decision to join the European Union and NATO.

Former leader of the OSCE Advisory-Monitoring Group in Belarus ambassador Hans-Georg Wieck had been refused a visa to Belarus, “Interfax” was told by the chief of the department for information, FM’s press-secretary Pavel Latyshko. “In accordance with the established international practice the Foreign Ministry does not comment on the issues of granting or denying visas to the foreign nationals,” – noted Latyshko. As you remember, the former OSCE AMG head, who now lives in Berlin, intended to engage in the first session of the international monitoring council of the Center for European and Trans-Atlantic research of the European humanitarian university, to be held on January 25-26 in Minsk. The German diplomat is a member of the council. The Center itself had been based with the financial support of the European Commission and ODIHR, which is part of the OSCE structure.

Secretary general of the Council of Europe Walter Schwimmer, delivering a speech in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, evaluated the situation in Belarus and its prospects in relations with the Council of Europe. Secretary General of the Council of Europe said: “Presidential election in Belarus last year did not correspond democratic standards. Willingness of the Belarusian authorities to stop international isolation requires clear signals from them, and it concerns the functions of parliament and freedom of mass media. Now we wait for concrete measures and considerable progress from Belarusian side”.

A special group of 14 CoE Political Committee experts will pay a visit to Belarus in order to study on the spot the situation in Belarus, which will pre-determine the future status of Belarus within this organization. As you remember, the decision to send to Belarus a special delegation of PACE to investigate into the country situation has been passed last November during the PACE Political Committee’s session in Vilnius. Back then it was planned that the international parliamentarians will produce their report for the PACE Political Committee, holding its session these days in Strasbourg. Since then they had thrice changed the schedule of their visit.

Александр Лукашенко против "излишней авторитарности" и Alyaxandar Lukashenka is against “needless authoritarian measures” and “excessive use of administrative authority” in the process of national science reorganization. Drawing the results of the consultation on improvement of science administration, on Tuesday Lukashenka declared that the state “have to reform the science to pull the whole scientific potential together into one heap”.

Editor-in-chief of the independent newspaper from Shklov “Shklouskiya Naviny” Alexander Scherbak stands criminal action. He’s charged with violating the law on press. Administrative case against him had been instituted by the Shklov district prosecutor. Scherbak is held responsible for exceeding the stated circulation number – 299 copies. In course of the past ten years the former chairman of the “Gorodets” collective farm Scherbak issued the newspaper with such a small print run. He faced problems with the procuracy for the first time not until the last year’s presidential campaign. On September 6, 2001 the law-enforcers broke into his apartment, seizing all the computer appliances. The reason for their actions was the editor’s phone number, written in notepad, belonging to the local ZUBRs.

Alexander Lukashenko declared that in the near future the country will have to decide on the construction on its territory of a new atomic station. Speaking on Tuesday before the Belarusian academics in Minsk, Lukashenko noted that “if we do not decide on this soon enough, then it will again become mere politics”.

The training of the Belarusian air force personnel in 2002 may well be disrupted, reports “Soyuz-info”. Since 1996 the preparation of the military pilots had been accomplished on the basis of the four aviation clubs of the Belarusian defensive sports and technical society. Over the years they coached over 300 pilots. BOSTO reports that this year the Cabinet earmarked 250mln rubles instead of 500mln to train the pilots. With this sum at their disposal the clubs won’t be able to provide for the high-quality maintenance of the training aircrafts , to ensure the necessary security of pilots and the needed number of flight hours. Now they will also have to cut down the training of the sport sky-divers and helicopter pilots, trained at the clubs’ facilities.

Belarus plans to attract $843mln of investments as a result of transforming the country’s petroleum complex into joint stock. RIA “Novosti” correspondent was told this by the “Belneftehim” concern’s president Igor Bambiza. According to him, on January 25 the government will propose to Alexander Lukashenko to privatize the industrial enterprises “Naftan”, “Polimir”, “Azot”, “Belorussky Shynny Kombinat” and “Khmivolokno” from Mogilev and Svetlogorsk.

Russia guarantees to supply 16.5 billion cubic meters of natural gas and 5.5 billion kilowatt/hour of electric power to Belarus this year, as the minister of power engineering Uladzimer Syamashka informed a RIA “Novosti” correspondent on Tuesday. According to the minister, costs of natural gas are to remain the same, at a level of 30 dollars per thousand cubic meters. As for “tariffs for electricity”, Syamashka remarked that “it would be floating and depending on the state of the market in frontier Bryansk and Smolensk regions” of Russia. “Electricity tariffs rise is practically inevitable for Belarus ”, the minister underlined.