The Bell Tolled :: Charter'97 :: News

Human rights violations chronicle in December 2002
Belarus’ neighbors are accessing the European Union and NATO, joining the European civilization and safety. Latvians, Lithuanians and Romanians turn into real citizens of the unified Europe. The bell finally tolled for Belarus, where the journalists don’t spend nights at home and politicians get assaulted in the street in the darkness of the night. It is high time we get down to reforms, otherwise the door to Europe will go shut for it for ages.

“Fiery” struggle against corruption
Arrests of the directors and officials under the conditions of the unreformed economy doesn’t free the country from corruption, but simply produces an illusion of the government’s care for the nation. By the autocratic economic regulations the authorities make the directors dependent not on the consumers but rather the statesmen. The bureaucratic tool becomes more important than the market one. Corruption is the consequence of a too strong state regulation. However, the government doesn’t feel at all like confessing the wrongness of the policy, for it doesn’t meet their selfish interests. In order to whitewash themselves before the impoverished nation, they are painstakingly fighting corruption.
The second reason for the arrest of nomenclature is the intimidation of them. The Belarusian regime of today keeps afloat owing to the weakness and loyalty of directors and statesmen. Any opposition, manifested in the independent political and economic actions, is thwarted. The greatest attention is paid to the large companies and institutions. And it is not for nothing that Alexander Lukashenko doesn’t keep in oblivion the former Minsk Tractor Plant’s director Mikhail Leonov, who served almost a year in jail awaiting trial and BSU rector Alexander Kozulin. The head of state declared that in one of the German banks they found trace of $17mln on the bank account, belonging to Leonov and two more accounts, managed by his family members. As concerns Kozulin, he former rector of the university, whose students voted against Lukashenko at the presidential ballot, he said the following: “Step to the left, step to the right and you know how many people left universities handcuffed, rectors being no exception”.
In December police arrested director general of the Slonim tissue factory, former director of “Belarus” collective farm Spiridon Podshibyakin, head of the Polotsk inter-district department for combating organized criminality and his deputy, director of a “BelarusBank” affiliate, head of the “Kopatkevichi” collective farm, responsible worker of the Volkovysk district council.
Violator of the Constitution
The Belarusian authorities restrict the civil society, driving it into a reservation of separate editions and organizations, and harshly suppress the citizens’ right for the replacement of government. When it comes to the elections and preservation of personal power, the head of state embarks on the most serious violations. The government even fears the local elections. Not even a single representative of opposition parties was elected into the Grodno, Gomel and Vitebsk territorial election commissions.
Independent journalism, driven into a reservation, receives from the state the last rebukes this year. Viktor Ivashkevich has been sent to serve two years of corrective labor. The due amnesty (curtailment of the prison term by one year) has never been applied to him. The post of the director general of the “Belarusian telegraph agency” was taken over by an official from the presidential security service Oleg Proleskovsky. They halted the issue of the newspaper “Moskovsky Komsomolets in Belarus”. The publishing house refused to publish the newspaper, referring to the oral instructions of the Ministry of information. The former acting editor-in-chief of the newspaper “Belarusky Chas” Irina Germanovich is charged with financial violations and forced to resign.
Pickets, dissemination of special issues of newspapers is officially allowed by the state, but in reality they face persecution. The court sentenced to 10 days of arrest Pinsk activists from the BPF CCP Igor Sorokovik and Leontiy Vadischevich for picketing against war in Chechnya. Skinheads beat up the female activist of ZUBR from Borisov Alesya Yasuk for disseminating the special issue of the newspaper “Borisov news”. Five more ZUBRs were apprehended by the law-enforcers for similar reasons. They also fined Irina Salei, the former journalist of the newspaper “Pagonya” for hanging a white-red-white flag on her balcony.
Prisoner of the Ivatsevichi colony Alexander Chigir faced new indictment. This time Alexander Chigir is charged with illicit entrepreneurial activities. The authorities of Orsha sanctioned the concert of the Moscow neo-fascist band “Kolovrat”. The concert’s organizer was the town committee of the pro-presidential Belarusian Youth Union.
Mean politics
Human rights situation in Belarus doesn’t leave western politicians indifferent. Yan Marinus Wiersma, the head of the EU delegation criticized the Belarusian authorities for the continuing human rights violations and failure to comply with the democratic norms. The European Parliament’s delegation confirmed in its statement that the travel ban, imposed on certain Belarusian top officials, is an adequate response to Belarus’ own refusal to cooperate with the European democracy. Bruce Jackson, the head of the US Committee for NATO, said that “the journalists must sleep at home at nights, while the opponents must be defeated at the ballot stations rather than get beaten in the streets”.
Congressman Kurt Weldon, who personally met with Lukashenko, refuted the presidential press-release and was indignant by the outrageous lies and such mean politics. Vitautas Landsbergis, Lithuanian Sojm’s deputy said that Lukashenko has the very last chance to save his reputation of a politician – to risk his power and go for the democratic elections into the parliament. Maud de Boer-Buquicchio, Council of Europe Deputy Secretary said that the question about Belarus’ potential membership in this organization is untimely. The US embassy official in Russia said that the United States will watch the situation development in Belarus in order to find out whether or not they should continue the policy of visa denials on both private and officials foreign trips of Mr.Lukashenko and seven other officials from his Cabinet. George Robertson, NATO’s secretary general, shares the EU viewpoints regarding its policy towards Lukashenko. Alexander Veshnyakov, the head of the Russian Central Electoral Commission, is opposed to Alexander Lukashenko’s reelection for a third consecutive term. Jean-Lois Taran, Vatican’s secretary for foreign relations, said that Belarus passed one of the most restrictive religious laws in the globe. George Bush, the US president mentioned Belarus along with such countries as Zimbabwe, Iran, Cuba and North Korea in his Human Rights Day speech. The Universal Associations of newspapers and the Universal forum of editors protest against the freedom of speech violations in Belarus. Vatslav Stankevich, PACE rapporteur for Belarus condemned human rights violations in Belarus and Uskhopchik’s appointment as head of the working group for organizing elections in the army. Norway joined the EU member-states and introduced a ban on Alexander Lukashenko and his officials’ coming to Europe. Hans-Georg Wieck, former AMG head in Minsk, noticed no positive changes whatsoever in the Belarusian government’s policy. Marek Dombrovsky, chair of the council of the center for social-economic research, pinpointed that Belarus has no chances of joining WTO. The US and Canadian delegations in the OSCE Permanent Council aren’t ready to vote for “OSCE office in Minsk” new mandate.
However, the Belarusian authorities pay no heed to the words and actions of western politicians. More than that, they threaten Europe and strengthen ties with the rogue states.
Lukashenko, reacting to the visa denial to the supreme Belarusian leadership, declared that 200thsd illegal immigrants are staying on the territory of Belarus in hope to penetrate deeper into Europe. Lukashenko said that nobody would prevent them from doing that at Belarus’ own expense. Moreover, he once again reminded about the already thwarted attempts of drug and arms transit to Europe. The authorities rudely distorted the results of negotiations with the US congressmen, presenting a deliberate lies in the press-release. The Belarusian government denied entry visas to the OSCE ODIHR observer Andrian Marar and representative of the Czech human rights organization “People in Need” Robert Bahu. KGB reported about foreign intelligence spying in the country. The Belarusian official delegation rendezvoused with Saddam Hussein.